I like 1, but 2 might be a bit problematic... Just my gut feeling though...

When you say first rank military labs, second civil labs do you mean 1 lab/ship at each rank or 2 labs per ship?

Honestly I don't think we'll be able to balance ship-board labs as long as a mere 4 capitalships will give 8 labs of each type.

The capital ships cost the same as the labs themselves. It actually costs more in the end to use ship labs because of the research required for them. There really isn't any good way to nerf shipboard labs with out making them completely nonviable.

While there is the research required to enable the ship labs, they come in for free on each capital ship built. Making them cumulative with planetary labs has the problem of making access to high tier techs too early. So you get a very good deal for the money spent on research, to the point of it being OP.

The fact that you are going to be buying capital ships regardless doens't make them a non-cost. That's not how it works.

But yes the netcost is higher for a player going Ship Board Labs compared to one who doesn't.

I'm going to speak totally in credits. We can go over the resources later to help sooth your butthurt if you'd like.

Okay, so each research station cost 750C.  It might cost less depending on upgrades, or some planet specials, or whatever, but for the sake of the argument it Seven-hundred and Fifty Credits. Through out the course of play you'll want that sweet sweet TEC DeathSpaceCannon. Or to spread culture if you're some sort of Advent hippy. But in the end it costs a whopping 12000 Credits for all the research labs.

The Vasari Loyalists are crazy though. They wanna go one some sorta crazy space road trip and wanna take all their hydroponics and "medicinal" Research with them. So first they gotta go straight to level 4 Civilian Research So that right there Puts them at  3000 Credits spent. But then they find out they have to pay space taxes, post their buddy some bail so he can join them in their trip, and before you know it, they've spent 1800 credits.

So then they go to the DMV to get a license so they can have their space age research equipment (Bongs), Testing materials (Err... Space weed), and subjects (Themselves) in the back of their sweet rides. But the dude in the DMV was kind of an ass so he double charged him. Even in space the DMV sucks.

But now its all over and they're ready to go cruising in their sweet new Capital ships they bought with student loans. The first one was free, because he got from his dad. but all the other 3 vessels cost 3000 credits. So another 9000 Credits down the drain.

But hey! Now our Vasari crew can no fly around the sector *testing* and *experimenting* with illicit materials.

So at the end of this the Vasari are no 8/8 in Civ and 8/8 in mil labs. Lets see how far on top they come out in all this.

3000C to get to shipboard

1800C for prerequisites to Research shipboard labs

2400C to finally research the damn labs themselves.

9000C for the Capital ships themselves so you can be 8/8 in all research trees.

With a grand total of 16200 Credits! What a steal! So Vasari could actually not do ship board labs, and buy another Capital ship to fight with instead. Or a bunch of ships to supplement their fleet.

As for awesome logistical slots left open after this? I dunno. Could plant down a Refinery/Broadcast center/or Trade station I guess, but they won't return their value till late game I belive.

And the whopping 3.5 credits per capital ship? Thats there to make up for the fact that Vasari Loyalists have almost no population to tax, and I'm not sure if you can even plant a trade station on the Dead Asteroids after they've be devoured. But I'm pretty sure after taxes, it ain't nothin to write home about.

But I would like to know what absurdly game breaking things Vasari Loyalists can do with their now open Logistics slots. I fear I might be severally uninteresting their secret powers.

Haha I only took the time to do all that because I want it to be kinda put into perspective. Its really easy to feel something is over tuned with out taking a pretty critical look at it. I do it all the damn time, and its something I'm trying to fix.

I agree though I think stripped to the core oughta require a capital ship in the system that it happens. Just because, I don't have any real reason. It makes personal sense and would be a sweet chance to add some sorta cool animation.

But the main reason I typed all that up there is to show *why* shipboard labs gives them all the tech levels. Because they've already effectively paid for it. I mean, any player can easily get to tech level 8 both Military and Civi on about 3-4 planets. I know I do it frequently when I play with my bud on Triumvirate. 

The only thing that I think would be a reasonable change, is drop an entire level of Shipboard Labs and change the research to one level, and increase the cost by 25-50%. But even then I don't like it because then you're paying 3k per tech level. It feels like for the moment its really okay. I think we need more 1v1 games to gauge where things are at and what specifically needs to be toned down or even up.  For all we know, in the long run it might need a cost reduction. 

As for Stripped to the Core, I'm mixed on it. Its scary because it give the player a large immediate lump sum of resources to use but I'm not sure if the resources themselves is the issue. The trade off is also pretty heavy. If the Vasari fails his push after stripping his planets he's basically dead. Its like a planet based all in. I think as players face off against it more and more they'll realize that as long as they can resist that big push they should be pretty gravy after that. 

Sorry, when it comes down to it, any tech that lets you get to 8 labs of each type in under 30 mintues without crippling yourself in a multiplayer scenario is broken- period.

It trivializes an important game aspect(limited logistics slots and the tradeoff between more research stations and a strong economy).

If a player couldn't reliably get this tech for the firstg 45 minutes of a game it may be balance in it's current form- but as long as it is achievable in substantiallyless time then it takes to build 16 labs the old fashioned way it will be be underpowered.

it should constitute a moderate increase to your available labes, and provide the possibility of going full mobile late game.  it however shouldn't basically come down to "as soon as you get level 2 of this tech you instantly get to 8 labs of each type" Which is essentially what it does now.

I loved reading that

Altho I've only used VL once so far(vs ai) and have no experience yet with how to use them properly, It took me a good 20 mins or so to finally be able to use strip to the core, and even then I hesitated using it since it would pretty much cripple any chance I had to get back up in case my fleet would get raped, I actually only used it after I had a good 8 planets or so spread across the map before I started stripping everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, every planet I came across went down to an asteroid belt

For me it didn't feel so OP, but I haven't really played with that function yet, I don't really like their weapons/looks

Actually they are worth more than 3 tradeports in terms of income. 3,5 to be honest. Two trade ports would generate that income only in a chain of about 4-5 planets. Good luck beating that early on. 

How about this?

Research is drastically slowed down if there are no dedicated labs present. Lets say 25 to 50 percent.

 Why because they do not have the space on the capital ship that they would in a dedicated lab since, the ship needs to have the space used for other things like weapons and crew.

You can't have your cake and eat it too, either we try to balance that or we accept that somethings will remain unbalanced.

I just gave IMO a good solution to tech rushing, and one thats actually realistic as well.

As for incentives we already have the titan capital, stripped to the core, and summon ships and ship board research. Thats all pretty boss as it stands, a bigger penalty would be nerfing stripped to the core's resource output.(And thus removing the best incentive to go fully mobile.)

Personally, I think VL labs are fine. Far to difficult to balance without a really big game change.

I dont know if this as been suggested yet but what if you had to upgrade each capital ship with a military or civilian labs?

So you would have to research the ship board lab then buy the the labs on each capital ship. I was thinking you could buy it through the ability management tab I believe there is some room there to add them