Returning Player Questions for Draco

[Glamdring]

Can anyone report if Draco has any Neutral worlds?  

If they exist, I wonder if they will be as lame as in Andromeda or if Draco has real treasures.  In short is it worth my time to do PMAP's on world/moons that are not good candidates for colonizing just to find neutral worlds?

 

 

[richardjohns]

In Draco, I would say yes. There are neutral worlds. I have never seen any but suspect there are. However, some people have colonies on almost every world they encounter. 

[The Fremen]

I think the DMX eliminated all ‘neutrals’ 

there may still be some TcKon outposts about but they probably won’t be detectable unless you somehow make yourself worthy. 

[hobknob]

I would be nice if their were, but i have yet to find one or hear of anyone else finding one. 

[The Fremen]

Also kinda makes you wonder what the diplomacy modifier is used for?  I say get rid of it and add that modifier to something else that’s more worthwhile like the exploration modifier

[richardjohns]

I know I'm going to open a can of worms here but hey that's what I do. I do not believe that certain modifiers even do anything in game. Certain people will claim that the modifiers do something and always have but really have no information to back themselves up either way. If a modifier used to do three things even if it does one thing others say at least it is doing one. However, I say if it used to do three it needs to be boosted. 

 I keep detailed records. I have one point of increased research. For breakthroughs and explore orders I have effectively increased by one point in one area in 51 turns. It means it is totally useless in game terms for these two things. However, for research races it does mean something in Draco not my race. I only receive the 5 percent gain. In Andromeda, it meant something for everyone. This means it has been reduced to effectively zero accept for a minor effect every 2+ years for both my empires.

My race is a colonizer. However, in Draco colonization installations have been so inflated that a race that increases it production is not hampered by having to build them and can keep pace with me. Also, a research race gains the technology so fast it has no real wait time. A research race starting on a cold world with no negatives is almost just as effective as mine but gains the research bonus as well.

How do I know this, I keep detailed records on different set up on large spreadsheets? There is no game balance anymore. A research race will always outpace other worlds if it starts on a cold world near asteroid belts or iron rich worlds. This is not conjecture it is because of the data.

It would be nice to throw around opinions, but the data is for sure.

                                 

[hobknob]

I would happily discuss/debate this but there is insufficient detail to do so.

I will concur that Scientist hits do much less in Draco than they do in Andromeda.  I too keep records as well and what I see is that a scientist hit is worth about 1 RC worth of research.

 

I think it is early days to decide that high RB lifeforms are so much way better than a colonizer. Even in Draco a non colonizer has issues colonizing.  That doesn't mean they can't it is just harder and they have to devote research to all the installations that a true colonizer can ignore or wait to get at a more leisurely pace.  During this time the colonizer can devote more RC's to weapons, engines etc.  

Skip ahead ahead a few years and you wind up with lots of folks with colonies that are easy pickin's.  The colonizer is also a much better ground pounder and the high RB is average at best.  The brain guys will have to devote lots of resources and tech to try and make up the gap while the colonizer just has to build some troops and enough navy to get past the colony defenses.

As a better colonizer/ground pounder I can only hope that the smart guys will be stripping their HW's of whimpy pop to colonize all sorts of marginal worlds,  that will just make it easier to gather them up.

One last thought...

In Andromeda I have run multiple positions.  Along the way I have taken a max RB lifeform, completed all the Species Engineering to boost the lifeform and all the ground techs and then compared them on the battle field to a good colonizer with marginal ground techs.  The brain guys had a max Def of 3.25 as they had started with some handicapping lifeform choices.  The other guys were pure colonizers with no RB at all.  My expectation was that the brain guys would win but that I would eventually catch up with the colonizers once I got all the techs.

 

The results were a bit surprising.  The colonizers were the hands down winners in a fair fight. After completing every ground tech in the game the brain guys could not compete.

 

I expect Draco to be no different.  Colonizers may start slow and be limited to fewer branches of tech, but they will be formidable in the end and anytime they can get to the ground.  With the rules change preventing group efforts on the ground I see brain guys having real struggles actually being able to conquer anything and without the BOMB order the enemy may just sit on the planet waving the finger at the high tech whimps that can't compete on the ground.

Just my thoughts...

 

 

[richardjohns]

A scientist for my race, has only increased one tech one RC once. I have scientist hits but they do not seem to help overall in Draco.

 

I see your point about the brain and the colonizer. In combat that seems good to know. If your predictions about the brain vs colonizer are true does that mean I am doomed versus a ground pounder. The ground pounder is whipping me good in colonization and I am slowly falling behind. 

[The Fremen]

And which finger might that be Hobknob?

Spot on with that analysis. I’m a colonizer in Draco and have been able to colonize just about every orbit there is except those Gas Giants but those are within my ability as well with some high end attrition reducing installation. I had intended to be a ground pounder but it turned out my efforts resulted in awesome colonization ability. 

Also to date I have used 1 RC per turn per tech and I’m sticking to it. My tech while a little lower then what I have seen doesn’t hamstring me in any way. In fact it will allow my empire to enjoy a much broader and diverse tech base. 

I also have a high RB position and have found that with a bit of luck ( low temp HW) they too can be very decent colonizers of the worlds that really matter.

In the end all that matters is how many resources (not raw resources) you can feed to your IC’s per turn. The tech will come with not much work but getting your peeps to those colony worlds to extract and return those resources is not all that easy and a very painstaking process initially.  

[hobknob]

In my view the high RB survives because it can get tech faster.  However you lose that advantage if you don't take advantage of it.  The colonizer can also get tech faster if he is willing to devote 4-9 RC's per tech to speed things along.  Over time the colonizer will fall further and further behind the brains in the tech race, however this is really only going to apply to space weapons and industrial advances.  Ground prowess will always be owned by the colonizer and dedicated ground pounders.  

 

I have been tracking my research with one of my positions which is a max RB position and I can see that each scientist hit falls into the total as about 1 RC worth.  given research costs this will require about 5 hits before a normal lifeform would notice a 10% increase.  That is not usually what I see, although I have gotten 5 hits on the tech I have been tracking.  All told it seems to work out at 1 per hit.  I also don't see much difference if there are multiple hits on the same turn as there tends to be in Andromeda.

 

Conclusion - 

Scientist hits help, but not to the extent that they do in Andromeda.  I will still get excited to get them.  In Andromeda I am getting 15-25 hits/turn.  Even at the reduced rates in Draco that will make a difference.

 

 

 

[Lord Deependra]

I find each scientist hit gives about 0.6 of a RC. They don't dominate research like they do on Andromeda, but they bring in a lot of techs one or two turns faster.

[The Fremen]

2 hours ago, hobknob said:

In my view the high RB survives because it can get tech faster.  However you lose that advantage if you don't take advantage of it.  The colonizer can also get tech faster if he is willing to devote 4-9 RC's per tech to speed things along.  Over time the colonizer will fall further and further behind the brains in the tech race, however this is really only going to apply to space weapons and industrial advances.  Ground prowess will always be owned by the colonizer and dedicated ground pounders.  

 

I have been tracking my research with one of my positions which is a max RB position and I can see that each scientist hit falls into the total as about 1 RC worth.  given research costs this will require about 5 hits before a normal lifeform would notice a 10% increase.  That is not usually what I see, although I have gotten 5 hits on the tech I have been tracking.  All told it seems to work out at 1 per hit.  I also don't see much difference if there are multiple hits on the same turn as there tends to be in Andromeda.

 

Conclusion - 

Scientist hits help, but not to the extent that they do in Andromeda.  I will still get excited to get them.  In Andromeda I am getting 15-25 hits/turn.  Even at the reduced rates in Draco that will make a difference.

 

 

 

Absolutely. So if the colonizer/ground pounder makes it past the defenses of the High RB race it’s lights out where as if the High RB race makes it past the defenses of the colonizer/ ground pounder it’s lights out again for the High RB race. This will change of course if the BOMB order ever makes it’s reappearance 

on the breakthrough front our scientists hits are much lower then 1 or I would have received certain techs much faster then we have. It’s possible that the points received may be related to a races intelligence level. We have average intelligence and our points per hit is about .25. 

[Jemanari Public Relations]

Actually with no gates in Draco sooner or later the high RB race will overcome the ground pounder if they make it into orbit of the ground pounders HW and hold it. While the ground pounder will be able to make some new divisions each turn, they lose access to all the offworld resources. The high RB race will still retain access to offworld resources and can produce an ever growing number of divisions that at some point will be able to overcome the ground pounder.

[Lord Deependra]

And all this is why you make allies and work with empires who complement yours.

[hobknob]

Point..