Biological Experiments

[PhaseDragon]

Has anyone come up with a way to experiment on their captured worlds to determine what they are made of and what their capabilities are? If you go up high enough in the Life Sciences and Psychological Science tech trees there may be some actual installations that could "Study" alien lifeforms.

[Locklyn]

For now captured (through diplomacy or force) Neutrals are basically Kinder Eggs with goodies inside them and nothing else.

 

1) you can't put pop down to help them grow or they all die grieveously if attrition is off

2) You can do NOTHING with the installations, neither DISM for rare materials, repair or even INST them since Pete has changed his mind on this matter so many times it spins my scaly head.

3) Even if you use the neutral as a science colony, it doesn't do anything except the warp survey bonus and EXPL bonus. As of now, establishing science bases outside your home system gives nada in science rewards which is wrong in my book.

 

I have a lot of science colonies with scientists attached outside my home system since on the old boards pete mentioned that you would get bonuses from having scientists on odd worlds (different than homeworld) and though they have all the buildings and good scientists I have seen nothing from them, not even a science breaktrough from those scientists stationed on those worlds. Asking Pete about it first made him say that should be in the code since building and maintaining a science colony is a lot of investment and should realistically give scientific insighrts that were not available before...all well and good I thought happily

 

A bit later Pete did a complete reverse and said that the only research bonuses were those coming from your 25 RCs and scientist breaktroughs, and that was that.

 

So, if you are a scientist race or any non coloniser race you have absolutely NO incentive ever going outside your home system since science colonies give nothing and neutrals can give some high tech goodies that you could as well gain through exploration orders.

 

All this in my book is so wrong, not only because science oriented races are what I play and that I feel them to be heavily discouraged in the game by a general anti "ways to gain tech other than the 25 RC must be stopped" rules and moderation.

 

Why Expand and Explore when this is not rewarded?

Why go through 10-15+ turns of DIP with a neutral with whom you can do nothing and since it seems there is no real difference in trying peacefully to DIP them or just attack them with troops why bother?

 

I'm real bothered by this if you can't tell and will address it in its own thread...

 

/Locklyn

[EternusIV]

The best experiment I've found for neutrals involved sending them to the shipyards

 

Seriously

 

Neutrals are nice. Yes - they don't give science bonuses which is fine with me because it preserves balance in the game. If it were otherwise, empires like mine would have an unfair advantage. How? I could crank out a thousand MORE exploration ships and hunt down neutrals to boost my SRP output ON TOP of the EXPL finds that are already possible.

 

In fact, the EXPL finds are almost too dangerous to implement from a balance standpoint because then it would come down to a "I am willing to spend more money for more orders to send more explorers to more worlds for more EXPL results than you" game. However, I don't think our current EXPL finds are nothing more than small bonuses given the highly random and diverse results.

 

With that said, building installations that will assist in knocking down warp points can be very handy.

 

The MAIN advantage for neutrals in my opinion?

 

Forward bases.

 

I can use the neutrals to build shipyards to assemble my fleets. Some races have TERRIBLE colonization bonuses and perhaps neutrals are the only way they can establish a colony (albeit a small one) to accomplish a forward base.

 

Those nice new NTWD's? I'd never put em on a warship. I'd put em on cargo ships that deliver supplies to the outer reaches so that my warships have less space to travel to get to the "boundary" The NTWDs will be nice because I can supply those forward bases much faster.

 

Regardless, neutrals are never a "bad" thing. In sum:

 

1) Free pop center

2) Free resources

3) Nice forward base for shipyards

4) Free "Super Jump Survey Sensor"

5) The neutral world is "ideal" for them -- avoiding the pain of having to hunt down a world with attrition that won't eat at you (I personally don't have this problem but imagine some people do)

 

Just add CMs No need to dissect the poor bastards :lol:

[Sakarissa]

Quote

Just add CMs No need to dissect the poor bastards

Unquote

 

*Sakarissa looks up and hurridly covers up a book entitled "Alien Autopsies And You: What You Need To Know."*

 

Oh, yes, you're absolutely correct. The thought never crossed my mind. *innocent look*

 

Sakarissa

[EternusIV]

:lol:

 

That icon looks more fitting for you with every post

[MacBeth]

Locklyn,

 

re:

"So, if you are a scientist race or any non coloniser race you have absolutely NO incentive ever going outside your home system since science colonies give nothing and neutrals can give some high tech goodies that you could as well gain through exploration orders.

 

All this in my book is so wrong, not only because science oriented races are what I play and that I feel them to be heavily discouraged in the game by a general anti "ways to gain tech other than the 25 RC must be stopped" rules and moderation.

 

Why Expand and Explore when this is not rewarded?"

 

How about because it's "fun" and "interesting"?

 

--MacBeth

 

(leader of a scientist race)

[ShadowKitsune]

Because finding 5438 Primitive Artwork is always interesting! :lol:

 

One day I'll figure out why my scientists are so obsessed with finding alien Chia Pets .

[EternusIV]

Have any screenies of Primitive Artwork?

 

But seriously -

 

lets not discount the fact that we do receive exploration bonuses and items.

 

There are a few items that I have found that will work great for my ship designs. If I bump into another empire that doesn't have them, they may be in for a surprise.

 

As far as bonuses to science go, you can also at least tackle portions of the tech tree with ANZs of more advanced items.

[ShadowKitsune]

I just want to find a NPC empire.