POWER - Pro's and Con's

Subject: POWER - Pro's and Con's 14/03/22, 08:41 pm

This is a direct copy from our original forum.

orbitz wrote:: USE OF POWER

Having seen posts where people are asking to have their Solar Sats destroyed after graviton research I thought I'd research a little more about a resource that hasn't yet got a topic here. Yes, I am aware that some of the following information is already scattered throughout the forum in many answered questions but maybe this post will answer some future questions and probably create some interesting debate?

SOLAR SATELLITES: Cheap and quick to make but, along with espionage probes, are usually the first things to get destroyed in a battle. Reliance solely on Solar Satellites for power can result in your mines not functioning should they be destroyed.

]If you use solar satellites go to the 'Resource Settings' set output of these to 0% and press Recalculate. A negative result will mean your mines will not be working at full capacity after an attack that destroys them.

UNDER ATTACK? Move / use resources and fleet before attacker arrives. - Optional: (if high nanite on planet) build a load of espionage probes and grab debris yourself (probes will reduce damage to defensive weapons). I have turned a loss into a draw by building 800+ espionage probes in minutes before attack arrived. If you have time runs sims to see how effective this will be. Probes can be built on all your planets simultaneously and sent to planet under attack very quickly.

LIFE AFTER GRAVITON: Solar Satellites will need to be built in large numbers to research Graviton. The research is instant and many players then feel that the orbiting satellites make them a target for raid and recycle attackers. The counter argument for this is simple: You have already paid for them, so why not leave them as fodder? I did my graviton research on a position 13 planet needing 14k of them. I was attacked twice in quick succession and lost almost 10k of them, however... apart from espionage probes and a few light fighters I lost nothing else. I even managed to collect the debris myself from the second attack by timing my recyclers to arrive same second as attack (yes! you don't have to leave it to 1 second later! (which the attacker did! ))

SOLAR PLANTS: More expensive, output varies with planet's proximity to Sun and high level ones take ages to build. However they are a great investment that can't be destroyed. I would suggest aiming for lvl 25-27 before price / build time become inhibitive.

FUSION REACTORS: Expensive and quite slow to build and use deut to produce power. Fixed power output makes them more suited on planets further from the Sun. Like Solar Plants they can't be destroyed and I think that (provided your planet is large enough to support them) they are worth building from lvls 10-14. Less deut is used by these as you research Energy Technology.

I was WRONG! - This post has been edited to remove my tips based on defensive weapons requiring power (as described by the Engineer). 2 sets of tests tests have proved that this simply is not true. It appears defending shield strength is affected but only by a maximum of 10% so not worth worrying about.

Happy Hunting!

pappy wrote:: well i never knew that ur defense relied on you having enough power to fire them. I can see where u are coming from saying that, but i have not seen anything that specifically states this happens, just that the engineer will,

"In case of an enemy attack, he immediately routs all the power to all defense mechanisms, avoiding an eventual overload, which results in lower defense losses during a battle".

"Halves losses to defenses, +10% energy production"

This doesnt specifically state that ur weapons will not fire just that u lose less defenses from an attack. But if it is true, that opens a whole other can of strategy as you outlined.

Cheers for the info tho and an interesting take on using the solar sats for fodder.

Captain Patrick T. James wrote:: Defenses DO NOT require power to operate.

orbitz wrote:: Hi Captain James,

I do bow to your obvious wealth of knowledge of the game but my thoughts that weapons do need power were based on the following three factors:

1: As reported previously the Engineer info page states: "In case of an enemy attack, he immediately routs all the power to all defense mechanisms" - That strongly suggests that defences do need power.

2: When I first started playing I almost soley used solar sats and got completely wiped in the first round by both BTB and Dog. I moaned like a baby to both of them (well they were 3000+ lvls above me) adding that "defensive weapons were useless as only fire in first round". A reply came back saying "Fool! You ran out of power." - something I wasn't sure what meant and didn't want to appear more noobish by questioning it. But did note that whilst most of the defences survived the sola sats were all gone after the battles.

3: At 4:220:11 I baited my (then new), almost completely undeveloped, (and fleetless) planet with resources and just 20 rocket launchers powered by one solar sat. Finally 10 L.Cargos and 20 L/F came and took half the resources for no loss. All rocket launchers survived but battle went only one round - (solar sat gone). I then built a solar plant to lvl 6 (I think.. may have been 8?), replaced the resources but not the solar sat. Same guy came again but with 11 L.Cargos, 20 LF and 2 HF. He still won but went to three rounds and he lost 1 L/F and 2 L.Cargos. ( I lost 3 of the R/L too) Now, I know, there is a high random element to battle results, but I took this as proof that weapons were power reliant and have used as few solar sats as possible ever since.

Now this has been questioned I realise a simpler test of setting up a planet with good defences and with no power (nor fleet) at all would have been a better test. Problem is I now have seven well developed planets and no way am I in a position to test this. Two more lvls of Astro costs 11.3M of crystal that I just don't have! (let alone the 5.65M of both Metal and Deut). But if anyone is in the position to test this, please post the results. I don't mind at all being proved wrong and would ask for this whole thread to be removed as 'duff info' if I am!

Edit...

Doh!

Power can be turned off! - I've some GEIA members close to me, I'll defleet a planet, power to 0% and invite an attack.

orbitz wrote:: Our GEIA friend hardly had anything much to throw at me esp when divided by two so a comparison could be made. Just 1 BS, 10x L/F and 10x L.Cargo so no hope of getting past round one even on my smallest planet.

Results follow but to summarise there is no real difference: Defending shields absorb about 10% less with power at 0% but in first round the number of shots fired are equal and the results very close too. One R/L lost at 0% power - none lost at 100%. If scaled up to a really big attack would this be significant? I think not.

POWER AT 0%

Attacker Shadox Alpha [5:487:13]
Weapons: 90% Shields: 90% Armour: 80%
TYPE L.CARGO L.FIGHTER BATTLESHIP
Total 10 10 1
Weapons 10 95 1.900
Shields 48 19 380
Armour 2.160 720 10.800

Defender orbitz [5:487:3]
Weapons: 130% Shields: 120% Armour: 120%
TYPE SOL. SAT R.LAUNCHER L.LASER H.LASER GAUSS ION C. S.DOME L.DOME
Total 85 1.429 103 41 31 93 1 1
Weapons 2 184 230 575 2.530 345 2 2
Shields 2 44 55 220 440 1.100 4.400 22.000
Armour 440 440 440 1.760 7.700 1.760 4.400 22.000

The attacking fleet fires 22 times at the defender, with a total firepower of 3.035. The defender's shields absorb 530 damage points.

The defending fleet fires 1.784 times at the attacker, with a total firepower of 420.787. The attacker's shields absorb 1.069 damage points.

POWER AT 100% +1917

Attacker Shadox Alpha [5:487:13]
Weapons: 90% Shields: 90% Armour: 80%
TYPE L.CARGO L.FIGHTER BATTLESHIP
Total 10 10 1
Weapons 10 95 1.900
Shields 48 19 380
Armour 2.160 720 10.800

Defender orbitz [5:487:3]
Weapons: 130% Shields: 120% Armour: 120%
TYPE SOL. SAT R.LAUNCHER L.LASER H.LASER GAUSS ION C. S.DOME L.DOME
Total 85 1.429 103 41 31 93 1 1
Weapons 2 184 230 575 2.530 345 2 2
Shields 2 44 55 220 440 1.100 4.400 22.000
Armour 440 440 440 1.760 7.700 1.760 4.400 22.000

The attacking fleet fires 22 times at the defender, with a total firepower of 3.035. The defender's shields absorb 589 damage points.

The defending fleet fires 1.784 times at the attacker, with a total firepower of 420.787. The attacker's shields absorb 1.069 damage points.

pappy wrote:: you make some very good points But in 1. i think the guys were referring to "big guns" that have rapid fire against smaller ships. Also ur little test proves that defenses dont use power.

But thank you very much for looking into it and exploring different aspects of this game.
Cheers

orbitz wrote:: Thanks.

In case users read my tips and not these following messages, I have edited the originating post to remove all the duff info based on weapons requiring power.