What`s with late game joke drives(torches)?

[2alexey]

In general, the 2 best drives I have encountered in the game, are zeta-hellion, which, with hydron trap and sprinkler is best way to move ships that are battleship and smaller. For dreadnaughts and titans antimatter seems the only good option.

30-40 TW drives are atrocious in cost of radiator, Inertial Confinement drives, Daedalus and Icarus are hampered by very inefficient, heavy reactor.

Am I missing anything? With zeta-helion it`s easy to design good battleship, 25+ armor and 1.5k + DV, with antimatter, similar dreadnaught is perfactly possible, antimatter drive will even give it good acceleration. I couldn`t build ships with other engine types to match DV and acceleration combo.

What is the point of new, "great drives", aren`t they supposed to be an improvement? Why spend 60-100k research, if the most efficient seems to be to win with mid-game tech.

[roman566]

Well... if you want to go fast you have to pay the price. In the case of drives that have large thrust and enough delta-v to move past Jupiter that price is large radiators (Advanced antimatter plasma core, Protium Converter Torch). Or all the antimatter in the universe in the case of Pion Torch.

Daedalus is perfectly workable. 150/40/10 armor Titan can make a trip to Pluto and back in about a year. Or visit a couple of alien asteroid bases without having to refuel. Advanced Antimatter Plasma Core can do it faster, but a ship with it would have to stop for refueling. Or have 500 fuel tanks, I guess.

Even Protium Converter Torch isn't that bad as long as you only stick to ONE drive instead of 6. Sure, it's expensive, but by the time you get it, you should have enough income to pay for radiators. It shouldn't be the drive you aim for, more like a drive you pick when you are winning and want to win more.

Overall, it's a situation where you have high delta-v, high thrust, cheap/light, and you can only pick two when choosing your end-game drive.

[anonusername]

You can substantially reduce the radiator mass by using the best exotic based reactors. It's still expensive, but makes it usable.

[2alexey]

Well... if you want to go fast you have to pay the price. In the case of drives that have large thrust and enough delta-v to move past Jupiter that price is large radiators (Advanced antimatter plasma core, Protium Converter Torch). Or all the antimatter in the universe in the case of Pion Torch.

Or you can use mid-game engines and have both Zeta-Helion BBs can do Mercury to Pluto and back on a single tank, in ~40-45 weeks.
The question is not what is the point of drives, the question is why are late-game drives literally worse then mid-game.

Daedalus is perfectly workable. 150/40/10 armor Titan can make a trip to Pluto and back in about a year. Or visit a couple of alien asteroid bases without having to refuel. Advanced Antimatter Plasma Core can do it faster, but a ship with it would have to stop for refueling. Or have 500 fuel tanks, I guess.

If you have any ship designs that are better with your choice then Zeta-helion or advanced antimatter plazma
provide those examples. In game sanity criteria's still apply, like not consuming x2 or x3 resources for similar ship weapon/armor layout.

Late game drives generally fall into the thrust category of either Zeta-helion, and then Zeta helion wins because it is much more weight efficient, or advanced AM, in which case, again, antimatter wins.

Sure, Daedalus is the best variant of non-AM torches, but it is only about twice the thrust of Zeta-helion, but x6 the power, and thus much heavier and costlier radiators.

Even Protium Converter Torch isn't that bad as long as you only stick to ONE drive instead of 6. Sure, it's expensive, but by the time you get it, you should have enough income to pay for radiators. It shouldn't be the drive you aim for, more like a drive you pick when you are winning and want to win more.

I am winning with Zeta-helion BBs, should I skip most of late game tech tree?

Overall, it's a situation where you have high delta-v, high thrust, cheap/light, and you can only pick two when choosing your end-game drive.

Again, show designs. what can be done better with late game expensive drives than late game. Granted, advanced plazma antimatter is a late game drive.

You can substantially reduce the radiator mass by using the best exotic based reactors. It's still expensive, but makes it usable.

How many ships can you actually build with those, considering the exotics cost?

[roman566]

I have done some comparisons between the drives I have. The test was done on a Titan with 150/40/10 armor, a Tin Droplet radiator, and 150 propellant tanks. Its mass without drive/reactor/radiator is slightly above 74k tons. I have set the Mercury-Pluto transit. Whenever applicable I have added Antimatter Spiker and Hydron Trap.

Zeta Hellion
77k tons mass
3.9 milligees cruise
238 milligees combat
41 weeks transit time
Radiator and reactor are dirt cheap

Daedalus
77k tons
7.9 mg cruise
437 mg combat
30 weeks transit
Still dirt cheap.

Advanced antimatter plasma core drive
87k tons
51 mg cruise acceleration
3.1 gs combat acceleration. Yup, those ships can go fast in combat. The turn rate is atrocious though.
21 week transit
Radiators cost 1.3k Base metals and reactor 0.4 antimatter.

Protium Converter Torch. In this case, I am using x1 drive while everywhere else it was x6
138k tons...
110 mg cruise
4g combat
17 week transit
Radiators cost 6.2k Base Metals and the reactor requires 2 exotics, so this drive is expensive

The end-game drives are clearly better. They also cost more, which makes sense. If you like to spend your time waiting for fleets to finish transfers then go ahead, and use Zeta Hellion. I prefer finishing the war quickly and will stick to Daedalus or antimatter drive, whichever unlocks for me.

PS, why I didn't list delta-V? Because it's irrelevant? You can add as many fuel tanks as you like. Or send a colony ship with the fleet to build a small outpost at your destination to refuel/rearm/repair the fleet.

[2alexey]

I have done some comparisons between the drives I have. The test was done on a Titan with 150/40/10 armor, a Tin Droplet radiator, and 150 propellant tanks. Its mass without drive/reactor/radiator is slightly above 74k tons. I have set the Mercury-Pluto transit. Whenever applicable I have added Antimatter Spiker and Hydron Trap.

Zeta Hellion
77k tons mass
3.9 milligees cruise
238 milligees combat
41 weeks transit time
Radiator and reactor are dirt cheap

Daedalus
77k tons
7.9 mg cruise
437 mg combat
30 weeks transit
Still dirt cheap.

Advanced antimatter plasma core drive
87k tons
51 mg cruise acceleration
3.1 gs combat acceleration. Yup, those ships can go fast in combat. The turn rate is atrocious though.
21 week transit
Radiators cost 1.3k Base metals and reactor 0.4 antimatter.

Protium Converter Torch. In this case, I am using x1 drive while everywhere else it was x6
138k tons...
110 mg cruise
4g combat
17 week transit
Radiators cost 6.2k Base Metals and the reactor requires 2 exotics, so this drive is expensive

The end-game drives are clearly better. They also cost more, which makes sense. If you like to spend your time waiting for fleets to finish transfers then go ahead, and use Zeta Hellion. I prefer finishing the war quickly and will stick to Daedalus or antimatter drive, whichever unlocks for me.

PS, why I didn't list delta-V? Because it's irrelevant? You can add as many fuel tanks as you like. Or send a colony ship with the fleet to build a small outpost at your destination to refuel/rearm/repair the fleet.

Sorry, but how about something more useful then over armoring of useless hull?

Is your entire game strategy build around sitting under MC threat cap, and then popping up with a few(how many btw?) to kill aliens because AI is too stupid to mass produce missile boats?

[roman566]

If you have a better way to assault alien Battlestations I am all ears.

Feel free to provide your own design. I have researched almost everything in my Academy game, so I can quickly test them there.

[2alexey]

If you have a better way to assault alien Battlestations I am all ears.

Feel free to provide your own design. I have researched almost everything in my Academy game, so I can quickly test them there.

You can assault them with any variation of heavy plazma armed ship (battleship+). 25/5/1 armor bb with heavy plazma, 2pds and whatever for noze.

You might have to lose 1-4 in the process. I don't particularly care, they cost less then 2k resources each.

Dreadnaughts obviously do better, but they cost closer to twice.

[roman566]

And this is the difference between us. With 150 front armor my Titans will shrug off alien attacks with casual ease and I won't be losing any during the fight. That's why I am not afraid to spend money on them. I suspect that adding more armor to your ships would allow you to save money in the long run, but you do you. Finally, just because end-game drives are not suitable for disposable ships doing Zerg rush does not mean those drives suck.

[2alexey]

And this is the difference between us. With 150 front armor my Titans will shrug off alien attacks with casual ease and I won't be losing any during the fight. That's why I am not afraid to spend money on them. I suspect that adding more armor to your ships would allow you to save money in the long run, but you do you. Finally, just because end-game drives are not suitable for disposable ships doing Zerg rush does not mean those drives suck.

I don't lose ships outside stations assault, and there is no need to create specialist ships, since generalists do good enough. I suspect armor level around 40-60 would suffice, but I don't feel like testing it

I just have to point out, the question of the topic is not "can you built super inefficient but theoretically zero casualties ship", and use late game drive to propel it.

It's a question of:
1. Why don't late game drives offer improvement to middle and smaller ships.
2. Why out of like 6 late game engines, there is 1 usable (antimatter), 1 theoretically useful (Daedalus, provided you get unlock and design heavy ship ) and the rest are pretty much garbage that shouldn't be used.

Not a question of freedom of choice, but a question of design.
In weapons, for example all branches are viable and have uses, why not so with drives?

[DarthVicious]

The lategame drives are pretty useless. They fill no required niche in game.

For 1 titan equipped with a torch or firefly you could build 5 to 7 dreadnoughts or Lancers with 60 to 70 armor and take out an alien station and its defending fleet with no losses. Having 4mg cruise acceleration is fine. The station can't evade, and combat acceleration is irrelevant as all you're doing is a slow moving wall that wipes everything in front of it. I usually add 4 to 6 PD escorts which takes care of ALL incoming missiles and mag rounds, making your fleet impervious to everything except plasma.

For your planetary defense fleets, any cheap drive with >50mg cruise acceleration is fine, because that will mean you're always doing a positive intercept. No need for two attack waves.

[roman566]

I have sent 10 DNs with 100 frontal armor against alien battlestation. Some of the time I was losing one of them in the fight and two or three took some beating. That's why I upgraded to 150 frontal armor Titans. No losses, not even damage to internal components. So I DID test it and 60 armor is just asking to lose two or three ships. Unless you send 20-30 and kill the station before it has a chance to kill your ships.

I am still unsure what you are complaining about. Late-game drives have better stats than Zeta Hellion. They have better performance in practice as I have shown. What else do you want? Them to be cheaper than starting drives? Sorry, new technology is always more expensive in games. This is not Starcraft where designers have to balance late-game units against the early game to ensure they are cost-efficient enough to be used.

[DarthVicious]

I have sent 10 DNs with 100 frontal armor against alien battlestation. Some of the time I was losing one of them in the fight and two or three took some beating. That's why I upgraded to 150 frontal armor Titans. No losses, not even damage to internal components. So I DID test it and 60 armor is just asking to lose two or three ships. Unless you send 20-30 and kill the station before it has a chance to kill your ships.

Strange that you lose ships. I take out a fully armed and operational alien platform (and irs defending fleet) with no more than 6 ships of the line and lose none. I don't always use titans. Adds no benefit.

My standard setup is 60 to 70 front armor (adamantane even, cos its cheap), with a mix of heavy plasma and heavy phaser nose cannons.

And all I do is have a slow moving wall. The nose cannons have 1000km targeting range and shred alien battlestations. I tried it with missiles and coilguns but the alien point defense is too strong. Lasers backed up with multiple laser engines do the job much better.

The only trick I might do if one ship is taking lots of damage is to accelerate one or two others ahead of the formation slightly so the alien battlestations switch targets. And even that's not always necessary.

If it has a heavy defending fleet I add two battleships or battlecruisers fully loaded with coilguns. They shred anything that come close to the fleet and once the enemy ships are dead I veer them off so they don't have to attack the platform.

[neilwilkes]

It's difficult to be objective reading this one simply because I have yet to progress that far in the game (still on the learning curve, and what with recent patches making substantial changes.....I am still really learning how to properly optimize those first 2 years), but I digress. My only intent is to give this opinion as a very interested bystander.

I think this shows much more about how damned versatile the game is rather than being any sort of weakness or design flaw at all - how can something that shows off (I am tempted to say 'by accident' here but I have more respect for the developers than that) just how broad your options are, and far from being boring these are big strengths as it can almost guarantee that unless you find a winning formula and stick to it (again, I have a suspicion here that if you tried such a tactic then the AI will adapt to you and take steps to counter. For example in all recent playthroughs I have gone for the USA option to get control over the large Nuke stash, the large army & the relatively quiet life early on whilst consolidating & heading for the Moon & Mars. I swear the AI has started to adapt to this tactic, as it now actively targets Mexico & Canada when previously it prioritized the UK, Russia or the EU. But I digress again. We'll be here all day if you keep letting me do that!

Surely having a combination of Cheap/Reliable/Quick to Build alongside more expensive investments in resources but unstoppable once launched is the more human way to go, isn't it? Plus as a bonus think of all the research paths you could try out - there just might be a more optimal approach you somehow missed.....

[2alexey]

I have sent 10 DNs with 100 frontal armor against alien battlestation. Some of the time I was losing one of them in the fight and two or three took some beating. That's why I upgraded to 150 frontal armor Titans. No losses, not even damage to internal components. So I DID test it and 60 armor is just asking to lose two or three ships. Unless you send 20-30 and kill the station before it has a chance to kill your ships.

I am still unsure what you are complaining about. Late-game drives have better stats than Zeta Hellion. They have better performance in practice as I have shown. What else do you want? Them to be cheaper than starting drives? Sorry, new technology is always more expensive in games. This is not Starcraft where designers have to balance late-game units against the early game to ensure they are cost-efficient enough to be used.

Too few ships, 20-25 is good for station assault.

Also, you never really mentioned the cost of your titan. Nor the number you use, nor their Dv and acceleration. Those matter, because the ship can't be everywhere, and you need to chase aliens down.

I think this shows much more about how damned versatile the game is rather than being any sort of weakness or design flaw at all - how can something that shows off (I am tempted to say 'by accident' here but I have more respect for the developers than that) just how broad your options are, and far from being boring these are big strengths as it can almost guarantee that unless you find a winning formula and stick to it

The option is useless if it's usage is not justified by some improvement over earlier stuff.

Surely having a combination of Cheap/Reliable/Quick to Build alongside more expensive investments in resources but unstoppable once launched is the more human way to go, isn't it? Plus as a bonus think of all the research paths you could try out - there just might be a more optimal approach you somehow missed.....

Hulls and weapons are always unlocked, so it's just a case of what do you propel that firepower with, and how prohiti e that cost is.

[anonusername]

You can substantially reduce the radiator mass by using the best exotic based reactors. It's still expensive, but makes it usable.

How many ships can you actually build with those, considering the exotics cost?

The exotics cost is lower than it looks because the cost is per-ton, and highest tier exotic reactors produce many GW per ton. The exotics cost per Daedalus Torch is about 0.12 for the Inertial Confinement VII reactor. In return for this moderate cost, it require 1/50th the amount of radiator mass. You can probably outfit an entire fleet with exotic reactors using the salvage from a single dreadnought (given a decent salvage roll). The main issue is that you need the highest tier reactor to obtain good efficiency, and the chance of unlocking both the Daedalus Drive and the best Inertial Confinement Reactor is subpar. You are unlikely to have a chance to steal the projects either, as the research cost is too high for the AI.

Frankly, I think this is another case of the unlock %s of tiered projects being excessively low. For single-tier projects, even a 10% unlock chance is manageable if you get a high % contribution on the prerequisite global techs. For second-tier and above projects, a relatively generous 60% unlock rate is substantially worse than even a 0% first-tier project.

[2alexey]

You can substantially reduce the radiator mass by using the best exotic based reactors. It's still expensive, but makes it usable.

How many ships can you actually build with those, considering the exotics cost?

The exotics cost is lower than it looks because the cost is per-ton, and highest tier exotic reactors produce many GW per ton. The exotics cost per Daedalus Torch is about 0.12 for the Inertial Confinement VII reactor. In return for this moderate cost, it require 1/50th the amount of radiator mass. You can probably outfit an entire fleet with exotic reactors using the salvage from a single dreadnought (given a decent salvage roll). The main issue is that you need the highest tier reactor to obtain good efficiency, and the chance of unlocking both the Daedalus Drive and the best Inertial Confinement Reactor is subpar. You are unlikely to have a chance to steal the projects either, as the research cost is too high for the AI.

Frankly, I think this is another case of the unlock %s of tiered projects being excessively low. For single-tier projects, even a 10% unlock chance is manageable if you get a high % contribution on the prerequisite global techs. For second-tier and above projects, a relatively generous 60% unlock rate is substantially worse than even a 0% first-tier project.

Oh, sorry, I thought you meant exotic radiators, since exotic reactors are obvious common sense