Ship Cost Problem?

[Fried-Psitalon]

Just a lil' note- did anyone find the cost of Battleships weird/bugged?

Battleship is 400 production for a 9/5 base unit. Okay, fine.

Battlehammer is 5/5 for around 120?
DREADNOUGHT is 12/9 (I think, not real sure) and only costs 250?!

My connection is down at home, but if someone could list the values, I think we might find things a bit odd. Anyone mind taking the time to list all the ships and their values? I think there might be a few "outliers"... I've already found one in just my first game.

[Harry Seldon]

I noticed that the battleship and dreadnaught take the same length of time to build, which I thought was odd, but I never noticed the cost to build.

[Brizey]

I thought Dreadnoughts were 380?

Also, I think they are about twice as far down the tree in terms of reasearch cost, so having them cost about the same is OK in my book. They are an improved technology.

[Pyrkaige]

I found that same issue rather odd when I first got to building the bigger ships. If you're building in a lower production planet, you can actually save a turn when you switch from battleships to dreadnoughts. But they do cost more to maintain, so in some ways it all works out in the end.

[LDiCesare]

You must take into account all the factors: Mostly att, def, but also hit points. These are very important.
Next, speed and range. These don't matter much by the time you reach dreadnoughts, however.
Last, special abilities: Survey ships aren't the only ones to boost themselves with junk. Rangers can do it too.
On small maps, that's pretty useless, but on bigger maps, you can load yourself with lots of junk and boost your ships immensely, hence the big cost for rangers.

[Gregurabi]

Does anyone else find the Battlehammer ships to be a bit over-powered? They have 90 hit points! Ninety! That's 6 times as many as a battle cruiser. I'll take Battlehammers over any ship before the Dreadnought.

[BlueDEvil]

You should check out the speed. All the very slow units have good HP. Moving at one square per turn, maybe more later on, it only good at being a defensive unit. Practically pointless to use in an assault.

[LDiCesare]

Battlehammers often move at 3 or 4 squares because you've got those techs by the time you get the hammers. So they are in fact extremely powerful offense. I lost 2 frigates to a battlehammer which attacked one of my starbases. It moved 4 squares per turn. So, yes, hammers (and axes to a lesser extent) are very powerful.

[LDiCesare]

Battleships are less useful than dreadnoughts but come before them, so that may explain the cost.
However, does anyone see the point with the missile and the small attack ship (the one with 9 offense, 1 defense, 10 hits, for an upkeep of 6!!!)?

[Harry Seldon]

I haven't used missles yet but I bet they'd be good for taking out starbases and terror stars. Usually by the time I get the tech to build them, I don't need them.

[Fried-Psitalon]

Phoenix ships are invisible to others, or so the research-bot says.

[LDiCesare]

Phoenix ships are invisible to others, or so the research-bot says.

That would be an advantage, but by the time you get there, all battle hammers and axes are defending star systems, star bases aren't left defenseless, so you'd need MANY phoenixes to build a surprise attack on a target. Since planets need visible transports to attack, you can't surprise attack them. So you're left with attacking constructors and freighters with them. Freighters aren't that numerous (you can't have many trade routes), attacking a trade route might be a use for them, but they probably cost as much to maintain as what you will be destroying...