Something *really* odd: Dreads cost LESS than BB's??

Check how long they take to build, thats a factor also, Costs dont always have to spiral, time to produce is a big factor too.

Earth to Nirvana... Earth to Nirvana... do you copy? LOL

mabe the dread is made from recycled materials while the battleship is not...

I didn't think it was odd; I chalked it up to improvements in efficiency, tech, etc. Battleships are the game's first capital ships, and so it makes sense that they'd be abnormally expensive. Once the theory and science progressed a bit, however, I thought it quite realistic, and a nice touch for a game, to have the subsequent ship actually be CHEAPER than the original.

- Ash

~SDC~

oh, puhleeze...the dread is like, 3 times the size of the battleship, HOW can you make that cheaper ?...tho I must admit that having a dread cost a lot AND having it build in so many months would be...plain silly and unbalancing...

"oh, puhleeze...the dread is like, 3 times the size of the battleship, HOW can you make that cheaper"

Relax dude.

A laptop is like, 1/3 the size of a 1960s-era mainframe computer, and it's both more powerful and cheaper.

- Ash

~SDC~

A 2 inch by 16 inch by 12 inch laptop is 1/3 the size of a room-size mainframe? Must be the new math.

oh, I just hate it when you people smack me with facts...like that comp\laptop thing...I tell ya...it just doesn't pay to be ME anymore...can anyone tell me where I can buy me a new personality ? (or what prerequisite do I need to research it ? is that a military or a social project ?)

well, as i try to rescue this thread from silliness...

yes, dreadnoughts are extremely cheap considering that they can rip battleships to pieces. i think dreadnoughts and battlehammers are underpriced compared to their usefulness. i've never actually built a battleship in any of my games, since it's smarter to build 2 battlehammers for the same price.

avatars are also waaay too expensive. 650 for a mild improvement over the dreadnought?

cheers

h

"A 2 inch by 16 inch by 12 inch laptop is 1/3 the size of a room-size mainframe? Must be the new math."

I copied his sentence structure and inverted the fraction, I didn't bother worrying about dimensional accuracy.

- Ash

~SDC~

Wow, guys, talk about a HIJACK! My little thread got Shanghaid! (sp)

I just wonder why Dreads were literally cheaper to build than BB's now. I do not recall this being how it was pre-the latest patch. Wondering if this was intentional or not. It *has* made the AI buy more dreads... -shrug-



~SDC~

"I do not recall this being how it was pre-the latest patch."

I think it's been this way since day one. I *know* it's been this way for at least several revisions, since I've been making a point never to bother building Battleships for a long time now.

And as for WHY... well, I thought my answer was quite good, before the hijacking.

- Ash

~SDC~

Yeah it was fine... but then the swashbucklers came and off we went to Shanghai.

Well, anyway once the versions settle down I may mod that value in my games

~SDC~

I've never played a game wherein the dreadnoughts cost more than battleships. I chalked it up to "the battleship was the tech hump to overcome to make the big ships in the first place."

It is kind of strange to be on the thin edge of getting enough BBs out of spacedock, only to have them rushing out once you swap construction to DNs, though.

~SDC~

Note, however, that a Dreadnought costs *much* more to maintain than a Battleship.

Also, people who love Rangers so much should note that Rangers cost more than Dreadnoughts, for the same attack and lower defense. Of course, they have 10 more hitpoints, but I'm not sure that makes up for their deficiencies. They can investigate anomalies, but by the time you can build them, the galaxy should be a pretty clean place (and your Survey Ship, or Ships, should be as strong as Dreadnoughts, but with about quadruple the defense... which is sweet)

oh, and time to produce is solely a variable of cost. So, no, the Dreadnought doesn't take longer to produce than a Battleship.

Just a thought but did you compare the range of the two ships? I may be wrong but I thought Battleships had a longer range, which is a great advantage for a ship that size.

Dreads can be chaper for a number of reasons. 1st is in game they make it very clear that the BB is the first ever combat capital ship. A dreadnought does not have to be that much larger then a BB its just a more refined desing. The lowered cost may be from the fact that your race now has better asembly line production capabilities as well as the fact that you get to all proven concepts from a BB and get rid of the bad Ideas you started with. 2nd BBs do benifit from some technologies that Dreads do not. I know when you get a little higher in the tech tree and can get cloaking they tell you that BBs will be upgraded with cloaking tech for free, Dreads dont get this. 3rd Dreads are more exspensive in the long run, its cheaper to build a dreadnought but a BB has a lower maintence cost then the dread so after 2 or 3 years the Dread has cost you enough money in maintence fees to make it more expensive then the BB and that cost differential just goes up the longer the game goes on. 4th I may be wrong on this one but I seem to rember that BBs have a longer range then Dreads, This means that thier is a tactical advantage that BBs have over dreads. Course its not one that a fleet of constuctors cant fix!

~SDC~

Still, dreads are a little too good relative to the ships before and after it. Especially when you factor cost in. They are much better than even Rangers for the money, and why in the hell would anyone build a Phoenix?

olaf

See i tohught Phoenix could cloack

I think it can cloak, cant it? What does that really do for you though?

olaf

Olaf: Phoenix's are super-upgraded Starfighters - not all battles are fought by blindly smashing 2 giant ships together. A great tactic is to zip a smaller ship into the backfield and take out their trade routes and transports, but they have to be fast enough to get away from the enemy patrols (and cheap enough that you don't cry when they get caught). I used this tactic to bring the Drengin to a standstill (before I took him out he was at -4k or so money, lol). Also, the funniest thing is to tie up 4-5 of their Dreads while they chase a scout around in circles in some empty corner of the map.

~SDC~

This thread is so meandering I'm wondering whether it's worth posting, but here goes.
I totally agree about dreads being too cheap. Regardless of whether in 'real life' (hehe) they would be easier to build, for gameplay reasons they shouldn't be. Unless the designers really did intend to make battleships obsolete within 30 turns of their introduction, dreads should be significantly increased in cost. I mean come on, dreads are FASTER to produce than battleships usually by a turn.

I'd just like to know if this is intentional or an error/oversight/bug.

I'm going to disagree with the 'too expensive' crowd. It takes nearly 2X the research to get to Dreadnoughts as it does Battleships - it should be a major change for the warfare.
One of the things this game makes you weigh is balancing when you want to do something. Do you go for Corvettes and begin hammering an enemy before they can get to Battle Axes? Do you shift spending into military to pump out Battleships and wreak havoc for those 30+ turns before the first Dreadnought rolls off the production lines - those 30 turns could mean the difference between another civ going onto becoming a major threat or getting pounded into the ground.

The difference in cost is only -20 bc and as others pointed out, that difference is eaten up in the first 10 turns as maintenance. I just don't see the problem with a slightly cheaper/higher maintenance ship that takes 2X the research to get to.