Spore ships vs Terror Stars

I wanted to get people's opinion on the vast disparity between the power of Spore ships over Terror Stars. I routinely play Korath and it is usually a race for me to get Spore ships early on. Once I do (and Psyonic Beams) i pretty much count the game over. In a recent game, I am well on to dominating the lesser races and had resource points to spare so I researched Terror Stars. I have done this before and it is a novel thing to wipe out an entire star system (particularly as an opening move to war) in one swoop. However....

I got to thinking about it and, the amount of RP necessary to get Terror Stars is phenominal. Add to that the fact that it takes five constructor ships and a HUGE 10 turn activation time. And you can't put big engines on the thing. And you don't end up with a usable planet out of the deal, it hardly seems anything other than a curiosity.

I mean, sure what evil empire would not want a dooms day weapon or two lying around on the drawing board. And the cool factor of saying that you have a Star Killer space station (Death Star) is worth lots of points. But seriously. for about 1/10 the RP investment, Spore ships are guaranteed free invasion. And you can strap on powerful engines for those surprise takeovers. And you can crank them out 13 to the dozen once you get your industry engine going. And you can even grab a planet and then force/purchase a spore ship in one turn to grab the next planet in the star system. For the resources necessary (both in time and research), Spore ships are like 1000X more powerful than Terror Stars.

Any idea why Terror Stars were gimped like that?

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Thing is though, when you spore an enemy planet there is at least a small chance that they can invade and take it back. When you blow up the star in that system, planets and ships in the vicinity are toast. And although Terror Stars are slow, in order to escort one you still need fast ships that can get out of the system and then back in again to guard the Terror Star.

If Terror Stars weren't restricted the way they are, they would see a lot of early-game use.

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qrtxian

Join Date 03/2010

+30

To be honest, I've always found the inefficiency of Terror Stars rather amusing. The fact that your system-killing weapon of death takes enormous efforts to build and can be destroyed by some lone punk of a fighter seems so right, somehow.

I do wish the AI would use them, though - I've never seen it happen.

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I am totally cool that they aren't early game tricks. The fact that they only come after a HUGE research tree feels right. But the power is way off (IMHO). And maybe the problem is with how powerful spore ships are. As I said, once I have spore ships, empires tumble. I routinely lead off an attack by taking 15-30 planets in one turn, crippling or decimating an empire. And then the pain keeps on rolling. Sure I have to follow up with troop transporters to populate the planets, but even if I don't and the enemy takes the planet back, replacing the spore ship and taking it again is no where near as tough as building a Terror Star.

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Well the terror star would just be too powerful to have in early-game, but why does the AI never use them? I have never seen that an AI builds does things. I guess in higher difficulties like "Maschosistic" up to "Sucidale" they make use of them more properly.

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Quoting qrtxian,

reply 2

Yes, but remember, it took stolen battle plans and an entire fleet of distractions just to give Red 5 the chance to destroy it. I could definitely see an "Event" occuring saying something like "Rebels have stolen the battle plans to your Terror Stars. Terror Stars now suffer 4X damage bonus from any small class fighters using torpedo attacks."

I could even see a whole tech tree of enhancements for the Terror Star independant of the Star Base defense tree. But honestly, they are hideously fragile, single use devices. Either beef up their defense capabilities, allow enhancements and multiple use or all of them combined.

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Its tricky to protect the terror star indeed. You can join one of your fleets to the terror star. That way it will be safe, but you have to sacrifice the fleets movement speed for the safety.

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