I don't think I have ever played a game since you no longer get a shipyard first round that I haven't purchased a shipyard the first round?
Does anyone actually not purchase this, or should this be set back to you always getting a shipyard to start with?
If you don't I would like to understand why or what you think is better?
Since your losing those ship construction points as long as you don't have one, waiting wastes resources. I only wait if I'm playing a xenophobic race and the loss would be small anyway.
Do you actually "lose" resources? I was under the impression that without a shipyard the planet would have more manufacturing for buildings. Is that just a holdover from the old planetary wheel days? I usually spend the first few turns searching for the bazaar to spend my starting credits anyway.
Wasting is probably a better word than losing. But yes if planet does not have a shipyard assigned to it, it is wasting/losing Ship construction points each round. Even a brand new planet (capital only) has Ship construction points once you build a shipyard.
They are not expensive, but the question is why do we not get one to start? Since it seems like everyone would/should build/buy it first round.
Allways shipyard first, because it allows me to rush a colony ship or starbase constructor on the first turn, too. There's nothing I'd rather do with the money, so why wait?
I would expand the question: Why would you rush buy planetary improvements at all? Tech doesn't run away, tiles don't go sour if you don't use them. But asteroids, ressources and colonies can be claimed by someone undeserving.
You don't only miss out on potential military production, but, by not rushing a shipyard and colony ship on your first turn you miss out on potential population growth, and thus raw production.
Delaying shipyard also delays star base which also wastes resources. Also to answer the above question specifically, you do not gain mfg resources by delaying the shipyard
I usually end up with to many resources anyway. The only one im short on is epitheous pollen. So waiting us not a big issue. Point on colonies though. I play slynn, and always convert my constructor into a shipyard. But when i play krynn, or Yor i build the shipyard first instead if rush buying it. I save the credits for asteroids, mercenaries, and starbase upgrades. In the base production was devided between money, research, and money. Without sliders, and the wheel it is not, now production is calculated as one number. In one sense it is wasted, even though it is more.
Xenophobe. If you build the shipyard straight up and use the money to purchase another colony ship instead, the total turns comes out to less. Plus if you research artificial gravity first, it coincides with that first ship. You don't have to pay for that hyperdrive.
I build the shipyard. I then build a space elevator. I save my early money for a couple good Mercenaries and use those for exploration, I play in wide open space galaxies and knowledge of where planets are is key.
If the Mercenary selections available are crud, I will use the shipyard buy as a good plan B.
I usually build(sometimes rush) the research-improvement first, then build a shipyard.
Its really depents on your map settings, with the settings i play with it can take 20 or more turns to find a habitable planet,
so its way more important to use the credits for a mercenary than to rush buy an outdated ship i dont need anytime soon...
I'm a glutton for punishment, so I tend to play only on the largest 3 size maps, but about 25% below the "recommended" number of opponents, but at minimally Gifted difficulty. I also like the Scattered or Loose cluster settings, with Occasional settings for everything.
What that means is that like Erischild above, by far the most important thing for me is to scope out the neighborhood to figure out where I have to plan my expansion. So getting a colony ship fast is mostly irrelevant, because it's gonna be 30+ (or even 50+) turns before I meet someone else.
I need the money for Mercenaries, because I almost always (unless the selection really stinks) want at least 1 of them. Then save cash to trade for techs.
I'm a cheating save scummer. I tend to replay the first 10 turns or so a half-dozen times to get a decent view of the immediate area, then formulate a plan based on which (if any) habitable planets I find, what the available Mercenaries are gonna be, and tile layouts.
What this boils down to is that having a shipyard right away is not usually very valuable to me. Building slow, low-range colony ships isn't worth it beyond maybe the very first one. Scouts are useless. I can't do any "missions" until I tech up, and I need that tech to make a usable sensor boat. Basically, it boils down to me wanting a colony ship somewhere shortly after turn 10, and that means I don't usually rush buy anything (and certainly not the colony ship itself). If I rush buy anything, it will be the Space Elevator for a tile that gets me 2 or 3 bonus levels.
In fact, the primary thing I want a colony ship for in my case is to settle a world and pick the Benevolent bonus, because I want the 150 research point Benevolent skill ASAP. That gets me 2 techs, and I'm on a race to get to Ion Drive as fast as I can.
I think the answer to the question is this: if you've got lots of neighbor civs, or live in a high-density neighborhood of habitable planets, then a mass colony rush is a huge advantage, and rush buys of the shipyard (and potentially production improvements) make a lot of sense. If the galaxy is much more sparse, then scouting for positional information is by far the most important thing, and teching up to Ion Drive fast is by far the most advantageous strategy. Pumping out colony ships while you're doing that is mostly irrelevant, so why rush buy anything?
I'll do that if I'm Xenophobic and have a good +research bonus tile on my homeworld.
I go for the planet rush as fast as I can, so if my home planet doesn't come with a shipyard (it used to -- why was that taken away) I get one as fast as I can.
I do this sequence for much the same reasons, and those two speed techs are really useful to me as well.
A point to be made is that there are lots of different games hidden inside this one game. The galaxy settings do present a range of experiences and challenges. Sometimes we allow ourselves to get into a rut and not explore the different options. I rely on the forums to remind me of the different ways to play. The game is constantly bigger than I first thought, in more ways than just how much room there is.
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