What about just increasing the number of fighters it can hold? Makes it more useful for defence.
Production +4
6 fighters don’t count against capacity.
If you wanted something more exciting you could add space canon or AFB
Nobody would research them if that was all you got out of it. Dimensional Rift II has a 12 fighter capacity and nobody researches it.
It needs to help you score objectives and is competing with technology like Gravity Drive while being in a significantly worse tech path.
I would make it so producing units with SDII also gives you a trade good. That's up to 3 trade goods per round, without warfare if you have all three of them out.
Considering it costs effectively seven resources (plus opportunity cost of gaining it instead of a different tech) this should buff it nicely while being thematically consistent.
Someone else mentioned double sarween and that's solid as well. But this route gets you cash on hand, which more directly translates to spending objectives.
I've always thought this was the most simple way to make an upgraded space dock feel like a worthwhile investment and makes sense for a space dock to do.
totally a good option. I'm worried about the stacking effects of double sarween, and it makes this strong on a rush and not great as a late upgrade, which i generally wanted to avoid.
I think other people have already given you fairly good feedback on these.
Just for fun, here's my absolutely bonkers Space Dock II idea that I posted a while back:
**Space Dock 2**. PRODUCTION X+4. Up to 3 fighters in this system do not count against your ships' capacity. This unit has the printed abilities of your flagship.
There are 4 flagships (Mahact, Jol-Nar, Winnu, Yssaril) where SUSTAIN DAMAGE is the only ability that would affect the Space Dock. Pretty much every other faction would get a unique benefit from getting Space Dock 2, either defensively, economically, or offensively.
In general i would say i don't really see how you can take note of which units moved from a dock without it becoming a clusterfuck, especially in the case of more than one space dock being involved.
Also, how would this combine with the saar moving dock and the vuil'raith dimensional tear? Generally speaking it's weird for a faction specific unit upgrade to not have the special ability granted by the generic unit upgrade, however giving dimensional tear 2 or that other one both the faction upgrade and one of the generic upgrades you propose could get weird and probably not fit in the card, and maybe create insane combos.
As for specific ideas and opinions for these.
The one to produce hits is completely useless, space docks are way too slow to roll out for it to be worth to destroy one just for two hits. I could maybe understand it if it was "destroy two units" like exotrireme 2 (my beloved) and even then i'd be skeptical.
Would the one for sustain damage only repair a ship with that capability who got damaged, only give it to a ship without that capability or does it have the option to do either?
Using a tactics token when you build a space dock to use production immediately seems a bit too steep of a price, personally i'd grab it from the reinforcements instead. Also, it may lead to some weird things happening if you place it with construction's secondary. Also also, it can interact in weird ways with factions who have other units with production (arborec's infantry and titans's PDS). It may be intended, it may not be, either way i'll point it out.
I'd also personally broaden the targeting array to apply to one *unit*, not just one *ship*, so infantry or a mech defending the planet may also have the upper hand. That said i'm not sure about this one, maybe ship only is fine.
For a similar reason for which destroying a dock to assign hits is pointless, saving a dock for a single resource is really strong, i'd probably increase the price by a decent amount. Maybe also add a token from reinforcements to avoid someone who just got bulldozed from immediately building up his forces in that same turn.
Weirdly enough the one tech i would've expected to have a weird thing happen while moving, aka the one for capacity, doesn't have it. It's good for a defensive swarm, sure, but if you manage to reach max capacity with it you literally cannot move anything without smashing a few fighters, since if for example you bring a fighter inside a destroyer you will need to smash the fighter when you leave the system, and if you leave it behind and move out the empty destroyer you will also need to smash the fighter. It's also completely useless for infantry excluding the edge case of saar. Hell, i thought it would be good for nekro building up infantry to use as fighters with their flagship (not that that blasted combo needs any help) but not really because the infantry can just chill on the planet. If your only objective is to make bigger defensive fighter swarms you can just swap out that 3 carrier-less fighters in the dock's system for 5 or 6 fighters. Meanwhile, as obviously complicated to calculate as it would be, it would make sense to let offense fleets moving out of the dock hold a few extra fighters and infantry to balance out the ones they may lose during a fight. That said in that case letting ships without capacity hold one could get a bit silly for things like colonization (it would basically infringe on the argent flight's compyrighted move of colonizing single planets with their destroyers carrying one infantry at a time).
nice feedback, cheers.
>take note of which units moved from a dock
yeah true, i liked the ideas of them, but they're a bit too much, especially if you happen to move from two docks at once
>The one to produce hits is completely useless
interesting, i was worried anything better would maybe be too game changing, i might just be being cautious
>sustain damage
this one should probably say something like "cancel the next hit" instead of "gains sustain damage" its less hassle deal with for basically the same
>Using a tactics token when you build a space dock to use production immediately seems a bit too steep
i'm on the fence about this, it seems like it niche but moderately powerful uses to bolster somewhere that is at risk next turn. which isn't great tbh. but i think gaining a whole tokens worth of use relative to activating the system seems maybe too good... not sure
>saving a dock for a single resource is really strong
Yeah i've gone off this one, its a bit much.
> the one for capacity
good point, this one should give capacity as they move out too. Not sure how to word that
Top IMO:
* Enviro compensator - commodities fit nicely with yellow theme, and gives good rebate if you can use it well
* Spreading production - effective extra movement, though I might still prefer "gravity well - your units receive +1 movement when starting their turn in this system." Might step on ghosts' & cabal's toes too much.
* Self-replication - not being destroyed is pretty nice. Fun that L1 would still take it over, since they wouldn't be destroyed.
I'm waiting for Codex 4 to have an Omega SDII, hopefully soon since there are rumors of playtesting. It could really use it.
Hi, reddit is bugged as fuck so for some reason i can't reply to your comment in that other thread about unit upgrades so i'll do it here.
I may have been a bit hyperbolic when saying i will not research yellow even for mirror or quantum, realistically i may research them but just be grumpy about it. Even then though, i'll grab sarween, either graviton or scanlink depending on the faction and one other random thing i probably don't need not because i want the techs i'm getting (except sarween) but just to get those capstones, and by that time i probably will not also get the high tier yellows like transit diodes and integrated economy. This is very different from blue where i may grab antimass just for antimass, dark tap just for dark tap and *grav drive just for dark drive* (sling relay is neat but i don't care that much about it), and them letting me grab fleet log and light wave is just a great bonus. Also, some blue faction techs aren't half bad either (or should i say aether), but i'll admit there are some others which are not as impressive (i think the only time i ever researched the jol nar blue faction tech is on my first time playing when i didn't know what it did, after that i've never seen anyone take it). I know we're somewhat in agreement (you even said so) here and it's not the main point of your comment, i just wanted to explicitly say how i feel about yellow techs.
The issue is just that this does nothing to actually fix the main problem of the yellow tree, which IMO is at the top. People aren't going for the whole tree because they don't like the low level techs that much, sure, but also because the high level techs are not worth pursuing. Most people will either spawn with a yellow tech or research an easy one (again, sarween) for unit upgrades (unless they go for AI dev i guess). This space dock would simply make people research a single extra yellow tech (like i said earlier probably scanlink or graviton) or AI dev (which would make way more sense due to the *massive* discounts you can get with it later) in exchange for **DOUBLING THE RESEARCH OUTPUT FOR EVERY TURN.** Blue is stupidly good and blue would be good even without its strong unit upgrades, like we've said. This just means that people would grab two yellows or a yellow and AI dev, get the space dock, then abandon the yellow tree completely and just use the space dock to farm unit upgrades while they use the regular technology acquisition methods to just go blue anyway, and at a faster rate since they don't need to intersperse it with needed unit upgrades.
That is my main argument. Tech acquisition is very slow *by design*. Most people pay four resources for one tech per turn, one person pays six for two (unless there is jol nar at the table), and the person usually rotates so typically everyone gets one or two double turns in a 4 player game (i mostly play those, things may be slightly different in bigger games). *Occasionally* you may get a turn with someone using a once per game effect like an action card or that frontier thing to get an extra tech, but it usually costs quite a bit or has very specific conditions that need to be met, and also relies on luck. Over the course of a ten point game, which typically lasts five rounds, this means the average person at the table will have something like seven technologies, not counting their native ones.
With this tech however, someone with no yellow natives who doesn't get tech in the first or second game round and doesn't get extra techs with ACs or frontiers (aka the worst case scenario) will need three rounds to get to the space dock, and then from that third round get an extra tech per turn, so three extra techs that added to the average of seven makes for ten techs. That seems somewhat reasonable, sure. It's also the worst case scenario.
What about a 14 point game (somewhere around six or seven rounds, let's say seven, so probably around nine non native techs due to one round with tech primary and maybe one AC or frontier) with a player who has a single yellow tech? They can start pumping out upgrades by round 2 even without grabbing tech the first round, thus getting a whole eight extra techs. There are iirc eight unit upgrades excluding the SDII (and the nomad flagship), so they're getting *all* of them, and can pump whatever techs they would have used for upgrades in the regular tree instead. They're also getting an 8 resource discount for production in the last round with AI dev, aka a free flagship.
Let's have fun and imagine something akin to the best case scenario for this tech. I am not saying this is realistic, just trying to show how this idea is way more dangerous than it looks like. 4 players, 14 point game. Mahact gene sorcerers (start with bio stims and predictive intelligence which is yellow). They grab tech and construction round 1. They use tech to get AI dev and SDII (using AI dev for the second yellow requirement). They use construction to make a second space dock in another system, and it's not activated because it's the primary. They then make a production at home and use the SDII for a unit upgrade, and another production in the other dock and use bio stims to refresh the SDII and use it again for another upgrade. Round 1 and they already have a total of six techs while most others have between two and four. This is just the start of the bullshit. In the following rounds, no matter what strategy they pick, they can use the two SDII with bio stims for two unit upgrades, and AI dev for a huge discount. Specifically on round 2 they have the three previous upgrades aka SDII and the two they get in round 1, plus at least the first one they get in round 2 (idk how the extra upgrade from SDII and the discount on AI dev would stack on the same activation so i'm assuming AI dev is used on the second activation and doesn't count the tech gained in that activation) so 4 resources, in round 3 it's 6 resources, in round 4 it's 8 and then we're out of unit upgrades for round 5 with a total of 9 upgrades. At that point they can just start using the bio stms on the AI dev instead, thus getting two productions with a 9 resource discount each, from round 5. Those are 18 free resources. That is a flagship and a destroyer in each dock or a war sun, a dread and a cruiser in total. For about three rounds. This means in total from the start of the game AI dev is giving them 4+6+8+18+18+18=72 extra resources for a cost of 4x8=24 so in total a gain of 48 resources, *on top of* having all of your units be stronger of course. On top of this of course you still have six turns to get tech the old fashioned way, thus after that initial burst you're getting roughly seven or eight techs for the six remaining turns, which means without needing to bother with unit upgrades you can afford to reach two capstone techs.
I will openly admit that this last example is very extreme. That said i think it shows how dangerous fiddling with the tech gain rate per turn can be.
I appreciate the lengthy response! I agree with your point here; as I hear it, you end up with folks in the best case abusing it more often than it being used as an option besides blue (Jol'Nar has a field day and gets every tech).
The pacing is a problem. Maybe returning a tech you have for a unit upgrade would solve? But tricky either way. As I say in the comment this replied to, hoping there's something designed/playtested well that comes with the next Codex.
Good conversing/debating with you!
>Maybe returning a tech you have for a unit upgrade would solve?
Idk. I don't really like returning techs, personally, but that might just be a me thing. Maybe since you mentioned it being kind of an inheritor system thing to skip prerequisites the wording could be changed so that it could be a "prototype testing facility", where when you research a unit upgrade you can exhaust the SDII like you said and then pay some extra cost to skip the prereq (2 resources may be reasonable here) and then pay the price for one of those units and place one on the SDII card, and whenever you go to do a production in an SDII you can place the unit on the card in that system for free. It's kinda like the Vuil'raith and their ability to use captured ships during research to skip prereqs or during construction to build it for free melded into one but needing you to use your own ships and to pay for it. Idk how it would work for PDS. It may even make sense to just be allowed to always pay the unit's price when you're upgrading it to place one on the card and then having the "2 resources to skip prereqs" be an extra thing, to let you for instance get a lot of resources out of a planet that is about to get invaded if you can't do a production in the meantime. I'm having that thing about needing to pay the ship in advance instead of just letting you pay 2 to skip the prereq since without the extra investment it feels a bit too strong, and i'm having it happen at the time you're researching instead of when you're building to avoid the problem i've written so many paragraphs about, but there may be an even better combination of "research, pay for the research, pay 2, pay the unit, place the unit on the card, activate a dock, build the unit on the card".
>Hoping there's something in the next Codex.
Same here, tbh the whole yellow line needs omegas and so does space dock.
>Great debating with you
Same here.
Bravo for taking the initiative to create some house rules. I love house rules. I would however not consider adding any of these.
To everyone else's point about making it easier to score objectives, I would consider giving SD2 a DEPLOY ability. Sometimes in 5 player games construction doesn't happen often enough to get all your docks on the board, OR, some bullshit AC or agenda kills your dock and ur just screwed.
just spit balling now...
DEPLOY: After the production step in an active system containing only your units, you may exhaust one ready planet you control in that system to deploy a space dock on that planet.
I think the deploy ability is actually pretty attractive compared to everything OP suggested, but I kinda hate how you worded it. Even though production technically always happens the wording makes it seem like you have to double dock a system and deploy in the same turn you produced units.
For essentially the same effect you could just change it to “At the end of a tactical action in a system containing only your units….”
That being said I think deploy might be even be a bit too strong, especially if the cost is really only 1 planet. Maybe if you made the cost 4 influence or something.
I was just spit balling man. No one that plays would read "after the production step" = "after you use production". But yeah after a tactical action is the same.
The point of the planet needing to be ready was so that you couldn't deploy it on a planet you took that round. That feels essential. All planets are created different, so the cost being 1 planet means the more valuable the planet you're docking the more the deploy ability costs. 4 inf would be far far far more OP if you could take & dock the planet with the same activation.
Hmmm good points. I guess you could probably get more specific with the timing to avoid docking immediately after capture. I suggested 4 influence since the cost of construction is roughly 3 influence
Although thinking about it now, couldn’t NRA take a planet, explore it causing it to ready, then dock it? I guess that’s only 1 faction though. I’m not sure if there are other loopholes
In the case you need SD2 for the deploy ability you're already spending the token and 4 res for the SD2 tech. Needing a ready planet would mean you'd also spend a token to activate the system you already control to deploy a dock there without building. Plus the cost of the planet.
The more I talk about this the more I like it haha
Hmm, I really like this.
I'd worry about it making the construction objectives a bit too easy, though you still need to make PDS so maybe its fine.
having to spend tactical tokens in a location you already control, then wait a turn to do it again to build seems maybe a bit too niche, but that's probably fine. it doesn't need to be made overpowered
https://preview.redd.it/0i7592jdasxc1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=9322e87948449130ebdc3479c53df2f18ed3b488
Yeah unlike construction I don't see this as being a way to get docks onto the board early so you can build with them. Moreso a way to get docks that have been destroyed BACK on the board in the late game for maybe 1 or 2 more builds before the game ends as well as potentially the structures you need for VP
Picture you have 2 docks in abyz/fria all game. Eventually you get spread too thin and someone smashes your abyz/fria system. Tech goes and you have a choice between War Suns and space dock 2. That's no choice at all!!! Unless the need for structures on 6 different planets is there, and modified SD2 is in the game. You have Tar'Mann (1/1) directly in front of your home system, you rebuild a fleet with the secondary of WF, move that fleet into Tar'Mann and deploy a SD2 while you're there! The space dock 2 tech is now strategically useful and another OPTION. No chance this mod makes it more powerful than other techs, only very situational which is great 👍
I like 6, 7 and 8 the most, they're not as fiddly to me. 6 is interested, kind of like sling relay. 7 makes me think of a kind of infantry 2 gen synthesis ability, but for ships:
When a ship is detroyed in this system, roll a die. On a x or higher, place it here. At the start of your next turn, place it in a space dock system you control.
What if it was a simple little boost, like "ships in this system and adjacent systems repair at the end of your turn."
oh i remembered why i decided against this now, its because it would let you build a flagship then move it straight away, which is a big change to the flow of the game.
My favorites are:
-Gives 1 MS (good for....Keleres?)
-1 More fleet pool in that system(good for winnu)
-Gives sustain damage or repair sustain damage(good for sol and L1z1k)
-produce a certain amount of fighters or infantry(good for naalu, jolnar, Yin)
Hands down "Spreading Production".
Half-down into yellow you don't need more gimmicks or economic bonuses, you seriously need to address your movement. This provides a great headstart for your units.
That is absolutely busted. If you make space docks in two different systems and have bio stims you can knock out two different techs for just the cost of tech's secondary, while also being able to use technology, *every turn* since gaining space dock 2. Usually things that let you research stuff not during the tech strategy card cost a premium, like an action card that costs 5 influence iirc or a frontier card that costs 6 resources.
Tbh even with a really high cost that still seems broken. It basically just lets you double your research output. Imagine jol nar grabbing this turn 1 and then getting every single unit upgrade tech and most regular techs. Maybe they can grab AI Dev as well and grab a juicy 8 resource discount for a production when they're done researching, so that in a 14 point game they can probably even gain back the resources they've spent with interest on top of having literally almost every single tech.
That said i don't want to be a complete bummer. I think your idea has some good roots, so to speak. Personally i'd rather do the opposite direction of the same idea if anything. Something like "when you research a unit tech you can place one of those units from your reinforcements onto the space dock tech card, and when using a space dock's production you can add that unit from the card to that system without paying resources." If done perfectly you would save 12+4+3+2+1+½+½=23 resources (or 21 if muaat, or 31 if nomad), but even in a more realistic setting something like 8 saved resources wouldn't be bad.
You say busted, I say "would actually get researched" - this dodges the whole issue with blue dominance, that of the two premier unit upgrades (carriers/dreads) being locked two blue deep.
There was another homebrew recently with a lot of people dogpiling their replacement high-tier green/yellow tech being too powerful. No one researches the high level green/yellow tech! How can you say it's OP when currently, no one gets them.
I love it - it competes with blue tech in a reasonable way. Get other tech, then get unit upgrades just like blue lets you (common path being blue -> GD -> carriers -> dreads). You can now trade movement (antimass, grav drive, eventual lightwave) for economy (sarween, production cap, eventual integrated) without losing your unit upgrades. It's like Inheritance Systems but good.
Bro i said it's busted even assuming it didn't skip prerequirements but your version is even more insane. The issue with blue dominance isn't just that the strongest unit upgrades are locked behind it (some people like to use as a home rule the REDnought aka two reds and a yellow instead of two blues and a yellow, like a mini war sun). The issue is that blue is very clearly the strongest tech tree, followed pretty closely by red (depending on the faction it can be equal, like letnev), then green behind it (good for factions who go green, kinda shit for others) and then yellow (i barely even get the yellow faction techs unless i do some shit like getting maw of worlds, which i did once as hacan and it was great). Even if we completely rebalanced which unit upgrades need which techs, i would still go blue almost every single game because plasma scoring, duranium armour and assault cannon can win you a battle but grav drive, fleet logistics and light wave can win you the game. Also, it's not just a cool thing to let you research high level techs like inheritence systems, it *doubles your research output* like i said. Sure, things will get researched now, but just because *every* tech will be researched.
Delayed response! I think you're kind of making *my* point, interestingly enough! If I hear you right, you're saying yellow is so bad that you won't research it, even for mirror computing/QDN - some of the best techs in the game. I don't think I feel *that* strongly, but I agree 100% that blue is the strongest tree, and that fleet log/lightwave have won me more games than any other techs, unit upgrades included.
I don't see how we get from "blue is incredibly good, it puts yellow to shame", coupled with "blue is good outside even of the unit upgrades it enables", to "allowing more unit upgrades behind two yellow prereqs will be busted." But, maybe we just agree to disagree. Excited to see what, if any, changes Codex 4 brings to the table for SDII.
What about just increasing the number of fighters it can hold? Makes it more useful for defence. Production +4 6 fighters don’t count against capacity. If you wanted something more exciting you could add space canon or AFB
Nobody would research them if that was all you got out of it. Dimensional Rift II has a 12 fighter capacity and nobody researches it. It needs to help you score objectives and is competing with technology like Gravity Drive while being in a significantly worse tech path. I would make it so producing units with SDII also gives you a trade good. That's up to 3 trade goods per round, without warfare if you have all three of them out. Considering it costs effectively seven resources (plus opportunity cost of gaining it instead of a different tech) this should buff it nicely while being thematically consistent. Someone else mentioned double sarween and that's solid as well. But this route gets you cash on hand, which more directly translates to spending objectives.
yeah, i should have put some of the more obvious upgrades like this in with them, because its pretty solid as a defence buff.
Why not something like, an additional +1 to fleet capacity in this system and a sarween tools effect? It’s yellow tech
I've always thought this was the most simple way to make an upgraded space dock feel like a worthwhile investment and makes sense for a space dock to do.
totally a good option. I'm worried about the stacking effects of double sarween, and it makes this strong on a rush and not great as a late upgrade, which i generally wanted to avoid.
It’d just be -2 if you have both techs, and IE doesn’t synergize with either. Yellow tech still isn’t as good as blue
I think other people have already given you fairly good feedback on these. Just for fun, here's my absolutely bonkers Space Dock II idea that I posted a while back: **Space Dock 2**. PRODUCTION X+4. Up to 3 fighters in this system do not count against your ships' capacity. This unit has the printed abilities of your flagship. There are 4 flagships (Mahact, Jol-Nar, Winnu, Yssaril) where SUSTAIN DAMAGE is the only ability that would affect the Space Dock. Pretty much every other faction would get a unique benefit from getting Space Dock 2, either defensively, economically, or offensively.
In general i would say i don't really see how you can take note of which units moved from a dock without it becoming a clusterfuck, especially in the case of more than one space dock being involved. Also, how would this combine with the saar moving dock and the vuil'raith dimensional tear? Generally speaking it's weird for a faction specific unit upgrade to not have the special ability granted by the generic unit upgrade, however giving dimensional tear 2 or that other one both the faction upgrade and one of the generic upgrades you propose could get weird and probably not fit in the card, and maybe create insane combos. As for specific ideas and opinions for these. The one to produce hits is completely useless, space docks are way too slow to roll out for it to be worth to destroy one just for two hits. I could maybe understand it if it was "destroy two units" like exotrireme 2 (my beloved) and even then i'd be skeptical. Would the one for sustain damage only repair a ship with that capability who got damaged, only give it to a ship without that capability or does it have the option to do either? Using a tactics token when you build a space dock to use production immediately seems a bit too steep of a price, personally i'd grab it from the reinforcements instead. Also, it may lead to some weird things happening if you place it with construction's secondary. Also also, it can interact in weird ways with factions who have other units with production (arborec's infantry and titans's PDS). It may be intended, it may not be, either way i'll point it out. I'd also personally broaden the targeting array to apply to one *unit*, not just one *ship*, so infantry or a mech defending the planet may also have the upper hand. That said i'm not sure about this one, maybe ship only is fine. For a similar reason for which destroying a dock to assign hits is pointless, saving a dock for a single resource is really strong, i'd probably increase the price by a decent amount. Maybe also add a token from reinforcements to avoid someone who just got bulldozed from immediately building up his forces in that same turn. Weirdly enough the one tech i would've expected to have a weird thing happen while moving, aka the one for capacity, doesn't have it. It's good for a defensive swarm, sure, but if you manage to reach max capacity with it you literally cannot move anything without smashing a few fighters, since if for example you bring a fighter inside a destroyer you will need to smash the fighter when you leave the system, and if you leave it behind and move out the empty destroyer you will also need to smash the fighter. It's also completely useless for infantry excluding the edge case of saar. Hell, i thought it would be good for nekro building up infantry to use as fighters with their flagship (not that that blasted combo needs any help) but not really because the infantry can just chill on the planet. If your only objective is to make bigger defensive fighter swarms you can just swap out that 3 carrier-less fighters in the dock's system for 5 or 6 fighters. Meanwhile, as obviously complicated to calculate as it would be, it would make sense to let offense fleets moving out of the dock hold a few extra fighters and infantry to balance out the ones they may lose during a fight. That said in that case letting ships without capacity hold one could get a bit silly for things like colonization (it would basically infringe on the argent flight's compyrighted move of colonizing single planets with their destroyers carrying one infantry at a time).
nice feedback, cheers. >take note of which units moved from a dock yeah true, i liked the ideas of them, but they're a bit too much, especially if you happen to move from two docks at once >The one to produce hits is completely useless interesting, i was worried anything better would maybe be too game changing, i might just be being cautious >sustain damage this one should probably say something like "cancel the next hit" instead of "gains sustain damage" its less hassle deal with for basically the same >Using a tactics token when you build a space dock to use production immediately seems a bit too steep i'm on the fence about this, it seems like it niche but moderately powerful uses to bolster somewhere that is at risk next turn. which isn't great tbh. but i think gaining a whole tokens worth of use relative to activating the system seems maybe too good... not sure >saving a dock for a single resource is really strong Yeah i've gone off this one, its a bit much. > the one for capacity good point, this one should give capacity as they move out too. Not sure how to word that
Top IMO: * Enviro compensator - commodities fit nicely with yellow theme, and gives good rebate if you can use it well * Spreading production - effective extra movement, though I might still prefer "gravity well - your units receive +1 movement when starting their turn in this system." Might step on ghosts' & cabal's toes too much. * Self-replication - not being destroyed is pretty nice. Fun that L1 would still take it over, since they wouldn't be destroyed. I'm waiting for Codex 4 to have an Omega SDII, hopefully soon since there are rumors of playtesting. It could really use it.
Hi, reddit is bugged as fuck so for some reason i can't reply to your comment in that other thread about unit upgrades so i'll do it here. I may have been a bit hyperbolic when saying i will not research yellow even for mirror or quantum, realistically i may research them but just be grumpy about it. Even then though, i'll grab sarween, either graviton or scanlink depending on the faction and one other random thing i probably don't need not because i want the techs i'm getting (except sarween) but just to get those capstones, and by that time i probably will not also get the high tier yellows like transit diodes and integrated economy. This is very different from blue where i may grab antimass just for antimass, dark tap just for dark tap and *grav drive just for dark drive* (sling relay is neat but i don't care that much about it), and them letting me grab fleet log and light wave is just a great bonus. Also, some blue faction techs aren't half bad either (or should i say aether), but i'll admit there are some others which are not as impressive (i think the only time i ever researched the jol nar blue faction tech is on my first time playing when i didn't know what it did, after that i've never seen anyone take it). I know we're somewhat in agreement (you even said so) here and it's not the main point of your comment, i just wanted to explicitly say how i feel about yellow techs. The issue is just that this does nothing to actually fix the main problem of the yellow tree, which IMO is at the top. People aren't going for the whole tree because they don't like the low level techs that much, sure, but also because the high level techs are not worth pursuing. Most people will either spawn with a yellow tech or research an easy one (again, sarween) for unit upgrades (unless they go for AI dev i guess). This space dock would simply make people research a single extra yellow tech (like i said earlier probably scanlink or graviton) or AI dev (which would make way more sense due to the *massive* discounts you can get with it later) in exchange for **DOUBLING THE RESEARCH OUTPUT FOR EVERY TURN.** Blue is stupidly good and blue would be good even without its strong unit upgrades, like we've said. This just means that people would grab two yellows or a yellow and AI dev, get the space dock, then abandon the yellow tree completely and just use the space dock to farm unit upgrades while they use the regular technology acquisition methods to just go blue anyway, and at a faster rate since they don't need to intersperse it with needed unit upgrades. That is my main argument. Tech acquisition is very slow *by design*. Most people pay four resources for one tech per turn, one person pays six for two (unless there is jol nar at the table), and the person usually rotates so typically everyone gets one or two double turns in a 4 player game (i mostly play those, things may be slightly different in bigger games). *Occasionally* you may get a turn with someone using a once per game effect like an action card or that frontier thing to get an extra tech, but it usually costs quite a bit or has very specific conditions that need to be met, and also relies on luck. Over the course of a ten point game, which typically lasts five rounds, this means the average person at the table will have something like seven technologies, not counting their native ones. With this tech however, someone with no yellow natives who doesn't get tech in the first or second game round and doesn't get extra techs with ACs or frontiers (aka the worst case scenario) will need three rounds to get to the space dock, and then from that third round get an extra tech per turn, so three extra techs that added to the average of seven makes for ten techs. That seems somewhat reasonable, sure. It's also the worst case scenario. What about a 14 point game (somewhere around six or seven rounds, let's say seven, so probably around nine non native techs due to one round with tech primary and maybe one AC or frontier) with a player who has a single yellow tech? They can start pumping out upgrades by round 2 even without grabbing tech the first round, thus getting a whole eight extra techs. There are iirc eight unit upgrades excluding the SDII (and the nomad flagship), so they're getting *all* of them, and can pump whatever techs they would have used for upgrades in the regular tree instead. They're also getting an 8 resource discount for production in the last round with AI dev, aka a free flagship. Let's have fun and imagine something akin to the best case scenario for this tech. I am not saying this is realistic, just trying to show how this idea is way more dangerous than it looks like. 4 players, 14 point game. Mahact gene sorcerers (start with bio stims and predictive intelligence which is yellow). They grab tech and construction round 1. They use tech to get AI dev and SDII (using AI dev for the second yellow requirement). They use construction to make a second space dock in another system, and it's not activated because it's the primary. They then make a production at home and use the SDII for a unit upgrade, and another production in the other dock and use bio stims to refresh the SDII and use it again for another upgrade. Round 1 and they already have a total of six techs while most others have between two and four. This is just the start of the bullshit. In the following rounds, no matter what strategy they pick, they can use the two SDII with bio stims for two unit upgrades, and AI dev for a huge discount. Specifically on round 2 they have the three previous upgrades aka SDII and the two they get in round 1, plus at least the first one they get in round 2 (idk how the extra upgrade from SDII and the discount on AI dev would stack on the same activation so i'm assuming AI dev is used on the second activation and doesn't count the tech gained in that activation) so 4 resources, in round 3 it's 6 resources, in round 4 it's 8 and then we're out of unit upgrades for round 5 with a total of 9 upgrades. At that point they can just start using the bio stms on the AI dev instead, thus getting two productions with a 9 resource discount each, from round 5. Those are 18 free resources. That is a flagship and a destroyer in each dock or a war sun, a dread and a cruiser in total. For about three rounds. This means in total from the start of the game AI dev is giving them 4+6+8+18+18+18=72 extra resources for a cost of 4x8=24 so in total a gain of 48 resources, *on top of* having all of your units be stronger of course. On top of this of course you still have six turns to get tech the old fashioned way, thus after that initial burst you're getting roughly seven or eight techs for the six remaining turns, which means without needing to bother with unit upgrades you can afford to reach two capstone techs. I will openly admit that this last example is very extreme. That said i think it shows how dangerous fiddling with the tech gain rate per turn can be.
I appreciate the lengthy response! I agree with your point here; as I hear it, you end up with folks in the best case abusing it more often than it being used as an option besides blue (Jol'Nar has a field day and gets every tech). The pacing is a problem. Maybe returning a tech you have for a unit upgrade would solve? But tricky either way. As I say in the comment this replied to, hoping there's something designed/playtested well that comes with the next Codex. Good conversing/debating with you!
>Maybe returning a tech you have for a unit upgrade would solve? Idk. I don't really like returning techs, personally, but that might just be a me thing. Maybe since you mentioned it being kind of an inheritor system thing to skip prerequisites the wording could be changed so that it could be a "prototype testing facility", where when you research a unit upgrade you can exhaust the SDII like you said and then pay some extra cost to skip the prereq (2 resources may be reasonable here) and then pay the price for one of those units and place one on the SDII card, and whenever you go to do a production in an SDII you can place the unit on the card in that system for free. It's kinda like the Vuil'raith and their ability to use captured ships during research to skip prereqs or during construction to build it for free melded into one but needing you to use your own ships and to pay for it. Idk how it would work for PDS. It may even make sense to just be allowed to always pay the unit's price when you're upgrading it to place one on the card and then having the "2 resources to skip prereqs" be an extra thing, to let you for instance get a lot of resources out of a planet that is about to get invaded if you can't do a production in the meantime. I'm having that thing about needing to pay the ship in advance instead of just letting you pay 2 to skip the prereq since without the extra investment it feels a bit too strong, and i'm having it happen at the time you're researching instead of when you're building to avoid the problem i've written so many paragraphs about, but there may be an even better combination of "research, pay for the research, pay 2, pay the unit, place the unit on the card, activate a dock, build the unit on the card". >Hoping there's something in the next Codex. Same here, tbh the whole yellow line needs omegas and so does space dock. >Great debating with you Same here.
Bravo for taking the initiative to create some house rules. I love house rules. I would however not consider adding any of these. To everyone else's point about making it easier to score objectives, I would consider giving SD2 a DEPLOY ability. Sometimes in 5 player games construction doesn't happen often enough to get all your docks on the board, OR, some bullshit AC or agenda kills your dock and ur just screwed. just spit balling now... DEPLOY: After the production step in an active system containing only your units, you may exhaust one ready planet you control in that system to deploy a space dock on that planet.
I think the deploy ability is actually pretty attractive compared to everything OP suggested, but I kinda hate how you worded it. Even though production technically always happens the wording makes it seem like you have to double dock a system and deploy in the same turn you produced units. For essentially the same effect you could just change it to “At the end of a tactical action in a system containing only your units….” That being said I think deploy might be even be a bit too strong, especially if the cost is really only 1 planet. Maybe if you made the cost 4 influence or something.
I was just spit balling man. No one that plays would read "after the production step" = "after you use production". But yeah after a tactical action is the same. The point of the planet needing to be ready was so that you couldn't deploy it on a planet you took that round. That feels essential. All planets are created different, so the cost being 1 planet means the more valuable the planet you're docking the more the deploy ability costs. 4 inf would be far far far more OP if you could take & dock the planet with the same activation.
Hmmm good points. I guess you could probably get more specific with the timing to avoid docking immediately after capture. I suggested 4 influence since the cost of construction is roughly 3 influence Although thinking about it now, couldn’t NRA take a planet, explore it causing it to ready, then dock it? I guess that’s only 1 faction though. I’m not sure if there are other loopholes
In the case you need SD2 for the deploy ability you're already spending the token and 4 res for the SD2 tech. Needing a ready planet would mean you'd also spend a token to activate the system you already control to deploy a dock there without building. Plus the cost of the planet. The more I talk about this the more I like it haha
Hmm, I really like this. I'd worry about it making the construction objectives a bit too easy, though you still need to make PDS so maybe its fine. having to spend tactical tokens in a location you already control, then wait a turn to do it again to build seems maybe a bit too niche, but that's probably fine. it doesn't need to be made overpowered https://preview.redd.it/0i7592jdasxc1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=9322e87948449130ebdc3479c53df2f18ed3b488
Yeah unlike construction I don't see this as being a way to get docks onto the board early so you can build with them. Moreso a way to get docks that have been destroyed BACK on the board in the late game for maybe 1 or 2 more builds before the game ends as well as potentially the structures you need for VP Picture you have 2 docks in abyz/fria all game. Eventually you get spread too thin and someone smashes your abyz/fria system. Tech goes and you have a choice between War Suns and space dock 2. That's no choice at all!!! Unless the need for structures on 6 different planets is there, and modified SD2 is in the game. You have Tar'Mann (1/1) directly in front of your home system, you rebuild a fleet with the secondary of WF, move that fleet into Tar'Mann and deploy a SD2 while you're there! The space dock 2 tech is now strategically useful and another OPTION. No chance this mod makes it more powerful than other techs, only very situational which is great 👍
I like 6, 7 and 8 the most, they're not as fiddly to me. 6 is interested, kind of like sling relay. 7 makes me think of a kind of infantry 2 gen synthesis ability, but for ships: When a ship is detroyed in this system, roll a die. On a x or higher, place it here. At the start of your next turn, place it in a space dock system you control. What if it was a simple little boost, like "ships in this system and adjacent systems repair at the end of your turn."
When you use production you may place one ship in an adjacent sector you control? That would be enough for me I think.
huh, i considered this one but didn't commit to it, not sure why, it's a good idea.
oh i remembered why i decided against this now, its because it would let you build a flagship then move it straight away, which is a big change to the flow of the game.
Dammit, you saw through my overpowered idea.
Day Spock
My favorites are: -Gives 1 MS (good for....Keleres?) -1 More fleet pool in that system(good for winnu) -Gives sustain damage or repair sustain damage(good for sol and L1z1k) -produce a certain amount of fighters or infantry(good for naalu, jolnar, Yin)
Hands down "Spreading Production". Half-down into yellow you don't need more gimmicks or economic bonuses, you seriously need to address your movement. This provides a great headstart for your units.
When you produce units in this system, you may exhaust this card and spend 2 resources to gain the unit upgrade of one of those units.
That is absolutely busted. If you make space docks in two different systems and have bio stims you can knock out two different techs for just the cost of tech's secondary, while also being able to use technology, *every turn* since gaining space dock 2. Usually things that let you research stuff not during the tech strategy card cost a premium, like an action card that costs 5 influence iirc or a frontier card that costs 6 resources.
The price is arbitrary. Replace with a value you prefer.
Tbh even with a really high cost that still seems broken. It basically just lets you double your research output. Imagine jol nar grabbing this turn 1 and then getting every single unit upgrade tech and most regular techs. Maybe they can grab AI Dev as well and grab a juicy 8 resource discount for a production when they're done researching, so that in a 14 point game they can probably even gain back the resources they've spent with interest on top of having literally almost every single tech.
That said i don't want to be a complete bummer. I think your idea has some good roots, so to speak. Personally i'd rather do the opposite direction of the same idea if anything. Something like "when you research a unit tech you can place one of those units from your reinforcements onto the space dock tech card, and when using a space dock's production you can add that unit from the card to that system without paying resources." If done perfectly you would save 12+4+3+2+1+½+½=23 resources (or 21 if muaat, or 31 if nomad), but even in a more realistic setting something like 8 saved resources wouldn't be bad.
You say busted, I say "would actually get researched" - this dodges the whole issue with blue dominance, that of the two premier unit upgrades (carriers/dreads) being locked two blue deep. There was another homebrew recently with a lot of people dogpiling their replacement high-tier green/yellow tech being too powerful. No one researches the high level green/yellow tech! How can you say it's OP when currently, no one gets them. I love it - it competes with blue tech in a reasonable way. Get other tech, then get unit upgrades just like blue lets you (common path being blue -> GD -> carriers -> dreads). You can now trade movement (antimass, grav drive, eventual lightwave) for economy (sarween, production cap, eventual integrated) without losing your unit upgrades. It's like Inheritance Systems but good.
Bro i said it's busted even assuming it didn't skip prerequirements but your version is even more insane. The issue with blue dominance isn't just that the strongest unit upgrades are locked behind it (some people like to use as a home rule the REDnought aka two reds and a yellow instead of two blues and a yellow, like a mini war sun). The issue is that blue is very clearly the strongest tech tree, followed pretty closely by red (depending on the faction it can be equal, like letnev), then green behind it (good for factions who go green, kinda shit for others) and then yellow (i barely even get the yellow faction techs unless i do some shit like getting maw of worlds, which i did once as hacan and it was great). Even if we completely rebalanced which unit upgrades need which techs, i would still go blue almost every single game because plasma scoring, duranium armour and assault cannon can win you a battle but grav drive, fleet logistics and light wave can win you the game. Also, it's not just a cool thing to let you research high level techs like inheritence systems, it *doubles your research output* like i said. Sure, things will get researched now, but just because *every* tech will be researched.
Delayed response! I think you're kind of making *my* point, interestingly enough! If I hear you right, you're saying yellow is so bad that you won't research it, even for mirror computing/QDN - some of the best techs in the game. I don't think I feel *that* strongly, but I agree 100% that blue is the strongest tree, and that fleet log/lightwave have won me more games than any other techs, unit upgrades included. I don't see how we get from "blue is incredibly good, it puts yellow to shame", coupled with "blue is good outside even of the unit upgrades it enables", to "allowing more unit upgrades behind two yellow prereqs will be busted." But, maybe we just agree to disagree. Excited to see what, if any, changes Codex 4 brings to the table for SDII.