Yard built Miners.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 2:52 am

Just a small idea.... Make Miners builable by the First yard via a research. to allow easer expansion support.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 5:00 am

Feds and Roms definitely. The mode-switchable Dominion workers I'm iffy on (you'll make it so they can build constructors from a yard); Borg are their own special snowflake; and with Klingons it could be great, it could be abusable.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 6:21 am

Have the K'beajQ turn into a slightly faster, far more pricey miner with slightly more cargo space as a single use ability?

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 10:44 am

Have the K'beajQ turn into a slightly faster, far more pricey miner with slightly more cargo space as a single use ability?

Warriors, today we make the ultimate sacrifice for the empire, we stop killing the enemy and go mine for metal. Lay down your batleths and take up your pickaxes, for tonight we mine in hell.

i find this reverse ktinga pop idea interesting. the resulting miner would have to be stuck as a miner forever. we can't have a kbq turn into topmey turn into ktinga. that would be silly.

about miners buildable from yard, i like the idea, but this really affects balance. if a convincing case for balancing could be made then i'd like it. as i think miners aren't crazy high tech ships and yards would realistically be able to make them.

one balancing point is that currently miners have to fly slowly to your expansions from starbase, leaving them vulnerable to raids. if a yard gets put at an expansion, you can make miners there under this plan.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 11:41 am

Have the K'beajQ turn into a slightly faster, far more pricey miner with slightly more cargo space as a single use ability?

Prison barge? Klingon prisoners are forced to work in dilithium mines, so it could work.

Qapla'!

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 1:21 pm

...the resulting miner would have to be stuck as a miner forever. we can't have a kbq turn into topmey turn into ktinga. that would be silly.

That's why I said 'single use.' Once the containers are installed, they aren't going off for a while. Or ever.
And given that we're talking about Klingons here, you could think of it as a final punishment for a disgraced vessel.
And I didn't really think it'd turn into a topmey. I was thinking of a completely new miner.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 3:02 pm

Warship into miner could help if you built a lot of ship and got raided too much. I also doubt it would be a Topmey, since that's a modified K't'inga.

Sounds like a rather cruel thing to do to a Klingon. Then again, they are warriors of remarkable idiocy that suck at fighting so maybe being brought down a few pegs is called for.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 3:13 pm

maybe if a kbq has no ranks (ie no honour) it can be converted to this new miner. kbqs with any ranks cant be converted.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 3:35 pm

one balancing point is that currently miners have to fly slowly to your expansions from starbase, leaving them vulnerable to raids. if a yard gets put at an expansion, you can make miners there under this plan.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? A well-timed raid can pop all but Borg miners with impunity, and there are opportunity costs to building a miner at a yard. Shutdown strats would still work, but would take a modest hit in effectiveness. I don't see that as being a terrible thing though.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 7:49 pm

maybe if a kbq has no ranks (ie no honour) it can be converted to this new miner. kbqs with any ranks cant be converted.

That actually...sounds great.
Though, it does mean you'll probably have to use fresh or extremely unlucky ships. But as if there's a difference.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 7:50 pm

Is this necessarily a bad thing? A well-timed raid can pop all but Borg miners with impunity, and there are opportunity costs to building a miner at a yard. Shutdown strats would still work, but would take a modest hit in effectiveness. I don't see that as being a terrible thing though.

the main change in balance would be time for recovery. assume that the raided player has the resources to build replacement miners, currently they are limited more by time than money. under the proposed scheme they are limited by neither. they can have miners mining at their expansion vastly quicker if a yard is there (as often there is).

that would mean raiding is weaker, as every moment they are not mining the raided moons is an advantage in the resource war.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 9:07 pm

If the miners are not required to be built from the SB, the SB queue may be opened to exclusive qawduj. Yes, that ship is what 1.5 or 2X the build time, but what else is there to be built if miners get moved.

A Klingon player could set up multiple yard extensions having quite a comparable fleet.

Now, we could make it a kbeajq that costs more than miner and longer to built to offset some advantages, but for just a strict regular miner being built. Now, if the miner was bigger or longer to make, it should increase yield or offer some improvement over the ktinga.

All in all, Klingons have easy and quick yards, and a SB that builds a warship. If the player can manage the costs, I would wonder about qawduj SB builds.

Even if a player built 4 miners, then went straight qawduj. Building more miners from one of his extensions, while also building say kvorts. It might take a while but eventually you'd be facing something like 2 qawduj, and 2-3 kvorts.

Not really for or against, I could go either way. Didn't the scout used to be built out of yards? That was nice too.

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 9:48 pm

the main change in balance would be time for recovery. assume that the raided player has the resources to build replacement miners, currently they are limited more by time than money. under the proposed scheme they are limited by neither. they can have miners mining at their expansion vastly quicker if a yard is there (as often there is).

that would mean raiding is weaker, as every moment they are not mining the raided moons is an advantage in the resource war.

Yes, raiding would be weaker but I don't think it would be invalidated as a strategy. There's the opportunity cost of tying up a shipyard with building miners, plus a successful raid still buys a resource advantage equal to the cost of the lost miners plus the lost mining time. Plus -- personal opinion here -- total strangulation strategies, which are decidedly not fun to play against, would be harder to execute.

Would you be more favourable to the idea if the miner took 50% longer to build at a yard than at the starbase?

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 9:56 pm

Maybe for klingons you could have a Civil yard extension... that would allow miners and scouts.. and it would be built in place of the spec op extension... as a chioce.. spec ops or civil ships.


As for dominion... i could see a 'locked miner' solution.. I.e. a cheaper weaker miner that is field built to jump start econmey operations...

As for borg.. how about equiping the miner with transwarp to allow unscouted expansion anywhere at any time with the ability to get out your already fragile miners.


LOL ok ok so i was kidding abuot the borg

posted on July 3rd, 2012, 10:03 pm

I could see that civil yard extension for klingons.... thats actually a great idea.

I dont know if a disposable miner for dominion is necessary.... I dont know if the benefits would outweigh the costs.

This thing would be paper thin and easily destroyed but would also need a cost to balance the convenience of how quickly its built and its relative location to resources. I see it more as a liability than boon.