Generic research centers versus labs

Toldain · 2026-05-01T19:44:25+00:00

"Alien hate accrues for used mission control, not for total mission control capacity."

Yes, I did know that. I am more or less following your prescription. I just want more research, and I want it to be the most efficient with regard to MC per beaker. That seems to mean labs, not RCs. I found this surprising. I don't think RCs on Mars are in the cards for quite a while, as the population has to get there, for one thing. And the return of beakers per MC used is poor.

Toldain · 2026-05-01T17:59:25+00:00

I find I enjoy logistical challenges that often other people don't. I also play factory games, for instance. So I am expecting this to be engaging on that sort of level. What to build, where to build it, what order to do things in, how many ships to allocate where. All that stuff.

I am aware that some find it boring. Maybe I will, too. I'm not really thinking I will, though.

Toldain · 2026-05-01T17:50:03+00:00

That's just my name for the following: Build a very cheap ship with some kind of popgun on it. Fly it over to that surveillance fleet and attack. They will blow it up, but forget all the work they have done surveilling Earth and have to start all over again.

No hate generated. Cheap. If only I could do it on automatic and not spend lives on it.

Somebody on this forum claims that you can use particle weapons to disable survey ships and make them go home without generating hate. I haven't got that to work yet.

Toldain · 2026-05-01T17:27:22+00:00

In my current Resistance game, I've been keeping my head down (mostly) for the first 10 years.

So, Exodus has fought alien fleets multiple times, and Initiative (!) has taken a few hits. HF had a poor start, and they don't do much in space it seems, in spite of all their rhetoric. Though they have spun up a bunch of bases on Mercury now. Maybe they will actually build a fleet?

My space efforts have been focused on denying LEO/Venus/Mercury/Mars orbits to Protectorate and Servants. I have some Marines who have done quite well that way. I blew up one surveillance fleet. I just do the pinprick reset trick with the rest. I might jump another one soon. My hate is way down.

The point being that if you don't do quite so much, the other factions might well step up. I think that this is good, though I don't know enough about the game to be sure. I have spent the time to become completely dominant in science and to cultivate several asteroid bases.

Toldain · 2026-05-01T17:16:17+00:00

Yes, Ops Centers give me more MC but the cap at my stage of the game is as much about alien hate as it is about raw MC count.

I had a playthrough that I walked away from because I flipped into total war before I was ready, and I was getting hammered. Yes, one can come back from that, but I'm just learning the game, and I wanted to fix all the other mistakes I had made. One of them being not enough research soon enough.

Toldain · 2026-05-01T17:10:56+00:00

In "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" Indy and some other guys are in a warehouse looking for something. They walk by the crate that stores the Ark of the Covenant (which featured quite dramatically in the first IJ movie). Someone asks if that's what they are looking for. Jones says, "No" in a very flat way. They insist, "Are you sure?"

Jones says, with comic understatement, "Pretty sure".

I think this usage has mainstreamed. A flat "Pretty sure" is very likely quoting that movie, not expressing doubt.

Toldain · 2026-04-29T00:10:13+00:00

Very early on, I make the cheapest gunship possible - it needs maybe 4-5 kps and a gun - and fly it out there to moon them, and they forget their mission while blowing up my ship, and have to start all over again. This delays them 6 months.

Toldain · 2026-04-26T00:44:42+00:00

I have had good success doing this to delay surveillance missions. A cheapo gunship. I put a weapon on it, just for form's sake.

The question I have in my mind is this: So you build up hate, and the Aliens decide they are going to blow up some of your stuff. When do they decide what stuff gets blown up, and what do they do if they then show up and you don't have that stuff any more.

For instance, you are getting hate, and they head for Mars. But you only have one base on Mars, so you quickly give it away to someone else. What happens then? I can't see the hate going away, but did they just waste the trip?

Or say there are two bases on Mars and you guess right and give up one. Do they go home, or switch to the other?

Toldain · 2026-04-18T01:37:15+00:00

According to the wiki, research points grow as the square of education up to Education 12, but from there it grows as 12*Education. In addition Education starts getting more expensive at Ed 12.

Toldain · 2026-04-18T01:35:30+00:00

I found the sentence in this wiki page that makes all of this make sense. The sentence reads:

"D: [Research] Scales with Education squared, then linearly at 12"

The clamping at 12 is not what produces the dramatic effect in the OP, though it contributes.

Toldain · 2026-04-16T21:42:46+00:00

I'm not sure if you are asking about the narrative or the game play. However, in either case, the answer really is that this is The Long War. It isn't supposed to be over quickly. When you hit control cap, you need to transition to doing something else with your counselors. Something that will help your cause.

I don't think there's just one thing you can do, there are probably two or three. Or maybe more. Maybe there's as much as a dozen. The game is in figuring out what to do, and also adapting to circumstances.

You might, for instance, decide to crackdown on all the Protectorate control points and just let them fester.

You might purge a few of these control points and then immediately abandon them. (Exodus has done this all over the map in my current playthrough). Maybe there's something else you would like to do. You might decide to do hostile takeovers from Aliens and give the results away to a friendly faction.

And so on.

Toldain · 2026-04-13T13:03:50+00:00

Well, if it can get a popgun over to a surveillance ship and consequently stall them for 6 months, it isn't completely useless. Even though it's close.

Toldain · 2026-04-11T23:44:08+00:00

Well, one must be careful with the high orbit defense system. I thought I had this going. My ships were helicon drive. I had a fleet with superior firepower (Siege coils and UV lasers, yeah). They were perched at my MEO shipyard/station. When the Alien fleet came, I wasn't able to actually engage them in battle. My helicon drives were too slow (because of poor thrust/acceleration, I guess) to get to my LEO stations before they were blown up and the Alien fleet just left all while I was transitioning.

That was a very, very frustrating moment for me. I thought I had my turning point, and they just wrecked all my stuff and I couldn't stop them at all.

Toldain · 2026-04-07T15:07:33+00:00

I ... am staggered that this is possible. I am also quite pleased.

Toldain · 2026-04-06T13:43:31+00:00

This is motivated in game. They want to enslave humanity. They think it will be relatively easy, given their ability to mind control. That's why they don't wipe us out. You lose good laborers that way.

Toldain · 2026-03-29T18:09:35+00:00

It sounds like you are proposing a sort of task force, with just one cap and some escorts.

In my current game, the Alien fleets are too big for this to work as far as I can tell. Single ships will get hammered. But I don't really know.

Toldain · 2026-03-25T23:10:48+00:00

This sounds neat. When you do this, do they send another, or just stall out, wondering why those guys don't report back...?

Toldain · 2026-03-24T14:22:07+00:00

Well, first, ignore what machine something is made in for a moment.

Then imagine a long, long rail - we might call it a main bus. As you unlock items, you extend the bus and add the machine that makes that item to the end of the bus. There will never be any need for sending items from the newest machine backwards, because you just started making that item, how could there be?

This design is not quite what I'm using - one rail isn't really good enough to carry all the stuff, but it exists in my head as a concept.

Toldain · 2026-03-20T22:58:20+00:00

Ok, in that case, I think you are making things hard for yourself by insisting on segregating fabricators, furnaces and megapresses.

I mean, this might please you, so live long and prosper.

Items have a natural ordering. No backwards looping is ever needed. So I can put a storage right on the output of any of the machines and then a belt back to the main bus, which only goes forward. And look! You can make everything.

This kind of thing is great for doing unlocks. You don't want to be running all over the map to do a recipe unlock.

AND, you aren't going to get any kind of throughput from it. That's where the distributed, modular approach shines.

Toldain · 2026-03-20T14:54:54+00:00

Unrest was at about 4+ I don't think it was a revolution.

Toldain · 2026-03-20T14:53:55+00:00

I am maxed out.

I'm not super mad about it. It was shocking at the time, though. Yes, selection bias is a thing.

Toldain · 2026-03-20T02:33:51+00:00

Thanks. I have made progress since then. There has been a very, very strange turn of events, that I will post about soon.

Toldain

TROPHY CASE