Yeah defense platforms suck

totally. I've only ever really used them really early on

build one, declare wars on neighbors as soon as you discover them

they'll send their ships over and suicide against your starbase, because the defense platform interdicts them, and pulls them out right next to it

then you harvest warscore until they surrender, and claim a few planets early

haven't tried it more than once, in the latest patch though, so I don't know if it works anymore

AI seems a bit more reluctant to attack your starbase at the beginning when they can't muster the fleet strength to take it out

@Mal favorite ftl?

hyperlanes

so I don't mind the changes coming

almost always played on that setting

yeah

reminds of of older 4x games

I always found warp and wormholes to be annoying

same

wormholes was just another layer of micromanagement

but the yump drives were the shit

yeah I enjoy getting those, because they were locked behind tech

and felt like an upgrade

favorite weapons?

and yeah

always went with a mix, tachyon lances and kinetic artillery

I remember the tachyon **Destroyers**

lol

back before that pesky X slot

yep

and battleships with auras

oh yeha

getting those back, iirc

what's the best ethos combination?

I've always found fanatic materialist + individualist to be best

though I now prefer the assimilator bots

lol

research boost is just too good

but you can make an argument for mass slavery being useful for establishing a powerful economy early

depends on the setting. PvP is very different to a regular game vs ai

and I find multiplayer pvp to be boring corvette spam

I like xenophile, militarist, materialist

I thought corvette spam was effectively removed

I don't think it'll be gone until 2.0

which starting planet do you prefer?