What are some useless techs.

Techs that are really useless:

• Timed Explosives
• Martyrdom
• Any of the techs that allow you to pay for the 4th level on a capital ship
• Karmic Retribution
• Resource Focus
• Many of the culture techs (I could get more detailed but there are so many to go through)
• Colony Pods (Vasari SB upgrade)
• Induced Reverence (Advent SB upgrade)
• Virtually all of the diplomacy tree in most games

I'm probably missing quite a few....in addition, there are many techs that are uneconomical unless you have a ton of planets....

Why induced Reverence and colony pods. Induced reverence(25/50% allegiance) gives you a huge amount of allegiance which in turn gives you more credit income. I can't speak for colony pods, I just find having more income as not a bad thing. is it the cost that is the problem?

I mean if its the cost I can definitely see why they would be bad. But that could be adjusted.

Induced Reverence is 15%/30% max allegiance....

The cost is a huge problem....I'm not going to do the math again but the payoff time for those things is ridiculous even if you only consider the cost of the SB upgrade...

If you take into the account the cost of the entire SB, it's just plain silly to build them unless your game is going to be lasting oodles of hours...some argue this is a bad analysis as you might have built the SB anyway regardless of whether Colony pods was an option...that argument, however, is a fallacy, because if you would have built the SB anyway, it was for military defense, and now you've sacrificed two SB upgrade slots that could have otherwise made your SB better at combat...

In short, the opportunity cost of two SB slots and the cost of the upgrade + the tech + the SB makes colony pods and induced reverence really bad...

Sure, you could majorly buff the upgrades or majorly reduce the tech costs, but as of now they are utterly useless...

Sorry I was looking at the wiki at the time because I have been considering doing my own project to improve its quality. But moving on alright I see im just working on a list on ways to remove these useless techs or make them useful. Stardock probably wont listen but if they do it will help out the game alot.

Timed explosives: I used it to kill planetary shields in a long three way game where I had been cornered but I had managed to turtle in a very strong position, allowing my five novaliths to wreak havoc on enemy planets.

Martyrdom could work the same way.

Culture techs are great for space interdiction.

Induced reverence is actually the Advent way to econ boost, if used on terran planets.

Colony pods can give you 4 credits per second per starbase if I am not mistaken. On Faster incomes its going to be more.

While I understand the thought process behind these two, I think math should be used to see how cost effective these are and for when they actually pay themselves off allegiance takes quiet a long time to stack up. But as I said we should do some math to see how effective it is.

I am certain that colony pods doesn't work but in very long games, but induced reverence surely has a strong impact.

With a maximum 140% allegiance in capital planet, it makes your capital a money factory.

Though I applaud the initiative of calculating these effects.

Induced Reverence also boosts your extractor output IIRC since they're subject to allegiance as well. If you're building the Starbase to buy Enduring Devotion as a Novalith counter, then Induced Reverence will help you pay it off faster.

The base allegiance of the planet is completely irrelevant when determining the economic value of induced reverence...all that matters is the base income of a planet (which does not include the tax income or metal/crystal income bonuses that the HW gives, as those are additive)...

Let us assume the best possible circumstances: a terran world with 3 extractors has a base income of 7 credits and 1.2 resources (game speed multipliers would affect these, on normal you would have a 15% bonus to them)...that is equivalent to 12.4 credits per second...however, each level of induced reverence will only give you 15% of that, or 1.86 credits...

Induced reverence at lvl 1 costs 1800 credits, 275 metal, and 150 crystal...that is equivalent to 3712.5 credits...using the gained income of 1.86 credits a second, that results in a payoff time of about 1996 seconds, or 33 minutes...

On normal speed, it would be just under 33 minutes...

Some people look at this and say "well, that's not too bad"...what they are often forgetting is that if you put these upgrades on a frontline defensive SB, then you just robbed yourself of 1 or 2 combat SB upgrades that would have made your SB better in combat...and if your SB isn't for defense but for economic bonuses only, then your cost analysis must also include how long it would take to payoff the cost of the SB constructor and building the SB (which easily more than doubles the payoff time)...

Also keep in mind that I used the best possible planet (a terran with 3 extractors)....

Bottomline: induced reverence sucks unless you are in really really long games...and the reason those games are probably that long is because instead of investing in fleet and being proactive, you are turtling and putting economic SBs on every planet....

You are mistaken: the Advent has technologies to improve allegiance, and there's culture bonus as well. 140% is what I get from capital with two reverence upgrades. On faster incomes it repays the investment in a pair of minutes, and you can build a trade module too.

Consider that Capital has a bonus to income as well.

This upgrade is not to be built in a frontline world: that's why it has to be used carefully. And yet trade ports cannot be built on the frontier carelessly either, as they become vulnerable.

Obviously, no one should consider this a way to play in the beginning stages of the game, but if you win the initial confrontation in a 5vs5 or survive in a FFA, this is a good boost to economy.

I am not mistaken, I assure you...

This statement does not mean the base allegiance is 100%, read carefully...I've changed my post to be more clear (100% --> completley), but the meaning is no different...

Whether you are at a base allegiance of 10% or 10000000%, induced reverence (or allure of the unity, or anything for that matter) will still add a fixed % to the max allegiance...that x% allegiance value is applied to all tax and extractor income as a bonus multiplier...

Imagine a planet with a base income of 20 and a current allegiance of 50%...if I add 10% to its max allegiance, then I gain 10% x 20 = 2 more income...

Imagine the same planet with a base income of 20 and a current allegiance of 1000000000%...if I add 10% to its max allegiance, then I still gain 10% x 20 = 2 more income...

This is an entirely additive income bonus that is not affected by the allegiance multiplier...

Which implies your SB was built only for economic reasons...in that case, you need to now take into account the cost of building the SB constructor and deploying the SB, which more than doubles the total investment...

You could argue that some of that upfront capital is also being paid off by trade port upgrades or auxilliary government (which is only "economical" if novaliths are around)....

I'll reiterate my original statement that this upgrade is really only useful if you are in very very long games (which in most cases are only long because the player is choosing to drag them out)....

Quick reading often leads to mistaken interpretations, my fault.

Anyway, what you state means that you get 8 more income merely based on culture and induced reverence. For a planet with a base income of 20. But on Faster an upgraded Terran is not 20, but sensibly more. Given that upgrading Terran habitability is always one of the first things to do, as it costs little and improves your income stably, I guess the number you propose should be recalculated.

Besides, the increase applies to both metal, crystal and money extraction.

It allows you to make some utility starbase, saving module space if you have little, etc.

As with every move, there is no absolute useless or useful solution: they work or not based on circumstances. And I have to say, that for me until now, when I did it, it worked well.

In your capital, you need a starbase. Advent Starbase is interesting in the fact that it can be used as an utility starbase. While the price is hefty, in the proper place it works. That a starbase is hefty is quite a sure thing: but with a fighter module it keeps away rebels, with the appropriate race specific module, protects from planet loss, and it can give you culture boosts free of logistic costs, trade and allegiance bonus.

So, if you pick the right planet, the cost is worth it.

That the bonus for the capital was applied after, I personally suspected it, yet this doesn't reduce the effectiveness of the move, in medium length games.

I defer to my original statement, which used the actual terran world income and accounted for both metal, crystal, and tax income...I would point out that all economic analyses must convert resources to credits (the accepted rate is 4.5 credits per metal/crystal)...

Remember that normal speed has an income bonus of 15%...on faster speed, there is an income bonus of 75%, which puts the payoff time for one level of induced reverence at about 20 minutes...that payoff time completely neglects the cost of the SB, which really puts that payoff time somewhere around the 50 minute or so range on faster speed (most games on faster are over in 60 to 90 minutes)...

You only factor in the Starbase cost if you weren't putting the Starbase there for something else (like Novalith defense).

I concur, although novalith bombardment hampers the credit gain. Yet Seleuceia doesn't consider, that improving economy is an investment to move the technological bottleneck forward as well. Supply improvement costs, and that's why you invest on your economy. Net costs are misleading: there's network benefit of improving trade, and a series of other delayed advantages.

But anyway, summing up incomes is not wrong per se. Just limited.

First off, everyone is more than welcome on Sins Wiki, the help will be greatly appreciated, as long as you don't make a mess. I will gladly assist anyone who asks for my help, I am Zeta1127 there too, well User:Zeta1127,89thLegion, but I should be easy enough to find.

All of those techs definitely need some work, especially the starbase, culture, and diplomacy upgrades.