Here's one for advanced players to answer. I have 4 possible courses of action in a particular game I'm playing at the moment, perhaps more. Each will take some explanation, so please bear with me.
(NOTE: The corporation is 3 blues, 27 planets of varying strength, several of them being farmed (3 sectors at full capacity, I think). Further, there ARE NO PHOTON TORPEDOS available in this game. Zoikes!
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1> Destroy a competing corporation -- They have very few planets. I think a class M, class O, maybe a second class M, and an SBS port. Plus, something like 20k fighters defending their sector. Plus, a loaded up, but empty, tholian sentinel. They both sleep above the planet in completely decked ISSs. 50k fighters each, I assume 2000 shields too. However, they're stuck 1 little 1-warp sector. My plan was this: (I hope they don't read this board...) Planet 2 level-6 class-H planets outside that home sector of theirs. Each one would have... Oh.. 500 shields and 30,000 fighters on it. And, each is at about 500,000 fuel ore. Turn on the interdictors, set sector-level Q-cannons to 10% on each of them, plus set each of the atmospheric-level Q-cannons to 30%. My scheme is this: They log on and, (as I've noted they do, from one of my corpies being silly and putting 50 mines outside their home sector) wander out of their home sector completely unawares. They then hit the interdictor. And the Q-cannons. This is 3.09, so that would do, from each of the Q-cannons.. What, like, 10k damage each? (Burning 50,000 fuel ore, sector level) That leaves them with 35,000 fighters. They try to leave, another 20,000 damage done, down to 15,000, and now they know they're trapped. They try to do the only thing left: Land. No, no.. Dead. Podded, at least, and perhaps still trapped in the interdictor field. (If someone's ship is blown up, do they get stuck in the interdictor field, or do they just get zipped across the universe?) Presumably, both of them would meet more-or-less the same fate. Then, I and my corpies could come in and smash their home sector, take their planets and the farming capacity they represent. I don't know if there'd be any money on the planets, but I do know that the farming of the planets would get me about 250k more per day, right?
2> There's a 1-warp sector the sysop set up. It has 5,000,000 fighters in it. The fighters are owned by the Rogue Mercenaries. It also *had* a bunch of mines, but they got destroyed. There are a couple of planets in that sector, too. A class L, a class O, and (I think...) a class M. The L is shielded, but I can't get past the fighters to find out how well. Doing some math, figuring I'll need about 3,000,000 fighters in my ISS to destroy the 5,000,000 in the sector, that means it'd cost about 500,000,000 credits to get *IN TO* the sector, without ever touching the planets. They may have a million fighters each on them (that'd be another 1/2 billion credits), and may have a zillion shields, I don't know. It would be a pretty large risk to take to go in there with a big screamin batch of fighters bought with 1/2 B credits, not knowing that you'll definately destroy the fighters, but being pretty sure. Then, being totally uncertain about how strong those planets are. However, the sysop has said several times: "Trust me... What's on those planets is well worth the cost of getting on to them...", which I would take to mean at least 2 billion credits or so.
3> Big Bad new Ferrengi planet -- After the last Ferrengal was destroyed early in the game, the sysop added a bigger, badder one which is a shielded class H. It hits _hard_. 12,000 sector damage, 20,000 atmospheric from the Q-cannon. Ouch. It has 2,000 shields. It has an unknown number of fighters. Again, the sysop has assured the players that the reward for taking it is well worth the costs of taking it. Again, I assume this means some assload of credits.
4> Destroy the Sysop's corporation -- So far, the largest most powerful corporation in the game is the Sysop's corp. They're big and bad and scary. They have loads of fighters, loads of mines, and several sectors of planets. However, I have every reason to believe that they've stagnated and stopped growing. They seem to be allowing themselves to become weaker as time goes on, whether they mean to or not. They are, presently, merely 2 blues. They had 3, but one member went red and left the corporation. (I also know where his home sector is and have considered bangin it up, too) They don't seem to be colonizing much anymore, if at all. I can't tell if their farms are still running or not, but I don't see their members on very often. One thing is for certain: Last time (a month ago) I saw any show of strength from them, they could have destroyed my corp as it existed then. I don't know if they still could. I might just be getting cocky, but I think we *might* be able to take them, if it weren't for those pesky class H planets they seem to have laying around all over the Darn place.
-------NOW FOR THE QUESTIONS!----------
1> How do I build up the kind of assets we're talking about here? In order to achieve some of these goals, I should have as much as 1B in spendable credits in the citadel bank. How the heck are a bunch of blues (I talked to the others about going evil.. Not an option) supposed to crank out that kind of cash? Or, should I concentrate instead on cranking all 27 planets up to maximum production capacity and all the ports up to maximum purchasing power, in hopes that it will generate enough credits and fighters to make us sufficently powerful to take on these many threats?
2> How would you prioritize these? By difficulty? Should I take over the corp in the 1-warp sector first because it'd be easiest, even though the reward might just be 2 dinky little planets and a port? Or should I go for the easier of the two 'Guaranteed reward' sectors first, and use that guaranteed reward to take out the other corporations?
3> The all-encompassing question: What is the FASTEST way to build up power as a blue?
--Me!
