Technologies I never use

[Sinophile]

Hai Guyz,
Even though I've played MOO2 for well over a decade, I've never really talked about this game with other people before. I am wondering which technologies are ones that you never use.

For me:
Food replicators
androids
core waste dumps
gyro destabilizer
a bunch more I am too lazy to list out.

[[L.o.S] Larkness]

Well funny you should mention that I never really talk about this game with people much either and yes I had stopped playing for nearly 10 years due to issues with compatibility but thankfully with the steam version it has all sorted it out = back to 1996 it is!

Honestly I always found that I had issues with the environment if I didn't use core waste dumps for example - but I have forgotten how many others, I should probably play a game again to see how I go lol

[HarpSeal]

Back in the day I've defeated the guardian with the gyro destabilizer, if i remember right its a way to by pass shields and armor without shield piercing weapons or structural analyzer. I think I had at least 5 cruisers with max gyro destabilizers. I've never used the food reps either, too much maintenance! Its like 10 bc per turn right? Androids, never used it either.

[climbingeastofwinter]

Games are usually decided before the 2000+ point techs are unlocked, I find. There are the odd outlier match, sure, but usually miniaturized 2 shot mirv nukes and enveloping fusion beams are cheap enough and powerful enough to end your first few wars and snowball. Depends on your difficulty and luck though, to be sure.

I rarely use augmented engines on account of they don't miniaturize and I feel I'm usually better off with more beams/missiles. Bombs are the same story -- I'd rather have direct fire weapons that can be used against everything.

[Sinophile]

Originally posted by climbingeastofwinter:

Games are usually decided before the 2000+ point techs are unlocked, I find. There are the odd outlier match, sure, but usually miniaturized 2 shot mirv nukes and enveloping fusion beams are cheap enough and powerful enough to end your first few wars and snowball. Depends on your difficulty and luck though, to be sure.

I rarely use augmented engines on account of they don't miniaturize and I feel I'm usually better off with more beams/missiles. Bombs are the same story -- I'd rather have direct fire weapons that can be used against everything.

I literally never use non-beam weapons with the exception of stellar converters. I might put one or two bombs on a ship just to be able to bombard, especially when planetary shields start being used. I love augmented engines, especially on Titans. I often couple them with intertial stabilizers in order to make an "interceptor", which I use to shoot down missile and fighters, as well as raid star bases.
I find that Psilons can be a pain in the ass late game. I play on hard, and there have been several games where the Psilons have me outgunned, both in technology and fleet size. I often defeat them by using Antaran or Council victory.

[][nn0ruu]{]

I remember building androids on planets which had already max population. This way an android would replace an alien and in the end would get a planet full of android. I once made the whole galaxy android haha

[Sinophile]

Androids seem like one those those technologies that become useless by the time you get them. They produce no taxes and by the time you get them food is plentiful and the +3 bonus doesn't mean much.

[Okim]

Played with game since day 1 and till now on original installs and on steam.

I somewhat disuse the social branch entirely since it lacks any benefits for start ups (except for planetary stock exchange) and by the time you can allow yourself to switch to it the game is almost done.

I also play without torpedoes at all since they are heavy, not so damaging and have the cooldown. I do, however, use photonic torps for their instant fire.

I rarely use heavy fighters and bombers since they are not able to intercept enemy fighters and missiles. I avoid these cause my fighter bays will be forced to use these instead of regular fighters.

I never use neither gyro destabilizer nor ion cannons. First is plain cheat in early game, second is useless on Antarans (capturing ships of which is my every-time goal). Rarely use graviton beam as well. Same goes for phasors and mauler devices. Gauss cannons and disruptors too.

Never using anti-missile rockets. Preffer to leave some of the weapons in normal mounts and use fighters to intercept whatever missile bases are throwing at me. For this reason i never use pulsars, lightning fields and jammers as well (unless i'm fighting a torpedo user).

I don't like displacement devices, cloaks and energy absorbers. Even combined with Antaran damper fields. I prefer to avoid tanks and battleoids since my goal is to prevent any ground combat at my territory.

I rarely use planetary shields. Often this is due to me picking up ship shields instead of these.

I hate bioweapons. Their use is to provide untouched infrastructure, but once you have power armor, anti grav harness and personal shields - your marines are unstoppable.

I try to avoid assault shuttles usually preffering tractor beams or transporters instead. I love boarding, especially Antarans.

Food replicators are a total waste of research. It may help on highly populated barren / radiated worlds, but i really just terraform all planets.

Never picking up Gaia Transformation preffering mutation instead. Most of the time GT comes as a price for Guardian. If not - some of the AI can get up to it for me to steal these.

Plasma web and stasis fields i also preffer to avoid. These are long-term weapons that damage stuff for multiple turns or contain target. While stasis is good to freeze a particularly nasty enemy while you are dealing with other stuff - i still have better space usage for my ships.

[Emperator Orionii]

Food replicator is way way way to pricey to maintain, it costs a lot of money and eats up industry. Definitely not worth 1 or 2 farmers it would replace.

Ion cannon was more space efficient before 1.31 patch so I used to use it a lot back then. Now I pick shield capacitor instead. So I'd say I very rarely research Ion Drive. I usually go for Antimatter Drive because other AM techs suck. Bomb are useless because plain missiles don't have half damage penalty vs planets and torpedoes, as mentioned before, have so many downsides and not so many upsides compared to other weapon types (either missiles for alpha strike or beams for sustained attack). But AM torpedo sucks the least since you have some realistic chance to miniaturize it before post late game. Plasma torpedo is cool concept but deals to low damage for end of field tech and you have to spend good number of turns to unlock mods that make it semi-viable.

I was once unpleasantly surprised by Mrrshans (on impossible they had all ship attack and defense traits + warlord) who had ships with 200+ beam defense, displacement device, cloaking field and stellar converter. There was no way for AF distruptors to kill them all before the end of a first turn. So there is some use for displacement device and cloaking. But there is little reason to research stealth field.

Stasis field is actually very good. You can seal a ship on one turn, release it on the next, fire at it and seal it again ad infinitum. If you can get more then one stasis projector on a ship you can deal with bigger fleets easily. That's what Antarans do in ICE mod :)

[Sinophile]

Surprising answers.
I always avoided fighters because it seems that they get shot down too easily with PD weapons.
Graviton beams are awesome until Phasors come along. In most games they usually replace mass drivers as my main be weapon.
Gyro destabilizer seems useful on ships with high be defense such as Angarans(who also have reflection field).

I love anti missile rockets, especially if I am against an enemy that builds missile bases. It seems Sakkra and Psilon are big on planetary defenses.

I never equip my ships with bombs unless people start using radiation shields on their planets.

[Emperator Orionii]

Originally posted by Sinophile:

Surprising answers.
I always avoided fighters because it seems that they get shot down too easily with PD weapons.
Graviton beams are awesome until Phasors come along. In most games they usually replace mass drivers as my main be weapon.
Gyro destabilizer seems useful on ships with high be defense such as Angarans(who also have reflection field).

I love anti missile rockets, especially if I am against an enemy that builds missile bases. It seems Sakkra and Psilon are big on planetary defenses.

I never equip my ships with bombs unless people start using radiation shields on their planets.

Fighters are interesting early and mid game weapon because they are very low tech to star up and don't need refitting to get upgrades. So once you get fighter bay on the way to Automated Factories you can focus on chemistry with occasional dip into other fields as if you'd play missile build and you'd be set for a long time. Other types of fighters are not that good, they are much deeper in the tech field that you (I at least) wouldn't focus so much early on and they have lower speed and less ammo while the game progresses toward faster and faster battles.

[torindechoza]

Originally posted by Sinophile:

For me:
Food replicators
androids
core waste dumps
gyro destabilizer
a bunch more I am too lazy to list out.

Food replicators is useless
androids is useful. Remove all living colonists from a toxic planet and fill it with android workers
core waste dumps is an obvious dump
gyro is bad to me

some techs are good but unlucky like missile bases and heavy armor.
Armor barracks is terrible. The enemy more likely will bomb the planet anyway. Sometimes tough the enemy will invade and if you have good ground troops maybe you can win?

[Slimurgical (Stormy)]

I never use Laser Cannons and most bombs on Ships.

Because of how the damage dissipation and to-hit chances work, you're literally better off using 1-shot missiles because you'll actually be able to deal with say... early-game Eel infestations more easily than if you used energy weapons, and any AI still using normal laser cannons.

I also never research Alien Management Centers. I'd rather just wipe a colony and start over with my own species. It's probly way less efficient, but yeah. Being neither uncreative or creative, Alien Management Centers pales in comparison to Xeno Psychology, although for some reason you're allowed to have that as a repulsive civ, where that literally might as well not exist at that point.

[Sinophile]

I never use missiles because it seems there are tons of technologies that negate them. If I capture a subterranean and/or Aquatic species I ship them out to the rest of my planets to double my population.

[Asmodeus]

"gyro destabilizer" was nerfed at some point. Prior to patch 1.31 you could spin the guardian to its doom.

Technologies synergize with your race. For example: If you have a race that is transdimensional fighters get the speed bonus as well. The usually not so great fighters can now blitz a starbase at around turn 100 in a pre-warp game and deal with the battlecruiser the opposition gets around turn 40 for free on impossible difficulty.

A lot of technologies that I do not use are in a bad spot on the tech tree. For example: Automated factory is so good that I never research missle base or heavy armour altough those are actually quite good technologies.

[Magistrate Kimbuzzi]

Originally posted by climbingeastofwinter:

Games are usually decided before the 2000+ point techs are unlocked, I find. There are the odd outlier match, sure, but usually miniaturized 2 shot mirv nukes and enveloping fusion beams are cheap enough and powerful enough to end your first few wars and snowball. Depends on your difficulty and luck though, to be sure.

I rarely use augmented engines on account of they don't miniaturize and I feel I'm usually better off with more beams/missiles. Bombs are the same story -- I'd rather have direct fire weapons that can be used against everything.

Totally agree.

Pre-2000 point techs I rarely research or use:

Scout Labs
Fusion Rifle
Survival Pods
Alien Management Center
ECM Jammer
Fusion Bomb