Dealing with the bears early?

[kjn]

How do you decide on the timing of your sliders on the second colony? I assume this depends most heavily on the techs available in planetology and construction

It really depends on how early I open research. I haven't done any systematic checking, but since the second colony usually sends a lot of pop to new colonies, maxing out factories there isn't a priority.

As for RIW80 versus IIT9 and IER, RIW80 is as expensive (depending on race) as IER, but doesn't carry nearly the same benefits (cleanup reduced by 20% instead of 33%; no increase of colonist productivity; no cost reduction of colony ships). IIT9 on the other hand is much cheaper and factories are the main things that are built in the early game. IIT9 helps get the first few factories up quicker, which gives production for more cheap factories, and so on.

[RefSteel]

Yeah, I'd say a lot of factors go into this, including race, which Planetology options turn out to be available, and about a million things about the map layout: The number, colors, and (later, once it's known) habitability and quality of stars at 3, 4, 5, and 6 parsec range; the other races known to share the galaxy; the quality of the second planet; where other races' scouts are seen once we start encountering them ... I'm probably still leaving something out. I usually don't open Construction tech until I've already finished IT+10 and/or IER, if either is available, but part of that is that I like to play the cats, who are Poor at Construction, and part of it is that I open Planetology very early - often even on T0 if I don't feel three new scouts are needed right away.

Another advantage of II9 is that it's the fastest way up the tree to (find out if you have) Duralloy, which is usually the quickest way to fit a colony base and reserve tanks on a Large hull. RW80 is also less attractive if you already have (or will soon have) IER, because in that case RW80 saves just 1 BC for every 15 factories, instead of 1 for every 10 factories on its own. It's a good tech, especially for the Meklar, bugs, and Bulrathi, especially when IER isn't in their tree; it just usually isn't one of my priorities during the early game.

[Bionic Commando]

Yeah, I'd say a lot of factors go into this, including race, which Planetology options turn out to be available, and about a million things about the map layout:  The number, colors, and (later, once it's known) habitability and quality of stars at 3, 4, 5, and 6 parsec range; the other races known to share the galaxy; the quality of the second planet; where other races' scouts are seen once we start encountering them ... I'm probably still leaving something out.  I usually don't open Construction tech until I've already finished IT+10 and/or IER, if either is available, but part of that is that I like to play the cats, who are Poor at Construction, and part of it is that I open Planetology very early - often even on T0 if I don't feel three new scouts are needed right away.

Another advantage of II9 is that it's the fastest way up the tree to (find out if you have) Duralloy, which is usually the quickest way to fit a colony base and reserve tanks on a Large hull.  RW80 is also less attractive if you already have (or will soon have) IER, because in that case RW80 saves just 1 BC for every 15 factories, instead of 1 for every 10 factories on its own.  It's a good tech, especially for the Meklar, bugs, and Bulrathi, especially when IER isn't in their tree; it just usually isn't one of my priorities during the early game.

Ref- Do you still open Planetology early if you're the Meklar? I'm never clear if I'm hamstringing myself by starting on IER early since it's so costly with Poor Planetology.

[RefSteel]

Ref- Do you still open Planetology early if you're the Meklar? I'm never clear if I'm hamstringing myself by starting on IER early since it's so costly with Poor Planetology.

Mostly, yeah. Even with the higher costs, I think the benefits more than pay for themselves for an opening that goes to ~200 factories before starting colship production. If (like it sounds like Shaddam IV usually does) I decide I want to start a second colship very soon and throw production into it full-bore when I still have little more than a hundred factories, then I think it makes sense to delay pursuing IER when paying Meklar prices. So waiting to open up Planetology as the Meks until you've gotten enough exploring in to have an idea of what timings you want makes sense to me (Thrawn would have a better numerical analysis of the costs and benefits if he were around at the moment).