timmy827 Wrote:I'm no expert at the game, but it seems in my limited experience that Orion is a sideshow because 95% of all games are decided by the point the human player has enough tech to take on the Guardian super-ship.
I am with you timmy827. This is especially true on small and medium maps at the hard or impossible difficulty levels. The strength of the Guardian is based on the difficulty level not galaxy size. So on a medium/impossible game your ability to generate research points is reduced because of fewer planets and techs have higher research costs. So by the time you can produce a winning fleet versus the Guardian(at impossible difficulty strength), you could just as easily use that fleet to roll over your opponents. In my games with a medium map, it is long over (win or loss) before I get anywhere close to Subspace Teleporters. The calculations are different at lower difficulties and larger maps.
I personally can only think of one game where taking Orion was the deciding factor. I had no bombs past Fusion and my Psilon opponent had strong shielding on his missile bases. The only way to get through was to grab the death ray from Orion and use it like a bomb.