The actual rules for RC3 are the same in v1.3 and kyrub's patch:
- The cost of each factory you build equals your Improved Industrial Tech level (default is 10 with no tech) times your RC level (default is 2 with no tech) divided by 2.
- If you are Meklar, the cost of each factory you build equals your Improved Industrial Tech level (default is 10 with no tech) full stop; increasing your RC level does not increase your per-factory costs at all.
- Sargon said there's a purely nominal one-time refit charge of a few BC per planet each time you increase your RC tech. I haven't been able to confirm it, but Sargon was usually right. I think this one-time cost applies the first time the number of factories you're building exceeds the number you could have worked with your previous level of RC; in any case, it can pretty safely be ignored because it's such a small number.
Getting RC3 therefore increases costs of new factories everywhere, immediately. I therefore wouldn't recommend seeding it very heavily. We want it, definitely, but we shouldn't commit too many resources to getting it before we can afford to use it!
I agree with Ianus that we need a clear plan of action here. It's going to become increasingly difficult to keep up even with Possible-level AI since we can't acquire their techs by any means. At this stage, I think we have to build up the worlds we have and keep researching toward our critical techs - when those start to come in though, we need a target and a plan to overwhelm it. Before we can make a clear plan though, we need more intel (from Hide spies and/or battle scanner) and we need to get the techs we need! In answer to utwig's question above, I mentioned that we could try a desperation move sooner than we have all the techs we would normally need - and it may be that such a move will be necessary! But we'll see what shallow_thought's report reveals at the turn of the century - and whether we're even still in the game after the voting!
- The cost of each factory you build equals your Improved Industrial Tech level (default is 10 with no tech) times your RC level (default is 2 with no tech) divided by 2.
- If you are Meklar, the cost of each factory you build equals your Improved Industrial Tech level (default is 10 with no tech) full stop; increasing your RC level does not increase your per-factory costs at all.
- Sargon said there's a purely nominal one-time refit charge of a few BC per planet each time you increase your RC tech. I haven't been able to confirm it, but Sargon was usually right. I think this one-time cost applies the first time the number of factories you're building exceeds the number you could have worked with your previous level of RC; in any case, it can pretty safely be ignored because it's such a small number.
Getting RC3 therefore increases costs of new factories everywhere, immediately. I therefore wouldn't recommend seeding it very heavily. We want it, definitely, but we shouldn't commit too many resources to getting it before we can afford to use it!
I agree with Ianus that we need a clear plan of action here. It's going to become increasingly difficult to keep up even with Possible-level AI since we can't acquire their techs by any means. At this stage, I think we have to build up the worlds we have and keep researching toward our critical techs - when those start to come in though, we need a target and a plan to overwhelm it. Before we can make a clear plan though, we need more intel (from Hide spies and/or battle scanner) and we need to get the techs we need! In answer to utwig's question above, I mentioned that we could try a desperation move sooner than we have all the techs we would normally need - and it may be that such a move will be necessary! But we'll see what shallow_thought's report reveals at the turn of the century - and whether we're even still in the game after the voting!
. I need to engage the heavy-laser ships with Masks, and keep the base alive to deal with fighters.
. And thus dead. Except that those smelly, parasite-ridden, horrible, horrible, sweet, cuddly, huggable, snugly bears abstained! How I love them, and want to pet them and call them George, and, and, and ... 
. Oh well, I guess it would be allowable to go back and just replay that.
.
