Timing of Red mining bases (and upgrades)

I'm not sure whether bonuses from a new or upgraded military resource mine take effect immediately or on the next turn, but they are equivalent to a civ ability bonus (either from game setup or anomalies).

All combat ships get the bonus, and the bonus applies to weapons and defences (except for starbase defenses).

But do ships retain their as-built values?  That is, their name-plate numbers as modified by the cumulative bonus values at time of launch?  (Note, IIRC, ships built at planets with ship bonus values established when the colony was first created retain those bonuses evermore, even through later upgrades.)

Or, do ship values vary in a dynamic fashion as Red bases and other civ values change during the game?

Note, if the values are dynamic, then it would appear that one should begin every war by attacking all enemy Red bases with one's own constructors standing by.  It would simultaneously drop all enemy ship values while increasing one's own.

OTOH, if not dynamic, there might be an additional advantage to rush buying warships - even as empty or one weapon/defense hulls - if one saw the imminent loss of a Red base just ahead.

Well, everything ELSE in the game works on an end-of-turn system, so the bases probably would as well, but I am not sure if they revert if you lose the bas. Although I would probably say yes.

Basic ship stats are determined by the modules you add in the Shipyard (or let the game add for you). Your civ bonuses from game setup and your anomaly finds never go away. If you lose a military resource mine, you lose all the bonuses from that mine, and the same goes for an enemy whose mine you destroy.

Taking down enemy military resource mines is often a very good idea, although if the enemy is weak and the base is far from other areas of interest, you might be better off just aiming a small fleet of constructors at it and waiting until the enemy civ falls and the node becomes open again. I tend to make moderately fast constructors, so it's usually not a problem keeping them safe on long trips.

GW Swicord:

You lose the bonuses when you lose the Red bases (and their upgrade modules) - yes, that's a given.

The question is if the losses associated with the loss of the Red bases affect already-existing ships.

Scoutdog:

The end of turn aspects are not quite that simple.  For example, one can gain the extra miniaturization bonus associated with the hyperion shrinker in mid-turn by rush buying it in mid-turn - I do it nearly every other game.  Similarly, IIRC, one can do the same thing for the hyperion logistics improvement.  That is, IIRC, I did that to better confront an attacking fleet once, but have not needed it recently enough to be absolutely positive now.  Also, I know that one gains a traded tech or boost in mid-turn at the instant when one trades for it in mid-turn.

The only military bonus that is permanent is the Starship bonus that you occasionally get when colonizing a new planet. Otherwise your ship attack/defense values ebb and flow as your weapons and defense bonuses ebb and flow regardless of the source of such bonus.

As far as end of turn effects your ships instantly increase or decrease their weapons/defense values in real time with every change to your weapons/defense bonus.

What does have to wait until the next turn is how that cumulative change in weapons/defense for *all* ships changes your military ranking value which itself determines the willingness of the AI's to attack you or accept a peace offer from you.

Basically your ships improve immediately but it takes an extra turn until the AI realize that you just got stronger than they are.

Ah, so the answer is that the bonuses from Red bases are dynamic or "real-time" - - with the exception that the AIs do not know of the change until the next turn.

So, the Red Queen attack strategy is good: "Off with their bases!"

Thanx! 

The only other exceptions to this I know of are bonuses from structures, such as speed from a hyperion shipyard or the bonuses from the Arcean Stellar Forge and similar structures.

I'm not totally positive but I do believe that you actually have to wait a turn for the AI's ships to lose their bonus if you kill one of their military mining bases whereas any changes you make to your military mining bases (assumedly improvements) are seen  immediately. I definitely recall a game where an AI had 4 military mining starbases and its ships were pretty much invulnerable and I had to attack and kill the 4 starbases and then wait until end turn until I could make any headway against their ships. This was quite some time ago so it was probably something like DL v1.2 but I have no reason to suspect that this has changed.

So I do believe that your weapons/defense bonues are dynamic whereas the AI's don't change until end turn and no one's changes are reflected in the military might ratios until end turn as well.

Hmmm, very interesting!

I will try to be on the lookout for this.

My understanding is that you have to wait until the next turn for a mining base to take effect.  That should be the same for the human and AI players.  The military starbases give an immediate bonus to those under the area of influence though.

I'll test that theory on my current game this evening and report back unless someone else does it first.

That is known to be false, at least for speed modules. Only what exists at the beginning of the turn gives any bonus. Moving something into the AoE also has no effect; only ships starting the turn there get any bonus.

I'd forgotten that one, mostly because I like the large maps and have no interest in keeping track of a single colony just because it has a weird little bonus like that.

LTJim, I understood your basic question, but apparently I didn't know how to answer in a way that worked for you. To me, the 'base' values are all about what you see in Shipyard view or the upgrade list. Until you'd asked, I'd never even considered the notion that a bonus from a military mine could remain after you'd lost the mine.

During dev, it seems that role-specialization was considered for the asteroid 'mines.' I still hope to see something like that for GC3, and it might be interesting if a military-specialized asteroid site yielded permanant bonuses to ships built on the colony linked to the asteroid. Something like that might encourage large-map players like me to work on one or two 'Elite Starport' worlds by way of following up on one of the colonization events that Mumble mentioned.

You're correct as far as the speed modules go.  I haven't used them in so long that I forgot about them.  The ship attack/defense assist is immediate though.  

Once upon a time, you could actually watch the values increase while enroute as long as focus remained on the ship, but that has changed.  Now, you have to click somewhere else and then back on the ship to see the effect.

There are other nuances, also.

For example, if one were to trade/sell a warship, or buy/trade, does the AI use the nameplate value in its algorithms?  Or, the current, real-time value?  I'd guess the current value.

If the values are real-time from Red bases, then that ship's values would change when its ownership changed.  Thus, the "deal" might be calculated on not relevant values.

There be cheese.

I checked into the red starbase thing this evening.  I checked my individual ship strengths both under a military starbase array and some free floating ones.  I destroyed 5 of my fully built up red mining bases (+39 each) and my ship attack and defense values didn't change.

After hitting end turn, my ship values plummeted. 

So red starbase effects don't come into play until the next turn.

Good intel!  Thank you!

If you still have that saved and poised, could you try two more things?

1) Have combats BEFORE the Red base destructions and then replay with the same combats AFTER the Red bases destructions.

This would address the possibility that the values used in combat calculations might be calculated at time of combat while the values displayed might be updated at the start of each turn. 

2) Offer a warship to an AI for cash BEFORE the Red base destructions then destroy the Red bases and offer the same ship to the same AI and see if the BC value the AI offers for the sale is the same.

This would address the possibility that the ship values might be real time in Trade or AI perception of Military rating, despite being updated for display only at start/end of turn.

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