Money and Military. I usually stop researching power and pop bonus altogether once I leave noob mode or shortly after. Don't research FDC it's a waste.
Depends on the PT. I boost scis and get pop bonus on terra if I need to outgrow someone
When your kd is shit and far behind the average curve (looking at you hazza) you should keep all your researches maxes except fdc because the difficulty of maintaining them is relative to your growth over time. If you have a smaller kd you should be optimizing your growth relative to larger kds, and an easier time maintaining researches is the main mechanism that keeps huge kds from outgrowing the rest of the universe exponentially once they get a big enough lead
@Hazza I've built plenty of crap KD's over my time. So here goes....
You play FW still right?
Military always maxed.
Power is dropped ASAP. When power related research is done.
Keep other 3 mains maxed.
Later, as required~
If you are building low cost units: keep pop maxed and allow money to drop.
If you are building high cost units: keep money maxed and allow pop to drop.
*The above needs to be tuned as you go...
If you can't afford to train all your soldiers, emphasise money research & drop pop research to the point where you can afford to train as many soldiers as you produce... & visa versa.
Once you get longevity on FW cash from pop research is the same, or slightly higher, as cash from money research. So drop all money research. And just research pop & military.
After that, pop as required. Depending on how you need your military to be.
These are the basics.
It's Ying+Yang baby!
From one non-elite to another
Well researches is arguable the trickiest of all aspects in SK.
Just the fact that everyone is giving different answers points to this.
For example, most people drop power research. I'd ask why?
Power research is the cheapest and gives you 50-70% more power than your power plants.
Considering that you usually need to run about 10% PPs, that power bonus is worth 5-7% of land, for a relatively low cost. That means that even if you drop money bonus by a few %, you might be better off as you have more land for SMs.
I haven't gone into research in this depth in terms of doing the math. I've gone some math for TFs, and I believe the breaking point where Res > SM was at pop research > 32% but don't hold me to that.
One of the beauties of SK is you can literally take the time to calculate everything.
Also, different researches are more useful at different times
eg:
You just came out of newb, RWCE is priceless. 2/3 days in, all the food is gone, RWCE is nice, but not nearly as nice. Gotta consider the ROI (return on investment). At this point, perhaps instead of having fast WLs it is important to use that money on offense, or maybe on tanks if you need flexibility.
Lets say your KD is very tank heavy. Then RWCE is definitely more valuable than if your KD was goon / LD based.
Before I continue let me just state the obvious too. Forget FDC.
I always think money and military are the most important. Very rarely you can allow military to drop slightly. Say you turtled up, and need your scis somewhere else. If you have high probes, put probe shields on, it is very unlikely anyone will check your research, unless they can just about break you. And with high probes, unless it is an alliance / UA getting your intel, they typically won't have enough PAs to get the SoR, because first u check SoM then SoK or SoS.
The reason why I'd never drop money like cumgit, is that u always need money. Explore / construction / soldiers.
Also, have you ever noticed how 9 soldiers cost 1350, while a tanks costs 1750(+150) with no TCs ? If you're gaining land very fast, although I could argue not to build that land immediately as you might need the resources elsewhere to ensure that you keep the land... you can also just train a lot of soldiers rather than turning them into elite units. It's not very land efficient, but if youre getting more land than what your KD can handle, it might not be a bad choice.
Whatever your KD type, if you've stacked up a lot of soldiers that is scary. Very scary.
Again, depends on your style.
I prefer to come out of newb with maxed researches, and keep them maxed as long as I can, ignoring static researches other than Fusion and EC. That's because the bigger you are, the more sci you can make, the faster you can get those static researches done. Also, if people are trying to keep up with your military, they dont have money for sci. And the advantage of having goons over troopers is felt more towards the 2/3 week mark than the very early game.
Comments
Money and Military. I usually stop researching power and pop bonus altogether once I leave noob mode or shortly after. Don't research FDC it's a waste.
Depends on the PT. I boost scis and get pop bonus on terra if I need to outgrow someone
When your kd is shit and far behind the average curve (looking at you hazza) you should keep all your researches maxes except fdc because the difficulty of maintaining them is relative to your growth over time. If you have a smaller kd you should be optimizing your growth relative to larger kds, and an easier time maintaining researches is the main mechanism that keeps huge kds from outgrowing the rest of the universe exponentially once they get a big enough lead
@Hazza I've built plenty of crap KD's over my time. So here goes....
You play FW still right?
Military always maxed.
Power is dropped ASAP. When power related research is done.
Keep other 3 mains maxed.
Later, as required~
If you are building low cost units: keep pop maxed and allow money to drop.
If you are building high cost units: keep money maxed and allow pop to drop.
*The above needs to be tuned as you go...
If you can't afford to train all your soldiers, emphasise money research & drop pop research to the point where you can afford to train as many soldiers as you produce... & visa versa.
Once you get longevity on FW cash from pop research is the same, or slightly higher, as cash from money research. So drop all money research. And just research pop & military.
After that, pop as required. Depending on how you need your military to be.
These are the basics.
It's Ying+Yang baby!
From one non-elite to another
Well researches is arguable the trickiest of all aspects in SK.
Just the fact that everyone is giving different answers points to this.
For example, most people drop power research. I'd ask why?
Power research is the cheapest and gives you 50-70% more power than your power plants.
Considering that you usually need to run about 10% PPs, that power bonus is worth 5-7% of land, for a relatively low cost. That means that even if you drop money bonus by a few %, you might be better off as you have more land for SMs.
I haven't gone into research in this depth in terms of doing the math. I've gone some math for TFs, and I believe the breaking point where Res > SM was at pop research > 32% but don't hold me to that.
One of the beauties of SK is you can literally take the time to calculate everything.
Also, different researches are more useful at different times
eg:
You just came out of newb, RWCE is priceless. 2/3 days in, all the food is gone, RWCE is nice, but not nearly as nice. Gotta consider the ROI (return on investment). At this point, perhaps instead of having fast WLs it is important to use that money on offense, or maybe on tanks if you need flexibility.
Lets say your KD is very tank heavy. Then RWCE is definitely more valuable than if your KD was goon / LD based.
Before I continue let me just state the obvious too. Forget FDC.
I always think money and military are the most important. Very rarely you can allow military to drop slightly. Say you turtled up, and need your scis somewhere else. If you have high probes, put probe shields on, it is very unlikely anyone will check your research, unless they can just about break you. And with high probes, unless it is an alliance / UA getting your intel, they typically won't have enough PAs to get the SoR, because first u check SoM then SoK or SoS.
The reason why I'd never drop money like cumgit, is that u always need money. Explore / construction / soldiers.
Also, have you ever noticed how 9 soldiers cost 1350, while a tanks costs 1750(+150) with no TCs ? If you're gaining land very fast, although I could argue not to build that land immediately as you might need the resources elsewhere to ensure that you keep the land... you can also just train a lot of soldiers rather than turning them into elite units. It's not very land efficient, but if youre getting more land than what your KD can handle, it might not be a bad choice.
Whatever your KD type, if you've stacked up a lot of soldiers that is scary. Very scary.
Again, depends on your style.
I prefer to come out of newb with maxed researches, and keep them maxed as long as I can, ignoring static researches other than Fusion and EC. That's because the bigger you are, the more sci you can make, the faster you can get those static researches done. Also, if people are trying to keep up with your military, they dont have money for sci. And the advantage of having goons over troopers is felt more towards the 2/3 week mark than the very early game.