Terror stars: what is the quickest tech path?

JavaScout's website has a list of all techs, modules, ships, etc., everything in the game. Here's a list of (I think) all the required techs:

- Communication Theory - Defense Theory - Industrial Theory - Propulsion Theory - Weapons Theory - Battle Armor - Cold Fusion - Nano Electronics - Phasers - Impulse Drive - Nano-Metal Composition - Advanced Engineering - Instant Communication - High Density Metals - 1D Phasing - Tri-strontium Alloy - Large Scale Building - Artificial Satellites - Artificial Planets

I hope this is correct, and I hope this helps.

Terror stars aren't capitol ships. That starts with Battleship. They're rather useless for fighting a war, since they can't attack anything other than starsystems. And unless I'm overlooking something, the best ship you're going to have to fight with until you get that far, assuming you research nothing but the techs listed by Bariman, is the star fighter.

Battleships take a few fewer techs but it's a radically different tree: Defense Theory - Propulsion Theory - Weapons Theory - Battle Armor - Cold Fusion - Artificial Gravity - Deflectors - Phasers - Impulse Drive - Space Militarization - Shields - Anti-matter - Energy Channeling - Warp Drive - InterStellar Tactics - Battleship tech.

Is there a bug in the Terror Star tech tree? I notice that you don't have to research Planetary Destruction, and the description for that says, "Terror Stars, baby! We're getting closer." It's always odd to read that when I already have Terror Stars.

~SDC~

indeed you do not need to research planetary destruction for terror stars, this has puzzled me as well

Maybe you don't need to know about planetary destruction because the scientists who invented the Terror Stars wisely made them destroy stars, not planets, so as not to infringe upon the Star Wars copyright.


~SDC~

what takes out terror stars

It depends on the terror star upgrades. It's just like taking out a starbase. If it has no defense upgrades, almost anything can destroy a terror star.

Thanks for the info guys

One last thing, explore the possibilities for trading techs with the AI. Trades often allow you to leapfrog over parts of the tech tree (I can't remember the last time I actually researched Large Scale Building myself.

The path given before is the shortest path, but not necessarily the quickest.

The quickest way would probably involve getting Research Labs en-route and possibly terracomputers as these speed up your research significantly. You would also probably want to research Diplomacy to change your government as that also affects the amount of reseach you can do.
Before anyone says: "OK smart-arse, what's the quickest route then", I don't know, it depends on too many factors (classic cop-out).

It's been my experience that trying to take the shortest route to anythng, without taking the time to build up your society in other areas (economy, morale, population) results in you falling behind anyway.

~SDC~