| Ability User: | Progenitor Mothership |
|---|---|
| Ability Type: | Active |
| Target: | Targets unowned planets. Must be colonizable. |
| Antimatter Cost: | 90 |
| Cooldown Time: | 120 -> 90 -> 60 |
| Duration: | 360 -> 480 -> 600 |
| Range: | 5000 |
| Effect(s): |
|
Sends supplies and personnel down to the surface of the planet to create a new outpost. For a brief time, upgrades at this planet can be purchased more cheaply. Extracted from the game.
This ability temporarily reduces the cost of planetary improvements on the colonized planet. Most of the time, it's not worth buying extra upgrades to take advantage of this bonus, since they are still quite expensive and money is tight in the early-game. If you can research the Divination Technology then the exploration planetary improvement can be purchased for almost nothing when you stack this bonus.
The Progenitor regenerates antimatter at a much faster rate than the Missionary Vessel, allowing you to colonize planets in rapid succession by using this ability. The Progenitor is also much tougher than a colony frigate, and unlikely to be killed by militia even if you are passing through extremely heavily defended gravity wells. This allows the Progenitor to quickly access distant planets that would otherwise be out of reach of regular colony frigates in the early-game, and makes it the default capital ship choice on larger maps.
Development[]
In Patch 1.18, this ability was reduced from a 20% -> 40% -> 60% bonus down to its current values. At the time, the Progenitor was regarded as the most powerful capital ship in the game by a considerable margin, and this change was welcomed to bring it into line. Along with a buff to the Akkan Battlecruiser Colonize in the same version, this meant the Progenitor no longer provided the best economic boost.