Also I feel like 15k is pretty damn tight still. Am I only one who's buying 1 additional of each prod facil? I suppose that would free up a little more fleet cash but hell, I only bought 1 Garrison Base and loaded it and the free one. And am left with less than 9k for a fleet. Which with ISDs, is 3 of them with no load out, or 2 ISDs and 1 VSDII with a good load out, or 1 ISD and 2 VSDIIs with great load outs. Pretty tight. Not opposed entirely, just discussing..
I can free up a few hundred if tone down GAV/Troop alottment on them but they are already at 6TFs for SF squads. Still rough (woof). What are others shaping up feeling?
Right, well, I am open to what players want to do.
My instinct is try to keep it all tight, and income tight, so that it regulates itself and units 'matter'. The same ISD rolls into battles and its got a history, a story that you can carry. In other games, with big fleets or big universes and incomes, an ISD could get smoked in each battle and you just popped out a fresh new one, the units had no character or story!
So that is my motivation. That being said, I'd be willing to increase income and purse further. From what I worked out for myself on 12k (not adding much additional defenses at start) I put together a pretty solid fleet. Assuming most worlds have a garrison or two at most, you don't need to rollin with a fleet of ISDs and VSDs. I can send in a pair of RAFs and some CORVs loaded with troopers and get the job done. The rest of the fleet on standby to defend my territory or reinforce the attack should the Imps send a massive defense force. Even if the imps send ALL of their fleet in, we're still talking about 5-6 units, <12 SF squads, and only one or two really big ships... so while the ISD can smoke some units in a turn with support, the other ships aren't gonna be full scale slaughtered in one post and have time to maneuver, withdraw, etc...