Graviton Technology



Graviton Technology is the pinnacle of technological research in OGame. With a staggering cost of 300,000 Energy, only strong (or very cunning) players belonging to successful alliances can afford to research it. Due to its unusual cost (0 metal, 0 crystal, and 0 deuterium; 300,000 energy), its research time is 1 second. It is a required technology for the construction of Death Stars.

Graviton Research
Requirements:
 * Research Lab Level 12

Is Required For:
 * Death Star

Strategy and description
A graviton is an elementary particle that is massless and has no charge. It determines the gravitational power. By firing a concentrated load of gravitons, an artificial gravitational field can be constructed. Not unlike a black hole, it draws mass into itself. Thus it can destroy ships and even entire moons. To produce a sufficient amount of gravitons, huge amounts of energy are required. The only realistic way to get the extra energy needed is from Solar Satellites.

As the amount of satellites makes you an extremely desirable target (due to the potential debris field), ideally you want to research it at a (remote) location where you are unlikely to be attacked. Be wary of other players watching your fleet number increase to catch your satellite production and send out their fleet to attack.

Thus, ideally the production and research should take no more than a day. This can be achieved with a Nanite Factory of level four or higher. In addition, many players improve Shipyard to a high level, essentially cutting the time of Satellite building by each additional level. On a planet in slot 1, it is possible to produce the satellites in just 90 minutes, but that requires a Nanite Factory at level 7 (cumulative cost: 127 million metal, 63.5 million crystal, 12.7 million deuterium, 8 days)

To calculate how many satellites you need, turn off all of your mines, subtract your total energy from the basic cost, and divide this by the production per sat for the planet you are carrying out the research on. Planets closer to the sun will require fewer satellites, as they receive more sunlight. Make sure you have enough resources available to build all the sats at once. You will also need a Shipyard lvl 12 and a Research Lab lvl 12 on the planet. Nanite Factory at least lvl 3 is also recommended.

Once you have carried out the research, you will want to recycle the satellites. Get an alliance member or friend to attack in such a way that you can get one or more 20% moonchances out of it, unless you already have a moon or want to give up the colony. Make sure the fleet is big enough to wipe out your solar satellites, but not big enough to break through your defenses and take your resources. The best way to do this is to attack in several waves, each small enough to be defeated or taken to a draw by your defenses. Usually, the harvested crystal is offered as payment (especially if the defense inflicted losses to the attacker).

Another valid strategy, if one has enough real money to spend, is to use the relatively new resettlement option. You can resettle a planet with proper defences and buildings already in place to a number 1 position. Since resettlement only affects sunlight, it will get you a much easier way of obtaining graviton. After graviton has been researched, you can use the energy for terraformers to expand a planet. If you don't have a moon yet, this would be the next step. One should keep in mind that resettlement is ONLY possible in the ranges of 1–3, 4-12 and 13–15. So the biggest possible planet to resettle to a number 1 position for Graviton Research is a number 3 planet, therefore you wouldn't be able to use your main planet. Two resettlements would cost 480,000 Dark Matter, so unless you purchase the dark matter using RL money, it would take too long to gather that much dark matter naturally.

Another method using real money would be to save up enough resources to be able to build the satellites, then use the half time and complete options to build the satellites instantly, these can then be either destroyed for a moon or sold to the Scrap Merchant for a percentage of the resources. In this method it is possible to have completed the research and scrapped the satellites before anyone has a chance to notice and attack.

Calculator
A calculator to calculate the amount of Solar Satellites you'll need can be found here

Trivia

 * Totally useless, but interesting calculations show, that a level 58(59) Solar Plant will provide the needed 300 000 energy. It will, however, require around 1012 metal and 5*1011 crystal, and will take approximately 300 000 000 hours to complete (at level 0 Robotics Factory). This makes it 34224 years. You could always have 342 generations of people use the account :), just make sure you message the admins first! :P.
 * Level 2 Graviton Tech uses 900 000 energy, but is completely useless, unless you want the bragging right (in some circles, the higher grav tech you have, the better OGame player you are).
 * Level 3 Graviton Tech uses 2.7 Million energy.