Well, someone who doesn't invest in an economy to actually support the high end stuff isn't going to get much mileage by researching planet busting. It's not *that* big of a deal. Each ship seems like it's twice as powerful as the previous one until the super capital ships, but the cost of building one increases at a much faster pace than that. The attack power of one dreadnought is twice that of a battleship, but the cost is like 8 times as much.