No I mean I tend to scuttle the capital ship factory because it's taking up much needed logistic slots while not being used in the early part of an empire build.  One of the first things I do is upgrade logistic capacity but it's always seems to be in short supply.

I suppose I should just role-play and keep the CS factory.

It's a subject of heavy debate as to whether you should demolish your capital shipyard or not.  Some people say just to demolish it, and rebuild one later if you need another capital ship.  Others say to only demolish it if you need the logistics.  You really cannot afford to shell out money for a logistics planet upgrade that early in the game.  To answer your question, you're not alone in scrapping the capital shipyard.

I'm personally a cap-ship lover, and bringing out my second (and often third) capital ship is a high priority for me near the start of the game.  For that reason, I personally shy away from demolishing the shipyard.

Uh, that's not the time span we're talking about.  We're talking about demolishing it immediately after building your first cap, when you couldn't possibly have more than your homeworld and your asteroid.  At this time, your income is complete crap and you have very limited logistics space.  If you don't need the money or logistics space at this time, there's no reason to demolish it.

The AI is not a consideration; you can easily squash it with a much smaller fleet.  Against a player, every penny counts.

If you pursue the path of scuttling the capital shipyard, you either rebuild it later or else stick with one cap.  The whole point of demolishing it is that you won't need it for some time, and the logistics space (and salvage cash) can be put to good use in the meantime.

You're missing the point, by the time you have four or five planet's there's no longer any point in demolishing the capital ship factory because you have plenty of logistics and decent income.  The point in time at which you demolish it is very early in the game when your income is largely negligible and you have two or three available logistics slots.  This situation cannot be compared with a mid-game scenario where you have half a dozen planets and plenty of logistics slots.

Oh gotcha

never meant to imply it was a must. was trying to say its never even been an option let alone a must.

Yeah if anything I would ditch the frigate factory before the capital factory because the only thing I use the frigate factory for is scouts and colony ships. Other then that my fleet through the first half of any game consists of just capital ships because you don't tend to lose them like you do light frigates so even if light frigates are cheap you are losing money if they get destroyed. Which they often do.

You should be focusing on getting a fleet if it is a small map or your eco on a large map. Getting a second cap quickly is not necessary, but can be effective. It is better to get all the cap ships that you plan on getting before late game when the enemy gets a fleet large enough to destroy any cap ship in seconds. Overseers for Vasari help prevent this though.

This is not a good decision. Frigates are crucial and losing some is affordable. Early game, lrfs should be built, lfs die too quickly. A few lrfs can destroy a cap ship through ffing without too much trouble. Cap ships are for support and siege, they shouldn't be the bulk of your force.

I don't bother with scrapping it. in most games you can expand fast enough that its more of a waste of time and effort. Of course, I am not a very heavy CS player... well I wasn't until the new patch. All I would have would be a huge fleet surrounding one or two caps. I mean after all, before this upgrade, vasari's really useful abilities in face to face combat was... the egg. and.... scene. it kept proving that more cruisers were doing more than more caps.

as for needing a logistics slot that early. no, just expand, its better to have another planet than trying to upgrade and then fill you homeworld's slots. save that for later.

It's gotta cost more than that since it's your home terran's Level 2 upgrade and you won't get any sort of an Advent colonization discount on it.  (I'm certain of it, otherwise I would just immediately upgrade my home terran's logicstics all the time.)

As a general rule, your first cap should be the colonizer cap.  However, because the Akkan sucks or at least used to suck, you would often see TEC players pumping out a Marza first (along with a colonizer frigate) in the hopes of getting it up to Level 6 as quickly as possible for its killer Missile Barrage ability.

Sometimes players will--accidentally--scuttle their capital ship.  I did that once and I also scuttled my home terran once.  In another game I played recently, an opponent accidentally scuttled his home terran.

I normally play Advent and I'd really prefer NOT to have to scrap my capital ship factory now that Carrier Caps have been upgraded.  Since the Advent have the best carrier capital ship in the game in the Halcyon and since it's now the equivalent of one carrier frigate (20 fleet supply) plus a planet bomber (12 fleet supply) and then some in addition to its other valuable abilities, I really do want to get one out there earlier in the game now.  (Yes, those two extra squadrons at the start really do make a big difference in its value IMHO.)  For that reason, I'd like to NOT have to scrap it.  One solution is to just bite my tongue and upgrade my home terran's logistics slot.  The other is to put up three labs on my asteroid (2 military at home, 1 military at the roid, 2 civic at the roid).

However, if I start out close to the enemy and if I know that he's a pro player, I'm going to scrap the capital ship factory and focus on pumping out my fighting frigates.

You're not under as much pressure to scrap your capital ship factory against the AI; it's a much more foregiving opponent than experienced human players.  (In fact, the challenge the AI presents doesn't compare to playing against a human opponent at all; you guys should log onto ICO and try it sometime.)

If you ever come online to play it against other people, don't do this.  One and maybe two capital ships early game are enough and if you only build capital ships you'll get steamrolled.  People use a tactic called "focus fire" where they'll order all of their frigates, perhaps 30 or 40 Illuminators, to fire on one of your capital ships all at once and then they'll go down one by one like dominoes while the Progenitor mothership restores their shields.  (Or a Vasari player will focus fire his Assailants on your caps one by one while having is Egg hit them with nanites.)

It can just happen sometime.  About 30 seconds later you'll get a message, "We've lost one our capital ships!" or "We've lost our colony" and you'll be, like, WTF?

It's freaky.  You end up having had your capital ship or home terran selected while you try to scuttle something else, but instead of having clicked that something else and then scuttle, you click scuttle and then have to reclick what you wanted to scuttle and click scuttle again, probably thinking nothing of it.  (Or you have your cap or terran selected and accidentally hit scuttle without realizing it.)

<Edit> One way to try to prevent this is to get rid of the scuttle command keybind from your list of keybinds.  It would be nice if they would include a Yes/No double check question box when you attempt to scuttle capital ships, starbases, and planets.