Tips/Tricks/Etc

[torrenal]

Some things I've learned over time...

• Pirates have Stuff. Free Stuff if you kill their bases, For Pay Stuff if you chat them up in the diplomacy screen.
• Designing your own ships? Be sure to have enough reserve power to cover both your weapons and your engines. It might be nice to have a ship that can shoot or run, but if it can't do both at once all you get to call it is 'Mobile Base' and 'Moving Target'. Like Walking and Chewing Gum, you want ships that can do both at once.
• Got a base to investigate that's surrounded by Kraltors? Send in one (cheap!) ship to investigate it. After you've investigated that base, you don't need it, so there's no harm in letting the Kraltors decommission it for you.
• Want to put up lots of Long Range sensors, but don't want to build space-ports in every system? Make a Mote satellite. A monitoring station with one-each of every required component and some solar panels to power it (~ 15 components in all). Put them in your systems so they all get coverage. Cheap, deployable in droves, and should the enemy accidentally take the time to shoot one down, easily replaced.
  
  Advantages of a sensor net include: Spotting pirate bases in neighboring systems. Spotting incoming attacks. Spotting loitering pirates. Spotting Abandoned bases/ships. Sometimes they do exceptionally well in drawing enemy fire (in good ways, trust me on this one)!
• Hey, did you just get a ship you didn't build? Decommission it (unless it's something so big you can't make one yourself yet, or an ever-precious "Discovered Colony Ship"). You can get free tech research from it.
• Woah, did some pirates just join you? Decommission their ships. For some reason these seem to draw a lot of unwanted fire (other empire's ships still on orders to kill them?), and free tech is still free tech.
• Woah, is that an enemy planet with a space port making ships? Send in some troop transports and capture the planet. The base (and any ships it is making) become yours. Then decommission the poached ships for tech.
• Woah, they love us, but our own advisers are suggesting war. Why is that? Offer a trade with that nation. Do you see any disputed bases? Best you work at fixing that. If you have none to trade for their disputed bases, send construction ships out to their territory to make a few so that you can horse-trade your way out of a war. With bases in your territory (a political problem) they send ships to patrol or refuel at the bases (a political no-no). By keeping your stuff in your systems and their stuff in their systems, you can make everyone happy.
• Ah, finally drew that war to a peaceful close. What to do next... Check your spies. Are there any missions you should stop? Check your political trade options with them. Are there any bases/planets in dispute? Might be worth resolving.

//Torrenal

[adecoy95]

want to start a war that your not shure you will win? build troop transports, at least 150% of the number of troops your soon-to-be enemy has on his homeworld. drop them off there and get your transports out FAST... once the planet is captured you will be awarded all the bases surrounding it... he will send a massive number of ships there to attack the bases, costing him a massive amount of ships... now you have taken his homeworld and destroyed most of his fleet.




trying to build a fast ship? make shure you build extra reactors, building the bare minimum that is required of them according to the design screen will provide reduced engine performance, also, there is a limit to the number of engines you can build before they start to actually slow you down, i found this number to be about 21 engines, but that is not always the case with different designs

EDIT: my bad you already covered my second one, but ill leave it up anyways

[Merker]

- Wanted to build a resort base but the scenic place is nearer to another empire? Build it there anyway, since tourists come from all empires(most of my tourists are from the other empires, take their money, yeah[:D]). Might want to add some research labs to it if it's near a neutron star of black hole.

- Don't like the mining bases getting whacked without firing back? Modify the stock design(the one the ai makes) to accommodate some torpedoes and better shields; don't change the name of the design and the AI will build it. It might cost a bit more, but it's worth it on the long  run, especially when the fleet is away in a war.

- Your reputation turned evil over night? You might want to set the 'attack' option to suggest, since sometimes your advisers like to surprise attack an enemy a lot. Might also want to check those spies, the AI has the tendency to send them on suicidal missions and they get caught, ruining your reputation.

- Like your ships big and with lots of guns? Careful about the number of lasers, those seem to drain a lot of energy, very fast. Go with more torpedoes at least until you get better lasers.

- Upgraded versions of weapons might be more powerful, but some take more space as well(check titan laser) and you might fight your designs too big after pressing the upgrade button; just decrease the number of weapons.

- Exploration is the key to a good start. Always have at least 5 exploration ships active, you might want to control some yourself.

- A spaceport with a gas miner component on top of a gas giant in an enemy system is the perfect staging area for a war.

- Want lots of money without war? Then make as many trade agreements as you can and build small space ports at your border worlds; that way cargo travels a LOT faster between empires.

- Colonies not growing, resources not moving? Try building more spaceports around the place, even small ones make stuff move around.

- Want a neat tech the enemy won't sell easily? Build a station in their systems and then trade that base for the tech. You'd be surprised how much they want a station sometimes.

- You're playing the humans and can't find enough colony worlds while the others have tons? Don't despair, just develop your colonies and infrastructure. Sometimes 20 well developed colonies can be worth more than 100 new colonies, plus they are harder to conquer.

- ALWAYS make sure the nearest spaceport is a big one when you give the fleet the order to retrofit. Otherwise you might find yourself waiting YEARS until that's done at the small spaceport those dodos decided to retrofit to the much bigger battleship designs.(personal experience here [8|])

[torrenal]

A couple more, all about Pirates:

• Pirate bases almost always appear in systems that have no owned planets or bases (eg: mining station).  They will also appear either on an asteroid or at planet/moon (eg: if it's just a star, there won't be pirates). 
• Collaray to the previous infoid, if every system near your empire has colonized planet or base, then you will generally not see pirates bases near your systems (Exception: If every system has something, pirate bases will still appear, the 'I have a Base' clause no longer gives protection).
• A new base will usually appear after you kill an old base.  The exception going to if a pirate base joins your empire.
• Pirates have to deal with many of the same things you do.  Namely, Enemy ships/fleets.  Mother Nature (I've watched the stormy areas kill a base for me), the Wildlife (Kraltor eating Pirate Ships -- Fun fun fun!), fuel (no fuel, no guns), and oddly enough: Pirates.  Different factions of pirates are just that: Different factions, and they can/do attack each other, same as different empires can war.
• Collarary to the last infoid: If it's a base in a stormy area, you might just do everyone without an eye patch a favor if you just leave it alone.  Who are we to correct pirates if they set up shop in the middle of a hurricane?
• Pirates like to loiter at neutral, inhabited planets.  They arn't basing there, they are just 'Doing what Pirates Do Best.' (that is, being annoying, and mooching off any passing colony ships).
• I might suggest tooling Escorts and Frigates for dealing with single (not multiple) Pirates, Destroyers for pirate bases, and let the larger warships deal with warring.

//Torrenal

[adecoy95]

not able to colonize ice, ocean, volcanic, and swamp worlds? fear not! with a little bit of war mongering you will be on your way to taking all of these worlds, and more!

find a neighbor or a neutral world with a race that can colonize a world type you cannot. conquer them. your done! assuming the world had at least 100 million citizens, you can now build colony ships to embark to worlds you could not have colonized before.

[Gertjan]

Thanks for the tips. I hope more will follow. What is the advantage of keeping a "ever-precious "Discovered Colony Ship"? Thanks for answering. 

[adecoy95]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

Thanks for the tips. I hope more will follow. What is the advantage of keeping a "ever-precious "Discovered Colony Ship"? Thanks for answering. 

it allows you to "grow' a race that you otherwise may not get access to, meaning race empire bonuses/planetary types

[Gertjan]

Dammit, in my current game I just had one decomissioned.

[dpazuk]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

Dammit, in my current game I just had one decomissioned.

Welcome to the club [:D]

[torrenal]

Second item of note about these ever-precious discovered-colony ships (being that they are of a different race and unknown, possibly unavailable design), they may be able to colonize a planet type you can't normally colonize -- Which is how I was able to colonize the volcanic Zenetabia Fluid bearing planet very early into my current game (I'd only contacted 3 other empires at the time [8D] )


A few more:

• A fast & simple response to a pirate attack is to press Z, right click the pirate ship, press A. Repeat as many times as needed to overwhelm the attacker. Pressing the A turns automation back on for that ship, allowing it to resume automated operations after it flees from or destroys the pirate. You may find it helps to move the mouse a hair each time after you press Z.
• You can re-order the build-queue for a planet or station. Just select the planet/station, and double-click the info-panel in the lower left corner of the screen (This opens the detailed-info screen for that item. In the lower-left quadrant of the new window, select the Construction Yards tab, and you will find the queue there, with options to reorder or remove ships from the queue. Handy, if you need a particular ship in a hurry but there are a dozen merchantmen queued in front of it.
• Components for Ships/bases are usually constructed in the order that they appear in the design (exception: If shortages cause the build process to temporarily skip some things) If you put first the: Command Center, Habitation, Life Support, Reactor, and Solar panels (might need an extra item or two, those I'm positive on), you can follow them with shields and get something half-built to charge its shields, or (with a weapon in the right spot) shoot back at foes. Note that reactors are not powered up until the construction is complete, but the solar panels will still work to charge the Reactor's Energy Storage (don't expect to be rapid-firing your Death-Ray or other weapons until the reactors are turned on). This is great for designing space-ports that become quasi-operational before they are half built, or a defensive base bring up shields before the first of the weapons go into them...
• Damage will generally hit armor first. If class of ship has a habit of running into things that ignore shields, try tacking on 5 armor to the design. The ship will still get damaged, but odds now favor it getting away before something critical is damaged.
• Putting two damage repair systems on a ship doesn't make it repair faster, but if one repair system finds itself the victim of a stray bullet, the other repair system can fix it...assuming the ship isn't blown to pieces in the interim...
• A number of the 'Final Design' items in the tech tree are great in one respect (Best possible shield recharge, best possible fuel efficiency, best possible thrust, etc) but at the same time have caveats tied to them that may be cause to forgo the 'Upgrade Selected' option in upgrading ships... (Weak shield strength, low power output/storage, very energy hungry, etc). Just because it's the latest/greatest the game has to offer, doesn't make it the best possible choice for your ships.
• Sometimes you will discover bases in stormy areas. After you claim them, scrap them, or you will wind up losing merchant ships that foolishly try to visit it.
• 24 makes a good minimum mark for ship speed. That usualy gives you a cruise speed of 12. When out of fuel, you move at 1/3rd speed, and for some actions (such as docking at a port to fuel up) a ship will move at cruise speed (12 / 3 = 4). Ships any slower than 4 may have a very hard time catching up to bases on moons that are orbiting planets. Similar rules apply in a hyper-deny zone, ships will try to move out at cruise speed (which appears to suffer an added penalty), so you may find yourself watching an out-of-fuel construction ship limp out at a speed of 1.
• A very fast ship can actually move faster than torpedoes. All well and good, but if said ship is armed with torpedoes, and chasing someone (I suspect friendly fire does not apply even when torpedo fire collides with the firing ship...) said weapons have little purpose. A very slow ship can still mount torpedoes and fight fast ships -- 1) Some torpedoes are in range as early as the moment the ship first drops out of hyper, letting it fire immediately. 2) Until a ship decides to flee (generally when shields get knocked down to 20%), it will keep pace with slower ships in a fight (why else would stationary space-ports get kills?).
• Some torpedoes are not fire&forget weapons -- the next volley will not fire until the last has landed. This can be a serious 'Rate of Fire' concern for slow-moving, long range fire. Another problem with range is torpedoes loose effectiveness with range. To circumvent both problems to an extent, tack on a short range weapon, and include an 'All Weapons' order in the Design screen. The ship will then try to hold a range where all weapons can be used.
• If you give a design orders of 'Invade Immediately', ships of that design will not wait for the formalities of clearing space of defensive bases, ports, enemy-ships, etc. Instead, it will charge straight in to try and deploy its load of troops on the planet... If you succeed in grabbing the planet while it still has any orbiting structures, you get control of those too.
• If the enemy is about to claim a planet of yours with a port at it, you might consider scrapping the port to make retaking the planet easier, or to deny the enemy a base.
• Giving a base a mix of torpedoes and lasers will allow both weapons to fire on only those targets within their effective ranges. For torpedoes, that would be any ship trying to bombard the base. For lasers, that would generally be only those ships trying to drop troops on the planet, or foolish/unlucky enough to be close enough to make themselves an inviting target of concentrated fire. While picking off foolish ships isn't special, being able to design a base to focus fire on troop transports can have uses...
• If you take out the last planet of an empire, you gain control of all bases/ships that had belonged to that empire (retire-for-tech or keep and use.... decisions, decisions...)

//Torrenal

[tornnight]

Retiring for tech is extremely beneficial when you conquer a race that had a special race tech.

[Geroj]

Trick/Exploit - have you build a colony ship that is still at port because you don’t have suitable planet to colonize... pick ship and at galaxy/sector view try to colonize through right click on stars. If there is planet suitable to colonize you will see new option "Colonize" even when the star system is unexplored

Port not attached to planet/moon... scrap it as soon as possible... build another one

Always go for map locations that are near systems (not in systems) that you acquired through ruins, abandoned ships or bases because they almost always have at least one capital ship... even if you find only monitoring base, that base is there for a reason (nearby systems have planets almost always with zentabia fluid, korabian spice or loros fruit)

[torrenal]

Features of durable ships (capital ships, resupply bases, etc)...not to be confused with disposable ships, of which the Escort and Freighter would be good examples.

• Speed -- To an extent this can be useful. If you can outrun your enemy, you can get away from his fire when it becomes a real threat to you. For the larger ships this may be difficult to use in plenty, but then those largest of ships should only have real fear of ports, and must be prepared to outrun stationary objects.
• Turn Rate -- The faster you can get your back-end pointed at your enemy, the faster you can get your speed working for you. Pack too little, and you may never outrun that port (sad, but true -- in the process of turning, a ship will move forward -- when fighting a port, that means moving towards the port. If the ship comes into range of the beam weapons, it will get singled out for heavy fire, and with already weak shields (which is why the ship is fleeing the fight), the outcome is seldom pleasant).
• Countermeasures -- These confuse attacking ships targeting systems, causing fire to miss. A must for any ship going into harms way.
• Strong shields -- Best at keeping damage from ever reaching a ship. There are two features of a shield:
  • Strength - How 'thick' it is -- how much damage it can absorb before failing.
    The thicker your shield, the longer you have to retreat after your shields fall to 20%
  • Recharge - How quickly it recovers from receiving damage.
    If your shield recharges faster than your opponent can damage it, you shields won't fail. This is a feature common to ships using multiple Megatron Z4 shields (Recharge 5x faster than the base Corvidian XH100). As with shield strength, this is additive when multiple shields are placed on a ship.
• Thick Armor -- Shields or no, some stuff will go direct to your ship so you need at least some armor. For ship designs using the 'Flee when shields at 20%', you need enough armor for your ship to get away intact. Damage that gets through shields will splash here first, and a port visit may be needed to fix damage done to armor.
• Redundant systems -- War ships have a funny habit of getting shot at, and that tends to break things in them. Be sure to include multiples of core components -- Hab Modules, Life Supports, Fuel cells, Engines, Reactors, even Hyperdrives. It would suck to lose a valuable ship just because it lacked for a spare.
• Damage Control/Repair systems -- A must for any ship that can be hurt. The repair system plugs the holes that enemy fire puts into your ships. In the event you can't include a repair system in your design, at least include a damage control system.
• Surplus power -- Power runs your guns. It also runs your engines. It sucks when a ship that is going to get away loses a reactor, and winds up without guns and moving at half-speed, on account of insufficient power to do anything more. Don't just pack multiple reactors, be sure one of them is a spare.

Features of disposable ships (escorts, explorers, etc)...not to be confused with either durable or throw-away ships:

• Speed -- While disposable, these arn't throw-away. They should be able to outrun a Kraltor while initiating hyper (speed 40 should do).
• Turn Rate -- A must whenever speed is marginal -- a ship making a turn away from a threat will do so at half speed, so the faster you finish the turn the better.
• Armor -- Again, not a throw-away ship. Pack 5 armor for the odd encounter with an exploding ship or hungry Kraltor. (I find exploding ships generally damage 4 armor, and kraltor either stop at 3-4 armor, or the ship never gets away for other reasons (too slow, or a pack meal).
• Hyper Initiation -- Keeping with being a non-throw away ship, favor hyperdrives with shorter initiation times. A 15 second-to-hyper drive may leave you exposed to fire too long. The 4 and 5 second initiations tend towards ideal.
• Weapons - Keeping with Disposable, only the absolute minimum needed to do the job assigned. In the case of an explorer, no weapons -- he should never be in a fight long enough for a weapon to kill something, and weighing him down with them won't be any favor. In the case of an escort, pack as few as possible to meet your goals.
• Fuel Cells - Hand in hand with speed -- fewer = faster, but pack enough that your ship can still do its job.
• Minimum habitation units -- As your tech improves, you may be able to eliminate some hab or life support components. Do so, to cut build/upkeep costs on the design. Expect to be making plenty of these ships, so every penny counts.

Also: Don't be afraid to evolve your ship designs as the game matures. You may retool your explorers after the galaxy is fully explored, to make them ideal for the scouting role they play in wars. You may retool your escorts some as pirate ships evolve towards the more powerful destroyers and odd cruiser.

//Torrenal

[the1sean]

Very cool thread, thanks for the enlightening info. Some notes of my own:

Delete all research station types but one, and rip the research components off of your normal space stations. Then design one massive, well armed station that reasearches all techs, and build it near a black hole. Shouldnt have any research issues!

Does your enemy have control of an uber-ship or four that they found? Maybe a race-tech? Blitz *all* his systems with heavily shielded transports at once, or in like 2 phases (set ships to "invade immediately"). Use full transports for well defended worlds, and solo destroyers with one troop for new outlying colonies. Do it so fast that you dont have to trash his precious ships and bases. Once you take all the worlds, you inherit EVERYTHING. Free merchantmen, free colony ships, explorers, military, anything under construction, etc. Retire it all, and reap the benefits that his special components provide (tech boost from retiring now give boosts directly related to the most advanced modules on a craft). I also "stole" a world destroyer this way [:D]

Put resource extractors, guns, and plenty of solar panels on a "monitor station" to safeguard an important resource that you cant colonize yet.

Stealth systems on colony ships work wonders.

Long Range Scanners on Resupply Ships give you fuel and intel! My resupply ships are floating fortresses that see all, fuel all, and vaporize all enemies.

Strip down your Small Space Ports a bit, no labs (see #1), and no LR scanners or super crazy weapons systems (if firepower becomes an issue, thats what Defensive Bases are for!). Next, build one at every planet as soon as you colonize it, and recruit a small troop garrison (I go for 3 troops minimum for new colonies, but I am paranoid). With a stable starport network like this, your trade should flourish, and refueling and pirate raids are less of an issue!

Put one armor on all ships, it reduces all damage that gets through shields, and absorbs that minor damage your ships get while warping out from a single pirate or getting bit by a Kaltor!

Put a proximity sensor on all private craft, you will be surprised what they will see! Also, they will call for help from an escort or frigate sooner because they are aware of the pirate/monster earlier.

Put a resource sensor on colony ships, and private craft, they will often find really cool hidden items as they fly by or approach, and the Private Sector foots the bill!

Buff up your Exploration ships, minimum 35+ speed and 16%+ turning. The faster they move, the faster they can get the job done, and they will hardly ever get caught by space monsters and pirates! And has been noted, a large exploration armada works wonders.

Galactic maps are worth their weight in gold, dont sell yours, and always at least trade for enemy territory maps. By mid-game if you are ahead (well-defended borders) you can trade that map for some amazing stuff, but be careful who you trade it to! Enemy empires definitely use your maps against you (yeah, that IS how he knew where all your colonies were when you got blitzed, AND how that other guy got to all those cool colony worlds before you).

Met a new empire that doesnt want to play ball and open up their trading market? Give them a gift, then setup the trade agreement. But wait, I just gave away cash! Nope, sell them your Passenger Compartment tech (or something else innocuous), and get your cash back, on better terms than you could have gotten without the good relations!

BUILD SPACE RESORTS! they rake in money from other empires too! then trade passenger compartment techs to opponents, think of it as an investment. that way they can cram more passengers into shuttles bound for your resorts!

[Grotius]

Great thread. Sean, you suggested putting armor and proximity sensors on private craft. I'm new to this game, so I want to make sure I understand how to do that. Presumably I make a new, say, freighter design in the ship designer, and obsolete the old one? Or is it possible to make and maintain multiple classes of (say) freighters? Maybe I don't need to?

I ask because I want to be able to make and maintain several classes of military ships. My understanding is that that is feasible, so long as I don't allow the AI to automatically upgrade ships.

[the1sean]

ORIGINAL: Grotius
Great thread. Sean, you suggested putting armor and proximity sensors on private craft. I'm new to this game, so I want to make sure I understand how to do that. Presumably I make a new, say, freighter design in the ship designer, and obsolete the old one? Or is it possible to make and maintain multiple classes of (say) freighters? Maybe I don't need to?

I ask because I want to be able to make and maintain several classes of military ships. My understanding is that that is feasible, so long as I don't allow the AI to automatically upgrade ships.

Grotius, you are moving in the right direction. I'll tell you how I manage my ships, let me know if anything is unclear or you want to know "why?".

1: First off, I disable AI ship design. I think customizing your spacecraft is very rewarding and fun, but can be a little tedious if you dont know some of the options that are in the game. When it comes to AI ship design, unlike other AI settings, there is no "Suggest" setting; its all or nothing.

2: At the top left of the Design window, select "show non-obsolete designs". Otherwise some of your designs wont be listed if there is a newer design of the same class/subrole in existence.

3: Sort the list by clicking on the text at the top of the columns. I sort by "role", it helps keep things organized.

4: The buttons at the bottom of the window are your friend, and can save you tons of time [;)]

5: Create/personalize your designs
Personally, I usually only have one of each ship class designed. If no ships in a series (Mk4 or whatever) are in existence you can modify anything about that design that you want to. If there is already even just one of that ship under construction, however, all that you can do with that ship is modify it's priorities at the top left of the "edit design" menu. That being said, if you hit "copy as new" you can tweak away, just rename the new design.

I think that in general it is good to stick with only one "non-obsolete" version of the private sector subroles. That way you know what your private sector can purchase. This is one of the most important ways in which you can influence the private sector.

When it comes to military ships and most starbases, design away! Need a ship to bombard planets into the stone age? Just modify an existing ship design and give it a new name.

The easiest way to keep everything straight and save click-time, is to use the "upgrade button". Pressing it will automatically obsolete the selected ship type and create a newer version with the newest modules available. This way your design screen stays clean and tidy. I usually just upgrade a design, and the edit it to customize it to my liking.

One word of caution, the AI puts in the newest shiniest hardware when you "upgrade". Sometimes you can get better performance from older style parts, but maybe they arent as efficient as the new one and get less Caslon mileage. If performance is key, you will need to keep an eye on these components. The most notorious ones are thrusters, reactors, and hyperdrives. Also, the "upgrade" function may not optimize your modules. When technology advances, you could end up having too many lifesupport modules, or not enough reactors to power your engines, shields, and all those shiny new ray-guns.

Keep these tips in mind, and the other great ones already posted in this thread and other design threads, and go test out your newest creation. Let us know if you find something cool [:D]

[Grotius]

Thanks, Sean! Those sound like very helpful suggestions. I look forward to diving in after work.

[the1sean]

No prob Grotius, glad I could help a brother out

[Foraven]

I would add to the tips that the upgrade function don't automatically add new devices like ECM to your designs, you have to put them manually (but they will be upgraded if they are there of course).

[the1sean]

ORIGINAL: Foraven

I would add to the tips that the upgrade function don't automatically add new devices like ECM to your designs, you have to put them manually (but they will be upgraded if they are there of course).

Also a very good note! It pays to go through and reevaluate your designs every once and a while for this reason. Often I dont constantly upgrade designs. I wait until I felt like my advances have hit a "critical mass" in importance and number, and then I redesign all of my warships at once for example.