holy crap mid-to-endgame is a mess

[thiosk2]

I've gotten to the midgame, or perhaps approaching the endgame. The majority of the tech tree is not finished; i've been focusing on lasers and fighters. My desolation star is nearing completion.

My attention is grossly subdivided. I had to break out of my corner of the world and hopscotch some allies to invade another empire, more for range of colonization than anything else.

There. Is. crap. Everywhere.
How do you deal with empire management in the later stages of the game? I have to spend the majority of my time making sure suitable refueling stations are available wherever my fleets and ships are trying to go. Care to share any tips or tricks on streamlining management? I don't expect it to look clean but SHEESH things are crazy.

[adecoy95]

well, if they are too far away they are too far away, nothing you can do about that other than gimp yourself with grossly oversized fuel storage ships.

i honestly would not go fight anyone if you dont have at least a quarter of your fuel left when you get there, let them fight each other, heck if one of them wins against the other maby they will be dangerous or something [:'(]

if i had to give tips for streamlining, manally controll only two of your fleets, one for transports, and one for attacking. if you absolutely cannot stand the idea of not attacking someone that leaves you without fuel to get there, i would suggest just bringing a resupply ship, and leave it stationed at a gas giant, any microing of fuel stations is just going to leave you with a bunch of constructors too far away to get any freighters in a timely manner to bring construction supplies

also, i could be wrong, but i think resupply ships can gather fuel faster than mining stations

[scotten_usa]

Perhaps consider doublecrossing your allies and shortening your supply train?

I agree that the later game is tough to manage. I end up with too many fleets and too many ships building and then forming into new fleets. And once war starts: too many enemy fleets to watch.

[KAHUNA]

I never go into mutual defense pacts since that always leads you into an unexpected war so don't go deeper than Free Trade agreements until your peeps are ready for it.Eventually someone will want a piece of you though, so always update your warships to the latest in armor,shields,targeting,and ecm as well as weaponry because that might just give you the edge to win battles.If you are low on fuel reserves let the enemy come to you and arm your fuel bases and stick a few patrol ships in the area to help defend them.Branch out when you can afford it.Look for independent colonies near to you that you can "colonise" or take over.

[Bingeling]

That is usually where I stop, because the game is not fun anymore. My main party killer is usually stupid pirate bases built in no time, though. Those are just too annoying and immersion breaking.

As for general survival things I may try to do myself.

Clean borders. The AI seems to prefer to attack the closer targets, and limiting the number of "close" colonies should make them easier to predict. Try to keep them at one side only. Consider hard if you try to protect your own stuff "outside your borders". It could be a good idea to protect it, though.

Get rid of extra wars. Pay small to modest cash to get rid of the extras. Allies called are often not too sad to see the war go. If they require too much cash, see if you can bust some mines or spaceports. That will lower their internal "war score" or something and make peace cheaper.

If you want to jump past your allies and get a colony from your enemy beyond them. Find a suitable colony target. Non-brilliant colonies are probably a best start, as they are less defended. Scout them for troops and defenses. You want to hang on to this, so prefer a colony with at least one fuel source in its zone of influence. Local fuel supply is needed when far away from home, and some good mining systems apart from that won't hurt either if you want an operational space port there. To look for fuel sources, look at known resources on the galaxy map.

How to get that colony you decided on? Resupply ships. If you are going with lots of ships, you may need more than one. Always fill resupply ships before using them in war. Deploy "at home" on sources with good supply of your chosen fuel, and no/little of the other fuel. A resupply ship not currently moving to a new location should fill its bellies somewhere.

With your forces ready. Fleet(s) of fighting ships, a fleet of enough troop transports (and then some), resupply ships(s). Head for a fuel source somewhere near the target. In system could work but it is a bad idea if you arrive on very low fuel. Deploy resupply ships(s), refuel fleets (transports are least important). Bust space defenses, invade, keep a fleet at new colony to take care of visitors that will love it. Keep resupply ships on fuel sources in the area, and you got all but repair in your new area. Be prepared to always keep good fighting forces here in the case of new war (you don't want to lose this one, right?). Once you have the colony, remember to clean the mining systems that are now yours of enemy mining bases (you want those sources).

As long as they don't get damaged (or have repair bots), I think a strong fleet helped by a resupply ships could clean space structures from any enemy system. One by one.

[Sirian]

Resupply ships are defintly the way to go, thanks Bingeling for the hint to "preload" them. When using resupply ships think of taking them out of the fleet when you deploy it at a planet or the fleet will not be able to refuel at the ship. (because the resupply ship will also get a "refuel" order...)

[Bingeling]

It does not make sense to have resupply ships inside fleets. The exception is if you prefer to have them in a fleet of their own to improve their map visibility.

A screenshot from an AAR, I am purple.



The resupply ship is deployed in the south and is easily seen by its long range scanner where it lights up a gas field of enemy bases. A fleet is a bit further north fighting, and will refuel at that ship. One can assume that traveling a sector, fighting a major battle, and going back, renders a fleet low-ish on fuel. Fighting a proper battle is fuel intensive. There is a whole lot of enemy systems within a 1 sector range of that resupply ship. 1 proper battle fleet, and 1-2 smaller raiding fleets can mop a whole lot of spaceports and mining bases in core enemy worlds at a short time. When they run out of targets nearby, the resupply ship can redeploy somewhere better suited.

Consider that the fleet is currently 1 sector south of my fresh conquest (with modest fuel), and main fighting is going on in my other southern colonies leaving those prone to fuel shortages too. A fleet moving further south to the resupply ship has all the fuel it needs, and if it does its work well (with some help from smaller siblings), the enemy fleets in the area won't be well supplied for long.

[jpwrunyan]

I always set the colony count to the minimal setting when I start the game. I want, on average only a few habitable worlds per sector. This means, given that some sectors are star-dense and some systems will have two 50+ quality worlds, that other sectors will be complete dead space. A system with 3 or more 50+ quality worlds is very rare (like a few in the galaxy). I had one game with 4 50+ quality continental worlds but this was because two empires both started in the same system. That was fun times.

Also, I set the colony expansion range to 1.5 sectors. This means some planets, though habitable, are just completely off limits to anyone.

Less colonizable worlds means less garbage. Better game.

[Bingeling]

The game I took that screenshot on, was 1000 stars in a 10x10. The crowding was not too bad, but the game became too slow at saving (and loading). Loading is no so important, but many minutes of auto save is not fun.

Less stars is less garbage, but also less good colonies. It makes everyone smaller, tough. Less colonies for each to support fleets.

[Star_Eraser]

Solution for Garbage=

1) Bigger systems, less stars. I usually go 15x15 1000 stars, unfortunately not everybody has the necessary rig for it.

2) Putting everyone on harsh and trying homeworlds, maybe some AI in normal if you want specific races to be more powerful or more accurate to their description (like the gizurean)=> less early colonization, less mess (because less money for everybody)

3) tuning down all the reproduction rate, like 10% less for everybody, except some races that just reproduce quickly (rodents + insects) I usually go: insects>rodents>reptilian>ursidian>machine>humanoid>amphibian (with some exception of course)

4) Reducing colonization range, I usually don't do it and even tend to augment it since I put occasional colonies (minimal is really not enough)

5) Modding the costs for colonization and research for colonization for every race=> this is actually quite tedious to do and I still didn't achieve a nice balance (procrastinating modding lol), example: putting 300% colonization research costs for atuuks to colonize volcanic planets, or gizurean for ice and so on...=> less early colonization

6) Always play on expert, that way you simply can't lose track of anything ... Also take time to really design all your ships and stations efficiently. You'll save yourself much pain late game.

7) Don't spam stations everywhere (you really can't actually if you're playing in harsh or it would be instant economic crisis haha), only in chokepoints and key systems. Also, do a manual design for each of your most important stations (Combine Research/mining stations in one design when needed, or even resort base/mining) I usually have a special design for a station mining only luxury resources (and a station which mines only metals/gases, or some hybrids)(goes well with all that ice colonies that have vodkol/terallion, since tyderios isn't that much needed) I usually wait until my peeps want a specific resource before constructing any bases. Also check where you're mining ships and freighters are going, that way you can quickly know what resources are most needed. Don't actually try to be self sufficient though, try to profit a maximum of the bases the AI has built so you can actually trade with them without paying maintenance for your own station. Plus, you gain a relation bonus so you can't really go wrong there ...

That way you'll see that everyone will expand slowly, only in their natural systems for a long time (especially if you put drastic costs for systems not matching the race + high research costs), less fleet spamming, less stations, more fun globally.

I'll probably give away my designs and modifications some day soon in the modding section if anyone is interested ...

[jpwrunyan]

I usually go with 700 stars in 15x15.

When I am feeling particularly fastidiuous, I delete planets, asteroids, and stars that have no point, in the hopes that this will free up memory and CPU usage for a better game. Seriously, there should be an option to just disallow empty star systems, resource-less barren worlds, and resource-less asteroids. They just take up computer resources and have no use in the game. I have never used a planet-less star to power a monitoring station. Just don't see it happening.