i dunno if u missed it but u seemed to have answered the guy below me....

Also, do the Ancients have the ability to make refineries/turn trade ports into resource harvesting enchancer-things? I can't find any ability to research it but one of the things I can research called Gate Trade deals with increasing the cargo size on Trade Drones and Refinery Drones. Now seeing the word Refinery Drones makes me think there is one for the Ancients and I just can't seem to find it.

By the way, forget my previous question regarding the PlanetSize mod, I realized its rather fitting for the much larger planets/grav wells as it gives more room to maneuver and also seems more realistic(?). Gonna stick with it while I use this mod.

Also, Dolynick.  I know you said that you were going to/are playtesting the Wraith to see if there is anything that has issues, but one that I'm pretty sure is an actual mistake is that the Wraith's cultural resistance research tab does not work because the pre-req does not exist in their tech-tree, in the most recent build of the game.

Again, not a big deal, just a...passing comment?

Thank you again for providing me with some a wonderful eater of my time!

Hm... Well.  I know that a few pages back (it might be five plus...lol), we discussed some Ancient gameplay styles.  I would refer back to that(sorry for not having the specific page).

I know that when I play as the Ancients, I either build a Revenant, or go for broke and bust out a Invictus Juggernaut.  It CAN take a bit to get the timing down for things, especially if you have to upgrade your logistics slots to account for more military labs, etc.

Personally, I don't build many, if any, of the corsairs unless I need something a little more than the puddle jumpers.  I go straight for a capital, and then as economy and research allow, an Excalibur followed by an Aurora.  Map and game dictate if I go for more cruisers(on average, this is the route I go until later one when my economy matures) or capitals.

Wraith Hive ships can be pretty fun, with upwards of....17000 plus hull points and 20 plus fighter/bombers (upgraded, of course).  Not to mention, as Dolynick has said, the Wraith spread like a weed...and indeed they do.

Wahl....the descriptions for the ships ingame are pretty good...

Anything with fighters, or beams should be pretty good for "long range". (A very generalized statement)

If you're sticking with cruisers, then the Diruo's are pretty much your only option.

All Cap's can bombard planets, but the Ultionis is a specific planetary bombardment ship.  The Juggernaut and Atlantis are also carry good bombing rates, if I recall correctly.

If you haven't had the chance to build an Invictus Juggernaut....I highly reccomend.  When I first asked this sort of question, this was a common reccomdendation.  They, simply put, ROCK.  They are big, are powerful.  They just about kick anything's arse.

Of course the Atlantis is...teh awesome also. 

A neat endgame that alot of people use utilizes the Tantillus cruiser.  The Tantillus is capable of cloning other cruisers(Adamas, Aurora, Excalibur, Diruo, etc).  It costs resources and time (I believe the recharge is something like ten minutes).  The ability has the ability to surpass your fleet limit, and will.  The big requirement is time, but SO worth it, when you have the fleet you invariably end up with.  The Tantillus also have the ablity to restore hull points, and the Mirus class cruiser can restore shield points, I believe.  (As does the Imperium Revenant.)

No the Ancients don't have refineries.  They do get Space Gate Trade though.  It doesn't list it in the research entry but it does apply a resource income bonus to planets with Space Gates.  At one point, that modifier didn't seem to actually work though even if it was applied correctly.  I am not sure if that is still the case or not.  I thought I had noticed that it was actually working now.  Unfortunately it is out of my hands if the modifier works properly or not as it's an engine issue and in IronClad's hands.  That was the idea for the Ancients though, no refinieries but resource boost via the Gates.

I believe I have already spotted and corrected this in my Wraith playtesting and in the current build version.  I also corrected several bugs with their new defense research upgrades and their star base's abilities.

It's probably not just you.  I tend to play slow, long games anyways but I do find that when I use the Ancients I have to be patient and cautious in regards to expansion and being too aggressive.

There were posts a few pages back concerning some starting strategies some of use for the Ancients but they have seen some fairly major balance revisions since then as well.  Nowadays my start is usually as follows:

1)  Build scouts as needed and a colony frigate.  I build two military labs right away and research the Imperium Revenant.  I also upgrade my fleet supply if i'm playing with a fleet cap that requires it.  I build one Corsair as soon as possible as well.

2) I send my Corsair to my asteroid to take out the two militia ships.  My colony frigate goes after it once the milita ships are getting close to dying.  Meanwhile I am researching Destroyers and/or building one while my capital ship is constructing.

3)  I build one or two destroyers and research battlecruisers.  My Revenant tends to arrive after the first destroyer is built.  My cap ship goes off on it's own and tends to be my primary offense or holds a choke point by itself at this point.  If possible I also research my first shield upgrade and first laser upgrade.

4)  I expand so that I can get enough planets to support 3 civil and 3 military labs.  Once I have 3 military labs I research Auroras.  On the civil side I go for subspace transmitters (and constant communication if I'm playing a non teamlocked game vs the AI) and trade ports.  Researching Ion bolt for the battlecruisers is a very good idea as well.

5) I focus on some culture and trade ports at my planets to boost my economy.  My basic tactical group is 1 destroyer, 2 battlecruisers and 1 Aurora.  If it's larger than that I tend to have either 2 to 1 battlecruisers to Auroras or 1 more battle cruiser than I have Auroras.  I may also have a lone Aurora doing raids off on it's own depending on the game.  Researching Adaptive shields for the Auroras is a good idea as well if you can do it at this point.

6)  If I am meeting strong opposition or feel threatened I will go for a star base at my most critical choke point.  Research Recharge and give the base 2 levels of that.  Support the base with 2 repair platforms.  Keep your defense fleet within range of the Recharge field and you have an incredibly strong defensive position.  I have defeated huge hostile fleets with a handful of ancient cruisers in this situation where I should have normally been overrun.  Add a Mirus or two to the defense fleet and the Planetary ark upgrade to the star base for a nearly uncrackable planet (for the AI at least).

Some general notes:

-Your cap ships are going to be extremely powerful, especially once they level up.  I often have games where my lone Imperium Revenant engages an entire empire in the early game.  If they are not focused on just me, it is sometimes possible to virtually defeat them with it alone if it has leveled up prior to engaging.

-The outright combat stats of the Battlecruisers are definitely inferior to Auroras but don't underestimate them.  They carry 6 puddlejumpers that do 16 dps each.  They are highly effect against lighter frigates and as anti strikecraft as well using their laser weapons.  Your Auroras do a much better job of staying in a straight up fight and taking damage though.

-While Ancient ships have impressive weapon damage stats, usually only the beam weapons are primarily forward firing for the majority of the dps rating.  That means that while they do pack a good amount of whallop to the front they will effectively engage enemy fleets much more effectively if they are positioned in the middle of a fray and can fire their side facing weapons as well.  As an example the Aurora can engage 5-6 Advent Destras head on and win but if you can get it into the middle of them where it can fire more of it's drone launchers and laser turrets it can beat 7 or more Destras (it's own fleet supply weight or more) by itself.  Only the Destroyer and the Ultionis are primarily front firing when it comes to the larger Ancient ships.

-The Anicent economy can be a little weak, especially off the bat as they struggle to balance the large fleet supply requirements of their ships vs the fleet supply upkeep costs in smaller fleet games.  On the other hand, I tend to lose very few ships (cruisers at least) for most of the game (if any at all in some) so I tend to not have to spend nearly as much maintaining my fleet and rebuilding after a battle.  Most often my post game summary shows that I spend a fraction of the amount of credits on ships that my opponents did even though my fleet size may have been equal or larger than theirs.  That also means that I tend to be able to focus on research and giving my ships an even larger power advantage over my opponents.  This is particularly true if I have used my Revenant as my primary offense for much of the game (and kept it alive of course).

-Ultimately, an Atlantis and an Imperium Revenant are my endgame tactic.  They are extremely powerful together (even just the two cap ships) except when facing phase missiles.  If dealing with large vasari fleets, add in support cruisers and any additional firepower you deem necessary.  Tantillus and Clone Frigate will also win you the game for certain if you have enough time.  I have not used or needed that strategy in some time though.

Now, this is my typical game and by no means the only way to play them.

-dolynick

Wow, thanks for all the tips. Never thought of making a Revenant as my free cap, always went with the 1st one. Now in hindsight, seems like I should have caught on quicker. But all in all I think I'm going to adapt to use many/all of the strategies you listed. Thanks again!

In my opinion the Revenant is the best cap ship in the Ancient fleet.  The Ultionis and Invictus are more impressive on paper and are both very powerful as well but the Revenant has the better set of abilities I think.  The Nano Dissasembler makes it deadly against large targets and the Shield Restore and Flux Field make it fantastic as a fleet support ship.  As I said earlier, I have used the Revenant to more or less contain or beat a hard AI by itself in large single player FFA games, particularly if I was able to feed it militia fleets on the way and get it to level 4 or so before the primary engagements.

The Invictus Juggernaut is excellent for straight up combat damage against a large opposing fleet.  It has a lot of weapons that inflict a lot of pain and it's extremely durable with Power Surge and Finest Hour.

The Ultionis is the single most powerful ship for a one on one confrontation.  Except for a couple laser turrets, it's entire damage output is front focused and it should tear through any single target faster than any other ship in the Ancient fleet.  All eight of it's drone launchers are front firing and with shield bypass research it should annihilate virtually any other ship head on.  I often use it as a star base killer these days for that reason although a high level Revenant with Nano Dissasembler does extremely well too.

I rarely use the carrier so I don't have much to say about it.  Likewise with the Episcor Corvette as I always skip it and go for a Revenant as my first cap ship.

As for Atlantis...  It looks like a monster and it is but it's really not that great as a combat ship.  It's true power is as a support ship and for empire expansion.  It's colonize cost reduction saves you a ton of money once you have it.  The Shield Expansion ability is definitely it's best attribute though.  It can protect your entire fleet for most of a battle once Atlantis is leveled up and has large anti matter reserves.  Use it in conjunction with a Revenant with Shield Restore (particularly at level 3, hence the combo I listed in my first post) or a few Mirus support cruisers and your fleet is virutally unstoppable until Atlantis' antimatter runs out.  Atlantis is extremely vulnerable against phase missiles though and be very cautious when facing the Vasari, especially if they have lots of strikecraft in their fleet.  Expanding shields against a large vasari fleet in the late game where they have a ton of phase missile strikecraft is a sure fire way of seeing your Atlantis explode fairly quickly.

-dolynick

The latest versions are for Entrenchment 1.02.  The vanilla Sins 1.15 version has not been updated in some time and may not even load properly with Sins 1.16.

When installing it should be put in the Mods Entrenchment v1.02 folder as it's own directory.  For example, in Vista:

C:\Users\dolynick\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Mods-Entrenchment v1.02\dolynick_SGRaces-e0.93b

-dolynick

You're welcome and thanks.  I'm glad that you are enjoying the mod.

As I said, there are definitely other ways of playing the Ancients effectively.  Check back a few pages to see some other strategies.  What I shared was my typical strategy that works for me against the AI in most games.  It can be a very long and drawn out game the way I handle things though.  That's fine with me but different tactics might be more to your liking if you want a faster win.

I encourage you to play around and try other things as well.  I gave you some general tips on how the Ancient ships work best (in my opinion) so you can take that an apply it to other starting strategies as well.  I believe Dewing posted his strategy that revolved around Corsairs and Invictus Juggernauts a few pages back.  That should still work well even with the rebalancing of the Ancient combat cruiser fleet.  I also posted what should be a nasty strategy that employed Atlantis and huge numbers of puddle jumper frigates a while ago that should still work as well now.

-dolynick

ok, but i didnt want you to be my "guru" but i underdstand you dont wish to help me, i just have 1 question then, which forge tools did you use? because i have ones for entrenchment 1.01 and im on 1.02 i cant find any for 1.02 and since ur modding it, i thought i'de ask.

I don't mind helping you out with a question or two.  It sounded like you were looking for a "teacher" though and that's a little bit different.

As to your question...

I was using (and continue to) the Entrenchment 1.01 source files.  Simply because, to my knowledge, IronClad hasn't released updated Forge Tools for 1.02.  Unfortunately, there are changes in 1.02 that can cause problems if you use the old source files.  If you search, you should be able to find 1.02 files released by a forum member somewhere around here.

There is no solution to the problems with the Developer mode though.  Right now you cannot run 1.02 without losing access to the Dev mode tool.  Which is a big pain in the butt for testing and troubleshooting.

As for Particle Forge... I never had any luck getting 1.01's particle forge to run.  Luckily, I can still use an older version to edit basic effects if need be.

-dolynick

ok, ty, they are there now, they just dont do anything when i activate them. Is there a specific order they have to be activated in? (I have all 4 of yours, but i will download more if they are needed)