Beginner - Basics - what to build

One tip I can give is to build a decent core for your empire. Don't go trying to colonize every planet, just build a core of 4-6 planets to build up on population and recources to get your economy running.

Well here's a pretty basic start. Build your free cap ship, I usually build the pure combat one. Build 2-4 scouts and send them out to explore. Build a few frigates and send them with the cap ship to clear out nearby planets. I actually like to start with an asteroid if I can, they only need one upgrade to no longer be a drain. Build a colony ship right after the frigates. Don't forget to immediately build your starting mines as well. As TEC I usually concentrate on my economy first, this works well against the PC, maybe start in on the first level of military research. Once you've got some trade ports and the money is coming in start researching the higher tech. It's important to always expand at a steady pace, have money saved up so you can immediately upgrade planets to become profitable. Don't overextend though, it's important that your planets be profitable.

Thanks.

By reviewing (Studying the differences) the statistics of the game I played against the PC I found tips very similar to what you are Suggesting Cabezone.

My first actions are always the same:

Build the extractors, build a cap ship factory, and try to get 2 civic research stations. First techs to research are ice/volcanic colonization.

Build a few scouts right off as well, to scout the immediate area. You're hoping to find some natural choke points to expand to.

Take your free cap ship and a few light frigates and begin taking the neighboring planets. Don't take too many, as you'll likely only have one fleet, and defending these planets is crucial. Don't spread yourself out, and build lots of hangars as defenses.

Thanks

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but replays of every game are automatically saved. You can review them to see exactly what everyone was doing at any point in time, including their opening build orders.

This is my general strategy for TEC vs. AIs:

* Buy 100 crystal first thing. Possibly 200. Use it to upgrade your capital. It's better to upgrade the planets you have before colonizing more, or your economy will fail.
* Build a capital ship yard. Start building something as soon as you queue the building. I like the Kol or Marza, but it's up to you.
* Build extractors. At this point you're probably broke from buying crystal, so you might not want to queue up all those extractors (one of your LEVs is already busy), but don't forget to build them later if you wait.
* Build some scouts. I usually build as many as I have phase lines to explore.
* Spam light frigates. Don't forget to build a colony ship.

Once your cap ship pops out, start kill pirates. Go for asteroids first.

Then you can either build two civilian research stations and go for trade / exploitation, while you keep on spamming light frigates to hold your borders (this works well against the AI, since they'll be slow to counter light frigates). This is more of a fast-teching turtle strategy.

Or build two military research stations, and start spamming LRMs instead. LRMs counter light frigates, so this will give you an early military advantage. Use it. Let the pirates keep the fire and ice worlds and take the fight to your opponent. Tech to siege frigates / flak frigates as needed. As some point, you're going to have to buckle down, save some money, and research trade. This is the strategy I like to use, because it makes fun start faster.

Either way, build two of one type of research station before starting on the other. All of the really good TEC tech is on the second tier.

Build static defenses. Hangers to attack ships anywhere in the grav well, and turrets to protect the hangers. I build my hangers by the planet's surface, so the turrets also protect my planet against siege frigates. Build at least one repair station. If you build more than one, make sure they can heal each other. Don't forget you can position your strike craft squadrons independently of the hanger. (Put them around where the enemy will phase in). Take the time to build emergency facilities on your border planets. Note that in many situations, all of the hangers in the world isn't going to save you. But it WILL give you enough time to rally your mobile defenses.

Just the kind of thread I was looking for. I'm not much of a strategy gamer, so these tips are helpful. Thank you for the tips/strategies.

I did not know the replays were that detailed, Great tip!

ZenLunatic has some really good suggestions. I'm a newbie also and have pretty much discovered most of what He said on my own. One thing I prefer is to build a colinize Cap ship first. I can then use it to colonize without having to worry about my colonize firgate. What I do is use the Cap to clear asteroid fields and then bring in my figate to them. In the meantime I can Move my Cap ship to the next planet and let it colonize there. This really speeds up the process and helps get resources going quicker.

Been playing AI on hard as Vasari but I'm fairly new so I'm still working out what works and what doesn't. My basic build order at the moment goes:

Build a capital construction yard.
Queue a capital to be built. *
Build 2+ scouts.
Build a crystal extractor.
Increase civilian infrastructure on my home planet. **
Build 2 skirmishers (or whatever the basic frigate is).
Build a colony ship.
Build 2 more skirmishers to escort my capital.
Build 2 civil or military research stations. ***

* I like the Marauder, its fast, reasonably strong in combat and great for hit n' run. Generally I go for the production debuff ability first.

** Still not sure if this always worth it since its an expensive upgrade for the start of the game though in the long run its beneficial to get the credit income increase early on.

*** Not sure which to build first yet. Civil is useful if you're on a terran planet to get the higher pop research and the head for the a better economy, maybe the better option on large maps. Their phase technology is also quite useful.

Vasari however, do seem to benefit from being aggressive and military is therefore particularly useful at the start on small maps to give you an advantage in early harassment and skirmishes.

Once I have stuff queued or I am out of credits I'll either do one of two things:

If the map is small:

Send the first 2 frigates to the nearest asteroid to clear out the pirates before sending my migrator to colonise. I'll then rush the enemy with my capital and the other 2 frigates. Once I get to their homeworld, I'll use the production debuff on their home planet as much as possible and try n take a few key logistics structures before running out.

If the map is large:

I only build 2 of the basic frigate at the start and use them and my capital to clear the nearest asteroids and planet for colonisation and xp.

Once the initial stuff is out of the way I start to build lots of assailants and head out, harassing the enemy or rushing any close neighbours while colonising as much as possible and developing my planets and infrastructure.

hmm, maybe its bad to give out my tactics :p

Great Replies, Keep them coming.

The edit button seems to have disappeared but I wanted to add a couple things.

The first capital ship in the list for Vasari (I forget the names) is a monster once you've got in leveled up, the power surge can let it trash pretty much everything around it.

And as to volcanic and ice planets, I find that they cost far too much to develop early on in the game, particularly when you consider the research costs. So I've found that its better to grab asteroids first and then desert/terran unless you have no choice. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this though.

Any other tips?

Carnum, I won't pass up a planet to colonize another one past it for several reasons:

1) No telling what's out there at these early stages in the game.
2) By the time I make it back those passed-up planets may belong to someone else.
3) It takes money to make money. I want to get the income going as fast as possible.
4) I will gladly eat the cost of an underdeveloped planet for a few minutes in order to gain it's possession. I guarantee it will make me that lost money back sooner or later.

Now, on the other hand...

If I can already see the phase lanes and what types of planets they are I *will* go get a chokepoint and dare everyone to try to get behind me. But that's a rare situation.

Good points, thanks. As you indicated, a lot of it is map specific.

On larger maps, buy a few hundred units of crystal immediately. You won't see it at a 3:1 credit/crystal ratio for a long time, and it's nice to have a small stockpile. If you find you really don't need it, you can sell it back for a tidy profit within a few minutes.

I'm sure there's almost a mini-game in buying low and selling high...

My start is as follows, no matter the race:
-upgrade home planet
-buy 200 crystal
-queue up cap ship factory, crystal extractor
-2 scouts
-metal extractor(s) as you can afford it
-first cap ship (I usually take the colonizer and head for anything with less than 5 or 6 pirates, asteroids first)
-demolish cap ship factory for 300-75-30 (or thereabouts). This is important because you're not going to be building any new cap ships for quite a while and it also frees up a logistics slot

From here it depends on the race and gametype. I mostly play TEC so I'll assume that. If my cap ship can't handle the nearby pirates alone I'll pump out 4-6 light frigs to help out. Otherwise I go straight for 2 empire labs, aiming for trade ports. I don't research anything else before trade ports except maybe one of the artic/volcanic techs if I need it. After trade ports I try and get one in each colony at least, but keep in mind refinery placement so you get the most bang for your buck. I put traders in out of the way spots and refineries at major intersections so they hit a lot of extractors.

So at 0/2 (war/empire) I send out a few more scouts and see what's out there. Then I choose whether to go 2/2 or 0/4. 2/2 means I start making LRMs and doing the appropriate war research, 0/4 means I'm going refineries and more economy.

During all of this my colonizer cap ship is mopping up militias and starting new planets. Infrastructure is prioritized on new planets, then trade ports. I'm usually heavy on credits rather than metal/crystal, so I keep an eye on the market and buy when it's cheap.

Regarding research: I never go for the increase max pop or increase crystal/metal production techs until I have at least 5 or 6 developed planets. A 5% increase to bugger all is still bugger all. Your research time is better spent on low level war research and your cash is better spent on structures/infrastructure.

All this is about the first 15-20 minutes of the game.

Agreed, but after that first push, I personally think they're among the most important techs to get. The sooner you get them, the quicker they pay for themselves and the more cash and resources you'll have to use over the course of the game.

Knowing the layout of the planets is very important. Some maps are always the same, which isn't fun to me, so I play random.

My start:
Queue resources (crystal, metal, metal usually)
build 3xscouts
buy crystal if it's still cheap
build a cap ship factory
Put scouts on autoscout, but direct their first jump usually towards the center of the map(assume jumps away from you are safe, save them to explore later)
Build cap ship when it's ready.
Build a colony ship (if my cap ship wasn't one)
Build a few frigates.

Here's where the decision making comes in, when your cap ship is finished. My general plan is to try and figure out how to get as much "land" as safely as possible. This usually involves finding and holding about two defensible planets that are choke points. I then try to make a line towards them, colonizing asteroids on the way (because they are quick resource boosts). The key is figuring out which locations give you the most real estate to back-capture. I don't tend to research until I know what I want to research. This will be econ if I -have- to get ice/volcanic planets. Otherwise it's military for LRMs. Once I have those planets I will up both supply (usually cap ship first), make a another cap ship and start building LRMs. Then I take start taking planets as efficiently as possible in my "safe" area and ship LRMs forward, and start to build up my frontline defenses.

Of course, this all depends on the size of the map and who you are playing. The larger the map and less opponents, the more important it is to rush expansion. It's a bit more dangerous on smaller maps versus aggressive opponents.

My general approach as TEC:

- Upgrade home planet population
- Build capital shipyard (buy crystal if needed)
- Queue crystal extractors, then metal extractors
- Build 3-4 scouts and set them to auto-explore, then start cranking out light frigates
- Build first capital ship. I used to go for the battleship but have switched to the colony cap ship, I just find I can colonize quicker and with less micro than having a colony frigate following my fleet around at a safe distance
- Get first civic research station and go for resource and population improvements
- When your cap ship is finished, send it and your first few frigates to colonize a quick and easy planet (usually asteroid).
- Get first military research station, go for shield/repair upgrades, repair station, and hangar defenses
- After you've colonized available asteroids, reinforce your fleet with more light frigs and go after slightly tougher planets like desert. Make sure you don't expand too much; you want all planets to be within a jump or two of your fleet
- Get second civic research station, go for trade ports, more resource upgrades (esp. crystal) and Arctic/Volcano as needed (preferably Arctic)
- Go crazy building trade ports everywhere you can fit them (multiple per planet). You'll start making tons of cash, and you can always scuttle them to make room for more research stations if needed later on.
- You should have 3-5 planets and a blooming economy at this point. Now you can upgrade your fleet limit, build a second military research station, and start cranking out LRMs and more capital ships.
- Upgrade population everywhere for tax income, and emergency shelters anywhere you might see combat. Lots of hangars full of fighters are good for chewing up siege frigate raids (but won't stop a full assault, only another fleet will)
- Don't rush going offensive; concentrate on your economy, and steadily build up your defensive fleet until you can comfortably split it into a decent defense force and scary offensive fleet.

Game begins, you have a frigate producer, two con ships, and a terran planet...
-immediately upgrade your civilian infrastructure for more Credit income.
-get your crystal mine started, then queue your metal mines up behind it.
-build 2-4 scouts, depending on the map. Set them to explore the moment they come out.
-build no less then 3 light frigates (cobalts or the equivalent) and throw them at a asteroid as soon as all 3 are out.
-build a colony ship
-attack, clear, and colonize a nearby asteroid.
-wait, buy crystal if you have to, and build a capital ship factory, and get your capital ship out.
-by this point, you should have begun expanding. Throw your capital ship (yes, alone) at a lowly defended planet. If the planet has few enough ships, the capital can deal with it, send the frigates to help when they are done. Use your colony ship to colonize both.

After this point, its pretty much varied depending on situation...
-save up, buy a pair of CivResearch stations.
-research volcanic and ice colonization as needed.

-Anytime you colonize a planet, immediately purchase at least one Civilian upgrade in order to get it out of the red. Two is best if it can support that. Make sure you save at least 4 logistic slots in EVERY planet you colonize for one trade station.

For military research, Armor > Shield > weapons. Only expand to higher tiers when you have exhausted all the research in your current tier, have just colonized a desert planet and have additional resources, or need something specific.

when you hit the fleet cap, and you will, don't be afraid to take the first fleet upgrade. The second one should be taken when you begin an actual war with another empire, with the remaining ones coming as you need them.

For long Research Queues - you know what I'm talking about, when you have 10 or so different researches all lined up. Unless you have a massive flood of money, cancel a few of them, and use those resources immediately in your empire.

Trade: Trade should be gotten as soon as possible. This means the Vasari should get a number of CivResearch stations out early. Once you have this researched, take a moment to build a Trade station in every planet you can, making sure you have as long of a 'line' as you can. In order to maximize the length of this line, it may be imperative that you neglect to build a trade station on certain planets.

Tactical slots: PJI (it sucks, but it can be useful) when it becomes feasable, Repair bay (atleast one) when you have the resources, and a whole lot of hangars once they are teched. Put the PJI near the lane headed towards your empire if you are having problems with JANs (Jumpers After Nuking) or near the lane in if you are having issues with massive fleets coming in, doing damage, and retreating to safety without taking many cassualties. The repair bay should be placed where your ships intend to be while defending the planet, and the hangars should be bunched up. If you have enough TecPoints left, put a turret or two down next to the hangar cluster, for added defense.

Split fights and bombers from static defenses 50/50.

Cap ships should have all Fighters UNLESS its a carrier, then 50/50 is fine. This is so your Cap ships have their own, natural anti-fighter/bomber defense. I personally run my fleets with all fighters, I figure my capital ships churn out enough damage as they are.

The best military advice I can give anyone is Bottlenecks! Find those planets, we all know which ones they are, that are in the most direct route from their empire, to yours. Colonize them, and stick a good fleet there. This helps defend from unexpected attacks. Having 4 lanes between your empire and your rival's is good and all, but having only two will be much easier to defend, and will require significantly less resources in the long run. If your enemy claims a bottleneck, push and try to take it, if its feasible.

At least one capital ship should be in every major defense fleet. Two is better. Which capital ships you build depends on your race. Play single player to get familiar with every Cap, what it can do, what it can't do. Where its strongest guns are, where its got weak or a lack of guns. Your first should be a strong Battlecruiser (Kol, Radiance, Desolater) Something that packs a punch. Your second should be one with good supporting abilities (Carriers, high grade ability caps, Ect)

For ship abilities, your first capital should focus damage, your second, survival, from there, get what works.

Carriers first aren't good, for it makes it difficult to colonize planets with flak frigates.. which is a great number of them.

Only build Culture structures if your enemy does, save the resources otherwise - but leave a few logistic slots here and there just in case. Especially on border worlds. The best defense against Culture spam is a fleet of capital ships in orbit.

Fianlly, Don't neglect cruisers and Frigates. 16 capital ships as an armada is good and all, but when the enemy has 100 LRMS, and thats all you've got, you get to watch the miracle of massed focus fire.

Here's a fairly flexible fast start/turtling strat I usually go with.

I agree with starting out by concentrating on building a first cap ship. The Advent battleship is good, especially for early pirate killing, because it hits more than one ship in an attack. THe word for early game is: MONEY! money, and defense.

And upgrading the homeworld infrastructure for credits, and building 2 scout ships (any more seems a waste, as I don't need to know what the entire map looks like so early in the game). I just need to find out where the nearest asteroids are, and bottlenecks.

On expansion: I say, skip some planets when trying to find something to colonize. As soon as you figure out where your enemy is located, skip a planet or two to go deep into enemy territory: any planet that you deny your opponent is potential income lost on their part. And that lost income is going to hurt them, big time, in the long run. See, if you claim and successfully defend an asteroid close to their home planet, he'll have to go for the desert planets (which cost more to upgrade before they turn a profit), or ice/lava palnets (which cost even more, plus research costs). Terran planets are hard to take, because they usually have a good pirate defense, so your opponent has to muster up a good force before trying to take it, which loses him both time and money.

Set up a good defense in your frontier planets/asteroids (static weapons platforms, two or three, the rest hangars. The platforms should cover the planet, their job isn't to kill the enemy, as much as to keep them busy while your fighters/bombers do their job). Then move on to colonizing the planets you skipped. Remember, asteroids first.

On defending planets: A lot of people won't agree, but I think splitting your fleets for defense is a good idea, especially if you expand fast and far. Your short term goal from early to mid game will be to claim and consolidate planets- just take em, hold em, upgrade them. Don't take a lot of hostile action yet.

Splitting your fleets, especially if you're defending on multiple fronts, is the way to go. Sure, when an opponent/s attack, you'll be outnumbered, but, if you build the proper system defenses (a few platforms, a lot of hangars, and a repair platform), you can make up for your disadvantage in numbers. A capital ship with a lot of frigates and carriers and a few repair/support ships for each frontier should do the job. I suggest the long range ships (LRMS, carriers) because you can defend a planet without putting too many of your outnumbered ships in jeopardy. If your defenses buckle, then start pulling ships from other fronts.

Pirates. I love em. Pay through the nose in the early game- it'll be worth it. A good pirate attack can stall your opponent's fleet and economy, time that you'll be using to upgrade your defenses. Near the mid to late game, stop paying the pirates, because they'll break their teeth on your defenses anyway.

Winning involves forcing a decisive battle. One is the aggressive approach, you take your fleets from multiple fronts, mass them into a huge fleet, and throw them into an enemy system, If he takes the bait, you should have more and better-upgraded ships (because at this point you should have more income from more planets, right?). Destroy his fleet, split your fleets again, and them proceed with either bringing some back home for defense (if you have more than one enemy), or to take down several systems simultaneously.

The passive approach to winning is luring your opponent into an attack on one of your frontier planets. One way to do it is to let the pirates attack you, and then pretend to pull your fleets out of one frontier planets. Your opponent will think you're pulling out to repel the pirates and might launch an attack.

Secretly, though, you should be massing your uberfleet in a system one jump away from your now-undefended frontier planet. At the same time, build a warp inhibitor in that system and several ships that cripple your opponent's ships (that slow them down, or deplete their antimatter so they can't jump out fast enough). When his fleet warps in, let him take a few shots at your structures, you can even let him blow up most of your buildings (except the inhibitor, build that as far away from him as possible).

When he's committed his forces, you jump in and take him out- his forces will be scattered, and he can't jump out before taking more than a few losses. Again, you'll want long rangers and carriers for this one, to chase down retreating fleets. Once his fleet is broken, just mop up as i mentioned above.

A good thing about splitting fleets is that it makes for a flexible game. One can go defense while the other goes raiding, you can attack two systems at once, etc. The trick is to look for openings: a new colony for example, or a poorly defended planet. With multiple fleets, finding and exploiting these weaknesses will be easier. Though the micro might be tougher.

Is there any reason for getting a cap ship yard so early? I usually start with a col. ship & two light frigs, jump to the nearest asteroid, then get the ship yard. While it's building, I colonize the asteroid (usually before the defenders are dead, since they can't damage it) and develop it. This lets me get some additional metal and crystal income going faster and lets you send your cap ship off to another planet bordering your HW.

For the longest time I was starting with light frigs, but that turned out to be a slower start, in the long run. Even just an asteroid (usually defended by one siege and one light frig pirate) takes about three or four of your light frigs to conquer without taking too much damage so you can move on to the next planet immediately after. Otherwise, you have to make your frigs rest a bit to regen shields and hulls before moving on.

A cap ship can take on most early pirate defenders by itself, and then just go on to the next and the next without any difficulty. You can make light frigs after, and have them catch up. Also, if you opponent starts out with light frigs, you can chase him off with the cap ship and delay his expansion.

Another side benefit is, if you have a cap ship out early, you can have it gain a lot of experience early too, to unlock more abilities. Think of Warcraft 3- you start with a hero early so he can go creep hunting.