Newbie questions

from Sins Forums

I have been playing this for a few days (well a few hours since I do not have much free time).   There are some things I am wondering about and perhaps someone could answer.

1.   Can you build structures in places that do not have bases?  IE: Near the star as a choke point.

2.  How does the 'cap' on civilian / military structures work?  For example, I have an asteroid and I can only increase it's tactical (the one that lets you build trading posts, research stations, etc...) level once.   But then I may notice at some point in the future I am allowed to upgrade it again.   I looked at my tech tree and nothing on it jumped out as allows more upgrades or anything, yet I am certain this cap raises once in a while.

3.  I once had a level 7 battle ship that got stuck and could not jump out of a system.   It was under attack, and for like 10 minutes it would not jump out.   I watched it closely and it would say it was getting ready to jump, but then nothing would happen.   Eventually it died, but I could not see if there was any kind of super weapon that kept it from jumping.  It was at the edge of the gravity well and started its jump sequence several times.  Is this a bug or is there some kind of lock down power that can keep a ship from jumping?

4. When you have a large fleet, is there a way to easily see all the ships in it?  I had a fleet with 3 capitol ships, and I knew some of them had gained levels, but on the fleet view I could never see them.  I would have to zoom in and find them individually to click on them.   Even when they were selected I could not see which icon they were in that side list of ships.

5.  Is there a way to keep certain ships from joining a fleet?  IE: A garrison at a world.   I would want a bunch of ships to stay at a world and not get sucked up by a passing fleet.

6.  For TEC, which is better defense, fighter bays or gauss guns.   I see differing opinions on these.  I build a mix of both, but I really have no idea how effective the gauss guns are.   They also do not seem to shoot through each other or another structure.  In a 2D world that would be reasonable, but in a 3D world it would be safe to assume that not all ships are in the same exact 2D plane.

2,919 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
1. Nope. You can capture the 'independant' extractors that can be found in some uncolonisable grav wells, but you can't build anything in a grav well unless there's a planet and you own it.

2. No, these limits don't change. Each planet type can be upgraded a fixed amount of times in each category - for example, asteroid planets only have one Population upgrade, while terran planets can be upgraded four times.

I can only assume that you mistook a 'greyed out' icon (can't afford it) for a 'maxed out' icon (has a gray 'frame' around it).

Oh, and just for reference, tactical upgrades let you build more defences (turrets, hangars, etc), logistic upgrades let you build more civilian structures (labs, trade ports, etc).

3. There are ships with abilities that can disable either an entire ship, or its phase drive. If a ship is interrupted while phasing, it starts the whole 'fire up the drives' sequence again. As such, you can keep a ship from jumping if you can keep interrupting it. Maybe this is what was happening?

4. The empire tree, on the left of the screen. Learn it and love it. ;)

In the empire tree, the icon of any cap ship that's levelled up will have a small white '+' sign in the corner. Just click the icon to select the ship and assign its points.

(Incidentally, the icon of a flagship will have a bold, upwards pointing white arrow, and the icon of any ship that has unassigned hangar bays will show a smaller white arrow pointing to the right.)

5. Form them into a fleet, or right-click on the 'join fleet' button for each ship, to turn off the 'auto join fleet' behaviour.

6. In general, I'm of the opinion that hangars are the most effective static defence, as their strike craft can reach anywhere in the grav well. Turrets are good for defending orbital structures, but not the entire grav well (or even just the planet).

Build a repair bay, then some hangars around it, and throw in a few turrets to defend them both. Remember that fighters and bombers are effective against different targets, and build a mix of both.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks for the reply. My capitol ships did not appear on the fleet drop down, or I could not locate them there. Maybe you mean the 'search' thing, which I didn't use.

From reading another post, I was reminded of another question.

What do achievements do? Are they just aesthetic or do the unlock abilities or grant bonuses?
Start11 - Customize the Start Menu and Taskbar in Windows 10/11.
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks for the reply. My capitol ships did not appear on the fleet drop down, or I could not locate them there.

Hmm. They should be listed under the planet they're currently at.

If you've formed the into a fleet, there should also be a fleet icon at the top of the empire tree. If you click the small 'down' arrow next to it, you can expand the fleet to see all the ships in it.

From reading another post, I was reminded of another question.What do achievements do? Are they just aesthetic or do the unlock abilities or grant bonuses?

Just aesthetic, as far as I know.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Added another newbie question that I'm seeing conflicting answers all over the place.

Does shield mitigation work when shield is reduced to 0 ?
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
Added another newbie question that I'm seeing conflicting answers all over the place.Does shield mitigation work when shield is reduced to 0 ?

Yes, at least according to the manual.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
yes, yes it does, the ship fires its 'emergency generators' to keep this tiny amount of mitigation alive