Lots of questions from a new player

point on check the intro book sorry couldnt resist.

 most things ingame are stackable AKA refineries and Trade routes.

having 2 factories (say 2 frigate/crusier factories) and you want to build 20 frigates the shipyards will split the bulding of those units between them.

Mines/Antimatter Research the upgrades i cant remember the name of the tree tho

Antimatter Recharges quickly around a sun or a antimatter recharger (Advent only i think)

the reason for your fighters docking is actaully a good question i always thought it was away to retreat from the Anti-fighter Frigate

Tbh the book that comes with sins is kinda useless it doesnt offer as much infomation as it should for a game of this depth

I'm no athourity with this game however I can answer most of your questions with a bit of usefull info.

1 I see no reason to return fighters to a hangar defense. It is sometimes helpfull to have them return to a carrier so they may rebuild their numbers , but I normally just fall back when my carriers are struggling to keep wings flying & if they have lost support of other ships.

2 Refineries produce a certain number of reinerry ships to assist res harvesting so the more you have at a planet , the faster res will be extracted to a point. I'd suggest building a couple on planets that are producing the res you need most at any given time & preferably on planets that have the most mines like a 4 mine ice or volcanic.

3 I think antimatter regens differently for different ships. & there are upgrades to boost this process.

4 I don't know all the artifacts  But I'm quite sure they are randomly placed & I've never yet seen them all on 1 map.

5 Ships  tend to emerge from the factory & then stay close to it unless you've set a way point or something enters their gravity well that they will act upon. I like to set way points right next to the phase lanes so they will jump a little quicker when i call on them.

6 If you have more than one factory at a planet , they will in turn work on ships next in like for production on that planet , so 3 factories will build 3 ships at the same time ect.

7 I don't think there is a way to call all your fleets to one point. I wish there was, I'd use it alot.

1. Tactically, you may want to keep them alive for a while until you kill the flak, etc. Strange strategies are sometimes called for.

2. You can view that if you hover your cursor over your metal or crystal, and in each extractor's tab it shows how many refineries can assist them. A refinery works in every extractor in that gravity well and the surrounding ones.

3. You can have your units hang around a sun, or you can research antimatter capacity and regeneration upgrades in the military research tab. They're fairly high-level though. Advent also have a structure for that.

4. You get an artifact by exploring a planet (it works like a planet upgrade) and sometimes you can find other handy stuff on a planet, like a trade boost. Not all artifacts are in every game though.

5. If you select the factory or the planet it is hanging around then there should be a circle with yellow arrows pointing to the center. Hover your cursor over it and it will tell you where the waypoint is. You can right click it to cancel any waypoints or click on it and then click on somewhere else to get it to go somewhere. If you set the waypoint to a fleet, it will move to that fleet as quickly as possible and join it.

6. Both factories will work together to churn out your units as quickly as possible.

7. That shouldn't be too hard with the empire tree, or just zooming out and clicking on your units in that circle around each planet.

8. The TEC and the Advent have an ability to capture  tied to their colonization vessels. The Vasari do it with their scouts.

9. There is research in the civics for all races that increases your extractor output.

Hopefully that helps.

Return to hanger : only if you play Tec. Because your fighters/bombers are weaker and will always lose a 1on1 battle. Take out enemy strikecraft before launch for maximum damage without complete loss.

Refinery assist mine : The more attatched phaze lanes the more resources returned - Two per planet is still efficient

Antimatter regeneration : Depends on reasearch, race and culture.

Artifact distribution : Depends on map. Usually has calculated amount based on planet density.

Factory way point : Little yellow/orange circle thingy, select it and click somewhere

Factory build : Intelligent queing. uses all factories available. Multiple units can "appear" out of 1 factory, but build at different ones. Q only works per planet selected

Fleet consolidation : Set auto pin capitalships/frigates/fleets in options and they will always be available right at the top of the empire tree.

Thank you!!

I appreciate the tips and information.  I was asking about waypoints, because sometimes in the flurry of activity, I'll set a way point at another planet, to deal with pirates etc.  If I do this with a couple of planets, I end up with ships all over the place.

Which leads to my other question about getting all ships together with a hotkey (most RTS games have something like this).  To go to each planet and grab all the ships and send them to a focal point is tedious and counter productive.

Pinning the ships is a good idea...seems like it could be bound to a hotkey though...(for all at once of a specific type for instance).

I'm on my second read thru of the manual, but as stated, it doesnt give much information at all.

Did you all just learn this info as you went, or is there a beginners guide to all things SoaSE?

Anyone have any good links to fan sites?

Again, thank you very much for the responses!

RM

Lol, yes I have the same problem. I keep on finding random ships everywhere. There should be a key you can bind for this. Will check.

Crtl+1 ect grouping the units into one fleet without actaully making them into a fleet so you can have ships everywhere then just press 1 or whatever key you assigned to them and they will all be selected no matter where they are

InfernalCreator did a good job of answering your questions.  Here's a little bit more:

Why would I want to return my fighters to the hanger? do they heal there?...      [Yes, and you can release bombers after fighters have been decimated]

How much does a refinery assist a mine? Do they stack? Should I have more than one at each planet, or how many should I build?...     [Dunno.  Yes.  Yes.  Not likely, few if any at all... they aren't very cost effective, use only on a planet with lots of phase lanes out, and many adjoining extractors]

How fast does anti-matter regenerate? There’s nothing about this in the manual…Is there a way to boost it?..     [See here.  Twice as fast while at a star]

Here's a link to my picture of all the artifacts, with links from there to a good site describing artifacts:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/333791.  They are in each map/game, with more artifacts scattered randomly in larger maps. (The "Strategy" forum has lots of good info, for your type of questions.)

Tip: Save, Surrender, Keep Playing... see all the artifact locations, Reload, then explore them.

Regards, Obi 1

Thank you for all the help!  The SoaSE wiki has quite a bit of information as well.

One thing I cant seem to find:  Is there a command to add a ship to a control group? (or fleet?  I'm used to shift/control group # to add  ship to an existing group)

Another question:  If I am in a location with 3 asteroids, but no planet, I can capture the mines, but is it possible to build hanger bays etc there?  if so, how?

What I do is create fleets. When a new ship is built you can select it and then right-click on the lead ship of that fleet. The lead ship will have a ^ symbol above it's icon in the Empire tree to the left. No matter where in the universe that fleet is, the new ship will begin moving to where it is to join it. Alternatively, each fleet receives it's own icon in the Empire tree and you can just right-click that icon to add the new ship to that fleet.

In SoaSE you don't need to have ALL ships in a fleet selected in order to move them around, although this is a viable option and the most familiar to RTS gamers. In SoaSE however you simply need to tell the fleet leader where to go, then everyone in that fleet will follow. So, conceivably you could assign one fleet leader to CTRL+1 and another to CTRL+2, and so on. Click on the 1 key and give it instructions and boom that whole fleet moves wherever you want it to.

No, it's not possible, you can only build the extractors there.

i believe to select all the ships that you own you can hit ctrl-a.

7. The Search function in the empire tree (it's a bit different from google search btw) can help you find your ships. This tip is from the Advanced UI tutorial btw - make sure to do all 4 tutorials as beginner... or even if you have a few dozen games already you may learn some new things there.

Awesome!  Thanks for the responses.  I'll just have to get used to using the fleet options.

I did go thru all the tutorials, but another time through might help a bit as well.

Going thru the tutorials a 2nd time highlighted quite a few things I missed the first time through.  For anyone who has questions, do the tutorials again...much of the basics really are in there!

As for finding ships, I'm learning to use the meters around each world from the solar system zoom view.  That keeps things very organized.  I have to admit that thinking of using functions from other RTSs isnt necessarily the best way with SoaSE.  Also, hotkeys dont play as important a part in SoaSE as they do in say AoE or RoN.  Control groups are huge, and as Varis points out, the search function (especially for Cap ships) is a big help...if you click on search, then cap ships, then hit the tab button you'll cycle through all your caps, which is a great way to keep them upgraded as they level up.

Hope this information helps someone....

RM

Shouldn't fighters and bombers have to return to carriers before a jump, otherwise you lose them?  They would remain behind, but without uplink information they might be easy to pick off? 

This doesn't seem to be so in the current version, but if it was implemented- and if squadrons cost far more antimatter- it might be effective in restricting carrier spam.  Having them land suddenly seems less attractive than having them destroyed if left behind, and might be a deterrent to carrier raids.  Otherwise the carriers can just stay on the rim of the gravity well ready to flee at short notice?