gettin into mid game strategy questions

Ah, a man after my own heart. Setting up an economy simultaneiously while setting up a fleet is pretty hard.

Here are the best things you can do to get an econ early. 

1. These first two points are linked. Get planets as quickly as you can. Some maps won't lend themselves to this, but the faster you can get planets the better (and I mean 5+, not 3-4).

2. Get a fleet as quickly as possible to help with point #1. I like to use a fleet of light frigates and scouts. The fleet won't get too big. Eventually I WILL switch to something else, but using a fleet of say 10-12 light frigs and 10-15 scouts will help you expand early. This is the fleet I get before I go up to the first level of taxation. 

3. Once you get to that 4 planet+ threshold it kinda depends on how you would like to play. If you follow the points I said before, then that means you probably want to start focusing on military. If you're definitely going to need a ship to counter something your enemy has ( learn the counters in this game, they're quite valuable ), the odds are you will need labs to get them. 

4. Rely on the income of gobbling up planets quicly to beat your first opponent, and then once you're first enemy is dead, start buying economy structures. His allies probably won't be there to fight you off if you're cleaning him out and he's not savable. This is the time to get tradeports.

Those are just a few points. I'll be checkin in with this post again. I'll see if there's something you feel I missed.

Best thing I've found is to move the entire fleet as one unit. What I tend to do is zoom out so I can see the planets with the bars on the side that show how big the fleets are. I click on that symbol and move the entire fleet. I feel that's the most time effective way to keep your fleet together. I'm sure there's other methods out there that poeple will mention, but that's what has worked for me.

It's actually 33%, and I'm not entirely sure. My guess is that the damage is shared among the guardians, but guardians are so incredibably tough that even if the damage isn't shared I don't think it would make that much of a different.

hmm... guardians...

If you had a capital ship and 2 guardians... so that they are in a line... captial ship guardian guardian... and the second guardian is not close enough to bubble the capital ship...

if the capital ship takes 1000 damage... then the first gardian would suck off 333 of that... and then the second guardian would suck 111 off the first guardian... and then the first guardian (since its bubble overlaps the second guardian...) would suck 37 off the second guardian... and then the second guardian would suck 12 off the first guardian... and then the first would suck 4 off the second... and then the second would suck 1 off the first...

so the capital ship is dealt 667, the first guardian is dealt 250 and the second is dealt 83   (about)

?

what would happen if the chain increased to 3 guardians... the second guardian would be overlaped by two guardians... i guess the first and third would split the damage taken by guardian number 2... herm...

herm... considering that you have to max out n mitigations instead of one... herm...

TBH I never really questioned how Guardians work. I just know my fleets last longer with 'em than without 'em

*gasp* the god of game mechanics overlooked something?!? and then GENERALIZED!!11

i... dont know what to say.

My best guess is that if a ship is covered by 2 guardians, 1/2 of 1/3 of the damage will be dispersed to each guardian. If there are 3, then 1/3 of 1/3 will be dispersed to each guardian, and so on and so forth.

It could also be that one guardian reigns supreme until its bubble wears off, or it could be what you mentioned earlier PB.

My guess is it's the first one I mentioned. In the end, all three possibilities still prolong thel ife of Advent frigates.

well... my example only applies if the second guardian's bubble does NOT cover the capital ship, only the first guardian. I also thought that it would be if a ship is covered by 2... 1/2*1/3 would go to each guardian... and since each guardian covers them selves... while we would never see it... 1/3 of the damage each guardian would take would go to the other guardian.

what i mentioned earlier was a thought expearment... of how guardians share on themselves OR would it be that since the first guadian was taking no DIREct damage... the second guardian would not absorbe anything... basicly... the 33% damage shared buff displayed on a guardian is not any damage... but only direct damage.

I wonder how well guardians work agaist phase missles... or nano-deconstruct... ?

I wonder how much shield mitigation effect guardians... I had a starbase, a repair bay, a progen and a frig factory next to eachother... the frig factory was pumping out guardians... the starbase was almost dead... but in the 2000 or so hitpoints the starbase had left when the first guardian popped out... I went through the shields of about 4 guardains before the starbase died... that means that the guardians absorbed a hell of alot of damage... i doupt i restored enough shields and hull from my progen and repair bays that they did 4*3 shield guardians worth of damage... If something wasnt fishy... the loss of that last 2000 hull should only have done... 666 damage to one guardian... not... what... 1800ish to 4.

so... maybe the damage that guardians absorb is the pre-shield mitigation pre armor damage? maybe because he had a good ammount of disiples the guardians were taking an extra bit of damage due to anti-heavy? maybe i should stop coming up with ideas and possiblities and play the game?

[quote who="Raging Amish" reply="1" id="2407085"]
2. Get a fleet as quickly as possible to help with point #1. I like to use a fleet of light frigates and scouts. The fleet won't get too big. Eventually I WILL switch to something else, but using a fleet of say 10-12 light frigs and 10-15 scouts will help you expand early. This is the fleet I get before I go up to the first level of taxation. 

thank you for your input its greatly appreciated, but i dont understand the need for so may scouts as part of the initital fleet. do u use scouts as combatants instead of just scouts in the expansion process? If so how would you use them and why?

Ah. ok. First, you gotta take the scouts and turn auto-attack on. There's a button down in the bottom right where you can do that.

The reason I use some scouts is because while weak, they are very good against two targets. Long Range Frigates and Seige Frigates. Both of which you find among the pirates.

That's one reason, but there's another. When you play online, the odds are you will butt heads with someone in the first 30 minutes, and you can't be sure when that rush will come. You can't be sure what that person will have, but if you use a mix of light frigs/scouts you are prepared for the two most common rushes: Long range frigate spamming (illum spamming is still popular), and you're better prepared for flak spamming (garda flak from TEC is most common). Scouts counter LRFS. Light Frigs counter Flak. These are the two most common fleets enemies use early I've found. Occassionally you run into somoene who uses light frigs or scouts, but in those cases it's rock vs. rock and you were at least prepared for it. (I'd advise getting fighters against enemy scouts and lrf's against enemy lf's).

Hohpefully that ehlps.

Actually, scouts can help here... by scouting.

amish promoting scout/lf combo not knowing there's already a hard counter for it

or knowing?lol..eeeeevvviiilllll

What makes you think I don't know what the hard counter is? I am the AMISHMAN. I use my little scout minions to tell me everything and to do my bidding. I know all. See all. The raging inferno that is my ignited interstellar buggay is flying through the cosmos and knows all counters. Fear me!!!!

nah,better YOU fear me...[or my smurf :p]

I don't think diverted damage can itself be diverted. So it would either be the diverted damage is equalized between however many guardians are there diverting, or it somehow chooses one guardian to divert to randomly, if all is equal, otherwise if one has suffered damage then maybe the guardian that has suffered the least would get priority on the next diverted damage.

divert?it is a damage share.'Share' - 33% of all dmg taken shared equally between all guardian shields.

Perhaps you are unfamiliar with what the word divert means. If the guardians are sharing damage so that the original target is not having to take the full amount of damage then the guardians are in effect diverting some of that damage to themselves.