Newb question regarding economy

1.Trade ports are definitely viable, especially once you get 5-6 planets.  Until then, don't get them, you don't need them yet.

Culture is good if you have a small clustered empire.  The thing about this though is that it boosts allegiance, and thus income so the more you can affect with one, the better.

Refineries are weird.  There are some situations that scream refineries, but most of the time trade ports are better.

Passive income increases are good.  Since you are playing against the computer, this is a good idea, but if you ever play online, you may not want to get these as you will be putting your money in a long term benefit rather than a short term one to counter the rush that you know will come.

 

2. Heavy Cruisers (HC's) are good.  They should constitute a good chunk of your fleet late game and act as an excellent meat shield and deal good damage.  These ships counter just about everything.

Long Range Frigates (LRF) are great.  These are generally the primary damage dealers in the fleet.  If playing as Advent, get illuminators.  They are great and also remember that they have guns on their sides as well.  These ships counter LF especially and do pretty well against everything else.

Light Frigates (LF) are decent.  They used to be worthless as they would just get slaughtered by LRF, but now they have been buffed.  These counter cruisers, especially those with little damage capacity.

Carriers are good.  They can use Fighters or Bombers which go after light (LRF/bombers) and very-heavy (structures, HC's, capitals) targets respectively.

 

Also, you should only get upgrades when it is cheaper to increase your overall stats via upgrades than by buying more ships (or if you have hit the fleet capacity limit and don't want to increase it due to the drain on your economy yet).  Generally, more ships is good.  Don't get carriers too early though.  They are expensive and you won't have the funds to deploy them.

1. The general thought is that trade ports trump all. With a decent trade you can just buy and sell xtal on the black market much quicker than researching xtal production increases. Also, refineries only work on ice/lava worlds with 4 extractors, with several neighbouring similar worlds.

When you do go for trade ports - a long unbroken chain is better than just spamming the things

 

2. Bit trickier. Online most go for a couple of health upgrades, but then you really need to learn what the ships do. Against the AI you can often just spam a load of ships and win. Personally it depends which race I am (this is against the AI)

 

For Tech - the hoshinko is a must. I tend to spam these with kodiaks. as the fleet core. A L6 Marza will do loads of damage with its missile barage.

Advent - Illuminators and Guardians, with 1/2 projen caps to keep the shields up. Then have some carriers, and probably carrier cap sitting in the back. Filling with mostly fights should keep opposing bombers at bay.

Vasari - Have an egg and a couple of skinratra carriers in the fleet, and watch stuff die, even better when you get some subverters.

 

Basically I think varied fleets work great, especially when you know each unit's strength and weaknesses.

Thanks a lot for the advice so far. Very interesting and useful. I hope some other people join this discussion and add their views. Why are refineries not so useful? Why is culture only useful in a clustered empire, I thought it was more useful if you had planets in a long line and allegiance effects matter more?

"Also, you should only get upgrades when it is cheaper to increase your overall stats via upgrades than by buying more ships "

In other words, this means that upgrades are only viable if you have many ships, as the impact of upgrading is bigger than buying an additional ship?

"Don't get carriers too early though.  They are expensive and you won't have the funds to deploy them."

Could you elaborate on this? Why are they so expensive? Do you mean purchasing them or in terms of ongoing costs? Why are carriers so good, you only get two squadrons, which is not so much in my view? Do they really do so much damage? What is the preferred ratio of fighters and bombers in any given fleet with carrier-type of ships? Sorry for asking so many questions, but your answers so far have been very useful and I think more people could use this type of advice.

 

 

Yes.  If you only have 5 long range frigates, adding one more will give you more firepower and hitpoints than a 5% increase to firepower or shields or hull.  You get more fo ryour money by adding an additional ship.  In contrast, if you have 60 of those ships then a 5% increase to a stat might be a better buy then adding an additional frigate.  Sometimes a good time to do your upgrade is when you've bumped up against the top of your fleet supply because now you'll need to take on an additional tax burden and do fleet research to get more ships.  At that point it might make some sense to do a little research to increase firepower, shields, and hull, especially if it's just first, second, or third tier research.  Of course, it's very difficult to formulate an exact rule for what makes the most strategic sense; it's going to depend on your exact situation.

They are expensive ships and they can be easily neutralized by opposing carriers with fighters, cheap flak frigates, or capital ships with anti-strikecraft abilities (like the Halcyion Telekinetic Push).  If your opponent has lots of strikecraft then you're going to need some with your own fighters and flaks.  As with everything, sometimes it makes sense to have them and sometimes it doesn't.  Strikecraft are nice to have if you want to kill an enemy's construction (structure-building) frigates when you enter a gravity well to attack or if there is some specific ship or structure you don't want to approach closely that you want to target from afar.

Personally, I view strikecraft as being useful primarily as a counter to enemy strikecraft and for killing enemy construction frigates.  I don't regard them as a primary fighting unit.  Sometimes you will encounter (human) opponents who will pump out swarms of strikecraft which can be annoying and a pain if you do not already have the counters for them.  When that happens you need to quickly put up your own counters (your own carriers with fighters and lots of flak ships).  As a general rule it's cheaper to counter strikecraft and to neutralize them than it is to build the amount you need for offensive purposes.

Bombers are powerful and great for taking down structures, starbases, and capital ships if you have a sufficient mass of them, but they're easily countered by enemy fighters and possibly masses of flak frigates.  However, if you have a huge swarm of bombers, they can kill things before they themselves are killed, which is great if you want to kill a specific enemy capital ship.  However, once the enemy's fighters have killed your bombers they will then have air superiority.  Strikecraft can be more useful and less likely to be countered early game before people have put up diverse fleets.  One common strategy people are using now is to quickly pump out two carrier capital ships at the beginning of the game so that they can engage nearby opponents with 6+ strikecraft before they've had time to put up their own flak frigates and carriers.

 

I'm actually in the process of writing an article for the Sins wiki right now on the "payback time" of various economic investments.  Let me give you an excerpt:

 

Resource Extractor (@100% loyalty):  2 minutes
Resource Extractor (@50% loyalty):  4 minutes
Trade Port (8-link trade route): 14 minutes
Trade Port (4-link trade route):  19 minutes
Trade Port (0-link trade route):  24 minutes

These payback times are based on "fast" game speed.  As we can see, resource extractors wipe trade ports off the map.  Capturing a new planet is simply the best form of investment.  Trade ports aren't bad, but as you can see compared to acquiring new resource extractors they aren't even a drop in the barrel.  The top priority at the start of the game is new planets so you can get more resource extractors.  Once you get rolling and have some spare cash to spend, trade is a great place to put it.  Logistics slots are pretty easy to come by if you've been colonizing fast enough, and you can build a decent trade port chain pretty quickly.  Notice that building 8 trade ports in a line will almost double their performance, so if you can build an extensive chain all the better!

 

With the exception of hull and armor upgrades (trust me, when your capital ship escapes with 100 hull points remaining, you'll be thankful!) there are only three situations to get generic ship upgrades.  The first is when they are a prerequisite to some other technology (ie, Advent needs three shield upgrades to research guardians).  The second is when you have loads of units.  I don't know the critical threshold off the top of my head, but it varies by frigate type and upgrade level.  The final reason to get upgrades is if you've filled all your command points, but you really cannot afford to increase your upkeep level.

 

Carriers are quite expensive and for their cost are relatively fragile.  Most players prefer to use capital-ship carriers in the early game since they're tougher, more reliable, and offer weapons and special abilities of their own in battle.  What do you want 3 transporters with 6 squads, or one Skirantra with 3 squads and weapons of its own and unlimited squad replacement capacity and the ability to heal troops around it and much tougher armor?  Late-game, the 6 squads can really add up.  Early game, go with the Skirantra.  Less punch but more staying power will win out in smaller engagements.

i found a 13-14 trade port link triple the effect

ow looks like we're very different in such issue and i appreciate it, for me sending a bulk of non/minimum upgraded units is to throw them away ie ur resources go wasted.

anyhow, i don't find it very crucial for choosing any carrier caps as ur flagship. choosing carrier caps as ur flagship only works effectively in small maps where caps battle will start in like 20 minutes or less but in larger maps i would prefer a siege/battle/colonizer caps based on how fast i wanna expand my territory early game

Yup, you can keep making longer and longer chains.  At about 20-25 links (give or take) there is literally nothing in the game that can compare to a trade port as a money-making machine. 

Sending a few heavily upgraded units into the jaws a massive force of unupgraded units is a waste.  You'll kill practically nothing and just get slaughtered.  Now, superior unit types are another story, but five heavy cruisers will still win against four heavy cruisers with a few extra hull, armor, and damage points.  Numbers come first.

Thanks again for all the excellent replies. Some follow-up questions:

 

@Darvin3 

- What is the payback time at normal speed, is the difference large?

- Do normal carriers not have unlimited squad replacement capacity?

 

@DirtySanchezz

- "Sometimes a good time to do your upgrade is when you've bumped up against the top of your fleet supply because now you'll need to take on an additional tax burden and do fleet research to get more ships. " What do you mean with the additional tax burden?

- What's the point in killing construction frigates, don't they reappear immediateley?

 

No one actually plays at normal speed.  If you play online, its all at max.  I'd tell you if I could, but I don't know.

Yes and no...  They can replace their SC infinitely so long as they have AM as each SC requires ~3-5 AM.  Capitals can do so without AM usage.

No.  They quickly regenerate if there is no one around, but if there are enemies in the gravity well, it takes six minutes for them to regenerate.

Yes, but they use antimatter to replace dead squads. In addition strike craft take time to get to full strength, so when you've lost all your squads, when the new ones come out they'll die instantly because they start very weak

No, about 5 mins later. Construction frgs are usually the first target for fighters in online games.

It will take 30% longer to pay back on normal speed. 


Normal carriers (and hangers, for that matter) require antimatter to replace squads.  If you're out of antimatter, you can't replace squads.  A carrier that's been jumping around or that's been replacing squads constantly in a long and difficult battle may become depleted and nothing more than a dead weight. 

Capital ships and starbases do not have this limitation.




If there are enemy units in the gravity well, they take extra long to reappear.  Usually the battle is over by the time they come back, but you can kill them the moment they reappear anyways even if that does happen.



Every time you increase your maximum fleet size, your upkeep increases.  Upkeep siphons off a portion of your income, and never goes away even if you aren't using those ship slots.  This makes it a very difficult decision as to when to "fleet up".

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Thanks again to all of you. From now on, I will not be as quick with going for increases in my fleet supply as they seem pretty expensive. Also, I will be careful how to use carriers. I thought the lost strike craft would reappear immediately and at full strength. 

Why do the strikecraft not return at full strength? And compared to full strength, how strong are they in the beginning and how long does it take for them to reach full capacity?

Question on upkeep. If you increase the capital ship slots, does this also increase upkeep, or happens this only if you increase the general fleet supply.

Squad strength refers to what % of the squad is still alive. Carriers can only replace one craft at a time, so if the whole squad was wiped out it will reappear as a squad consisting of a single fighter, which is a very low percentage of its maximum size. 

If something out there was able to wipe out the whole squad, a single fighter will probably get minced the moment it leaves the carrier.  It's best to let strike craft dock and rebuild to full strength before releasing them again in these situations.

Different factions have different squad sizes.  Advent has larger squads (weaker individually), and Vasari has smaller squads (stronger individually).  Otherwise the most major difference between the factions is that Vasari strike craft use phase missiles... and those are scary weapons once they have the upgrade line completed.

Only fleet supply.