You obviously can have different pacts with different people (duh). You just can't have one particular type of pact with more than one player.

my hotkeys go like this

1 - capital ships

2 - illuminators/assailants

3 - carriers

4 - anti-fighter

5 - heavy cruisers/light frigates

6 - overseers/guardians

7 - subverters

Lol!

My Hotkeys are very similar. Just flip carriers for heavy cruisers. And my light frigates are 8.

Using an unstacked empire tree with the hotkeyed overseers and subverters allows for some nasty microing, especially subverters.

I just wish tab worked when the empire tree was stacked ...

Hey thanks much! One last question:

Planet Health vs. Planet Population. Is it the latter I need to reduce to zero so that I can settle a planet? Or do both have to reach zero? Thanks much

Need to reduce Planet Health. When that is gone so goes the Planet Population and you are free to colonize. A good way to think about it is this, Planet Health is equal to defenses while Planet Population is equal to resources.

Is there some list/table/easily viewable chart somewhere that lists all of the ships so that one could compare some simple stats? I am basically interested in

- cost

- hull / shields

- base DPS

- supply cost

I have seen a lot of detailed spreadsheets, including those stickied on these forums, but that's not quite what I mean. Can anyone help?

Sorry, can anyone tell me if the information in this post here (https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/305565), namely the information in this following table,

is correct? It seems to conflict with information I got on the wiki.

Thank you very much

Yeah, that info is wrong.  This resource isn't entirely up to date, but the damage tables are still correct:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=0AjoM84CpClJ7cDd4Y19zbmQ5Q2MtNm8yVXd2UEVXVWc&gid=1

Thank you. If I may?

1. Trying my hand at Advent, and have gained access to that lvl 6 ability "Resurrection". Looks nice, but I have no clue as to when/how to use it. How can I target a ship if it is destroyed -- or do I need to just go around targeting all my ships before they are destroyed? I set "autocast: off", like I do on all abilities, but am unsure how this works in general. Thanks for the advice.

2. Still playing SP until I understand this game, and can see that when I load a saved game, I can change the difficulty settings. A question about that, if I may: Do the different settings just involve cheating (boni the AI gets over a human player) or are different smartness algorithms used? I am guessing on the former. If so, I wonder what the boni are -- if the same genre-typical boni are used (more economic boni, better starting conditions)? Does anyone know? Also, if I can change the settings, I could conceivably start on, say, difficult, then switch to normal, then back to difficult if it is too hard -- and there will be a difference in terms of what the AI can do from the same situation?

thank you

1. Resurection is a pretty useless ability. IMO its worth using the upgrade points on the other abilities first, especially shield regen. If you pair this ability with Iconus Guardians you get a pretty hardy fleet.

2. Harder AIs just get resource bonuses. I think there is some smartness increase, like if you have a SB they will build more anti-structure ships, but thats about it. They will still come and suicide on your max starbase (though when they have all buffs researched and lots of anti structure they can do it lots of damage). Stupider AIs will generally have less ships around.

What I have noticed though, is that Cruel and harder AIs in diplomacy will actually try and attack on more than 1 front. Unfairs and below just try and take the same planet over and over again.

Thanks -- but how WOULD I use ressurection if I had to? Granted it might not be a great ability, but now I have a level 10 mothership and have this ability. I'm not sure how to use it. What do I target, and when?

I was also wondering about how switching the AI-difficulty works between saving and loading -- if I start on "normal", switch to "hard" 10 minutes later, then to "cruel" for 5 minutes, and then back to "normal", will my AI opponents vary their strength in those times accordingly, or are those switchings fairly meaningless after the original start?

One last question: I read that many people seem to find the Advent support ship Subjugator not so great. I'm not entirey sure I understand why, because those are usually the same people who claim the Vasari Subverter is great. I realize how great the Guardian is, but it just seems that the Vasari Subverter and the Advent Subjugator are not so terribly different in terms of price and robustness and supply, and the "supression" ability of the subjugator isn't all that different from the ability of the subverter that everyone seems to praise. What am I missing?

You target a low level cap ship with that ability when a high level cap ship dies. No need for anything else to be done.

As for your last question it has to do with the Subjugator's ability to turn, which is poor, and it's lack of 360 degree abilities. This causes it abilities to be severely under-usable. The TEC Hoshiko has both of it's abilities set at 360 degree effect and is pure awesome. Both ships have basically the same abilities just different affect areas.

The Subverter is great in a quick dash across the system and hold a portion of the fleet while the rest gets taken out piece meal. It doesn't need 360 effect abilities to work great.

Ah ok thanks. I thought that its large range and cheap cost of the ability usage would make it just as good (I think the subjugator's ability cost is 30 with a quick cooldown (forget what), and the subverter has a much higher cost and longer cooldown; I thought the ability was single-target only, didnt realize it was AoE!!).

Because the wording in game is kind of hard for me to understand, I was wondering if anyone can tell me what pervasive economy does exactly. Does it give you money if anyone purchases something from the black market, or if anyone builds a ship, or if anyone makes anything, or is it only trade via the diplomacy screen? The wiki entry here is, I am pretty sure, not accurate. Thanks much

Also hard to tell what cultural monopolization does. What are those rebellions, how often do they occur? I've never seen it actually happen, although in one game I bought the reseaerch just to test to see what it does, but I couldnt figure it out.