So I got the game a few days ago, but I find myself away from my gaming computer for a while this weekend, and thought I would write some quick tips (and some theories) I have about the game from my first half-dozen games. Think of this as less of a guide and more of an explanation of my current play-style and my reasons for it. I plan on correcting this guide with advice from more experienced players, and as my own experience goes on.
This game comes packed with lots of scenarios. That's really great, and it seems a lot of them share some common starting conditions, so these tips are all based on the following start:
You have default resource settings. You start with a Terran Home world with 3 levels of Civilian Infrastructure (and around 10 Credits per second income) two unclaimed metal asteroids, one unclaimed crytal asteroids, a Frigate Factory (0 research) and 2 constructor ships. Importantly, there are pirates on this map.
From this start I usally go for a "Boom" Strategy:
Economic "Boom" Opening Strategy: This strategy goes lighter on the military side and is focused on getting a solid economy, so you can create a large force a bit later in the game.
How To:
1) The first thing you want to do is select your constructor ship(s) and queue up, Capital Ship Factory, the crystal extractor, then the two metal extractors. Queue up 2-3 scouts (you may need more if on a larger map, but I'd say no less than 2 regardless of map size). As they come out set the Explore function on auto. The in-ship AI does a darn good job of scouting systems. You will find colonizable worlds on most maps within a few moments, and you hardly have to think about where you are sending your ships.
2)Select your home planet and queue up the last Civilian Infrastructure Upgrade when you can afford it. If you built a lot of scouts (or like to start with less resources), do not be afraid to use the Black Market to buy the Crystal/Metal you need...your homeworld will usually give you enough credits fast enough that you sholdn't really worry that much about going "broke" trying to buy the other resources. Right now metal and crystal are your bottlenecks, not necessarily credits. THe reason why you want this upgrade is because you will increase your credit income from 600 Credits per minute to 720 credits permitted. That means you can make more expensive purchases sooner--making other players have to wait longer as prices increase on the resource you just bought. As other players buy metal and crystal from the Black Market the prices go through the roof--often to 700 credits per 100 "units" or more.
By upgrading quickly, you ensure that you can buy 100 of either resource every minute or so, whereas your opponent will have to wait longer--plus the more you buy, the higher it goes still. Because you were able to buy it first, they'll have to wait even longer. This can put a cramp in a pure rush strategy because they put that metal/crystal into research facilities and ship upgrades, instead of increasing their credit per second pool. Worst case scenario is that everyone makes 720 credits per minute, and you still remain competitive.
3) As you wait for the funds to buy that last upgrade: When the Cap Ship Factory is completed, you will notice that your first capital ship is free. Buy your faction's colonizing Cap Ship. It has decent firepower for taking out light militias around neutral asteroids. When the Cap is finished make sure you select the "Colonize" power first via the "star menu", or it will be of little use to you. Send it to the nearest colonizable asteroid. The cap ship can destroy the few ships around asteroids on its own, then when it's done it will colonize the asteroid when it has enough anti-matter. As you conquer asteroids, send this cap from asteroid to asteroid. These are easiest to take early game and their resources will serve as a foundation to take those jucier Terran, Dessert, Ice and Volcanic worlds. Don't forget to build extractors each time you acquire a new asteroid.
Note: For right now, don't worry much about the negative (red) credit income--another reason you upgraded your homeworld was to absorb this small cost. You will have to colonize quite a few asteroids for this to create a credit bottleneck. Again you are going to be short on metal and crystal, and this strategy helps get you more of these two resources faster. Don't be afraid to sell temporary suprlusses of metal and crystal to get the credits needed to purchase extractors if you are really that desperate.
4) Okay, it's been a few minutes into the game. The pirate timer is about at 3:00 (or more) minutes until launch. You may have your first or even second asteroid colony already, depending on how defended they were, how far away it was, etc. You probably have purchased the last Civilian Infrastructure upgrade for your homeworld and it's inching up towards that 720 Credit per minute mark. It's time to start thinking about your first battle fleet.
4) You already have a cap ship, and building another one is really intensive for your economy right now, so you should build frigates to support your first cap ship's efforts. It seems some players go for a second Battleship cap ship...but I think that would actually slow down your overall game, because it costs you one research building, a tech, and a hefty purchase price just to buy that durn thing. In a confrontation with a normal AI or decent human player, the frigates will end up making more of the difference in taking neutral worlds or rushing.
So like I said, it's time to think about that battle fleet. What will it be made out of? Should you mass light frigates? Should your research the flak ship (or equivalent)? Should you research the long range combat ship (or equivalent)? It really depends on the situation. If you want to take that really heavily defended Terran world, I would recommend using the flaks ship.
Flak ships have very decent stats. I've only played the TEC and Vasari so far but there's a trend. Flak ships are more expenisve across the board BUT require less supplies, have more shields and hp, and have twice the average damage rating of Light Frigates. In groups with a cap ship, they can be devastating--even against long range ships (manually target them to get them out of the fight sooner). They are also one of the rare ships that can fire multidirectionally, meaning they can hit more than one ship at once. These are great benefits...which makes me wonder if there is some frigate attack rating penalty I don't know about. But in my experience they seem to outperform light frigates in anti-frigate duty (and their value against bombers is obvious).
The downside is, you have to get no less than two military labs, plus the unlock research. However, if it's a larger map, these are a viable option as the backbone of your first fleet.
5) On smaller maps, I'd go for light frigates with one military lab. Especially for the TEC. The TEC have a lot of military upgrades for this level. For one military lab you get access to: Two upgrades to their laser weapon, two upgrades for ALL your ship's armor and two upgrades for all your ships maximum hull points/repair rate. If you buy all the first level upgrades before starting on any of the second level upgrades, you will noticeably improve your light frigates combat abilities through time more effeciently than someone who upgrades both levels of any one type of upgrade before moving on to the next. In other words you will have a better fleet with one laser upgrade and one armor upgrade than someone who had purchased both laser upgrades. At least that's what I've seemed to notice.
I usually buy a few light frigates (like around 5 or so) before I think about upgrading them. If you want just a ton of ships, don't even bother upgrading them until your fleet is completed to around 15-20 ships (usually, though you'll have to research a logistics upgrade before you can get that many, meaning your stuck building one lab anyway--might as well upgrade them while you have the lab.
6) By the time the first pirate raid is launched I usually have around 9-15 light frigate combat ships including the Cap Ship (not including the scouts) and maybe an upgrade or two (usually the logistics and one other one). The number varies by faction I'm playing (Vasari ships cost a lot more than TEC ships in terms of resources and supply). And whether I have to pay off the pirates. If the AI (or other humans) are not putting bounty on me and focusing on eachother, I can spend the credits on getting the metal or crystal for my ships and their upgrades.
7) Another reason I like the light frigate, 1 military lab strategy is that I can then spend the other logitics slots on civilian research labs. I build one at my home planet, and then one at my first asteroid colony. Then I can have access to those additional colonizing techs. You should choose colonizing techs based on the "geography" of your area. If an arctic planet or two is closer than any other type, I'd research artic colonization before volcanic or vice versa. On those rare ocassions that there are more Desert or Terran planets close by, I'd even ditch the civilian labs for a while, and build two more military labs, and just build a better and more varied fleet to help deal with the tougher garrisons.
Well, that's all I can write for now, though I have more ideas. I'll update this later. I'm very interested in (constructive) crtiques, feedback and additional tips. I'll revise this top post to reflect the additional input I get.
