Build all your ships before you start to upgrade them.

Unless you can afford to do both at the same time... then you might as well. I often have 4 or so frigates already cued to build ... then I just get upgrades to go with them so I don't waste time. Better if your money is doing something rather than just sitting around. I only save when there is a purpose in it so I also don't usually cue more than 4 ships at a time unless i will have to leave my factorys alone for a while to do something else. If I cue more than that my money is just sitting around.

Could be wrong though.

I have a friend that has this annoying tendency to have only a capital ship and like 5 light frigates running around to protect like 15 planets because he has a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that a ships firpower cna be upgraded after it's been built.

He would spend the first 30 minutes or so trying to tech up his ships rather than balance the two (number of ships vs. firepower).

Until I gave him a lecture on it the other day he really thought that ships built early in the game weren't affected by upgrades.

you are forgetting about upkeep cost of more ships (assuming you are talking about spamming ships past tech up grades)

Upkeep costs only come into affect later in matches. In the early game having many ships can deter an opponent and let them let you have a planet. Upgrades are useless until later when you have the money or the advantage. If you feel comfortable and have extra resources, then by all means go for it, but numbers always bests upgrades, in almost all games they do!

Upkeep costs really come into affect only if the match lasts more than 1 to 2 hours, if shorter than that it doesn't really matter. If you know its guna be a dusy then buckle your seat belt and do some minor research in the beginning but wait until much later to upgrade.

you're right Aasch. it's a matter of economics. i reckon you got this from the japanese "Just In Time" production technique

Well one of the KEY problems with this is that research takes a long time even on fast and even as the advent. Its all truly a balance and you making the correct decisions at the right time. The best thing you can do is scout get lotsa intel on your enemy and make the right proactive decisions. Not engaging in research as a de facto rule can possibly leave u very under teched later in the game and maybe not because you cant afford it but because your waiting on older techs to get done being researched.

I assume your also refering to the advent when talking about shields. That first level is 400 creds and 25 crystal and no metal the hull and laser increase is as well, this is pretty darn cheap and prob something you should grab right before you goto fleet 2. These small increases along with a mothership cap mean your disciples will be pretty darn strong esp if you grab 3 of the shield techs (which u need anyways for guardians, and if your not getting guardians and repel as fast as u possibly can as advent your doing something very very wrong).

For weapon research this is without a doubt true (those are all so expensive and climb in such little increments, the only one I look to with some regularity are the TEC missile ones because they're decent, and a stepping stone to the Novalith), but I wouldn't shrug off Shield and Hull research since it can impact the early game. I would always be striving to use my full fleet cap first (the 20 ships you mentioned generally would do it) but looking toward researching Hull and Shields early can sometimes yield benefits.

These fields of research just don't add to the maximum hit points, but also add to the regeneration rate of all of your ship's in your fleet. This can be a noteworthy factor early in a game where the fighting is fairly low intensity (especially with militias), and ships have time to regenerate during and immediately after a battle (even running in and out of one).

For Advent, you can do both levels of Basic Shield Projection for a grand total of 900 credits and 75 Crystal which results in 10% more shielding and 10% faster shield regeneration. They also pay the same amount (900 credits and 75 Crystal) to get 10% stronger hulls and 10% faster hull regeneration, but since Advent has lower armor levels the worth of this can be contestable (although with Phase Missiles this can start to matter). But for no Metal (which Disciples often eat early game) and for less than cost of four Disciples you increase survivability of your entire fleet, and the basic shielding is necessary to climb to the ever-useful Guardian.

TEC can pay the same amount (again, 900 credits, 75 Crystal) and get 13% more hitpoints and 5% faster regeneration, and can also sink those same resources into research allowing them to have an increase of 1.5 Armor to all of the ships in their fleet. Not as much regeneration as Advent isn't so great, but getting an Armor increase isn't half bad, and if on the defensive with Repair Bays this can look kind of attractive.

Vasari only has the ability to pay for more Hull and Regeneration at T1, resulting in 13% more hull and 5% faster regeneration, again at the same cost of 900 Credits and 75 Crystal. They seem to get the raw end of the deal here, although they do have stronger ships as a whole so more innate survivability, I guess, and this research is needed for their Reintegration self-repair ability.

With all that said, I agree with you and definitely would not forgo fully utilizing my initial fleet cap in favor of doing this research, but often once I max it out I consider these research fields before upgrading making my first fleet capacity upgrade. Whenever you're not fully utilizing your fleet cap you're at a disadvantage, afterall.

And I'm much more weary of the research beyond T1 that sets you back significantly more Credits, Crystal, and also costs you Metal and generally climbs at about the same increments. But those first upgrades are oh-so-cheap compared to the later ones.

Yeah, T1 research can be handy as you get more credits than ship supply. But the first supply upgrade is a mere 9% upkeep cost, and should be gotten after the T1 upgrades(if you even invest in them before the fleet upgrade). At this point you should be building a respectable fleet. Once that cap is reached its totally possible to just buff all those ships some more, especially since you should already have several labs to unlock the more useful early ships for each race(LRMs, Guardians, Assailants-okay, this only needs one lab). The first supply upgrade level is a sort of sweet spot for early game fleets, and can be enough to decide the game in smaller maps. Its all a sort of balancing act based on ever-expanding income rates.

I'm just going to point out that while firepower upgrades are not such a big deal at the start, the health+healing rate hit points let you micro out ships much more easily when you're power expanding your empire in the early game.

i am going to point out that i made the assumption that your 5% upgrade gave you 5% of a new ship. In reality, you would need to upgrade 5% armor + 5% shields + 5%firepower to get what i said. The point is that more ships is better. If you have more money than you know what to do with, buy a new military research. LRMS are totally wack. They should counter SUPPORT ships. having them counter light frigates spoils my day. that makes the game a race to the research finish.

This is usually what I do. I find that I get better results from getting a bigger fleet earlier than getting a better, but small fleet early. I start pouring on the upgrades once I have a fairly large fleet (around 40 ships). As the OP pointed out, tech upgrades are worth more the bigger your fleet is.

I also tend to go in for the hull, armor, and shield upgrades before the weapons upgrades. A weapon upgrade will only help certain ships; but hull, shield, and armor upgrades helps all of your ships. I usually start getting better weapons after I've got a few techs up on those.

I will get hull, shield, and armor upgrades, at least the initial ones, fairly early. These seem to have a significantly more impressive impact on the combat effectiveness of your fleet than the early weapon techs.

ok, as a primarily economic player, here's what I found as Tec. Early game you get your initial armada going, then expand and build up you econ as best as you possibly can the quicker you get metal and crystal and tradeport upgrades the faster you can recover from an assault. Tec's ability to recover is it's advantage over the other races. in all Honesty against rivaling fleet of another Race TEC has a rather tough time, especially if you don't have a recovery strategy. Repair and Armor are their strongest advantage. you simply can't kill a Kol if it has the proper back up. So Military upgrades why get them? they buy you time.

I get a max initial fleet and possible get the second upgrade to overwhelm any rebel armadas. After which if I'm attack I'll be forced to defend or if I feel threatened I'll lay off the military mode until completely necessary so say I have tier 2 upgrades? with my current situation let's say the armada I'm facing is one upgrade ahead of me. but I have the better tech, I'm going to last longer than he expected and with my econ I can make the necessary actions to repel him. I then can decide whether to give myself another fleet slot and start fleet production or stay with the current fleet and send in reinforcements, during most of these engagements I've found the enemy is not smart enough to target the defences easier, I honestly don't even deal with Hangar Bays until the I feel it's required for raider defence.

My points Squeeze out the most money you can while you can. Upgrades aren't cheap ships are. you can always get ships later.

Now, should I unlock new types of ships or just fill up my fleet with what's available at the get go? Maybe replace them with better as they die, or build the better models as I expand my fleet logistics?

At some point you're going to want to unlock new ships. You'll want the first couple before too long, since they're LRMs and Flak, both of which are quite helpful. Then you can wait a while, but the other ship types do help. Heavy Cruisers are pretty nice, when the time comes to get them.

I also usually get the Cap ship on the far left (I almost always play Advent. They remind me of The Hive from Alpha Centauri. And I like a woman's voice ala Star Trek I think.) When it's time to get a second Cap ship I go for the carrier. Anyone else have any input on this?

As TEC, I go with the Kol first then the Donuv for backup then I get a second donuv to prevent people from tagreting the donuv's... AKA they'll regen eachothers shields

more ships >>>> small upgrades. Thought this was self-explanatory

With the upkeep system of sins, the only time you should be purchasing ship upgrades is when your popped out and dont want to make the jump to next logistics level just yet.

Note, however, that some ability unlocks (like distortion field, discharging missles) are different and should be grabbed asap. Although, there arent too many valuable ability unlocks in sins (unlike games like starcraft, c&c3).

I disagree. Most of the ability unlocks are of immense value. What is an example of an ability that does not impress you?

edit: nevermind, I'm tired and that didn't make sense, sorry.

edit: ok, I won't bother posting the explanation then

You know, how many times will this subject come up?

Its been debated since early in the beta cycle, and the testers all agreed, upgrading is a good idea. Part of it is that once you upgrade, that upgrade is forever, part of it is, upgrades just worked well for some reason. I don't remember the specific reason the theory craft doesn't work, but it doesn't -- there was always a flaw in the math, and I just can't remember it.

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It's usually the case the more ships >> more upgrades, however, it is the case that (cheap upgrades) x (a lot of ships) is better than adding a few ships to your fleet.

Quantifying this tactic relies on which specific upgrades you want versus what types of ships you are getting, etc, and so it will be up to individual players to make the call as to when to get upgrades (unless they are blindly copying a build for, say, rushing assailants and getting the upgraded armor after they have 20).

Keep in mind though that you only need upgrades as soon as you get into combat, and so getting upgrades very early is always a bad call no matter whether they are "worth" the cost or not in terms of potency. The idea is to have all of the upgrades you want as soon as you get into combat, and so getting the upgrades will depend on the OP and on when you need to attack or are going to be attacked.

Also, remember that build time often matters more than cost. If you have 5 ships queued in your frigate factory but are not planning on making more frigate factories for whatever reason (not enough logistic slots?.. or don't have the resources?... or simply won't be filling your build queues after those 5 finish?.. ) then it may be better for you to "dequeue" a ship from your factory queue to upgrade some armor or lrm damage etc.

Try to have a dynamic strategy though, but in general yes it is true that you should get like 20 ships and then buy the armor or damage upgrades, so if you blindly did that you would do fine.

Also, I want to note that it is generally better to upgrade damage than it is to upgrade armor, although one must be careful.. the vasari bypass shield upgrade for assailants is useless until later levels because it doesn't actually increase their total net damage.


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@ OP: you are forgetting an important factor (or two) in your calculations of 'worth'.

1. cap ships get benefits too.

2. TIME!!!!

Time is an important factor, sure it is better to upgrade when you have more ships a bit later, but research times in the game arent the fastest, especially when you start getting to the later tiers.

All that really matters in a battle is having overwhelming firepower, so you don't lose any of your ships (having an enemy attack group jump away from you is as satisfying as it is annoying though)

Upgrading your ships can make the fleet you already have less vulnerable to having them picked off one by one (but I agree it is a bad idea to spend 10 upgrades if you only have 5 ships!)

Also, you can go out and destroy all the enemy homeworlds and cripple their economies, but the fleet logistics don't let you split your forces into 5 massive fleets to get all the enemy homeworlds...

...Oh. and another thing, it seems the fleeing enemy fleet will run directly to it's homeworld (if you stay in their tail), so if you follow it, they will make a stand and fight you)...