New player - TEC

On bigger maps, you're usually better off building frigate factories closer to the front lines.  It can take quite a while for new units to travel from your homeworld.

Also, I'd avoid light frigates and skip straight to LRM.  The light frigate is useful against people who are scout-spamming, flak-spamming, and carrier (cruiser) rushing.  The AI will not use any of these strategies, so there's pretty much no reason to build light frigates.  The only faction that should is Advent, since they need three labs to get to the illuminator, which can be a bit restrictive early on.

Also be sure to mix in Hoshikos into your fleet.  This lovely support cruiser adds a lot of longevity to your fighting force and is easily the best unit in the TEC faction.

Usually you're better off with the Sova Carrier early on rather than Percherons.  A Sova can reach level 3 fairly quickly from fighting militia, giving it a competitive 4 squadrons.  It also gets special abilities and regular weapon attacks, plus it can bombard planets, plus it moves faster than regular carriers, plus as a capital ship it requires no antimatter to build strike craft.  In the early game where there are lots of militia to level up off of, you should always go with a carrier capital ship rather than the cruiser.  Later on the sheer volume of strike craft from the cruisers will overwhelm what capital ships can do, but in these early stages the Sova is a real beast.

Totally depends on the map.  Sometimes your scenario will really favour one of these approaches, sometimes you'll have a lot of leeway to decide between these two options.  Sometimes a good approach is to send your Akkan off on its own to colonize and send a fresh Sova as the "leader" of your military force.  The Akkan is pretty slow, and in multiplayer this makes it a giant bullseye since it can't outrun enemy units, so most people like to divert it to colonization duty until it hits level 6 and gains the "armistice" special, which can be used to protect itself.

Try speeding it up!  I keep a "high score" list of my best times against the AI.  I generally do my speedruns against the unfair difficulty (best time - 31 minutes to blast their homeworld)

ok thanks a lot, now when you say speed it up i know you are talking about my fleet management and all that, but what game speed does the online community play at...ill be playing comps till rebellion comes out most likely...thank you so much for the tips

Online, people play with everything on Faster. It helps speed the game up - hourlong games are long enough already. Online players also nearly always set the other options to locked teams, pirates off, and quick start.

In the early-mid game, I personally almost always have either 2 or 3 fleets: one fleet is composed of a colony frigate and some scouts, colonizing in one direction. Another fleet is composed of my colonizer capital ship and maybe a few scouts as well, colonizing in the other direction; my third fleet probably has a carrier cap or two, along with more military-oriented units for attacking (or defending against) the enemy.

Later in the game, after planets are colonized, building multiple raiding fleets to attack the AI is often very effective, because the AI has such poor fleet logistics skills. That is, attack a planet with siege frigates and Ogrovs, warp out when the enemy fleet comes in, have your combat fleet somewhere else attacking an enemy planet, and have another raiding fleet with siege frigates and Ogrovs in yet another gravity well. You can do quite a lot of damage this way and the AI simply often isn't fast enough to attack your raiders, especially when you make sure to warp them out if an enemy fleet arrives.

With the expansion strategy I use I generally end up having 11-13 combat scouts supporting my cap and colony frigate. If I'm colonizing as fast as I can I often rarely have enough funds for trade ports until the 11 or 12 minute mark. (I usually get try to get 5 planets by 8 or 9 minutes or so, although once I got 5 planets by 6 minutes in a nice map)

You do build turrets after you colonize and then move your fleet on ASAP, right? It's amazing the amount of time you can save by simply evading the rest of the neutral ships (after killing the siege and colonizing).

Eek. Wow.

You should let the colony frigs get asteroids because of the low militia there right? if i send 3 or 4 scouts with it should be able to protect the colony frig ... and let the akkan handle the planets along with more scouts... this is for fast expansion play as i understand it

    As others have noted, the Sova and the Akkan are probably the two best starters.  Small numbers of flak and fighters make Sova bombers a real menace, and its embargo ability can really set back the AI if you make a quick strike.  The Akkan is a bit better in terms of slugging ability, and I like it attributes - especially Targeting Uplink.  Either ship will start well.

    I normally don't worry quite so much about whichclass of planets or asteroids I colonize so much as I do their location.  Colonizing away from your enemy gives you a bit more time to prepare for an attack (depends on map size; EX - large map with few players has a lot more latitude early on).  However, I normally pick out a good "chokepoint" planet (or planets) ahead of my main lines and grab it.  I can usually throw up a good enough defense to hold back the pirates or enemy fleets while I colonize everything behind me.  Playing defensively has advantages, but it can also be crippling to a player if he doesn't balance it with some offensive tactics.  That's why I like the chokepoint concept.  I can estimate how far ahead I can push my frontier, pick out a good chokepoint a little bit inside that margin, and then rush to it.  Early in the game, this is a great way to mess with the AI; you can backfill the planets it has behind your new frontline, with a second (and maybe third), smaller fleet.  Against a strong opponent, however, this tactic can result in your fleet being cut-off and destroyed; it has to be done carefully - don't rush for a "bridge too far."

    As others have noted, versatility and manueverability are imperative; multiple fleets normally equals good.  This also grants you the ability to fight pirates on your own terms.  After nailing most of the local militia forces, I use the pirates to level up my capital ships.  When I finally start my full offensive, I normally have several very strong capital ships forming the backbone of my fleets.  I'll continue to season new ships in this manner until mid-game; then I either pay off or eliminate the pirates.

    One last thought for now - don't look for artifacts until about mid-game when your economy is reasonably strong.  Finding an artifact early on is a great boost, however, you are far more likely to waste valuable resources that would be better used to fuel your military, technology, or planetary improvements.  Conducting the research later can give a nice mid-game boost, and the resources loss are not as keenly felt. 

This is actually part of the multiplayer tip pack was going to send you:

Do you know about the solo-colony-frigate-to-asteroid trick? You can colonize an asteroid and keep it, with only a puny colony frigate and no backup. The trick is to warp in, colonize, build a turret as close to the asteroid as possible **in between the planet and the enemy siege frigate** and then have the colony warp out. The turret will nearly always destroy the siege frigate before it can bomb out the planet.

Given this strategy, if you see that your capital ship is going in one direction off your homeworld and there is an asteroid in the other direction, build a colony frigate as soon as possible (stop building scouts) to get the asteroid (and the income from the asteroid) as quickly as possible.

The Akkan really shines in the more spacious maps like 1v1, but sometimes the Sova is a better starter in larger (cramped) maps due to its sheer firepower.

This does work well if you have a colony cap. And if you see a great choke point, rush for it, don't be afraid to skip that unattractive Volcano planet on the way or that heavily defended Desert or Terran planet on the way - if you can secure a planet closer to the enemy, you'll continue to control that area for a while, and can colonize the planets behind your front lines later. But if you fail to get to that choke point in time and the enemy reaches it first, you'll have a significantly harder time fighting him back and taking it from him!

Pirate raids are very easily fought off with a capital ship, a few turrets, and a couple repair platforms. I've found that building combat-oriented frigates or cruisers to fight the pirates usually means you're more likely to take a few ship losses. Against AI players, I'm more of a turtling player and rarely build much of a fleet until the mid-late game. Against any AI except Cruel and Vicious, a starbase combined with repair platforms on your front-line world(s) is guaranteed to fight off basically any enemy fleet they send at you: if I feel like playing cheaply and build a starbase like this, I then have the freedom to entrench, research, and build trade ports and whatever else I want to, while the AI sends periodic raids to suicide themselves on my starbase.

When I say "speed it up", I mean try to win faster.  That means fleet management, empire building, just about everything.  I find it's more fun to play against a reasonable difficulty level (for me, that's unfair; for you, probably normal) and try to win quickly than it is to play on the obscene difficulties.

The online community usually plays with all speeds set to faster, quickstart, pirates off, locked teams.  Some people are cool with playing on fast or without quickstart, but a lot of people aren't.

Yeah, that'll work.  If you build a turret immediately on the asteroid, you don't need to send any units with the colony frigate.  I don't really count such a small force as a separate "fleet".

I'm curious, on which map, or type of map?

I just beat an Unfair on Point Blank in 7 minutes.  2 Vulkoras with seige turret ability straight to his homeworld, scouts to kill constructors and colony ships before the AI had a chance.  So it must be something considerably bigger.

Random small (which is actually a misnomer; it's one of the more spacious 1v1 scenarios with 10 planets per player and an average distance between homeworlds of 6-7 jumps).  Sorry, didn't mention that.

Yeah, you can do some crazy antics on point blank

    I have a weakness for the huge maps.  I'll deliberately let the game ride, even after I've beaten everything there is to beat save the enemy's last couple of worlds, so that I can max out my tech and my fleet size.  I love to watch the superweapons and giant fleets all interacting in one colossal, climatic battle as I totally flatten everything in front of me.

    It makes for a long game though... 

On my end, I hate games that drag on after I've got it in the bag, so I avoid oversized maps like the plague.

    It depends on my mood I suppose.  I keep a couple saved games for that purpose.  Otherwise I just load up a small map and blast some AI.  If I can wrangle someone into playing LAN with me then we'll have a nice set-to on a medium map...

Also, if you send in a Dunov before taking over an enemy planet, you can use "embargo to steal some credits before taking over the planet.

Sorry, I mean Akkan.  ; whoops..Sova Carrier

The Sova Embargo only starts stealing a significant amount of funds when it's at level 2 and is orbiting the enemy's homeworld - otherwise, the economic effect is almost always negligible.

But when it's at L2 over an enemy HW it is extremely effective.

(unfortunately this won't work that well against the non-pathetic AIs due to LF spam unless you have a damage-soak fleet or something on the other side of the gravity well...)

Yes, Sova's embargo is much more effective against a human opponent than against a high-difficulty AI.  It's also not too shabby for attacking front-line worlds, since it slows down frigate production.  Really, it needs to stop having such a big effect on homeworlds so it can be properly buffed.  A well-diversified late-game empire loses almost nothing from having a single planet embargoed, but it's positively crippling for an early-game empire that relies on their homeworld for the majority of their income.

    I've found Embargo to have an application late game when fighting more than one enemy.  If I can get a large enough fleet to spare some Sovas, then I can use them to hold a smaller nation at bay so that I have more time to deal with a major threat (even though it generally means sacrificing them).  Consider two opponents, one weak and one strong, who have allied.  The Sovas are nice for countering the weaker opponent, because the Embargo will sap an already small economy while the fighters and bombers can wreak havoc with its smaller fleets.  It doesn't work long because the larger empire can (sometimes) send help to its ally and eliminate the Sovas, or I might not be able to devote time and resources to them and the smaller enemy will beat them eventually on its own.  However, they can buy me enough time to drive a wedge into the larger enemy by stealing a couple planets and destroying a fleet or two; something I might not have been able to do if the other smaller enemy could have allied with its Big Brother in full force, rather than having to deal with embargoed planets and a handful of Sovas that were cavorting around in its backyard.

    Beyond that though, the Sova loses a lot of functionality late-game.  The missile platforms are nice but don't pack enough punch, and the fighters and bombers can be nullified by flak frigates all too easily.  The Sova is definitely strongest early in the game! 

Perhaps you could have a decreasing effect on the orbited planet with an increasing empire-wide income steal per level? ie

Steals 50%, 30%, 20% of planet income, Steals 8%, 15%, 20% of empire income.

It could have the same effect on the build speeds just for the planet but scaling it like this would be beneficial for making it relevant in a late game.

I don't really like the potential for a level upgrade which could hurt the ship more than it could help. (unless you're attacking the eco player). And even then it doesn't sound very nice to be able to sit a Sova on an enemy eco player's remote asteroid and steal a (relative) large amount of their income from their entire empire, forcing them to fleet up to defend (or hope that they have a nearby ally with a fleet).

Probably the best way is to have embargo affect adjacent gravity wells, though I'm not sure if that's feasible.

No solution I've yet heard that makes embargo less crippling in specific situations yet doesn't just nerf it can be done with the current engine, so at least a little engine change will be needed to truly fix this problem.

Edit: Well we could just make the third cap ship level unpurchaseable, but that seems a bit blunt.

Further, I advise that the Devs add custom map sharing to Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion.

Don't see how it "hurts the ship more than it could help". Actually my upgrade would make the ability more customizable for the situation, if you are using it only as a rush tool, then no need to go past level 1. If its an anti-eco tool then by all means go to level 3 and if you need something inbetween, well you have that option as well. The point is to make it relevant but not OP.

If an eco player is generating massive income, even 20% won't be that big of a deal. And your scenario is based on 1 of 2 assumptions,

#1 that you could sneak a sova past the attacking players to hit the eco player. Can it be done? Yeah at times, but are you playing very well as a team if you aren't prepared to have a small defense fleet for that contingency?

or # 2 that the eco player has an outer world to attack. If this is the case, again your assuming no defenses whatsoever. If I'm an eco player and there is a back door to my empire, you better believe I'll defend that spot or get a team mate to at least drop a SB with SC to harrass attacking Sova's until a fleet arrives.

I would probably go with the Akkan-Dunov-Sova combo with a small fleet and just use the level two cap abilities to get rid of an opposing force's asteroids.  But not send anything to his homeworld until I cleared off someofthe defenseplatforms with either a decoy fleet forthe hangardefense or some scouts with timed explosives for the stationary platforms.  Then, I'd use the Sova's ability to steal income from the homeword.  No other race comes close to this ability, which could be game changing if someone could perform it flawlessly enough to get in and out without loosing his cap ship.

Hey guys,

This topic seems to have died off, but I really didn't feel like making another post for a simple question. If you feed your allies as computers will they use the credits and so on effectively? I play TEC, and was wondering if you could "practice" feeding without being online. Is it a waste of time with computers?

Generally yes.

Low Level AI won't know what to do with it / won't use it well. High Level AI already have "cheat buffs" to their economy so it won't likely matter too much to them anyways.

A human's income is generally worth like 5 times as much as an AI's income, because the AI simply can't use its resources effectively. I recommend against attempting to "feed" AIs.