Help: General strategy/game progression

[W]

Where to begin. First, I like this game. However, the unique mechanics of planet development via supply chains has me distracted. I need help understanding how a game should proceed. Thus far, I've focused on developing a level 5 planet at the expense of other game aspects like fleet development. How important are planetary structures, mining vessels, and research progression? I noticed the tech tree is largely devoted to fleet upgrades. In other 4x games, I build tall and do extensive research for superior ships. This is getting long. In short, how do you develop your empire?

[FourGreenFields]

He. "Long". Cute.

On some more serious notes:

• Plantery structures (= imperial buildings?) are importand, but you won't place them on every planet. Your powerhouse-planets will probably profit from some megacities, some front-line planets may do better with planetary defences, a labour-powerhouse will usually have factories and/or forges too, etc.. But most planets will usually remain without any imperial buildings.
  
• Mining vessels only matter if you have a use for ore. Unless you're building certain superprojects, or use that hull type that uses ore, ore won't help you.
  
• Research progression is very importand. Loads of buffs, and some fancy new toys too.

[Mr Said (SNIPE)]

ColSaid here, have you looked at the many "Guides" that are here at the top ?

[W]

Yes, I did along with videos on YouTube. They contain a lot of information on what stuff does but don't put it all together. A few tip guides gave me some ideas. This is why I'm asking how others develop their empires.

[Yogzototh]

Your first focus is expanding as fast and wide as possible. A good benchmark is a hard AI. If you can expand faster than it does, you are not terrible.

Colonisation drains population and thus income on your level1+ planets, so basically you want to maintain your budget at near 0. Going below slows down pop growth, having excess means you could be colonizing harder.
You colonise planets and build export chains on the fly with whatever you have available.

It is EXTREMELY important to learn to create and adjust your planet chains on the fly. As you get more planets, you need to be able to quickly put them to some use so that they give at least some income.
This skill will also help you later on when your supply chain gets ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up due to some lost planets and you desperately need to readjust the chain to minimise the damage.


Planetary Food/Water generators are really good when you dont see any easily available water/food but need to level up that tier-1 resource planet you have.
Factories are only useful if you had bad luck with planets that giv e labour pressure.
Research centers are nice money sinks, the buffs provided by research are pretty good.
Metropolises you build when you see that planet receives more pressure than its capacity
Most other structure also are usually built when you feel like you need them (like when you get tired of deploying defense every 30 seconds or have not enough storage for a long FTL jump)

[Mr Said (SNIPE)]

ColSaid here, there is another way to see development, by teaming up with one AI.
Also you could press "F-2", (here you can see all the Statistics), Here too you can play any of the AI's and just to take a look at how the other AI's has put together thier planets, (but save first, when done just log out and reload).

[W]

How should my fleet grow as I expand? Grow over time or build up when going to war?

[Mr Said (SNIPE)]

ColSaid here, everyone learns what thier pace should be, what mix of weapons vs armor, when to build what, but you do know War is coming, just how soon.
You need to ajust this, and that as you go along, its how you will learn, its part of the game. Thats the way I see it any ways. Search the discussions, there was someone back a few months ago, (or longer), I took a quick look back three pages, so its back more. You may rephase the wording batter and get luckie.
As for me its depends on the settings, and just who I want to fight. But the best game is multiplayer.

Type this into "search box", (top right), "How soon do you build size 500 ship".
Also found this Type "How do I play this game".

[hiromi_teija]

I'm not all that experienced with that game yet, but I find that I like to progress by trying to get up a tier 3 planet as soon as possible with a preference for money pressure trade. With that planet and its supporting trade network, I usually have a 2 million budget which I immediately use to pump out my first 500 size ship, preferably a carrier, with my entire budget cycle.

While doing this, I research Megacities first, and then push for all the metallurgy upgrades to boost the labour of my main world so I can actually get the 500 size ship out in a reasonable amount of time. If my initial starting ship is a good design high strength like a carrier, I might just retrofit that to size 500 rather than building a new ship so I retain some veterancy on it

After I get all the metallurgy upgrades, I grab the destroyer hull, and then go for whichever weapons or toys I fancy. No matter which direction you research you'll end up getting some general ship boosts as they're scattered in the path of the unlocks so your fleet tech will never completely be neglected

Military-wise, I like having 3 size 500 military flagships around just for remnant stomping mid game and I try and have 4-6 ships upgraded to 1280's for the late game fleet battles vs other factions.

Hope this kinda helps give you some benchmarks on how to proceed in a game ^^

[Yogzototh]

İlk olarak spensermurphy80 tarafından gönderildi:

How should my fleet grow as I expand? Grow over time or build up when going to war?

Large ships are MUCH more cost-efficient than smaller ones. Their only disadvantage is not being able to be in 2 places at once.
If you look at the post-game graphs you'll notice the AIs actually dont field more than just a few flagships.

The specifics depend on your opponents and your race's FTL type, but generally you want 1-2 "main" flagships which you upgrade over time, and then some smaller specialist ships for planet capturing, raiding, ferrying support shipt and whatever else.

In the "weapons vs support capacity", support modules are generally better, especially since you get support ships for fee via military pressure and outposts. So your goal is to have a lot of support to accomodate the free-spawn support ships, and using weapons only when you can consistently exhaust your free-spawn sources.

[forrestomintero]

Some military tips::
1: support ships don't cost maintenance, so it's generally more cost effective to make carrier flagships with a handful of over-sized support ships. I'm talking 3-400 size support ships.

2: the exception to this is certain destroyer designs. Most notably is fielding an over-sized destroyer with a single massive torpedo weapon. This is insanely effective because the ai tends to rely on hordes of small support ships to bolster its fleet power.

3: use a varied mix of weapon types. If you focus on one type too exclusively, the ai designs it's armor against that weapon. For me they always have a lot of reactive armor to counter my torpedo ships.

4: if you don't have a decent standing army make sure you're well stocked on diplomacy cards. The moment the ai declares war they usually call 1-3 simultaneous annex planet votes. If you don't have a good stockpile of diplo cards, they might be able to overwhelm you on some or all of the votes.