Finding the Early Game Difficult

[Mongoose]

Hello all. I played a lot of StarPoint Gemini 2 (Steam kept thinking the acronym was a swear word) and played some of Warlords back in Early Access.

As a 'new player' to the campaign, though, I'm finding it a real struggle.

Really things started going south when I had to go after the Scarlet. Traynor recommended I get 'at least' a Corvette (I should have focussed on the 'at least' part, but I had to grind for several hours just to get the Solari Corvette and kit it out properly) and upgrade the weapons. However I found I was completely unable to take down her escorts in just a Corvette. Their heavy weapons ripped my Enhanced shields to pieces and I'd struggle to even bring one or two down. I went back and upgraded to a Nova A and that did the trick, and got me through to the Strategy section of the campaign.

However, now I'm supposed to capture the Mining Platform. I took Traynor's advice and decided to capture the territory along the way. Now, firstly I went back and took full control of Torment. I gathered my fleet of Corvettes and Gunships and rode in there and captured the Forward Outpost with only a couple of Gunships lost, no sweat. I relinked with Tara, captured a couple of Frigates and went right for the Forward Outpost. A huge swarm of enemy ships came down on me like a plague of locusts and I lost my entire fleet in literally seconds. I went back and reloaded and decided to grind out a better fleet.

I built myself up, added more Corvettes and captured another Frigate, So now I had four Frigates (including Tara), six Corvettes and two Gunships, don't remember my Fleet strength. This time I went for the Relay Satellite just across the border, to map out the area, to be able to see the enemy fleet guarding the sector.

Again, there was a massive enemy fleet (not a seperate fleet, just the station's own defense force) waiting for me. I managed to defeat the defenders and hack the satellite, but suffered heavy casualties. I lost Tara and limped out with only one Frigate and two Corvettes. So now I had to start building my fleet all over again.

I wanted to upgrade to a Destroyer, but I was only level 13 at the time. I set about doing Freelance work to gain money and resources, and most importantly, capture enemy ships during Search and Destroy missions. However, around this time, even Search and Destroys had me up against Destroyers, which I cannot capture in my Frigate, even with Boarding Armor and Angel I, and have to destroy, taking heavy damage each time.

I used to bring a Corvette or Frigate with me as an escort, but against Destroyers, even my Frigates get ripped apart, so I have to do it solo. I can, but it makes me terrified to do any of the more fleet-oriented activities - Convoy Raids, Installation Defense or Attack (especially Attack) or any of the higher level Wanted missions. Essentially, I want to build my fleet up to progress in the story, but I'm finding that extremely difficult and massively time-consuming.

I'm becoming incresingly worried that even as I strive to build my Fleet up to the minimal levels where I can resume continuing the Campaign missions, the heavy amounts of grinding I have to do to obtain the necessary ships and materials are making them completely useless for Freelance missions, and that it is extremely difficult to accomplish any Research when all my Materials are constantly being expended on maintaining my Fleet.

Anyway, I know I'm simply bad at the game, and I apologise for my long rant, I merely wanted to share my experience and perhaps ask for advice and insight from more skilled and expoerienced Captains.

Thank you all very much.

Edit: I also wanted to say that I am for the most part, greatly enjoying the game as I did Gemini 2. I think the graphics are quite lovely on my newly upgraded machine, especially the stars and nebulae, and I'm very much looking forward to trade, diplomacy, fleet management, and all the other interesting aspects of mid-game.. it's just getting there that seems to be the trouble. :)

[zofi1]

I found that it is the way to get things done successfully. You have to concentrate on your economy and production capability as well as your combat skills and powerful ships.

BEFORE you attack your neighbors.

It is a long haul for the new player, to be sure. But, as you grind away you are enhancing your ability in all areas needed to ensure conquest.

When you get into the point where you can earn enough to afford the large vessels and build to good production levels, start conquoring small weak factions without planets of thier own.

Use skills and perks to boost these goals.

A few row boats and an empty pocketbook is how it starts.

[Oluja]

Originally posted by Mongoose:

Hello all. I played a lot of StarPoint Gemini 2 (Steam kept thinking the acronym was a swear word) and played some of Warlords back in Early Access.

As a 'new player' to the campaign, though, I'm finding it a real struggle.

Really things started going south when I had to go after the Scarlet. Traynor recommended I get 'at least' a Corvette (I should have focussed on the 'at least' part, but I had to grind for several hours just to get the Solari Corvette and kit it out properly) and upgrade the weapons. However I found I was completely unable to take down her escorts in just a Corvette. Their heavy weapons ripped my Enhanced shields to pieces and I'd struggle to even bring one or two down. I went back and upgraded to a Nova A and that did the trick, and got me through to the Strategy section of the campaign.

However, now I'm supposed to capture the Mining Platform. I took Traynor's advice and decided to capture the territory along the way. Now, firstly I went back and took full control of Torment. I gathered my fleet of Corvettes and Gunships and rode in there and captured the Forward Outpost with only a couple of Gunships lost, no sweat. I relinked with Tara, captured a couple of Frigates and went right for the Forward Outpost. A huge swarm of enemy ships came down on me like a plague of locusts and I lost my entire fleet in literally seconds. I went back and reloaded and decided to grind out a better fleet.

I built myself up, added more Corvettes and captured another Frigate, So now I had four Frigates (including Tara), six Corvettes and two Gunships, don't remember my Fleet strength. This time I went for the Relay Satellite just across the border, to map out the area, to be able to see the enemy fleet guarding the sector.

Again, there was a massive enemy fleet (not a seperate fleet, just the station's own defense force) waiting for me. I managed to defeat the defenders and hack the satellite, but suffered heavy casualties. I lost Tara and limped out with only one Frigate and two Corvettes. So now I had to start building my fleet all over again.

I wanted to upgrade to a Destroyer, but I was only level 13 at the time. I set about doing Freelance work to gain money and resources, and most importantly, capture enemy ships during Search and Destroy missions. However, around this time, even Search and Destroys had me up against Destroyers, which I cannot capture in my Frigate, even with Boarding Armor and Angel I, and have to destroy, taking heavy damage each time.

I used to bring a Corvette or Frigate with me as an escort, but against Destroyers, even my Frigates get ripped apart, so I have to do it solo. I can, but it makes me terrified to do any of the more fleet-oriented activities - Convoy Raids, Installation Defense or Attack (especially Attack) or any of the higher level Wanted missions. Essentially, I want to build my fleet up to progress in the story, but I'm finding that extremely difficult and massively time-consuming.

I'm becoming incresingly worried that even as I strive to build my Fleet up to the minimal levels where I can resume continuing the Campaign missions, the heavy amounts of grinding I have to do to obtain the necessary ships and materials are making them completely useless for Freelance missions, and that it is extremely difficult to accomplish any Research when all my Materials are constantly being expended on maintaining my Fleet.

Anyway, I know I'm simply bad at the game, and I apologise for my long rant, I merely wanted to share my experience and perhaps ask for advice and insight from more skilled and expoerienced Captains.

Thank you all very much.

Edit: I also wanted to say that I am for the most part, greatly enjoying the game as I did Gemini 2. I think the graphics are quite lovely on my newly upgraded machine, especially the stars and nebulae, and I'm very much looking forward to trade, diplomacy, fleet management, and all the other interesting aspects of mid-game.. it's just getting there that seems to be the trouble. :)

Hello Mongoose,

if you are having a hard time with building your fleet and doing some of the harder combat missions, I'd suggest you go and try Salvage mission if you require Materials, or Prospector mission if you require Ore.

Also there are several perks, which increase the amount of resources you can acquire yourself either via Mining, Salvaging, Gas Collecting, Scavenging, Extracting, Scanning and so on... (Personal Tab)

--

Your words wont go unnoticed, we will adjust the difficulty as we get feedback from our players.

I hope you enjoy your time in Gemini.
And always remember, better economy means better military. So keep your civilian fleets busy, and your resource structures upgraded.

HF :)

[Kel'Ithra]

I found it a good think to ignore story missions. Well more like do several freelance missions in between each. Had a frigate by the time I had to deal with the "OMFG!!" Moment after capturing her but was doing actually quite well.

Capturing ships and turning them into fleet ships is the best and fastest way to build a fleet. While sabotaging a few to ensure savy chief gets leveled.

Before you gain access to fleet management I'd recommend doing ship assaults and try to constantly capture them to double your money reward. And only doing those, trying to make sure the level is parity or lower as you'll hit bigger ships if their higher level. Quickest way to level. By level 8 had a fully loaded un-enhamced frigate. Made the missions and protecting concordia solo easier.... though interesting since ran out of hull repair while picking a fight earlier.

I wouldn't go after the bases nearby until you have cruisers in your fleet. Unless the dreads have been downgraded.

[76561198298975247]

Hey Mongoose, I see others have given you great suggestions, here is one more - you can also try and lower the difficulty. Lowering difficulty will not result in any penalties.

We are glad you are enjoying the game :)

[restarter]

yeah you gotta build yourself up a bit first. currently im just doing some freelance missions to level and get a better ship with some better guns and better enhancments. nothing wrong with a bit of grind. Ive been grabbing gunships during the seek and destroy missions and getting the price for those on top of the bounty.
Granted Im not getting any materials, gas, or ore but that will all come flooding in, in time. for now its all about the leveling and getting out of this gunship

[Kel'Ithra]

You should be able to have a decent frigate and even a destroyer easily by the time you gain control of concord. Its a bit grindy but its not impossible to have a destroyer within the first 4 hours maybe 5 if you focus on missions with high cred potential ( salavage, ship attack (capture missions I call them.), delivery and installation missions I find too annoying to bother with early on.

On normal so far the grinding isnt as bad, not like spg2 where if you dared to do nothing for a few minute you lost a ton of money which made building credit tedious and main reason I lost interest in spg2 (since the missions didn't compensate for constantly paying off crew etc etc.)

When it comes to concord managment. Capturing ships and focusing on civ fleet missions that wont cripple you. (Some eat a fair bit of material to do.) You should be find.... the grinding gets unbearable if you can't keep up with opponents but normal so far feels all right.

Its not meant to be finished quickly. Unless you literally do nothing but play all day.

[FoeFeller]

Just a quick note for making money to up grade your ship and practicing combat skills. The Gladitorix can make you money fast in the early game. The missions are quick and start at I think about 150K for easy but go up to 1 mil for final champion ship round.

The down side is that if you lose you lose the money instead of making it. but that's the fun part

I found doing gold level rounds was not to bad, about 500K for about 2 min of fighting with a mid range frigate (level II wep Level I-II enhancements) Missions are repeatable ( no travel time, auto repair and rearm after each bout). So when you find the highest level your solid at, just repeat it. Then move higher when the practice makes you better and you get some better gear. Repeating Champ round 1 mil a pop. Some good rewards for beating it --Spoiler Free respec and a warmaster

If cap a big freighter, there some good fast trading. My favorite route got the kibosh with the Corrin Revolt (5 mil per 5-7 min ish run with a Heimdall frieghtliner) but there are other T gate runs that make cash quick. I have no where near checked all the stations out.

Just thought I'd mention it. Played my first game pre release and never did the Gladitorix but this time I gave it a go to break up the grind it was fun ... Lost some cash but then made a pile

[Kel'Ithra]

Just be ready with a decent frigate and consumables etc. Because you can be wrecked if not prepared. The Pharanos arena is capped at frigates. Vangard and marauder should have it easy. Not sure how sharpshooter will workout since its almost a brawl in the arena.

[Voxar]

Originally posted by Mongoose:

Hello all. I played a lot of StarPoint Gemini 2 (Steam kept thinking the acronym was a swear word) and played some of Warlords back in Early Access.

As a 'new player' to the campaign, though, I'm finding it a real struggle.

Really things started going south when I had to go after the Scarlet. Traynor recommended I get 'at least' a Corvette (I should have focussed on the 'at least' part, but I had to grind for several hours just to get the Solari Corvette and kit it out properly) and upgrade the weapons. However I found I was completely unable to take down her escorts in just a Corvette. Their heavy weapons ripped my Enhanced shields to pieces and I'd struggle to even bring one or two down. I went back and upgraded to a Nova A and that did the trick, and got me through to the Strategy section of the campaign.

However, now I'm supposed to capture the Mining Platform. I took Traynor's advice and decided to capture the territory along the way. Now, firstly I went back and took full control of Torment. I gathered my fleet of Corvettes and Gunships and rode in there and captured the Forward Outpost with only a couple of Gunships lost, no sweat. I relinked with Tara, captured a couple of Frigates and went right for the Forward Outpost. A huge swarm of enemy ships came down on me like a plague of locusts and I lost my entire fleet in literally seconds. I went back and reloaded and decided to grind out a better fleet.

I built myself up, added more Corvettes and captured another Frigate, So now I had four Frigates (including Tara), six Corvettes and two Gunships, don't remember my Fleet strength. This time I went for the Relay Satellite just across the border, to map out the area, to be able to see the enemy fleet guarding the sector.

Again, there was a massive enemy fleet (not a seperate fleet, just the station's own defense force) waiting for me. I managed to defeat the defenders and hack the satellite, but suffered heavy casualties. I lost Tara and limped out with only one Frigate and two Corvettes. So now I had to start building my fleet all over again.

I wanted to upgrade to a Destroyer, but I was only level 13 at the time. I set about doing Freelance work to gain money and resources, and most importantly, capture enemy ships during Search and Destroy missions. However, around this time, even Search and Destroys had me up against Destroyers, which I cannot capture in my Frigate, even with Boarding Armor and Angel I, and have to destroy, taking heavy damage each time.

I used to bring a Corvette or Frigate with me as an escort, but against Destroyers, even my Frigates get ripped apart, so I have to do it solo. I can, but it makes me terrified to do any of the more fleet-oriented activities - Convoy Raids, Installation Defense or Attack (especially Attack) or any of the higher level Wanted missions. Essentially, I want to build my fleet up to progress in the story, but I'm finding that extremely difficult and massively time-consuming.

I'm becoming incresingly worried that even as I strive to build my Fleet up to the minimal levels where I can resume continuing the Campaign missions, the heavy amounts of grinding I have to do to obtain the necessary ships and materials are making them completely useless for Freelance missions, and that it is extremely difficult to accomplish any Research when all my Materials are constantly being expended on maintaining my Fleet.

Anyway, I know I'm simply bad at the game, and I apologise for my long rant, I merely wanted to share my experience and perhaps ask for advice and insight from more skilled and expoerienced Captains.

Thank you all very much.

Edit: I also wanted to say that I am for the most part, greatly enjoying the game as I did Gemini 2. I think the graphics are quite lovely on my newly upgraded machine, especially the stars and nebulae, and I'm very much looking forward to trade, diplomacy, fleet management, and all the other interesting aspects of mid-game.. it's just getting there that seems to be the trouble. :)

I also had problems with the mission you mentioned, in the end I had to resort to hit and run tactics using my cloak and the execute ability my class has.

As for capturing the territory along the way, it will be quite awhile before you can afford take on 14 to 20k stations. You can just use the free t drive and go to the story mission to take over that station, what you described you had is more than enough. I would recommend doing that mission asap because the reward is a 400 material per week station that the AI ignores even if you take and lose that territory.

[FoeFeller]

I actually picked a sharshooter this time around as it was the only class I didn't try yet ... I go into the areana with with Decoys, two shield buffs (basic, light), Light repair bots. I only really use the decoys to keep the heavy weapons at bay while dealing some damage with my own heavys and "precision shot" at a distance and then move in.. But that's only in the later rounds early round 150-300k your up against gunships with the odd corvette not to bad.... the first round with three gunships is good place to practice your skills and equipment load out.. with at least a corvette with some entry level enhancements your in pritty good shape. .. @IceTitan is right the higher levels def need a frigate, say silver and up.

[Mongoose]

Thanks for all your advice, guys.

Firstly, yes I knew all about Capturing from SPG2. The bulk of my missions were Search and Destroys when I went about trying to capture ships.

I did generally try to take on lower level ones, but it's not always possible. Also once you hit a level where you can access a stronger ship type, enemies of that level will tend to be in them, so if you grind a lot you'll often run into situations where you're always up against bigger ships.
However Capturing is a percentage chance, I captured a few Frigates in a Corvette and a couple of Destroyers in a Frigate, but once I moved up to a Destroyer, capturing bigger ships pretty much dried up, even with upgrades, perks and beating the opposing ships into a pulp before boarding.

In a Frigate I captured Destroyers at a 12% chance a few times, in a Destroyer I never captured anything with a less than 70% chance, and even now that I'm in a Battleship, with Outlaw, Negotations 2, all the level 1 boarding techs and Savant II on my Transporter, I've not been able to cap a Battleship.

Anyway, at points capturing equivalent ships is off the table, Delivery missions are actually a quicker way to make money, and Installation missions with your fleet with you give you opportunity to capture smaller ships to fill out your fleet.

Ignoring the Story missions is the way to go, as much as possible. I think the issue is more pacing and context. Gemini 2 felt more 'RPG-ish'. When you got stuck in the story, it felt a lot more natural to just wander around, do side jobs, explore the map. You didn't have a fleet to come back you up, and you often had bounty hunters after you, so you learned to be more cautious and you had to pick your battles.

In Warlords there's more emphasis on upgrading ships (I sunk tons of hours into Gemini 2 and I'm pretty sure I'm still in a Destroyer or maybe a Cruiser. It seemed like you hung onto ships far longer)

Capturing territories is all about intel. You can totally take some nearby areas early on if all they have are Forward Outposts and the fleets guarding them aren't that tough. Having the NX Scanner makes a big difference, too. I actually found I waited a bit too long to expand; Nexus gobbled up most of the Revenenat territory to the north and Sora took almost the entire Scourge, so I'm actually all but boxed in until I can take on the 20k Guardposts.

At any rate, I did finally get a hang of the fleet management: the hours and hours you spend grinding for a better ship nets you plenty of resources. I got my level 3 hub and am working on my level 3 hanger (just in time for the story, too) I have Battleships and my Cameo Dreadnaught, yet still I've had my fleet wiped out (minefield breaking the blockade).

Now I have to take Lunaee Station but the radiation is a massive problem (I did manage to take some parts of the Scourge, but again the radiation makes defending it with anything but backup fleets a nightmare).

As for the devs, I've toyed with the idea of turning the difficulty down (I had to do it in X-Com and Mount & Blade and I still get my ass kicked in both of those), but I don't think the game is too tough, per se, I think it's just lack of knowing what you're getting into. It's kind of like old-school RPGs where you have to figure out how tough an enemy or area is by encountering them, and really the key is to keep multiple save files going for if you get in over your head or get stuck

Edit: also it might be a bug, but I can't seem to access the Gladiatrix at all. At first I thought it was where my system's T-Drive would be, and once I researched T-Drives I tried interacting with it and nothing. I guess you hail it? IO hadn't thought of that. Speaking of which, I was hoping when I got my level 3 hub, I'd be able to build a T-Drive in Phaehana. I know you get free T-Drives when on missions, but when running errands (especially when I want to buy a Republic ship over a Solari one), it would be nice to T-Drive out there without having to spend 10 minutes flying to a faraway station first.

[Oluja]

Originally posted by Mongoose:

Speaking of which, I was hoping when I got my level 3 hub, I'd be able to build a T-Drive in Phaehana. I know you get free T-Drives when on missions, but when running errands (especially when I want to buy a Republic ship over a Solari one), it would be nice to T-Drive out there without having to spend 10 minutes flying to a faraway station first.

Hello Mongoose,

have you tried constructing a TGate in Phaehana on the Wormhole? (you need research for it).
But once you have that you'll be able to travel to certain locations even faster than with TDrive.

[Dragon]

I don't know if there's any limiting factors when playing campaign but I got up and running pretty quick in the Humble Beginnings freeroam mode by capturing nearby Revenant territory fairly early on.

You can capture the whole of Phaehana with little risk of the Revenant striking back too often. Then focus on upgrading those salvage structures. Also try to open up some neighbouring neutral territory (Nexus and Baeldor Republic are your immediate neighbours) and take advantage of the trading tasks they offer, you'll have a lot of unused gas that you can trade for materials to build ships. Save your ore stockpiles for upgrading structures. Freelance salvage missions can also be a good non-combat means of income and XP.

I would also advise to always lead your fleets into battle for the time being, this helps a lot to save losses for me at least. My fleets seems to be utterly useless if I send them off into battle on their own. Last night I was busy attacking a forward outpost to take territory bordering the Baeldor Republic when the Revenant pirates attacked a forward outpost of mine up on the border with Nexus space. They only attacked with two corvettes versus two of the outpost's corvettes. They had a slight battle advantage so I decided to send a fleet of two battleships, four frigates and a lv. 14 Warmaster Higgs in tow. Overkill against a mere two corvettes you might think? The end result was rather different actually, only one battleship and one frigate survived the battle. Those two Revenant corvettes managed to kill a battleship, three frigates, two corvettes and a warmaster. I still wonder what the hell went wrong over there. If I join the fleet for such a battle, they destroy the enemy before I can even fire off a shot.

Fleet battles kinda work like auto-resolve in a 4X game when you're not around and I learned many years ago to never, ever trust auto-resolve, it's always better to do it yourself. Losing too much ships too often can prove costly early on.

Originally posted by Mongoose:

Nexus gobbled up most of the Revenenat territory to the north

Haha, this actually worked to my advantage. The Revenant and Nexus were trading territories back and forth so I just sat on the border waiting for the Revenant to take Nexus territory, then I moved in and took the territory from the Revenant. This means that I managed to take a decent chunk of Nexus territory without upsetting relations. Poor Nexus, they're already on their last legs and now I cheat them out of even more territory. I tried the same with the Insurgents taking Baeldor territory but, the Insurgents packs a lot of heat and I want the Baeldor Republic to be strong. I want their allegiance and their ships. I still miss my Normandy carrier from SPG1 but the Baeldor ships makes up for it. I'm not a huge fan of the insect-like Concord ships.

[Mongoose]

Originally posted by Oluja:

Hello Mongoose,

have you tried constructing a TGate in Phaehana on the Wormhole? (you need research for it).
But once you have that you'll be able to travel to certain locations even faster than with TDrive.

Aha, that would never have occured to me, because unlike foreign wormholes, it wasn't linked to a Civilian Task (and the handy pickaxe icon is what led me to developing foreign T-Gates, which BTW is a great way to earn money early on.)

Originally posted by Dragon:

I don't know if there's any limiting factors when playing campaign but I got up and running pretty quick in the Humble Beginnings freeroam mode by capturing nearby Revenant territory fairly early on.

You can capture the whole of Phaehana with little risk of the Revenant striking back too often. Then focus on upgrading those salvage structures. Also try to open up some neighbouring neutral territory (Nexus and Baeldor Republic are your immediate neighbours) and take advantage of the trading tasks they offer, you'll have a lot of unused gas that you can trade for materials to build ships. Save your ore stockpiles for upgrading structures. Freelance salvage missions can also be a good non-combat means of income and XP.

I would also advise to always lead your fleets into battle for the time being, this helps a lot to save losses for me at least. My fleets seems to be utterly useless if I send them off into battle on their own. Last night I was busy attacking a forward outpost to take territory bordering the Baeldor Republic when the Revenant pirates attacked a forward outpost of mine up on the border with Nexus space. They only attacked with two corvettes versus two of the outpost's corvettes. They had a slight battle advantage so I decided to send a fleet of two battleships, four frigates and a lv. 14 Warmaster Higgs in tow. Overkill against a mere two corvettes you might think? The end result was rather different actually, only one battleship and one frigate survived the battle. Those two Revenant corvettes managed to kill a battleship, three frigates, two corvettes and a warmaster. I still wonder what the hell went wrong over there. If I join the fleet for such a battle, they destroy the enemy before I can even fire off a shot.

Fleet battles kinda work like auto-resolve in a 4X game when you're not around and I learned many years ago to never, ever trust auto-resolve, it's always better to do it yourself. Losing too much ships too often can prove costly early on.

Originally posted by Mongoose:

Nexus gobbled up most of the Revenenat territory to the north

Haha, this actually worked to my advantage. The Revenant and Nexus were trading territories back and forth so I just sat on the border waiting for the Revenant to take Nexus territory, then I moved in and took the territory from the Revenant. This means that I managed to take a decent chunk of Nexus territory without upsetting relations. Poor Nexus, they're already on their last legs and now I cheat them out of even more territory. I tried the same with the Insurgents taking Baeldor territory but, the Insurgents packs a lot of heat and I want the Baeldor Republic to be strong. I want their allegiance and their ships. I still miss my Normandy carrier from SPG1 but the Baeldor ships makes up for it. I'm not a huge fan of the insect-like Concord ships.

Thanks for the tips. Yes, I always lead attacks personally. During my early expansions, building up a fleet strong enough to even take a Forward Outpost was challenging, and taking any kind of Battlestation is a real chore, as even with a 20,000 point fleet, taking on a 16k defensive fleet and then taking down those insanely strong missile turrets is pure hell.

The campaign actually hands you all of Phaehana, and there's never any retribution for that. You really don't run into any problems until you start taking The Scourge, and even then, leaving a small fleet behind to help defend your Forward Outposts there is usually good enough.

Nexus took the western edge of the territory to the north of me (Athlasca? I always forget the name), and the Revenant have never reclaimed it (or even really tried).

Later story missions led me to conquer territory between Nexus and Nyx, which led me to the pirates north-west of The Ward (only one Battlestation, and a weak one at that), so now I have these far-flung colonies that are thankfully surrounded by allies.

I captured the areas around Orpheus and struck deep into The Gallows before striking peace with the Outlanders, so I'm now in a Carrier and well on my way, but the remaining two areas in Athalasca have those extremely powerful Battlestations that make me nervous.

I'm actually looking to conquer Nexus now, just because it's basically the only viable option. They don't have a planet, most of their forward outposts aren't even upgraded, and almost all of the fleets they have kicking around are single Battleship Warmasters, so I pretty much expect to roll through them like a tidal wave.

I just feel weird doing it. Sure, they helped the Black Oath and that gives me some In Character justification, I just think it's weird that I essentially have to conquer one of my allies (though if you trade extensively, you end up allying with basically everyone you're at peace with).

I dunno if that's a campaign thing or not, but you're basically on decent terms with all the other major factions, and only really at war with pirates and criminals, and almost all of the pirates and criminals near your empire have extrmely powerful fortresses that deter you from wanting to invade them (I guess that's the point?), whereas one of the major powers near you is surprisingly weak and vulnerable.

I just feel weird picking on The Nexus only because it's not really worth my effort to try to take on the Sentchuks or Myceaneans and most of my other enemies are just roving pirates. :)

[aragonbattlebone]

Originally posted by TheMihic:

Hey Mongoose, I see others have given you great suggestions, here is one more - you can also try and lower the difficulty. Lowering difficulty will not result in any penalties.

We are glad you are enjoying the game :)

So there is no secret achievement for harder difficulties?
I am on my 25th hour of gameplay and I only have 7 zones 1 planet and no space stations. I have a Battleship. that cannot hold it's own. I researched almost everything. including the Prosperity Titan, But I am only level 25 so I can't build it.

I find it very difficult to expand and level up. I should probably have started with "No Fog" option on. As I spent quite a while exploring. (I didn't get T-Gates up cause I thought I had to own or ally with someone to use another.)
But I was playing on a harder difficulty cause I wanted the achievements.
But I am still having trouble getting materials for any kind of ship building. I normally will go to a offworld prison free the prisoners and turn all the useless corvettes and gunships into scrap.

I tried scavenging (which was actually why I wanted the Titan for materials.) so I got the scavenging and junker perks but they did not really seem to help. (30-50 materials for a big haul.) So it has just been a massive grind fest.

But I just found out that the game glitched and I was suddenly at war with the Baelor Republic. I saved my game last night and when I checked again today I was fighting them. I couldn't go back to peace. So I thought I would tough it out but they captured 3 of my 7 zones. (they have a power of over 700K while I only have a faction power of 150K

I find I can't even take over stations or other enemies while I grinded for my battleship.

so it all boils down to I need Materials. I have the research for junk collectors. and all of them were upgraded to tier 3. But I only make about 150-210 every cycle.

I have grinded and grinded. Trade deals, Citizen fleets, trade, T-Gates, capturing and salvaging, junking, recycler's.

I am just about at the point of cheating. I want to know of any way to cheat/exploit for materials on xbox one. cause the amount of grinding for little reward is staggering. it might of been better to make the game gather resources and credits while offline. for maybe up to 3 hours of offline play. (but you must be offline for at least one hour before it would start collecting.) Also you would need to be connected to the internet. or just use the internal clock.)

anyways. I feel like I wasted 25+ hours of my life. cause I can't get anything done.
I'll try to start a new game. and see if I can work something better out.