Beginner Strategy Guide/Help?

[Nicholander]

I've had this game for quite a while, but I decided to try to play it properly just recently. However, though I understand the game mechanics and interface quite well, I've been more or less stuck on what exactly I'm supposed to do to not get rekt by easy AI. I've played 3 games, the first one I had no idea what I was doing, then I read 2 of the guides here, and the 2 after that essentially this happened: I play as Human and explore the map quite quickly and try to rapidlly colonize as many planets as I can. (I'm using like ~9 colony ships for each planet, so my home world is pretty much just pumping out colony ships every turn so I can colonize everything before the enemy does.) Then I run into the enemy, which for the second game was the Liir and the third one the Tarkas, and at first it's just our exploration ships shooting at each other. Then, it seems, that while I'm still pumping out colony ships, the enemy starts sending death fleets of something like 20-45 ships to destroy my smaller, and sometimes even larger colonys. And then here is where I just gave up and quit for most games; I would quickly try to make my own battle fleets of around ~12-25 ships each (I was only building them from my homeworld, so maybe that's something I did wrongly.) and send them off to try and stop the enemy fleets. However, most of the time, because I'm playing Human and can only use Node Drive, they can just warp away to either a star that isn't directly connected with nodes from the colony they just rekt, or even a star that isn't connected by nodes at all, so despite Node Drive technically being faster, I can't fight them. And when I do actually fight, by say running into them in an uninhabitted system (Or more likely a planet they colonized with out me knowing.) my ships get slaughterd in combat. And each time this happens, the enemy death fleet's numbers get bigger and bigger, so I essentially can't win this. (I'm playing with the default Tutorial scenario, BTW.)

So, what I want is some help on what I'm exactly supposed to do, to be specific:

1. A general How-to-not-get-rekt-in-huge-fleet-on-fleet-battles guide, for example, what weapon techs should I reaserch? What types of ships should I put them in? What types of ships should I have in my fleets? What am I supposed to do in the tactical screen so my ships don't get rekt as well? (I've been just using the close range and broadside fleet commands for all my battles.) How should I use each type of weapon?

2. Should I make a ceasefire agreement so I can have time to build up my fleets properly? Should I even play with 2 or more enemies, so they will fight each other as well as me?

3. Should I try to colonize every planet I can as quickly as possible, or should I try to focus on building battle fleets as well?

4. And also, should I even be playing Human? Some guides I've found said playing Tarkas is easier, because they have a much more convential warp drive which can go anywhere, just a bit slower than Human Node Drive.

Thanks in advance for helping.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Well, I don't know of a good concise and thorough guide. When I learned the game, it involved a lot of googling and a lot of trial and error. That being said, I can give you some general advice based on the stuff you said.

First, and very importantly, I *really* do not recommend that you start with the humans. SOTS is one of the few games where humans aren't the middle of the road generalists. Humans in SOTS are a rush race and the game's randomization is very prone to totally screwing over a player that doesn't know exactly what they're doing with them. I very much recommend that you start with Tarka instead. They are good all around generalists. With a straight forward FTL drive, decent (but not great) research capabilities, and solid combat ships of all classes. Their standout strength is that they have the best cruisers in the game. Their stand out weakness is that they do suffer a bit on the availability of various high end techs in the late game.

What weapon techs to go for really very strongly depends on what race you're playing. Technically speaking, every race has a chance to get nearly every tech. Practically speaking, certain races have low odds of getting various techs and putting time and money into researching towards them can result in a seriously huge waste of effort. This is especially problematic when you're in the early to mid phase of the game.

Here's a couple of links that I found to be very handy:
http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Sword_of_the_Stars/Weapons

http://swordofthestars.wikia.com/wiki/File:SotS_ANY_TechTree.png

Colonization is *very* important in SOTS. One of the big keys to understanding what to colonize when is the Climate Hazard factor. The other big key is aggressive scouting. You need to know what's around you in order to make an informed decision. Grab the easy to terraform worlds first and try to avoid getting hard to terraform worlds until you can actually afford them. This can vary by a lot of factors but my general rule of thumb is to try for about 1/3 to 1/2 of my budget being spent on terraforming in the early portion of the game.

In general, I don't recommend that you use close to attack or pursuit mode or standoff modes in tactical battles. It's generally better to use normal mode and manually order your ships to go where you need them to go. I really only use pursuit or close to attack to chase down fleeing ships. I have never found standoff to be any good at all.

As far as face the enemy and broadsides are concerned, look at the fire arcs of your ship and make an informed decision based on that. I generally only use face waypoint direction when kiting enemy fleets and the occasional special circumstance. In the case of kiting, leaving the face enemy or broadsides options on will seriously slow down your ships as they will constantly want to turn and drift.

As to what ship sections are effective, experimentation with this factor is largely what the game is all about. What works varies by faction and tech.

If it's 1 on 1, don't bother with diplomacy. There can only be one winner. Even researching their language is a waste of money. If you're playing with more than one faction, it can often be to your advantage to try and pick and choose who you're fighting and when!

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Oh, and here's another general sorta tip. If I could change just one thing about the way I learned the game, it would be not starting from the bare-bones start used in the "tutorial"!

On further reflection on my own learning experience it seems to me that the hardest part about learning sots is that you have a big open sandbox with no clear indication of what you want to do to dominate the galaxy. As a new player, you don't know what your goals are vis-a-vis research and weapons and such. Since you don't know any of this, it's very hard to effectively build a foundation off of which to meet your goals.

My solution to that problem would be to *start* the game with a solid foundation already in place. Try the following game setup parameters:

General:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689696304

Player:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689696312

CPU Opponent:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689696323

Note that in the player setup, the player starts with 5 planets, while the AI starts with 1. This will let you experiment with various techs and such with a very accelerated start. Once you start to feel a bit more comfortable with the game, decrease the number of planets you start with. Also note that I used normal AI and not easy. The easy AI is so hampered that it can't even really put up a halfway decent fight.

This accelereated start should let you "try things out" at a much more rapid pace than repeatedly trying (and failing) to build up from 1 colony, no tech, and 0 credits.

[Nicholander]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

Oh, and here's another general sorta tip. If I could change just one thing about the way I learned the game, it would be not starting from the bare-bones start used in the "tutorial"!

On further reflection on my own learning experience it seems to me that the hardest part about learning sots is that you have a big open sandbox with no clear indication of what you want to do to dominate the galaxy. As a new player, you don't know what your goals are vis-a-vis research and weapons and such. Since you don't know any of this, it's very hard to effectively build a foundation off of which to meet your goals.

My solution to that problem would be to *start* the game with a solid foundation already in place. Try the following game setup parameters:

General:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689696304

Player:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689696312

CPU Opponent:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689696323

Note that in the player setup, the player starts with 5 planets, while the AI starts with 1. This will let you experiment with various techs and such with a very accelerated start. Once you start to feel a bit more comfortable with the game, decrease the number of planets you start with. Also note that I used normal AI and not easy. The easy AI is so hampered that it can't even really put up a halfway decent fight.

This accelereated start should let you "try things out" at a much more rapid pace than repeatedly trying (and failing) to build up from 1 colony, no tech, and 0 credits.

Hmm. I guess I'll try doing that. It is a bit odd that Humans aren't the all-rounders. Also, I did just recently try a game where both I and the single enemy were Human, and I didn't suck at it so much. I managed to destroy or force surrender a few enemy colonies, and my ships did better than I thought they would in the larger fleet vs fleet battles. I could probably win that game.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

I just tried that setup to make sure I wasn't talking out of my ass earlier. Played the whole game from start to victory in a few hours. The extra starting techs and planets substantially reduced the amount of time spent scraping together the beginning of an empire. That setup should certainly let a player try out different approaches with a much smaller time investment. It's just important to keep in mind that you need to dial the player advantage back as you get more familiar with the game.

Originally posted by nick:

It is a bit odd that Humans aren't the all-rounders.

Yep, it is.

Originally posted by nick:

Also, I did just recently try a game where both I and the single enemy were Human, and I didn't suck at it so much.

In a human v human fight, you both have the same advantages and disadvantages so you really don't have to play to their faction strengths or worry about countering the enemie's faction strengths so much.

Originally posted by nick:

I managed to destroy or force surrender a few enemy colonies, and my ships did better than I thought they would in the larger fleet vs fleet battles. I could probably win that game.

You should really go for it in that case. If nothing else, it will give you a chance to experiment with some ship and weapon types.

[Vuyek]

Pick dolphins. Before contact with other races, go industrial and colonization techs. Widgets, that kind of thing. Increase your industrial points and then colonization ability, in that order.

After initial rush, timing is everything on getting TRADING. Get trading and then quickly tech up to CRUISER merchant ships. Crank these bad boys out ASAP as without them you WILL be behind the AI's.

Most important tip - forget googling for now, that comes later. READ the descriptions of the techs, and if they are hard numbers % increase of industrial or pop boosts pick those.

PS
Pick dolphins.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Originally posted by Uncle Timo:

Pick dolphins

Personally, I think that the liir slow speed and paper mache ships combined with their weak early game firepower make them a worse choice for a new player than the tarka. They *would* be my second pick though. Their drive system is pretty straightforward and their high tech rate makes them a bit more forgiving of research exploration. Personally, I recommend them as the second race to try.

Originally posted by Uncle Timo:

Most important tip - forget googling for now, that comes later. READ the descriptions of the techs

I couldn't disagree with this more. Not only are many of the in game tech descriptions pretty dang misleading, many vital techs are hidden behind pretty useless techs that a new player is unlikely to research on their own. The perfect example is how FTL Economics is just past FTL Broadband, but there are others.

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Here's something that might be helpful. This is the research path I took in my current game. No money, no tech, single planet start, 1v1. Just keep in mind that some of the research path stuff is pretty situational and this exact approach may not be optimal in your next game. Just look at it as sort of a rough idea of how to go about the game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690151091


Also, here's a chart of my colonisation timing. The dip at turn 30ish was a VN attack on a new colony. I was pretty agressive about colonisation in the early game, but I started to slack off a bit starting around turn 60ish. This is because it's just a quick 1v1 and I knew that the enemy only had a couple of colonies while I had half a dozen or so. The break in colonization starting at around turn 90ish was to focus my economy into getting fusion cruisers.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690151109

And finally, here's the liir colonization chart. If you remember, I made mention above of how important agressive scouting is. In this case, my scouts denied him the ability to expand to such a degree that he has spent the bulk of the game with either 2 or 3 colonies. He had 4 colonies for a short while, but my scouts torched one of his fresh colonies within 10 turns of him establishing it.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690151127

Coming into SOTS, one of the problems I had with it was just viewing the early game scouts as a disposable set of eyes. To some degree, that's true, but it's very important to understand that scouts are warships and winning as many earlly game scout skirmishes as possible is one of the keys to winning decisively in SOTS. In the case of the graphs above, my scouts burned 4 of his colonies directly and the intel I denied him cost him who knows how many more potential colonization sites. In short, the agressive stance of my scouts severely stunted his growth while allowing me to pick and choose the best colony worlds for myself.

[Nicholander]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

Here's something that might be helpful. This is the research path I took in my current game. No money, no tech, single planet start, 1v1. Just keep in mind that some of the research path stuff is pretty situational and this exact approach may not be optimal in your next game. Just look at it as sort of a rough idea of how to go about the game.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690151091


Also, here's a chart of my colonisation timing. The dip at turn 30ish was a VN attack on a new colony. I was pretty agressive about colonisation in the early game, but I started to slack off a bit starting around turn 60ish. This is because it's just a quick 1v1 and I knew that the enemy only had a couple of colonies while I had half a dozen or so. The break in colonization starting at around turn 90ish was to focus my economy into getting fusion cruisers.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690151109

And finally, here's the liir colonization chart. If you remember, I made mention above of how important agressive scouting is. In this case, my scouts denied him the ability to expand to such a degree that he has spent the bulk of the game with either 2 or 3 colonies. He had 4 colonies for a short while, but my scouts torched one of his fresh colonies within 10 turns of him establishing it.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=690151127

Coming into SOTS, one of the problems I had with it was just viewing the early game scouts as a disposable set of eyes. To some degree, that's true, but it's very important to understand that scouts are warships and winning as many earlly game scout skirmishes as possible is one of the keys to winning decisively in SOTS. In the case of the graphs above, my scouts burned 4 of his colonies directly and the intel I denied him cost him who knows how many more potential colonization sites. In short, the agressive stance of my scouts severely stunted his growth while allowing me to pick and choose the best colony worlds for myself.

I see. That sounds like a really good strategy, aggressive scouting. So, how many ships should I have in my initial scouting fleets? (Depends on what species you're playing, but in general.) And should I let my scout fleets explore as many systems as they can and then scuttle them, or is it a good idea to sends them back and refuel them? (Possibly adding more tankers in that scouting fleet as well.)

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Scouting strategies vary greatly by faction due to the nature of their different FTL drives. Scouting strategies can also vary by the strategic situation. Here's a quick and dirty rundown of how I tend to go about it as tarka in general though.

So first, to my mind, scouts have 4 jobs, in order of priority:
Exploration
Detecting Enemy Fleet Movements
Preventing Enemy Exploration
Direct Aggression

On design, Waldo Units is pretty much always the first thing to research as any faction for the economic boost, and that will enable the hammerhead command section. I then design my scouts with Hammerhead / ER / Engine armed with red lasers. I replace the red lasers with green lasers once they're researched. If I'm up against liir, I tend to upgrade them with sniper cannons when I get those online. Either way, I'll usually outfit them with AP cannons when I get them and that's likely to be their final armament. Once I research advanced sensors, I swap the hammerhead section out for a deep scan section. This will result in a loss of firepower, but a very noticeable gain in their detection abilities. Obviously, being scouts, they need the best engines you can get for them.

In the opening phases of the game, I simply send a scout to every planet within reach. Once they get there, they *stay* there. When I start getting the notion that an area of space is getting near to enemy controlled space, I tend to deploy my scouts in pairs. Again, once they get there, they *stay*. When I start to hit the limits of where my scouts can go without a tanker, I tend to reinforce those old single scouts with a partner to make pairs.

The next push of scouts is probably going to be using what's commonly called a scout bomb. Put together a small fleet of perhaps a dozen scouts and a couple of tankers. Send this fleet to the edge of explored space. Once they get there, break the fleet apart and send the scouts to different unexplored systems and ship the tankers home for reuse. Of course, if you find a juicy target, directing a whole scout bomb to take it out can be a solid option.


If you don't leave scouts in place as pickets, you will fail objective 2 and 3 above. Those scout pairs also make a good early colony defense when you colonize the system they're in. There's really only one scenario coming to mind where I will usually scuttle a scout. Basically it's when I'm replacing damaged scouts with fresh scouts and some of them are stranded out in BFE with destroyed engines. Even then, I sometimes just leave them in place as a little bit of extra cannon fodder. When it comes time to replace antiquated scouts, I usually send them a tanker and have them group together someplace central for an attack.

So, when do I replace old scouts with newer models? I usually replace the old HH / ER / Fission scout pairs with a single deepscan / ER / Fusion when deepscan and fusion are available. The increased movement speed and strategic sensor capabilities of this phase of the game shifts the strategic picture away from scattered scout skirmishes and more towards squadrons of cruisers shooting it out.

In the anti-matter era, the combat role of the scout has long since fallen by the wayside and I often replace the old Deep Scan / ER / Fusion scouts with a Deep Scan / Cloak / Antimatter when cloaking is available. The goal there is simply to make the scout pretty unlikely to be killed before the nearest proper warships can respond to the enemy. Cloaking scouts are probably really overly expensive though. By that phase of the game, I am often willing to pay a little more for added convenience. If cloaking isn't available, I just don't bother to replace the old fusion scouts with AM scouts unless they get killed. The only really important component is the deep scan section.

[Vuyek]

Ye, you can equip with deep scan and park them in deep space (doesn't matter if they run out of fuel, they will stay there for rest of game as AWACS).

Just get ready to be annoyed by endless "flee has run out of fuel" messages...

[Nicholander]

Originally posted by Colonel Sanders Lite:

Scouting strategies vary greatly by faction due to the nature of their different FTL drives. Scouting strategies can also vary by the strategic situation. Here's a quick and dirty rundown of how I tend to go about it as tarka in general though.

So first, to my mind, scouts have 4 jobs, in order of priority:
Exploration
Detecting Enemy Fleet Movements
Preventing Enemy Exploration
Direct Aggression

On design, Waldo Units is pretty much always the first thing to research as any faction for the economic boost, and that will enable the hammerhead command section. I then design my scouts with Hammerhead / ER / Engine armed with red lasers. I replace the red lasers with green lasers once they're researched. If I'm up against liir, I tend to upgrade them with sniper cannons when I get those online. Either way, I'll usually outfit them with AP cannons when I get them and that's likely to be their final armament. Once I research advanced sensors, I swap the hammerhead section out for a deep scan section. This will result in a loss of firepower, but a very noticeable gain in their detection abilities. Obviously, being scouts, they need the best engines you can get for them.

In the opening phases of the game, I simply send a scout to every planet within reach. Once they get there, they *stay* there. When I start getting the notion that an area of space is getting near to enemy controlled space, I tend to deploy my scouts in pairs. Again, once they get there, they *stay*. When I start to hit the limits of where my scouts can go without a tanker, I tend to reinforce those old single scouts with a partner to make pairs.

The next push of scouts is probably going to be using what's commonly called a scout bomb. Put together a small fleet of perhaps a dozen scouts and a couple of tankers. Send this fleet to the edge of explored space. Once they get there, break the fleet apart and send the scouts to different unexplored systems and ship the tankers home for reuse. Of course, if you find a juicy target, directing a whole scout bomb to take it out can be a solid option.


If you don't leave scouts in place as pickets, you will fail objective 2 and 3 above. Those scout pairs also make a good early colony defense when you colonize the system they're in. There's really only one scenario coming to mind where I will usually scuttle a scout. Basically it's when I'm replacing damaged scouts with fresh scouts and some of them are stranded out in BFE with destroyed engines. Even then, I sometimes just leave them in place as a little bit of extra cannon fodder. When it comes time to replace antiquated scouts, I usually send them a tanker and have them group together someplace central for an attack.

So, when do I replace old scouts with newer models? I usually replace the old HH / ER / Fission scout pairs with a single deepscan / ER / Fusion when deepscan and fusion are available. The increased movement speed and strategic sensor capabilities of this phase of the game shifts the strategic picture away from scattered scout skirmishes and more towards squadrons of cruisers shooting it out.

In the anti-matter era, the combat role of the scout has long since fallen by the wayside and I often replace the old Deep Scan / ER / Fusion scouts with a Deep Scan / Cloak / Antimatter when cloaking is available. The goal there is simply to make the scout pretty unlikely to be killed before the nearest proper warships can respond to the enemy. Cloaking scouts are probably really overly expensive though. By that phase of the game, I am often willing to pay a little more for added convenience. If cloaking isn't available, I just don't bother to replace the old fusion scouts with AM scouts unless they get killed. The only really important component is the deep scan section.

I see. That's another thing I was doing wrong, not having my scouts stay at planets as pickets. Though, I guess if you're playing a purely Human v Human game you would only need to place them on node 'chokepoints', where the enemy(s) have no real choice but to go through them.

[Vuyek]

dude.


your scouts with deep scan can stay IN SPACE. Farther away from your planets and their zone of radar coverage, giving you even better zone to see what is happening in galaxy.

don't put your scouts orbiting planets - put them in space away from planets.

[Nicholander]

Originally posted by Uncle Timo:

dude.


your scouts with deep scan can stay IN SPACE. Farther away from your planets and their zone of radar coverage, giving you even better zone to see what is happening in galaxy.

don't put your scouts orbiting planets - put them in space away from planets.

How? (Sorry if I'm being done; I've only played Human.)

[Vuyek]

Even humans can go non-FTL node and go away from planets into space. All races can (although they are super slow, humans, that is).

[Colonel Sanders Lite]

Originally posted by nick:

How? (Sorry if I'm being done; I've only played Human.)

As any race except human and zuul:
Let's say you want a scout between planet X (friendly) and planet Y (not so friendly). First, move your scout to planet X. Order your scout to move to planet Y. End Turn. Select your scout in deep space and order him to move to himself to clear his move orders. Requires that the distance between planet X and planet Y be far enough to take more than one turn. As tarka, this requires Hyperlink Communications.

As the humans or zuul:
Do the same as above, only when you order the move to planet Y, you need to the shift key to force sublight movement. Click the fleet, click move, hold the shift key, and click the destination. Only works when there is no direct node line between the fleet's current location and the destination. Otherwise, the fleet will use its FTL engines.

On a semi-related tangent, in case you didn't know this, holding the control button while issuing move orders will allow you to set up waypoints for a fleet to follow. Especially useful when a fleet needs to refuel to reach a location.

Originally posted by Uncle Timo:

don't put your scouts orbiting planets - put them in space away from planets.

Sometimes, putting scouts in space is a good idea. In my experience it's mostly not. The main reason is that deep space scouts do nothing to prevent the enemy's scouts from scouting you out. Another big reason is that making an enemy fleet kill your scout is a guarenteed way to know the enemy fleet composition before your real fleets clash with them. Also, If you're defending against the humans, it's also a good idea to force them to fight every scout between them and your colony. This forces them to spend a whole turn at every intervening planet. Additionally, if you have a scout sitting in deep space inside of the enemy sensor network, the AI *will* send a few ships to kill it.

On the other hand, deep space scouts can be *really damn helpful* in some situations. I use them to plug obvious holes in my sensor network. They're also great in certain map types where there are vast gulfs of open space that need to be transited. Globular clusters, for example. Putting some scouts between your cluster and and an enemy cluster can substantially increase the amount of warning you will have of an attack.