How new player deal with weapon strengths/weaknesses

[Hedning]

Hi, I'm a new player. Something that strikes me is that there are so many different weapons with damage bonuses against so many different things. Vs strong armor, vs weak armor, vs albedo, cloak, shield penetration, aoe, multi target, etc, etc. And it's not immediately obvious that a ship has high armor or low albedo (for example).

In my first game I decided to go for fusion and concussion because it seemed that fusion had bonus against high armor while concussion had a bonus against weak armor, but not even within the same group does the weapons have the same bonuses. Like one concussion weapon is strong single target while another is multi target. How should I as a new player deal with all these weapon types when deciding what fleets to pick and tech up? Is there a way to simplify it?

Also how do I use these in battles? How do I make sure my rock is fighting the scissors and not the paper?

[arnaud_defrance]

Ships will automatically favors enemies they have a bonus against (in fact some like Artillery have a bonus specifically to make them attack high tons targets).

Fusion + Concussion isn't the best. Fusion bypass shields and concussion either are decent versus low armor or high damage, but don't go through shields.

Generally as a new player you should pick 1 main tech (usually, Fusion or Concussion or Generalist) and pick one to two more tech to rank up. The first thing is something that can kill guard posts and high-value targets quickly, then you synergize with something to help (Subterfuge to immobilize/paralyze enemies, Technologist to zombify en-mass, Splash to use Inhibiting tesla to weapon jam AI ships).

It takes some practice to figure those things out.

In battles, again they auto-aim. As you learn you end up spreading some ships between 1-3 transports based on what you use them for, and move those around the systems/galaxy.

[Hedning]

Ok, so I should be looking for specific skills rather than just go with weapon types? Zombify = convert? That sounds op. How many layers deep into enemy territory do you go to find a ship line with those skills? Or do you reroll that station that grants a ship line until you get one of those?

[arnaud_defrance]

You want to pick ships based on tech and hulls mostly, so you can get high marks: playing tall rather than wide work best especially early on. higher marks cost the same metal but have much higher stats, on top of the ship cap being higher. Mark III are twice as powerful stats-wise than Mark I.

Zombify works against most things but not all, it's definitively great to tilt things in your favour. Ability-wise it's good to have a source of either metabolism or zombify (only one trigger on the infected ship's death) and a source of Weapon jamming/Paralyze/Engine-stun.

Turbo-raider is a great pick in Fleet Research too, 40 AIP cost on top of the hack points, but it boost the speed of all ships with the same flagship to 1600 speed. It's impact is dramatic.

Rerolling ARS let you get the right ships. You can also look at what Officer/Lone Wolf you have around.

The main thing before all is getting damage to kill Guard posts and other nasty things you want dead. Bombard or Siege frigate from concussion have that kind of firepower despite not having "bonus damage".

You can also look for support fleet (faster rebuilding) and battlestations. The former with its engineers can help you build quickly the turret of the battlestation even on AI planets. Upgrade the battlestation, it'll mark up its turrets, and you can easily deploy Mark VI-VII turrets anywhere you need, scrapping them with the "scrap distant units" when you hit the cap. This gives you a lot of firepower.

Do look for turrets in GCA and not just ships, rerolling Global Command A-thing to be able to build different turrets on your planets. Having planet that follow the same tech as your ships is really, really important to get anywhere.

[Hedning]

I found an "inhibiting tesla" unit, but again it says "if armor <60mm" so again there is a condition and I have no idea how often that applies.

I also found a "mugger frigate" which is a fusion type with zombification, so it sounds like I don't need technologist then?

I don't know what an Officer/Lone Wolf is. I am playing the second easiest scenario ("scenario 2" 2 ai difficulty 5)

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Mugger Frigates are Assault Frigates with less damage and more health that zombify, however they are only good at converting small numbers of foes compared to Parasites.

Officers are Golems and Arks, large powerful ships that command fleets and hold their own against enemy forces.
Lone Wolf "fleets" are singular but very powerful ships such as Lost Spire Frigates, Botnet Golems and Hive Golems.

Both are found further out from your home system.

[Hedning]

Ok. It seems hard to attack far away from any of your planets though. I have a mobile factory, but it's not building very quickly. At the same time you can't claim too many planets due to the aip system, so is placing outposts the way to go? And is logistics then the only viable command station or how do you prevent your outposts being destroyed (economic) or running out of energy (military)?

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

More mobile factories is a good idea, as is resting between attacks or pulling back to replenish.

As to AIP... I cannot give advice there as my current game is sitting on about 1.4k AIP and resembles WWI with Planet Crackers and Motherships.

Getting a few GCAs will make economic stations last a bit longer when fortified but logistics are good stations if you need more energy but cannot protect an econ station.

[Hedning]

Obviously I'm playing an easy difficulty so going deep is not really hard, but the game clearly does not want me to go beyond 5 deep because it starts to spawn in extra forces.
Also, while I have found extra support ships I have not found any with engineers. Can all support ships rebuild even if it doesn't have combat engineers as a fleet?

And I have a problem scouting new planets. At the beginning it seemed to scout new planets on its own, but as I have now revealed 2/3 of the map I placed a logistics base and it only scouted a radius of 2 planets. Do I really have to pay 5 hacking points for almost all 30 remaining planets, or place frequent bases for 20 aip each?

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

If it is a combat factory it can build ships and comes with engineers, those are the only support fleets. One ark can also build ships but it won't have engineers.
Deep striking will trigger the AI reserves, but those reserves aren't everywhere and if deployed the AI won't be able to react fully to another deepstrike. If you are strong enough you can try and destroy the reserves.

As for scouting, hacking or killing command stations is the only way, try focus on destroying data centres and capturing major data centres as those will reduce AIP and thus make scouting less costly.

[Hedning]

The "rejuvenator combat factory" does not come with engineers, but the tooltip says it can build, and I have noticed that my starting one also builds even when the engineers are all inside (albeit at a slower rate)

On this difficulty the reserve wave just melted, I'm just trying to plan for the higher difficulty. If I don't destroy the reserves won't they add to the threat?

And the scouting did continue to reveal all sectors eventually. I have no idea what the rules are. Is there only like a speed penalty for how quickly planets are scouted if your closest base is far away or what?

[arnaud_defrance]

Some support fleets in the galaxy appears without engineers, instead they have a second combat sentry. Usually though there are 3-4 support fleets in the galaxy so you can grab at least two with engineers to help building your fleets.

Some part of the reserves will join the threat, indeed.

Scouting pick 3 to (X number in lobby, by default 8) planets that are adjacent to already scouted planets and reveal them. This can lead to a planet being scouted and its neighbour being revealed because its now revealed.

Inhibiting Tesla can actually weapon-jam a lot of ships and are very hard to kill (they have immense damage reduction against enemies that outrange them).

On lower difficulties you can go logistical only. Afterward You learn to grab GCA for turrets so you get enough that even econ have some defences, you place an empty flagships (or custom) or one with Mark 1 ships there to defend against the AI, you then do "Hot-swapping" when the AI attack and you feel it needed: you swap high-marks ships from your main fleet into the empty flagship, it'll then build those (quickly). This allow you to essentially teleport forces across your territory where they'll do the most good, for a small metal cost. Once the wave is weak enough you swap back the ships into your main fleet.
Combine that with Station-swapping, where you change a station type from econ to military, and you can react quickly against the IA and turn the tide (Military has a good weapon, plus gives +50% damage boost to ALL allies including turrets and ships and itself at mark I). So at higher difficulties you bait the AI forces to econ stations with empty flagship present or on a nearby allied planet, then you pounce on them. This guaranteed the AI (mostly) never accumulate enough threat to go after military-held planets with critical goodies like Major Data Center.

There is a lot to learn, but with every step of the curve you learn, it gets much easier.

[Hedning]

I still don't understand the scouting. Are you saying I get a random number between 3 and 8 per planet I own?

I noticed my zombies often running from the fight, so perhaps the tesla is better. Also will running away zombies provoke the enemy units on the other planet to join the threat or is whatever they kill over there useful to me?

Yes, after taking the planets adjacent to my homeworld I only grabbed planets with some goodie on, but econ stations only get 50% of the turrets that a logistics station get from each gca, so logistics are always going to be a lot stronger no matter how many gca I take.

I did try to swap units to teleport them, but even with 4 planets producing (homeworld +3 adjacent) it was not that fast. I swapped about 300 combat strength and I had to pull the ship to the front when only about 120 had been built. Still a great help though.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Econ stations will never be as tough no, but I had an econ station keep an exo-war Jackalope busy for about 15mins while I dealt with the rest of the threat fleets. Having sniper (any sort) turrets helps those fragile stations greatly. As does subverter turrets, nothing like zombifying the attack force.

If you are having trouble (re)building fleets consider upgrading your engineers as each engineer boosts any factory they assist and at mk3 they gain cloaking ability (not very strong but means they are less likely to die).

Zombies will patrol your systems and attack the AI (with the intelligence of zombies), in large enough numbers they can clear AI systems. I don't think they do much regarding threat but if you can make zombies then the threat can become more zombies.

[Hedning]

So how much is the build speed upgraded with the tech increase? I had tec 1 and after the game finished I tried increasing it to 3, but it was hard to see exactly how much it did.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Per engineer? not much, but you gain extra engineers each upgrade. It will mean faster replenishment and rebuilding of defences and is basically the only way to improve the rate a factory builds new ships.