AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?

[x4000]

Please see this feature idea for reference: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=317

Or, to quote Winder Born:

A sticky on the main board inviting members to post their favorite tip or a "I wish Id known this sooner" tip could go a long way to populating a tip database.

So here we are.  Please post either in this thread, or as suggestions in the new Suggestion - Tip of the Day Ideas category on the bug tracker (in this case, either is fine with us, as the maintenance to add these is pretty low).

What did you wish you'd known sooner than you did, when it came to AI War?

[lanstro]

- on the galaxy map, pressing 'q' shows the number of ships you have in all the planets, while pressing 'k' shows the knowledge you've harvested from each planet
- on the 'normal' planetary screen, pressing 'd' selects your space dock, pressing 'b' brings up the build menu and 's' selects any science vessels: means you don't have to find those buildings
- while you have ships selected, holding the 'v' key while right clicking somewhere will put those ships into 'free roaming defender' mode, which basically puts them on automated guard mode on that planet
- in a multiplayer game, each player can have a separate set of power stations on each planet, so gift each teammate a set every time you take a planet
- in a multiplayer game, you can gift fabricators to share them around the team
- if you put 2 or more shields over a key asset (eg your home command center), in an emergency, you can repair one while the other is being hit, buying you the time you need for your fleet to come back and rescue it

[Winter Born]

The "L" key

Select some ships - Hit the "L" key and now you have 1/2 the original selected ships, again 1/4th
I often use it to select some engineers to assign to a task or ot grab a few scouts to send on a mission.

[Lancefighter]

that ctrl-L took 1/3 of units..

and thus you can make 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/9.... etc. (damn you prime numbers! 5, I'm looking at you)

Or, that scout starships are ideal to bring with your main fleet (countersniper + tachyons) all the time. No more losing your entire fleet to spider turret fire..

[Affine]

After clicking the "reactors" button to bring up a list, you can shift-click to turn them on or off.

[unclean]

- If you place a forcefield over a wormhole entrance you can push enemy units directly onto minefields.

edit, remembered a couple more!

- Zenith Space Time Manipulators can be used to make "highways" between the various battle fronts of your empire.

- Cloaker Starships can be combined with Transports to cloak HUGE numbers of units at once.

[Lancefighter]

oh yes, on that - cloaker starships provide counter-sniper and counter-dark matter fire. Oh yeah, and cloaking super-boost.

Dont underestimate the use of any of those abilities either :p

(fun missile delivery system - cloaker starship + warheads. Once you clear out the wormhole tachyon emitters, including the cloaked ones, you can send the entire group through cloaked. Makes for some fun surprises when hybrids get lightning warheaded back to the clone vat..)

[Shardz]

You can press the F12 key for screenshots that will be saved within the game folder.

(I actually suggested this in our weekly polls and just noticed last week that it made the cut! )

[Mánagarmr]

- on the 'normal' planetary screen, pressing 'd' selects your space dock, pressing 'b' brings up the build menu and 's' selects any science vessels: means you don't have to find those buildings

Would like to extend this tip with "t" as well to select the starship constructor. The space dock, science vessel and starship constructor are the most used structures on your planet. Having a quick access to those are excellent!

[Ozymandiaz]

Forcefields can "free" your units from tractors

[Winter Born]

Transports can load tractored units. Click on the tractored units and tell them to load in a transport, fly the transport over the ships and they will load into the transport. The sweet spot is small so several slightly different passes may be required to recover them all. Also works on ships with dead engines.


Dragable planets / Custom galaxy maps for each player in multiplayer in the galaxy view. Organize your galaxy map so that it makes sense for you. Group stars and have your teammates look at your map to see your priorities/suggestions.

[Giegue]

if you destroy your command post on a Dyson sphere planet, the Dyson sphere reverts to being your friend. if you can handle a few hostile Dyson gatling guns, this is a great way to capture advanced reasearch or golems.

[RCIX]

Free Roaming Defender works on engineers

[Eagleheart]

Don't put ships on FRD mode for offense. 

[zebramatt]

- on the 'normal' planetary screen, pressing 'd' selects your space dock, pressing 'b' brings up the build menu and 's' selects any science vessels: means you don't have to find those buildings

Would like to extend this tip with "t" as well to select the starship constructor. The space dock, science vessel and starship constructor are the most used structures on your planet. Having a quick access to those are excellent!

Most of these shortcuts no longer apply!