Newb Starting Campaign Questions

[Norgaroth]

Hi All

Just got the game in the Steam sales, played through all the tutorials bar the practise game one which I'm just in the middle of.  But I had a query regarding starting a new campaign.  When you start it, it shows a picture of what the galaxy will look like and then around fifteen - twenty planets have pictures of different ships on them.

What do those pictures mean exactly? Does it mean you unlock those ships there? They always seem clustered right close together, so is that instead the AI Core worlds or something?

Also an added question, I will probably be starting a campaign with 1 or 2 friends sometime soon.  I've read the recommended size for new people (As we are all new to the game) would be a 40-60 system game.  With 2 other players, would the recommended game size be the same or are bigger star system games recommended for more players?

[chemical_art]

Hi All

Just got the game in the Steam sales, played through all the tutorials bar the practise game one which I'm just in the middle of.  But I had a query regarding starting a new campaign.  When you start it, it shows a picture of what the galaxy will look like and then around fifteen - twenty planets have pictures of different ships on them.

What do those pictures mean exactly? Does it mean you unlock those ships there? They always seem clustered right close together, so is that instead the AI Core worlds or something?

Also an added question, I will probably be starting a campaign with 1 or 2 friends sometime soon.  I've read the recommended size for new people (As we are all new to the game) would be a 40-60 system game.  With 2 other players, would the recommended game size be the same or are bigger star system games recommended for more players?

The pictures are a "bonus" ship that is unlocked if you select its planet. So you can expand your strategic options depending on what kind of ship you select. Each game is unique depending on what planet you select; even when playing on the same map if you select different planets then the layout of the game will be different.

[Norgaroth]

Hi All

Just got the game in the Steam sales, played through all the tutorials bar the practise game one which I'm just in the middle of.  But I had a query regarding starting a new campaign.  When you start it, it shows a picture of what the galaxy will look like and then around fifteen - twenty planets have pictures of different ships on them.

What do those pictures mean exactly? Does it mean you unlock those ships there? They always seem clustered right close together, so is that instead the AI Core worlds or something?

Also an added question, I will probably be starting a campaign with 1 or 2 friends sometime soon.  I've read the recommended size for new people (As we are all new to the game) would be a 40-60 system game.  With 2 other players, would the recommended game size be the same or are bigger star system games recommended for more players?

The pictures are a "bonus" ship that is unlocked if you select its planet. So you can expand your strategic options depending on what kind of ship you select. Each game is unique depending on what planet you select; even when playing on the same map if you select different planets then the layout of the game will be different.

Thanks for the reply!  So does that mean that you are limited to those 15-20 planets with the bonus ships on them?

Or is it a case of those cluster where the bonus ships are tend to be more difficult as they seem to be more in the middle of the map, while the outer ones get no bonus because their advantage is being away from the AI Core worlds?

[BobTheJanitor]

The galaxy seeds itself based around what planet you pick. So when you're looking at the initial setup, there are no AI worlds yet, technically. They appear once you've selected your starting planet(s) and are usually as far away from the human world as possible. The planets without ships at them will still give you a starting bonus ship if you select them as your homeworld, but it will be randomly selected. Everyone always starts with bombers, frigates, fighters, and one extra ship type. You can select multiple starting planets also, but if you lose any of them you lose the whole game, so it's not as much of an advantage as you'd think.

[Lightbulb]

Because I'm not sure its 100% clear - and because it confused me as well when I started:

The map shows planets you COULD pick as starting locations. You can choose one or more - one (per person) is normal. If you pick more than 1 you get larger ships capacities (ie you can build more fighters, bombers and frigates) but so does the AI.

Each planet you pick lets you build a specific extra ship type.


In a multiplayer game its basically the same as you picking multiple planets - so the same guidelines should apply about how many planets to have etc.


The most important thing though is that the map you see will change when you start. The position of the planets will stay the same but the AI will have taken over those planets - if you take one of those planets you won't get the extra ship types from the "choose homeworld" map you saw at the beginning.

You get more ships by taking Advanced research Stations (ARS).