What do I do with secondary objectives?

[ckessel]

More questions from the noob.

I can see there are multiple objectives I could try to accomplish, but what do they do? Is there some benefit to accomplishing them or penalty for failing?

Also, is there any way to know how large a force is going to come through a warp gate on a wave?

Ships have all sorts of +/- against other ships, but I haven't found a way to really make use of that. When I'm invading a planet, there's usually several different ship types and they're all intermixed. I've just brought a mix of forces and point and click to kill groups at each command post. The only time I really make an effort with ship types is against certain fortifications (e.g. cruisers against spec ops due to the range). Is there some secret I missing to making use of the ship specific strengths/weaknesses?

[Revenantus]

I can see there are multiple objectives I could try to accomplish, but what do they do? Is there some benefit to accomplishing them or penalty for failing?

Completing the objectives will benefit you greatly. For example, destroying the data centers will decrease the AI progress level, and capturing the advanced research stations will net you a new ship type. There's no penalty for not completing them.

Also, is there any way to know how large a force is going to come through a warp gate on a wave?

Are you playing version 1.013? If so, then there's no easy way of doing so. Just be aware that the number of ships will scale with the AI progress level, and the individual wave modifier, for example 2.00X, means the wave will be twice as large as the base size for the progress level. The number of ships is also scaled with the ship cap for that ship type, so you will be attacked by far more laser gatlings than you would fighters for a given wave strength.

In version 1.014 you're told precisely how many ships are on their way.

Ships have all sorts of +/- against other ships, but I haven't found a way to really make use of that. When I'm invading a planet, there's usually several different ship types and they're all intermixed. I've just brought a mix of forces and point and click to kill groups at each command post. The only time I really make an effort with ship types is against certain fortifications (e.g. cruisers against spec ops due to the range). Is there some secret I missing to making use of the ship specific strengths/weaknesses?

You've pretty much got the right idea there. The relative ship strengths and weaknesses ensure that you need to bring a good mix of ships with you in order to ensure that you'll be equipped to deal with whatever the AI throws at you. Manual targeting should rarely, if ever, be required - ships will generally do a good job of picking targets that they're effective against.

Of course, if you want to destroy a specific ship type, say a cruiser for example, then you'll know that using fighters would be much more effective than bombers.

[ckessel]

Thanks, helps to know I'm on the right track for the ship types.

I'm still not sure I understand the point, from a game design perspective, of the secondary objectives. Things like data centers and research centers have their own inherent desirability. I have one that says to free captured cities, but outside of the benefit (and negatives) that captured cities bring there doesn't seem to be any real need to call them out as an objective.

It seems like there's really just one objective, to kill the AIs, and whatever bits and pieces you take towards that are up to you. By having secondary objectives called out I wondered if there was something special above and beyond for accomplishing them (or failing to accomplish them). It sounds like there isn't?

[Revenantus]

Stating the secondary objectives really just helps to point new players in the right direction, as you say, completing them yields inherent benefits. Once scoreboards are implemented this may change - you might try to maximize your score by completing all the objectives.

Liberating the captured human settlements does generally make things tougher - that particular objective is as much a moral decision as anything.

[CautiousChaos]

Funny that I hadn't even thought of them until you brought it up in the post.  I had the same opinion when I first started as well and now I recognize that secondary objectives aren't so much "missions" but rather directives that help you accomplish the main goal; make AI's go all kabloom-y.  
-cc

[ckessel]

Totally different question, but rather than start a new topic.

Can I see what waves have historically come in? I swear I must have missed some announcements while dinking around with something else. All of a sudden I looked up and had 3 different planets all with 50+ bad guys on it, mostly Mark III types. The AI was still at Mark I. Or are patrols of 50+ ships normal? I'm on AI level 5.

It'd be cool to have, in the TBS friendly section, an auto-pause on wave announce. Sometimes I get wrapped up in looking at the stats on a new ship or something and just don't notice the blurb up in the corner that a wave is coming.

Good news/bad news on the invasion. Bad news is I'd stripped out my space docks to shuffle them forward to the front lines, which meant all I had was turrets...which wasn't enough. The mini-wave of 50 ships marched right through my buffer planet and went and crushed my homeworld. I couldn't get ships back in time from the front line to defend.

Good news is, I can start over now that I have some idea what I'm doing I clearly move way too slow. I was maxing out my resources at 300k regularly and I didn't feel I was sitting around. I was checking production queues, setting way points, working my scouts and before I knew it I'd maxed out all my ship production and had a big armada waiting on the front line for me to do something.

[Revenantus]

Can I see what waves have historically come in? I swear I must have missed some announcements while dinking around with something else. All of a sudden I looked up and had 3 different planets all with 50+ bad guys on it, mostly Mark III types. The AI was still at Mark I. Or are patrols of 50+ ships normal? I'm on AI level 5.

If the command station icon at the bottom of the screen in planet view is flashing, then there are AI ships on planets you control. You can hover over the icon to display a list of the planets and how many AI ships are on each.

In version 1.014, there's also a new threat monitor at the top of the screen that tells you, in total, how many AI ships there are on planets you control.

It'd be cool to have, in the TBS friendly section, an auto-pause on wave announce. Sometimes I get wrapped up in looking at the stats on a new ship or something and just don't notice the blurb up in the corner that a wave is coming.

Interesting idea, but hopefully there are some changes coming in soon that should make the wave announcements easier to see. I'll admit I'm not big on a pause option, but feel free to post it in the suggestions forum if you'd definitely like to see it implemented.

Good news/bad news on the invasion. Bad news is I'd stripped out my space docks to shuffle them forward to the front lines, which meant all I had was turrets...which wasn't enough. The mini-wave of 50 ships marched right through my buffer planet and went and crushed my homeworld. I couldn't get ships back in time from the front line to defend.

If they weren't part of a cross planet attack, they were most likely wandering special forces ships, though that is rather a large number. If you'd attacked any MkIII planets recently they may also have been freed from their command posts.

Good news is, I can start over now that I have some idea what I'm doing I clearly move way too slow. I was maxing out my resources at 300k regularly and I didn't feel I was sitting around. I was checking production queues, setting way points, working my scouts and before I knew it I'd maxed out all my ship production and had a big armada waiting on the front line for me to do something.

Good luck on your next attempt!