First game questions

[zoutzakje]

when you are creating a new game and selecting all kinds of options, you got different kind of tabs. One is for map seed and map style, another is for minor factions. And one is called ships I believe, where you can decide what kind of ships will be available in your game. Core Shield Gens is one of the options there. Turning CSG's off has absolutely no impact on the seeding of ARS, Factories, etc. There will be just as much of them as there normally would be. The only thing CSG's do is force you to take at least a certain amount of those goodies before you attack the homeworlds.

I can't give you any advice on ships with tractor beams, because I hardly use them myself (the exception being the black widow). I use a lot of tractor turrets instead.

[LordSloth]

Even if you don't unlock a tractor unit as a bonus type, you'll have riot starships and good odds of finding a mark V spire tractor platform fabricator. Here are a few ideas for offensive use.

AI has a moderately defended system with zenith bombards? They can be a pain to chase down, so don't. Optional: Pop your entire fleet in, free all the system defenders, pull back through the wormhole. They'll all cluster up on the wormhole. Next, making sure your guys are still on the wormhole and not traveling to a rally post, send the fighters in first, wait a moment, then send in the riot starships and the rest of your fleet. The Riot Starships should lock down those pesky zenith bombards so you can kill them without a pesky chase. If the enemy system is strong enough, you might keep your forces small enough (firepower comparison I -think-) that they don't pull everything off guard duty.

The higher mark riot starships will unlock paralysis tazers, which can help soften the initial attrition on entering a system - I still always lead with fighters, however.

MkV spire tractor platforms are very, very good at dealing with threatballs. Unfortunately, queing up the movements on the galaxy view results in travel too fast for the tractors to kick in. So you'll send the tractors in, preferably with a cheap screen, then wait a moment and pull them back to your defenses through the wormhole. It gets frustrating sometimes, however since you can't let your focus waver and it definitely gets harder the more important it is to soften up the threatball.

[Vacuity]

Because Core Shield Generators are ships.  Right.  Everything's a ship.  Slightly dumb of me, but hopefully forgiveable.

I've worked out how to use the interface for Riot Ship design and have created new designs based on the suggestions here.  Thanks kindly for that!

[Hearteater]

I'd recommend against turning off CSGs unless you really need to (like on Snake maps).  The game is intended to have them, and it gets abusable when they aren't around.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, if you turn CSGs off it's possible to win after only taking 2-3 planets (theoretically, none, albeit unlikely).  That doesn't get AIP high enough for the AI to really put up much of a fight.

The optional for historical reasons, mainly.  Some players really didn't like the idea   And as long as they understand that doing an 2-planets-taken win isn't really on the normal balance of the game, that's fine.

[LintMan]

Some further scouting tips:
- I'll usually unlock the Mk II and Mk III scout fleet ships and Mk II scout starship by mid-game.  The Mk III fleet scout research will also let you build the Mk IV scout which is slow but undetectable and can scout the entire map single-handed once you get one.
- I don't generally bother with group-move for my scouting expeditions so the faster ones blaze ahead.  This seems to often work out better for me than keeping them slowed together.
- When planning a scouting mission, I use the brute force method.  I build a full cap of all the scout types I have available (all fleet marks and all starships), select them all, and pause the game.  Then, I go to the galaxy map and use shift-right click to queue the path for the scouts to follow.  (Queueing is imprtant so that your scouts never stop moving.  You PAUSE here because otherwize the scouts start moving and might exit their system while you are still queueing the orders up).  I generally set up a long enough list of planets to explore that I have no expectation any scouts will return.
- When they are all dead, I rebuild thew scout fleet and send it in a different direction or towards any remaining unexplored planets.  Sometimes all it takes to get past a tricky planet is a fresh batch sent directly there first.  Other times, you might need to approach it from a different wormhole or send out some ships to help clean a path (or just provide a distraction).
- If a planet seems to just be a black hole for your scouts, WATCH them as your scouts enter and see what is taking them out.

As for Special Forces Guard Posts - I kill 'em all, 1 AIP  be damned.  I don't like 'em sittin there lookin at me in my systems.  Actually, I thought the SF guard posts could warp in units to the planet even if you controlled it, but it sounds like I am wrong on that.

On tractor beam units: As LordSloth mentions you can use 'em for "fishing", to pull enemy ships parked at an enemy wormhole through into your defenses.  (Or just to gloriously grab them and blow them up with a Martyr).  They are also good at interdiction if you park them at a wormhole a wave is about to come through.

[Vacuity]

I understand that CSGs are part of the game design, much like turrets, which I notice can also be turned off.  Trying to play without turrets sounds incredibly painful for the player.  Just because the options are there, doesn't mean they're intended for general use.

By the sounds of Lintman's advice, I'm well behind on scout technology.  All I've unlocked is the Mk II fleet ship variant.  On the other hand I've managed to get a handle on seeing further into the unknown and am finding a fairly steady steam of targets to neuter, so that's the essential problem solved, at least for now.

Thanks everyone for the continued suggestions!

I've been using my blob of death a fair bit, but my scouts have found systems with eyes in them.  One of them's called a Nuclear Eye, which if it does what I think it does (over 2-1 numbers, sets off a nuclear warhead?), sounds like really, really bad news.

I guess my best bet for raiding my way through the guard posts on these planets is starships?

[barryvm]

I usually go in with a fleet of starships (about 10 - 15) of various types to keep the defenders busy while the faster starships (raid starships) attack the guardposts.
Most of the time you get a nice tactical fight which you can win (or stall long enough) by strategically positioning and manouvering your ships.
Beware if the planet has a core shield, because this will  probably trigger a response from the special forces though.
If, on the other hand, you have a golem with high damage output you can mostly just waltz over the defenders or attack the eye itself.

[keith.lamothe]

I've been using my blob of death a fair bit, but my scouts have found systems with eyes in them.  One of them's called a Nuclear Eye, which if it does what I think it does (over 2-1 numbers, sets off a nuclear warhead?), sounds like really, really bad news.

Yes, it will go nuclear, but it only does so if the trigger condition exists for a certain period of time (I forget how long, but long enough that you could pop in with a big fleet to check, and then pop back out before it goes off; that will reset the timer).

I guess my best bet for raiding my way through the guard posts on these planets is starships?

Depends on the AI's ship count on the planet, you may have room for some additional fleet ships (bombers, in particular, are helpful if you need to take down a forcefield or fort to clean out the guard posts).  But yea, starships are very helpful for packing in enough firepower into a small enough unit count.

[Diazo]

By the sounds of Lintman's advice, I'm well behind on scout technology.  All I've unlocked is the Mk II fleet ship variant.  On the other hand I've managed to get a handle on seeing further into the unknown and am finding a fairly steady steam of targets to neuter, so that's the essential problem solved, at least for now.

Heh, welcome to the game where different play styles all work.

Personally, I almost never unlock Scout II's in my games. I transport-hop my scouts out (although that can generate Threat) and neuter Tachyon Guardians with my roaming fleet so the Scout's cloak does not get neutralized.

So from my standpoint you are just fine on Scout technology, save the knowledge to spend it elsewhere.

Now, both mine and Lintman's advice is valid, you'll have to see how go for you on how you decide to play.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I usually go for scout-IIs and maybe the first scout-starship unlock because they're cheap, but going further is definitely not mandatory.  Can help, though, particularly if something contraindicates using scouts-in-transports and/or tach-drilling.

[Diazo]

Well, true.

One of the reasons I don't have to unlock any scouts is the map types.

I play lattice type maps and so I if I run into something that blocks my scout-transport (grav drill) or tach-drilling (Mk IV system early in the game) I always have a way to go around.

This actually applies in general, not just scouting, but I always have the option of going around because of the Lattice map. (This also give the AI more options when it attacks me but what can you do?)

D.

[Vacuity]

barryvm, that was a very handy piece of advice about the golems.  I tried the blob of death against a Tranlocator Eye, figuring it wouldn't be too bad just having my ships moved about, but didn't realise my ships would be unable to move properly after being translocated.  Very painful and I lost well over half my fleet ships.  Every eye after that, I took my Black Widow in solo (well, with the Nuclear Eye, having a go with my blob anyway just didn't seem worth a try).  That thing's awesome, but it takes a lot of repairing afterwards!  It seems the wiki doesn't have entries for all the various eyes.

I'm impressed by how gameplay changes based on what you're fielding and facing.  I'm getting swarmed by Autocannon Minipods in a lot of the incoming waves, which have caused me a degree of pain, so I was forced to unlock the Tachyon Beam Emitter.
I picked up a Medic Frigate Fab, which has made a big difference to handling my fleet.  Now I only need to return to my own controlled space, or come close to it when I want to pick up reinforcements, or need to protect against a CPA.

I hadn't really thought about how the map style would change the likely tech unlocks, but what Diazo says makes sense.  In any case, at least in this game, Mk II Scouts seem to be sufficient for my needs.

[barryvm]

The problem with golems is that they are rather slow, so if something unforseen happens, you can't get them out in time (as I've noticed right now: someone fixed the Core CPA one ship exploit and golems are too far out to get back)

[zoutzakje]

The problem with golems is that they are rather slow, so if something unforseen happens, you can't get them out in time (as I've noticed right now: someone fixed the Core CPA one ship exploit and golems are too far out to get back)

hah, I remember abusing that one quite a few times. Still good it got fixed though.