New player needs some advice/help

[Zorro]

Hello new to AI Fleet Command and I could use some help.  I’ve went through the tutorial and read through some of the topics on the wikiguide.
I’m currently playing my first campaign on easy and I’m 5 hours in.



Technology wise I’ve unlocked fortress, laser turret mark II, basic turret mark II, decloaker, mobile repair station, advanced warp sensor, Bomber Mark III, Scout Mark III, and Fighter Mark II.

My ship count is 1,061 of various ships and AI progress is at 124.  I have six planets under my control which are all directly connected.  I intended to only take good planets as is suggested but the planet furthest to the right that I control seems really good so I wanted to secure a path to it.  It has an advanced factory and a Raider Mark V Fabricator.  I’m guessing even one of these alone would be worth it to control a planet.

So my questions would be:

1.)  How are my choices for unlocks so far?  The only one I wasn’t sure about was the scout.  I was having trouble with scouting so I figured the Scout Mark IV would solve that.

2.)  How do you judge AI progress?  I know the lower it is the better but I don’t know how to judge it yet.

3.)  Is there ever a point on the game when you don’t have to worry about the AI progress?  I’m playing in a 40 planet game if I take 25 planets would the AI progress not matter?

4.)  How do you judge if a planet is worth taking?  I see very few planets that have 4 metals and 4 crystals would that be worth it?  The same planet has an advanced research station are those worth getting?

5.)  Is there any way I can make engineers and rebuilders do their jobs across the planet without having to manually move them in range all the time?

6.)  Lastly, are there any techs you would consider a must have?

Thanks for reading and I apologize for all the questions any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Diazo]

Hello and welcome! 

Technology wise I’ve unlocked fortress, laser turret mark II, basic turret mark II, decloaker, mobile repair station, advanced warp sensor, Bomber Mark III, Scout Mark III, and Fighter Mark II.

My ship count is 1,061 of various ships and AI progress is at 124.  I have six planets under my control which are all directly connected.  I intended to only take good planets as is suggested but the planet furthest to the right that I control seems really good so I wanted to secure a path to it.  It has an advanced factory and a Raider Mark V Fabricator.  I’m guessing even one of these alone would be worth it to control a planet.

So my questions would be:

1.)  How are my choices for unlocks so far?  The only one I wasn’t sure about was the scout.  I was having trouble with scouting so I figured the Scout Mark IV would solve that.

On unlocks, that is almost a pure opinion thing. Any unlock increases the power of your fleet, it is just a matter of how much a specific unlock increases your power depending on what the AI has and your play style.

Looking at your unlocks and seeing you are pretty heavy on the defensive unlocks, I'd point you towards the Mini-Fortress. With your empire laid out with hostile wormholes in every system, the Mini-Fortress with no global cap, but a cap of two per system, would be worth your while for only 1,000 knowledge.

2.)  How do you judge AI progress?  I know the lower it is the better but I don’t know how to judge it yet.

AIP is pretty much lower is always better. Beyond that, it depends on your play style. There is the low AIP play style, taking an absolute minimum of planets that is attacking the AI homeworlds in the 140-160 AIP range, then the high AIP playstyle where players can get up to 400 AIP by the time they are attacking the AI homeworlds.

You will have to settle on what your own level is in terms of comfort for building up your empire vs. what the AI throws at you.

3.)  Is there ever a point on the game when you don’t have to worry about the AI progress?  I’m playing in a 40 planet game if I take 25 planets would the AI progress not matter?

No, AIP always matters. However it is linear. Adding 10 AIP will always increase the AI's response by the same numerical amount.  So increasing from AIP 10 to 20 is an effective doubling while 100 to 110 AIP is only a 10% increase despite the same number of ships being added to the AI's attacks.

4.)  How do you judge if a planet is worth taking?  I see very few planets that have 4 metals and 4 crystals would that be worth it?  The same planet has an advanced research station are those worth getting?

This is relative. Early in the game a 4/4 planet is very valuable to get your economy off the ground. That last system you capture near the end of the game before you start your assault on the AI homeworlds the number of resource points does not really matter (in my opinion.)

5.)  Is there any way I can make engineers and rebuilders do their jobs across the planet without having to manually move them in range all the time?

Yes, you can apply FRD mode to engineers. Press V while giving them a right click move order, or you can enable it by default in the CTRLS screen.

6.)  Lastly, are there any techs you would consider a must have?

The only tech that is a must have for me is Bomber Mk II by the end game, they critical for taking down the Core FFs and AI Home Command stations. Note this does not mean I unlock Bomber Mk II at the start, this just means I've unlocked them before assaulting the AI homeworlds.

I will unlock Bombers mk III most games for the same reason, but I have completed games without Bomber Mk III.

Hope that helps.

D.

[Zorro]

Thanks for welcome and the help!

I wasn't sure about the tech, I read some where that picking the wrong ones will crippled your game.  Nice to know that it isn't that way. 

That FRD for the engineers is great makes things so much easy.  Is there anyway that I can have an orbital station auto build replacement engineers incase they get killed?

[Bognor]

3.)  Is there ever a point on the game when you don’t have to worry about the AI progress?  I’m playing in a 40 planet game if I take 25 planets would the AI progress not matter?

No, AIP always matters. However it is linear. Adding 10 AIP will always increase the AI's response by the same numerical amount.  So increasing from AIP 10 to 20 is an effective doubling while 100 to 110 AIP is only a 10% increase despite the same number of ships being added to the AI's attacks.

Since the Wanderer bug report, that's no longer true for AI difficulty 8 or higher.  From the patch notes:

On Diff 8+ the first step of the wave size formula has been changed from:

    ( AIProgress * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )
    to ( ( ( AIProgress * 0.8 ) ^ 1.1 ) * AIDifficulty ) / ( 13 - AIDifficulty )
    This produces very similar sizes in the early game but adds a gradual exponential increase as AIP gets higher, having both the effect of making later planet captures not feel as much less significant (in terms of wave size) than early planet captures and increasing the overall "throw weight" of the AI's attacks on these higher difficulties.

[onyhow]

3.)  Is there ever a point on the game when you don’t have to worry about the AI progress?  I’m playing in a 40 planet game if I take 25 planets would the AI progress not matter?

Well the only point you don't need to worry is initially, at 10 AIP...unless you triggered something like Raid Engine, then start worrying...AI Progress will always matter because unlike normal strategy game where if you conquer more area you deny enemy resource here the enemy has completely different way of getting that resource so it doesn't matter much (unless you basically conquer ALL planets except last one and put every single defense leading to the last AI homeworld, with low enough AIP by the Spire Civvie)

4.)  How do you judge if a planet is worth taking?  I see very few planets that have 4 metals and 4 crystals would that be worth it?  The same planet has an advanced research station are those worth getting?

Generally planet with ARS is nearly always worth capturing (since that means more ship you can build)...other depends a lot...things like Advanced Factory are worth capturing if you plan to upgrade your fleet ships to mk 3...things like Golems might be worth it too...it depends a lot...but if you plan to capture a system for some valuable stuff that's mobile it's possible to just cap it then after gather knowledge and move that thing out of the way you can just abandon the system (things like ARS and Golems)...for static buildings like fabricators or advanced factory you also have to consider its location and if you can defend it or not...

Oh, and it's recommended to send a science vessel into a system with ARS to see what other ships you can choose from if you Design-Hack it...

[keith.lamothe]

Welcome to the forums and to the game


And yea, AIP always matters... though if you play with the Fallen Spire faction active, it's possible to get to a point where an AIP of 2000+ is acceptable, where in basically any non-FS game that would be a quick and nasty death.