Some feedback from me, as a new player.

[Cinth]

Don't be afraid to play a match with 1/1 vanilla AIs

Diff 1 is literally "I send an attack wave of 10 ships every hour".  You won't even have anything to shoot at.  Set it to 5 instead if you are derping around so you don't get too bored.  At Diff 5 the AI still won't put up much of a fight, but at least you'll actually see groups of AI ships instead of lone fighters.

And in the context I put that statement in, combat should be minimized.  Don't quote and misrepresent what people say. It's in bad taste. 

There are plenty of mechanics to explore that don't directly involve combat.  Being able to understand what they are and how they interact is a valuable key to gameplay in the 9s and attempts in 10s.  I would fully expect a player of Misery's caliber to want to be pushing high 9s and 10s.

[TechSY730]

By the way, in the OP, you mentioned the tool-tips being rather overwhelming.

Some guy named RCIX (the former #1 non-staff forum poster by the way) actually started trying to figure out ways to make the tool-tips more intuitive and streamlined, so you are clearly not the only one who had this issue.

[Misery]

Yes, I can understand the idea of minimizing the difficulty to allow for easy experimentation.

As Alex says though, it's possible to get bored with that being the case though, which would definitely be true in my case.  I aint exactly the patient sort and if stuff isnt happening often enough, whatever "stuff" means in that particular context, my already limited attention wanders.

I've never been the sort to do things like a "practice" mode in games anyway.  Even in fighting games, I dont touch training mode and I learn by challenging whoever seems like the strongest player nearby.  More exciting that way.  And satisfying.  And potentially hilarious.


This though isnt a fighting game, so I'm not going to jump into some crazy difficulty 10 game against "HAHAHA DIE NOW" type AIs right away either.    Granted, that'd probably be pretty hilarious, but I wouldnt learn much from going that far right away.  Currently, I think I am doing difficulty 6?  I'm not entirely sure which level does what, but that number seems close to a decent middle ground.  Though of course I could be wrong.  If it turns out to be too easy even when I'm new to it and dont know much, I'll restart at 7 instead.


Some good tips in this thread so far, by the way.  If anyone has any further useful ideas for totally new players, that'd be appreciated too.

By the way, in the OP, you mentioned the tool-tips being rather overwhelming.

Some guy named RCIX (the former #1 non-staff forum poster by the way) actually started trying to figure out ways to make the tool-tips more intuitive and streamlined, so you are clearly not the only one who had this issue.

Yeah, probably a good idea indeed.

I'll get used to them sooner or later, but for new players it'd probably make for much less frustration if a good way to streamline it can be figured out.

[Cinth]

Oh, I know you like the challenge... How many games now have a "Misery" difficulty?

I think there is plenty enough extra stuff to look at, like hacking and tooling around to see how the different constructors work and interact.  I wouldn't sit around and play it out in a 1/1, just get a handle on stuff you might want to know. 

7.6 I think is the gold standard for normal difficulties.  Everything starts getting harder from there. 

[Misery]

Okay, next question:

Got an advanced research station from an AI planet.

It says I can pick one of three new ship types to unlock from it without taking knowledge points.

But the buttons are darkened, and it doesnt exactly explain what I have to do to actually get the blasted things....

So, what am I missing this time?

[Toranth]

Okay, next question:
Got an advanced research station from an AI planet.
It says I can pick one of three new ship types to unlock from it without taking knowledge points.
But the buttons are darkened, and it doesnt exactly explain what I have to do to actually get the blasted things....
So, what am I missing this time?

If you have already captured the planet, then you should have seen a message appear in the message log (upper right corner) that says something like "Unlocked new ship type: XXXXX".  That ship type will have been the leftmost of those three darkened buttons.  Go to a Space Dock, and it should now be available for production.

Now, if you use a Hacker to perform a Research Redirection hack, then when you capture the planet, instead of automatically unlocking the leftmost ship type, all three buttons on the ARS tab would be enabled.  You would be able to choose one of the three to unlock (aka, can click on the 2nd or 3rd button), after which the buttons become disabled again.

You can use any Science vessel to preview what ship types are available.  Just bring a Science vessel into the system with the ARS, and click on the Science vessel's ARS tab (only visible in systems with an ARS).  The buttons will be disabled, but you will be able to see what the potential ship type unlocks are, and can choose if you want to hack or not.

[Aklyon]

Also you'll probably lose the science lab you scout the ARS choices with, unless you're using IIs and theres not a tachyon post at that wormhole.

[Toranth]

Also you'll probably lose the science lab you scout the ARS choices with, unless you're using IIs and theres not a tachyon post at that wormhole.

With the help of the mighty pause button, that Science Lab's noble sacrifice will not be in vain!
(Unless I forget what the ship types were)

[Misery]

Speaking of Tachyon posts:  Is there any particularly good way of dealing with these?

They definitely make scouting.... difficult. 

So far I've just been popping necessary ones with a specific raid group, but there can definitely be things making that tough, and doesnt always seem viable at the moment for some planets... which naturally are exactly the ones that I really need to scout past the most.    Not to mention the possible need to get other stuff through later on.

[Hearteater]

Scouting is a matter of sending your scouts in volume because they have Cloak Boosting. This means that if you send 10 Scout to a planet, 5 are immune to Tachyon beams. They remain immune until the scouts boosting them die. So typically you won't lose more than half entering a system. You often don't lose any exiting. So 10 Scouts tends to go to 5 then 2-3 then 1-2. So you have a reach of about 3 systems. But as you start leaving a single Scout in a system to keep an eye on it, your reach goes down. So send all Scouts at once to the target. If you want to leave one as a picket, just delete any others that survived and rebuild the Scouts at base.

For this reason I almost always unlock Scout IIs. Because Scout I and IIs have different speeds however, they don't play well together. I try and use Scout Is to picket all the nearby worlds, and save Scout IIs for the further planets. To increase reach, killing Tachyon Sentries is helpful, even if you just wipe out the Sentries on the first wormhole your scout will come out. You can also use a Scout Starship, which helps your regular Scouts get into position by boosting them. It is kinda a mommy Scout that protects its little children. If you really need reach, you can load your scouts up into a Transport and send that as deep as possible. Let the Transport die far from any Tachyons, and then send the Scouts off from there. Warning, the Transport will annoy the AI so you do get some threat out of doing that.

If you really want more Scouting power, you can go to Scout IIIs which have an even higher ship cap and can therefore get even more reach. The best reason to get Scout IIIs though is if you can get an Advanced Factory, because then you can build the Scout IV which is perma-cloaked and ignores tachyons. That pretty much is the instant "scout everything" button.

For popping Sentries, I believe Missile Frigates have the bonus against them. If you need to pop a distant Sentry to see something, you can Transport bomb it with Frigates. Just load up some into a Transport and go drop it on the Sentry. Normally you let the Transport get killed rather than unloading it (because that drops out all the ships instantly). Make sure to grab them and target the Sentry quickly so they don't waste shots on other stuff. If the area is hotly contested, include Fighters. Fighters are cheap to replace and are damage sponges. A full cap of Mark I Fighters and Missile Frigate should be able to take out most Sentries. Some Mark IVs might be tough depending on the enemy bonus ships/guardians.

[Aklyon]

Champions are also good at tachyon-punching.

[Draco18s]

And this is why I said I'd like to see a reduction in how many tachyon posts there are.

[Toranth]

And this is why I said I'd like to see a reduction in how many tachyon posts there are.

There was a thread a while back about adding alternate types of anti-cloak protection to AI systems.  There were some interesting ideas, but I don't think anything ever really came from it.

Personally, I find scouting to be a reasonable part of the game.  Where's the fun if you never get to accidentally trip a Raid Engine because you didn't know it was there?

[Misery]

The scouting mechanic is fine, but I agree with Draco in that less of the tachyon sentinels would be nice.

As it is they're typically on literally every wormhole, and can get a bit tedious to deal with at times.

[TechSY730]

See http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9078

Note, before this can be done, the AI needs to become smarter about handling cloaked attacks.otherwise, merely reducing techyon sentinel seed rate will lead to cloaking being OP in player hands. I will relate the relevant mantis suggestions later.