Tips and Trick (wow, I wish I'd know that.)

[Diazo]

Alright.

One of the pages I'm hoping to put up shortly on the wiki is a Tips and Tricks page for those things that make you go "wow, I wish I'd know that"

This is intended for those little things that make the game nicer to play like "I can make space docks only build when over X resources". I'm not asking for strategies on how to play here.

This will be linked on the front page of the wiki and hopefully have sometime to help out both the new players and the experienced players who missed something in the patch notes.

So, what tips do you guys think deserve to be on this page?

D.

[Tridus]

The stand down button will tell ships with cloaking to stop shooting and try to cloak.

[Coppermantis]

-The "show ship recharge (reload) bars" under settings>interface

-Line draw mode for placement (select what you want to place > alt+right click > line place > adjust numbers to your liking > draw the line)

-From that other thread, the fact that you can see the contents of a transport by hovering the cursor over the "unload" button

[LaughingThesaurus]

- When you explicitly issue an attack order, the fleet the attack order was issued to will prioritize that kind of ship if it's present in a group of nearby enemies. If you don't want this to happen, issue a full stop command with the END key by default. It will clear all of the preferred targets you may have set.

- Beware of Decoy Drones under force fields. They'll draw all of your fire into the force field, and away from the fleet or turrets hanging out outside of the force field. However, you might consider doing the same thing yourself...

- Multiple Science Labs will gather knowledge more quickly from a planet under your control. If you're really desperate for a fast unlock, and time is of the essence, consider building more mk 1 science labs and you'll get your knowledge much faster with only a small resource cost.

- Military Transports can wreak some serious havoc if you keep them in stand down mode and cloaked. With this strategy, every location the AI does not have under tachyon coverage is a weakness for you to exploit.

(Can you still hack with multiple knowledge hackers at a time?)

[Toranth]

(Can you still hack with multiple knowledge hackers at a time?)

Yes, but the AI response value is multiplied by the number of hackers you have running.  Considering that the actual number of AI ships that appear is super-linear based on the hacking response value, multiple hackers is usually harder than one hacker for the same multiple of time.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Ahh okay. I thought that was removed with the latest hacking system.
See, if you're ever in a situation where you can handle one bigger response but don't want to devote a ton of time to the act of knowledge hacking, that's another thing you can do. Not so much a tip/trick though, I guess.

[Bognor]

This is intended for those little things that make the game nicer to play like "I can make space docks only build when over X resources". I'm not asking for strategies on how to play here.

Sounds partially redundant to http://www.arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AI_War_-_Minimizing_Micromanagement.  Though that page is far out of date.  Maybe merge?

- Military Transports can wreak some serious havoc if you keep them in stand down mode and cloaked. With this strategy, every location the AI does not have under tachyon coverage is a weakness for you to exploit.

Wait - are you saying they don't decloak when they shoot?  That would be a significant bug...

[LaughingThesaurus]

No, I mean that if you stand down, then your military transport won't (or shouldn't) fire, meaning it should remain cloaked.

[Zair]

Thing I've learned about mkII transports in stand-down - this turns off their repair of stored units, as far as I can tell. (Tested with a cap of mkI/II nanoswarms stored in one transport.) However, loaded transports seem pretty useful for running down things like sentinel frigates. They won't flee the transport since it's A: a lot faster than they are and B: they can't shoot it thanks to its sniper immunity.

[Shrugging Khan]

When using a fleet comprised of large, tough ships - Starships, Golems and the like - you might be inclined to relax a little, thinking that nothing can just suddenly pop up and wipe your fleet out. This is only true if certain AI units are not present. Units to watch out for:

• Anti-Starship Guard Posts
  Implosion Artillery
  Starship Disassemblers
  Orbital Mass Drivers
  Artillery Golems

(Have I forgotten any?)