I suggest reading this thread first https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/336376

harpo

A few things to know before you play:

1) Don't build flak (as of version 1.3)

2) Don't build siege unless you really really really really need to (i.e. no cap ship or trying to attack in two directions)

3) Always have repair bays handy

4) If you're losing a battle, retreat and conserve fleet.  If you don't regroup, you'll just die faster.

Here's a few good link in the forums:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/336376

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/335807

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/305565

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/177682

Bobucles,

Does version 1.3 impact your strategy of parking flak frigates in the grav well prior to the rest of the fleet showing up inorder to chew up the ai's strke craft?  Or is this just a general comment about the strategy of not building flak frigates leads to carriers being so effective?

Flak is slow-acting.  It's not that it's bad, it's just that fighters are quite likely to kill fragile units like LRF's faster than flak can kill them.  If, on the other hand, flak is supporting HC's and Hoshikos, I don't think you'll have the same problem (at least until your opponent catches on and starts making bombers).

I'll assume you're playing single-player only at this point.

Start by playing on a small map; either a random generated one or something like Point Blank.

Play as TEC.

On a small map you will only have one or two computer opponets. Set them to Easy or whatever the lowest difficulty setting is.

Opening strat generally, for me anyways is:

1) Build Crystal extractors

2) Build Capital Ship factory

3) Queue up a capital ship (usually a Kol or Marza) You can queue up a cap ship as soon as you've told a builder to start building it; you don't have to wait until it's done being built or even until it's started being built.

4) Buy 200 crystal from the black market. Just click on the purple Buy Crystal button in the upper right of your screen twice.

5) Upgrade your Planet Infrastructure if it's not maxed out.

6) Build Metal extractors

7) Build a scout; when it's done being built send it to the nearest planet and then set it to auto explore

8) Build 2 or 3 Cobalt Light Frigates

9) Build a couple of the Civics Logistics labs (I usually do this only because I want to research either the Volcanic or Ice planet colonization so that I can readily colonize one of those if they are nearby). Otherwise build Military logistics labs.

10) Once the cap ship is ready to go, send it along with your 2-3 Cobalts to the nearest easily attackable planet. Meaning the one that only has a couple of neutral faction ships in it.

Then just play around. See what different stuff does. At the beginning don't worry about micro-managing what your fleet is doing during a battle; just let them auto attack. Don't worry about what ship counters another ship. Worry about that stuff later if you want. Upgrade your cap ship however you want with whatever makes sense. Let the constructors place Logistics and Tactical structures automatically. Later you can figure out where good placements for them are but on Easy difficulty it just doesn't matter.

This is truly an easy game to get into and figure out without ever reading the manual or going through tutorials. Pay attention to the tooltips. They have enough detail to help you without being too wordy.

After a couple or three games on a small map, move up to something like Razor's Edge, which is in the Medium maps area. That's a fun one where you team up with two other AI teams and battle against 3 AI teams (I would suggest Locking the teams when you first play a team game).

Keep playing as TEC until you feel like you have a good grasp on the game and on how each ship functions, then go play as Advent or Vasari. They are basically the same with some variations here and there. Make sure that at some point you play a game where you max out the Civics and Military research trees, just so you get a feel for what each thing does.

Have fun.

Thanks guys.

Charvel1, this is the type of info I am looking for, thank you.

Charvel1, at what point into the game do you research any technology (not including Volcanic/Ice planet colonization)?  And when you do start researching, what do you research first (give me a long list if you can of like the first 10 technologies you research as, say, tec)

Also, Why do you not build all extractors first, why wait for metal?  You build a colonizing ship right after your 3 light frigates right?  And how quickly do you move up the fleet capacity research meter as compared with the military/civilian research meter?  And do you move quickly to get 2 military labs (in addition to the 2 civilian labs you needed for ice/volc), to get the better frigates, OR do you just build the frigates you can build until you have a ton, THEN do the research?

thx

veq

You research volcanic and ice colonization techs only when you're ready to colonize these planets.  While it's somewhat annoying when you forget to do it, if you set research speeds to fast then you can start the research when you first phase into the system and it should finish before you kill the defenders.  It's better to spend on something only when you need it, not long before the fact.

The reason you don't build the metal extractors right away is because your constructors will take a while to actually get around to them.  Because you start with more metal than crystal, you will run out of crystal before you run out metal, making crystal extractors a higher priority.  It's not that you delay metal extractors, it's that you only pay for them once your constructors have finished the higher priotity structures.  That said, there's nothing wrong with queuing them up if you have the extra cash, but it's often better to spend that cash on something else and then pay for the extractors only when you're ready to build them.

I should add that buying planetary infrastructure upgrades isn't always a good idea.  If you're three or fewer jumps from your enemy, they can invest that money in military units and launch a devastating rush before your planetary upgrade pays off.  If you're more than three jumps away, it's not always easy to make that rush fast enough, and you can usually just get away with buying the upgrade.

Your progress through the different tech trees will vary based on your faction, available economy, the size of the map, and so on.  In general, you start off with two military labs, and focus on the military tree for the first part of the game.  Growing your economy is most cost effective by colonizing new systems.  If you build civilian labs and your opponent rushes you, you've already lost the game.  As a result, building two civilian labs right away is often considered suicide on maps where you start in the same solar system as an enemy.  It takes a long time for any of those upgrades to pay off, so usually you're better off spending the money on colonizing more planets faster, and then bringing out the civilian labs once you have the extra cash lying around.

Unlocking unit types is more important than upgrading them or building bulk (although hull, shield, and armour point upgrades that are available with only 1 military lab are great deals).  No matter what unit you build, there's something else out there that can murder it.  As a result, if you build too many you can just make it easier for your opponent to build more of the right unit to counter it.  The light frigate is an exceedingly poor choice to mass right away; they excel against carrier and support cruisers, which (for most factions) aren't even available until you have three military labs.  Typically I only build as many as I need for colonization (0-5) then move to long range frigates or (as Advent) straight to carriers.

I have two pieces of advice:

1) Information is your greatest weapon. Knowing what your opponent is up to allows you to adapt to any strategy thrown at you, so use scouts accordingly. Set some to auto scout and keep a few handy to jump ahead of your fleet so you aren't walking into a trap, or do a sweep through enemyy territiry to find out what you're up against.

2) Be conscious and aware of the basic unit triangle that is as follows. Light frigates are good at taking down carriers. Long range frigates are good at taking down light frigates. Carriers are good at taking down long range frigates. LF<LRF<SC<LF. Charging head first into a fleet of long range frigates with only light frigates is suicide. Similarly, don't assume just because you have 20 long range frigates, your opponents 8 carriers are toast.

Scout your enemy to find out the contents of his fleet, then adjust yours with the appropriate counter. Figure out a good opening build strategy (Charvels is along the right lines, but figure out what works for you) then find out about your opponents. The best strategy is one that leaves you the freedom to change it to meet any challenge, not "build as many carriers as you possibly can as quickly as you can!"etc. (although that may be what you need to do if your opponents decide they want to build as many lrfs as possible as fast as possible) The point I'm making is SCOUT and ADAPT.

I dis-agree. I have tried the AA frigates+hoshiko spam a few times now with the TEC(since I don't really play as TEC when I do I try something weird) and it has workd wonders.  I stole the idea of a replay I watched here.  It works insanely great if you mass on them.

Oh and I should mention this common New player mistake:

No civilian infrastucture.

Any number that you come across on you HUI that is red means that it is detrimental or a negative number. If you hold your mouse over your credits in the top right corner you can get a list of where your income is coming from. If any of the numbers here are RED that means it is subtracting that number from your total income. It is a bad thing if any of your planets on this list have a red number next to them. To minimize this happening take the following steps:

When you're about to colonize a planet, make sure you've got some resources to spare, this step is important so you don't run into problems down the line. Once you've colonized a planet, spend those extra resources IMMEDIATELY on at least 1 point of Civilian Infrastructure. When you colonize a planet, it subtracts a good deal (usually around 2.5 credits/sec) from your total income until you build civilian infrastructure. This is called underdevelopement. The less time your planet is underdeveloped, the less time its taking your precious credits, plus once you have some civilian infrastructure in place, you'll start making money from the planet instead of losing it. Some planets will need more infrastucture to get out of underdevelopement than others, but here's what I usually do:

Asteroids: 1 Civ Inf Upgrade

Ice/Volcanic: 2 Civ Inf Upgrades

Desert/Terran: 3 Civ Inf Upgrades

Do what works for you but AT LEAST put 1 point in immediately following colonization, it will cut down on underdevelopment tremendously and help you out in the long run.

If you lack the appropriate resources to accomodate these purchases remember you can always buy and sell on the black market. It's a vastly important tool to use, and there should never be a game in which you don't use it.

I also do not agree with this. Just understand the proper ratio to battle carriers with flaks is about 1 flak per SQUADRON, not 1 flak per carrier. So in other words you need at about twice (three times against advent) as many flaks as your opponent has carriers for them to be truly effective.

Well I don't really have a favorite race but this is what I do for all of them in the beginning.

1. Start building Cap Ship Factory and que up a colonizing cap ship (Akkan,Progenator,Jarrasul)
2. Start building crystal extractor first and then the metal.
3. Buy 100 crystal from the black market and upgrade infrastructure. (the green button menu)
4. Build as much scouts as there are phase lanes
5. send the scouts to auto explore
6. While the cap ship is building I build light friggates (Cobalt,Disciple,Rvasta)
7. Upgrade the Cap ship with colonize upgrade
8. I grab my fleet and attack the nearest steroid. (there is almost all the time one beside you)
9. Colonize it and use all the saved up money to instantly upgrade infrastructure.

Now depending on what the scouts found as in planets. If they are Volcanic or Ice I go for the civilian research labs, If the planets are desert or terran I go for military research. LRMs and repair bays and weapon armor upgrades. It is also beneficial to research trade ports especially if you are TEC because they are cheap to research and bring in a deal of income. If you are advent go for propaganda center it will be worth your while. If you are Vasari go for deadly fleet of Ships. Build flak, carriers, light frigs, LRFs, and maybe if required siege frigs.

Although these tips are geared for every race I suggest you play as TEC for starters. They are easier to play with. And remember recconissance is the key to the intelligence war.

Last word of advice. Never build colonizinf frigates they are a waste of money. They are just too slow at colonizing and you need that time is vital in the beginning of any game. Now go get em!

I disagree, colonizing frigates are useful in many cases (such as not building a colonizing capital ship {Akkan, Progenitor, Jarassul} to begin with.) You will also need them to capture neutral extractors (so long as you aren't playing with Vasari whose scouts can do this task) or if you'd like to colonize a planet but your capital ship is busy elsewhere. To start out though, don't worry about building them. Once you figure out more about the game mechanics, you'll figure out when they are useful and when they aren't. Neutral extractors can be a vital part of your economy.

You'll also find that there is no ship that is completely useless, just some are more useful than others. The idea that you should 'never' build any one kind of ship is poor strategy. Every ship in the game has a plausible and useful application, but not every game has a necessity for certain types of ships.