tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

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steve44
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tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#1 Post by steve44 »

i really would like some tips on what you guys are researching / focusing / building ?

i seem to lose out on the bigger maps,

how do they AI's focus their planets, what do they build and what 's the good tech order?

thanks,

Steven

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MatGB
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#2 Post by MatGB »

I try to hold off building military ships for as long as possible as the early game tech is nowhere compared to the mid game stuff and y9ou end up scrapping mass driver ships far too early.

First tech I go for is always Subterranean Habitation (and it's prerequisite), then Nascent Artificial Intelligence, that lets you settle adequate worlds and gives a substantial early game research boost. I then tend to go for a decent ship hull (either Organic or Robotic unless there's an asteroid belt) and weapons, if I'm playing or have easy access to Eaxaw, Etty, Hhhoh or Mu Ursh I'll be happy with Mass Driver 4 then rush straight to Plasma, otherwise I go for Lasers, with Zortrium Plate.

Until I've got decent weapons (laser3 and Zortrium, normally) I build just scouts and outpost/colony ships unless there are natives I can grab, in which case early troop ships are essential.

After I've got warship tech, I go for Active Radar and a scout hull, then swiftly the first tier defence techs., then Symbiotic Biology and Zenologicial Adaptation (the latter takes time but is so very worth it for Adequate/Poor colonisation).

Virtually every bonus is tied to population, and your homeworld is virtually always at max population, anything that increases population, especially homeworld population, is a good thing to have.

Then I just spam warships and capture every populated planet I can see.
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steve44
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#3 Post by steve44 »

when do you take the industrial centers (and their upgrades) btw?

and do you have all your planets focused on industry, growth or research?

and right after planetary garrisson + defense network 1, you take symbiotic biology, xenological genetics(150) and xenological hybridization (300) ? (other prereqs also taken)

i'm gonna get me some population boosters yea
(moo2 fan as i was i went for terraforming - hoping it woudl be the columbus egg :)
Last edited by steve44 on Thu Mar 05, 2015 9:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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MatGB
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#4 Post by MatGB »

For Industrial Centres, it depends on how many AIs there are and how close, generally the AIs build them fairly early, and for the cost of building one you can build a decent warship. If, on the other hand, grabbing one early is impractical then I tend to go for it after I've taken Symbiotic Biology but before Orbital Habitation.

For focus, in the very early game I'm virtually always concentrating most of my planets on research, however if I'm playing somethign like George or Laenfa, which get production bonuses and research maluses, because they're Telepathic I try to go for Distributed Thoguht Computing relatively early and switch to industry earlier than I would with non-telepathic species.

Generally, any planet in a system without asteroids or gas giant is on research, any in a system with them is on industry, exceptions caused by specials, for example an Ancient Ruins planet is on research regardless of the rest of the system, and if my only Computronium Moon is on an otherwise brilliant industry planet I'd still rather have the moon bonus.

I never set my original homeworld to growth, but do put new colonies with a special to growth if it'll help my homeworld, an extra three population very early on the homeworld combines very well with the Cultural Archives bonus. For Native worlds, it can be worth putting their homeworld to growth, especially if it's got a special, if you're colonising with them heavily (for some reason Abaddoni randomly end up on homeworlds with growth specials more often than they should in my games), but generally a growth special is only worth it if you've multiple planets that'll be affected.
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Chriss
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#5 Post by Chriss »

I'm playing mostly as cray and in Irregular-2 Galaxies. Typically, I find myself blocked of from good planets by monsters, so I usually build 2 scouts and a couple (4-5?) Cruisers to be able to clear some paths and get rid of the small sentries.

Research: Sub-Hab, Nascent AI, Organic, often Robotic Hulls. Lasers and the first Armor Tech. Some cheap Prod techs, Active Radar. Some Defence techs. Symbiotic from Growth.
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#6 Post by steve44 »

so basically, what i'm going to try is this.

with some variations - piloting bonus on my race would allow me to stick with mass drivers longer and hull type could be organic instead (and i forgot about the scout hull type. spatial drive?)
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Morlic
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#7 Post by Morlic »

Starting techs seem fine. I personally tend to start with Algorithmic Elegane over Subterrean Habitation though it obviously is situational.

For humans, you would expect to start with 20 pop, thus AE gives you 2 RP. The 4 pop of SH will translate to .8 RP and 2 PP. I personally value the RP higher in the very beginning of the game. SH allows you earlier colonization of adequate planets but most of the times it is possible to make use of the extra turns and look out for a good planet or an asteroid belt system instead. Without the flat +2 RP from the NAI, the few extra turns matter not too much anyway in terms of resource output (adequate planets do not even have a high max pop with SH so faster growth won't be too helpful anyway).
Note that the first few planets do not need to be connected to the supply line as long as they will focus on research only so a bigger search radius can pay off (do not overextend into being invaded early...)


I personally would never go for robotic hulls and prefer the cheaper and faster Organic instead. The early ships will outdate quickly, so I refuse to spend too many PPs on them. Having more Organics that are faster allows to defend a larger area. This means more planets are in reach and thus chances are higher to get good specials, planet types or natives. Once the ships are outdated, organics still can be used to hunt down enemy scouts due to their speed. More ships in the fleet also means more cannonfodder to protect worthy ships.
Expansion with Organic Hulls also becomes both cheaper and faster, thus giving an economical advantage. They also make really great troop ships with 4 slots and their speed.

Robotic ships have the advantage of being an acceptable midgame hull and early access to the spatial hull. Scouting vs the AI is overrated in my opinion and I heavily push towards asteroid hulls in the midgame, so for my playstyle Organics are much better suited.


As far as scouting is concerned: Active Radar is something I only research for the detection strength vs stealth species if needed for invasion. The scouting radius may be compensated by building some more scouts as I value RP much higher than PP early on.

Defense techs are something I only research if I have a multiple planet system at a border chokepoint. Otherwise, I feel it isn't worth it. 5 Attack is useless on its own at this stage of the game, especially considering the AI tends to come with shields relatively early and it doesn't attack troop ships without an orbital fleet.


As far as military vs growth techs are concerned: You have to get a feeling for this. I personally want to have as much economy techs as possible while having just enough military tech to hold. Once I am having the better economy, rush the military techs neglecting everything else and steamroll an enemy. Once done, you may want to pick up the most important economy techs again to expand your lead even further.

I personally value Adaptive Automation really (really!) high. 5 PP per planet is absolutely huge. Definitely pick this up before Xenological Hybridization. Maybe pick it up before symb. Biology depending on the situation. The massive boost in PP allows more colonization thus more planets and even more PP for free and it really snowballs from there.

I also wouldn't go for Industrial centers this early. I tend to have Research on all my planets unless Asteroid Belts/Gas Giants are there (or obvious much, much better industrial species and good RP baseline). So why would I get an Industrical Center before the corresponding techs? It doesn't really make sense to me so I go relatively straight towards Asteroid Hulls, then pick up gas giant generator and then Industrial Center and the Solar Generation tech. If I didn't research Adaptive Automation before (I would do, if Asteroid Belts are hard to find), I would value that higher than Orbital Generation and Industrial Center, though. This route gives me enough PP to then start massively spamming Asteroid Hull warships once the infrastructure is established. The game is usually decided at this stage as I triple the Production of the AI while maintaining research lead.



So long story short, my strategy that works pretty much always is something along these lines:
1) Algorithmic Elegance -> Subterran Habitation -> Artificial Intelligence
2) Organic Hulls + Laser 2 or Mass Driver 4 (depending on how close the enemy is) + Zortrium Plate
3) Once asteroid belts are found, go Orbital Construction -> Microgravity Industry -> Asteroid Hull ->Laser 4
4) Boom the economy by getting Adaptive Automation, Orbital Generation, Symbiotic Biology, Industrial Center, Solar Generation
5) Spam military techs: Keep upgrading weapon and go Asteroid Reformation -> Heavy Asteroid Hull -> Scattered Asteroid Hull, get shields.

Build during this phases:
1) Scouts early on to scout up to a radius of 3-4 behind supply lines
2) Spam Outpost ships (and colonies then of course), build Orbital Incubator and then 2 warships as soon as Organic Hulls is researched (try to time Laser 1/2 accordingly)
3) Keep up warship production only so much that you can defend your borders. Try to scout the nearest enemy fleet to find out what you are up against and build accordingly. Otherwise, build outpost ships. Obviously secure that asteroid belt planet.
4) Time it so you have the gas giants under control once Orbital Generation is researched. Build the economy buildings as soon as available

Now you basically have two choices:
a) Invade, finish the game right here - should almost always be possible. However, maybe you have multiple fronts so you can't fully devote your fleet strength towards that. So we have another option:
b) Boom your economy - spam outpost ships (your PP are massive right now!), research exobots. However, you do not want to neglect military both research- and production wise. Basically spend the same amount of PPs as the enemy on military and the rest on peaceful expansion.

Both will lead to even greater advantage in economy and thus ultimately the victory.
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

For anyone posting (particularly detailed) strategies, what does, and in particular what would, make picking which techs to research or when to produce certain buildings (more) difficult? From one game to the next, what does or could make a strategy more or less optimal?

For example: spacing between empires, number of monsters present, number of planets per system, availability of specials or particular planet types or sizes?

What if techs were randomly unavailable or had different costs each game? What if the prerequisites for techs were any-of instead of all-of to unlock the next tech?

What negative effects could be added to buildings to make the decisions about whether and where to place them more "interesting"?

Replying in a separate thread would probably be best...

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mem359
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#9 Post by mem359 »

steve44 wrote:so basically, what i'm going to try is this.
...
with some variations - piloting bonus on my race would allow me to stick with mass drivers longer and hull type could be organic instead (and i forgot about the scout hull type. spatial drive?)
You might want to research Organic Hulls early.
Helps colonization, since the hulls are cheaper and faster than Basic Medium hulls.
For combat, they are self-regenerating, so I can delay researching Basic Damage Repair.

With the recent buffs for the Geo and Titanic hulls, I use those hulls for my long game (along with Robotic Hulls in the early game), and ignore the Asteroid research path. (But YMMV.)

Chriss
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#10 Post by Chriss »

Currently, one basically still needs to research Organic Hulls since they make the cheapest early hull for outpost and troop ships. If I use organics early, I tend to prefer symbiotic hulls, since they are faster and have better visibility.

I tend to go for Robotic Hulls because I mostly play as Cray currently, which is a robotic species. I can then equip my robo hulls with Robotic Interface Shields - which makes my ships last longer the more I have (as shield strengh increases). Kinda like an upgrade for my old ships when I produce new and better ones.

Defense tech is something I research because they are cheap and help against monsters. Which requires scanning techs, otherwise you can't detect them. So I tend to research them after some weapons upgrades. Typically Turn 50-75 probably for radar. I dunno.
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steve44
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#11 Post by steve44 »

this was all really really helpful guys.

i was fiddling around alot about how to get decent industry going,

but once i got the hang of it - make the outpost, place the gas generator , solar converter, i got a lot more production going
and it's now easier / clear to me how to set up a decent asteroid ship / hull / asteroid processor / asteroid reformation processor/ on planets with asteroid belts. (and i went for the large asteroid hulls + i got biological hulls for the cheap troop transport).

still find a lot of the techs fiddly (in the sence that there's so many prerequisites, like once you think you are ready to build something, theres always always always some reason it's still in the 'unavailable' list.

and i always manage to build a colony ship and then realize that 'oh no i dont need human here'.. new colony ship . haha :)
and i dont know how many times i built an outpost base in the wrong system. (oh it wont move around lolz - scrap that thing)

the game is pretty much won tho (big lead in industry and tech now)

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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#12 Post by Vezzra »

steve44 wrote:the game is pretty much won tho (big lead in industry and tech now)
I guess you'll soon find yourself wishing the AI was more challenging... :mrgreen:

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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#13 Post by Single Player »

Chriss wrote:If I use organics early, I tend to prefer symbiotic hulls, since they are faster and have better visibility.
And they're a tad bit cheaper and stealthier, but need one turn longer to build. It's a trade off with troop ships or outposts in late game but your best bet with colony ships. In midgame I normally upgrade colony ship designs in order to increase their starlane speed so that also needs symbiotic instead of organic hull.

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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#14 Post by MatGB »

Single Player wrote:
Chriss wrote:If I use organics early, I tend to prefer symbiotic hulls, since they are faster and have better visibility.
And they're a tad bit cheaper and stealthier, but need one turn longer to build. It's a trade off with troop ships or outposts in late game but your best bet with colony ships. In midgame I normally upgrade colony ship designs in order to increase their starlane speed so that also needs symbiotic instead of organic hull.
Agree, if I'm going to go down the Organic route I switch to Symbiotics for scouting and colonies immediately I've got them researched (and I'm very glad I removed the requirement for the Cellular Growth Chamber to build them, that's working out well). They make terrible warships, even in mass numbers they just fall over or pack to small a punch, but they're good support hulls.

However, the requirement to build an Incubator in order to access them is a major downer for me, there's no way I'd be waiting for them to be built all over the place just to spread outposts and similar around, and now the AI isn't almost guaranteed to be building incubators I tend to stick to the basic hull (the cost of a medium hull is now only slightly higher than an Organic which is probably about right given the tech/building requirements).

I actually use Robotic Hulls for outposts a fair bit, too expensive in many ways but they're tougher and faster than medium hulls so you can armour them up and grab territory that isn't 100% secure, pretty much essential for the new colonisation system.

I almost always stick to one hull line to research, sometimes I switch if circumstances require it (mostly the switch will be too Energy hulls if I'm not doing so well and have the necessary star types), I don't like to waste the RPs on unneccessary duplication.
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Re: tips for a newbie (what to research / build when) ?

#15 Post by Kassiopeija »

Nascent Artificial.. and Automative Adaption are top priority because they give you base prod/res regardless of planets population. Bascially all techs that give you baseline stats and help with colonization.

The rest depends on the map. If you find natives early delay everything and conquer them (unless they have high defenses)

Hulls usually Robotic with 4*MD4, no armour plates, this ship can kill alot of monsters without shields and auto-repairs. Try to delay research into wepaons or hulls as long as possible and try to muster up your production as long as possible.

Try focusing on research on your home planet to help you get Nascent + Automated soon, from that on focus on production to grab as many colonys as possible. (also research into biology here very early)
Without alot of suitable planets available get Exobots early on.

In midstage of the game where you'll have a mix of different species available focus their planets in order to get the most out of it. Species with bonus to research focus on research, species with bonus to production focus on production. If Gas Giant Generator or Asteroid Belt is present focus on production. Balanced species such as Humans, Eaxxaw will be focus on what I feel is globally more important.
Once a number of planets is colonized by a species set the homeworld-supply. This will usually result in increased production/research a few turns later.

Always use growth specials, if you have the same numerous times always use on the planet with lowest planet count that doesn't profit from other things (like Gas Giant Gen.)

If you can, try to be ahead of the AI weapons in terms of shields. You can defeat alot of AI's in midgame with a few practically invincible ships. I usually don't use Asteroid Hulls because the AI will try to out-manoveur them (back and forth.... -.-). Robotic Hulls are good enough to defeat the Organic AI ships. To win the game early the Self-Gravitating Hull is best choice because it doesn't need that much research as the other big hulls. And it already has a core slot to make it real fast.

As troop carriers I favour the Spatial Flux Hull over Organics anytime, since it is more efficient in terms of troop loss (if I may call it that way). It also has much more fuel, the downside is less HP so you've got to be carefull with enemy planetary defense. Troops ships arrive always one turn late to invade. Getting the extra +5 HP tech also helps here greatly.

If you're amidst too many AIs with too many starlanes open go the stealthy route and focus all planets on research. Let them fight it out. You can still use your planetary production for good, simply don't release any warships, but 1 turn before they are finished queue new ones and put the near-finished to the bottom of the queue. Repeat this until you can release a strong fleet within one turn that can stand the enemy forces. (this assumes the enemy cannot take your planet because of stealth, however he will still block it)

I found that researching into mines is rather lackluster because their damage is usually soaked up into shields. Troops, Defenses and planetary Shields are better.

edit:
on Terraforming, don't bother until you have enough military for the moment. To establishing Gaia worlds more easy always try to colonize planets with, at least, adequate preferrence, even if that species shows less population that another one (techs like Cyborgs make this possible) You'll only need 1*terraforming then and thus, save 400-1000 production as if you would have colonized poor or hostile habitats.

Try to use Exobots only on Asteroid belts or in very rare occasions when there's no other options.

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