I'm fairly new to the game and I play generally single player (mp I hate getting smoked EVERYtime) - usually random medium maps on normal AI difficulty. I usually play as TR or TL. I understand the basics of aggressive expansion (I forever see The Joker's face when I hear those words) and general fleet make up. I've read many threads here and it has changed my style to where I think I can successfully take on higher difficulty or larger maps, and I'm thankful for that. Typically my SP games, on medium maps, lasts in the 6-10 hour range. Last night I did a small map in less than 2 hours with some strategy changes I read here.
Once I've expanded to a good sized empire - one in which I have several gravity wells, trade routes, and hopefully a choke point under my control - I generally merge my fleet into 1 large armada. I can't speak to "early" or "mid" game cuz I don't quite know when those points are, but I can say that by this time in the game I usually have 3 caps (Akkan, Sova, and 1 more, often Marza for planet bombing, sometimes Dunov/Kol/Sova, but never Corsev) and many sub-cruiser ships. Sometimes I am starting to build the Titan factory, sometimes at this point I don't have the research completed yet. I usually don't end up building Kodiaks (not sure why I don't) but I usually have some Percherons and I've opened up the SB ship (forget it's name). I don't always have repair ships opened or built. Typically my fleet is LRF heavy with corvettes and LF making up the rest, with some cruiser carriers and siege ships.
What I'm wondering is how you folks organize your fleet in terms of battles. I usually take my merged fleet and rush where ever I'm going (I've usually scouted first, either with corvettes or scouts). Do the more seasoned players "ctrl-#" aspects of your fleet and arrange them differently? Sometimes I will do this with my strikecraft (ctrl+0) so I can find/assign them quickly. Create sub-sections of the fleet based on ship types or attack groups of various types, sending them at multiple targets? I typically attack the most dangerous enemy ship with everything, blow it to bits, then move on. Often, once I've taken out 1 or more of their cap ships, the rest of the fleet retreats. In those cases I usually clean up the grav well and wait for them to come back (which they often do, even to look and retreat right away). I'll pop them at that point or go chasing them after the grav well is mine. Point is, I usually have 1 massive block of ships moving together and I never veer from that arrangement except where LRF's hang back and corvettes swoop in and out (and of course my strikecraft).
I ask because I feel like I'm doing something wrong with how I work my battles, despite my singleplayer victory record. Having played online a couple times and getting destroyed as if I walked into the middle of a game, rather than starting at the same time as everyone else, I feel like I need to improve something if I want to try MP again. Same goes for some of the larger SP maps where I feel like I'm expanding but still end up getting wiped by enemies I've not seen and can't handle because I have 1 large fleet.
This is kind of pointless. When you're zoomed out and hit the bar of your forces, with each click it will cycle between selecting all combat ships, noncombat ships, and strikecraft. I personally don't use groups (not sure if this is standard among good players or not), as most of the times I want to order all of one type of unit, and this can be done by hitting alt (if I remember right) + clicking on the unit you want.
It's all about execution. The pros online aren't necessarily the most knowledgeable about the game mechanics. Modders like myself sometimes have to teach them how things work. But they are much better at executing their strategies. Many of them have played hundreds, the best perhaps thousands of games against other players. They're going to be very fast in expanding, fleeting up, and getting their economy online because they've done it so many times. And they have an intuitive sense about what they should be doing when that playing against the AI will never give you.
That said, my standard advice for people thinking about MP is that you should be able to defeat unfair AI every time, and clearly have won the game in under 2 hours if you're doing a 2 team game. Learn not to rely on starbases (though they are seeing more use lately), the AI sucks at dealing with them and human players do not make their mistakes. They will bypass your fortified positions if it makes sense, and will not through their ships away at them like the AI will. This is because human players will go for the killing blow against your home world right away, especially if they think you are worse than they are.
For your first games, if you are on the frontline or suicide spots, assume your opponents are better than you and that you will lose eventually. Your goal is simply to survive long enough and thus prevent your nearby enemies from double teaming your allies, giving them a chance to win their battles. Once the outcome is clear, try to get a colony capitalship and take off for the center of the map so you can reestablish yourself closer to friendly territory. Even the biggest jerk of a pro player would rather have you than an AI.
You will want to practice getting your economy up as fast as possible in case you are in an eco position. Nothing is worse than having a newb in the eco slot, but this is at least a position you can get somewhat good at without lots of MP experience. Practice double colonization and leaving a turret to mop up militia in single player. If you're doing TEC Rebels, spend some time with rushing Truce Amongst Rogues. As TEC loyalists, Novalith rush can be quite effective, though you'll still need to give your allies enough feed to ensure they can win at the frontlines.
The only hotkeys I use are Ctrl + 1,2,3 for Capital Ships and Titan, spacebar to centre on whatever planet you select from zoomed out and then Capslock or Z to zoom in to view what's going on around that planet. Like Goa said, there isn't much point in Ctrl hotkeying various ship types as you can just Alt + select one ship from Empire Tree or in the gravity well to select all of one type when you need to. I strongly recommend hotkeying your Caps and Titan though as it allows you to quickly jump to them in order to use abilities or have them run from trouble if you are simultaneously managing something somewhere else. If I'm playing TEC and get Novaliths I'll also hotkey them in order to quickly select them and fire them. Sins isn't so micro intensive that you absolutely need to do all this but there are points in a game where a lot is going down at once and just using those few hotkeys can make things a little faster.
This is something I have to work on. I've tried a few times, but by the time the turret is built I usually have beaten the militia with my Akkan/support fleet (cobalts/scouts). I understand the "circle your well with a decoy" but is there no "patrol" option so I don't have to click 100+ times to route the decoy ship while the turret builds? In Supreme Commander, you could make your route, click it back on the starting point of the patrol and the ships would complete that route infintely. I don't see an option like that in this. Shame if it's not there. Typically I find the smaller planets/asteroids with small militia groups, wipe them out with the Akkan/support and during this time I'm building my fleet so I can get the larger, better defended neutral planets. I realize it's the current modus operandi so it must work but I have a hard time beleiving the AI is dumb enough not to stay out of range (perhaps I don't understand the range of turrets well enough).
That's too bad about SB's - in SP I like to use them in stars/wormholes/etc as both trade routes and defending the space: load it with full strikecraft, RB, and a factory, then build a support fleet to help defend the space. I'll have to start not using them as defence and only as trade routes. MP still scares me - in any game - because no matter how "good" I htink I am there's usually some 12 yr old girl crushing me like a bug. lol.
Thanks for the tips - I'll work on those tonight. Bigger maps, maybe small with harder AI, to get the hang of MP. Maybe I'll con my 11yr old son to play LAN games with me so I can learn MP a little better.
Man I gotta read the manual again and learn more hotkeys - I forgot about spacebar and capslock/z. And I never use the empire tree cuz I can't seem to find the ships I want fast enough. Wheel in/out fast then alt+ on a ship. And when you say you lock caps to ctrl+1,2,3, etc you are speaking of individual cap ships right, clearly not all cap ships of that type (I think that would be useless as 2 Sova's may be at diff grav wells at any given time, selecting them both would be dumb)?
I guess the question I was trying to ask initially, and may have mentioned but not clearly enough, is whether advanced players move the ships or groups of ship types around in a battle or if they just let the ships do what they want once you've initiated the battle.
And about the Novolith (I rarely use these as I can often win without teching up that far) are you telling me you don't autocast? And speaking of autocast, do most advanced players have this option off on all cap ships/weapons? What about autocasting your experience or skills on caps? (can't think of what else to call it, when you level up and choose your benefit) When I have built Novo's I always left it on autocast and allowed it to fire where it wanted. Same with cap ships - autocast is always left on except when I need the Akkan to colonize but it wants to cast something else.
The more I read the more I realize those 12 yr old girls are gonna have a field day with me. In the game. Sheesh.
Haha - not sure if any 12 year old girls play online - somehow I doubt it but you never know...
I always turn super weapon autocast off. It's rarely going to fire on the planet you want it to. Homeworlds, worlds you are about to attack, worlds where Advent Rebels might be able to use Wail of the Sacrificed from, these are all top priorities.
Capital Ship ability autocast is also good to generally turn off. I'll turn on certain ones in the middle of battles to autocast (Malice and Shield on Progenitor for example). If he doesn't have many frigates but has mostly bombers, then I'd turn Malice off and favour just shield instead. Some abilities (like Ion Bolt or Gravity Warhead) that are disables, you want to use them very selectively so it doesn't make sense to have autocast on. If the ability is best used by you manually choosing when and where, then turn autocast off. You also need to manage what is autocasting based on your antimatter. If I want to colonize soon with Progenitor, I don't want to blow all the anti-matter by leaving other abilities on autocast. The level up points you use to spend on Capital Ship abilities should always be manually chosen (I didn't even know or had forgotten there was an auto version for this). Some are better than others or more useful than others depending on the game.
I think you misunderstood Goa's point about double colonization. You don't need a turret in the well where your Akkan is - you need it for the well where you are just using a colony frigate. Place it directly facing the enemy siege frigate and hugging the planet itself and it will clear the well out for you. For asteroids and moons, 1 turret will do. 2 or 3 are needed for larger ones. Scuttle them once the planet is cleared to get resources back. You really just need to clear the siege frigates out from the militia of larger planets and then can move on and let turrets do the rest if you want, or gain experience killing them with your Cap ship.
Sometimes you don't even need to deal with militia if you're in the eco slot. If you want to just colonize as fast as possible you can just run a Akkan with like 10 corvettes to kill a siege frigate. Colonize then place a few turrets to mop up the rest of the militia.
As for capital ships. Most only get 2 capital ships unless you are Vasari Loyalists.
Kol is worthless, never build it.
Dunov shoul really be used pairs with a much more potent capital ship (Titan).
Sova used to be a great starting capital ship till corvettes came into play and they arn't able to kite as hard. Still good but not the best.
Akkan is the all around best starting capital regardless of starting position.
Corsev is possibly the best military/suicide slot starting capital ship with it's early AOE damage and innate healing. It'll last longer than a Kol as long as you have some ships around it and can put a hurting against a reasonably sized fleet.
Marza is okay but pales against Sova, Akkan, and Corsev.
I see quite a few Tec players go for Marza actually in a frontline spot. I'm guessing the reason is purely for Missile Barrage at lvl 6 and for the better planetary bombing to steal planets from you early game (this is really effective actually, been on the receiving end enough). I think some players even buy a level or 2 on them in order to get to 6 faster.
The Empire Tree does start to get annoying and cluttered the longer the game goes so Alt + selecting a ship type is probably best directly on the ship in the gravity well.
Problem is that Corvettes made rushing strategies really hard to accomplish. Which is why the Sova was pretty much phased out from the godly starting cap that it once was.
I manually change my user.setting file to set the max Empire tree stack size to 999. This greatly reduces cluttering, and now than they fixed the tree jumping around when ships jump, makes using it a bit more reliable for tactical orders.
They made caps much more vulnerable, to be sure. Though the raw speed of corvettes can help in rushing though, especially with taking out constructors and picking off any isolated ships while your main fleet arrives. Fortunately they aren't very good against structures, so they can't do a rush on their own.
Children playing online was more in reference to FPS's where I know for a fact they exist (nieces & friends of nephews). I'm sure RTS's like this are too advanced. Point is I get obliterated in MP so badly it's discouraging. In all genres of games - MP + me = newb4life. I can never get better.
And the colonization frigate was where I missed for sure - that's why it's "double" colonization. D'oh!
I'm learning that MP is a completely different game than SP. By heaps. The most obvious example for me is the idea of killing construction. I never enter a grav well without the express intent of making it mine. I could care less if they keep or start building defenses - I'm gonna kill 'em all no matter what. Rushing and spamming (which I presume from trolling other threads, is just sending mass <counter ship> against an enemy to harass them. Not to take over but to harass and delay, and cost them resources. Very different from my "overwhelm the AI" strategy. Methinks I have a lot to learn. Eek.
I didn't know that about the Dunov - clearly late game strategy (reminder: 99% of my experience is SP, not MP). I find the Sova to be quite effective once I get more flights of strikecraft. Maybe I don't get them but I think their lower level abilities seem useless to me. I never take embargo, and take the first 1 (forget what's it called I dislike it so much) when I can't take the 3rd one (can't remember it's name either...). I find the Marza to be very effective for planetary bombing, but other than that I tend to move it to the front to attract fire - I've rarely leveled one up enough to get missile barrage (although I liked it a lot when I did get there ). I'll have to look more closely at the Corsev. I've clearly not used it effectively when I have built it.
This might be a difficult question for MP but do advanced players often max out their fleet capacity research? On medium and large SP maps I quite often do, but I don't think I max out on actual ship capacity (can't build more ships). Maybe I'm putting too much into fleet capacity when I don't need to. Did I mention I got a lot to learn. Gawd!
And GoaFan, I know how to do it so I will have to try manually changing the empire tree - that's another place in this game where I think I'm underutilizing the HUD. Tried using SPACEBAR when I got home from work today, my son looked at me funny cuz I was giddy. LOL
TEC capitalships in a nutshell.
Kol - 99% of the time, don't Build it! The only thing it's good for is flak burst. So unless your opponent is building nothing but strikecraft any other TEC capitalship can do what it can do better.
Akkan - Unless you get comfortable with rushing this should be your first cap for economic expansion. Not only is it's colonization ability the most profitable, but targeting uplink + LRMs can make a decent starbase counter early game if you don't have time to transition to bombers or Orgovs. Finally Armistice is one of the few TEC "wow" abilities, and can both let you bypass annoying defensive positions or more likely get your fleet out of a bad mess in one piece. Likewise, if you're losing this is the cap you'll need to rely on to migrate somewhere else in hope of setting up an Empire where your allies can cover you better.
Sova - This is the best cap ship for rushing and is a brutal brawler, making it great early game. The Sova rush isn't as game breaking as it used to be thanks to Corvettes, but if you can keep a Sova with embargo on the enemy homeworld from the start of the game you'll weaken his economy enough to win the war of attrition. However, you'll need plenty of practice with rushing in general to pull this off. Even if you don't go for this first, missile turrets and the fact that its a carrier means you can pull of the great LRF + Bomber combo early even without research. However, at time goes on the lack of any Area of Effect (AoE) or support abilities makes it less useful in large fleet battles, so you'll probably never build a second one.
Dunov - The opposite of the Sova, this support cap only shines mid-late game. It's indispensable for dealing with titan, as it's the only TEC ship that can drain an enemy titan's antimatter. It's other two abilities are great for screening your own titan, with shield restore keeping it alive and Magnetize to disable enemy caps like the Kortul, Radiance or another Dunov that might be trying to disable your titan. And for the Ragnarov especially, Flux Field is a boon that will allow it to reach its full destructive potential, as the lower antimatter costs should allow it to use all of its abilities at once.
Marza - The Marza is all about blowing stuff up. Yeah it's a good planet bomber without doing anything. But it also has some of the highest forward damage of any capitalship, making it great at focus fire. Radiation bomb isn't great but it is an unlimited AoE (I.e. it has no target cap) and is available at level 1. But the real reason for getting a Marza is to get it to level 6 for Missile Barrage. This is on the of the TEC's few 1st tier capitalship abilities. It can damage an unlimited number of ships in a circle around the Marza, and over the duration of the entire ability will do several thousand damage worth to each ship. If you opponent doesn't see you using it and doesn't move his ship or disables your Marza mid abilities, everything smaller than a cruiser will likely be killed by this ability (especially if you get the second level). For the TEC Loyalists especially, you need to learn to use this as their titan doesn't do a lot of unlimited AoE damage. For the Rebels their titan does an even better job, but the more AoE you have the better.
Corsev - It's better to just explain this one's abilities individually than to give it any sort of a role. On one had it can do decent damage to a single target with boarding party, and if this ability kills a frigate that frigate will be brought under your control. Even better is demolition teams. This is an unlimited AoE that kills one of your own ships but does good damage to enemy ships. Unlike missile barrage though, you don't need to wait for level 6 to get this one. Either use it on Corvettes or scouts for cheap fodder, or you'll do twice as much damage if you blow up an enemy ship you captured. Finally, this ship is only second to the Kortul as a tank. It has a passive ability that heals it every time an allied ship is destroyed, and apparently even with focus fire this can happen enough to keep it alive far longer than most caps.
Most MP games do not last long enough for players to max out their fleet supply. Also keep in mind the fleet upkeep makes getting maximum fleet supply a huge drain on your economy. Definitely keep whatever fleet supply you have researched used up, but you need to be careful when you choose to expand it. Many pro players only expand it when they are in danger of losing. I'd say if you're routinely going beyond the 4th research of fleet supply you might want to consider if its worth the economic pain to do so.
That said, the timing on when to fleet up is probably one of if not the most decision you make in a game because its not reversible. And like all timing related decisions its on that only gets better with experience, exactly what the right move is will be different every game.
I think I have to play harder SP games, play without SB's, and experiment more with my cap ships, trying to get them leveled up as fast as I can to take advantage of these level 6 abilities. You've given me too much to think about, good thing I stay up late - apparently there's more to this game than killing. LOL
Okay, excuse me but my newb alert senses have gone off.
IMO the three main mistakes newb players make are the following.
1. They expand too slow.
2. They research too much (you should focus on ship/ability/colonization unlocks in the first half hour at least. Don't research too many +% bonuses, with a few exceptions like tier 1 hull and terran population bonuses, they aren't of much use early game).
3. They build too many capitalships.
Why is this a problem? Capitalships are for abilities, not firepower. For that 50 fleet supply, you can get more weapon DPS with any of the main combat frigates. And frigates are a lot cheaper without needing to research those cap slots.
Okay, once they level up a lot capitalships may become competitive. But building a lot of capitalships actually makes this harder, because they all share XP when an enemy is destroy. If you destroy a ship worth 100 XP and there is only one cap, it gets 100 XP. If there are 5 caps in the gravity well, each gets 20. More importantly, they will also leach XP from your titan. A few high level capitalships are usually worth more than many low level ones, and I can almost promise you no pro has ever gotten the full 16 capitalships out in a match. Even when I play Advent I rarely get more than 6. If you're playing VL you have an incentive to get 8 for the labs, but that's probably too many for anyone else.
This thread must be sticky.
And if i may request that could you write your comments abaut Advent CapShips as you write TEC before.
It was very useful for me. I % 90 start with KOL. Now i start with Akkan or Sova.
Thnx.
I'm learning lots - I appreciate it greatly!
You should practice the double colonization method that was mentioned earlier. I usually start off by building a colony cap, two light frigates and colony frigate, and set up a military and civic lab. I research corvettes and send the light frigate to an asteroid or moon ASAP, and send the Akkan to either a asteroid/moon/ice/volcanic planet. I then build several corvettes to reinforce the light frigates, and possibly to help out the Akkan (though it usually can handle most Ice/Volcanic militias by itself).
Yeah, I'll very occasionally get the trade income upgrades on long MP games where I have a large trade route, usually when in the eco slot. But we're talking at least an hour, most like an hour and a half before I get any income increasing techs.
For the first half our just get the terran population upgrade if you must, but otherwise only get techs that unlock frigates, abilities, planet colonization, or what have you. Typically you should only get extra shield/weapons/armor when you have maxed out your available fleet supply and don't want to increase it for economic reasons.
Individually yes, but 5 heavy cruisers have more firepower and hull than most capitalships less than level 6 for sure. When deciding if to build a capitalship, you should do it only for the abilities (or early on the strikecraft for the carrier caps). Treat the firepower just as a bonus.
Yeah, you should never have the majority of your fleet supply be capitalships (save maybe early game you could get away with 50/50). Definitely try not to have more than 4-5 caps in the same gravity well if you can avoid it. The exception is that if a cap does reach level 10 it no longer takes any XP, so you can except those ships from your calculation. In practice that's only useful in single player though, it's very rare to see a level 10 capitalship in multiplayer (due to both the short games and that human players are more competent and killing them, even chasing fleeing damaged capitalships for several gravity wells with say corvettes to finish them off).
So you are saying the Kol is useless in MP because its abilities are lackluster for the most part? Makes me wonder how it could be improved; as another SP-only person I've enjoyed using it as my first cap.
Yes, flak burst is the only one with real potential. It's biggest issue is it goes through antimatter too fast. Many mods have made it's worst ability, adaptive force field, passive, such as my Enhanced 4X mod or Volt's rebalanced races, and this helps quite a bit. Gauss Rail Gun is such an antimatter hog when not paired with the Dunov's flux field it's only good on ships with low mitigation. Some sort of stacking debuff might make it alright but I don't think anyone has a great fix for this ability. Finest Hour is pretty good as it is, but good luck getting a Kol to level 6.
No matter what though you should never build a Kol (or any other battleship) as a first cap, that should ALWAYS be a colony cap or a carrier/siege cap if you are rushing.
Ah yes, I haven't built one since they nerfed it so I forgot. Still the cap is high at 25, so it is still a very good AoE.
You can't select a corvette as the initial target (only frigates and structures) but the AoE still affects corvettes....so unless you have only corvettes and your opponent has no flak, your hosed...
Well as a player that plays only TEC in MP and that many here as have been on my receiving end I will give you some pointers.
First off the first that that you doing glaringly wrong is that you are ignoring the best ship the TEC fleet has. The hoshiko is the backbone and lifeblood of any TEC fleet. Early game 10 or so are essential, mid game bump it to 20, and for late game 30-40 depending on how good your opponent is. That 20 hull repair a second goes a LONG way in keeping your fleets alive longer and end up saving you a shit load of resources. In addition when you reach tier 5 military research the thing is actually even better, because now it not only repairs your fleet, it stops it from taking damage altogether. The demolition bots will cause 200 (if i remember right I forget) dmg mitigate, will cut the engine speed by half witch can have severe consequences for the enemy and will jam the enemies weapon systems. The speed reduction is lethal because when you order a fleet to move it always moves at the speed of the slowest ship and people don't notice this. Time and time again I have obliterated key enemy capital ships trying to retreat with the fleets because of this if his cap would not have been moving as slowly as it was it would have escaped. And for jamming enemy weapons I don't have actual statistics but to me it seems each hoshiko is able to keep 1.5 to 2 enemy ships jammed. With my fleets layouts to me that means I am almost always jamming 30-40% of the enemies firepower. That is a huge incoming DPS reduction. Trust me on this one the hoshiko is the shining star of the TEC fleet. Try to get these little beauties out ASAP!!!
The Cielos command cruiser is also nice but comes in much latter in the game and you don't need as many 15-20 will be more then enough even for maxed out fleets. Their Basic ability give shield regen and ROF increase which is a nice addition, but it's 2nd power the designate target that increases the dmg the target receives by 40% can be devastating and extremely useful to take out startbases, caps and titans.
Now for capital ships:
Kol: Far from useless it's an extremely fierce fighting machine but it's main roles are defensive or for Titan/Cap take downs. On the defensive it works best if you have the TEC culture upgrade along with a starbase that has resupply. By combining these 2 power together even the AM hungry KOL seems unable to drain it's AM reserves. If you have flak burst you can clear the skies very quickly, if you have Gauss cannon anything coming close will fleet the pain of it's mistake. With max repair platforms, hoshikosm and the starbase you can achive 75 hull rep per second which makes it EXTREMLY hard for the enemy to kill anything! If your Loyalist and have twin SB that goes up to 90 hull rep per second since the resupply ability stacks. Under a defensive wall like that the enemy will need 3-4 times your fleet power to disloge you or a high LVL Titan, But if you have your own Titan..... Well he's really gonna have to work at it to get you out. The Vasary are the best at doing this with their Kotsura cannon which can disable your repair platforms for a good long time enough to make it hurt. As for killing caps and Titan, make sure your KOL are keep their AM reserve and when the time is right give them their target turn on the gauss cannon ability and the target shoudl drop fairly quickly depend on the circumstances like your kol lvls, target lvls and number of kols you have just 1 will not cut it you will 4 and more to have a big noticeable difference.
As For the other caps go with what Goafan77 has said. But with the Akkan to the trick to get a econ boon at the start is Also do the research for modualler construction which will reduce the cost of building, extractors, frigate and capital factories and to also fully research the first tier metal extraction. After that depending on your planet flavors go with 2nd tier metal or crystal. This will give a much larger boom to yoru early game econ and will have you get the edge you might need.
As for some fleet build in order for caps and Titans a build I really like is this one: Akkan followed by a Marza, usually before building any other fleets, followed by a mix of Hoshikos, LF, Corvvettes but LRMs and Flak may be added if necessary. When I have about 60-80 frigates I get 2 dunovs and buy the lvls to get them to lvl 3. Once their are out or even while they are still building depending on how the war goes then comes the Titan, And with that on the field it's gonna be hard for the enemy to kill it or stop you. But you need to be able to get to that point. The Akkan is the first ship for the econ boost but the Marza is there to bomb enemy planets but not just any planets, your target of choice if you can reach find it in time is the world at which the enemy will setup his main frigate production. IF you can take out that world fast enough you can cripple you enemy fleet power wise extremely badly. Because while your still pumping more ships into the fight he is forced to invest resources into building a new production center at a new location, he might need to upgrade the planet to do this or even scuttle other structures which means the fight can be over by then especially in early game battles. If your in a suicide slot I tend to go with 2 KOLS instead of dunovs for the reasons I have provided above.
This is good info here - I find i don't build enough of them and I think I use them (Hoshiko) ineffectively.I think my biggest issue is how to play the game. How to manage the battles. For militia owned planets I do the normal (take out seige, colonize, maybe take out shps while defences are building, then move along) but when I meet the enemy AI I tend to move the fleet into battle as 1 unit and have them attack the most critical ships, queueing up other ships as required. I then move my visual focus to other aspects of my empire like colonizing in another section of the map, moving other fleet around the map/empire to protect/defend/attack. I tend to let the battle rage on without my 100% focus. I'll check back to make sure I don't need to adjust anything but I tend to let it go on its own. And because of that I tend to leave autocast on so caps can use abilities as the computer sees fit. As I said, I'm busy elsewhere on the map and nervous that if I spend too much of my focus on the battle, I'll miss something important elsewhere - research, planetary development, fleet construction, etc.
Is that generally bad strategy? To start a battle and then move my focus to other aspects of the map. When I think about it, I think this is where I intended my question to go - fleet make up and use. You've all been very helpful with the fleet makeup side of things and a lot of those tips are used regularly now. With them I've had no trouble crushing medium maps in what is for me record time. I've moved onto large and multi-star maps with varying success and I beleive it to be mainly because my use of the fleet rather than which fleet I create. As I said, I tend to just move the fleet en masse into battle and say "kill". I know, for instance, that LRM will find their own range and start blasting away. Corvettes will also hti-and-run of their own volition, depending on what I've targetted. It was mentioned somehwere else in the forum where it seems odd that all the ships in battle, except for strikcraft and corvettes, tend to just park and fire where it seems that in reality they ought to be moving to outflank or protect a flank. There's got to be more to it than that for greater effect/success and I think this is where I'm lacking skill. It seems like it would be micromanaging and I've seen negative references to micromanaging throughout the forum, but do I have to watch and manage battles from start to finish (or mostly finish) to be more effective, and if that's the case, doesn't that leave me vulnerable elsewhere (that would seem especially true for MP where you're playing against a real brain ratherr than the AI). There's too bloody much to learn. LOL.
This a great thread and I have learn alot. I to have just return to the game. I've learn alot here on what I been doing wrong. I not sure if anyone has done this before. Create a Video with commentary on Build order and research and the reason behind it. I know, in MP there are different roles it would be great to get one for each of the roles.
I would someday like to get good enough to join a MP game. I guess what I'm hoping for is to get my build order and research right before getting more newbie bad habits.
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