A few tips for noobs (namely me) |
Hey guys, I've completed my first game running SE:V + Devnull mod and it was a learning experience for sure, lol. I thought I would post here with some of the things I found that helped me for the benefit of anyone else just starting out.
Firstly, get Sensors up to 3+ ASAP, it will only help you out. I tend to put Basic Sensors on my Colony Ships and have them survey the system and the higher the Sensor strength you have the easier/faster it is to survey the whole sector. My Colony Ships are really my scouts; I just use those and when I'm running out of supplies or just find a good planet I plop down a colony.
Second, try to have atleast some research going into Research every turn, it doesn't have to be a whole lot if you don't want but getting that upgraded will help EVERYTHING else. You'll be putting alot of research center facilities on your planets (well atleast I did) and being able to upgrade those and get half again as many RP = win.
Third, after I had met some opposition and my expansion slowed down/stopped I eventually (after upgrading things and starting to build bigger ships and such) started to feel the resource pinch. My maintenance costs were mounting (you have maintenance on basically everything, including facilities) and I didn't have any new planets to colonize at the time. The solution? Remote Mining! Its awesome, to say the least. To get the Remote Mining/Farming/Refining level 3 module for a ship you need the individual Mining/Farming/Rad Extraction level to 8. I found a battleship with just 2 engines could hold 7-8 remote mining mods plus all the basics for the ship (just bridge/life support/crew quarters).
Also, researching Stellar Harnessing is a big bonus! Both of the modules you end up getting from training this up are especially cool, I think. The Solar Harvester gives you X amount of supplies every turn per module per star in the system. So, as long as theres a star in the system, you could potentially never run out of supplies and be able to keep going and scouting/whatever. Then theres the Solar Sail which gives you bonus movement points for nothing (doesn't use supplies).
Well, thats all I can think of right now, I might write back after I think up more things.
Good Luck!
Astorax
ps- feel free to post your own tips for noobs too
Re: A few tips for noobs (namely me)
Oh, another thing and I can't believe I forgot to mention this. It almost made me quit my game out of frustration until I found out what to do. In your Empire Options screen, scroll all the way down to where it lists all the available Strategies. Now, what you want to do is either make up your own Strategy or modify an existing one so that it will guide your ships exactly how you want them to behave.
I ended up modifying the Optimal Range strategy. One of the most important things to check on is whether or not your strategy has Buildings or Planets/Facilities on "Don't Engage" whether or not it has 100% damage or not included. If it does your ship will not attack even if the planet has no defense. Change it to anything else (I changed that to Point Blank instead of Don't Engage) and your ships can then proceed to glass the planet (if you so choose).
Also, when you make a fleet make sure one of your combat ships has Leader of the Task Force because all the other ships tend to follow it. If your supply ship has leader and is operating under a Don't Get Hurt strategy (which you also may want to modify btw) it will attempt to retreat away from hostile ships taking along your combat ships with them. The best way I found to do this was to make atleast 2 Task Forces per Fleet. The First task force is all your combat vessels with a leader chosen from them. The second task force is for everything else: supply ships, repair ships, mine sweepers, etc) and have a separate leader for this task force. You can set different strats for each task force (formations and such) and for the second task force you can input again Don't Get Hurt strategy for its Task Force.
It kinda sounds complicated but once you know what to do its not really, more than the entire game is already that is, lol.