Just a newb...

...looking for some gameplay advice!

Hey folks.

Just picked up the game last week, and I love it. As a beginner to this game though, I'm noticing some things aren't going quite how I would've expected them to (like new ships becoming available after researching certain techs). I chalk it up to being new, though.

Anyhow, I'm looking for some simple, basic suggestions to get me going better than I am now. I'm open to anything.

Thanks guys. Looks like you have a great community here. I'm looking forward to talking with all of you!
8,614 views 7 replies
Reply #1 Top
The basic core designs aren't to give you new ships, but new components. The task is on the player to design the best ships for the situation.
Reply #2 Top
Yes. If you're in a hurry, you can just throw ships together, but it's a lot of fun playing with the different designs you can make. Try out the wheel jewelry! Mount a few lasers on it!
Reply #3 Top
Oh, and as for tips - make sure that your spending is appropriate for the situation, tax as much as you can get away with (usually around 50% morale is good), be sure to set the spending sliders at the same time, don't be afraid to buy ships if necessary to get off to a good start, but avoid getting into serious debt or you'll be paying for it later. Trade with other races, or they will just trade amongst themselves and beat you. Expand, explore, exploit, and exterminate!
Reply #4 Top
Wow, that is an action packed list of tips there GreenReaper.

I would add, upgrade your colony ships to faster versions as soon as possible to get a leg up on the competition, and build lots of starbases.

-Dewar
Reply #5 Top
I sorta suck myself... but I'd say specialize you planets...
All planets with like 2 manufacturing, 2 research, 1 farm+1 entertainment = lots of crappy planets
Some with lotsa factories, lotsa research or lotsa ppl makes the like class 8-12 planets useful
Reply #6 Top
With the specialization of planets, would you recommend a certain planet rating for certain tasks (Class 5 or 6 for manufacturing, class 12 or 13 for research, etc)? For the most part I've been balancing out my planets. I've also been trying to keep a starport on almost every planet class 8 or higher.

I find that my people tend to complain alot if I keep my taxes higher than 30%. Any suggestions on how I could raise the tax and still keep 'em happy?

Thanks for the suggestions so far! I built my first ship earlier (only a mid-class warship), not the best, but I'll get better with time, hopefully!

Reply #7 Top
In order to keep people happy, populations have to stay low (around 10 billion at the most.) If you can't or don't want to do that, lots of entertainment centers to keep them happy. You can hold your pointer over the morale number and it gives you a tool tip that shows what's making people unhappy.

As far as how to specialize your planets, your economy capital should be on as high of a class planet as possible. More population = more taxes = more benifit from the economy capital. For the industrial and research capitals, a planet with a few bonus resources would be the best (something like a Precursor mine that gives %700 of the normal factory output is optimal... but increadibly rare.) It's important to have at least a middle level (8+) class for those capitals as well, just so you can build a lot of factories or labs.

Also, I build at least one factory on every planet, just so I can build other improvements and upgrades faster.

-Dewar