early shipbuilding tips/strategies?

everybody has its own way, i explore with my coloships.
i just make a 5 speed koloship (i am yor) and colonize everything i can find.
than i make the fastes constructor possible (speed 4 i believe) and make the income starbases.
the next type of ships that i will make are fighters when somebody gets wary/hostile with me while they have a decent ammount of militairy.

Shore the strategy outlined could work but I would modify the long range colonizer a bit, and heres why. Somewhere, somehow, someway, I got the impression from StarDock that all the races were on an equal footing as far as planets go (- the hoomans) everyone else could see where the stars were and everyone else could see that there were planets. Thats it. Thats horse-puckey. I have been playing GC2 for quite a while now and the AI knows exactly where the good planets are I frequently follow them directly across my influence borders to find planets that are on the other side of me, that I have found yet. This is very very early in the game, there were no scouts that could have found them for them so what probably was true in Beta is not true anymore and there maybe a bit of code that is not living up to its hype.

Now back on target. Although I agree you need a LR Colonizer, it needs to be faster than what the newbie guide states for reasons explained in paragraph 1. To that end, I recommend the following techs in exactly this order to start any game.

1) New Propulsion (If needed)
2) Ion Drive (If Needed)
3) Xeno Research (If Needed)
4) Impulse Drive
5) Impulse Drive 2
6) Advanced Computing
7) Basic Miniaturization
8) Basic Logistics
9) General Life Support
10) Impulse Drive 3

After that you are on your own. Follow the freaking AI, but max out a cargo hull so that you can get at least 4 speed (you should be able to achieve 6 speed) and get out there 5 to 6 sectors at that point. With your other colonies (new ones not base) making MR/MS (Medium Range & Medium Speed) constructors to help extend the range of the LR Colonizer you should be golden and hopefully beat the AI to what is generally a good secondary habitat for your race.

Good Luck and Good Hunting,

Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

It kinda depends on the galaxy size and planet distribution. It also depends on your start.

One thing is for sure, never build (or even bother to design) any offensive ships until someone either declares war on you, or you run out of reasons to build colonies (should happen pretty early) and constructors. The AI is still terrible at 'sneak' attacks, so if you focus instead on planetary development you can usually easilly and quickly pump out a fleet of warships to counter their aggression should it come. Alternatively, just keep an eye on who has Planetary Invasion, and until someone gets it continue to ignore warships *even* if they do declare war on you.

Personally I don't even bother with adding range to my colonizers (unless starting position absolutly mandates it), it gets your economy running much faster if you don't send all your colonies out as far as you can to back colonize later. As soon as you find high PQs you should colonize them, doing this will expan your range as well, letting you get away without having to add the extra range components. Though they arn't that expensive so it doesn't matter that much, but if you're rushbuying your ships every little bit of BC saved helps.

1) New Propulsion (If needed) 2) Ion Drive (If Needed) 3) Xeno Research (If Needed) 4) Impulse Drive 5) Impulse Drive 2 6) Advanced Computing 7) Basic Miniaturization 8) Basic Logistics 9) General Life Support 10) Impulse Drive 3

Wow, if you've researched all that and there are still planets left to be colonized you must be playing large maps with abundant all and few other empires. Of course I tend to turn off my research after getting ID2 to pump out colonies/constructors without as much rush buying, kinda depends on how lucky one is with anomolies too.

If you build one (very) basic fighter on each world (just a tiny hull with one wimpy Particle Beam will do) then the AI should leave you alone for long enough for you to have got yourself going properly. I generally use my homeworld to pump out colonisers until all the uninhabited planets are taken, and use my colonies to build constructors and fighters once I've got offensive techs.

When you're ready to actually go to war for real, get a small hull, add the best engine you have, and then fill it with weapons. Don't bother with defenses until later on. Don't add range unless you actually need it to reach your target. I wouldn't even consider trying this until you get a couple of steps up the weapons ladder. Obviously, don't bother with this until you have Planetary Invasion, or someone has already declared war. I also tend to wait until I can see which way the AI seem to be going with weapons tech, and pick a different route.

I think the best tip really is the fast scout. Buy it right off then switch to colony ships. By the time %homeworld% builds a new one, there's usually 5 or 6 planets scouted out. Saves you from buying a bunch of colony ships and having to use them as scouts. Others disagree apparently, but I think it's more efficient that way.

LONG RANGE COLONIZER -

Why is a newbie guide giving tips that will only be useful on a larger-than-Large universe? If you buy 3 factories and take Space Militarization you will build one colony ship on turn 3, 5, 7, 9,... and you will still barely manage to colonize the planets close to you in time. There's no time to be going halfway across the galaxy. These ships can usually almost catch up to the Scout and not need to waste the money on it, unless you are on a larger-than-Large universe.

Oh, here's the best early shipbuilding tip -- on turn one, after moving your colony ship, upgrade it to the new 3-speed one you designed. It costs about 50 bc and is ready the next week.

only scout that i use is the flagship and i speed up both constructers and colony ships

On gigantic maps with Anomalies set to Abundant , I make a few comb Scout / Survey ships.

Cargo Hull - Life Support - Sensors - Survey Module - as many engines that fit ...

Fast enough to scout and it is handy to be able to collect the Anomally candy quickly.

well I'm doing the demo atm and so only have access to small maps, but I guess I can try doing some of those suggestions.

besides, sometimes its nicer to design your own ships

A player can design buy a 4-move colony ship by waiting a turn and maxing out propulsion research. These 4-move ships also let a player move on to other research besides propulsion. Planetary Improvements gives a +10 all bonus.

If a player plans to do a military rush, basic military ships are good to build and upgrade when slightly better weapons come on line. This is usually faster than waiting for the tech to start building the ships. That production will be needed for transports, which cost a lot to upgrade too (about 600 bc from a colony ship, vs. maybe 100 to 200 for a nice military ship upgrade to a ship with 4 movement, 2 attack).

Oh, here's the best early shipbuilding tip -- on turn one, after moving your colony ship, upgrade it to the new 3-speed one you designed. It costs about 50 bc and is ready the next week.

A player can design buy a 4-move colony ship by waiting a turn and maxing out propulsion research. These 4-move ships also let a player move on to other research besides propulsion. Planetary Improvements gives a +10 all bonus.

max the propulsion tech up to where? the next tech, hyperdrive plus doesn't have much more speed, or are you trying to tell me to put more engines that are cheaper on the ship? and do you mean maxing out the tech by putting the research slider to 100? you two aren't very clear on this.

edit: it could be that I'm doing the demo and you guys are talking about the main game and things work a little differently in the main game due to patches. I get what you are saying about waiting a turn or two to max out the tech, but I'm not getting dounle techs per turn or something if thats what you are trying to get me to do.

/bump

cmon!, dang forum isn't updating properly

/bump

I'd like some clarification here please?

I didn't say anything about this, but yes, one example configuration that gets you 4-speed colony ships is a custom race that starts with Hyperdrive-New Propulsion Techniques-Ion Drive, Galactic Warfare-Space Militarization. They don't have hardly any range, but it's usually enough to get to most every available planet.

It takes a lot of research to get Impulse Drive and if your military is high enough to make a colony ship every two turns you probably wont get it done until all your planets are colonized.

All this advice is from my experience going up to Large maps.

so pretty much those tips were for the full game when you are playing one of the races with a more advanced start than the Terrans which is the only one I can play in the demo?

I don't have the demo and I haven't put enough work into the game to know exactly how much tech you need to get a 4-speed ship. I know that Ion Drive will do it, though.

yea, probably somewhere around ion drive or a tech or two above.