Just started myself and being caned by the Dominators - so any strategies would be great.

Also, I have to say this game is awesome - best way to spend your tokens if you are wondering.

The best way to start is to get piles of money: the best way to make money is trade.

Start with a tradeship, pick at least engine and tradeskill. Take everything off it except the engine/fueltank. Do a google for 'plan' to see if you can see any good trades where you start, but as quickly as possible you want to fly to a business base and take out the largest loan you can and do a business study.

This will leave you with several profitable routes and a pile of money. Simply trading in this way will have you rolling in more money than you can ever spend. Repay the loan when it comes due and simply take out another, larger loan... and repeat. Using bank money and business studies you can grow your business very quickly. Then you can buy good equipment and start fighting Dominators if the war requires it. I can make more money trading than fighting Dominators, so I simply drop 100k on military bases for fleets. Half the battleships in my galaxy are named after me.

Also: fighting Dominators is really, really easy with NPC henchmen.

Hi, (beware iam not an english native speaker)

Here my last working strategy with custom difficulty (dominators->impossible, price range->minimal, overall difficulty 150%)

well its obvious that i dont trade !

At game setup i choose almost always a skill in charisma (more money for government contracts aka. quests) and either attack or mobility (defense)

Then i choose the engine cause its always an upgraded version with longer jumprange and more speed (that also reduce sometimes the number of jumps and saves time on systemcrossing) the other item i would consider is either the rocketlauncher (cause it will take some time to be able to purchase it - especially if scientists are set to "dumb")

The race and profession i just match my desired "roleplaying" but if you like to zip around the galaxy like the galactic hero you want to be, then i recommend the faeyan fighter.

Always do the tutorial missions (unless you cant see them anymore) to get some cheap experience and one artifact (a kind of unique ship equipment)

Now ask at the government for some missions - read the info - and before you accept check the map and searchengine about the location of a remote missiongoal - you dont want to fail a mission just because you were one day due delivering a box of "maloq red buttons" to another planet.
Try to get transport mission at the standard difficulty - increase only if you have a better jumprange that allows you to make it in one jump.
Changing difficulty of the missions means usually increasing payout (and sometimes medals,upgrade items or even artifacts) for reducing the time needed to achieve mission.
Escort/protect missions higher difficulty means more time to escort your target - also beware that if you reach the escort goal and on your way to get your money the escorted ship is destroyed the mission will be tagged a failure.
Attack missions may also be impossible cause the ships pilot is in prison for a few months -> there should be a textadventure like sneak in prison and assassinate that guy
Beware of the "plasma-checker-tournament" it is a very challenging quest/puzzle - i already wasted two evenings and couldnt solve it - msg me if you got a solution!

Do as much of this missions till you get bored or rich and be meanwhile on the lookout on nice equipment like better engines and *matching* fuel tank (critical at this stage)

After the quest for money, go shopping - if you want to be a real galactic hero and
prepare yourself for dominatorkilling !

Try to get a maloq warrior/ranger class ship with full slots - if it has some or all 4 artifact slots(like the Ranger "ideal" class) and try to get the highest affordable tech for the hull - (you can search for items *and* their techlevel in that searchengine)
Remember that a bigger hull size - especially when fully loaded - slows the ship down.
(maloq hull : most cost effective - maintenance is non-issue with repairdroid)

Stay away from this hull : WWW Link">Link

Should you find a hull named "arriva tolosum" get it - its one of the best hulls i have seen - if you like a big and slow moving warship look out for that peleng parade cruiser with its own mud bath
(especially if you like extreme-looting like me)

I hope you have enough money left to purchase other equipment or already have it
Important thing about items the less space one item use - the more expensive it is to purchase (and if you sell looted items - the more money you get per unit sold) - also the repair costs of items are linked to their value

That means very expensive items - although looking nice and small can endanger your savings.
Although you may think that the items are quit durable - in peacetime they are - unless its maloq or peleng equipment with the itemfailure difficulty setting upped -
in a fight vs the hordes of dominators you will see quite fast equipment failure, that is if you dont get killed right away ^^ also dominators got weapons that do extra damage to equipment !

Equipment hints (always remember that cost/repair problem):

Repairdroid: get almost the highest tech there is - if you have a micromodule that adds to repair a significant amount, then you can get a cheaper one or pay the price for near-immortality (if your droid should fail while in combat - check those red wrench warning icons - then withdraw immediately - use even afterburners)

Radar: get a lowtech and lowspace one and upgrade it with a module like minivision - be cheap here

Gripper: the only way to make money fighting dominators is of course LOOOOOTING
like Radar get a lowtech and lowspace one and upgrade it with a module like "hocus" u may already got one or even two from the government contracts

Shield : either you take the risk and loot one of the small nice shields from the dominators or buy one if it has at least 20% protection - less is almost always wasted space

Fuel tank: you should consider having a larger fuel tank - just in case that your ships abilities doesnt match your heroism
and you have to decide to fight another day is better than looking at the highscoretable again

you can also refuel by very very close orbiting the star or if you are in a hurry and got enough hitpoints - right through the star to the nearest edge to warp out

Scanner : never ever buy such a thing - unless you want to seriously roleplay a pirate or customs officer !

WEAPONS : since its about battling dominators - and dominators usually comes in groups - use almost only area damage weapons like multi-resonators at first - then loot some of the big dominator weapons (Vertix and IMHO-9000) and install them if you find a preferable size/cost ratio

if you have credits left try to get the best hull upgrade at research station - or make it your next goal

Note that an ANTI-dominator configuration may not work vs that elite Pirate that holds a grudge against you since the beginning of the game - it usually has more than capable weaponry vs one target

With that anti-dominator config i usually target the biggest ship in weapon range and while the big bad guys armor is being teared away all the other small ships in its surrounding are being destroyed.

If you do some one-man-system-liberations then try to have some combat programs ready (available after military promotion and awarded by governments for contracts, missions and dominatorkilling) to make first good impression by using=talking "absolute weapons" on the "Equentor" class ships.
Used "Alarm Signal" Equentor lost its shields and some other stuff hehe WWW Link">Link

Credit issues:
Depending on your configuration you may either (after venturing into an enemy system)
1. not survive a liberation effort -> bad but i hope you have a save game to try another loadout or make more money before switching to war
2. escaped with a badly damaged ship , no loot -> well thats almost like dead
3. snatched some loot from others in a battle, returned ->some use this tactic to make a quick money IF they survived this hit'n'loot run
4. liberated system, forgot to loot till the roof of your hopefully large enough remaining cargo hold, got thanked with a handshake and a measly medal or module -> your account will be broken soon unless you dont have other income like doing some contracts
5. liberated system, your 100-300units of cargospace full with dominator artifacts ready to be sold at research station for 200%value in the right department and dominator equipment also to be sold at research for 100%value (not the usuall lower % of your trading skill) -> you are on your way to be a rich ranger !

Always try to make repairs at military stations - and after that repair your artifacts at pirate stations - that will save you much money.

Also: fighting Dominators is really, really easy if your whereabouts as No.1 ranger are in the news and all nearby ranger and military vessels jump right beside you in an enemy system if there are no other liberations or defenses nearby.

Hope i could help you.

...some games add to life - some take life...

What I do is pretty much a mixture of what you guys recommend. But, the major point is.. STAY AWAY FROM THE DOMINATORS... I learned that the hard way the first time.

I just trade myself. I just ignore the Dominator War until I get rich and strong enough to make a difference. Right now, I'm playing as a Pirate and wow, its freaking hard. Kinda sucks when everyone is gunning for you, but i do love a challenge. I haven't even touched Galciv2 since i got this game.

Well I'm in year 6 now about to break $100K. Still been with the same strategy only now I can actually go in to dominator systems and screw with them. Still can't fight more than a couple at a time, but I can outrun them and snatch high priced items. Then if I can't stop for gas, it's across the star and out. Getting to be a whole lot of fun. I have one question though. Is there a way to see how many missions I've done? Like what it shows when you get killed and go to the end screen. I haven't found a way ingame to check. Thanks.  

I hope we get some more peeps coming in for a broader base of ideas.

https://www.elementalgames.com/forum/msg.php?lang=eng&forum=ptquest&theme=14&page=auto

thx for info - 250K credits are soon to be mine muahahaha (well it would be my 45th mission me thinks)

only way to know how much missions you completed is either the hard way - or finishing the game to get a highscore entry.
and on this highscore list you can hover over the single numbers in the addition to know what type of mission it displays.

that rangerratingscreen shows basically only kills, liberations, rank, and experience

I cheat like hell and I learned to use cheapest weapons so they arent expensive to repair, really fast engine and really high defense, I got up to 55% and 23 armor, that way I can heave a whole dominator fleet chase mean while I shoot back and take em out one by one. I recommand Lezka lasers, pretty good stuff, I get the tech levle 8 ones when I can, then I upgrade them and put a nice mod on it too. Also I got my hands on a ranger hull with series that has 5 guns, so I can do a lot of damage even thou I got crappy guns, since I got 5 of em.

As far as cheating... I use the code that spawns random starbase almsot all the time, every 30 days hehehe. I go into dominator held space, fight them till my equipment starts breaking, land on a planet and make a base, then I use the base to repair.

Oh and the one that makes nearest ship drop all equipment is awsoem too. Since most NPC rangers carry very expensive guns, I just sell those hehehe.

i rather jump with an outdated maloqfreighter into a dominator stronghold than doing those terran "red-tape" quests !

heh I kinda beat the clerks quest through a combination of skill and luck :/ You figure that there will be only one person thats best for the second part of it, the thing that requires 2 good atributes to suceed. So I try to figure out who are 2 people that go best with 2 of the 5 events, and the remaining 3 I can kinda eyeball. Well it takes some practice. I suggest a pen and piece of paper and make some sort of a chart.

But overall the text quests blow. I only liked the resort one, and to the lesser extent the one where you have to make money to set the guy free. Most of the others I avoid liek the plague.

What I usually do is if I really liked a game but beat it, I would go to something else for a while and come back to it in six months or so. Played through a lot of my games twice this way and it doesn't have that "I just did this" feel as much. I'll still throw in something like Imperium Galactica II every now and then even though I've must of beaten it 20 times, but it still fun.

Well, I dug this game out of the bargain bins and I can't believe I missed this one when it first came out. Damn World of Warcraft...

Anyway, after playing for a week, I have finally brought my first ship that cost about 178k. It is one of those ranger hulls called "ideal" and its nice, has about 430 space but all the slots open, 4 artifacts, 5 weapons etc.

I started out with a fighter and little to no money, so it was tough just to scrape by but I never had any problems killing the pirates. They go down pretty easy with 3 weapons in the beginning.

I tried looting the dominators but every time I go the ships on our side were always losing and it seems the dominators always drop everything to go after you. I never managed to loot anything useful yet except the minor equipment and nodes from them.

The breakthrough came when I took out a loan at a business center and brought alot of drugs cheap, then went to the world with the highest prices even if it was contriband and sold it. That netted me about 50k and really started me off on the road of wealth.

However when you are busy trading, you're falling behind on the arms race, and now the pirates have super fancy weapons that I have to deal with. Even with 5 weapon slots its tough when you don't have the right weapons to deal with them. I'm still searching for that perfect combination.