Jumping in at the deep end

[Fyron]

Jtownsend said:
1. An emergency build 11 colony ships - wise? These will have to be 3 engines only with my 120 construction, afaik.

You can either retrofit them to add the rest of the engines, or you can take the Hardy Industrialists racial trait. I prefer the latter myself.

2. Early research - I understand I want minelayers for the near sides of warp points?

Mines are good in the early game. As are Point Defense Cannons. Mines are available from Construction tech, then Mines. PDC are available from Military Science, then Point Defense Weapons.

And there is a tech bonus on turn 1?

Yes. some extra research points, depending on game settings.

What might I want to spend that on?

Whatever you want to get first. Construction or Military Science is usually a good idea.

My ideal fleet "shape" from what I've read, is destroyers/light cruisers with direct fire weapons and some PDC. How do I get there?

Light Cruisers are available with Ship Construction 4. Due to mounts, you do not want to build any warship Destroyers after you get Light Cruisers, except possibly as missile ships or boarding ships. But direct fire weapon ships should all be Light Cruisers. They do 50% more damage than Destroyers due to Large Weapon Mounts.

3. Early facility builds - is there sort of a basic rote for the 1-5 facility colonies and then another basic rote for larger, wealthier colonies?

Depends on what resources you need to produce more of, really. Minerals and research are quite important. Some of those colony ships you build should travel to semi-distant systems, colonize small worlds, and build Space Yards. They will then start building new colony ships.

[Suicide Junkie]

1) You may want to spend some of the last few turns building spaceyard bases in orbit of your homeworld, thus permanently increasing your total build rate. Such bases are handy for repeat building units, while the planet builds the ships to carry them.

By the time your E-Build year is up, you should have new spaceyards operating on the first colonies, and can build more colony or war ships from there.

2) In the game setup, starting resources are set anywhere from 20k to 100k.
This applies to minerals/organics/rads and research as well.
Whatever you would have normally researched is good.
Some people will use it to complete one of the large theoretical techs early as well.

It is hard to justify a 50k theoretical when you're only producing 3-5k of research a turn, but the bonus can make it easier to think about doing it to get at the techs it unlocks.
In the end, you're still going to get and spend the same amount of points, so the choice depends entirely on your needs at the time.

[Jtownsend]

I believe the game is starting at medium tech, with a 100k bonus on the first turn. It may also be a crowded universe, with 3-4 systems per player. That considered, and with my non-HI race, I am considering doing without EB and making a faster colony ship, every second turn.

I'm leaning towards Stoney's idea of a transport ship with 2 mines early on, to stake out as many likely border warp points as I can. Continued advice along the veins already given here is much appreciated.

EDIT: Bit of important information - the game will be medium galactic edge, unless the players top 10 or 12, in which case large. The players start out with a bonus 100,000 on the first turn, and 3 good planets! Which rather alters my worry about having to have a cheapie colony ship if I did a land rush. On the other hand, given the size of the universe and the three starting good planets, I'm not sure EBing 33 colony ships would be very sane either. Brilliant advice?

[Suicide Junkie]

Consider the number of nearby planets too, and don't worry too much about the slow build time.

If you don't have many colonizable worlds in your homesystem, then you'll probably want to go with the faster colony ships.
If you've got 5 or more colonizable worlds, then with the 1-turn colony ships, you'll have your homesystem colonized in the first year, PLUS a bunch more colony ships exploring through the closest warppoints.

You may want to slip a fast 1-turn scoutship into the mix, to peek in the neightbouring systems, and keep your slower colony ships from exploring dead-ends.

[TurinTurambar]

This is an EXTREMEly useful "newb-thread." Will post a link to it in. "Gameplay Tips and Tricks."

Turin

[Jtownsend]

A thought - I realize that things like fleet design depend very much on circumstances. However, assuming all things are as generic as possible, is there a "semi optimal" sort of fleet design within each "fleet era," IE the pre-capship era of escorts, then the small capships, etc?

If I were playing with normal tech I'd ask "what is a good turn 25, 50, 100, 150 ship or something like that, but I suspect 3 planets with medium tech and good quality with 100k to start is a bit ideosyncractic.

I'm curious as to whether, with 3 good planets, I should specialize at the get-go into 3 different roles, or build colony ships with all - and of course, whether to emergency build. If I were to emergency build, I could get 3360x1.5x3= 15120 minerals worth of construction on turn one, which would be 5040 minerals that wouldn't evaporate on turn 2 from lack of storage capacity. On the other hand, in a crowded universe it might be better to accept my 3 colony-ships-per-2-years - 1.5 a year, except all in the same year - expansion rate.

[Jtownsend]

Not to egregiously self-bump, but does anyone have early-ship design ideas for a medium tech start on 3 good planets? Or perhaps advice on which of the weapons lines to research or avoid. I'm not planning on developing missles, I'm unconvinced on drones (but am willing to be wrong on that) and I can't decide what to splurge on in the first turn with a 100k bonus. I could pick up Adv. Military Science and get training facilities, but then I'd be researching all the other early techs without my turn 1 bonus.

I'm also a touch unclear - why bother with ship training facilities if I could train "ghost" stacks with single ships in orbit, then merge these with my frontline fleets? Are there potential perils or drawbacks to this method?

As well, in a fairly amateur-level game with 3 starting systems and 8-10 players crammed in a medium galaxy, might it not be a good idea to turtle in my three systems if they are loaded with planets and have relatively defensible warp geography?

I don't really want to waste early fleets getting blown to smithereens when I'm not even sure of basic ship design principles. Meson blasters, or energy stream weapons, or DUC? I can see on the tree that, for example, energy stream weapons have a longer tech tree, but in the meantime are they adequate weapons?

Also, in trying to simulate a drone-ship vs. direct-fire ship battle with the simulator (we're playing simultaneous turns, obviously) I made a red and blue simulation with a fleet of ships with drone launchers, a fleet of weaponized (rather than suicidal) drones and an opposing fleet of beam-and-PDC vessels. The beam vessels one, but I couldn't get the opposing, putatively drone launching vessels to close along with their drones - whatever orders I gave their fleet, they fled into a corner of the battlefield and waited for certain death.

Now, I don't really want to bother fiddling with drones in my fleet, so I was just as glad to see the drone side lose. But it's hardly a fair test when the drone-launching ships didn't close to add their direct-fire firepower. Is this an oddity of orders, or was I simply putting orders in wrong?

My first turn is (presuming no laggards) due tommorow. At the moment I am planning to do standard (non-emergency) builds of the best colony ship I can make with 3x3350 production over two turns.

[Zereth]

Jtownsend said:
I could pick up Adv. Military Science and get training facilities, but then I'd be researching all the other early techs without my turn 1 bonus.

Make it up by capturing ships and anaylzing them for the tech.

I'm also a touch unclear - why bother with ship training facilities if I could train "ghost" stacks with single ships in orbit, then merge these with my frontline fleets? Are there potential perils or drawbacks to this method?

Because you A: need the ship training facilities to train those ships in the first place, and B: because relying on Neural Networks showing up in a ruin _And_ you getting to it quickly isn't a very good strategy?

I don't really want to waste early fleets getting blown to smithereens when I'm not even sure of basic ship design principles. Meson blasters, or energy stream weapons, or DUC? I can see on the tree that, for example, energy stream weapons have a longer tech tree, but in the meantime are they adequate weapons?

DUC cannons are the best early-game weapon, while Phased Polaron Beams are good after that, especially if your opponents aren't using phased shields yet, and Anti-Proton beams finally pay off somewhere around level 10.

I'm not exaclty a veteran, of course, so somebody who's been playing longer might have more insight.

[douglas]

Jtownsend said:
Not to egregiously self-bump, but does anyone have early-ship design ideas for a medium tech start on 3 good planets? Or perhaps advice on which of the weapons lines to research or avoid.

Let's see, I just checked what medium tech gives you, and it appears to be just level one in all theoretical techs plus two levels of energy stream weapons and energy pulse weapons in addition to what you get regardless of starting tech settings. I'd say you have two good options for early weapons tech research. Either spend your first turn bonus on Physics 2 and research Phased Energy Weapons to the max, or go straight into Energy Stream Weapons. Personally, I would go with Phased Energy, at least until everyone has phased shields and your research is well into the multiple hundred thousands per turn. Normally, Projectile Weapons would be my first choice for early game, but they eventually become obsolete and you already have a head start on the late game best weapon.

Jtownsend said:
I'm not planning on developing missles, I'm unconvinced on drones (but am willing to be wrong on that)

Neither are worth getting.

Jtownsend said:
and I can't decide what to splurge on in the first turn with a 100k bonus. I could pick up Adv. Military Science and get training facilities, but then I'd be researching all the other early techs without my turn 1 bonus.

Training facilities are good, but if you're going to spend the turn one bonus on that kind of thing, I'd go for one level in each of sensors and combat support instead. OTOH, mines are critical for early defense, and troops can easily compensate for 50% happiness, and you can get level 1 in both with the bonus. There's also Physics 2 for Phased Energy Weapons if you go that route.

Jtownsend said:
I'm also a touch unclear - why bother with ship training facilities if I could train "ghost" stacks with single ships in orbit, then merge these with my frontline fleets? Are there potential perils or drawbacks to this method?

The single-ship "ghost" fleets are useful only for fleet training. Each individual ship still needs to be trained to get ship experience, and fleet and ship experience stack.

Jtownsend said:
As well, in a fairly amateur-level game with 3 starting systems and 8-10 players crammed in a medium galaxy, might it not be a good idea to turtle in my three systems if they are loaded with planets and have relatively defensible warp geography?

If you actually have three separate systems and they have considerably above average planet loads, that could work. I'd still say you should at least try to get a few more systems, though.

Jtownsend said:
I don't really want to waste early fleets getting blown to smithereens when I'm not even sure of basic ship design principles. Meson blasters, or energy stream weapons, or DUC? I can see on the tree that, for example, energy stream weapons have a longer tech tree, but in the meantime are they adequate weapons?

DUC is strictly an early game weapon. Anti-proton Beams tend to lag one-three levels behind DUC in damage, but their cap is much higher and they reach DUC's cap reasonably early. With a medium-tech start, don't bother with DUC's. The other good choice is Phased Energy Weapons. Just five levels in addition to Physics 2, and you have the damage of an APB XII and you ignore non-phased shields. The only downsides are two less range and greater cost, particularly in radioactives.

Jtownsend said:
Also, in trying to simulate a drone-ship vs. direct-fire ship battle with the simulator (we're playing simultaneous turns, obviously) I made a red and blue simulation with a fleet of ships with drone launchers, a fleet of weaponized (rather than suicidal) drones and an opposing fleet of beam-and-PDC vessels. The beam vessels one, but I couldn't get the opposing, putatively drone launching vessels to close along with their drones - whatever orders I gave their fleet, they fled into a corner of the battlefield and waited for certain death.

Now, I don't really want to bother fiddling with drones in my fleet, so I was just as glad to see the drone side lose. But it's hardly a fair test when the drone-launching ships didn't close to add their direct-fire firepower. Is this an oddity of orders, or was I simply putting orders in wrong?

You had the fleet's strategy set to break formation, correct? That's good, but it also means that each ship uses its own strategy. To change ship strategies, go to the ship design screen, click the "Stats/Strategy" button, select the design, and click the arrow beside the default strategy.

Jtownsend said:
My first turn is (presuming no laggards) due tommorow. At the moment I am planning to do standard (non-emergency) builds of the best colony ship I can make with 3x3350 production over two turns.

With that construction rate, you can emergency build the same ship in one turn. If you then turn off emergency build the next turn, you effectively get the ship one turn early and get a free turn of slow build construction that you can use, for example, for police troops or mines. Besides, even in a crowded galaxy, grabbing lots of land and settling it quickly is important, so I'd go ahead and go all out emergency build until borders are firmly established.

[Kevin Arisa]

The problem with the drone carrier running from battle is probably because you dont have the strategy for it's design set. You need to open the design window and click the stats\strategy button to change it's default strategy. This will always revert to game default when you upgrade or copy the design so you have to remember to set it back.

[EDIT] Darn. Douglas beat me by 2 minutes. I need to type faster.