Newbie Questions

[dwawilson]

I recently bought SOTS2 Enhanced Edition. I am playing my first game. So far I have had 1 system destoyed and 1 system severely damaged by Spectres. I have had multiple Freighters destroyed by pirates. I have had one system destroyed by meteors. I have had my construction fleet destroyed by a swarm. I have had my survey fleet severely damaged by a swarm. I have had one system destroyed by the queen of the swarm. I met the Hivers who almost immediately declared war and destroyed one system.

Questions:

1. Have I been unlucky or is it normal to lose so many systems?

2. Can you stop the pirates? I sent a fleet to patrol the system they had been attacking. They just attacked a different system. I don't have enough fleets to protect all systems.

3. What are some decent weapons to outfit a ship? I was patrolling a system with an assault fleet which was attacked by a equal in size fleet from the Hivers. Their 8 ships took little damage while destroying 7 of my 8 ships. I was using an Armor with a Neutron beam in the big turret, a missle in the front turret, a missle in the back, and all the rest X-ray lasers. The Hivers had nothing but Mass drivers. In SOTS1 the Mass drivers weren't very useful but this time they appeared to outdamage my weapons 3 to 1.

4. How do you take out a planet? I eventually took out one of the Hiver planets, but I had to attack several times.

5. Is there some way to build defense satellites? I don't have enough fleets to protect all my systems from meteors, swarms, spectres, Hivers, pirates, the anomolies I haven't experienced yet.

I have watched a few Let's Play videos. I have browsed the forums. I have picked up a few things here and there. Any other suggestions on thing I should be doing that most newbies don't know?

Thanks for your response.

 

[Ulzgoroth]

I recently bought SOTS2 Enhanced Edition. I am playing my first game. So far I have had 1 system destoyed and 1 system severely damaged by Spectres. I have had multiple Freighters destroyed by pirates. I have had one system destroyed by meteors. I have had my construction fleet destroyed by a swarm. I have had my survey fleet severely damaged by a swarm. I have had one system destroyed by the queen of the swarm. I met the Hivers who almost immediately declared war and destroyed one system.

Questions:

1. Have I been unlucky or is it normal to lose so many systems?

I tend to have a fair number of new colonies stamped out by asteroids and specters and so forth which happen to turn up before the colony can hope to survive them. That I just shrug off. And a certain amount of piracy losses...are avoidable, but acceptable in my opinion.

My latest game hasn't had any swarm, oddly. I have lost fleets to them before. If your fleet can't tackle the swarm, try running away at flank speed! Not all races can just run clear but even then it reduces how much you get hit. (I've noticed in the past that Hiver survey fleets can simply punch out swarm hives. Other races, usually not so much until they pick up some useful tech.)

You may want to reconsider whatever you were doing that let the swarm attack your construction fleet and your colony system, you usually should be able to do something about that before it happens.

2. Can you stop the pirates? I sent a fleet to patrol the system they had been attacking. They just attacked a different system. I don't have enough fleets to protect all systems.

Police cutters protect against piracy in two ways. They reduce the frequency of pirate raids (potentially to zero) and they also will start combat next to the freighters when there's a pirate raid in the system. (However, they're badly outgunned by most pirate raids.) Be sure to put the police cutters in the defense fleet and then deploy them in the battle manager, or they probably won't work.

To eliminate nearly all pirate raids before they happen, field 3 police cutters and also a tier 1 naval station in every system which has freighters. If you still get raids, add another police cutter until you don't see any more (and look for nearby Zuul or pirate bases). I prefer to not build naval stations everywhere and instead tolerate some pirate attacks

3. What are some decent weapons to outfit a ship? I was patrolling a system with an assault fleet which was attacked by a equal in size fleet from the Hivers. Their 8 ships took little damage while destroying 7 of my 8 ships. I was using an Armor with a Neutron beam in the big turret, a missle in the front turret, a missle in the back, and all the rest X-ray lasers. The Hivers had nothing but Mass drivers. In SOTS1 the Mass drivers weren't very useful but this time they appeared to outdamage my weapons 3 to 1.

Mass drivers were actually awesome in SotS I, and they're still pretty awesome. Though the basic ones lose a lot of efficacy against heavier ships, or of course against good anti-ballistic armor techs.

As you probably realize, missiles are terrible weapons in close combat. Their damage per hit is only slightly better than mass drivers and they fire much slower. If you're going to be fighting close up you're going to want to use weapons that actually work reasonably at that range. I'd suggest either your own mass drivers, phasers, or the plasma cannon line for medium slots.

Alternatively, if you're going to use missiles, don't let them get close enough to shoot you with their mass drivers.

Also of course while I don't know what race you're playing as but very few can match Hiver ships one-to-one without much superior technology and/or superior tactics. Hiver ships (as always) are just tougher and better armed than most.

4. How do you take out a planet? I eventually took out one of the Hiver planets, but I had to attack several times.

Early-game, look to assault shuttles. They work great. Provided you've got enough missile defense that the carrier ship doesn't get shredded.

5. Is there some way to build defense satellites? I don't have enough fleets to protect all my systems from meteors, swarms, spectres, Hivers, pirates, the anomolies I haven't experienced yet.

Yes, but you need the right technologies. Drone platforms link from the starting drone technology, so you can research them any time. There are several other types of defensive platforms. (They aren't satellites anymore...there's no way to get the dense rings of artillery and missile platforms that SotS I planets could have)

A system without a naval station won't be able to field enough to stand off most of the serious threats, but they may slow them down a bit.

 

[dwawilson]

I built 3 police cutters and put them in the defense queue. How do you deploy them in the battle manager?

I am bigger and can build more ships than the Hivers. But, I can't even take one ship in a battle. Can you give me any idea how to build a viable ship? I am play as Sol Force.

 

[dwawilson]

I did finally figure out how to deploy the police cutters. I also got an upgrade to armor. I replaced the Neutron beam with a Heavy driver. This configuration is working much better. Thank you for the help.

 

[Ulzgoroth]

It sounds like you've got something working. In your situation, I might look into torpedoes and heavy cannons as standoff armament and then try to keep most of my ships at a distance...but I'm conditioned to playing Liir with their high maneuverability and limited capability in a brawl. Deflectors could also be very effective against mass-driving Hiver ships.

And of course for taking ships down, focus fire, focus fire, focus fire. Hivers have a lot of armor but once you dig through it the internal damage and criticals will pile up.