Hints

Current revision as of 21:36, 23 January 2020

Hints and Tips

Everyone needs a little help sometime. Below are some ideas on what to do to improve your game-play.

Dan The Man

• The game creator.

Regular Play

• Remember to Claim Daily Reward on the NEWS tab every 20 hours.
• Remember to Claim Last Shipment from the Production tab in the Legion Base panel, if you are in a legion,
• Remember to Uninstall any Relays your ship is using and Install your Reactors or Cores, before you level up.
• Don't be in a hurry to spend your Artifact Points. The more artifact points you save the better chance you have of getting better Artifacts. NOTE: Rescued Prisoners, the best artifact in the game (it gives you three Rank Points), appear at 4000 Artifact Points. Therefore, the best place to collect your Points is as close over 4000 as you can get.
• If you hack/raid/invade/disable someone, expect to get a badge back on your comms.
• Before using Energy Boosters (like an Energy Cube or Tri-Matrix Emblem), max out Reactors (energy modules) on your ship, and Uninstall relays.
• Before using Experience Boosters (like a Neural Interface or a RSL Memory Implant), max your energy and use an energy booster or two (as above) to do as many missions as possible, as having a full energy bar is rather helpful due to the very short period of time these artifacts are active.
• Try the application on this website to help with planning a build for your ship Ship Builder Website

Play Styles

• A complete Game Guide can also be found with Ship Strategy information, and a Scan Blitz strategy.
• When you first start focus on research. Money will come from missions, and Artifacts are not that important in the beginning, unless you want to PvP then filter a bit into artifacts. You can always refocus your resource production later on by demolishing old buildings and building new ones.

Update 5/10/13 NOTE: Not recommended for most planets, but if they are close in richness, within 50% or so, you could probably pull it off.) Also, many persons both high and low ranked say that you should go all artifact from the very beginning. That being said, however, there are benefits to research at lower levels. Examples include: Structures, Defenses, Weapons, Hulls, and Scanners. These can all greatly help you if used correctly. Also, keep in mind that the higher you go in a branch of the Research Tree, the more expensive things get.

• Find a Legion to join, preferably a mediocre sized legion with at least several rank 150+s. Those high rank players will usually provide you with any artifacts or credits you may need. There are hundreds of legions, but many of them contain only one player.
• It is often recommended you PvP (fight enemy player ships) when starting out, as this gets harder the higher your rank, or you can of course do missions if you prefer. Disabling ships allows you to collect as many red badges as you can to purchase Dominion Cannon (Size 8: attack 50) from the battle market located on the battle tab and spend a few Rank Points on tactical officers.
• You may spend your research at ANY time, you do not need to save up ALL that 6000 research points before you can research the 6000 points, you can research them over time. Also, if you spend them, they cannot be hacked!
• Think ahead and chat with higher level players. You might think you're doing great, but higher level game play is quite a bit different from starter and mid level game play.
• Don't overlook the Planetary Construction branch of the Research Tree. It allows you to build better buildings with resource to space ratios. Some players rebuild their buildings every other upgrade level, so they will build +1, +3, +5 buildings. Its often too expensive and not enough return to do upgrade every level.

Update 5/10/13 It is recommended to get the highest buildings (+12s, Star Lifting) by rank 300. Some recommend it even lower than that. These buildings are important to getting maximum production out of your planets.

• For the first few ranks (1-20 at least) spend at least 3 of every 5 Rank Points on decks. Divide the remaining 2 between scientists, engineers, or cargo space.

Update 5/10/13 DO NOT spend Rank Points in Scientists or Cargo. You will get enough of those from Artifact pulls. Instead, it is recommended that you spend those points on Tactical Officers or Engineers.

• Hack early in the morning ~7:00am (or 6 if you're up), because players are most likely still asleep with 6+ hours of unspent research in their ship.
• From a Rank 480 player: "one thing I would change, is start putting points on Tactical Officers earlier than now."

Planets

• Use scanning booster artifacts when scanning for planets, stock you ship full of them, then go on a Scan Blitz. Scanners are very expensive to buy and maintain, so after a mass scanning session, sell all the large scanners because the upkeep on them is so high. Some people keep one or two small to medium sized scanners installed to help with raiding, and/or better NPC's.
• Planets are next to useless if you stack 30 attack and defensive items on them and only 1 resource gatherer, unless you are under attack (then this is called bricking). Find a good mixture, and don't underestimate the value of cloaking on planets.
• If you (or a friend) have a premium planet, there is an option to Guard Planet. If a planet is being guarded by ships, those ships cannot be targeted *from* the planet window until the population drops below 10 (invasion-ready). The ships can still be targeted in other normal ways (alert, battle screen, etc). An attacking player will have to disable you before they can invade the planet. Also any cloaking you have on ship will also cloak the planet. This will help keep lower levels from taking your best planet.
• STOP TAKING CRAPPY PLANETS!!! If its Small or Tiny and Sparse all across the boards, its not worth it.
• However, in the endgame now Taltherian can boost a crappy planet to a nice artifact planet, it still be must be a decent size to benefit the most from the Urbanize Ability. If you get massive gas planets that are OK in the beginning, you can still do this without having to drop them. However generally speaking Small or Tiny planets will never be that good overall.

Planet Colonization

• Basic Rule: Colonize the largest planets. It may seem silly to colonize a Very Massive Average Gas over a Large Rich Metallic, but when you get to a higher rank, it won't be. There are three races that can upgrade each of the 3 respective resources of a planet. However, only one artifact can increase a planet's size: Quasi-spacial Expander. In addition, this artifact is a very rare drop from a very rare NPC. It's best to only colonize large planets. If you colonize small planets from the beginning, you will have trouble abandoning them later on. You need to have GP later to abandon these planets, or wait for someone to invade them.
• Planets you colonize are permanent unless you want to spend 5 GP to abandon it, or hope someone randomly invades that planet that you really don't want, but don't hold your breath, not many people are going to invade a Small or Tiny planet. It is recommended to only colonize Average size or larger planets with at least one Extremely Abundant (+75%) resources on the production you want (mining/artifact/research).

Terraforming Planets

• When you get a Terraforming Device, try to only terraform one Planet until it's maxed at 15X Mega production. (Dan changed the cap on terraforming to 15x Mega, but the max for planets is still 48x. This change means it is impossible to make a 48x Mega Rich by only using terraformers). This is the cheapest and fastest way to boost production when upgrading buildings, changing production needs, or adding chassis that will help more on a +1200% production bonus instead of a +50% Bonus.
• Dyson Planet mission: the dyson has to be a Metallic Planet first. The largest a dyson can be is Colossal.
• Rift Planets mission: any planet can be rifted, and you get 3 of them. The best thing to do (if you can do it) is Terraform a planet to 15x Mega Rich, use Trellith Resequencers to get it up to 20x Mega Rich, then use Mass Surface Melter on an Icy Planet, or Gaia Seed on a Terra Planet, and it will go to 22x Mega Rich. Then if you rift a 22x Mega Rich planet, it will go to 37x Mega Rich, and the rift make the planet Mega Colossal.

Planet Producton

• Always try to use the latest research to maximize planet production. It is for the best in both the long run and the short run.
• When upgrading planet production buildings always do your most abundant planets first, so you can immediately see better productions, and you can reap the results immediatly to help with the rest of your gameplay. Improve less abundant planets over time as you gain the resources to do so, but always focus on your best planets first.
• Although upgrading your best planets may seem like the best idea, that's not always the case. Upgrading your largest planet(s) may result in more production that upgrading your best planets, because they have more production from more modules. For example: If you have a Small 3x Mega Rich Terra, and a Massive Rich Gas, it will be better to upgrade the Gas Planet. Think of it this way: no matter what planet you upgrade, it will only increase production by 25% (increasing level by one is increasing the bonus by 25%). Therefore, upgrading larger planets is often better.
• Some people like to concentrate upgrades, but the planet size determines how much a resource boost helps your bottom line (Production Formula), and any planet with a high resource production will benefit a similar amount from a one level increase in production of that type. While having a maximized planet seems really nice, spreading out upgrades may decrease your risk of losing a key planet.
• The best artifact productions planets are usually Icy Planets or Terra Planets, due to the fact that they both usually have high artifact resources as their best stat.
• Specialize your Planets to one type of Production. Most Planets do not have the same Production Bonus's to mining/artifact/research. So find what is best on your planet and only build production structures for that. Bonus's to this is easier to find specific production planets to upgrade structures, you gain more production from specializing.
• Specialization exception: Exotic Planets and (if you have them) Dyson Planets, normally have high production stats on every resource. So when you're upgrading production Buildings and you need more money fast, then make these into mining production planets. When you don't need so much money and you're not upgrading anything, then change them to artifact or research production planets to help those along. You will reap the most results on these planets in production changes, and it's a lot cheaper and easier to drastically change your production from one area to another if you are just changing buildings on 1 or 2 planets instead of 10 planets.

Beginners Guide

• A common mistake made by even experienced players. Before leveling or (ranking up) always Uninstall all your Relays and Install your Reactors or Cores so when you do level you will have more energy to use towards whatever you want.
• If you hack/raid/invade/disable someone, expect retaliation from them and their friends. Don't cry when they do unless they persist.

Beginners Guide to Research

• When starting out, Rank 40 and under, you should colonise Research Planets, Mining Planets are not particularly useful at low ranks, since they are normally used to generate credits, which are not needed as much as research points.
• Always try to use the latest research to maximize planet production. It is for the best in both the long run and the short run.
• Just because at first a branch of a research tree looks kinda crappy, don't think as you move through it that the rest are worthless too. I believe the single most important tree is the Advanced Power Systems. This tree will boost your energy levels and energy recharge rates tremendously.

Beginners Guide to Artifacts

• Don't be in a hurry to spend your Artifact Points. The more artifact points you save the better chance you have of getting better items. To see what you can get look at the Artifacts page.

See also

• Planets
• Scan Blitz and Max Scan
• Game Guide by Aggross
• Ship Strategy
• Search Filter Abbreviations
• Galactic Glossary