early/mid game invasion help please

[Fourth Horseman]

I know that invasion ships benefit a ton from shielding. I'm using the rotation style tactic, letting them get to about 1/3 down in HP and pull out (giggity) and swap in a few ship. Does armor help, evasion, stealth, gun, torp stats, etc. help? I know warrior does that one is obvious is. BTW, I'm referring to the non heavy transport. Thanks in advance.

[Fourth Horseman]

Not warrior... invasion. I was just looking at my boarder ships just prior to asking.

[iAmNotACrook]

I use ships heave on sensor and shieldibg with moderate evasion and durability(about 4 each i believe) and 3 in the the one with accuracy at range 1.

For captain i get 5 or so in repair and the rest in invasion. I think 1 in pilot as a value point just in case. Not sure if useful as equations are not published.

I also put the biggest, baddest armor i can find, for a reasonable price. Play with the armor and weapon so that it fits in the mass limit as non heavy ones cary very little

[Fourth Horseman]

I'm thinking evasion and armor do nothing when attacking the xeno planets. I don't use durability much as its just more time to repair. I'll keep working it a bit. Thank you.

[tenbsmith]

Fourth Horseman, I'll be curious to read what you discover with your experimentation. I've got a while before my current game gets to invasion designs, but they will be early designs when I get there. I'll post back here...

In the meantime, you can check out the new thread I started on the more general topic of which attributes contribute to PI. I drafted it in late March 2016 after doing a thorough search of the forums for info on PI ship design.

startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/14169

[Fourth Horseman]

That's what I need. I knew there was a thread, just couldn't find it and all I found was later game with the heavy transports.

[Cory Trese]

Let me know if you still have questions!

[Fourth Horseman]

I'm going to have to put the PI issues on hold for now. I'm frustrated being I'm having so many issues with the game. I'm not giving up though. I'm going back to playing on the 64/64/64 map using Thulun, Rychart, and DV. I cannot get off normal difficulty for some reason and I'm sure I'm missing something that's probably pretty obvious. I will try a balanced approach to this game as I normally try to focus on getting to colony 2 module. I'm not doing something right early on I think. I'm also going to try and only keep my homes 1 above my population and my factories at my population or one above as well to save money. I like to subsidize except for Thulun. Advice is welcomed.

[tenbsmith]

The strategies you described all sound good. I tend to play on smaller maps, where you are forced to interact with the Xeno earlier, so I create a number of colonies with stock Transport and Colony Module 1. I do this as a way to claim systems before the Xeno can, so I control that real estate.

We could probably give better advice if you explain what aspect of the game is giving you trouble. Is the economy going negative?

[Cory Trese]

I prefer to practice strategies on the larger maps. Sorry you're frustrated

[Fourth Horseman]

Don't be sorry, I don't get frustrated and stick on video games often. Take it as a compliment, not a complaint or insult. Well done @cory trese.

I don't go negative economy and that is why I'm considering of replacing DV with Cadar or Javat although I don't like the "slow burn" with their mining bonus. To better explain my issues, I think I don't expand as fast as I should early on and I'm overbuilt ingredients my houses and factories vs colonizing. That's why I changed to just staying slightly above what's required at the time the best I can. I will place my palace and spice dens because of the research bonus as I get them. I also learned the art of letting Thulun sit idle and use Rychart and you can quickly research the early techs.

Anyway, what I am having issues with is in the Garden, typical contact (without searching them out) takes about 5 years and Jyeeta are usually east of the starting location. At first, I can crack their hulls fairly easily. Then they adjust and the tables turn and I can't come back. Then the issue of I can't seem to get a decent PI ship, but that will come later.

As stated earlier, maybe I'm not getting colonized as quickly as I should and/or maybe I need to go looking for them on a search and destroy mission. I typically like high evasion on my fighters and whatever armor I can fit on. I don't care for cruisers unless it's a torp boat, but I typically try and wait for Thulun cutter because it uses crews.

I might go back to garden as Cory said to correct my foundation building.

[Cory Trese]

Are you waiting on Colony 2 before creating new Colonies? Even after Colony 2 module is researched, I still rush lower value planets with the cheap Colony ship.

On the Garden, have you tried turning down the number of Xeno? Garden is very hard (almost impossible) to win with all the Xeno turned on.

[Fourth Horseman]

I am currently on garden now one xeno (I was using 2) with Thulun, DV, and Rychart. Star date 2.5AE and I have 15 planets that were all colonized with the canned colony ship. I'm turning about 550 a turn. Most of the planets have decent quality; lowest is 11 with most in high teens. I'm low in treasury because I colonized 6 planets back to back as I had the cash to burn. All those are past having a few factories and some habs. I will put that game on pause and tinker around with a different game and see what happens and wait if you have more questions.

I was nt waiting until colony 2 to colonize. I would usually set another 3 planets with colony 1, maybe a second set and then use colony 2.

[Cory Trese]

Colony 2 gives you a moderate boost, best on Quality 20+ to help soak population.

I think the best combo of Factions for big maps is Cadar, Thulun and Alta Mesa.

That's your max CP / max build strategy which helps on bigger planet counts.

Do not overlook Mines -- these will be resistant to politics and generate consistent revenue with low maintenance costs.

What is your political scene like? Are you running Trade Treaties pretty much non-stop?

[iAmNotACrook]

For your earlier post, i.m pretty sure about the armour man. I don.t think the evasion is doing much, the few points i put in in are just for safety. Armour on the other hand, i.m pretty sure it.s soakimg a ton of damage. You can probably test it though, but it would make sense. I think the scouting skill is also very important, so use that too.

Those designs got me through many invasions. In my current game i made 12 and with those same ones i conquered 7-8 worlds. I had 11 left because of a rotation mistake. Took me about 3 turns for each planet(usually scout,invasion,invasion)

I just destroyed them because my heavy ones are comming out. Keep in mind, this is maximum difficulty vs 3 enemies and it.s turn 600 ish now, i believe.

Try the 90 world map. It.s great since you.ll be pretty much safe from attacks early on and you have 20 worlds to expand to guaranteed if you play right.

Just as a side note,
Also, i tried full evasion, pilot and invasion on one ship and it blew up immediately every time, so it.s a bad idea