Strategy Tip of the Week - Consistent Production

[The Crazy Psychopath]

Today's strategy focuses on your production.

 

The best way to build up quickly is to have several key planets that specialize in a specific field. Construction planets, training planets, and shipyard planets.

 

Note, the estimated time to completion is only valid if you have the refined materials to build it. If you are consuming more refined materials than producing, each production center will fight over the refined minerals, and you'll get nowhere fast. If you have many items building, and are constantly at 0 refined minerals, you got yourself a problem. Prioritize, cancel production of several facilities until you begin to receive a consistent stream of refined minerals. This will ensure your construction efforts are completed on time, and that you are not spending twice as much as the estimated time on items.

 

The only exception to this rule is at the very beginning of the game. As you expand and diplomatize/capture planets you will catch up quickly, and will start receiving a surpluss of refined minerals. At the beginning you should focus on getting your key production planets to their full capacity. On a positive note, scrapping mines and refineries on your starting production centers will give you a few key starting refined materials early on. This will allow you to remain on schedule during the key moments when you need to build up early on. But be careful, don't scrap all at once. Hit ALT-O to view the overview, and chooise either the mines or/and the refineries based on surpluss. For example, overall you have 10 more mines than refineries. You can scrap the mines without hurting your maintenance cushion early on.

 

 

If you have a particularly important production planet, a general with a shield generator, ion cannon, and some troops will benefit you. It is a little known fact that planetary ion cannons in fact assist in foiling enemy missions. They're cheap and quick to build, and easy to maintain. I learned this the hard way when I sent several high leadership characters on incite uprising missions, alone and without a decoy. They were captured. The planet did not have a general, nor any troops, but had an ion cannon. I later found out that they in fact assist in the foiling of missions, despite the lack of a visible "detection rating."

 

Ensuring your primary sector production planet has sufficient troops, a shield generator and an ion cannon will ensure you will survive, even if your opponent chooses to scrap your whole sector (scrap facilities if you suspect an assault to prevent your opponent from receiving your refined minerals). You can rebuild in no time.

 

Summary

-If you're consistently at 0 refined minerals, your production will stuble. Idle some construction/training/shipyard sites. This is not StarCraft, just because a facility is sitting idle does not make it a waste. You must prioritize.

-At the beginning scrap the surpluss of one type, either mines or refineries on your starting production planet. This will give you a few key refined resources early on and allow you to create your first specialized construction center.

-Specialize: Put as many construction yards on one planet per sector as you can. This planet will ensure the sector will receive buildings on command. You can do this with shipyards and training centers as well. Although you don't need anymore than 4-5 adv training centers on one planet (per sector). Don't build standard training centers unless you must. You get advanced ones very early on as it is.

-Defend the specialized planets. A shield generator with an ion cannon along with a general if possible is sufficient. The general will help foil missions, defend from invasion, and significantly boost the planet's defenses when it is bombarded. Put fighters on the planet if possible.

[Imperator2]

Excellent tips for the beginner Strell, and it just goes to prove you learn something new about this game all the time.......Ion Cannons help detection ratings.....I was not aware of this although I suspected it

[Technopeasant]

Very cool, and confirms what I've suspected.

However, very early on one can get by with a field generator only, till you get started. What is critical is to have troops (and fighters, if possible) on your specialized planet, because if you lose it, it can cripple you at a critical stage. The idea of a General there is one I shall try soon. Thanks. I tend to build the defenses quickly, while the construction yards (or whatever) and being built. This is worth the extra effort. For construction specialisation, I often use the nearest rim system, and usually escape the enemy's attention longer.

[StarlightCoast]

Are you absolutely sure on that? An ion cannon is a thing not a person. How can an inanimate object capture someone? If there is a troop on the planet I guess i could understand the cannon helping the troop to capture the person, but a cannon by itself?????

[Colonel_Olorin]

well even if you don't have "troops" on the planet each planet will still have it's own police style force that isn't under your direct control that would work for you in foiling missions and the such you'd have to think.

 

this is not a fact just a theory based on available information.

[Lokisan]

its about ion cannons purpose... what ion cannon does is about stunning ships and that's how it helps foiling mission...