The first tier of tech research will have your two "tolerable" colony choices in it. Depending on your initial scouting, you will likely want to research one, if not both of these options. You want to try to get your first colony ship deployed somewhat quickly as otherwise it is just sitting using up precious SSP early on that could be better spent on some free outpost ships (space culture choice), another colony ship (space culture choice), or a support ship (early tech research choice). Try to target a world with your ideal gravity that is medium size or larger with sufficient or better minerals. That makes it an ideal candidate for terraforming later on. If Terran is your ideal, that means you should also be on the lookout for Desert and Swamp. In fact, I would choose a medium, sufficient richness desert or swamp world over a small or tiny Terran one myself. I look at the potential of what the colony could be, rather than what it will initially be. I recommend trying out maxing out the planetary engineers infrastructure line on a couple of your planets. Next, move a support ship to a planet you want to terraform. You might be surprised at how much more efficient it is with the empire-wide bonuses. I support what Konstantine says here. For a planet like that, I would do everything I could to beat that monster. That is a truly rare gem. More often though, I see a decent ideal planet guarded by a monster. In these situations, I am less inclined to deter my economy to build up a military to take them out early on. I think both paths are valid, but I prefer to just colonize something else early on in most cases. Of course, if I get a cruiser or other decent ship from ruins or an event, I may change course and go after it. If you do go for it, try to have a ship leader with a few points in attack at least so you don't miss as much, especially if you are armed with kinetic weapons.
Thanks aReclusiveMind. The one I'm terraforming is a Huge, Suff, Swamp., Med G. There's a similar one that's the same specs but Large. Checked my turn time and it's 104, might have said it was 125 before so not quite as bad. Next time I'll try to start colonizing something earlier if these types of options present themselves.
I've got 2 Destroyer and a Cruiser I obtained from a relic area. Currently I'm only at level II shields though and 15 turns away from level 4. After that I'll do missles. Might try it with this current fleet and see what happens, can always roll back to a save.
If that Cruiser is powerful enough, you got this. You may have to get cute and rotate your shield facing during the battle. Everything I've seen so far indicates that the monster will target the Cruiser primarily, if that ship can handle the damage output, you got it.
Thanks for the shield tip. I ended up winning the battle due to what is probably a glitch (see my space monster thread in the bug section). The monster took care of the cruiser pretty easily but I didn't try rotating so might have made it through if I had. Got the planet and my swamp world is terraformed (luckiy I took the ability that lets you complete a terraform project in one turn). AI is now taking over all my asteroids so production is down. Tried to take one but was severely outnumbered. For some reason the fleet info showed two ships when I looked at the system yet when I attacked the asteroid to get it back I was faced with 10 ships. Need to look closer next time to see how that happened. That battle then resulted in a lockup situation so will try it again later.
This was probably because the AI had ships at 1 turn distance from that asteroid belt location and it sent reinforcements in the meantime, part of their reactive defending behavior.
Thanks Adam, yes thought it might be as lots of fleets were going in and out of this system so was difficult to work out. When I entered the system screen I looked at the fleets at the top right and it only showed two there. Are you saying that even with that there can be more that enter the fight if they are close?
When you hit end turn, the fleets' composition shown when you are presented with the system view screen right before combat is the same that will fight that battle. So, the system view will show 2 fleets, yours and the enemy's, for example. Each fleet will have different ships. The ships listed there under each fleet are the ones that will appear in the battle in case either side decides to attack. So, you may have a situation before you hit end turn. Say, the enemy only had 2 frigates in that system. Then you decide to attack that system. You press end turn. During the turn processing the combat dialog will appear (the system view) and it shows you the fleets. The enemy may now have more ships than it did before you hit end turn, because some reinforcements may have showed up since the time you hit end turn during the AI's turn. Hope this clarifies the situation, if not let me know and we'll see if there may be an issue there.
Hi Adam, Thanks in this case I didn't end turn first. I entered the system, checked their fleet and then hit go to battle. I'll try re-running the turn again just to make sure but I only entered the battle because I thought I could win with my two ships with that appeared to be only two they had (during that same turn).
If you send a force against a system, enemy units nearby, that can arrive at the same time as you may show up. Meaning that the AI, at the harder levels, will react to you. The key is that they must be able to normally react, (have the range and speed needed to get there)
Is there a way to see that before going into battle? In other words is the fleet composition at the top right not always 100% what you will face once you click that same fleet button to engage? There's a good chance there was a fleet enroute right outside of the system. I'm just trying to clarify if we can rely on that fleet indicator or if we need to look outside the system on the galaxy map to see if there are any fleets in the vicinity.
You cannot rely on the fleet indicator alone before sending your fleet and the combat actually takes place at your destination. There can be even fleets you haven't seen or have scan range over that may arrive in the meantime. So, even if you can arrive in 1 turn at your destination, and you commit on sending a fleet, the AI can also counter your move and arrive there in 1 turn, if it can. So, the fleet indicator before fleets move is not enough to know, so you'll have to check the vicinity to see who could still make it to the same place your going at the time you arrive there. And then anything can happen. Fleets may come and go in the meantime, the enemy may have more forces in the meantime, or nobody will be there at your arrival (unlikely) So, better be prepared and bring greater numbers than what you perceive would be needed at the time of departure.
Hi Adam, In this case I was done moving though, I had already arrived. I moved to the system, checked the fleet indicator at the top right and the went to battle. So what I'm asking is if when I'm already in a system with my fleet and wanting to attack with it right away does the fleet indicator still have variance to what I will see once in battle? In the situation you describe it sounds like a case where you check the fleet in a system, *then* move to it at which point the fleet can change as you are moving. In that situation I completely understand there might be more fleets on the way, but if I'm already inside the system of my destination that's where the confusion is right now.
If you are looking at the fleet composition in the system view (upper right corner icon), immediately before clicking on it to attack, then I believe the numbers should be accurate. They don't change during the course of your turn. Do you have an example or save where they are not? EDIT: This assumes you have a scanner tech to even be able to see what their fleet contains. I assume you do though.
Yes that's the situation I was describing. I will load it later to check, for now I left the game untouched as they needed my log for another issue. In fact it might be related to the bug, as that was the battle where I couldn't continue with.
Now I think what you're describing may be a bug. In a normal situation, you check an enemy system, see the forces there and commit to attack. You end turn and your fleet will arrive at the system, in this case the AI can bring more ships to the dance than what you saw. The counter for this is obvious but not always available. If you commit to an attack, and fear the AI will react to it and send reinforcements, there are two quick ways to deal with it. First you can over-commit by sending more forces than you need. Another strategy to try is to attack your target and other targets on the same turn as diversionary moves. The diversionary attacks can be made with scant forces as your goal will not be to engage, indeed once the battle starts, withdraw straight away. This will make it harder for the AI to reinforce your main point of attack as it will have to pay some attention to the diversions. In the situation you describe it seems that you had already arrived at the target and got a false reading as to the enemy strength. You did not need to end turn for the battle to take place yes? This would be a bug.
Yes that seems to be it but let me double check it tonight when I can play again as don't want to cause too much trouble trying to figure this out if just in case it didn't play out that way.
Ok I see what happened now, my mistake after reloading the turn. The battle window popped up and when I checked the fleet it showed 2 ships. I then engaged and the battle was over. Immediately after that I was sent to another system screen at which point I had the asteroids I wanted to take back (this was actually my intention, the first battle I think was the AI coming to me). This is where I had the discrepancy. When I checked now I see that it does correctly display the number of fleets. The issue is that I was remembering the last system I think in my head and thought this system was the same (with the 2 ships). I guess it was late and the immediate switch from one system to the other (without seeing the galaxy map) threw me off. Sorry for wasting time
I'll chalk it up to at this point I hadn't been getting too heavy in the battle side of things, mostly learning the building part of the game so wasn't prepared for that switch of systems to happen. At least I got rid of my habit of sending my whole fleet places when I select a single ship in the left hand side
