Race Build Orders/tech Orders

[seph]

posted on March 14th, 2006, 1:47 am

Last edited by seph on March 14th, 2006, 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

Hey, first off I'd like to thank the creators and developers of FO for doing one **** of a job, I enjoyed Armada 2 but this totally kicks its *** and a bag of chips. I'm new to the game and star trek for that matter (been watching SNG and DS9 on spike tv these past few months) but I became instantly hooked. I just HAD to play any star trek game once I saw that classic borg episode from SNG and the dominion wars from DS9.

Anyway, I'm having trouble with my speed. Even though I'm playing against crappy computers, they manage to out tech me like crazy. By the time I have a decent fleet of Intrepids they usually have two advanced shipyards. To save money I barely use turrets (one per base/expansion) AND I expand much earlier than them too, usually out of necessity since my supplies run out fast. I usually:
1) build that cargo thing inbetween the dilithium and metal moons
2) build a shipyard
3) build 5 miners, 3 per moon
4) By now I'm out of resources so I either expand and build 1 or 2 sabers if possible
If I don't expand and choose to tech-up or build a fleet, it takes even LONGER to fully tech.

And the computers usually have an entire fleet ready at this time and science and engineering buildings, even though they too have 3 miners per moon. Any suggestions?
Other races too, but Feds are my favourite BECAUSE they don't really have anything special And Sabers have to be my favourite too... They're a bit weak but I love harassing fleets and flanking with them. Oh and is there any way to know the exact tile range of each class? Thanks.

posted on March 14th, 2006, 11:36 am

Welcome to the forums!


Let me break something to you, the AI will ALWAYS build faster than you because they CHEAT. Their building costs like 100dil

But anyhow, I do not think expanding a lot early on is such a good idea, its better to first have a decent size fleet and then go to other mining/strategic places.
My reasons:
-a smaller and more compact base is MUCH easier to defend
-u will have more ships and tech researched as u dont have to build all those bases, miners, turrets...


BUT there are of course good sides to expanding like having more resources when u do eventually expand, but that takes time and if u would play against a live opponent he might rush u and u would persih

So my advice is, firstly build a good size fleet then go and expand

posted on March 14th, 2006, 1:16 pm

My Fed strat for Eraudi is quite easy.


Starting actions:

- 2 mining stations
- 4 mining freighters---> 1 work at dil, 1 at trit
 &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; ----> other 2 fly to main expansion exe (next action)


Next action:

- both con ships down/up to closest moons
- Con 1 builds another outpost to be my expansion exe first and later my main exe
- Con 2 builds miningstation for dil , after that mining station for trit.


Final buildup:

- second outpost is now developing to main exe. building shipyard and situation depending one of the science stations. better weapon upgrading station...

More I don`t wanna say xD That`s secret...

posted on March 14th, 2006, 4:22 pm

My Fed strat for Eraudi is quite easy.


Starting actions:

- 2 mining stations
- 4 mining freighters---> 1 work at dil, 1 at trit
 &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; &nsbp; ----> other 2 fly to main expansion exe (next action)


Next action:

- both con ships down/up to closest moons
- Con 1 builds another outpost to be my expansion exe first and later my main exe
- Con 2 builds miningstation for dil , after that mining station for trit.


Final buildup:

- second outpost is now developing to main exe. building shipyard and situation depending one of the science stations. better weapon upgrading station...

More I don`t wanna say xD That`s secret...

Well dont give him your strategy, just tips on how to improve his own
But thats a really German-type strategy, u have everything in your head b4 u even start playing lol. Of course in the beginning I know precisely what to do but than its more improvisation, depending on what strategy I decided on usig plus a little experimenting and a little annoying-the-opposition(nanites anyone? )

[seph]

posted on March 14th, 2006, 5:50 pm

Last edited by seph on March 14th, 2006, 6:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I never knew certain ships did less damage on others. Could someone please post which ship or class or size does less and or more damage on other ships? Also, I'm having some trouble maneuvering my fleets because I can't scroll quickly enough with my mouse, is there anyway to increase that sensitivity? I really am quite clueless so far . I'm not sure when to research techs, or when to get specific ships. I guess it's different playing AI? I'm guessing against comps the best thing to do is fleet and wait, but versus humans to try and tech faster and rush? I'm thinking early on in MP there are small battles 6-8 ships that are crucial.

Oh and what are credits? I usually skip akiras and intrepids and mass Excelsiors and sabers but this time I wanted to try out galaxies and steamers but I only had enough credits to build 3 and 2!

posted on March 14th, 2006, 7:19 pm

no certain ship can easilydestroy another ship unless you mean pulse phasers are strong against small ships and phasers aer strong against big ships. als credits, see techtree, is a limited resourse wheer you can build race only spacial ships or buildings.

[seph]

posted on March 14th, 2006, 9:09 pm

Last edited by seph on March 15th, 2006, 2:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

Oh...thanks. I was wondering which weapons are less effective against which size/type of ship. I guess building galaxies and steamrunners is a better defense at certain times than building turrets and fleeting with early ships, not to mention that it frees up lots of resources to tech to excelsiors quickly.

I just lost 10 FLEETS of excelsiors, sabers and soverigns to a borg base...There were about 25 turrets with superior positioning and regular units. But I finally figured out to just make 10 steamrunners and snipe. They still managed to kill off half of my sovereigns though

Does anyone wanna teach a noob to play? In the MP rooms there is nobody that uses FO! BTW I timed myself and I can build 3 galaxies and 4 steamrunners in 3.35 minutes, but it takes me about 25 minutes to build my full fleet of excels and sovereigns (I should probably mix my ships and limit elite classes But I can barely seige with soveriegns and exceliorss let alone akiras!). I have no frame of reference so how slow is this? I think I need to practice micro managing and aggresiveness/harassing a bit more but you can't really destroy a base really early on like in SC with just a few units .

[hypercube]

posted on March 15th, 2006, 2:42 am

Last edited by hypercube on March 15th, 2006, 3:00 am, edited 1 time in total.

if you are playing with the federation, as you stated, your quickest course of action should be as follows:
(this strategy is for maps that have 4 moons per player)
1.build 2 const. ships and 8 freighters(it will fit into you construction queue)
2. while you are constructing theese ships, build mining stations, starting with both dilithium moons and than the tritanium ones(tritanium is not in short supply with the feds, by the way if starting on normal resources you will have enough to do this with the resorces you started with)
3. now just wait and send freighters to the mining colonies, when you ahve completed all eight and have assigned 2 to each moon, wait some more, untill you gather 2000dil for a starbase, build it in a strategic location(you will need crew like **** later)
4. now build the first yard and both research stations, research 1.weapons, 1.,2.,3. shasy (other researches can wait)
5.while you were researching, build the second dock and the starfleet command building, start constructing Galaxy's and Excelsiors(this is where that starbase really shows it'self by providing crew).
6. build 8 or 10 excelsiors, as many galaxy as you can, since they are free and than start sovereigns.
(Warning they will attack around the 5. point if you do this fast)
This is the best tactics when dealing with the borg AI.
When playing against romulans and/or klingons you may want to build akiras instead of excelsiors
Now one final thing, i did not include turreting, this you SHOULD do, build turrets, build lots of them, build them close and build them fast, but remember, if you decide to turret youself up, you will not be able to build as many ships and via versa.
The Course you take and the ships you use is finally up to you, the strategy you choose will determine the outcome, my advice to you though is, don't build alot of small ships(numbers are not necessarily better than quality), many use them early in the game, but i believe they are simply a waste of resources, becuse the AI is predictable, so if you are quick and if you get your strategy right, 2 human players can even defeat 6 AI Borg on hard on an open map(i mention this becuse untill recently i tough this was impossible, Baron helped me to proove otherwise) Peace out and good night!!


Oh just saw your post about which ships are good vs which, well you will problably learn this for yourself, but what the heck, here it is(well some of them and fed only)
1.Akira-good vs medium sized ships without torpedos and only affective in numbers
2.Excelsior-a GREAT defence ship becuse of it's long range and good firepower and firerate, great for supporting turrets, do not use them against cubes(low crew) and do not attack with them(low shiled and hull HP)
3.Defiant-blow up small ships with this one
4.Sovereign-a GREAT ship usable in all situations, versitile as ****, good crew, good shield and hull HP.

others i almost never use.

[seph]

posted on March 15th, 2006, 3:02 am

Last edited by seph on March 15th, 2006, 5:07 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for your reply but I'm more concerned with multiplayer. I NEVER turret at all, I know I should online just because people are smarter. But I haven't had the chance to play online yet so I'm just practicing till then. I usually build 3 galaxies and 4 streamrunners in 3 minutes and expand at the same time. This is usually enough to hold off the first rush and I build a couple sabers and I usually flank the next wave with these, hit and run. Then I go straight to sovereigns and excelsiors. This works versus every race.

But I'm unsure of how people play, what buildings they target, how they harass, how fast they build up etc... I still don't know most of the other races ship names/classes/specials. People talk about photon and quantum torpedos but I don't even notice them during battle. Do you know a link where it says so? //www.fleetops.net/index.php?p=techtreefederation only states the specials' names but not their effects/damage. I usually neglect intrepids and akiras because they die so easily, especially during seiging but I think they have pretty strong specials?

ETA: Just read your edited post, thanks I was looking for that. Three specific questions, online or versus the comps, how do you detect all those tricky little cloaked ships, pure sensors laid out or is there a trick? And how do you beat a base with 20+ well positioned turrets? I only have about 6-7 sovereigns with my new fleet, is there a key building killer besides streamrunners? I tried photon torpedoing them with my fleet of Intreprids but that didn't turn out so well and I lost most of them, even though I was also using ECM. Finally, are there any shortcut buttons for special weapons?

posted on March 15th, 2006, 12:52 pm

basically you can't expect special weapons to make that much of a difference, they are there for support, but you still have to use good old torps and phasers.
about detecting ships, all starbases have a passive special weapon that can detect cloacked ships(tachiyon detection) but you can't scan much of the area with it, therefore some species have the tachiyon detection grid on their sensor sattelites, if you want to find out which method the races have, just find the research named tachiyon detection grid and hold your cursor over it and read what it applies to, when this tech is researched no ship will be able to come within your unit's sensor range without being discovered.
Now, destroying turrets, this is where nobody can help you, i would engage them with 32 sovereigns, but this can't be done without looses you'll have to find your own tactics, artillery supported by ships perhaps, in any case, if you attack that with ships, you will loose some, be prepeared for that.