Humanity Master Race, Filthy Xenos Need Not Apply.
Been seeing a lot of posts about having trouble starting the beginning of this game so decided to throw this together to show my way of starting this game. First and foremost, this will be from the perspective of the standard Human race.
Huge galaxy, 8 empires. The only way to play, go big or go home.
Started up and heres the home system. Not one of my best starts but with the power of human supremacy we shall show the impure races of the galaxy that we are the best.
Now then first off, before doing anything. ITS SHIP DESIGN TIME.
Seriously, design your ships and I'll show you why ya gotta.
I'll put this plain and simple, small missiles are crazy amazeballs in the early game. Just look at the damage comparison with the small laser compared with the small missile. 12 vs 120. Even with the 5 second delay between missile shots, and even if every shot from the small laser hit thats still 60 vs 120. Not only are they powerful they're also SONIC FAST. They hit fast targets which cause the biggest problems in the early game. Slow missiles just cant hit those crystal guys. Only use the small lasers for point defence, aka, shooting missiles before they hit you.
As you can see, my corvette design is loaded up with missiles and engines for uber speed. I also have the ship ordered to keep moving when attacking a target. Because these things are glass cannons, move your ass else you can kiss your ass goodbye.
People may not like corvettes because idk, but I love them. Theyre cheap, theyre fast, and they sting like when I pee. I mean, just look at that labor cost, 35! So cheap, so good.
Now we design a Frigate.
Bam look at that baby, its got the touch, its got the power. Also armor that ♥♥♥♥♥ up so it can take a beating while it deals out one of it's own. Now I have the Arc Widen effect on the big laser on the front. Because I dislike narrow cones of fire. The two on the side are regular, I could have used Arc Widen for extra frontal coverage, but I don't feel this design needed extra forward firepower. Besides, that would eat up energy like my fat ass eats brussle sprouts. And again, loaded up with missiles. Boom baby boom.
Now that our designs are saved up, time for research.
This is my usual research priority, Roverbay is mandatory for a starting tech in my opinion. Building everything fast early is a must because crystal ships n pirates are coming for you as we speak. Next I go with the farm cause food is good. Plus it costs less labor than Soil Enrichment, 80 vs 225 or something. Only downside is that it costs upkeep. Thirdly I go with Solar Armor because its got the same strength as Steel, gives additional power and weighs less than Steel. Its basically an improved version of Plasteel Armor, it just costs a little more.
Now we build.
I queue up 3 corvettes and 2 frigates to be built. Firstly because pirates are coming for you as we speak, and secondly because ending turns without anything being built is just wasted labor. Now I queued these up because as of this very moment they are top priority. Now begin exploration to systems within your zone of influence using only your explorer. These areas are safe from pirates and such so explore away my friends.
I got lucky on my exploration.
Sweet delicious rich swamp planet. Yeah I colonize it.
Zone of influence expands, remnants and bugs found in local systems, they're no worries so long as I don't go near. By this point Rover Bay was done so I threw that down on my home planet and moved it up in the queue to be completed after the next ship was being built. Followed by two Freighter Fleets. Line frigates can wait, we've got humanity to spread.
On the new planet I put up the rover bay in the queue and 3 corvettes and 2 frigates.
Ballsacks all over my face.
ITS NO BIG DEAL, DON'T FREAK OUT. Stupid bugs.
Once the freighters were completed I threw two dudes from Earth to the new planet. New planet now has 2 farmers and 1 worker so they can start building essential stuff. Here's Earth.
Made a Scientist become a Farmer because starving doesn't appeal to me. By now you may have fended off an attack or two by some pirates, bugs or some crystal ♥♥♥♥♥. I MEAN SHIPS, SHIPS.
You'll have noticed by now how strong missiles are and thank your lord and savior. The kind, gentle, and most manly man around: Machoman Randy Savage. From the highropes he jumped delivering a god-slaying elbow drop that stopped Jesus from destroying the Earth in the Rapture.
Do your savior a solid and snap into your enemies like a slim jim. Oh yeah brother.
Now at this point I had met the Cordazone or Cordazine or whatever those filthy xenos are called. They had tried to settle on a planet next to mine. Emphasis on tried, I declared war and killed that colony ship. Yeah I'm crazy, so what? In space you gotta have balls. And what has bigger balls than a Cruiser? Thats right friends, its time to set cruise control for pain.
Guns guns guns guns guns and missiles, also armor. The purpose of this ships is simple, wholesale slaughter. Discount on aisle death. Lots of point defense lasers because missiles deserve to be shot into your enemies, not into yourself. A few turns later Cordacrap sent a large attack fleet towards my swamp planet. But I had not been lazing about, I had been building SHIPS.
The resulting battle was over quickly.
They had more ships but I had better designs. In the end I only lost a frigate and one or two corvettes while they lost EVERYTHING. Thus we come to a conclusion on this basic guide to the starting turns of this game. From here on its in your hands, do Machoman proud.
As for what I do from this point on, I expand slowly, always making sure that I've got a fleet of ~5 ships ( 3 corvettes 2 frigates is my personal preference) protecting any new system I colonize.
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=422575117
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