Hello there ! o/

I feel a bit lost. I mean, i've been playing a bit of ES2 back when it was just out on early acces and i remember that Vodyani got instantly my attention but... Well, as i was a total newcomer to the 4X genre i decided to play with the Empire first which seemed a bit more friendly user for a first approach.

I enjoyed my experience so far ( about 22 hours of gameplay ) and finaly tried the Vodyani for the first time. It was, a bit complex to me to understand what to do but, you know, there is a riddle that say "Practice does make perfect" or "C'est en forgeant qu'on devient forgeron" in my native language. And that's why i continued to try.

After seeing that ES2 was about to get a lot of updates, i stoped to play for a while and has waited to get back in the game later which i did during the Free Week-End.

And tbh, i felt completly lost ! Because, a lot of things i knew about my race (Not that many things) was outdate and, yeah, i tried hard 4 games with the Vodyani and they all almost ended up on a huge lose in 40/50 turns. The main reason was i were unable to do the right choices and been blowed up by pirates because they had better ships than me. I was also really behind every other factions and coudn't afford to make new Arks fastly to expand.

Things started to change during game 5 where i lost again (Turn 267) buuuut not so badly. I've been defeated by Economic from the Void People because i belive i helped them a bit too much. Otherwise, i made a strong aliance with 3 others races, destroyed 3 others and been in possession of 11 systems. So yeah, i guess i did not bad but not good yet either. (Difficulty on normal).

So, after 24 hours of gameplay in 3 days (recently) i still don't really get how to play my race. I wanted to watch so guides and of course tried to understand by my own but every single guide seem outdated.

Does anyone of you felt like me at the beggening ? Does it changed with time ? How did you manged to improve ? I'm really curious and i would love to discuss about it with you guys. Also, if anyone have a bit of time to help me, because i would really main Vodyani, i'd appreciate it and would return the favor if i can.

Thanks ! :)

I could give a try to the Riftborn since they look interesting to play with too but i ask myself if it really gonna help mastering the specificities of the Vodyani race ? That said it'll probably help me to undertands better what am i doing beside of that like doing the right tech at the right moment. I also have the bad habbit to try to developp every building available on every star system i get. Is it something i need to ajust too ?

"I also have the bad habit to try to develop every building available on every star system i get. Is it something i need to ajust too ?"

Yes. The early Happiness buildings just waste Dust after a System gets an upgrade. You should always be checking happiness levels, via mousing over the +/- DUST value per Planet. It lists how your Dust is being spent. Many times your Ecstatic (100%) happiness rating is actually 145% with the +45% Dust simply wasted.

So check each Planet and remove those buildings that no longer add a good Boost but simply waste Dust. You will need all of you can muster later on for everythng else.

As to the Pirates, you have to spend some time in the Military Slice to keep up to date the amount of fighting CP you have available. This too will always help in the future. 

There is one Tech inparticular that after you scond set of ships is unlocked, provide 2 CP (name uknown from this PC) per ship type available. That one is a HUGE boost but, until then, build many many fleets to take out the Pirates one bite at a time. :)

Ooooh i see ! I never thought about that. I always wanted to make them happy asap because some systems don't grow as others do and i'm affraid to lose their approval. And i always forget that there is a function to sell/disable structures not necessary needed. Thanks ! i'll dig into that. :)

And about pirates, in my very last gameplay i managed to get rid of them untill a fair amount of time by developping the highest vessels and developped all tech that gave me more Command Power in order to have 24 CP per fleet. It's was long to achieve tho.

Edit : Sooo i've tested Riftborn over 100 turn with a friend on multiplayer and yeah.. I really feel even more lost when it comes to the whole outpost and population thingy. I mean some populations are soooo intrusive and useless on certain system and i don't know where to put them. The idea to main Vodyani become even stronger just because of that. xD