Hello all,

Recently got the alpha game, but the huge amount of information blasted at me by the tutorial didn't all sink in, and I cannot find any easy way of accessing the tutorial menus again. The unfortunate eventuality of this problem is that I now have no idea how to move my ships

If anyone could point me in the right direction to a "how to play" screen I would greatly appreciate it, I can't find one ingame and randomly clicking on ships and adjacent star systems just isn't cutting it.

Thanks,

-Ryan

You can read the first draft of the manual here:

http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/208140/Endless%20Space%20User%20Manual%20Alpha.pdf

Would someone with more experience playing the game be able to write up a quick guide? Nothing amazingly in depth, just good research paths to go down, or tactics to use in space combat.

A few points I've learned while playing on newbie:



Expansion

• -Make sure to start checking out nearby systems with your scouting ship and/or colony ship immediately so you know which type of colonization research to invest in first
• --Invest in colonization research first, unless you can research something else before you know what you need (so if you can get a military/economic/science tech before you reach the next system, go for it)
• -Have one planet in a system dedicated to making food at first (until you get specializations) so that your population will increase faster
• -Always try to have a positive Dust income, but never let it be negative until you have at least 100+, so you can support heroes
• -Research technology on the science path that unlocks the material needed for missiles (I want to say Hyperium-70, and that it's the purple oil mill)
• -Make sure you aren't colonizing every planet without being able to maintain happiness. If you colonize a lava planet with a negative anomaly, expect the system's happiness (and production) to plummet.
• -Try to have at least 3 people in a system before expanding to multiple planets in the system, as this lets you customize the output to benefit expansion in the system.
  
  

Fleet Management

• -I try not to have a fleet at every system, just at various choke or access points, with a few scattered in my inner systems for roaming security
• --Having fleets stacked at access points allows you to intercept any large incoming forces, as well as make more effective assaults.
• -Enemies will attack your weakest fleet first, and defend with their weakest fleet first. If you plan on launching an invasion, try to make sure you will be the one attacking so you can match your weaker forces to their weaker forces, and avoid having your non-combat fleets (invasion ships, for example) attacked
• -Try to research the ship models (under exploration) as soon as you feel you can. They allow you to build specialized ships that get weight reductions on certain modules.
• --Once available, research the repair modules under the science tree. Equipped to a sturdy vessel with a lot of health, you have a ship that will survive the battle easily and heal your weaker ships every turn.
• -Know your enemy. If you are going up against a computer that just loves to spam one weapon, try to pump out ships that counter that weapon (flak deals w/ missiles, deflect w/ kinetic, shield w/ beam) until they change their strategy. If you can afford it, retrofitting your fleets is a great way to change your front line to adapt to what you meet. Similarly, use weapons against the computer that they defend poorly against.
• --This might be less viable on higher difficulties. On newbie, I am currently fighting an enemy which is 90% missile offense and 90% deflection defense, making my flak and beam equipped ships god like. Higher level computers, I assume, will have more variation in their fleet compositions, so plan accordingly.
• -Try to have at least one hero leading a fleet in an attack, because even the small low level benefits are worthwhile.
• -Never have a fleet of one ship. The more ships in a fleet, the better.
  
  

Combat

• -Combat revolves around mind games. You have to try to predict what the computer will be picking. Against low level computers, they will try to heal their ships frequently. If they engage you in combat and win/draw, if you attack them while on low health IMMEDIATELY try to counter Engineering (which repairs) with Offense.
• -Researching the science tree gives you extra combat options, which is highly beneficial. Some increase the potency of weapons and weapons, some decrease the potency of enemy weapons and defenses. Camouflage is great for me right now because it gives +40% flak efficiency against a 90% missile based enemy.
• -Make sure you're making the best use of your cards at any given point. Boosting kinects by 40% at long range isn't as effective as defending against beams, or reducing the accuracy of the enemy.
• -Don't go into combat with highly damaged ships or weak fleets if you are unsure if you can win. The most that will happen is that you do moderate damage (maybe kill a ship if you're lucky), which will get repaired. Retreat weak fleets/ships to regroup and merge them into a different fleet.
• -Make sure to check how many fleets are listed under the ship docked at an enemy system. More than once I've rolled up with 4 strong fleets and realized my opponents had 10 strong fleets at the system. Not pretty, and I assume it gets way worse on higher difficulties where enemies vary their ship load-outs.
  
  

General

• -Always be researching something. Always.
• -Try to get resource monopolies, even if you don't really understand what they do or how they specifically work.
• -I wouldn't worry if races get mad at you for expanding too fast, because you can smooth that over by bribing them
• --On that note, probably a good idea to research trade (under economics) pretty early on
• -Constantly upgrade your ship designs based on new weapons research
• -Make sure to mine as much crack-coca...dust as possible early game, because you will need it late game
• -Systems that can't produce anything using production should have the Production->Dust/Science specialization stuck on them until another build item is needed
• --Systems that are too far away to produce things should have the Production->Dust/Science specialization stuck on them until another build item is needed
• -Make sure to keep all your systems happy, but not at the expense of your dust.
• --If your systems are getting overpopulated, build colony ships or expand to new worlds in the system
• -Use specializations often
• --Once you get the Xeno-whatsit Tourism (that boosts dust output per person on planets) you can go nuts with specializations, especially in certain systems
• -Try to use the military specializations effectively. I have no idea how to really use them, but I imagine they'll be important once I do figure them out xD
  
  

If anyone has any corrections or additions, feel free to point them out! Again, these are things I've learned over about 10 hours of playing on newbie, so some of what I said probably doesn't translate perfectly to harder difficulties.

That's a very helpful list of tips! Thanks!



I have a two questions about game mechanics, though.



1. What is the point of food? It grows populations, but what is the use of having high food production when there's no more population slots to expand?



2. How exactly does the influence area of systems expand? (I have a theory: some buildings can extend the area, and I've seen population growth expand influence areas. But, that doesn't seem like the entire answer)



If anyone else can help, I'd be appreciate the help!

MangoFandango wrote:
That's a very helpful list of tips! Thanks!



I have a two questions about game mechanics, though.



1. What is the point of food? It grows populations, but what is the use of having high food production when there's no more population slots to expand?



2. How exactly does the influence area of systems expand? (I have a theory: some buildings can extend the area, and I've seen population growth expand influence areas. But, that doesn't seem like the entire answer)



If anyone else can help, I'd be appreciate the help!

For the first point, you can build colony ships more quickly if you have a system that can pump out new people fast. This allows you to expand faster. Late game, food helps keep your population fed so it won't decrease. More food is never a bad thing, but from my experience it should only be focused on early game or if you need the population boost (when colonizing a new system, for example).



As for the latter, it's based on turns, other circles of influence, and resources I think. I know it takes around 30? turns for an outpost to turn into a colony, and get a circle, but beyond that I am unsure of exactly what affects the size and strength of the circle.

Thanks for the pointers.



I know you can convert production into dust and research, but I've yet to see any buildings that can convert food into other forms of FIDS resource. But I guess you're right, high food is good for "colony ship production systems".



Influence areas are still puzzling me :/ can the influence area of a system "subsume and conquer" other (opposing) systems? I haven't seen that happen yet, even when a rival system has been surrounded by my system's influence areas...

MangoFandango wrote:
Thanks for the pointers.



I know you can convert production into dust and research, but I've yet to see any buildings that can convert food into other forms of FIDS resource. But I guess you're right, high food is good for "colony ship production systems".



Influence areas are still puzzling me :/ can the influence area of a system "subsume and conquer" other (opposing) systems? I haven't seen that happen yet, even when a rival system has been surrounded by my system's influence areas...

Yes, your circles of influence and other race's circles of influence will conflict, and the stronger one will push back the weaker. The importance of this is that it blocks travel routes unless you are at peace with the other race, I believe. If you are neutral/worse with a race, then you can't travel through their systems/influence; if their influence gets high enough, it will overlap your travel routes on occasion, meaning you can't travel there.



Which is actually something I'd add to those notes: if you can't move to an area with influence, it's most likely because you aren't at war with them or haven't declared open borders. Confused me for the longest time.

Extremly helpful! thanks alot

I see!



I'll see what happens when I try that out with the Sophons.



Here's something that has confused me, you can get a tech that means you don't need to travel through space lanes - so, when a space lane is blocked by another civ's influence area, I've found my ships won't route around the blocked lane. Instead, they go around the long way.



Feels like it makes that research a bit redundant.

MangoFandango wrote:
I see!



I'll see what happens when I try that out with the Sophons.



Here's something that has confused me, you can get a tech that means you don't need to travel through space lanes - so, when a space lane is blocked by another civ's influence area, I've found my ships won't route around the blocked lane. Instead, they go around the long way.



Feels like it makes that research a bit redundant.

I think i read somebody saying that tech isn;t working correctly yet, but i cannot say for sure. It would explain a lot though.

big_rain wrote:
Would someone with more experience playing the game be able to write up a quick guide? Nothing amazingly in depth, just good research paths to go down, or tactics to use in space combat.

I second this. I started a thread the other day about how I'd really like to see a more hands on tutorial but it sort of got buried.



I've played Civ 5 and a couple of other strategy games so I'm familiar with how the work on a basic level but I've never really full fledged played a space sim before and I'm finding this one really tough to get started on even with the total basics, though I really want to keep at it and keep trying.



I appreciate the tip so far in this thread so thanks guys for those. I'd definitely be interested in a full fledged guide maybe even a video playthrough tutorial. Ultimately though I think I'd wish for a tutorial that lets you learn hands on and keeps the documentation as more reference material than the actual tutorial itself.

i sugest you look at 1 whole tree than see what you eventually want and it auto set all skills for you )

it helps allot when you got a uge amount of planets like i have atm and it rocks.