The Tactical Guide

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-nox-
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The Tactical Guide

Post by -nox- » Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:51 pm

Introduction

I would like to start a guide of tactics that people can use during the game. I believe that this has not been done before and I think it would be a good addition to the launchpad, giving people a good look at the different tactics that exist to gain fame and wealth in the game we know as starport.

Since I am sure I know far from all the tactics that can be used (and even if I did I woudn't be able to recall them all), I would like to ask you guys to add whatever strategy you can think of. Post them here and I'll add them to the first post. Also, for some tactics I have had to come up with names myself because they don't have any or I don't know them, so, if you know a better one just say it.

for other good guides:

building : http://starportgame.com/sgeforum/viewtopic.php?t=10166

fighting: http://starportgame.com/sgeforum/viewtopic.php?t=12225

stealing: viewtopic.php?t=2645

invading/defending: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15825

and a good overall look at the game:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starport

how to read this guide

this guide is in alphabetical order to make it easier to find what you are looking for and it will have references at the end to subjects that have something to do with the subject (for example dome-dropping and vulturing). I have changed the guide set-up to make it easier to find stuff. In stead of the earlier full alphabetical order the subjects are now sorted by a main group: invading, building, fighting, exploring, diplomacy. Every core tactic will be first in the list after which it will follow the original alphabetical order. This means that some tactics will be copied because they fit in more than one tactic. Barging for example can be a part of 'building' and a part of 'invading' and will therefore be in both.

The guide will use terms such as 'rebangs' , 'negs' , 'energy' , 'NAPs' etc. If you are unfamiliair with these terms please look at the new players and FAQ guide made by nightmare:

http://starportgame.com/sgeforum/viewtopic.php?t=5684

I new addition to this guide is that I'll add a list of the things I've added/changed/removed in/from the guide to give a better overview of how the guide progresses. The list is found below and is constructed much like the list of changes at the "vet list" made by unkempt was except that it will include more of an explanation to why and when the changes have been made. More important changes are underlined.

21 march '11: added minetricking
31 januari '10: weapons-factory-building added in "diplomacy" group
31 januari '10: removed incorrect "exploring" group
8 decembre '09: "corping" moved from 'invading' to 'diplomacy' section.
7 decembre '09: "escorting" (including "player escorting" and "non-player escorting") moved to 'exploration section'.
update on the "vulturing" tactic. Tactic is now up to date with modules patch.
update on the "drop vulturing" tactic. Tactic is now up to date with modules patch.



THE TACTICAL GUIDE

INVADING

Invading

This is the tactic where you take colonys of another person rather than building them yourself. To invade a colony you must reach the dome of the planet with full energy (1000 points). When a colony is invaded you have become the owner of the colony and you can use the colony for your own purposes.

see also: cap sniping, cap whoring,corp invading, drop negging/nuking, drop vulturing, fusioning (for fusioning see photoning), group invading, photoning, planet killing, vulturing


cap sniping warning: may be considered unethical !

waiting for the right moment to steal the cap from your corpies or other people invading with you. To do this you must have a good knowledge of your own skills at capping (taking) a colony because if you fail in your attempt people will realise the colony can be taken and will try the same thing.

Advantages of cap sniping are that you might end up with more colonys then you would if the caps were shared equally and therefore, in case of a possible break up of the corp/alliance, you will have more colonys for yourself. An added benefit is that you will receive experience for every cap you make and therefore if you cap alot you will rank higher than your corpmates.
Disadvantages of cap sniping is that your corpmates might like you less when you continue to take all the caps which can result in for example being kicked out of the corp or no one in the corp wanting to invade with you. Another problem with cap sniping is that you try to take a colony before the rest attempts which could mean that it is quite dangerous. In permaverses a cap sniper should not fear death but in (extended) rebangs there is no point in cap sniping if you (continue to) die because of it.

see also: cap whoring,group invading, invading

cap whoring warning: may be considered unethical !

The continuïng attempt or accomplishment to cap every colony that you invade with corp members or other people invading with you.

Cap whoring looks alot like cap sniping but is different in the way that cap sniping is a special technique to gain more caps (captures of planets) while cap whoring can be done in any way. Cap whores can be simply identified by the fact that they have a significantly larger share of the colony that where invaded in a group. If you managing to take colonys before the rest even thinks about it or if you are a part of a group heading for the dome and you are the one capping it, it's the result that determines if you are a cap whore.

The advantages and disadvantages of cap whoring are the same of cap sniping (though a higher chance of death is not always the case for capwhores).

A good way to make sure you have no cap whores in your corp is to agree who gets to cap what colony or agree that at the end of an invasion day all the invaders should get their percentage of the colonys invaded (if you invade 9 colonys with 3 people, logically you want every person to end the day with 3 new colonys.)
A way for a cap whore to not piss off his corpies is asking if he can cap the planet, the cap whore knows his skill and that he is likely to cap the planet but the corpmembers cannot complain about this because they agreed to him having a shot at capping it themselves.

N.B. just because someone invades alot of colony succesfully does not make that person a capwhore, he could be invading alone !

see also: cap sniping, group invading, invading


barging

the act of bringing defensive turrets or missiles to another person who will use them for defending or invading.

A barger has 24 holds for turrets and missiles and is therefore very effective at bringing these to colonys. When you are defending a colony it could pay off to switch to a barge and bring defenses to your colonys in that ship or pay someone to bring them in a barge for you. When you are invading it can pay off to get someone to barge missiles to you to safe you alot of time and warp (invading in a barge is also possible but it's slow and the barge doesn't have alot of shields so invading can be very dangerous!).

A disadvantage of a barger is that he is in a slow and weak ship and therefore can be easily killed by other players or npcs. Escorting your barge can help protecting it against attacks. Another problem of the barge is the high fuel cost, this can be a good reason to pay someone else to barge rather than doing the barging yourself.

N.B. a barger doesn't always have to use the garbage barge ship. A CEO ship is sometimes better: it is even more warp economical and certainly stronger in invasions and less likely to die when attacked, but can only hold 16 defenses at a time so it will take you more barge runs to get defenses or weapons to their location.

see also: escorting,group invading, invading


corp invading warning: may be considered unethical !

this is a way of invading where you take the colonys of your corp members or other allied players for experience. After this you can give (trade) the colonys back. This tactic is ment to either make sure that possible invaders do not gain experience from invading you or to gain experience easily.

The owner of the planet (unless you are CEO and the owner of the planet is in your corp, in which case you can do it yourself) takes away the defenses blocking the route to the dome and then personalises the colony so you can invade it. You will gain a certain amount of experience and positive or negative rep equal to that what you'd get if you were a regular invader.

This is a good way of getting a bit of extra experience with very low fuel cost.

see also: [i]corping, invading[/i]

distracting

an invading tactic where one person draws the attention of the solar cannon so other people on the planet can invade safer. This tactic is used very often in combination with vulturing and at the moment of attempting to cap a planet.

When distracting it is important to keep a few things in mind:

1) the distractor must always be closer to the dome (solar) than the one the solar is being distracted from. Otherwise the solar won't fire at the distractor making him completely useless.

2) A distractor should always make sure he has enough shields to face the solar because distracting can be very dangerous and when the distractor dies or has to leave the planet or range of the solar in a hurry it could be fatal to the other invaders. For vultures aspecially, a solar suddenly firing at you is not a pleasant thing.

3) A distractor should always keep good communication with the other invaders. This , for example, to make sure that the solar stays on him and that others can get away when the distractor has to reshield.

Distracting looks much like a dance. A distractor is almost constantly moving to stay one step ahead of the solar. The solar shoots where it thinks you will be when the shots hit you so things like changing directions rapidly, sudden braking and speeding up, sitting still for some time and then changing locations when solar gets to you (only when solar is very slow or you are far away from dome!) are all good ways to distract a solar.
Basically a good distractor is where the solar does not expect the distract to be and always keeps the attention of the solar on himself.

P.S. distracting does not always (only) involve the solar. It is also possible that a person draws attention of the defenses to make sure that the defenses do not shoot at the person trying to cap the planet or the person in a very vulnerable ship.


see also: group invading, invading, vulturing

drop negging/nuking

A invading tactic where you , in stead of staying on the planet, fire a missile and then make way to the blast off as soon as possible.

This tactic has the advantage that you can use the time the defenses do not fire at you to gain energy and shoot a missile (sometimes the blast off area will be so filled with enemy projectiles that regaining energy is impossible) and a low cost of shields because you will be hit less or not at all if you go off the planet fast. Disadvantage is that this tactics costs more warpfuel than staying on the planet, however when ports is far off it could potentially even be more warp economical.

This tactic is very effective for ring and superwide layouts.

see also: invading

drop vulturing

same as drop negging/nuking but then with the missiles of a vulture. These missiles, officially called 'Surface Missiles' but more commonly know as 'vulture missiles' are available as secondary weapon of The Vulture ship or as a weapon mod. The Vulture ship is very slow and therefore it is better to not this ship in a blast off that is very big like a superwide. Generally it is advisable to go for the surface missiles weapon mod because this will allow you to fly a quicker and stronger ship (for example the ISC) while still having the same missile power. This weapon mod can, however, be expansive so the vulture ship can be a usefull low-budget solution.

see also: drop negging/nuking , invading




Fusioning:

see photoning

fighting

to be edited.

for (more) information about fighting read:

http://starportgame.com/sgeforum/viewtopic.php?t=12225

the 1 vs 1 guide by awmalzo


group invading

Invading with more than one person in order to make the proces of invading more economical and/or more fun.

When invading in a group one of the great advantages if that you have to spend alot less time per planet to invade it, however there are many other advantages that come with group invading. However, to start with some of the disadvantages: some people invade more effective when alone, this can be because they get lag when more people are on the same planet, because they can predict the movements of the solar better when alone or simply because they know when what is gonna happen because they plan it themselves. For people like this it is better to invade solo. Another disadvantage of group invading is when you want to cap all the planets you invade. When in a group (specially when there is a cap whore or cap sniper in the group) you can end up with less or even none of the planets you invade and if this is important to you, group invading might not be a good idea.

The advantages of group invading are both in diversity as in unified work.

Diversity means that one or more of the invaders can be a barger, vulture, distractor or meatshield (all explained in their individual sections)

Unified work means that when two or more people do the same thing it will often cost less (per person!) in warp, missiles, credits and time.
For example, you know of a colony ,30 hops from the pirate base or one of your colonys with nukes , that will only cost 16 nukes to invade. If you go there alone it will take you 30 x 3 = 90 hops to take the colony. If you and another person go there it will only cost 30 x 2 = 60 hops in total and only 30 x 1 = 30 hops per person. (this does not involve redefending and if the defenses have to come from a base or colony 30 hops away the advantage is only that the warp cost is shared among people!). Because you have to do less hops and can destroy the defenses faster (2 people gain energy twice as fast as one person) it takes less time to invade and destroying defenses fast means that the defenses can shoot at you less which could mean that you get less damage. (note: this is not always so since the defenses have two places where they can hit someone and solar movement is less predictable).

meatshielding

Catching all the enemy projectiles fired at you and others you are invading with to make sure someone else gets enough energy to capture a planet or shoot down defenses.

When there are alot of defenses still around the dome area or the solar is annoyingly strong it might be very hard to cap a colony alone. When in group you can then decide that one or more person(s) stay in front of (an)other persons to give them the cap. The meatshielders goal is to catch all the bullets fired at the person behind him so the person behind him does not get hit and will reach the dome with 1000 energy.

This is a very effective way of invading though it can sometimes be a bit pricy in the shields department if it doesn't work very well.
Meatshielding does not garantee a cap because it is very hard to really catch every projectile, specially if you have to go threw an area where you are surrounded by defenses.

see also: group invading, invading


minetricking

a "minetrick" happens when one player hits the (compound) mines defending a specific area of the planet, most frequently the landing zone or dome area, allowing another player to pass through the mines with minimal or no loss to energy and/or shields.

Using a minetrick is a particularly common trick used on compound mines specifically as they, unlike regular mines, require several hits before they are destroyed and by using the minetrick the area behind the mine(s) can be accessed after just one hit making compound mines as effective as regular mines, granted that the for example capping of the dome was immediately succesfull. Minetricks are possible because there is a short time window after a compound mine has been hit in which it will not activate again for both the player hitting the mine first aswell as any other player. The reason for this short reset time is an obvious one as without it hitting a compound mine would simply cause the damage of four mines at once causing extreme damage levels.

A minetrick is done relatively similar to a meatshield where one or more players fly in front of another taking as much shield and energy loss as possible off the player(s). The difference here is that mines have a relatively large area of effect making it harder to hide directly behind the meatshield in a useful manner. When people attempt a minetrick they should therefore keep a distance that is close enough to the meatshield so that enough damage and energy loss is taken away and far enough that the player does not lose energy and/or shields to the mines damage. Of course players should always remain close enough to make sure that the mines do not reset, this is however relatively easy as the time window is quite large.

see also: meatshielding

outranging

using weapons with a long range (missiles, torps, fusion) against enemy defenses or enemys with shorter range.

This is a good tactic for fighting (fighting without nukes in particular) aswell as invading.

Stay on a distance where the other can't hit you and you are perfectly safe to try and hit the other. In fights this can be tricky when the other is faster or as fast as you and in invading this is impossible on colonys with a solar unless they are of a planet type where the solar doesn't reach very far (greenhouse in particular).


see also: [i] barging, cap sniping, cap whoring, distracting, meatshielding, invading, vulturing/i]

photoning

destroying enemy defenses with photons, fusions or explosive charges (last one less recommended). Photons and fusions outrange base defenses and are therefore good ways to taking a colony that has a low or no solar cannon. A photoner (primary weapon of the ISC) or fusioner (secondary weapon) can sit still on a planet and simply shoot down the defenses from a distance with minimal shield costs.

also see: invading , shooting defenses


vulturing

invading with a vulture ship or the surface missiles weapon mod.

The vulture ship is very slow, very warp inefficient, has low shields and low cargo holds and is generally a poor choice for everything but one thing: invading colonys that allow for a ship to stay at a relatively safe spot while destroying planetary defenses from far away.

This safety can be created by: staying away from the area where you can be hit (outranging); someone distracting for you; dodging solar or sitting still in between solar shots.

This last part I want to explain a little further. Sometimes a solar is on a setting that there is a big hole created between the different shots. Within this hole you are safe aslong as you don't move to much to the left or right. The most common amount of solar shots with this problem is 2 shots but it is also possible at other even numbered shots when the solar is set on a setting where it is spread too much (a 4 shot wide spread for example leaves a hole when you are far off). This never works with uneven numbers because there is always one solar shooting straight at you.

The vulture's greatest ability is it's secondary weapon which is a missiles (just like negs and nukes). This means that the vulture , in a way, has an unlimited amount of nukes and negs.

to compair the vulture missile with the other missiles: Defenses on a planet normally take about 6 vulture missiles, 4 negotiators or 2 nuke missiles to be destroyed. Defenses in space take about 4-5 (not sure) vulture missiles, 3 negotiators, 2 nukes or 1 nuke and 1 negotiator to be destroyed.

This means that the vulture missile is not at all a bad missile against defenses. But, and this is a big but, it is relatively rubbish against anything else. If you think the vulture will destroy other ships with it's powerful missiles, it doesn't. The vulture missiles do some damage against other stuff but are mostly ment to be used against defenses.

Because the vulture is a slow ship with little shields and therefore very vulnerable one should watch out when flying through the galaxy with it (possibly get someone to escort you) and invading is far more dangerous in a vulture than in any of the other invading ships (even the falcon!).

This problem can of course be solved by equiping a stronger ship (for example the ISC or seth) with surface missiles (= vulture missiles) as an auxilairy weapon. This is a very common practise and generally, every invader on a perma is advised to have these missiles because they can make the job of invading alot easier. They however, tend to be quite expensive and especially on rebangs an invader should perhaps consider the vulture ship as a more low-budget option.

see also: distracting, group invading, invading, outranging, drop vulturing[/i]

BUILDING

Building

Creating your own colonys to give you experience/resources/weapons/followers.

This tactic can be very effective (perhaps the most effective in rebangs) because you don't have to rely on finding other people's colonys or having other people in the server building at all.

To build a colony you must plant a dome on a planet and then brings followers and resources to the colony to complete it's buildings and gain a good amount of colonists.

To build colonys you can either put the colonists to construction and let them make the building for you or you can rush it. This last way however costs alot of money.
Bringing consumption resources (anaerobes, medicines, oil and organics) to the colony will make your followers and morale level grow faster and likewise make building quicker and easier, however the more followers the col has the more it will consume. Harvesting can be a good way to make sure you don't have to bring all the resources to the planet constantly.

see also : dome dropping, distance building, base building, pre-building , u.n. building, power building

barging

the act of bringing defensive turrets or missiles to another person who will use them for defending or invading.

A barger has 24 holds for turrets and missiles and is therefore very effective at bringing these to colonys. When you are defending a colony it could pay off to switch to a barge and bring defenses to your colonys in that ship or pay someone to bring them in a barge for you. When you are invading it can pay off to get someone to barge missiles to you to safe you alot of time and warp (invading in a barge is also possible but it's slow and the barge doesn't have alot of shields so invading can be very dangerous!).

A disadvantage of a barger is that he is in a slow and weak ship and therefore can be easily killed by other players or npcs. Escorting your barge can help protecting it against attacks. Another problem of the barge is the high fuel cost, this can be a good reason to pay someone else to barge rather than doing the barging yourself.

N.B. a barger doesn't always have to use the garbage barge ship. A CEO ship is sometimes better: it is even more warp economical and certainly stronger in invasions and less likely to die when attacked, but can only hold 16 defenses at a time so it will take you more barge runs to get defenses or weapons to their location.

see also: escorting,group invading, invading

base building

building your colonys in same system or right next to eachother so they can contribute to eachother with resources, followers and/or defenses. This can really making building alot easier but has the disadvantage that when an invader has found one of your colonys, he has found them all and if he has taken your colonys (if that colony has a weapons factory) he can use the products in that colony against your other colonys easily. That said, this is a tactic most builders use because it does really make the building process alot quicker and easier when you can drop alot of followers/resources etc. to your new planets from your old and crowded/filled planets. Also note that retaking one of your cols becomes easier when you have colonys with nukes in that area and when you stick to one area rather than moving round the galaxy you will waste warp alot more efficient when building.

see also: building

this was taking literally from the Colony Building Guide by Nightmare and needs to be edited

cash cows

Normal bangs :
If you want some quick cash fast, get the all resources a colony needs to boost moral/population growth. Most of your colonies will be oceans/earths so they need anaeroobs. Put in one load of anaeroobs (100 is enough) and put your colony on such a high harvest level that the resource(s), in this case anaeroobs, don’t go down. For earths and oceans this means 93% harvesting and 7% something else (most likely military). Now you can tax your colony, this will reduce pop growth but since pop growth is immensly high, even at very high population levels (a 12k pop ocean without anaroobs doesn’t grow, a 12k pop ocean with anaeroobs grows roughly 200 colonists/h) you should be able to tax your colony 12% on socialism governement without population going down!

Of course this will reduce moral significently, but this isn’t a technique that is usually used for long term cash making, it’s more of a thing you can do for a couple of hours in which case moral level won’t go down that much. You must also remember that moral level really doesn’t matter that much anymore, (except for revolting in which case your colonists will stop doing anything) some of the older players are used to having unity colonies but unity doesn’t reap any benefits anymore (besides giving a lot of rep/h, then again once you have 5k rep, rep doesn’t really matter anymore either).
You will most likely hit unity just before you finish all your buildings, even if you always build under prison. This means that you have more than enough moral and that you can easily waist some getting cash for additional defences, rushing, etc.

If you don’t like military being so low, you can just put in enough resources for a couple of hours and tax it the same way as explained but with less harvesting and higher military %, of course you’ll need to make sure you log in when the colony runs out of resources or your population will decrease fast.

You can also sell resources you don't need to nearby ports.

Permas:
You will want to tax and harvest these colonies as much as possible, unfortuantly, the more you tax the lower your morale and thus your population will be. Less colonists on a colony also means that there are less people that can be taxed. I usually go for 4-5 taxes, if for some reason you want population to be low but you just want morale to be stable, or slightly positive, democracy will help you with that, you will be able to tax more without morale going down dramatically, however democracy does not have a reproduction bonus like socialism has and you 're weapon factory will not be able to produce nukes.

Try to get commiditees market as a research for these kind of colonies (in most cases it will be the other way around, if a colony gets that research you will use it as a cash cow).
Selling resources to ports can also be done, but since every colony now harvests so you don’t need special “cash cow” settings in order to do that.

Remember that on permas you’ll want your colonies to be able to survive as long as possible without you interferring, using the rebang technique is a bad idea, of course if you’re in desperate need of cash you can still use it.

PAX:
Taxing isn’t a good idea, since you will only get very little cash, try to find a good balance between harvesting and constructing entertainment to increase morale or decreasing pollution by researching enviroment. Selling resources is the best way to get cash, whether you want to sell at a port or use the commiditees market is up to you.

corping

playing together in groups of two or more players. Helping eachother with building, invading. fighting and exploring.

Corps are used for many reasons. Invading, building, fighting and exploring can be more effective/succesfull when in groups and overall people enjoy working in groups more than playing alone.

If your goal is purely to became as good as you can then generally you should corp when:

you are less good than the rest of the people in the corp and therefore benefit from them

when you work better in groups

when you want to learn new tricks, tactics and playing styles and hope that other people can teach you those.

A disadvantage of corping are the opposites of the advantages (duh!) :

you are a better player then the rest of the corp and therefore they just cost you xp etc.

you work better alone then in a group

you are either not interested in learning anything new (not recommended!) or do not think your potential corpmembers could teach you anything (you are interested in).

P.S. "corping" as name is also used in the meaning of "corping your planets" . In this case it means that you switch the status of the planet from personal to corporate allowing your corpmembers to enter and use the planet and stuff on the planet.

distance building

creating colonys in systems far away from a path through the galaxy and/or starbases so the chance you'll be found will be less big and making invasions less easy because invaders will have to travel far to get missiles. This has the disadvantage that you too have to travel far to get defenses and if you build in an arm there will probably be less ports around making obtaining the necessary resources more difficult. However, when you are a good/decent builder in a server where the risk of being invaded is very large, this could be an excellent technique and is often used in extended rebangs and the more active rebangs. If an (extended) rebang is rather inactive and you do not fear being invaded too much or only build on very well defendable colonys this might not be the best of tactics. In permaverses this tactic is not too important because players fly all around the map, though on average arms are visited less.

see also: building

dome dropping

this tactic means that you drop domes with followers around the galaxy without defending them or building them to their max. It is based on the fact that other people will not find your planets, or at least not all of them and not in the same time and with the same warp as you can take them back.

For dome dropping you can chose to rush refinery , this will be expensive, but will make it a more constant and bigger colony right away (if you then put it to harvesting of course).

There are mainly two types of dome dropping:

en-route domedropping which means that you make a certain route threw the galaxy where you plant your domes. This way you know you can visit (if it's not a too long route) all of your planets everyday or more than ones per day to retake them.

random domedropping means that you randomly chose systems on the map or as you pass them to drop domes so that a invader/explorer can not find a system in the way you drop your domes and simply take the same route as you every now and then.

jettisoning

Getting rid of resources, followers or other stuff (artifacts, defenses) by means of jettisoning. Jettisoning colonists will give you negative rep which you might want and jettisoning resources, defenses or artifacts opens up slots for new stuff.

see also: planet killing

power-building

building on 100% construction (and prison). This has the advantage that the building process is very fast but has the disadvantage that you have to bring alot of resources to the colony yourself making it expensive in credits, fuel and playing time.

see also: U.N.building, building

pre-building

dropping colonys in an area or system that you plan to build later on and let it make followers and/or resources for your later colonys.

This can be great if the port doesn't have all the resources or you don't want to spend too much money on resources or if there are few ports around giving you the followers you want for your colonys. Disadvantages can be that invaders find these colonys and take them (possibly kill them) , invaders find out that you are planning on building there were otherwise they would have simply seen an empty system and the fact that it is hard to build on the planet you planted a colony on because you will have lost u.n. protection (partially).

see also: dome dropping, planet killing, building


U.N.-building

the attempt to complete a colony within the time the u.n. protection runs out (3 to 5 days). This can be very pricy if not combined with powerbuilding because you'll have to rush alot but can give you a new colony at full production very quickly. Make sure you can bring lots of followers and have lots of cash because otherwise you'll have wasted lots of cash rushing biodomes that you don't even need yet because you don't have 1k/5k followers or more or you might find yourself with a half build colony and no cash to do anything else.

see also: power-building, building

FIGHTING

corping

playing together in groups of two or more players. Helping eachother with building, invading. fighting and exploring.

Corps are used for many reasons. Invading, building, fighting and exploring can be more effective/succesfull when in groups and overall people enjoy working in groups more than playing alone.

If your goal is purely to became as good as you can then generally you should corp when:

you are less good than the rest of the people in the corp and therefore benefit from them

when you work better in groups

when you want to learn new tricks, tactics and playing styles and hope that other people can teach you those.

A disadvantage of corping are the opposites of the advantages (duh!) :

you are a better player then the rest of the corp and therefore they just cost you xp etc.

you work better alone then in a group

you are either not interested in learning anything new (not recommended!) or do not think your potential corpmembers could teach you anything (you are interested in).

P.S. "corping" as name is also used in the meaning of "corping your planets" . In this case it means that you switch the status of the planet from personal to corporate allowing your corpmembers to enter and use the planet and stuff on the planet.

renuking warning: this may be considered unethical in (official) fights !

Getting/buying new nukes to use.

This is very normal and accepted in invading but is mostly used as a term in fighting (though as a tactic of course mostly used in invading).

8 nukes can almost kill a person's ship so it is not hard to imagine what a bigger amount of nukes can do. Therefore it is very tempting for people to get more nukes when the first ones haven't killed the person that is being fought because they didn't do enough damage or didn't all hit.

This tactic is however considered as unhonourful in (pre-arranged/official) fights and can make you look bad with all the possible reactions that fit something like that.

see also: fighting, reshielding, running

reshielding color=red]warning: this may be considered unethical in (official) fights ![/color]

A bit like renuking, completely normal in invasions, but not accepted in (pre-arranged/official) fights. Reshielding means that when a person thinks that his shields are dangerously low he ports and buys back his shields. This of course takes away the whole point (except perhaps economical reasons) of the fight and is not a thing you should do when you agree on a fair fight.

Using this tactic might make sure you win that specific battle, but showing a lack of honour can cause people to attack you.

Going to a port or starbase to buy new shields

running warning: this may be considered unethical in (official) fights !

The act of avoiding a fight or getting out of a fight by leaving the close proximity of the opponent.

Running can make sure that you keep your ship and experience and therefore is a tactic worth considering when you are losing or think you would lose a fight.
When running it should always be in your mind where you are going, if you can be followed (specially important if you are in a slower ship!) and if you don't waste too much warp while running.

Possible ways to make sure you don't get followed are landing on planets while the other player is not in system so he'll pass you (can be found if he figures this out or uses scanners !), changing directions (bumping up to planets and quickly flying the other way can give you a good amount of time) and pretending you are leaving the system when you are in fact not (fly to the blast off, make sure the person following you is really close so he will not be able to brake and then don't go threw blast off but go back in the system or take another warp hole. If this works well the person following you will have gone threw the warp hole and then have to go back to see where you have gone, this can buy you quite some time).

Disadvantage of running (specially when you agreed a fair 1 vs 1) , even if successfull, is that your reputation in the server will decrease and people will probably like you less, which can lead to being backstabbed, invaded etc.

see also: fighting, landing planets (when fighting) , nuke dodging


EXPLORING

escorting

guiding a player or npc threw a part of the galaxy to make sure it survives the journey.

player escorting: this is often done by people in strong ships (ISC, seth, IGS, CEO) to protect people in ships that help them with invading or defending planets. These players are in weak ships (mostly barges and/or vultures) that can be easily killed along the way and therefore might need protection.
Escorting a player might cost some warp but it can be very hand if the ship meets a group of agressive npcs or another player looking for a kill

non-player escorting: in the starports (at the same places as taxis) there will sometimes be npcs asking for an escort to another system for a set price. This price can be 40k, 60k, 80k or 100k credits and if you complete the escort you will get 50 xp per 20k of the credits you receive (a 40k escort gives 100 xp, 60k escort 150 xp etc.)
This is a good way to make money in the beginning though it has the risk of getting nothing when the escort is shot down and sometimes escorts need to be send threw alot of systems and astroid belts before they reach their goal.


npc-killing

shooting down non-player characters (npc's) for experience and/or money.

A good, though somewhat boring, way of getting experience in (extended) rebangs, although hardly any rebangs can be won with just shooting npcs and certainly no extended rebangs.

This tactic works best in servers with alot of npcs (of course!). Make sure you have a good ship and good weapon and shoot anything you find. The great advantage of npc killing is that it costs no warp, theoretically you could spend 24/7 sitting in one system waiting for npcs to come. This of course is very boring but if you are planning to do this, use a system that has a port (for reshielding) and plenty of warpholes so there is a bigger chance npcs warp in your system.

Most used way of npc killing though is shooting anything that passes your way. If you do this well you can make alot of experience and perhaps even some cash.

Npcs are not the most clever fighters, specially when they have the deathray, hellbore laser grav beam. When a ship has one of these weapons and no offensive primary weapon it is very easy to outrange them (unless you have one of these weapons yourself) and shoot them without getting hit.

When an npc has explosive charges and is in a system with astroid belts you can draw him to one of side of the belts while you go sit on the other. If this works well he'll now shoot down his own shields (with the colleteral damage of his explosives) until he is very low and starts running, very small chance he'll kill himself. Unfortunately, when the npc has alot of room to move he often trys to find a different way of reaching you and will not sit still against the astroid belt, unless you have a tractor beam to keep him at the belt, this will resulting in the self-destruction of the npc either taking very long or not gonna happen at all.

astroid belts can also be used in different ways, one of these is while using a hellbore laser or grav beam. These weapons can be fired over the astroid belt and are therefore very effective against npcs who sit still at the other end of the belt (unless these npcs have one of these weapons too!)

Overall npc killing can be a great addition to or main source of your experience and the only disadvantages npc killing has are: possible loss of money (when you aren't doing to well and the reshielding costs more than the npcs give you), the risk of death (if the npc is really doing better than you or if you are in a not too good ship or fighting too many npcs at the same time), time loss, boringness (though npc fights can be exciting!)

taxi'ing

making money by taking passengers with you from one port to another.

If you accept a passenger (you can find them in ports in the tavern building) he will pay you to bring him to the location he gives you (press on the passenger in your cargo holds and he'll tell you where to go to or how long the journey has been so far).

The price is 3,000 x the amount of hops + extra for being quick.

this extra is relative to the amount of hops and can be quite big. Overall when you are in an average speed ship and go straight for your location (without getting stuck in astroid belts etc.) you will gain about just as much cash from the extras as from the standard fee.

The standard fee is always the same (as shown) though if you take very, very long it will be lowered. If this happens than the passenger will say "here is x amount of credits for this so called service !"

besides money you will also get + 10 reputation points (constant) and a certain amount of xp. This amount of xp is linked to the amount of extra cash you get, if you get as much extra cash as standard cash the amount of xp you get is 100, get only half of this amount and the xp you will get is 50 etc.

Taxi'ing is mostly only good at the start though if you are in a fast ship it can be a good addition to your xp and rep amount if the taxi is (almost) on the same route as you were gonna take anyway. However taxi passenger pay far less then escorts (though there are very rotten escorts around taking you very far for hardly any money, so taxis can be better) and trading is even better (for good traderoutes that is).

But it is important to realise that there is one way that taxi's can make you alot of money with hardly any effort : blackholes. This tactic works particularly well in galaxys with long arms such as outer rim but can be used in every galaxy. Try to map all the blackholes and blackhole exits, then go look for taxis that want you to bring them from around the area of the blackhole to the area around the blackhole exit. This can turn a 60 or more hop taxi in a 3 hop taxi giving you alot of cash and xp because you got there so quick! It is of course also possible to just take a blind guess and hope for a good exit, because if you don't have a good exit you can always jettison the passenger since it won't cost you any reputation.

This tactic can make you millions if you are lucky and can be a great help, however it will most likely not happen every bang so don't count on it too much.

see also: escorting, trading

Trading

this is probably the most effective, active way of getting money. It is done by buying resources at one port and then selling them at another. This might sound like a silly thing at first but the differences between buying and selling price are huge, particularly when at a high percentage. A

Most used are ports one hop from eachother selling/buying the 3 most expensive resources (uranium, equipment, spice) at 80% or higher. A traderoute where one ports sells equipment and buys spice both 100% and another port one hop away sells spice and buys equipment both 100% is a 'perfect traderoute' and can make you very rich (relatively that is, don't expect tens of millions!) but traderoutes less than that can be great too. It is hard to really make a guide on what is a good traderoute and what isn't since it really matters how badly you need/want the money but resources like metal ore, anaerobes and medicines or any resource below 60% won't make you the money worthy of a traderoute.

The best ship for traderoutes is the CEO ship (by far) but since this is quite an expensive ship and not available to anyone who isn't the CEO (founder/boss) of a corp it should not be such a bad idea to look for alternatives.

The first acceptable ship for trading is the merchant freighter, with 80 cargo holds, cheap price and ok shields and speed for starting this is a ship that can do traderoutes but you should look for the next two ships if you really want to trade

flower ship: with it's high amount of holds this is a very good trading ship. The problem of this ship is however that it is very slow, has low shields and uses alot of warp per hop. Best to use this when you feel safe no one is gonna attack you (for example when trading in u.n. space) and/or when you are selling resources from a colony's refinery to the port in the same system.

galaxy whale: this ship has a lower amount of holds (160) than the flower ship but better warp efficiency (more holds per warp per hop), higher speed and higher shields max make it a ship that can get away from opponents (though of course not all of them!). Overall this is a better choice for trading.

P.S. The ISC (Imperial StarCruiser) and IGS (InterGalactic Ship) are also great for trading but since they are more expensive (IGS costs large amount of tokens) and not that easy to get they are better compaired with the CEO ship and the CEO ship beats them easily with trading.


DIPLOMACY

claiming innocence

Claiming innocence is the denying of any wrong doing in any way whatsoever. It is often a straightforward lie where you deny for example killing the other player, taking their colonys, having a far more awesome name etc. even though objective measures say otherwise. The person claiming innocence hopes to create confusion and through these means get away with all naughty business he or she may have undertaken. Claiming innocence is often done in phrases like "i'm innocent! I swear!".

see also: awesomeness

corping

playing together in groups of two or more players. Helping eachother with building, invading. fighting and exploring.

Corps are used for many reasons. Invading, building, fighting and exploring can be more effective/succesfull when in groups and overall people enjoy working in groups more than playing alone.

If your goal is purely to became as good as you can then generally you should corp when:

you are less good than the rest of the people in the corp and therefore benefit from them

when you work better in groups

when you want to learn new tricks, tactics and playing styles and hope that other people can teach you those.

A disadvantage of corping are the opposites of the advantages (duh!) :

you are a better player then the rest of the corp and therefore they just cost you xp etc.

you work better alone then in a group

you are either not interested in learning anything new (not recommended!) or do not think your potential corpmembers could teach you anything (you are interested in).

P.S. "corping" as name is also used in the meaning of "corping your planets" . In this case it means that you switch the status of the planet from personal to corporate allowing your corpmembers to enter and use the planet and stuff on the planet.


imitation warning: may be considered unethical !

pretending you are someone you are not

this comes in two types:

pretending you are a very experienced and well known player.

pretending you are a new, inexperienced or unknown player.

Both tactics use one very important thing: hiding your achievements. This way no one can see who you really are.

If you want to be one of the 'famous ones' just use that persons name and people might think you are in fact him/her. To make sure that you don't get caught as a fake too easy you should make sure you learn everything you can about that person and gain some of the skills that person has. If you pretend to be a very good invader while you in fact are not an invader at all, people will figure out very soon (unless you manage to avoid invading, but this can look weird considering people tend to stick to their tactics).

Pretending you are a newb might not sound like much, but it can be quite handy and if anything: very easy. No one can figure out who you are when you hide your achievements and since you don't have to know the person, what corps the person has been in, what tactics the person uses or used etc, this is very easy to do.
The advantage of acting you are a newb is that people will underestimate you. They might fight you while they otherwise woudn't have (because you are a famous fighter for example) and will perhaps build less colonys because they don't think you will be any competition. People expect new players to not be very good players, this tactic can give them quite a shock if you manage to use it well.


multi-accounting warning: this is a bannable offence and should not be used in SGE!

Multi-accounting is one of the most common reasons people get banned. If Playtechtonics finds out you are doing it you will be banned, no matter what and there is a big chance you won't be able to play this game every again (on the same IP adress). I therefore do not discuss this as a possible tactic to use but so people recognise this tactic in case they see other people using it.

Multi-accounting means that one person has more than one character in the same server. This gives the multi-account the advantage of x times the amount of fuel he would get when using only one character (x = the amount of other accounts.)

signs of multi-accounting are:

all benefits (cols, cash, xp) go to one person in a corp or group of players

two or more players that work together are never online at the same time

two or more players that work together log in and out shortly after eachother.

These however are just signs and do not mean that the person(s) is (are) cheating. Catching a multi-accounter is not easy which might be part of the reason it seems to be used often amongst cheaters.

planet killing

after you have taken a colony you might conclude that the colony is not worth keeping or can not be properly defended. You may then chose that if you can't have the col, no one should have it.

To destroy a planet completely is must have 0 followers for (I believe) 3 days. However by taking away all the followers (jettisoning, transporting) and resources (jettisoning, selling, transporting) a colony will lose it's value faster than that.

If you manage to hold a planet for 4 hours or more you can sell one of it's buildings. If you sell for example the solar cannon or the latest build biodome (bio 2 or bio 3), the col is much less likely to be redefended (properly).


P.S.

In permaverses people often sell the weapons factorys off a planet. This is not so much done to kill the planet rather than to make it useless for any fighting/invading activitys. This way, if you know or expect your opponent to take back the colony, the opponent will not find a stash of missiles and defensive turrets to attack any other cols/ defend it's new col.

see also: invading , jettisoning

shooting defenses warning: may be considered unethical!

for shooting defenses you gain a certain amount of experience. For shooting a flak cannon you gain 50 experience and for shooting a Laser cannon you gain 100 experience.

You can get someone to bring you defenses or shoot down your own defenses that you might have on a planet or weapons factory to give yourself an extra amount of easy experience. You can let someone else place them in space so they are easy to shoot down (but fire at you!) or you can place defenses in space yourself. If you have photons or explosive charges, place the defenses next to a planet and shoot at the planet, the defenses will than be destroyed by the explosion.

This tactic does not work very long, at around 100 defenses you will only gain 1 experience per turret, this to stop people from using this tactic too much. However, after some time you can use this tactic again.

see also: photoning[/b]

weapons factory building

a rebang tactic where you pretend to be building a weapons factory while you are in fact planning to complete a different building.

Certainly not one of the most brilliant, failproof tactics but it could just help you out there when you are competing for some colony on a rebang. The idea is based on the fact that it does not matter what building you are constructing, you'll get the construction points for any building regardless. Therefore, you could show your opponent (when he takes your colony) that you are building a weapons factory, while in fact you are trying to make a solar cannon (or other building). This way the opponent doesn't get to see your plans for the colony.

The reason that you'd show the weapons factory is that it is one of the longest to build colonys (so you'll get construction points for a long time) and generally one of the most useless on a rebang, specially at the start and on colonys that are constantly changing hands.

This tactic is entirely designed to either confuse your opponent (why would he want to build a weapons factory??) and keep your plans for the colony hidden. If you are building a solar cannon on an IGP, it's kind of obvious you want to defend it. If you are building a bio2 or 3 , it's kind of obvious you want to build it further. Weapons factory is just odd.

Note: this tactic is only functional on badly or undefended colonys that are likely to be taken over by opponents before proper defence can be established. This generally is the case on IGP's or invaded colonys where you do not have the warp/cash to defend it and/or there aren't enough followers to get a strong enough solar/militairy going in the time that you are incapable of defending the colony yourself. Generally, completely useless on permas.
Last edited by -nox- on Tue Mar 22, 2011 6:16 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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ArdRhys4
Posts: 1862
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Re: The Tactical Guide

Post by ArdRhys4 » Tue Dec 15, 2009 1:43 am

Thank god you saved this thing... I doubt that anyone else would have written it... at least for several months anyway.

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-nox-
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Re: The Tactical Guide

Post by -nox- » Tue Dec 15, 2009 8:27 am

i know i woudn't. Great thing was, i decided that saving it might just be a good idea the same week it got deleted. And people say I'm not totally brilliant :roll:



woot for sticky :)

I'm planning to add a bit about the weapon mods and what type of mods are best for what tactic (for example, the warp usage decreasing things for exploring, cargo holds increaser for building etc.) If you guys have any suggestions, just post them here.

TT
Posts: 268
Joined: Sun Jul 20, 2008 10:11 pm

Re: The Tactical Guide

Post by TT » Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:49 pm

Who the hell stickied this worthless garbage... was probably a mistake, they meant to delete it :twisted:

But seriously, sweet deal its finally got the sticky status it deserves

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DaPirate
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Re: The Tactical Guide

Post by DaPirate » Sun Mar 06, 2011 8:00 am

never thought of some of those, thanks

JesusRocks765
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Re: The Tactical Guide

Post by JesusRocks765 » Tue Nov 22, 2011 5:13 am

LLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG! But it must be to the point :D

benfurious1987
Posts: 8
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Re: The Tactical Guide

Post by benfurious1987 » Fri Nov 02, 2012 9:05 am

Awesome. Good refresher on some of the basics i forgot while i was away. Thanks!
:)

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