Strategy Guide (SEV)

From SEWiki

Most of this contribution goes to Sanfords and Inigma.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Gameplay tips 2.1 Grow or die 2.2 Learn or die 2.3 Watch your minerals closely 2.4 Diversify your knowledge 2.5 Satellites 2.6 Weapons Platforms 2.7 Carriers and fighters 2.8 Don't try to grow too fast 2.9 Repair ships 3 Other tips 4 Rococho Rangers' Tips 5 Inigma's Guides 5.1 Custom Layout Guide for the Emperor Suffering from Endturnititus 5.1.1 Report Layout Commands 5.1.2 Systems (Shift + X) 5.1.3 Planets (Shift + P) 5.1.4 Colonies (Shift + C) 5.1.5 Construction Queues (Shift + Q) 5.1.6 Ships (Shift + S) 5.2 Inigma's Strategy Tips 5.2.1 Colonization Strategy 5.2.2 Inigma's Turn Process 5.2.3 Inigma's Fleet Management Guide 5.2.4 Inigma's Unit Logistics Management Guide

Overview

Well we need a strategy guide so I might as well start it.

The basic tutorial for the game doesn't get you very far in understanding it all. My first game took me a month to play - so here's my first tip:

Tip: By default the menu\options menu sets the "System Icon Movement Speed" to Medium. This is the speed your ships move (yea the name didn't clue me in either). It takes FOREVER to play a turn if you have it set this way so change it to High or Very High to make your games run faster.

When you start out here is a list of the things you need to worry about roughly in the order of importance:

Gameplay tips

Grow or die

Build colony ships right away and settle as many planets as you can before you encounter enemies. Having a strong base to start with can be key to winning. Build on the bigger planets first. Make SURE you have a spaceport in each system and build them first. What can happen if you don't is you can find planets running out of critical resources and becoming useless. You may even need to bring supply ships to them to help them build a spaceport if you wait too long. Also, if your planet supports more than 4000kT or so always build a shipyard and a resupply depot. Having lots of planets that can supply and build ships helps you keep them busy and lets you rapidly build up fleets if you need them.

Learn or die

I never have less that 50% of my research points go towards "Applied Research". Frequently monitor your research achievements and whenever you improve a level here, IMMEDIATELY upgrade your facilities so you can get all your research facilities learning faster. This makes your knowledge growth geometric instead of arithmetic which in the long term can give you a big edge.

Watch your minerals closely

I find that once I get into the game and start trying to build up a fleet to fight other players I often get into trouble with mineral resources. Devote some research points to improve your mineral extraction technology and each time you gain a level here you should upgrade your facilities to help you gain more minerals faster. Also, when building facilities I always try to build lots of mineral extraction facilities where the planet supports minerals over 100%.

If you do find yourself getting low on minerals scrap any old ships or bases or satellites and get that net minerals positive quick. You can then build updated newer ones when you have the resources.

Diversify your knowledge

I still have yet to learn all the technologies out there but what I have found so far is you need to study these areas first:

1. Applied Research
2. Minerals Extraction
3. Particle Weapons: A lead here early and always makes fighting easier
4. Armor: you need to get up at least a few levels here to have your armor worth anything.
5. Colonize other types of planets (rock, ice, gas) - start putting a little research into one of the other types of planets early. Once you get this, quickly build the new type of colony ships and settle those new types of planets quickly where you are already in control. This lets you grow without having to fight for the space.
6. Light Hull Construction: Its good to get your ships bigger so work on this a little from the start.
7. Once you have these established and have upgraded and built more research facilities you can start to branch out to the other research areas. I usually just pick off points from my applied research and spread them out 1% at a time about an ever increasing number of fields to study. But always keep your applied research points at least 50%.

Satellites

Satellites are cool because you don't need to study much to get them and once you build them you can put your superior particle beam weapons on them and build them on planets that can't build ships or can't upgrade. In time you can then develop ships with satellite launchers and lots of cargo storage that can move these satellites to your boundary warp points to protect your strategic points. This will free up your ships to amass into large groups that can smash your competition where you need them. Note that as you build your satellites, launch them immediately into space about your planets so they can serve as a defensive barrier - they do you no good on the planet surface. Support ships can pick them up whether or not they are in orbit so just get them up there as soon as you build them.

Later on, after I have studied some good sensor technology I usually make special sensor satellites which I then build and launch from my planets to give me an easy constant eye on my systems. This prevents enemy ships from sneaking around you and turning up where you least expect them. Once you get satellites watching everything you can pretty much clear your inner systems of ships and keep them concentrated at the boundary warp points for protection.

Weapons Platforms

When a planet is under attack, any weapons platforms on the planet will fire upon the oncoming fleet. They are fairly cheap but take up considerable cargo space (especially on small and tiny planets) and may have a hefty upkeep cost. However, they are great for quick defense of planets which cannot create ships, and they will also participate in land battles along side your troops. Placing one or two on each planet may help with the attrition of an attacking foe while your fleets deal most of the damage.

Carriers and fighters

Fighters are fast and hard to hit. They are difficult for a fleeing foe to escape from, so fighters are great for intercepting ships before they escape. Fighters are fairly vulnerable to point defenses, but against races that neglect to research such defenses, fighters can deal substantial damage with minimal losses. Against foes with point defenses, a cloud of fighters may help ensure missile volleys hit by absorbing the defenses first.

Don't try to grow too fast

If you overextend yourself you can become vulnerable to fleets coming in and ripping you the shreds. Better to add one or two systems at a time. Reinforce your unexplored warp points with satellites and fleets while you fill out your newer systems with colonies and defenses. Once you have established your planet weapons bases and satellites for protection, then you can send your fleets out to grab more systems.

Repair ships

Repair ships are vital to keep your forces both flying and up to date. Not only can they patch up holes in your ships, they may assist in retrofits, greatly improving the speed at which a fleet can be spaceworthy again. By adding Solar Collectors, repair ships may also double as a source of supplies for fleets in repair.

Other tips

Some other tips I discovered:

Tip: Pick up the latest patches from the SEV site. When you upgrade, your saved games will generally still work.

Tip: Use the keyboard shortcuts. I use space all the time to look at my next ship. / to start exploring with my ship, Y to sentry my ship, L to launch my satellites from my planets, etc. The game doesn't quite let you get rid of your mouse but the keyboard shortcuts can really speed things up.

SEV is a really really deep game. I have been a bit frustrated with crashes and such but the latest patches seem to have fixed most of those problems. I think it will take me years to probe the depths of this game - and I haven't even start playing people yet!

Rococho Rangers' Tips

Later in the game its good it invest research in planetary improvement tech, build the climate control facilities on planets with below "mild" conditions to increase your reproduction on those worlds.

Build the value improvement plants on mining/farming planets till the planets value is maxed out, then recycle them.

Lastly unless you have imported other races who breath every atmosphere, then build atmospheric converters on all planets that don't have your races atmosphere. This will take along time, but if your patient then it will increase your planet space by a factor of 5 which in long games is a HUGE advantage.

Inigma's Guides

Custom Layout Guide for the Emperor Suffering from Endturnititus

Knowledge is power. Information overload is helplessness.

Endturnititus is a condition one suffers when they find themselves fretting over hitting that "F12" key or "End Turn" button, thinking they "must be forgetting something." So they check and recheck and still upon ending their turn don't quite feel safe doing so. I don't know about you, but until I learned what I am about to teach you, I would always hit the "F12" key as if I was pushing the final button on a nuclear bomb that would ultimately wipe out my dear empire after spending countless hours crafting it together.

Knowledge is freedom from fear of the unknown. And the cure to the "restart-my-screwed-up-turn-from-a-saved-game mental complex."

The power of this game is its ability to easily gather useful information about your empire easily and so be able to micromanage it on the fly using custom reporting layouts and so at a glance be able to decide how to maximize your empire's resources.

The time taken to setup custom layouts in the reporting windows is well worth it. It will mean less time spent hunting for information, less time mulling over the bloated event log, less time making decisions, less frustration at your turn process, reduces overall confusion, prevents uninformed risky decisions, and prevents losing the game because you forgot to make use of resources you could have utilized (like forgetting to maximize an emergency build queue, or launching that drone that would have given you the sensor edge, or launching that vital sensor satellite that you have to now go back another turn to set up before moving your fleet onward).

The ability to go through the mundane tasks of your turn quickly so you can focus on the fun is a skill well worth learning to fully enjoy this game. Creating custom reports in the reporting windows is, I think, the greatest thing about the game as it makes it easy for you to make quick decisions concerning all your tasks without having to waste time data gathering. Having said that, as a newbie, not knowing what screens to customize and how to use these valuable tools is a catch 22 which I hope to prevent by giving you the screens setup I use below, and in the order I use them.

First some instructions.

Report Layout Commands

To set a custom layout in any of the following reporting screens, simply open the screen and click on "Layout," and then "Create Custom Layout." You can change the order of the layout of the categories from here.

To set a filter, click on the "Filter" button and select the appropriate filter(s).

To set sorting, click on the title of the category to sort by ascending order (Z-A). Double click category to change to ascending order (A-Z). To set multiple sorting stacks, click or double-click categories in order from least important to most important. Example: if you want to sort the three categories:

Size, Atmosphere, Mineral Content

by largest, breathable, highest mineral content with most breathable as most important, highest mineral next important, size last important then do the following:

Double click on Size (to sort from A-Z which is also Huge to Tiny), then double click on Mineral Content (to sort from Highest percent to Lowest percent), and then finally click on Atmosphere (to sort from A-Z which is CO2 to O2 or double click to sort from O2 to CO2). The result should have at the top of your list the most breathable, highest mineral, and largest planet. A very high priority target for colonization indeed.

The following below are the layouts I use. Feel free to use them to get started with designing your own.

Systems (Shift + X)

Inigma's Custom Layout Name: System and Planet Unit Status

Layout: System Name, Notes and Status Icons

Filter: Systems We Have a Colony In, Planets

Sort: A-Z by Name

Purpose: To see at a glance if there are units on planets that I've constructed that need picking up or launching (double click to go to planet and launch), or notes in a system I need to catch up on (right click on system name).

Planets (Shift + P)

Inigma's Custom Layout Name: Colonization Screen

Layout: Planet Name, Planet Size, Planet Type, Atmosphere, Mineral Value, Ship Enroute Name

Filter: Colonizable and Breathable, or Colonizable

Sort: A-Z by Name, then A-Z by Size (Huge first), then A-Z by type, then Z-A by atmosphere, then Highest to Lowest by Value

Purpose: To see at a glance top colony targets that have no colony ship enroute to them yet. The "Send Colonizer" button when enabled (you have to have a colonizer sitting around without orders) makes for a one-click Colonial expansion to those targets. I use the embedded quadrant map to ensure my colony targets are going to systems I want to own instead of halfway across the quadrant in enemy territory. The quadrant map lights up systems when I mouse over on planet names. Later in game, I sort by planet name as highest priority and therefore target systematically entire systems for backfill colonization in order to completely own them.

Colonies (Shift + C)

Inigma's Custom Layout Name: Colony Facilities and Unit Queues

Layout: Colony Name, Facility Space Used, Facility Space Total, Item Under Construction, Status Icons, Mineral Value

Filter: Our Colonies

Sort: Highest to Lowest by Facility Space Used, then by Highest to Lowest by Facility Total Space, then A-Z by Under Construction (showing empty "none" queues first); or Highest to Lowest by Value, then A-Z by Under Construction (showing empty "none" queues first)

Purpose: To see at a glance which colonies can build facilities, or which high value colonies can build resource facilities, or to see what colonies are simply free to build units, or need non-breathables removed (the dome icon shows up in the status icons for which the "Scrap Cargo" button is useful in releasing un-needed pop from their service to the Empire).

Construction Queues (Shift + Q)

Inigma's Custom Layout Name: Construction Queues

Layout: Queue Name, Item Under Construction Name, Queue on Hold, Queue Emergency Build, Item Under Construction Time Remaining

Filter: All Construction Queues

Sort: A-Z by Name, then Z-A by On Hold (showing On Hold items first), then Z-A Repeat Build (showing Repeat Build first), then A-Z by Emergency Build (showing Emergency Build first), then A-Z Time (showing no build first, and longest build last)

Purpose: To see at a glance my queues in order of priority - from highest to lowest priority: empty slow build queues, then empty emergency queues, then empty queues, then soonest queues sorted by emergency queues, then slow build queues, then lastly items on hold. Categorizing my queues in this way has reduced my decision-making time by almost 80%.

Ships (Shift + S)

Inigma's Custom Layout Name: Ships and Deployed Unit Status

Damage & Supply (D&S) Layout: Ship Name, Design Type, Damage, Status Icons, Supplies, Ordnance
Orders Layout: Ship Name, Design Type, Status Icons, Orders

Filter: Our Ships, or Our Units, or Our Fleets

If using Damage & Supply Layout, Sort: Most Damaged to Least Damaged, A-Z by Design Type
If using Orders Layout, Sort: Z-A Orders (empty orders first), A-Z by Design Type

Purpose: To know what ships at a glance need help, are mothballed, sentried, need a fleet, or need orders. I switch back and forth with the filter to show my units and manage unit, ship, and fleet interactions mostly through this screen initially, and then use the prev/next ship buttons over the quadrant map on the main game screen to "mop up" any ships I may have missed moving, however with the Orders Layout this practically never happens. Supply worries are mostly early game, and I switch to the Orders Layout when I think I've have no reason to check for ships running on fumes - besides the Status Icons are the best and most compact indicator of this, so save the screen space and use the Orders Layout all the way baby!

Inigma's Strategy Tips

Feel free to incorporate this section and these ideas into the greater strategy guide. I didn't know where to put it.

Colonization Strategy

Game Start At Game start I usually send out scout colony ships during the early game colony rush (colony ships with sensors, supply, built with emergency build, with a shipyard space stations rounding out the last 1 or 2 emergency build slots). The Colony Scouts attempt to scout out defensible choke point systems (systems with one defensible entry into your claimed systems) usually ending their run when their supplies run out if they can't find out, and colonize the closest available planet of the same race atmosphere type. A well led and well designed colony scout ship will be able to scout out 4-7 systems before running out of gas in Balance Mod, increasing your initial empire size claim to at least 5 good and defensible systems in a medium game.

Once you have your shipyard station, set it to emergency build cheap colonizers (think "cheap" as in Wal-Mart cheap so as to be able to build a colonizer by the station in 1 or 2 turns. Basically 3 engines minimum and no fluff but the colony module, bridge, crew, and lifesupport - and set design to ram, so enemies don't capture them easily). The build queue for the station usually comes to about 2-3 colonizers with enough time left to build yet another shipyard station which can be used while the first station reverts to slow build. Emergency building more colonizers while the homeworld and first station are in slow build mode, and then building additional stations at the last of the emergency build will push your productivity beyond many gamers, let alone the AI. I do this until have about 5 stations, at which point the homeworld is no longer slow building and can begin the cycle again, or build other needed ships. Slow building stations make great early game unit makers, so be sure to make maximum use of your production to capitalize on this. An early drone researcher will find this strat even more useful...but that's for another strategy section for another day.

Backfill Strategy After securing choke points (Border Systems with only one or two warp points leading to unsecured systems), I add a waypoint on my homeworld. I usually hit it with ctrl+0 so 0 is my waypoint number for it. I set individual shipyard queues to auto-launch ships to waypoint 0. I order my shipyard queues to build colony ships (an equal amount of all three types if possible). I don't bother counting my needs, and simply queue up 1 colony ship per queue per turn, keeping mental track to meet the demand my Shift+P planet report screen says I need (it follows logically in my turn process below). When I find that I have colonized half of my desired systems, I then take the time to actually count exactly how many empty and orderless colony ships that I have (they are usually recently constructed and thus enroute to the homeworld), and count how many are in the queues of each type. I do this count at the halfway colonization mark, because the number of my enroute to waypoint 0 colony ships is usually enough to almost finish my project, but not quite (which is why I need the exact count in order to finish and not overbuild). I make a chart of Ice, Gas, Rock Need vs Have, and then I go to my Shift+P planets report and work in a clockwise circle from my homeworld, doing the closest ring of neighbors first, and then moving on to the next ring out from that, simply counting the number of ice, gas, and rock planets there are. I subtract the difference with my empty and orderless, and in queue colony ships, and write out the number of colony ships I need of each type to finish my backfill project. I then simply queue that many up. Badaboom, badabing, it then becomes a thoughtless backfill, and without the headache of micromanagement.

Colonization Orders I use my Shift+P planets report using my custom layout(mentioned above) and highlight my mouse over the first ring of neighbor systems of my desired empire working in a clockwise direction to colonize them using the "Send Colonizer" button which always sends any waiting colony ships over my homeworld (because all newly constructed colony ships are auto-launched and enroute to waypoint 0, my homeworld, so that the only waiting and available colony ships are those over my homeworld) to my target planet in the list.

Tips:

1. I explore like crazy to find the best chokepoints.
2. I colonize all breathables first, with priority on the breathables in my home system, and then those closest to choke points. I then switch my Planet report layout to show colonizable, empty, and unchecking the breathable option.
3. My Planet report layout should already have the planet names in alphabetical order (which is every planet named by system, so really it's a system order), with (if breathable) large resource planets listed first. I mouse over my target system in the map to see which system I need to target so I don't send a colonizer to the other side of the galactic quadrant by mistake, and I simply make my way down the target system/planet list hitting the "Send Colonizer" button in the planet report window until all planets in that target system have colonizers enroute.
4. When doing backfill, and when there are no more breathables to colonize in my desired systems, I first colonize entirely my home system, and then any choke points. I then send colony ships to colonize entire systems starting with those closest to my home system, before moving to the next in a clockwise, ring-like fashion.
5. In a resource crunch, I abandon this systematic colonization strategy and simply focus on colonies with the best resources.

Inigma's Turn Process

Please read my Custom Layout Guide for the Emperor Suffering from Endturnititus above first.

1. (Shift + R) Set Research Spending

2. (Shift + D) Create new designs & upgrade queues (Shift + D)

3. (Shift + L) Read treaty offers (don't respond yet)

4. (Shift + I) Set Intelligence Defense Spending

5. (Shift + X) Launch any units (based on custom Systems report) and give them orders

6. (Shift + P) Send out the colonizers (based on custom Planets report) using the "Send Colonizer" button

7. (Shift + S) Give orders to ships, units, and fleets (based on custom Ship report)

8. (Shift + O) Check my resource levels to ensure I'm not going bankrupt

9. (Shift + Q) Give shipyard construction orders (based on custom Construction Queues report), switch over empty emergency queues to slow build if no longer needed

10. (Shift + O) Check resource levels again

11. (Shift + C) Give non-shipyard planetary construction facility/unit construction orders (based on custom Colonies report)

12. (Shift + E) Create/Respond to treaties

13. (Shift + R) Confirm research is set to what I want (always good to double check)

14. (Shift + I) Set Intelligence Spending (always good to double check and set offense spending last)

15. Now you can finally hit that End Turn button knowing you have covered everything!

Inigma's Fleet Management Guide

1. Set waypoints:
Waypoint 0 - Homeworld (If you've followed my other guides, you've got 2-5 spaceyard stations built there remember?) - this central waypoint is useful for new colonizers constructed at other shipyards to auto-move to and wait for orders before load up from the homeworld without taking pop from your thinly populated colonies. The extra stations there also make for a central location for early game retrofitting or for your workbees (see below) or "freightercarriers" to pick up units for unit rushing if necessary.
Waypoints 1-6 - To mark semi-movable Fleet HQs to mass newly constructed ships, repair, retrofit, or train.
Waypoints 7,8,9 - highly movable waypoints for massing an attack

Fleet HQs move as you expand, so changing orders for every single ship using the Fleet HQ destination in their loop or set of orders is as simple as moving the waypoint for that Fleet to the new location. Be wary of any ships that don't have enough gas to get to the new destination, but you'll know that far ahead of time if you are following my entire strat and looking at your Shift+S Ship Report screen every turn checking for status of any ships damaged, or running on empty.

2. Fleet HQs
Are planets with at least one spaceyard somewhere, but realistically a lot more - preferably can repair/retrofit 10%-33% of your entire fleet at once depending on peace or wartime. In order of priority: closest planet to warp point(s), breathable, worthless, small or larger (to store units). The best Fleet HQ is a breathable Huge, fairly worthless (in terms of min/org/rad) planet only a few sectors away from border warp points. These make great locations for training centers.

3. Fleet Composition
Compose your optimal fleet at http://www.bubbl.us an example can be found here:
http://bubbl.us/view.php?sid=58402&pw=yaehWeVeqivoIMzdlc2ZJQzdFTXpITQ

4. Fleet Construction Management
Assign system-wide dedicated construction queues to construct and launch ships headed for the nearest Fleet HQ waypoint. Waypoints have to be set first before they are available in the construction queue's "queue orders"(or whatever its called) list button.

Inigma's Unit Logistics Management Guide

Definitions: System Capital: Planet in system that is considered the single point of load/unload for all units constructed in a system for use elsewhere.

Border System: System that has one or more unsecured neighboring systems.

Support System: System that dedicates construction for a Border System.

Drop Target: The location where units are dropped.

0. Provinces
Make note of which system will support which border system. Then dedicate their queues and units to supporting their border system. Use waypoints to mark out Fleet HQs in each border system, using a clockwise (if starting in the middle or left of the quadrant) or counterclockwise (if starting on the right of the quadrant) method to keep track of which wayponts are where. The best empire defense is 2 or 3 border systems. When expanding, concentrate on taking entire areas so as to secure defensible choke points.

1. Assign System Capitals
Assign a planet to be the capital planet of each Support System. Designate the colony type if necessary, or use system notes to conceal such info from human players. Typically the best capital is one that is large enough to store units and also be equidistant between entry and exit warp points for passing cargofreighters.

2. Construct workbees (frigate, all-unit-in-one cargo ships) and set their orders to repeat load all units at all system planets, and drop all units at the system capital. For large systems construct multiple workbees and set them to repeat load and unload. Use workbees for emergency intrasystem transport when cargofreighters are not around. The best workbee is in balance mod, as fighter bays, drone launchers, satellite layers, and mine layers all can carry cargo, including troops, making for a very nice compact unit work horse).

3. Construct one dedicated cargofreighter per Support System and repeat order them to load and drop units on a Support System - Fleet HQ run. If distance greater than 6 turns round trip, setup transport relays (you know, workbee brings it to capital A, caroship1 loads capital A units and transport them to capital C (skipping B if possible), cargoship 2 loads capital C units and transport them to Border Captial1 or Fleet HQ1. Change up your relay and drop targets as necessary as you expand, and use repeat orders liberally.

4. Construct two dedicated population transports (supercargofreighters) per full 5000M pop planet and repeat-order them to fill up the nearest huge breathable, or Border System breathable.

The point is for both of these strats, is to set your queues to construct to waypoint, so that all you have to do is move the waypoint as you expand; and for cargo ships and workbees to use repeat orders liberally so as to minimize the amount of time and concentration on moving material to the front.