More Awesome Than You!

How large should a space stage empire be? I'm operating on the principle that all I need for decent income is 1-3 of each type of spice-producing planet, crammed into as few systems as possible for optimal defense. However, even a 7-system empire can have upwards of 30 colonies if you terraform and occupy every single planet within it. How many colonies do people normally build?

I use the strategy you mentioned.  I usually have three T3 planets for each of the spice types.  I also try to find systems with multiple spice colors to limit the number of systems I have to visit and defend.  When I make a spice run, I'm able to gather ~90 units of each type of spice which is close to the max.  The only downside to this strategy is it limits the empire building badge (I can't remember what it's called). 

It's called the Empire badge but you can get the exact same benefits of having the Empire badges by getting the Terra Wrangler badges instead.

As big as you can make it?

Terraforming and occupying every single planet is not terribly useful because many planets are of no real value when terraformed and occupied. How many red and yellow spice colonies do you really need in one system? Your ship will be full in one visit if you have more than 3 planets anyway, and red and yellow spice is hard to sell because the market is glutted with sellers, so you have to find a planet that ISN'T selling it and doesn't pay crap, all while tons of red/yellow spice piles up on queue.

One interesting thing comes to mind: In order to conquer an entire planetary system, you have to conquer all the planets in the system. This is no problem for the player, but the AI only attacks a specific planet. Does he switch to the other planets after defeating the first one, is it impossible for him to conquer a multicolonized system, or (worst and most lame), a planetary system is only as good as its weakest link because the AI defeats one colony, they all die?

I'll say what I said in #grah.  At some point, they'll decide that the next planet they want to take is the one in that system.  It's (sado)random, I assume.

Actually I never seem to have enough red/yellow colonies. For some reason, I get a lot of pink and purple spice planets, which are supposed to be rare.

I reason why I ask how large an empire should be is because once you get a decent spice income growing your empire any larger seems to have no benefit. It doesn't produce any fleets to help defend/conquer, it doesn't make any more money, it doesn't even increase your score (except for the Empire badge). You still have the one ship to do everything, which as a game mechanic acts as a hard limit on your empire's power. More colonies only results in a money sink and more bothersome defend missions (because you end up bordering more races). On the other hand, the AI does seem to benefit from more colonies, getting hordes of better ships the more planets they own. I would rather build a compact and efficient empire with maximum upgrades (uber turret, etc) and then venture out and wreck havoc with the planet busters and antimatter bombs.

The number of defend missions does not depend on the number of colonies you have, and I find I end up bordering fewer races. In fact, my imperial expansion is largely fuelled by my desire to border fewer races. :P

I don't border any races at all. There is a 200 lightyear exclusion zone around my tiny empire. What I mean to say is, why bother expanding for no benefit when you can just blow everything up?

So anyway, I've finally made it to space and I'm cruising around exploring a bit. Say I wanted to start expanding, is that one proton beam thingy going to do any damage or am I going to get munched? I'm supposed to be a warrior/carnivore type and at the moment I'm doing the trade grovel.

Depends on how good/patient you are. It's possible to kill off an entire enemy empire using the basic laser.

Maybe on easy. On hard, you can't take out the colony before the turrets lock on. Having at least the minibomb is essential. I can take enemy homeworlds with just one health upgrade so I can actually make it to the surface and the minibomb. And flying like a crazy man.

I take out the turrets first. Cruise around for settled T0s, maybe T1s. A lot of those will only have one colony on them (technically, T0s can only have one colony, so duh). Easy pickings.

Yea, I've got one race in my first space game that just decided they didn't like me (not the Grox or Spodian, either), and kept raiding my home planet.  They weren't big, either -- only 4 systems, but those 4 all bordered my space.  They only have 2 systems now, and the third will fall tonight.  Depending on how much time I have to play, they may not exist by the time I go to bed. :)

I'm still getting the hang of war. Which is, uh, bad, because in my attempts to ally with a fellow Warrior race they sent me to take out the turrets on another empire's planet. So now they're at war with me, and they keep zerg rushing my ship whenever I come down to capture stuff.

The trick is to have at least 2 or three allies with you when you go after a planet (if you're not Pescado, anyway :)), and at least minibombs, a medium auto-cannon and a medium laser.  More health and energy helps, as does having shields (though I haven't gotten those yet). The allies take care of most of the air attack, keeping them occupied at least while giving you enough time to concentrate on the ground attack. Once the city/colony surrenders, the remaining air support runs away for a bit (or leaves the planet if it's the last colony on it) giving you some time to reinforce the colony before you withdraw back home to recharge/regroup.

And you do want to reinforce it, since the original owner will try to take it back until you kill more of their planets (or their whole empire).  The plus side is that the more planets you take away from them, the more time they spend trying to take them back and the less they spend attacking your homeworld.

Try to take strong allies, though -- I had one go from ally to war relatively quickly since it was their piss-poor ships that were the first to get blowed-up, and I didn't have enough AOE repair packs (or forgot to use one in the heat of battle) to keep them going.

Allies literally die in like 3 seconds because they can't keep up with your crazy battle maneuvering and have absolutely no sense of self-preservation. They are also incapable of performing effective ground attack, so do not actually contribute in any way to the invasion attempt.

Minibomb is practically a must. Autoblaster is okay, but can potentially hurt if it decides to open fire on enemy (read: soon to be your) turrets. Fortunately, even the mega autoblast only does like 60 damage, so meh. Laser is useless, you will never use it during an invasion attempt. The colony destruction thing is random, so you pretty much have to save before attempting it in case the colony is irreversibly destroyed in the event of a more-than-3-city colony. It doesn't matter what you use, quick taps with a minilaser will cause the entire city to spontaneously explode just as easily as dumping a megabomb on it.

If you're playing on "Wuss", you *START* with more freaking hitpoints than my maxed out ship does! Not equipped with shields? Well, then, buckle up!

The air support only retreats when you capture the system. Otherwise, they keep stalking you. They're not hard to avoid, though. Your goal is just to go in low and fast, like a cruise missile, and bomb the living crap out the city before it can react. I can invade even 10-city maxed out homeworlds with just a 900 hp HARD ship and a minibomb. Note that the toughness of the enemy ships is dependent on how many colonies they have, so invading large empires faces you with individually tougher ships and when you start to take away their colonies, their ships will also weaken.

And remember: Play on HARD only! At MATY, all your achievements are void if not achieved under HARD! Accept no Kewian-based substitutes!

Lucky for me I'm not going for MATY achievements -- I'm having a tough enough time on 'Normal'. :)

Ironically, it's the Warrior empire's ship that keeps getting blown up before the Trader one's. XD

I think my main problem is steering, by the time I've got a spaceship aimed, I've lost the frigging city.  :D I'll learn to go in low and fast when I know where I'm going.

Good info on the ships getting weaker as their empire crumbles. Looks like it's not really worth the time and effort to get ally ships.

I need to build up more resources before I start declaring war on anyone. At the moment I'm like a kiddie's tricycle on a 6 lane highway.

I'm getting better at it. Calling in a Raider Rally on the more populated planets seems to help, and now I have the upgraded laser I can take out turrets quickly before they blow up my allied ships.

The only use I've found for allies is to give me a screen when I'm flying through Grox territory.  The rest of the time they get in the way, haven't the sense to shoot back at something, and should basically just stay in orbit while the professional lunatic pilot is working.

Don't destroy your own turrets, fool! First, the time you spend taking aim at the turrets is time you're getting mauled and not actually conquering. Just fly in fast and low, and you'll be over the city and probably in the blind spot where the turrets take forever to lock on by the time they even pick you up. Then BOMB BOMB BOMB. Megabombs can flatten in 2-4 hits, minibombs take somewhat more, but all will get the job done. Then you can optionally repair, refuel, and take the next city. Don't fly around like a buffoon, don't pick fights with turrets, and don't dogfight. Just get in there and bomb! Once the city surrenders, all its turrets shutdown anyway, and if you went in fast, they won't have even gotten a shot off before it's over. And hey, free turrets!

Actually I use raider rally on my own planets for free sporebucks and easy bodyguard badge. Just open the pirate wormhole right next to your own ship and use the normal proton missile. It will do splash damage to the clustered raider ships and you'll be a hero in no time.

What precisely are you bombing? Anything and everything, or a specific building?

The city hall.

Aim for at least one building surrounding the city hall, and the city hall itself. It seems the "ring" to the city hall must have at least one building breached before you really start to hit the city hall (unless some slots are already empty), but once you have created an "opening" to the city hall, the city hall will rapidly start racking up surrender meter.

Perhaps that was my issue. I tried hitting city hall first and was getting barely, if any damage done. Meanwhile the turrets were killing me, as I lack skills. So I'd taken to shooting up basically everything but city hall. Hrm. Perhaps it's time to bring shiny buttocks creature out of retirement. They are my killers.

See mah video.