Maintaining economy?

This is difficult to answer because experience is really the best way to learn this, although I will give you a few pointers, to help in the first half hour-ish.

Tec.
I advise TEC to new players because they are the simplest race. Get credits so you can buy minerals.

The emphasis here is trade ports, however, you should build a fleet first, then get econ. Max out your units to the second tier of units, and then focus on econ as a TEC. Key is to max out with LRMS.

Also, TEC in general doesn't need to go too far past tier 2 in logistics labs early in the game. You reach logistics lab at tier 2, there's no need to go futher. You can then build 2 military labs and build a fleet.

The part where it's you is do you want to go econ after this initial build-up or go military. It's a matter of Pref.

Vasari.
Middle Difficulty Race. This race emphasizes getting resources to sell for credits.

You only need 1 military lab as Vasari early, as that's all you need for assailants. You should get two logistics labs as Vasari to start as well. You can colonize foreign planets and there's a key tech that Vasari should get early with econ. It's the +% Vasari resource extractor

Advent.
Hardest Class. you rely on planet income to make units that rely on abilities to stay up to par with your opponent. The best advice I have is tech straight to Illuminators.

This is difficult to answer because experience is really the best way to learn this, although I will give you a few pointers, to help in the first half hour-ish.

Tec.
I advise TEC to new players because they are the simplest race. Get credits so you can buy minerals.

The emphasis here is trade ports, however, you should build a fleet first, then get econ. Max out your units to the second tier of units, and then focus on econ as a TEC. Key is to max out with LRMS.

Also, TEC in general doesn't need to go too far past tier 2 in logistics labs early in the game. You reach logistics lab at tier 2, there's no need to go futher. You can then build 2 military labs and build a fleet.

The part where it's you is do you want to go econ after this initial build-up or go military. It's a matter of Pref.

Vasari.
Middle Difficulty Race. This race emphasizes getting resources to sell for credits.

You only need 1 military lab as Vasari early, as that's all you need for assailants. You should get two logistics labs as Vasari to start as well. You can colonize foreign planets and there's a key tech that Vasari should get early with econ. It's the +% Vasari resource extractor

Advent.
Hardest Class. you rely on planet income to make units that rely on abilities to stay up to par with your opponent. The best advice I have is tech straight to Illuminators.

Double post, my bad.

its a triple post now


i agree with you that its not explainable... it comes 2 experience
all i can say is that the above noted strategy is often used and thus easily counterd


tier 1 fleet filled with lrms???
if your oponent sees it he'lll mass flak frigates or carriers (or both)

you cannot , repeat can NOT make a fleet strategy.
this is becuase every game is different, u have to scout for the enemy... know what they have, then counter that

in the case of a 10 player ffa without alliances i'd just suggest you get alot of everything.... but then again, 10 player ffa's are hardcore.. u dont wanna be in it if your still learning to play the races

As TEC, during my early games I found I had a negative economy because I never upgraded my planets. Thats really key. You HAVE to upgrade the population on your planets/roids or you'll go broke. You actually have a negative income on your early colonies until you upgrade them. Do it to your home planet while waiting for your cap ship.

Once you've upgraded the population and tossed in a few tradeports, you'll find you have money to burn ( against the AI at least ).

Fleet builds.. thats a whole other post.

Hi I am just starting as well but am just starting to really like the game but I feel I am in more or less the same boat as yourself. Just goiong through this t hread for tips but noted about the experiance thing

I'm going to emphasize Harada's point. It's essential to upgrade the population of your planets, especially because when you obtain a new one, it's a DRAIN on your income.

I tend to play Advent in 4v4 comp. stomps with three of my friends. I try to make a beeline to LRMs/Illuminators, build a few of those for good measure, then worry about economy. Doing this gives me a pretty good base to take over the asteroids and other planets right near me. A few Illuminators plus a cap. ship (I used to go with the hangar guy, but now I've switched to the colonizer) works well.

I do find myself buying crystal early game to make this work, and I have to rely on the AI not making an early rush.

-HM

Okay, how about I get a bit more specific then?

Okay, I am on the very smallest map you can get (the small maps and the first one under the random generated one. Its 1v1 and your opponents start next to each other) since its the most recent one I have played.

Okay, as TEC, I start off by starting both my worker things to build crystal mines. As soon as one finishes, I build a Cap. ship factory and start on... whatever I feel like building (typically, its the carrier or Akkon for its colonizing ability). Then, I start building a few light frigates to escort it to the asteroid nearby and clear it. Depending on the Cap. ship I bought, I build a colonizer too. During this time, I normally create 2-3 scouts and set them to auto explore. I take over the asteroid and build the infrastructure on it and start the crystal mines first then metal.

This is the part where I sort of get lost to what to do. My credits average at around 1500, and the crystal and metal are around 200. With this, face the choice on whether upgrade or build a army, since that kind of money doesn't get me much. Should I even bother with the shield/laser/hull improvements at all or should I just work on researching ships first? Or should I work on getting those trade ports and ice/volcano planet down there?

Rule of thumb: Don't build military upgrades until you have enough ships to make it worthwhile

Another rule of thumb: When considering economic upgrades thing of how long it will take to get a return on your investment. If the time to return is long and you need it now, then wait

I'm new to this game (though not to strategy gaming) and I am finding that taking over and improving planets is important for your credit income. Using whichever ship has the ability to grab neutral mineral deposits in asteroid belts or the like is a handy way to increase mineral income without having to attack another planet (if you don't have the military to do so).

Some players suggest holding off on the volcanic/ice upgrades, but I've had some random maps where the only 3 planets I had nearby were all volcanic and in those cases it makes sense to tech rush for the volcanic upgrade.

The best starts I've had so far were ones where I was able to nab a string of planets early and upgrade them to get the credits rolling in. Then it's a matter of building a huge fleet and going to bash some hulls.

Agreed. Expansion, while extending your front, is the best way to get early income. Remember that trade benefits from a far flung empire as well, so expansion is still key to a good credit income.

Don't be afraid to buy/sell surplus metal/crystals on the black market, it's more important to have what you need when you need it than sitting on a stockpile of wealth while your opponent is reinvesting into his empire.

Against the AI, asteroid belts are really a boon, as the AI will rarely try to take them from you, and pirates never harrass them.

I also agree with FutureHermit, in that delaying too long in colonizing ice/volcanic worlds isn't a good idea. Obviously you'll want to focus on desert/terran/asteroids first, but the metal/crystal from these worlds goes a long way toward offsetting the research costs.

Resource collection techs are another good way to bolster your economy, just don't let your fleet power lag behind to get them.

I'm still learning as I'm quite new to this type of game, but it seems from the amount I've played so far that many of these decisions are dependent on your situation, and that can only be determined through scouting. For example, as futurehermit noted, you may get on a map where the closest worlds to your own are volcanics. It would therefore be foolish not to research volcanic exploitation (or whatever the other techs call it - I've played only TEC so far). Otherwise, you're passing up sources of income. Conversely, if you're surrounded by those asteroids that must be captured, you'll need to build a colonizer to be able to exploit them.

So, many things are situational. Intel is key, and that means building a couple scouts is a major priority so you know what direction to funnel your resources into for a balanced economy.

That's the way I see it, anyway.