Get better? I can faceroll 8 Cruel AI's by myself. All sarcasm and elitism aside though I'm not sure what to tell you. The difficulty of the game feels the same to me overall. I tend to warmonger with my Advent. Twin Halycon's are great for this. Um how long time wise was this into the game? Really without more details or a save game its hard to give advice. Because quite frankly I don't think the problems with the game itself.

it probably is me.

im about 3 hours into the game, using the Distant Stars mod. i think its the Gateway map, the one with one planet, called Gateway, leading to another star, Xi. i own a third of the main system, and the entirety of the Xi system.

so, dragoaskani, any tips to defeat my enemy? even with a fleet of 30 frigates and 3 capital ships i cant beat them.

their Revelation class ships strike really hard with my ships. they had three of them last time!

I suggest you to do not build a starbase in such phase. You are better off getting more ships. Starbases should maybe come just after you have so many caps, from 5 minimum and correlated economy. This is very unproductive if you upgraded the starbase because its so much more expensive and cant move arround like your ship forces; chances are youll loose other planets and your economy will freeze to much. The economy is extremely important in the beggining for the main researches and to amass fleet. Also, if you upgraded it, even had to go all that path to research starbase and some upgrades, spenting even more. With that fleet I think it was to much early to build a start base and a sentency in case you upgraded it.

sorry for the accidental link. because your name was in it it made the enitire sentence a link to your name or s/t.

im using cobalts, not sure waht you mean by LRF. im guessing it means long range frigate.

sometimes i use focus fire, but im guessing that i should from now on.

i try to take down the revelation class ships first. they KILL me.

in tech, ive conentrated on laser tech, and moderate amounts of tech on hull and shield regeneration.

so if i had ten points, it would be 6 in lasers, 2 in hull, 2 in shields.

i dont think my economy suffers from my starbases. i have an entire system to myself, and no one else can even get close to it, because of my heavily defended planet which is the only one that leads to the sun of the system.

Well ok, I just wonder why not more ships then. Since you were guarding the only access to you then looks much viable. By the way, yesterday I found out what LRF meant but couldnt guess LRM neither flak. Can someone point me what they refer to? Thanks in advance.

thank you so much!  now i know to gradually replace my cobalts with LRF!

cheers, ill keep you guys updated on what happens.

heres a link to the LRM:

https://www.sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/Javelis_LRM_Frigate

i actually used 25 cobalts with an Akkan as support to clear out the enitre Xi system in my current game. you know, the one where my rear end is getting handed to me by the advent.

I used to, more often than not, play a mellow game...yeah, against easy AIs.  It was relaxing, now, even against easy, I have to actually be awake to play.  I am liking the new high-difficulty "cheating" AIs though.  That was the other end of the spectrum, when I DID want to play and went against Hards...it was kinda snoozy.

All in all, I like it.

Shield restore.  Dunovs can turn those capital ships into nigh invincible ships.

You're going to have to seriously step up your game.  That fleet is more like thirty minutes than three hours.

Be careful with your ships, utilize the advantage in survivability that you capital ships have when taking neutrals, and defending against pirate raids.  With two L3+ Dunovs on shield restore and a Kol running adaptive shields, you could take the top strength pirate raid with zero casualties by having the Dunovs jump in after the Kol.

Pirates are far more powerful now, if you're losing ships and planets to them instead of gaining experience, that alone has put a serious dent in your competitive edge against the AI.  The AI also builds up it's planets better.  Attacks are happening later, but become far more frequent later on.  This too is a serious problem if you're not building up as well.  The difference between fortified planets and unfortified planets is the difference between a couple capital ships being enough to fight off a thousand fleet points and needing several hundred fleetpoints to do the same thing.  The difference between maxing out your logistical slots and not is half the fleet strength, and twice as long to afford it.

Slacker play is less of an option now than it used to be, they're just not quite as retarded.  Haul ass on the planet aquisition, get your front lines beefed up, set up some serious trade, and get that tech up as fast as reasonable.  If you're playing well, unfair should be fairly easy.  The higher difficulties are... difficult.

actually my first cap is always and akkan, for its colonizing purposes.

looks like i need to play more SINS.

now, any tips on fighting a Revelation class capital ship? those things kill me.

Bombers

lots and lots of bombers

or LRFs

Revelation's have that nasty Reverie ability which can mess up single targets but it has no good area of effect abilities so use something with lots of numbers

EMP, Magnatize, Ion Bolt.

why, the wiki page was perfect

one is good for supporting others, you would need two for self-support