Beginner guide is not enough

Try a larger map and expand as quick as you can. Dont forget to upgrade (research) fleet capacity to allow more ships but this drains your income so upgrade as you can afford it. Pirates off is another way to learn. If you are playing Diplomacy, the pirates are a real killer even for a veteran player. They are supposed to be fixed with a patch in november.

Do not try and research every subject. Get the ships like Long Range Missile and repair cruisers ASAP.

Any more help needed just ask away. This community has loads of great people to help you get started.

TEC has also great upgrades for boosting your econ. A great economy will help you to build a large fleet. Try this on a larger map:
Get upgrade for terran planets (civic research, tier 1) ASAP after colonizing first planet. It's cheap and helps you get an extra credit income. Expand and after 3-5 planets, get trade ports. Trade ports will give you an extra amount of credit income, and the more planets and trade ports you have, the better. A broadcast center (tier 3) at your home isn't bad either.

For boosting your metal and crystal, TEC has some great upgrades which boost your metal an crystal income. Tier 1 and 2 upgrades can be build quite early in the game. Later one, you can resaerch and build refineries. Remember, refineries have an influence on the planet where it's build and the neighbouring planets. 

In mid-late game, the upgrade 'huge cargo holds' is essentiel for your econ. It boosts the credit income of trade ships and refinery income. 

I will not metion the very late researches like pervasive economy. By that time, you will probably have beaten the AI already 

That was it about econ. I hope you can use it.

BTW, if someone of the community isn't agree with me, please correct me.

Yea I suggest leave the pirates off and try a large single star map as that is the most simple way to play. Keep playing TEC (or any one faction) until you feel comfortable with their ships and structures, all those names can be confusing at the start.

Like they others said above, expand quickly (you don't have to be lightspeed but simply concentrate on expanding as a priority). Use trade ports to boost your eco and build a fleet of Long Range Missile frigates (you will hear that name a lot). For TEC thats the Javelis LRM frigate. Back those up with some flak frigates to kill strike craft and just get a feel from there.

Remember to always buy the first 2 Civilian Infrastructure upgrades for any planet (just one for an asteroid) to lessen underdevelopment costs. Also buy Fleet Logistics upgrades as you need them, don't buy em too fast as it will reduce your income.

Those are the two main mistakes new players make (myself included).

Good luck!

 

I forgot about the planet upgrades. As soon as you capture a planet you need the first infrastructure upgrade or the planet will drain your income. The second or third can wait until it is at its max population but are important to get your tax rates up which is more income.

For asteroids, one upgrade is necessary to bring the colony out of the negatives. Planets require two upgrades for them to stop losing you credits.

Hi all,
thank you for your answers.

Forum basic guide to beginners is pretty good and, after several failures, I think I've learnt basic economy well enough for this stage (I mean upgrading a planet, buying trade ports, don't waste money researching everything from the beginning and so on).

Last time I played (yesterday) I was able to get decent economy, or at least that's what I thought. I had a lot of money in the end and my production was limited by resources which I was lacking a bit (I think buying them isn't a good idea, dunno if I'm wrong): yesterday it was metal, in previous attempts it happened to be crystal.

I think I'm mostly lacking in warfare, as I usually lose too many ships in every battle against the pirates (even for the conquest of a new planet) and they attack me always, right from the beginning of the game. So that when the real enemy comes I'm too weak to defend my planets and get defeated. And, well, he comes too early and with a true lot of ships!

I'll try bigger maps and/or no pirates.
Thanks again and bye.

I totally agree with you about the lack of a good tutorial.  I actually plan to get my act together and record a video walkthrough this weekend and posting it on Youtube.

Basically, your only option with regards to metal and crystal is to acquire new planets.  In some circumstances refineries can be used to effectively boost production, but most of the time you'll be short on at least one type and you'll have to pick up the slack on the black market.

You do not want to use the black market too heavily.  The rates are absurdly high.  It should only be used to correct long-term resource imbalances.  If your crystal income is chronically low, don't hesitate to buy some.  However, if it's just a short-term thing (you bought a few high-crystal cost upgrades, for instance), let your income even it out a bit.

One common mistake beginners often make is forgetting to buy population upgrades for their planets.  Newly colonized worlds will incur substantial costs to your empire, so upgrade them immediately to avoid paying these.  Other than that, you should have no problem beating an easy or normal (even hard, once you get going) AI just with the income provided by tax income and extractors.

This is probably your problem.  If you're losing lots of units to militia, that's going to incur massive costs, and pirates aren't going to make it any easier.  Expert players rarely lose any units to militia.  As for pirates... expert players can handle them, for beginners losing the first bid can cost you the entire game.  I do not recommend turning on the feature unless you're experienced, and most experienced players decide they don't like the feature anyways...

Generally speaking, you should not use light frigates to clear worlds.  The light frigate is great "search and destroy" unit for chasing down fleeing enemies or support cruisers.  It is utterly ineffectively in a straight fight against real unit types with real guns.  The Javelis LRM and Kodiak Heavy Cruiser that you will frequently find mixed into militia will utterly decimate light frigates.

As TEC, I strongly recommend two military labs near the start of the game.  Research the repair platform and the Javelis LRM.  The repair platform is critical for keeping your capital ship alive and maintaining momentum.  The Javelis LRM is your "big guns" unit as TEC.  It's slower than the Cobalt Light Frigate, but fast enough to pursue most unit types and it hits much harder.  It's not a catch-all, but it's definitely the best unit to build the backbone of your fleet out of.

Hi again guys.

Well, disabling pirates was the key!

I won without any trouble both on medium random map (3 enemies) and then small random one (1 enemy).

Also using black market was also a pretty good advice: I usually have much more money than materials.

Thanks a lot to everybody who helped me.

Piracy. It's a crime. Disable it!

Uhm... I scarcely understood anything of what you said (what's an ICO MP?).
What are you talking about? Let an AI play against an another AI on my PC and just sit and watch what they are doing to learn from it?
If so, it seems quite a bore. I'll do it only if I have to.
Right now, disabling piracy have been enough to let me win and have fun. Later we'll see...

IronClad Onlone Multi-Player

OK I'm expanding my previous post a little...

Another thing you can do is to play a game and after game is finished go to single player click on watch game button then change to single player auto save ...... This brings you options to watch previous games you played. While you are watching the game you can change player you are watching (you can see what that player is researching building etc). So change to other player than yourself and see what they are doing.

Yes I know AI is stupid but since you have problems you can get some pointers at least build priority and research wise.

There some good replies of human to human matches on this forum(usually bigger 3v3-5v5) and watch what other players do from start.

I must say that on IronClad Online Multi Player matches and with matches against AI unfair or above what you do in first 20-30 minutes decides the game.

You can also watch replays you can find on this forum and download them....

You do need to save them;

For WIN7

C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\Record directory*

*It doesn't matter under which record directory you save them other than where you will find them in game (single player/single player auto save/multi player/multi player auto save  

Not sure what the path is for other operating systems

I don't agree... in my case, i have not problem to defeat 9 hard AI because i have the pirate on... i am more a economic player... on a huge multistar map, some AI have 20 planet or more and i have only 5... but these 5 generate more money and resource that AI player... i use money for research and pay Pirate ( have enough money ) for attack AI player... having the money, pirate become my own personal army !!! In LAN game ( multiplayer ), i will be the guy in the background, feeding my friend with money and resource, helping to reach the victory...

The fun with sins is that numerous tactic can lead to victory... pirate are a plague in diplomacy but if you cannot handle them or use them in Vanilla sins, there is something wrong in your play... and disable pirate will not resolve it !!!

I think I'm mostly lacking in warfare, as I usually lose too many ships in every battle against the pirates (even for the conquest of a new planet) and they attack me always, right from the beginning of the game.

Well, militia around new planet is not a big deal... first capitalship is free and same a single colony capitalship can handle them with some micro management...

About pirate, and bounty system, always make bid on two of your enemies... by example put 500 credit on enemy A and 250 credit on enemy B... a lot of chance that enemy A will increase the bounty on enemy B ( unless they have a peace treaty )... if you bid on one single enemy, there is a lot of chance that these enemy will bid on you...

Try to research fleet upgrade the more lately possible... ship upkeep can kill your economie... in some case, it is cheaper to have a little fleet with low upkeep where you can replace them in a fast way due to the money spared...

Since you play TEC, research the Hosiko the more fast that you can... these repair ship are a wonder in a TEC fleet... with them, you will not loose any ship again pirate raid and militia in Vanilla sins ( diplomacy is a other case )...