InfiniteVoid

If you mouse over the planet exploration percentage in the bottom panel of the HUD, it will give a short description of what each planetary bonus does, which usually makes sense with the bonus involved. In any case, the names are usually self-explanatory: Habitable Cavern Systems provide additional living space (+population) and it is underground (+planet HP), Weapons Test Facility occupies space otherwise usable for living space (-population) and increases the defensibility of the gr

Generally, the AI's capitals will target enemy capitals first, so if you have a large number of long range frigates, simply order them to all focus their fire on one cap at a time while the capitals duke it out. IIRC, the damage modifier for the LRF damage type against the capital armor type is 75%, which is actually one of the higher modifiers (most other ships do 25% or 50% damage to capitals, Bombers to 75% as well, only other capitals do 100% against capitals). There is a complete

In that case, at least the destruction of Advent colonies would probably would not generate much negative response. After all, they are the "deviants" that were exiled 1000 years ago, and in the words of the narrator of the Vanilla Sins opening cinematic, "... they were lost to us.". In general, the events of each particular game shouldn't be considered canon anyway - the game, outside of cinematics, doesn't establish much by the way of canon.

[quote who="BrotherBulger" reply="5" id="2815855"]Can you imagine how negatively your population (as a TEC player) would respond to the massacre of the entire Human population of a planet? [/quote] Censorship? Of course, what happens with internal affairs of each empire is up for interpretation. On top of that, who said populations were necessarily human? For all we know, the Vasari could be setting up colonies themselves.

Unless the planet in question is an asteroid, there is always a region where your ships can exit phase space and be outside of the SB's range. For instance, if the SB is on one side of the phase lane, order your ships to execute their phase jump on the other side of the lane. You can also order your ships outside of the gravity well so they exit phase space outside of the other gravity well. Right now, I can tell you that you're too heavy on capital ships - you can get away with this

[quote who="Darvin3" reply="25" id="2813773"]The second starbase upgrade is different. TEC gets their "beam" type weapon which is theoretically upgradeable, but in practice it only affects the starbase and the Kol's frontal weapons, so it effectively never gets upgraded. Advent gets unupgradeable "psionic" attacks, while Vasari gets unupgradeable disintegration attacks. None of these are favourable weapons types. The third starbase upgrade is upgradeable once agai

Given that the Habitable Cavern System planetary bonus gives planets +500 maxHP, I'd agree with Darvin's interpretation. It's probably some numerical measurement of how much damage a planet's infrastructure can take before total failure.

IIRC, Power Draining Nanites is an ability from the Nano Weapon Jammer. PDN will simultaneously increase weapon cooldown time and bombardment cooldown time for hostile forces within range of the Jammer. First level of PDN does 10%/15% (weapon cooldown penalty/bombardment penalty) but a Tier 6 Empire research subject can increase this to 20%/30% and maxing out at 30%/45%. Each upgrade level also increases the maximum number of affected targets per cast (can't pull the exact numbers off the top

Pirates still will only attack targets within the same star system in Entrenchment/Diplomacy. Specifically for Diplomacy, Pirates become more of a challenge to take out, especially if they are enabled. If enabled, the Pirates recieve two random upgrades to their ships (weapon damage, weapon range, max hull, hull regeneration, armor, abilities) each time a raid is launched. After enough raids, the Pirate ships have enough armor to surpass the armor levels of Starbases (save perhaps for th

[quote who="myfist0" reply="4" id="2813045"]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.[/quote] 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.

The primary strength of the Seeker was its relative toughness compared to the other scouts. Its unupgraded hull/shield amount (I believe) is 425/400, which before the most recent patch was equal to the Disciple's hull/shield. In fact, even now, this amount of hull/shield is matched by the other two scouts only after considerable upgrades have been done to hull/shield.

Three seconds is far too short IMO, and would make Distortion Field nearly useless (only good for stopping channeling frigate abilities, of which there aren't too many). The real hit to the Advent was a result of the Illuminator bug fix. Its weapons were doing "mystery" extra damage, which once fixed, revealed that the Illuminator was far less powerful.

Like the version number of the game. When you start Sins, Entrenchment, or Diplomacy, there is a bit of white text at the bottom right corner that says "Sins/Entrenchment/Diplomacy 1.xxx". A screenshot might help.

[quote who="spathi-wa" reply="4" id="1582208"] When the [Iluxi?] dynasty fell [/quote] I think what he says is "Aluxite Dynasty". There is a militia faction in the game called "Aluxite Refugees" and an AI faction called "Aluxite Resurgence" after all...

If I'm not mistaken, Cultural Monopolization is one of the culture upgrades, so all it will do is increase the culture generation rate of your Broadcast Centres and increase the AM regen bonus. I think what you're talking about is Insurgency. Researching this causes rebel ships to randomly appear at enemy planets, which act like the neutral militia at the beginning of the game - they attack anything, and use strictly TEC ships. Rebels are very seldom an actual threat - static defenses can han

The only good "trick" I'm aware of is getting Phasic Cloaking (max level), parking the Jikara at a star, turning off autocast on everything, and activating Phasic Cloaking. At the max level, Phasic Cloaking consumes 2 AM/sec, but at a star's gravity well, the scout will also regenerate 2.5 AM/sec. So, you effectively have permanent vision of a star's gravity well until you pull the scout.

The rate at which you accumulate Diplomacy Points depends on your overall standing with ALL players. Simply add up all the relationships you have with other players - if the result is positive, you are gaining DP, if it is negative, you are losing DP. Larger positive/negative values will generate a faster gain/loss of DP. All you need to ensure the AI doesn't kill your Envoys is to at least get a cease-fire with them. The AI does at least offer you pacts - whether they offer them to e

With Sins 1.191/Entrenchment 1.051/Diplomacy 1.011, the AI does use some ultimate abilities on capitals. Mind you, it usually just uses the ability whenever possible, so it's rarely the best use of the ability. Example, I've seen an enemy Rapture Dominate one of my light carriers, the next (and last) Domination it got to use was on a light frigate. So, the selection seems to be whatever appeared first/is in range/is closest. I've seen the AI use Domination, Volatile Nanites, Stabilize

The last thing I can think about is the Pirate Cutthroat's Plunder ability - it steals credits from a target ship (or rather, the empire that ship belongs to).

If you're looking for beyond what the game supplies, either use the "large" fleet size option or mod the supplies.

[quote who="a110" reply="110" id="2770976"]how do you kill a tec starbase with 20000+ hull, fully upgraded weapons, strikecraft upgrade(s), and hangars being protected by it?[/quote] If you're the TEC, you can also take some Ogrovs and pound it from afar. If you're really paranoid, you can take an Akkan with Targeting Uplink to give them more range, and if you happen to have Tier 7 military techs available, you could research Extended Range Missiles for an extra 4%/8%/12% range. With

For the colonizer capitals, you will need to assign at least one skill point into the Colonize ability, otherwise your capital ship will not be able to colonize planets. Higher levels of Colonize provide shorter cooldowns between colonizations, and improvements to the bonuses newly colonized planets receive.

The Race Icon initially is a question mark (stands for random), by the way.

Trade ports and refineries operate independently of population and allegiance, so whether you place a port at your homeworld at 110% allegiance or some distant asteroid with just 35% allegiance, both will earn the same number of credits per second. Refinery income is shown when you put your mouse over the metal/crystal you have available. That gives you a breakdown of which planet's refineries are contributing how much to metal/crystal income.

[quote who="onomastikon" reply="19" id="2754064"]So are you saying that the raiding pirates DO spawn quasi-magically and are not dependent on how the pirate faction's strength is?[/quote] Yep. The primary factors that determine how many Pirates and what mix show up for a raid are determined by the bounty up for grabs and the number of ships and structures floating around (especially refineries and trade ships). Initial raids are smaller and have lighter units (Rogues, Cutthroats, occa