Human - Tanker Logistics

[Decommissioner]

Hey all,

I recently picked up SOTS - MOTC due to the great deals on steam and have been really liking the game. It is definitely tough to start getting into but I'm getting a hang of things. I'm in my first real game after playing the tutorial twice however I am having some frustrating issues with Humans and tankers. My questions is:

Do I need upgraded tankers of the same fuel type (I just upgraded my armor/scouts to pulsed fission + renewable fuels) in order to refuel them. Basically what I do is have tankers stationed at each system whether I colonized it or not so my reinforcement units can move freely getting auto refueled without having to build a tanker each and everytime I build ships from my homeworld to escort. Is it my imagination or do my old tankers that used those forms of fuel now obsolete or am I doing something wrong? Would an experienced human player give advice on how to better send out your colonizers/armoreds/scouts etc. from your planets without also including a tanker each time with them or is that the norm?

Thanks.

[ZedF]

Not sure what MOTC is. Do you mean AMOC (A Murder of Crows) or ANY (Argos Naval Yard)?

As far as tankers go, fuel is fuel. The engine type of the tanker doesn't matter relative to how much it can refuel other ships, just how far it itself can go. (For humans, for example, it dictates what length nodelines the tanker can travel down.)

That said, destroyer tankers can certainly run out of fuel reserves to do the refuelling with. In that case you'll need to send them back to a colony to pick up more fuel. If you double-click the tanker in the fleet list, you should get more info which will tell you how much fuel that tanker has left.

Alternatively, if you have cruisers you can build a refinery, which is a much larger tanker with the additional ability to refine fuel off any uninhabited planet it happens to be in orbit around. These will also refuel regular destroyer tankers that happen to be around while it's refining.

On the other hand, if you're posting in the demo forum, you might only have the demo, which could imply no cruisers are available. I forget what's actually in the demo! In that case, you might be out of luck on refineries.

Incidentally, you never need a tanker over your own colonies in order to refuel ships in transit. Your own and allied colonies are a limitless supply of free fuel.

[Decommissioner]

Yeah I meant murder of the crews.

That answers my questions thank you.

I assumed tankers had endless supply of fuel and didn't run out but that appears to not be the case. Guess I will have to pay more attention to keeping up my node lines with full tankers.

[Decommissioner]

Hey this is unrelated to my first question but I had another question in regards to my game. It seems that I'm at a big standoff in my game where my destroyer fleets get absolutely crushed when invading any enemy planets with defense platforms. Having to fight a fleet on top of platforms that shoot those missiles seems pretty futile and I have even tried assault ships with my CnC 10 fleet limit. Am I better off just teching up to cruisers, is it even viable to exterminate races while still in the 'destroyer fleet' phase? Or am I doing something wrong. I'm way ahead in score I think and have expanded quite a bit in my disc game. Here's my game, as you can see I expanded untill both my fronts hit enemy systems.

[usermist2]

There are many TARs that explain how to attack planets while still in the destroyer era. Cruisers are better at planet busting and far more expensive to build / maintain. Generally, most players seem to use destroyer fleets only to kill small or newly colonized colonies.

Missiles can be countered in many ways, the most common of which is Point Defense. Try some different things and see what happens. After all, the worst that can happen is the computer will win, and you'll know what not to do next time.

[Decommissioner]

What tech tree is point defense in?

[ZedF]

Point defense is in the ballistic tree, after VRF. Getting basic point defense gets you laser PD and gauss PD, the former of which is better against missiles and the latter of which is better against drones, torpedoes, boarding pods, and similarly large (compared to missiles) seeking weapons.

Much later on there are other kinds of PD available as well, but laser and gauss should be enough to get you going. If for some reason you don't get the regular version of PD in your tree (it can happen), there are alternatives, but PD is usually the default staple choice for dealing with enemy missiles.

Killing enemy worlds with just destroyers can be done, but it can also be very costly in terms of casualties. It depends what race you are playing as and what weapons you have available; some combinations make it easier than others. Cruisers do make it considerably easier, for several reasons:

• Access to Command Cruisers = can field many more command points worth of ships
• Access to repair cruisers = don't need to suffer quite so many casualties
• Cruiser hulls are just generally tougher than destroyers, making it easier to withdraw damaged ships for repairs
• Cruiser hulls have access to more potent weaponry such as fixed beams and large mount weapons, and tend to offer much more firepower per command point than destroyers, making it easier to slag defenders/planets more quickly

Additionally, in general, having faster ships (via fusion engines or better) will also help avoid casualties to some degree. At minimum, they can withdraw from combat faster when critically damaged, can get to the planet quicker to start bombarding sooner while having to deal with fewer enemy missiles on the way in, and will have tougher engines with heavier weapon mounts. Depending on your chosen weapons and tactics, there may be other benefits.

[Decommissioner]

Thanks for the responses.

I read one of your TAR's last night Zedf and noticed that you had battles with 50+ casualties. Do you recommend playing with unlimited combat limit or sticking to the 4 minute mark that the video tutorial suggests?

Also I have read a lot about emitters and how good they are. Where can I find these in the tech tree, are they a luck thing or guaranteed 100% of the time to all races?

[ZedF]

I almost invariably use the default 4 minute timer. Some of the encounters with alien menaces are balanced assuming a 4 minute timer. That said, people are of course free to use whatever they like, though it changes the balance of the game somewhat if you use a very long or very short timer. (The maximum is 10 minutes, the minimum 1. Strategic turn timers default to unlimited, but can be set lower for MP games, and are a separate matter from the tactical turn timer.)

Killing 50+ destroyers in a turn is generally not terribly difficult even with a 4 minute timer, assuming you have the right weapons and enough ships and/or fixed defenses available. Sometimes this can be facilitated by camping on an enemy spawn point, but this isn't strictly necessary since enemy reinforcements will under most circumstances spawn near the CnC, so if your fleet is that much superior to the enemy's, if you avoid killing the enemy CnC you can kill a lot of enemy ships in short order.

Light emitters are a first level tech off red lasers, but not all races have good odds to get them. Liir get them most frequently, other races less so. See here for more details:
http://sots.rorschach.net/Red_Lasers
http://sots.rorschach.net/Light_Emitter

Note that larger emitters can also be researched, most typically by researching light emitters first but there is another less common link via EMP torpedoes as well.

[Decommissioner]

Ah okay it seems my two tutorial games and first single player have not given me emitters then. Time to hop into my game, I just got cruisers and built two for each of my fleet systems on the borders. Haven't seen em in action yet, so far my combat has been very slow with destroyer fights using mostly UV lasers and gauss on the command section to throw them off getting deflector shields (tutorial game #2 was a nightmare). I couldn't imagine killing that many ships in 4 minutes from what I've seen so far heh.

[ZedF]

I'm not sure what techs are possible to get in the tutorial, since it starts with some fixed parameters IIRC. So I wouldn't be surprised if those ones didn't count as chances to get light emitters.

[Decommissioner]

I've encountered another problem in my game. My entire empire is in revolt. I've noticed that each turn there is a -1 morale point because of inadequate population space. I have my slider at the even mark for humans so there is no resource decay, does this mean I have to increase to the max now untill my system runs out of resources? What do people do in this situation.

[Allattar]

Morale.
Morale is lost in several ways.
Pop limit is reached (-1 per turn, unless at planet physical maximum)
combat above planet (not sureof minus number here)
losing a colony (-5)
A colony of the same race is destroyed (-5)
Losing your flagship dreadnought loses morale

Morale losses can be reduced with the presence of a police cutter. These are destroyer sized ships, just one will reduce morale loss. For example one police cutter in orbit stops the -1 morale loss through hitting pop limit. A police cutter is available after you research trade and fusion.
Morale loss doesnt occur from population limit if you allow the whole planet to be filed up, at which point you lose resources for being above the sustainable planet population.

Morale loss from population is also halted by building a colony ship that turn.

Morale is gained from.
1 million in savings will net +1 morale a turn
5 million in savings nets +5 I think
10 million nets more (cant remember I never have that much saved up as I spend it too fast)
A new colony grants more moral.
Maximum number of trade routes running gives + 1 morale.
Propaganda ships (cruiser class vessels) will grant +5 morale whilst in orbit. Unless your liir.

I may have missed a few.
Higher morale can mean higher productivity.

Early game how do I stop my morale loss on planets?
Simplest solutions.
Solution 1: Move the pop slider to the max and damn the resource loss. On non production worlds it doesnt matter and it will be a good 100 to 200 turns before you really mess the planet up.

For those a little less destructive.
Solution 2: Save 1 million. Simple to do, and easy, just stop researching for perhaps 3 turns, and stop spending money until you have 1 million. Just make sure you keep 1 million in the bank each turn to counter morale loss through pop limit.

Solution3: feeling rich? build a new colony ship every turn at the worlds with the pop problem. Benefit is that you can drop a lot of colony ship at the next suitable world.

When you get trade.
Solution 4:
build enough freighters for 1 per trade route and use all trade routes. Although you maximise the trade benefit by having 5 freighters per route.

When you get fusion
Solution 5:
Build police cutters at all worlds.

1 and 2 are the best solutions early game.

[Space Voyager]

You can and the current SotS monetary system (especially after trade) is encouraging you to do so on all worlds where you don't need to have big production. So leave some production-high worlds and maximize the others.

But this is not the only way and definitely the long-term solution. Most recommended is to have more than one million in your bank at the end of every turn. This will nullify the population limit. Over 5 million brings extra morale boost.

Also you can build a police cutter ship at every colony. One is enough, more won't bring extra morale increase.

Mmmm, what else... Oh, a fleet helps to keep the population in check but is an expensive option.

After researching trade you can fill all trade routes with at least 1 trade ship per route and get a trade morale boost.

EDIT; Funny, somebody told me that ninjas don't exist any more... Man was he wrong!

[Iztok]

Hi!

I've noticed that each turn there is a -1 morale point because of inadequate population space. ...
What do people do in this situation.

As usual, SotS wiki (http://sots.rorschach.net/Morale) is your friend.

BR, Iztok