Research and Design Strategies & Drones Strategy

I added this to the wiki: http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/Strategy_Guide_%28SEV%29#Inigma.27s_Guides

Early Research and Design Strategy

I usually only play with Captain Kwok's Balance Mod. Please refer to the latest technology chart to figure out what you have to do to get. These are my general early game techs.

1. Level 3 Sensors (you can't win against what you can't see)

2. Small Mines armed with Level 1 Warhead(s) (you can't hold what you can't block)

3. Level 1 Contra Terrene Engines (you can't win where you can't run to)

4. Small Satellites

Early Unit Designs: Mine with two 5kT warheads Small Weapon Platform with Level 3 Sensors and missiles Small Satellites with Level 3 Sensors

Early Ship Designs: Long Range Colonizer with Level 3 Sensor (Max engines, sensor, and supply) Cheap Colonizer (3 engines maximum) Defense Frigate (max engines, 2 guns, supply) Attack Frigate (max engines, 2 missiles, supply) Patrol Frigate (max engines, 1 gun, 1 missile)

Early Space Station Designs: Shipyard (barebones shipyard only, no fluff - I let system defenses be responsible for defending station)
[edit] Early Drones Strategy

If you are in a medium to large map game, drone scouts are your best friend. I often don't like sending out explorer frigates since crewed ships stuck in the middle of nowhere without any friends around isn't my idea of boosting morale among my people, especially since explorers often get into trouble (think close encounters of the other-end-of-the-warp-point kind). Besides, historically probes and machines are sent out to explore, long before people do. I like to follow this model in my games by focusing on a drones strategy.

1. Research Small Drones.

2. Research Solar Collector.

3. Design and build and launch Scout Drone with computer core, 2 engines, 2 supply, and 2 solar collectors.

What is great about the drones strategy is that drones not only can move great distances quickly, but unlike any other unit, it can also warp into new systems to scout them out, defend, attack, and harass. This is great for early game wars when you do not have many shipyards since any planet can make drones. Let me repeat: ANY PLANET CAN MAKE CAPITAL SHIP GRADE ARMED WARP-CAPABLE DRONES. So then what do you do with them? You group them up. Queue up missile drones and mix them with your preferred gun drones, along with a few sensor drones. Launch them as a single group once they are all built. Viola - instant defense. My typical drone groups consist of:

2 gun drones

2 missile drones

1 sensor drone

Most early planets can only make 1 drone per turn, so in less than 5 work months you have a capital "ship" of drones usually more lethal than early capital ships built in the same time period, and it can travel insanely farther and faster than capital ships, and often without the huge maintenance overhead of a capital fleet. If you build each of these drones on five planets, you have all this instantly in a single turn - assuming you get them all to rendezvous into an acceptable stack. These traveling packs of drones are feared by many, except for enemy fighters who alone are equipped with the size, durability, and strategies to target them effectively. Point Defense targets them too, but not as effectively, especially when most of your missile drones overwhelm PD to take out enemy ships en masse. I use drone fleets for defense, and scout drones for exploration, and masses of drones to soften up enemy defenses.

They are useful in a large fight since they distract the enemy, or sting them bad when the enemy isn't focused on them, and in general are the closest thing to an uber weapon in Space Empires V. There mere fact that capital grade weapons can be put on these things, and they can travel across warp points, and can be built on any planet, is what makes using them wisely an attractive option for anyone in the know as to their power.

Thinking outside the box, one could even exploit the launch-relaunch capability of drone launchers staggered in a pony-express line to make a drone travel indefinitely in a single turn to anywhere in the galaxy, making large underproducing empires an overwhelming drone threat to others since they theoretically could mass drones made from all corners of their empire, to the front lines quickly and easily in a single turn. In fact, many a good Play By Web game have been ruined by a unit arms race started by a player abusing the drones strategy, with the one out-producing the other by sheer numbers being the clear winner. Some mods exist that now make re-launching drones impossible, but the capital ship weapon capability of drones is often kept in play still making them a lethal unit to deal with from early to late game.

The effective counter to drones is to set fighters to target them first - assuming of course drones aren't using a wall of point defense drones.