Dr. BOB's Advice
By Bob Crosswell
It SHOWS!!!!
The first mistake the newbie player makes is to allow anyone that
"watches" to quickly learn their PRT almost immediately. Each race has
it's weaknesses and strengths. Lets examine each race and the common
mistakes made by the newbie with it.
AR (Artifical Reality) -- AI is the Marconi.
The AR have one Colonizer ship characterized by a red nose. These ships
transform into a skyfort. Skyforts are easily defeated. The newbie sends
out these ships with no follow-on supply ship and leaves them undefended.
The experienced player leaves at least a fighter with the new colony and
always sends a re-supply ship to enable the skyfort to change into a
defendable Station as quickly as possible. The newbi allows these forts
to stay solo and grow on their own till they are big enough to expand.
The red nose colonizers can also bomb. This is an early game advantage
which is rarely used. The experienced player makes lots of these ships
and sends them out to explore as a scout (without colonists) and then a
harrassment bomber. Ever think of that?
CA (Claim Adjuster) -- AI is the Rototills. This race has
terriforming bombers and usually total terriforming. This race can
change a red world to a green world quickly and therefor can pick and
choose where to colonize. This is a strategic advantage which is often
overlooked. This race can use packets to terriform. This is a powerful
weapon which is often overlooked by the newbie. This race has a
terriforming bomber which can terriform enimies in a bad way or terriform
allies in a good way. This is a diplomatic tool which is often
overlooked. Newbies often keep these T-bombers home where they are safe
instead of using them as weapons or to help allies.
HE (Hyper Expander) -- AI is Robotoid. Everyone's favorite enemy and
for some their favorite race. This race has a colonizer with only 10k of
space called 'Cloud Spore'. First givaway. This race has a high
growth rate and often a "live anywhere" attitude. The only race with a
Metamorph ship and green energy capacitors (20%). The newbie makes many
mistakes with this race. They colonize everything, often sending out 10+
ships per turn. You can follow these ships right back to the home world
which is so busy making these colonizers that they have nothing left for
defenses or to upgrade their home. Each new colony is left to grow on
it's own with no supply follow-on ships and no defenses. They also
colonize blindly, no scouts, no scanners, no fighters.
The experienced player picks and choses the planets often bypassing the
poor mineral worlds. Another good trick is to mine a world first and
leave the minerals ready for the new colonists to use. Remember these
new colonises are very vulnerable. The experienced player sends out
scouts first and then sends backup supply ships and doesn't expand too
fast. A single fighter left to defend two planets is cheap insurance
till the colonies have time to grow. The way to defeat the HE is to
find his homeworld and destroy his space station. This stops expansion.
The growth curve for this race is steep and must be stopped early at all
costs. The experienced player also does away with the cloud spore and
makes privateers their primary colonizer and upgrades the homeworld
before they expand too far.
IS (Inner Strength) -- AI is Automitons. Populations can grow in
ships. This race has lots of defensive gizmos which give it away -- such
as Tychyon Detectors, Croby Sharmor, fielded Kelarium, mini guns, super
freighters and jammers 10,20,30. Newbies often fill their ships and
give away the ability to grow in route. Ground defenses are more
effective with this race but are rarely used by the newbie. This race
does not have smart bombs. They have to bomb everything. The newbie
does this and waits to invade until everyone is dead and everything is
destroyed. The experienced player uses invasion troops and then doesn't
have to rebuild mines and factories. This race has ships which heal
faster in space and can produce Speed bump mines. The newbie doesn't
use them. This race starts out with 0 in all techs and must start out
slow giving it time to do research.
IT (Intersteller Traveller) -- The AI for this race is the Rabbitoid.
They start with two worlds , each with a stargate on them. They have
standard gates plus any/300, any/800, and any/any. This is an
excellent race for easy defense and easy expansion. If someone
threatens you, then you can rapidly send in many ships for defense.
The gate is the key, each world must have a gate, slow steady expansion
with a gate at every colony (at least a fort) is important. The newbie
expands without this in mind and when he makes ships he sends them ALL
into space. They do not leave any ships in orbit, and when they are
threatened they must return to the gate (which takes time). They lose
their advantage of the gate. If you can destroy their gate you then have
time for easy bombing. The experienced player leaves a few ships in
orbit so they can gate to where they are needed immediately.
JOAT (Jack of All Trades) -- No AI equivalent. Everyone's first race
but the least used. This race can grow almost as fast as the HE.
This race has two ships with built-in penetrating scanners: the scout
and the fighter. The newbie puts scanners on these ships anyway.
Why waste a slot when you could put on another weapon or a maneuvering
jet? Or leave the slot empty and save resources, minerals, and weight.
This race starts out with the most ships in orbit. The Stalwart Defender
is a poor fighter but it is an excellent scout which is rarely used.
PP (Packet Physics) -- AI is Cybertrons. They start out with two
worlds, each with a packet flinger on them. They can have
W5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,and 13 packet flingers. Newbies explore with these
packets which can be tracked back to their world. Experienced players
will only send these packets out to explore from their #2 world.
This does not expose their homeworld. This race can build planet killer
packets as weapons. The newbie does this but sends the packet too far
and this allows others time to react and catch packet. This is a
tremendous waste of materials and resources. The experienced player uses
the packets to equalize the minerals on each of their worlds and only
uses the killer packet for short distances where there is no time to
react or intercept them.
SD (Space Demolition) -- This race makes many types of mines and
minefields. It has two extra types of ships, made just for minelaying.
This race has the ability to detonate its minefields and use them as
scanners. The different and early minefields give this race away.
The newbie makes lots of mines but keeps them in one minefield. The
experienced player makes many overlaping minefields and then can pick
and choose which one to detonate to cause the most damage. The
experienced player also sends these minelayers out with the scouts to
make a barrier betwen them and potential enemies. When the newbie does
detonate one of its minefields they often damage their own ships or
space stations.
SS (Super Stealth) -- AI is Turindrones. This race has cloaks and
penetrating scanners early in the game. It has the Stealth
Bomber(similar to B52), the Rogue, Depleted Neutronium, Blue cloaks for
transports, shadow shields, pickpocket scanners (used to steal cargo
from ships), robber baron scanners (used to steal minerals from Worlds),
Chamelion scanner (part cloak/part penetrating scanner).
This race also gains tech through others' research. The race gets level 5
scanners in year 1 and using its cloaks can hide very well. The newbie
does not use this race very well. This is a lurking race which does
best to hide til it's weapons build up. It uses surprise as its best
defense and offense. An experienced player will let the others fight
and then pick up the salvage and tech left behind. They let the others
fight till they can attack in horde tactics with the element of surprize.
If you use/have lots of scouts, then this race loses its ability to
hide. This race can move through minefields one warp faster than
others. The newbie will often expose themselves when they should be
hiding.
WM (War Monger) -- AI is the Insectoid. This race gets two extra ship
classes: The battle cruiser and the dreadnaught. Early advantage is
Weapons .The powerful armed scouts can detect anything in the early game
but are rarely used by the newbie. Ground troops are superior but again
are rarely used early on. Newbies often clog up their ship slots with
several early cruisers while if they had waited a year or so they would
have the battle cruiser which is far more capable and drastically
increased with firepower. Gattling Cannons are unique to this race. The
race start poor in construction. Minefields are not available to this
race. The newbie forgets this and sends it's powerful ships out to do
battle and never leaves anything at home. The homeworld is left
defenseless and ripe for invasion.
The last mistake the newbie makes is to send messages out to "everyone"
thus telling everyone who they are. The experienced player sends out individual
messages which can be focused on information or diplomacy.
The above observations are what I consider the differences between a
"newbie" and an experienced player. These are my opinions and I mean
no disrespect. Any race can be a winner if played well and played
smart. Don't give it all away!!!!!!
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Bluebear.
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This page was created in August, 1997
