New To the Game

posted on February 24th, 2012, 8:26 pm

Hello everyone I have had Star Trek Armada 2 for awihle and just found out about this mod on accident.  After viewing a few vids on this game I decided to download it and give it a try. 

So I've beign playing Instant action for two days now using Mason Federation mainly and Good God I love the Monsoon and the Ecell II.  These two have become my instant action bread and butter for the most part.

However I just downloaded Tungle and am hoping to get some Multiplayer action going soon so any advice about how to use tungle would be helpfull.

Also feel free to offer any tips or stratagies that may be of help and thanks in advance. 

posted on February 24th, 2012, 8:43 pm

Welcome to the community! 

posted on February 24th, 2012, 8:45 pm

Welcome to the forum.

A Federation tip: Be careful if you use their Warp-In ability at the Starfleet Command station, the ships you get there are good but you'll lose some supply if they die. Pretty much a death sentence against a good raider.

posted on February 24th, 2012, 11:48 pm

welcome, monsoons work pretty well online too, monsoons are awesome due to high strength for low cost, a useful passive, and high speed and a special which rocks.

most new players make the mistake of not expanding or attacking, you should rarely be sitting and watching stuff build, always go do something, even if you just force the enemy to stop mining for a few seconds, that is good for you.

posted on February 25th, 2012, 4:49 am

You mentioned you played against AI, I don't play online, but I play AI so I can give some tips on that side of it.

It will quickly be pointed out that Vs AI, and Vs Player are very different games, but if you like AI there are some things you can do that will help as you increase in difficulty, i.e normal, hard, merciless, or if you decide to play against multiple AI, i.e. 2 normal, 2 hard, 2 merciless, 1 hard, 1 normal, or against 3 AIs etc etc. Or if you give yourself an Ai hard ally, and try to fight two mercies with it.

Against AI:

Expand, even more important than early aggression with ships. Get a yard up, and of course build out of it like crazy to give you some ships against early engagements, but really focus on getting moons going.

The best set up for Ai as federation, I find, is a beginning build order at the star base of 8 miners, and 1 constructor (This part is manageable). Followed by 8 miners. I say the first part is manageable because the order of those 8 miners and 1 constructor I find varies by map. With lots of close by moons, I like building 4 miners 1 constructor 4 miners, and then just keep building up miners for all close by moons.

With an extra constructor its like having an extra hand to work with. My allocation for constructor usage is: (after having built both home base mining stations)

1 constructor will stay at home base to build all my research stations throughout the game and sfc (generally the one I build out of SB)

For the other 2:

1 will constantly be building mining stations. It has no other job for the almost the entire game. It goes from moon to moon to moon to moon to moon to moon to moon. Mining fodder. Even if Ai attacks them all (which it might even try to) it makes the AIs vast numbers almost a comedic effect. It will help to divide a much larger force (as ai will outnumber you), but at the same time, even when they do attack with a significant force that you can't repel, because you have so many expansions you won't even feel losing 1, maybe even two full expansions. And, it really gets you in the game quick (initial resource boost). 

The 3rd constructor will alternate between building mining stations with the other, and building turrets or yards in key locations.

Beyond this, it can be advantageous on some maps to build upwards of 4 - 6 constructors. If you look at blue amber, there are just so many moons, that even 1 constructor constantly going around is leaving so much resources untapped. So building extra constructors can be helpful.

Finally:

At first, focus on building out of one yard medium units like you said, monsoons are good or intrepids. After you build up mining, then go to a second yard of the same kind (i.e. don't upgrade yards yet). Then build another unit. All yards offer multiple units. As your resource intake increases, you can then afford to spam out of these two yards, i.e. spamming monsoons and intrepids, then do research, then spam both yards with akiras. Then upgrade yards when you are spamming top notch units out of the bottom one.

posted on February 25th, 2012, 5:06 am

There are only 2 real things you have to worry about in a multiplayer game:

1. Can my fleet beat his fleet?

2. Is my fleet building up faster than his fleet?

Always use your money right away, to either build ships or tech up to better ones.  If his fleet is stronger, run away.  If his fleet is weaker, harass him.  If your fleet is building up faster, defend.  If his fleet is building up faster, you either expand or raid him.

When fast ships lose a fight anywhere, they run away and 1 or 2 die.  When slow ships lose a fight away from your base, they ALL die.  So slow ships are limited to operating near your bases until you have a large number of them.  Turrets can't kill anything on their own, but they create safe havens where your fleet can retreat to.

Understanding when to fight and when to run away is the most important part of Fleet Ops: just because you're outnumbered doesn't mean you should let your entire fleet die!  Any ship that makes it home can repair to full strength for free, so that should be your first priority.

[Cronicus]

posted on February 25th, 2012, 5:15 am

Last edited by Cronicus on February 25th, 2012, 5:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

Thanks for the advice and welcomes I do preciate the hospitality.   I started out AI wise playing with something like 5 hard AI's one of each non fed race.  Best way to get a feel for the game I figured and it gave me a good crash corse into building fast.

I go 4 miners, enginering and dilithium mine right off the bat.  After enginering is up I research chasis lvl 1 and get my small yard and tri mining going once that is done I imediately pump out mons and go start on my next mining expansion.

Once my mining expansion is up and I got my second dilithium moon going with three miners I then build my second yard to get a good number of mons out and about.

After that I bank resorces and start on some research while I build a large yard for my Excell 2's.

generally the close/long range combo of the excells and mons has beign my bread and butter and has carried through litteral sweeps.

I do make system upgrades a priority as well as long as it does not hamper my production.

Not: just got Tungle up and running when is a good time to get in on a game?

posted on February 25th, 2012, 6:38 am

Sounds like a solid starting build.  Some maps have better chokepoints than others: all this means is that one of the moon pairs is in a good position to cover the back ones.  These maps allow slow ships like E2 and Akiras to be more viable, otherwise you may need to stick with faster ships for a very long time, at least in 1v1.  Your E2 build should do fine in larger team games.

Also I would suggest you try substituting Canaverals and their upgrades instead of general ship upgrades and learn how to use Sensor Blackout to gain an edge in big fights.  AI battles tend to last for a long time, but player battles happen all at once, hit and run, so it's better to have powerful short-term effects than weak permanent ones.

I usually just check the front page of this site, it has a ticker that tells you how many people are logged into Tunngle.  Even if it's only 4 people you can often get a 1v1 game.  Other than that it seems to be pretty random although weekends are heavy.

posted on February 25th, 2012, 6:53 am

Theres a ticker on the front page sweetness!  Yea I do get how I may have to use that fuggly looking intrepid wich I do dislike.

Note that I dislike it's look not how it plays I thought that the design was garish when voyager came out. 
If the voyager was something like say an Akira class the show would be 100% better on astetics alone.

Hmm maybe I can get a good team game in later on saturday then.

posted on March 6th, 2012, 12:30 am

Cronicus Eh? Your name alone is enough to make me think your awesome. Hello, I am Crisis, Ex-online Elite and Self-professed Fed-Hater. I must find time to play a match with you one of these days. Welcome To the Game..... Cronicus..