Part 1 (Mines)
These are probably the most important structures in the game, they provide you with a steady stream of metal/crystal and deuterium which provide you the means to build other structures, your ships and to do research. Now what many problems new players have to the game is that they dont build there mines up to a sufficient level, they will build them up to around the high tens low 20's and decide that they have had enough of building mines and decide they would have a lot more fun building ships instead. Even though there is nothing inherently wrong with this, especially if you are pro player who knows what he's doing. You will miss out of a lot of income because you decided that building ships was more important than building your mines up. And what happens is because you dont understand yet the concept of Fleet Saving (to be explained later on) you will most likely get crashed farmed and will likely quit the game, letting your account go inactive. And a player who could have had the potential to be number 1 some day, is gone. Dont let this happen! Try and resist the allure of building ships, and instead work on building your mines up. I usually advise people for a start, to aim for Metal - 25, Crystal 23 and Deuterium 21 on each planet, then work on from there. You will notice the difference in your income, and will find later on you are able to build a lot more ships much quicker when you do decide to build a fleet.
Part 2 (Raiding)
If you are looking for a little extra income, you can look to do some low scale raiding. There are plenty of defenceless inactive targets out there full of plunder ready for you to raid them. If you wish to do this, there are several requirements you have to meet. Firstly you will need to build your research lab up to level 3, this is the level required for espionage tech. When you have done this, research your espionage tech up to level 2. Make sure you also have your combustion tech to level 3 and shipyard to level 3. When you have done this, you will be able to build espionage probes and get a step closer to start your raiding. Build roughly 20 - 30 probes to start with, and start probing inactive planets (Inactive accounts will either have a i or an I next to there name). Also if you dont know you can probe through galaxy view, on the right of galaxy view where it says action, look down and you will see 3 icons. If you have probes on the planet you have currently selected then the first icon on the left should be a picture of an eye. Click this to send out your probes. You can adjust the amount of probes sent through galaxy view by going onto options, then click on general. You will see the option for spy probes, set it to 4. I think that is enough for espionage for now, I will explain the fundamentals of the tech a little later on.
When you have received your spy reports, you will be able to confirm if the target is raidable. For now you will only want to attack planets with no defence, make sure you have a decent number of small and large cargos ready. Start sending them out to the planets you deem raidable, even if it looks like there isn't much to raid. You will find that if you send maybe 10 - 20 raids out a day, you will receive a lot more income and will be able to progress much faster. Thats pretty much it for raiding, if you send out raids daily you will be able to advance much quicker than a player who doesnt. Eventually you will get to the stage where you will be able to build ships to start getting through defences. Though that is a topic for another day.
Part 3 (Research)
If having good mines is the most important thing in ogame, then research is a very close second. For without it you will miss out on most of the buildings, ships and techs which the game has to offer. A good Empire always has good research levels, and Im going to explain to you about each research you can do individually.
Energy Technology - This is one of the most essential techs, it is important for several kinds of weapons and technologies. It is required for, combustion drive (Level 1), Impulse Drive (Level 1), Light Laser (Level 1), Laser Technology (Level 2), Fusion Reactor (Level 3), Heavy Laser (Level 3), Shielding Technology (Level 3), Ion Technology (Level 4), Hyperspace Technology (Level 5), Gauss Cannons (Level 6), Plasma Technology (Level 8 ) and Terraformers (Level 12). When I put the levels next to the weapon or tech, that is meant to represent the required energy tech level required for them. Past level 12, the only use Energy tech has is it will increase the Fusion Reactor's energy production.
Laser Technology - Basically put this technology is used as the base for most weapons, including ion and plasma based weapons. It is required for Light Laser (Level 3), Ion Technology (Level 5), Ion Technology (Level 5), Plasma Technology (Level 10) and Battlecruisers (Level 12). Past level 12, laser tech servers no purpose apart from indestructible points (points that can never be lost).
Ion Technology - This technology study's the purpose of accelerating ions to create weapons. It is required for Cruiser (Level 2), Ion Cannon (Level 4) and Plasma Technology (Level 5). There is no use researching Ion tech past level 5, so that makes it one of the most easiest techs to reach the maximum requirement.
Hyperspace Technology - Hyperspace technology allows research into propulsion systems that power much larger ships and also allows for much faster travel with better fuel efficiency. This technology also allows for instantaneous data transfer at higher levels, allowing several planets to collaborate on important projects. This tech is required for, Hyperspace Drive (Level 3, Battlecruiser (Level 5), Destroyer (Level 5), Death Star (Level 6), Jump Gate (Level 7) and Intergalactic Research Network (Level 8 ). Beyond level 8, the tech has no further use.
Plasma Technology - Essentially this is a fusion between fundemental concepts from Laser Technology and Ion Technology, researching this technology allows your empire to utilize high-energy plasma as a weapon I.E the plasma turret.
Combustion Drive - The Combustion Drive is a technology that allows the construction of Small Cargo and Large Cargo ships, Light Fighters, Recyclers, and Espionage Probes. All ships still using Combustion Drive will have their Base Speed increased by 10% for every level.
In addition to increasing speed, increasing the levels of any drive technology can reduce fuel consumption in one of two ways: First, as top speed increases, you could reduce the speed of a fleet (e.g. for every 1 level of impulse drive, reducing the assigned speed of a colony ship by 20%) making the flight in the same amount of time for less deuterium. Secondly, and more importantly, when a fleet has its speed limited by some ships (e.g. light fighters sent with a deathstar to act as fodder will be forced to fly at the same speed as the deathstar) then ships not flying at their maximum speed will use less fuel at higher levels of the appropriate drive techs. The combustion drive is required for Light Fighter (Level 1), Small Cargo (Level 2), Espionage Probe (Level 3), Large Cargo (Level 6) and Recycler (Level 6).
Impulse Drive - Impulse Drive is a technology required for Heavy Fighters, Cruisers, Colony Ships, and Bombers. After getting Impulse Drive 5, Small Cargo's will double in speed and use Impulse Drive for speed upgrades instead of Combustion Drive. After Hyperspace Drive level 8 is reached, the Bomber uses the faster Hyperspace Drive rather than the Impulse Drive. All ships using Impulse Drive will have their Base Speed increased by 20% for every level of Impulse Drive. The range of Interplanetary Missiles is also dependent on the level of Impulse Drive. Impulse drive is required for Interplanetary Missile (Level 1), Heavy Fighter (Level 2), Colony Ship (Level 3), Cruiser (Level 4), Small Cargo (Level 5) and Bomber (Level 6).
Hyperspace Drive - The drive is used by the Battleship, Bomber (after Level 8 has been achieved), Battlecruiser, Destroyer, and Deathstar. This drive warps space around the ship, and each level increases the base speed of these ships by 30%. This tech is required for Battle Ship (Level 4), Battlecruiser (Level 5), Destroyer (Level 6), Death Star (Level 7) and Bomber (Level 8 ).
Espionage Technology - Espionage technology allows players to see other Planets Buildings, Fleets, Defenses, and Research. The success of the Espionage Mission depends on the difference between the two players' Espionage Technology levels. The higher your Espionage Technology level is over your target, the more likely your Espionage mission will succeed. Additionally, if you are the target of an Espionage Mission a higher Espionage Technology level than your opponent's will result in a better chance for successful Counterespionage (destruction of any incoming probes).
Your level of Espionage Technology also determines the amount of information you get about an incoming foreign fleet on your overview screen. At levels 0-1 you just see that a fleet is approaching. At levels 2-3 you see the number of ships approaching. At levels 4-7 you see what types of ship are in the fleet. And at level 8+ you see how many of each type the fleet contains. Espionage technology is required for Espionage Probe (Level 2) and Astrophysics (Level 4).
Computer Technology - Computer technology involves expanding existing computer capacities. More and more powerful and efficient computer systems are developed. The computing power continually increases and the speed at which computer processes run is also increased. More and more fleets can be commanded simultaneously with increasing computer capacities. Each level of computer technology increases the maximum number of fleets by one. The more fleets you can send at one time, the more you can raid and the more resources you can capture. This technology is also useful for traders, who can also send out more trading fleets at the same time. For this reason, computer technology should be continuously developed throughout the game. If you're not a trader, you'll never really need higher than level 10 for the Nanite Factory. This technology is required for Intergalactic Research Network (Level 8 ) and Nanite Factory (Level 10).
Astrophysics - Upgrading this technology allows you to go on more expeditions and to colonize more planets. Your maximum planet count goes up with every second level of this technology, starting with two planets on level 1 (then one more on 3, 5, 7, and so on). You can also send one more expedition in deep space with every square level of the technology, starting with one expedition on level 1 (then one more on 4,9,16 and so on). It also enables the expeditions to be longer, with +1 hour per level of technology, starting at one hour on level 1. Also, the range in which you can colonize, changes with levels 4 (from 4-12 to 3-13), 6 (to 2-14) and 8 (to 1-15, meaning any position in a system).
Intergalactic Research Network - Intergalactic Research Network is a technology that allows Research Labs from different planets to work together, decreasing research times. Each level of IRN allows one extra lab to join with the lab where you begin research, effectively adding their levels together to compute research time. Joining labs together is completely automatic and transparent: the game will join labs in order of their level (highest first). Labs below the minimum level to research a given technology will be excluded, regardless of IRN. In order to function, each colony must be able to conduct the research independently. Meaning each world has to be able to have requirments for the IRN.
For example, you have level 1 IRN with your labs being levels 10, 8, 6, and 4. You want to research Shielding Technology which requires a level 6 research lab. Level 1 IRN allows 2 research labs to be connected. Starting the research at either of the two higher labs, you will still get the benefits of a 10+8 = level 18 research lab. However, if you start the research at the level 6 lab, you will only get the benefits of a 6+10 = level 16 lab.
The research lab where the research is started (the planet you have the resources on) is always part in the network. Therefore, as the exampl shows, this sometimes means you should use one of your higher level labs in order to gain the quickest possible research time. The IRN is an extremely effective way to cut research time and is obviously a lot cheaper than upgrading one lab that high. As such, is advisable for players planning to research many higher technologies and cannot wait weeks for each to complete. There is no need for higher than level (number of planets-1) of this, since you cannot have more than that number of planets (and Research Labs).
Graviton Technology - Graviton Technology is the pinnacle of technological research in OGame. With a cost of 300,000 Energy, only the strongest empires belonging to the most successful players can afford to research it. Due to its unusual cost (0 metal, 0 crystal, and 0 deuterium; 300,000 energy), its construction time is 1 second. It is a required technology for the construction of Death Stars. A topic later on will discuss the best ways to achieve Graviton.
Weapons Technology - Weapons technology involves further development of existing weapons systems. Particular value is placed on providing more energy to existing systems and channelling that energy more precisely. Thus weapons systems become more efficient and weapons do more damage. Each level of weapons technology increases the weapon strength of both ships and defense by 10 % of the base value. Weapons technology should be increased as fleet size grows. Compare the gain in weapon strength added by upgrading weapons tech to the cost of building more ships and pick whichever is cheaper, but also take into account that research cannot be destroyed while ships can.
Shielding Technology - Shielding technology involves researching new ways of providing shield with energy and thus making them more efficient and tougher. Each developed level increases the efficiency of shields by 10 % of the base value. One of the most important reasons in researching Shielding Technology is the Bouncing effect. Bouncing Effect refers to an exception in combat where an individual ship's attack is less than 1% of the shield power of a given defender.
Armour Technology - Armour Technology is an essential part of building your empire. Every time you upgrade your Armour Technology, you add 10% of the base strength to the hull plating of your fleet and defence, making it a very important technology to research. As many players have excess metal, this technology can be easily researched to a high level.
That pretty much covers research for now, I know it was a fairly long topic but a lot of that information is very important into explaining the uses and importance of the different techs.
Disclaimer: I would like to add now, that most of the information contained in the research section was taken from several guides which explained it better than I could. The rest of this guide will be mostly my own work, but occasionally I may use certain guides to help explain things a bit better.
Part 4 (Ships)
This section will cover the advantages and disadvantages of each ship, though dont start actually building ships until you have read the next section on fleetsaving. Also I will not be explaining what fleet build you should go for, or how to fleet crash properly. I already have in mind to write an advanced raiding/fleeting guide. For now we are just going to determine the pro's and con's of the ships you can build.
Light Fighter - This is the most common ship in the game, and is the first combat ship every player will build. Light Fighters are mostly used as fodder to protect the more important ships in your Empire, they are brilliant for shielding less manoeuvrable ships in battle. Every top fleeter will have Light Fighters in the tens and hundreds of thousands. The other use for light fighters besides protecting capital ships is for them to be used in moonshots, which will be explained in another section. The main weakness for Light Fighters is cruisers have Rapidfire against them, and so will wipe them out easily. A light fighter will also never beat a large shield unless your weapons tech is 11 levels higher than the defenders shielding tech. And a death star can never be destroyed by a light fighter fleet, no matter how many you send. Light fighters have rapid fire against Espionage Probe x5 and Solar Satellite x5, rapidfire will be explained later on.
Heavy Fighter - Although this ship is technically more powerful than the light fighter, it is rarely built because of the high metal crystal cost compared to the light fighter. In my opinion I see no use in building heavy fighters, because before the introduction of the battlecruiser, no ship besides the death star had rapid fire against it. Perhaps early on in the start of the uni when the most common ship is the cruiser, you could build them to defend against them, as cruisers dont have rapidfire against them. So overall, I would highly suggest you avoid building heavy fighters. Because of the small use they provide. Heavy Fighters if your interested have rapidfire against Small Cargo x3, Espionage Probe x5 and Solar Satellite x5.
Cruisers - As we have already seen, the cruiser is at its best when it comes up against light fighters and rocket launcher fodder. Also thanks to the cruisers immense speed, it makes for a useful raiding ship, especially early on in game. However cruisers should never be used as your mine attack ship later on. Because they lack the power of the battleship, and if you come up against a death star you will need 3 more levels of weapons tech than the defenders shielding tech to do any damage. So overall I would have a good numbers of cruisers ready to clear of any fodder, though make sure you have some more powerful ships in your fleet to back them up. Cruisers have rapidfire against Espionage Probe x5, Solar Satellite x5, Light Fighter x6 and Rocket Launcher x10.
Battleship - The battleship is the backbone of any fleet, thanks to its strong armour, powerful weapons and a large cargo capacity. It makes it the perfect raiding ship, thanks to there high speed and power they are one of the most commonly used ships in the game, and I would highly recommend you build them aswell. However bare in mind, that battleships should never be used against heavy defences by themselves, mix in a few bombers and destroyers. Also battleships are highly vulnerable to battlecruisers, so try and avoid having a battleship heavy fleet. So do build battleships, though try and mix other ships like destroyers with them so you wont be as vulnerable to battlecruisers. Battleships have rapidfire against Espionage Probe x5 and Solar Satellite x5.
Battlecruiser - This is the ship most commonly used for fleet crashing, its powerful weapons and high speeds make it ideal for taking on enemy ships. Battlecruisers are an ideal choice for most fleeters because of the rapidfire it has against most ships. It also has 10,000 additional integrity than the battleship. The only ships that the battlecruiser has to worry about are destroyers and deathstars. Though this weakness isn't exploited much, because most players dont amass as many destroyers and deathstars. The battlecruiser is also not very effective against turtled planets, because of there lack of rapidfire against defence. The battlecruiser also has 300 less weapon power than the battleship, though most players overlook this. So overall, if you are serious about fleeting and raiding you will build battlecruisers. There high speed and rapidfire against most ships make them the perfect ships for fleet crashing. The battlecruiser has rapidfire against, Espionage Probe x5, Solar Satellite x5, Small Cargo x3, Large Cargo x3, Heavy Fighter x4, Cruiser x4 and Battleship x7.
Bomber - The bomber is used primarily for the planetary bombardment to destroy planets defence. It has rapid fire against most defences, and so is one of the best ships you can use against turtles. Also the only ship to have rapidfire against it is the deathstar. However, bombers shouldn't be used to attack enemy fleets due to there slow speed and high duet cost. You would be better of using destroyers instead. So if you are looking to do some turtle smashing, you will definitely want to build some bombers. Though Don't become to reliant on them, build destroyers along with them. Bombers have rapidfire against, Espionage Probe x5, Solar Satellite x5, Rocket Launcher x20, Light Laser x20, Heavy Laser x10 and Ion Cannon x10.
Destroyers - Besides the deathstar, this is the most powerful ship in the game. They are used along with bombers to crush turtles. The draw back for these ships are there relatively slow speed and high duet cost. Though they make up for it with there immense fire power and Structural integrity. Destroyers are used to wipe out battlecruiser fleets, and are highly effective at this. The two main draw backs in my opinion are the high cost of building a destroyer, and the high duet cost of sending the ships out. Though despite this, I always focus on building a high number of destroyers. Because of there effectiveness against turtles and there immense fire power. The destroyer has rapid fire against Espionage Probe x5, Solar Satellite x5, Solar Satellite x5 and Battlecruiser x2.
DEATHSTAR - This is the ship every new player dreams of building, the satisfaction of researching graviton and building your first death star is great. The deathstar has 100X more fire power than the destroyer and its Structural integrity is 9,000,000. The deathstar also has rapidfire against all ships and defence apart from the plasma turret. Many turtles especially in speed unis will have 50 - 100 deathstars, depending on the size of the turtle it will take a lot of fleet from the attacker to break through. Deathstars are also used for moon destruct missions, the chance of success for a moon destruct depends on the size of the moon and how many RIPs you send in each wave. Moon destructs should only be attempted until you have a fair number of RIPs at your disposal. So the deathstar is the ultimate war ship (or mobile battle station in the RIPs case) you would definitely look to be able to build this ships. The deathstar has rapidfire against Espionage Probe x1250, Solar Satellite x1250, Small Cargo Ship x250, Large Cargo Ship x250, Light Fighter x200, Heavy Fighter x100, Cruiser x33, Battleship x30, Colony Ship x250, Recycler x250, Bomber x25, Destroyer x5, Battlecruiser x15, Rocket Launcher x200, Light Laser x200, Heavy Laser x100, Ion Cannon x100 and Gauss Cannon x50.
[justify][color=red]Small/Large Cargos - As you probably have guessed by now, these ships are used for the transport of resources between planets. The main differences between the two are, small cargos are cheaper to build than a large cargo and they are a lot faster. However they use more fuel than a large cargo and the weaker structural integrity than the large cargo makes them more likely to be destroyed. Thanks to the large cargos stronger armour and larger cargo capacity, it makes them the ideal choice for large transports and raiding. So although you should have a few hundred small cargos ready incase your looking to do a quick raid, or need to transport resources quickly. Though dont over rely on them, focus on building large cargos for raiding missions and larger transport missions.
Colony Ship - In short, this ship is used to colonise new planets. It has a decent cargo capacity so you can send some resources along with the ship when you colonise so you dont have to wait for the initial resources to build up your infrastructure. Because of there strong armour and half decent cargo space, some players may use the colony ships in a raid. Though to the best of my knowledge this is something which is rarely done anymore.
Recycler - If you have ever been unfortunate enough to have been fleetcrashed, then you will know that when ships are destroyed they create a Debris Field above the planet. You will see if there is a DF by going onto galaxy view and looking at the DF column, if there is a DF above the planet the little symbol will be showing and the amount of the DF above the planet. The larger DF's have a red symbol to show there larger than smaller ones. If you have enough recyclers you can send them to a DF and harvest it, recyclers are however fairly slow. So if someone already has recyclers after it you will probably miss out. The speed of your recyclers are determined by the level of your combustion tech.
Solar Satellite - These ships are cheap way to produce power for your planets, although they are vulnerable to attack there comes a point where you cannot rely on solar plants anymore. I generally say you dont build your solar plant past level 23, as it wastes to many fields past this. Solar sats are cheap to build, so if you do lose them there easy to replace. I would advise that when you do build your sats, make sure you have enough defence to make it unprofitable for someone to attack you.
Part 5 (Res/FleetSaving)
This is the part of the game that all player must understand and at all costs, for if you do not learn how to res and fleetsave properly you will get farmed, you will get crashed and your game will be over. Im going to explain to you the best fleet and res save methods for the situation you might be in.
When you fleetsave your fleet and resources are in a state where they cannot be attacked, that's why we stress the importance of fleet saving. However if you do the wrong fleetsave method for the situation you are in, it can potentially leave you worse off and vulnerable to being phalanxed (To be explained later). Now, if you are like me and dont have any moons there is only one fleet save method guaranteed to keep you safe. This is known as the deploy and recall method, when you plan on being offline for more than an hour (or maybe less because of the speed of the uni), you will need to select all ships on your planet, select a planet you want to send them to (preferably the one furthest away and choose the slowest speed possible to send them at. When you have done this, you will need to select the deploy mission and fill up as much resources as you can into your ships. When you have done this send your fleet, now anyone who phalanxes the planet you are deploying the ships will be able to see them. Which its why its vitally important you get online before the fleet reaches the planet and recall. You can recall fleets, by clicking on the fleet tab, then click on the fleet movement option. You will see an arrow if you click on that your fleet will recall. When you have done this, your fleet will be safe because a recalled deployment mission is not visible on phalanx. So remember the deploy recall method when fleetsaving, this is the only guaranteed method of keeping your fleet safe without a moon!
Now lets say you do have a network of moons set up, there is now more than one way of fleetsaving that will offer you a certain degree of safety. Firstly, you can do an attack fleetsave on an inactive target. This is a nice way to earn a bit of resources and keep your fleet flying. However it has two problems, firstly if someone was to phalanx the planet you were fleetsaving to they would see your fleet and would potentially be able to time your fleet back. Also you would be vulnerable to a moon destruct mission. Someone could destroy your moon and will be able to see exactly when your fleet returns and they could time there fleet to arrive seconds after yours returns, giving you no chance of escape. What has been said for this first method also apply's to transport missions, so generally you would want to avoid doing these fleetsave methods as there are to many weaknesses to be exposed through them.
One of the most common fleetsave methods, and the one you would generally use in a 1X speed uni is called the harvest fleetsave. What you basically do is send your fleet out on a harvest mission to a DF (preferably an invisible DF). The reason why this mission is safer than the previous two, is because an out going harvest mission cannot be seen on phalanx. Though like the previous two you are still vulnerable to a moon destruct mission. Because of the speed on this uni, moon destructs are very common, so especially if you have a lot of ships I would like you to avoid these methods and instead use the next and best method of fleetsaving.
So what is the best fleetsave method? You guessed it, deploy and recall! Though instead of deploying from a planet to another planet, or from a moon to a planet. You deploy from one moon to another. This method is guaranteed 100% to keep your fleet safe, the reason why is if you are unfortunate enough to have one of your moons blown up there is a way out of it. If it is the outgoing moon which is destroyed, then you can simply let the deployment mission continue on course and your safe. Or if it is the moon you have deployed to, you can just recall the deploy mission. Even if both the moons are destroyed you can still recall the mission and it wont be visible on phalanx. The one potential draw back of this is, depending on the size of your fleet and how spread out your moons are, you will spend a lot of duet on your fleet saves. So try and use moons which are relatively close together and you will save on duet. So out of all the fleetsave methods we have analysed, it has been shown and proven that the only way of truly keeping your fleet and resources safe is to send them on a deployment mission between your moons and recall before it lands.
Now I am going to briefly explain how to protect any resources left on your planet, the simplest solution is to invest all remaining resources into defence especially plasma turrets. Eventually you may get to the point where your defence is strong enough to protect any over night production, though dont risk it until your confident that your defence is strong enough to make it pointless for someone to attack you. Another way to protect your resources is to invest all of it into a long piece of research or structure, then cancelling before it completes. Though the problem with this method is, depending on what stage of the game you are at you may not have anything that can last more than a few hours. This will affect early game players more, as the later in the game you get the longer things will take to build and research. So these are two of the most effective ways of protecting your resources, of course the other way as previously explained is to send you resources on your fleetsave.
Part 6 (Defence)
Although some people may not see it this way, defence is a highly important part of the game. Without it, you would become an easy target to farm. before I explain what I believe the ideal defence is, I am going to tell you about and explain the different defence structures you can build.
Rocket Launcher - This is the first defence structure you will build, it is also the weakest though. Rocket launchers are similar to the light fighter because they are used as fodder to protect the more important defences like the plasma turret and gauss cannon. Generally people prefer to have rocket launchers as fodder rather than light lasers because you waste valuable crystal which could be spent on plasma turrets. One of the main downsides to the RL however, is that cruisers have rapidfire against them. So especially early on in the game where cruiser fleets are more prominent, your RLs are highly vulnerable.
Light Laser - Like the rocket launcher, the light lasers used by a lot of players as fodder. They are more powerful than the rocket launcher, so if especially if you have them in large numbers they will be a lot more effective than rocket launcher fodder. However as I said in the last paragraph, the crystal cost can be a bit of the put off for a lot of players. Mainly because your better off spending it on gauss cannons and plasma turrets. So by all means look to have some light laser fodder, though make sure you take into consideration how it will effect the construction of heavy defence.
Heavy Laser - The heavy laser is a more enhanced and powerful version of the light laser, the heavy laser is more of a late game thing because destroyers dont have rapid fire against it. So people have to use the less powerful and more fuel consuming bomber to destroy them. However because a fair few ships have rapid fire against the heavy laser it isn't widely built. Though they can be useful n certain situations.
Gauss Cannon - Only second to the plasma turret in weapon power, the gauss cannon is a great defence structure to have against enemy ships. Compared to the Plasm Turret, it doesnt deal as much damage to enemy capital ships, though they are very useful for wiping out fodder because you can build a lager number of them. The only real weakness for the Gauss Cannon is that a deathstar has rapid fire against it, though that is a minor problem in reality. So always have a good number of Gauss Cannons on your planets backed up by a decent amount of fodder.
Ion Cannon - The main strength of the ion cannon is its strong shield power, meaning it can absorb more damage than most defences. However ships strong as the battleship will be able to get through the shields fairly easy. They also have a really high crystal cost, its the only defence structure to cost more crystal than metal. Despite this, having a decent number of ion cannons can be useful, because they can absorb a large amount of damage per round.
Plasma Turret - The plasma turret is the ultimate defence in ogame, the only thing that can trump it is the deathstar. And even that hasn't got rapid fire against it, the Plasma Turret is the thing that balances out defence and ships. Planets which have a fair number of plasmas on them usually deter raiders from attacking. Though it depends on how much profit you leave lying around. So dont be fallen into a false sense of security, even with plasmas you can still be hit! The only real draw back of the plasma turret is its high cost, though despite that they are worth building in large numbers.
So what defence make up should you have on your planets, you need to take into account the speed of the uni. There are large fleets out there, so you will need a larger defence than you would in a normal Uni. This is the defence which I would recommend, 15,000 Rocket Launchers 5,000 Light Laser 1000 Heavy Lasers 500 Gauss Cannons 200 Ion Cannons 150 Plasma Turrets and both shield domes. This in my opinion would be the perfect defence, though you may feel better with a slightly smaller version of this defence, or you might want to add more to it. Its your choice in the end, as long as you have a good balance with plenty of heavy's protected by fodder you should be ok.
Part 7 (Colonising)
As you may or may not have figured out by now, you can have more than one planet by sending out colonisation missions. Of course the benefits of this are increased resource production overall, you will gain extra points through more buildings being built. Though colonising does have certain annoyances to it, the first of these is astrophysics. This is a relatively new feature and you are required to research it to be able to colonise a planet. With every 2 levels of astrophysics you are able to colonise a new planet. And as you may have guessed, the higher the level the more expensive it costs. TO research the required level to acquire 9 planets it would cost you 10,106,300 Metal, 20,212,600 Crystal and 10,106,300. Though of course the benefit of this system is that there is no limit to the amount of planets you can get. Though realisticly the most planets you will ever get if you play for long enough is 12.
Now when you colonise there are certain things which you need to know and remember, firstly you want a good number of fields on your new colony. You can see how many fields a planet has by clicking on overview, and looking 3 rows above your points. You will have the size of the planet and how many fields it has, for example: 111/211, the number on the left represents how many fields you are currently using. The maximum number of fields you can get is 250, and you will want to aim for a planet with at least 190 + fields. Try and avoid keeping any planets below this figure, your going to run out of fields sooner rather than later if you do. Also certain slots are better for fields than others. The only ones you need to know about are 7, 8 & 9. Always aim for these slots , they are guaranteed to give you the best chance of a good sized planet.
You also want to try and aim for good planet spread depending on your playing style, if you are a miner you would want to keep your planets close together so you can easily send resources between them. Though if you like to raid and fleet you would want your planets spread out throughout the galaxy's so you have a good range to raid. However, because Electra is a packed Uni and the best slots are fought over fiercely, you may not get the desired planet spread.
That is pretty much the basics of colonising, all you need to remember is astrophysics is expensive so be prepared to set aside resources for it. Never keep a planet with less than 190 fields unless necessary. And try and aim for slots 7 8 & 9, do this and you will be ok for colonising. Also if possible try and aim for a decent planet spread, though as explained this may not be possible.
Part 8 (Playing Styles)
As I have hinted, there are many different playing styles from which you can choose from. If you are an ogame veteran, then you will already know what your playing style your going to choose when you create a new account. Though if you are new, you wont really know what you are going to do. Generally you should wait till you have reached 100k points until you decide what playing style you are going to play. until you reach that stage make sure you have got a decent infrastructure set up, this is going back to the section about mines. Now here are the different playing style choices available to you, I have no idea what is best for you and ultimately the choice is up to you.
Miner - This one is pretty self explanatory, miners are people who mine high amount of resources and sell (especially duet to fleeters). They are generally turtles aswell. Because being a miner is a fairly relaxed playing style, you wont need to be as active as a raider or fleeter. I personally find mining a fairly boring affair, though this may suit people who dont have to much time to play.
Raider - A raider is someone who attacks people for profit, raiding doesnt really involve any high scale hits. Raiders wont attack someone if it is off no profit to them, this is a more intense playing style than mining though its not as intense as the next playing style.
Fleeter - Fleeters like myself will generally hit any target either for profit or no profit, generally we prefer profitable hits though. And we do this to gain fame and respect amongst are fellow ogamers, fleetcrashing is a complicated business and should only be attempted if you have experience at it or if you have been taught how to fleet properly by an experienced player.
Turtle - These are the most hated players in the game, they build massive turtles and they can leave whatever they want behind it and be confident no one will touch them. This is generally true which is why they are despised, though occasionally turtles will get obliterated either through a massive fleet or a giant IPM storm. If you do plan on becoming a turtle please be aware of the risk you are taking, because in a matter of hours your turtle could be wiped out and the drop in points would be immense.
These are the main playing styles out there, the choice of which you want to go with is up to you.
Part 9 (Moons)
When you go onto galaxy view you may have seen those pictures of moons by players planets, if you wish to know how to obtain these and to develop your moon then read on. If you dont plan on getting any moons then feel free to skip this part.
Moons are obtained when ships are destroyed, if you are lucky the DF created by those ships will form a moon around the planet. However the chances of this happening are low, because the chance of getting a moon ranges from 1% to 20%, 20% obviously being the highest chance of getting a moon. Now you may not wish to obtain a moon through the destruction of your own fleet, so there are better options. These are known as moonshot trades, this is when two players send 20% moon chances at each other. The best way of getting a 20% moonshot is to either use 1667 light fighters or 112 battleships. People usually prefer to use 1667 light fighters because they are more expendable, and all takes to kill them is around 200 cruisers. You should really wait until your account is properly developed until you start doing moonshots. Because of the low chance of getting a moon even at 20% its unlikely you will get a moo at the first attempt. So you will need to be able to pump out a good number of light fighters at a regular basis. Dont be disheartened if it takes a while before a successful moonshot attempt, as I have explained you have a low chance of getting a moon even from a 20% moonshot. So it could take any number attempts before you get one, it could range from 1 to 50.
Now lets say you get your first moon, the size of your moon depends on what moon shot percent you used for it. If it was a 20% moon chance the moon will be around 8,000KM, though lets say it was a 10% chance your moon will probably be half that size. You dont want this to happen, and Ill explain why in a short while. Now when you see your moon on overview you will notice it only has 1 field, all moons start with 1 field. Now you most be wandering how it is possible to build anything, well you can actually create fields by building a lunar base. Each level you upgrade will grant you an extra 3 fields, you will want to upgrade your lunar base as much as possible so you can maximise your moons potential. There are four other structures available to you, they are of the following.
Robotics Factory - Especially in the construction of Jump Gates, you will want your robotics to be as of a high a level as possible. Each level of robotics will cut the construction time of other lunar buildings.
Shipyard - This is needed in case you wish to build defence on your moon, generally you will want your shipyard to be level 8 so you can build plasmas on your moon. Though we will talk more about that a little later on.
Sensor Phalanx - I have already mentioned once or twice in this guide how the sensor phalanx can be used to see players incoming and outgoing missions. You will see the exact make up of the fleet and what time it will arrive or return, the only things you cannot phalanx are moons, outgoing harvest missions and recalled deployment missions. If you are still wandering how to use your phalanx, then you have to make sure your moon is selected go into galaxy view and you may notice the little symbol by players planet names. If you click on it the phalanx will work, however you must remember that each time you use the phalanx it will cost you 5,000 deuterium. And the other thing to remember is the range of your phalanx is totally dependent on what level it is. So level 1 will only let you phalanx planets in your own system, however level 10 will give you a range of 99 systems.
Jump Gate - The jump gate will only work if you have more than one moon and more than one jump gate. Because multiple jump gates allow you to move fleet instantaneously between your moons, so if you have a gated moon in galaxy 1 and a gated moon in galaxy 9 you could jump your fleet between them instantly, however there a few things you need to remember, firstly you cannot jump resources between moons. And there is a cool down period of 1 hour after you have used the jump gate, during that period you wont be able to use the Jump Gates in which you sent the fleet from and to. So jump gates are really useful structures, you will have more targets to hunt and so you will bring in more resources. And its even possible to try and set up a jump gate ninja, this is when you jump most of your ships to another moon though leave enough behind so someone might be tempted to attack you. Make sure you create no activity on that moon and a few seconds before the attack arrives jump your main fleet back, you ninja the attacker and get a nice profit depending on the size of you hit.
Now as I mentioned in the fleet saving section, moons can be destroyed by death stars. Of course it takes a bit of luck to destroy a moon, it depends ultimately on the size of your moon, and how many waves the attacker will send at you. Now there is a way you can prevent a moon destruct, the best way is to build moon defence. This is the reason why I said you should have a level 8 shipyard on your moon so you can build plasma turrets. With equal techs at 13 all round 7 PT will force a draw with 1 DS, 13 PT force a draw with 2 DS and 19 PT force a draw with 3 RIPs. 37 PT will destroy 1 DS, 75 PT will destroy 2 DS and 110 PT will destroy 3 DS. And 200 PT can withstand 6 waves of 3 DS. Though it all depends on what techs you have, if the attacker has better techs it will require you to have more PT (Thanks to Sky for this info). The other way to avoid a moon destruct is to ninja the incoming DS, this all depends on how much fleet you have though at even techs of 13 all round, 100 destroyers will destroy 1 DS. Though as explained techs will vary, so you may need more of them. You also could ask a stronger player to ninja the DS for you, most people would be happy to help you. Especially when there is some profit in it for them.
If your a raider or fleeter, then having a good moon spread is essential to maximize the potential targets to hit. If your not sure which planets would be best to moon, then all you need to do is look at the surrounding galaxys see if there are any inactive players around. Do some probing if you wish, but I will stress now DO NOT attack someone without a moon. Any player with a sensor phalanx within range will be able to see your attack and they could either ninja the outgoing attack. Or they could time back your attack to the planet, and depending on how accurate they are theres a slim chance of escaping from that. If you have done the colonising process correctly, and got a decent spread and then mooned all of those planets. Then you will have the best chance of bringing in a stable profit and boosting the effectiveness of your account overall. Also dont forget to make sure your moons are gated, it will be a lot easier to move your fleet to different hunting grounds then.
So moons are highly useful things to have, apart from being able to fleetsave safely from them. You are able to see any players outgoing or incoming missions through the sensor phalanx. Or you could even move giant fleets instantly via your jump gates. However you must always be wary of the threat of moon destructs, and take the above precautions to help prevent them.
Part 10 (Graviton - And How to Achieve it)
As promised I am going to try and explain to you how to research graviton, first though lets look at he requirements. All you need is a level 12 research lab, and enough solar sats to get 300,000 energy. Now graviton takes a lot of thinking ahead and careful planning, you cant just randomly start building sats and hope you will get the required energy to research it. The amount of energy a solar sat produces is dependent on the temperature of the planet. Slot 1 planets are generally the hottest and so will produce the most sat energy. You will also want to consider how long it will take you to actually build each individual satellite, you will need a good level nanite factory. Anyway here is the first method of going for grav, and this is the one I used.
First off colonise a slot 1 planet, preferably in a fairly remote area. You dont want to colonise in galaxy 1 or 2 where there are a lot of active fleeters. Try and place your grav colony in galaxy's 7, 8 or 9. When you have done this you will need to develop your colony, firstly you will need a level 12 research lab so you can actually research graviton. Then you will need to work on developing your Robotics factory and Shipyard, I built mine up to level 10. Then you will need to build your nanite factory up so the sats dont take forever to build. I built mine to level 3, though some people recommend you go up to level 4. You have now properly developed your colony for graviton, now you will need to calculate exactly how many sats it will take to reach 300,000 energy. I used [url=http://o-calc.com/]O-Calc[/url] for mine, it was 100% accurate for me. Fill out all the necessary fields, energy tech is included there. I would recommend you research that up to level 12 before you start preparing for graviton. It will help a bit, and will unlock the terraformer. Also you can use the Engineer officer to increase energy out-put, though that depends on whether you have Dark Matter or not.
When I entered all my information, this was what I needed to research Graviton and how long it would take: You will need 4.546 Solar Satellites ~ 9.092k Crystal and 2.273k Deuterium, 10:06:08. Results may vary depending on how you developed your planet. Now the next stage is to start preparing the resources needed to build those sats. Firstly you will need to build 500 - 600 Large Cargo's so you can transport all the resources in one go. And I would recommend building 200 - 300 recyclers so you can recycle the crystal for when your sats are crashed. Now you will need to build up the resources, the amount of time this takes you depends on how good your mines are. And if people are willing to trade you the crystal or duet. As the resources start building up, deploying and recalling becomes vital. Having large amounts of crystal and duet sitting on your planet will make you a good target, and it would be annoying if you had to start build up the resource again. So as soon as you get a large amount of crystal and duet built up on your planet start using the deploy and recall method I showed you.
Now when you have all the resources needed to build the sats in one go, transport it to your grav planet. Also deploy those recyclers you have built, and when the res arrives start building the sats immediately. Now all you need to do is wait and hope no one probes your planet during the sat building. If you are unlucky enough to have your sats crashed during the process, dont be disheartened. Try again, though this time try and build your nanite factory up another level so the sats can be built quicker. Remember every nanite level will half the production time of ships defence or structures. Now lets say you are fortunate enough to build your sats unhindered and have reached the required 300,000 energy. Now all you need to do is go into the research section and click to research graviton. Graviton researches instantly so there is no waiting time. If you have reached this point, congrats! You have just researched graviton, and are now able to start building death stars.
Now if you wandering what to do with the sats you basically have two choices, either you just abandon the colony and not bother recycling the crystal. Or you can ask someone who has a few death stars to crash the sats, or you could even wait till someone probes your planet and sends an attack. You can then time your recyclers to harvest the DF 1 second after the attack arrives, and you get some of your resources back. Whether you want the crystal or not, you will need to abandon the colony because of its lack of fields. Though before you do make sure you deploy any ships and resources still left on the planet. When you abandon the planet the points drop wont be as bad as you may think, and you will recover your losses fairly quickly.
That pretty much completes the section on how to complete graviton, I know I said there was more than one way to do it. But I strongly believe that my way is the best way, some people may disagree but the speed of my method and the relatively low cost makes it a more viable option.
Part 11 (Expeditions)
Basically an expedition allows you to send your fleet into deep space and explore, the slot for this is 16. The amount of expeditions you can send is dependent on your level of astrophysics, level 1 lets you send 1 expedition at a time. Whilst with level 10 you can send 3 at one time. The result of an expedition is in theory random, though certain fleet make ups seem to produce certain results. An expedition could land you a fortune, from free resources to free ships. You can even find friendly aliens who give you a free merchant to use. However there is a bad side to expeditions, firstly you can be attacked by pirates or aliens. You dont need to worry about pirates, however aliens will destroy your ships. Because they will have better weapons, armour and shielding tech than you. Or your ships could even get lost, and in that case they will not return. Hopefully that wont happen to you, though there is always a chance it could happen. So be wary when you send out an expedition, the results may not be what you want. There is also those results in between, in which basically nothing useful happens. Certain examples are, Your fleet took some good pictures of outer space, Have problems with the fleet, be fixed and come back or Find an Alien Virus. There are other examples, and they wont benefit or harm you in any way. Also take note of the expedition findings, if it says its an unexplored section send more explorations even if you didn't find something the first time, of course the opposite is also true, if its a largely explored sector of space don't bother returning.
So what fleet make up should you use, well here are some examples from which people claim to have had a good amount of success.
1) 68 Heavy Fighters 96 Large Cargos 1 Destroyer 1 probe
2) 65 Heavy Fighters 50 Large Cargos 1 Battle Cruiser, 1 Probe
3) 69 Heavy Fighters 96 Large Cargos 1 Destroyer
4) 168 Small Cargos 10 Light Fighters 13 Heavy Fighters 1 Destroyer 1 Bomber 270 probes
These are just a few examples of relatively successful expedition fleets, feel free to experiment with them and try out a few combos of your own. This just about covers expeditions for now, remember that expeditions are completely random and anything could happen from finding new ships to losing your entire fleet.
Part 12 (Dark Matter)
Dark matter can be used to purchase premium features within the game, though to gain dark matter you need to be willing to spend real life money. Though there are ways to earn some free dark matter, the first is through expeditions. Though the amount you will get is an insignificant amount compared to what you need to purchase these features. And the other way is to complete some surveys and in return you get a free amount of dark matter. However I've never tried this and cannot tell you if this is something worth doing. And the final way to get free dark matter is to use a coupon, you can purchase these as gifts for friends or sometimes on special occasions game forge will send all players a code which you can use to get usually 50,000 dark matter. Though because this happens rarely, the best way to obtain dark matter is to buy it.
Now there are several features which you can obtain via dark matter, the first of these is the merchant. For a cost of 3,500 dark matter you can call in a merchant and trade him a resource of your choice. The rates are generally pretty good, and this is a good way to get rid of any excess resources you may have. For example, you could have to much duet and you have a lack of crystal, so you go to the merchant and sell your duet to him for the crystal. Depending on what rate the merchant is using, if you sell 1 million duet you could get anything from 1.5 to 2 million crystal. So the merchant is starting to look like a really good feature, however there are certain things you need to consider. Firstly you cannot exceed the storage capacity's on your planets, so if you have maxed out on metal you wont be able to purchase any from the merchant. Also you can only use the merchant once, once you have completed the trade that's it. If suddenly decided that you want to trade more resources you will need to spend another 3,500 dark matter to call another merchant. So that's the merchant, a very useful feature indeed.
Now on to the next features you can spend dark matter on, these are known as officers. At the top right of the screen you may have noticed the pictures of those 5 faces. These are the officers, and all of them are meant to give you the edge over people who refuse to use them. There are many benefits to having officers, and I will do my best to explain them to you.
Commander - The commander is the officer that offers you the most amount of features, the first of these is the build que. With this you no longer have to wait to put another structure under production. This is really useful when your going to be offline for more than a few hours, though remember the resources have to be present for the constructions to take place. The next feature is the empire view, empire view allows you to literally view your empire with just one click. It will show all buildings ships and resources on all of you planets and moons. This is a really good feature for seeing what the strengths and weaknesses of your empire are. Command also improves galaxy view, the best way it does this in my view is by letting you probe moons. If you dont have commander you will need to manually enter the coordinates of the moon to probe it. Whilst with commander you can do it with just one click in galaxy view. The next benefit is the message filter it provides, it will separate all your messages into there appropriate category. For example: espionage reports, battle reports and alliance. The final benefit of the commander is that it removes that annoying advertisement on the right of your screen which you may have noticed. So that is what the commander has to offer, the cost of purchasing it is, for one week 10,000 dark matter and for 3 months 100,000 dark matter.
Admiral - The admiral only offers you one extra benefit which is the two extra fleet slots, this can be useful is you are a raider and want to send out a extra raid or two. That of course will mean extra resources being pumped into your account, and you will progress a little quicker than other people. The cost of the admiral is 5,000 dark matter for 1 week and 50,000 dark matter for 3 months.
Engineer - The engineer has two benefits, the first of these is that it gives you 10% more energy production. As I mentioned in the graviton section this can be useful to have to reduce the number of sats you have to build. The other benefit of the engineer is that it halves all losses to defence when you are attacked, this can be useful to have if you are being repeatability attacked by someone. The cost of this is 5,000 dark matter for 1 week, and 50,000 dark matter for 3 months.
Geologist - Although the geologist only offers you one benefit, it is probably the best. And because of it, the geologist is probably the most used officer in the game. What it does is increase your mine production by 10%, this means more resources are produced to help build up your empire. And people who use the geologist will advanced significantly quicker than those who dont. The geologist costs 12,500 dark matter for 1 week and 125,000 for 3 months.
Technocrat - The technocrat has two benefits to it, the first of these is that it increases your espionage tech level by 2. That means you will have more of a chance to a have a good espionage report from a higher ranked player because you can compete with there espionage tech. Also it will increase the chance of counter espionage for other people who probe you. The technocrat will also decrease the research level time by 25%, this can be really useful for when you have a long piece of research to do. And the best things about it is even if the technocrat runs out half way through the research, it will not affect the time it has to finish researching. The technocrat costs 10,000 dark matter for 1 week and 100,000 for 3 months.
So that sums up the uses of officers, there is one more feature available to you though. At a immense cost of 240,000 dark matter you will be able to relocate one of your planets to another slot. This feature has a lot of benefits, mainly being if you are a raider or fleeter, your targets may have dried up so you can just relocate to a new hunting ground and start raiding again. If you are being constantly attacked by another player and are looking for a quick escape, you can just relocate and your problems are solved. This feature can also be useful for those who aren't happy with there planet placement, they can just relocate a few of there planets until they are happy with there planet spread. So this is sounding like a really nice feature, however there are certain things you will need to consider besides the cost of it. Firstly it will take 24 hours before the relocation takes place, and during this period everything on the planet is frozen. This includes all fleet movement, any structures defence fleet or ships you may wish to build. And during this planet freeze, you are vulnerable to attack. Though I cannot actually confirm this, it might be the case that your planet cannot be attacked. Though Im fairly certain you can be attacked during the 24 hours. So take precautions, and make sure you dont leave any significant amounts of resources or ships on the planet. After the 24 hours, your planet will relocate along with your moon, structures resources and defence. Any ships which were on the planet will be deployed to the planet at no cost to yourself.
So this pretty much sums the features you can buy with dark matter, all of them provide many benefits. Though remember to consider the costs of being able to purchase them, and take precautions when you use features like the merchant and relocation.
Part 13 (Scripts & Ad-ons)
Many people, especially those new to the game dont know how much they are missing out by not using scripts. Scripts give you so many more advantages over those who dont use them, they also make the game a lot easier. I am going to talk you through how to start using scripts, its a fairly easy process and requires little effort
First off, if you haven't already install firefox. Its a lot better than internet explorer, and better to play ogame on. You can install firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/new. When you have done that you will need to install grease monkey, you need grease monkey to be able to install the scripts to be used for ogame. You can install it https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey.
Now when you have installed both firefox and grease monkey, you are ready to start installing scripts. You can find a list of legal scripts http://board.ogame.org/board684-ogame-org/board199-help-questions/board200-faqs-guides/639175-list-of-tolerated-ogame-addons. Please note that any script not listed here should not be installed because you risk getting banned. One script I would particularly recommend you install is http://board.ogame.org/board684-ogame-org/board199-help-questions/board200-faqs-guides/639175-list-of-tolerated-ogame-addons/#post8849333. This offers the most features and will greatly enhance your game, installing anti game is a must! It will make your game a lot better I guarantee you.
Part 14 (General)
Here I will talk you through anything I may have missed. These will mostly include the structures which I haven't talked about yet.
Solar Plant - A Solar Plant is a building used to generate energy to power your Metal Mine, Crystal Mine, and Deuterium Synthesizer. Generally you should never build this past level 23 because it will waste important fields.
Fusion Reactor - Fusion reactors are used for the conversion of deuterium into energy. Fusion Reactors are especially effective as additional energy generation on colder planets, where Solar Satellites generate less energy, because colder planets generate more deuterium. The efficiency raises according to the Energy Technology level as well as its own level, making the Fusion Reactor less effective for smaller players, but a serious alternate energy source for larger ones. However I wouldn't advise building them if unnecessary, they waste duet and the energy produced doesnt compare from what you can get if you build sats.
Robotics Factory - Robotics factories reduce the time taken to construct buildings, ships and defence. Robotics reduces in value at higher levels, at level 10 you are able to build the nanite factory. Dont bother building the robotics past ten and instead focus on nanites after that.
Nanite Factory - Each level of nanite will cut the construction time of ships defence and buildings by half, that's why they are so important in this game. You should maintain a decent nanite level on all of your planets, generally it should be level 3 or 4 eventually on every planet. And some planets could have there nanite levels increased further.
Missile Solo - The missile solo is used for the storage of Anti Ballistic and interplanetary missiles. Each level of the missile solo increases the amount of ABMs and IPMs you can store. Generally you should always have a good stock of ABMs, they protect you from IPM attacks.
Terraformer - The terraformer allows you to increase the amount of fields on your planets, with each terraformer level you get an extra 5 fields. One of these is taken up by the terraformer itself. The terraformer also requires a certain amount of energy to work as well. If you dont meet the energy requirement, you will not get the extra 5 fields.
In my opinion that pretty much covers things that I have missed, if I have left anything else out. It is because I have deemed them unimportant and dont believe they are necessary for you to learn.
Part 15 (Phrase Explanations)
Here I am going to explain any phrases which I may have failed to explain early on, for now I can only remember two such phrases. If I have missed any please let me know and I will do my best to explain them to you.
Counter Espionage - Counter espionage is destroying enemy Espionage Probes that are trying to spy on your planet. Your chance for counter espionage is determined by Difference between both players' espionage technologies. The number of Ships on the spied planet, the number of Probes sent to spy on planet. and there is a Random factor added in. Destroying an enemy's Espionage Probes by Counter espionage does not stop the probes sending their information. The information will still reach your enemy even though their probes were destroyed.
Rapid fire - This is a complex thing to explain, so I will use a guide to help. Most ships have the Rapid Fire feature. Simply put, while in combat, Rapid Fire is the ability of one unit to attack another unit multiple times in one turn. You can check Rapid Fire in the special properties of ships in the Technology or Shipyard menus. If a ship has rapid fire, it will be followed by a type of target ship and a number. This number, its Rapid Fire rating, represents the average number of extra shots the firing ship can make against enemies of the target's type in a single combat round. It is a bit messy to understand, so the better way to do so is with an example.
Cruisers have Rapid Fire 10 against rocket launchers. We launch a cruiser against a defense of 2 rocket launchers and 1 light laser. Each defensive building will shoot once against the cruiser, as it is the only attacker. When it's the cruiser's turn, it chooses a target randomly from the three available targets. Let's suppose it chooses one of the rocket launchers. The cruiser shoots as normal but then, since it has rapid fire, it gets a dice roll to decide if it has another chance to shoot. Let's suppose the roll is successful, and it gets an extra shot (it is important to note that destroyed ships and defensive facilities are not removed from combat until the end of the round in which they are destroyed, meaning that that a ship [the Cruiser in this case] can target a defensive facility which has already been destroyed, effectively wasting the shot). Then it randomly chooses another target. Let's suppose this time it chooses the light laser. It'll shoot, but since cruisers do not have rapid fire against light lasers, doesn't get a rapid fire roll, and the round ends here. Had it chosen the rocket launcher it would have been granted the chance to roll dice again for an extra shot.
So this brings us nicely to the end of this guide, I hope you may have found it in some way useful. If you haven't liked it, then I apologise to you. Though do appreciate a lot of time and effort has been put into this, and if just one person finds this useful I'll consider it a job well done.
Ends (12,217 Words)
