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[Krelian]

Also, which is better? Heavy drivers or bursters?

HEAVY DRIVERS!!!!

Seriously, the most awesome weapon in the game. There may be some weapons with more accuracy, or better dps... but damn, seeing enemy ships spin out of control going backwards, only to die moments later, all from mega cannons on ships they cant even see yet.... is priceless

OMG I was totally confusing weapons. I was thinking in Accelerator Amplification when I said that !!

[Sean Mirrsen]

I just tried taking on a VN Homeworld....

Gotterdammerung! That place is ridiculous! Well, the first attack with a single dreadnought was doomed to fail anyway, but it allowed me to see that a single ship is going to be very vulnerable regardless of anything. So, I tried the inverse - an Armada CnC (with a bonus, adding up to 62 points I think), and a metric crapload (30, to be precise) of Emitter-armed destroyers. The idea was that the small fry distract the saucers while the CnC guns down the big hulk nearby. For what it was worth, it worked - the VN drones had no chance against a massive swarm of tiny angry thundergods that spread destruction everywhere. A few torpedo blasts later, the hulk went down, the swarm (mine for a change) eventually ripped up the saucers, and... happily went sideways. Turns out there's a whole set of these things! While the CnC was busy navigating the asteroid field, the swarm was massacred, and then the CnC sank as well. Damn. I guess the tactic works, I just need even more destroyers, and at least some weapon variety on them (mass drivers would work).

Also, can anybody offer a strategy against a system killer? I suspect it's killable, but a concentrated attack of six dreadnoughts and a few cruisers barely scratched it (though not seeing HP doesn't help).

[forsaken1111]

IIRC the biggest problem with the system killer is that it repairs any time it eats a system. You're best off hitting it with several waves of attacks out in deep space when its on its way to its next meal.

[Sean Mirrsen]

That'd be kinda troublesome considering I'm playing humans. So, my best bet is hoping it goes for my homeworld next - that's currently the only place stuffed with a full complement of defense platforms AND stations, and with the biggest production capability, so I can hope to amass a sufficient amount of firepower before it eats all my node lines. As it is, I'm in a horrible position - in the middle of a Barred map, with aggressive Liir (with phasers, cloaking, and assimilation plague) on one side, the VN homeworld roughly twenty LY below mine, and now this thing. At least I'm allied with the other human empire, otherwise I'd be very much done for.

[Omegastick]

Guys, if I only have the money for one expansion pack then which should I get?

[Shadowgandor]

I think you need one expansion pack to make the other work, so I guess Born in Blood

[forsaken1111]

I think you need one expansion pack to make the other work, so I guess Born in Blood

I honestly don't know if that's true, you'd have to do some research. I've always installed them in order.

That said, the complete collection is like 20 bucks.

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-SOTSCC/sword-of-the-stars-complete-collection

[Omegastick]

I've gone for Born in Blood, I'm getting them one at a time so that I stretch this game out as much as possible.

[Zai]

I've gone for Born in Blood, I'm getting them one at a time so that I stretch this game out as much as possible.

Eh, I've gotten 80+ hours out of the game just counting the time I've spent after installing ANY. All you're doing by buying them one at a time is allowing you to have less fun as opposed to buying the Complete Collection. Also, it's more expensive to buy them one at a time (from GamersGate: $10 for base SotS, $15 for BoB, $20(!) for AMoC, and $5 for ANY, as compared to just $20 for the Complete Collection including everything plus exclusive stuff).

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah, it's not like the game loses anything between expansions. Even the single-player scenarios are kept, I think.

   In the meantime, the system killer ate four more worlds (and two colonies of mine ) before thankfully moving off. I couldn't kill it even with a (last-ditch) coordinated effort of seven cutting-edge dreads and a dozen cruisers. If it comes again, I'll try to swarm it with AM torpedo frigates.
   A subsequent attempt to assault the VN homeworld with some more of those dreads was met with failure because all the berserkers in the system suddenly decided to cluster together and ram themselves into the attack force. While they were all destroyed, there was no hope defeating the mass of saucers they left behind, and I was forced to have my last two vessels retreat - through frigging normal space. It'll take them twenty turns to return. I'm now researching shields and advanced drones - let's see if I can best VN on his field.
   And my ally added to my troubles by having his resident AI rebel on him. This guy called Spencer took about a third of the human's empire into his own - thankfully, that's on the far side of the arm, so unless the human completely loses I'm safe. This game just keeps getting more interesting.

[Greiger]

Only time I ever successfully killed a systemkiller was my best of the best military, all in basically the best tech I would ever have available shooting off turrets playing the game Balder's Gate style (pausing every few seconds to update orders) while the thing attacked one of my larger developed worlds with a full 30 defense sats and a Asteroid monitor.

I killed it at exactly the same time the screen whited out (I saw it breaking up right before it)  I still lost the planet, and the remains of the fleet, but the Systemkiller was gone.  Shortly after I found the VN homeworld and couldn't figure out how to kill that moon factory.  Since nothing could target it and it was the last thing remaining.

[forsaken1111]

And my ally added to my troubles by having his resident AI rebel on him. This guy called Spencer took about a third of the human's empire into his own - thankfully, that's on the far side of the arm, so unless the human completely loses I'm safe. This game just keeps getting more interesting.

No no no, do not ignore the AI rebellion. An AI can colonize any planet regardless of climate without paying upkeep, and they get ridiculous bonuses to building ships and such. Not to mention all of their ships have the AI fire control section, so they're hellish accurate.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, I wasn't in any danger of that, because the human controlled the only "chokepoint", the single world connecting his and the Spengler's empires. He had a crapload of dreadnoughts on patrol there at all times, and a couple of mine (upon his request) were also loitering there. I had access to the nano-plague research too, so we could've handled that. That is, if the Liir didn't decide to actually go and do something about me. After the system killer and a few other disasters, my empire's morale was rather low (one disaster included Liir drugs somehow getting smuggled onto my worlds, necessitating the Temperance research, which steadily lowered morale everywhere), and the shock of losing several worlds caused rebellions and essentially an empire-wide tantrum spiral. I might have recuperated from that, but my homeworld was already in direct sight of the Liir, and after having another colony lost to the Assimilation Plague, I gave up on that session. I'd done a few useless research items, and was too slow in expanding, so I really had no chance of winning there.

In my new game, I'm trying out the Morrigi. They've got an interesting ship setup, with the mission section up front, and their ships seem quite agile. I'm having fun with their drone techs, too. Haven't met a single real enemy yet though, but I did waste a few Swarm infestations and a queen, as well as capture two monitors, so I guess I'm doing good so far.

A question for the future - is it possible to have a constant net gain of morale? People are happy if you keep savings above a million, but are equally unhappy about "population restrictions", so morale tends to stay at the same level, and drops steadily if Temperance is ever needed.

[forsaken1111]

1 million imperial savings gives you +1 morale per turn, 15 million iirc gives you more.

The Liir drug thing means they researched addiction for your race. You can do the same to them if you go up the liir species research tree.

[Lightning4]

There's a few burst gains like colonizing or eliminating enemy colonies, and there's the constant gains from the treasury. It gets bigger if you keep it higher, as mentioned.

Police cutters are what you're looking for though. They negate a point of negative morale from any bad event. Population limit morale events and such will simply no longer apply at a planet a police cutter is at. They need a couple somewhat midgame techs but they're cheap to build once you get them.