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[BFEL]

The biggest problem I'm still having with the game is AFFORDING all the super powerful ships I design. Considering your military is effectively limited by your budget, and how difficult it is to get that above around 2 million I have no idea how anyone gets anywhere close to what you would need to destroy planets.

[Firgof Umbra]

Build it in stages rather than in a bulk purchase, BFEL.

Hold CTRL down when you order a ship to put it into drydock - then you can put in cash as it's available to you.

Also, retrofitting ships upwards in scale is another way to accomplish a slow and steady climb - although that costs a lot of labor.  Special funds help a lot in this particular respect.

[Astral]

I didn't realize that was the role that shipyards played, partially due to playing the mechanical race primarily, as they don't get them. On the flip side, you also get the ability to slowly amass a ridiculous amount of additional funds due to not requiring food or water, so it balances out. It does help to be able to afford not just the initial cost, but also the upkeep, though.

[jhxmt]

So, I bought SR2 quite a while back (many, many patches ago), played the tutorial, thought, "Huh, this is neat, I'll have to play more of it", and then promptly got distracted and moved on to something else.  This is no slight on SR2, it's just the way I operate sometimes.

Recently, I saw it sitting in my Steam library, all patched and shiny, and thought, "Huh, I remember this was neat, I should play it again," and booted it up.

Seven hours later I was still playing.  The game genuinely grabbed me.  And the best thing was I wasn't deeply drawn in by the tech web (which I liked), I wasn't devoured by building up a powerful empire of ship-based destruction (as I used to in SR1), I wasn't even being distracted by the minutae of ruling an empire (as in Distant Worlds).

I played seven hours of being the sneakiest diplomatic bastard a space-based 4x has seen.

Seriously.  The diplomacy system really got me hooked.  I managed to wipe out an opponent with a fortunate series of Annex Planet and Annex System cards played in just the right order and at just the right time.  I took planets from them that would normally be seen as useless, but which crippled their supply structures so that their high-level planets gradually suffered from starvation of level 2 and level 1 resources, reverting back to poorly populated balls of rock that were easily steamrollered by my (comparatively weak) navy.

I used leverage that I'd gained on other species' in order to get my annexations to pass galactic muster.  I focussed all my efforts on building up my diplomatic influence, then used that influence to support a zeitgeist based around influence generation, to capitalise on my one advantage.

I took over a small corkscrew galaxy with nothing more than a smile and well-placed blackmail material.  And two weak dreadnoughts to mop up the remainder.

Of course, not all went according to plan.  I then ran into the (by this time) unstoppable might of the Oko, who stomped my tiny dreadnoughts into the spaceground and, due to their sheer immensity, were immune to my diplomatic wiles, having subjugated every other race in their (separate) galaxy.  I died, or at least abandoned the game, a broken weakened shell of an empire.  But briefly, for those few moments before the finale, I was the puppetmaster behind the galaxy. 

So...love it, I guess it what I'm saying.

[forsaken1111]

The diplomacy really shines in multiplayer. Unfortunately nobody I know owns the game. ; ;

[Astral]

Diplomacy is just a side project to empire and ship building for me. I tend to focus on a single type of weapon, with my most recent game focusing on missiles like this Macrosse Missile Massacre attempt against a Remnant Guardian in the ABEM mod. That took a long time to kill off, even with equivalent or greater fleet strength, and all but required a Support Station reinforcing supplies. It also started causing the game to chug whenever the fleet got in range due to the sheer volume of missiles being launched.

The design was basic to start (2 large missile launchers, 17 supplementary single core launchers, some engines and minimal armor), but I slowly increased both the size and the defense, giving them all shields, a few less launchers, and a bit more armor.

The inevitable progress of technology also makes it fun, as while you can use the default designs, it's much more fun to make your own, regardless of how effective (or ineffective [1] [2]) those designs may be.

[Sirus]

That "Battlehex" design looked pretty fun. How bad was it in action?

[Astral]

I would throw a skip drive on it and teleport it into the middle of a fleet. The rocket pods tended to all home on a single target; great if it was the flagship, bad if it was a support, as unlike missiles they rarely had time to redirect. The lasers were similarly able to take out things from any direction, a bit better than the rocket pods. It had a pretty large support capacity as well, but was exceedingly average as a combat ship.

[Anvilfolk]

This makes me want to play this all over again Some of my fondest memories in 4X games was using diplomacy to pit everyone against everyone else while I just kept growing or took some territory in tiny skirmishes while other races were busy elsewhere, fighting bigger wars I instigates! Fun times!

Also, exceedingly average. *giggles*

[Sirus]

I would throw a skip drive on it and teleport it into the middle of a fleet. The rocket pods tended to all home on a single target; great if it was the flagship, bad if it was a support, as unlike missiles they rarely had time to redirect. The lasers were similarly able to take out things from any direction, a bit better than the rocket pods. It had a pretty large support capacity as well, but was exceedingly average as a combat ship.

Do you think it would work better if those rocket pods were replaced with direct-fire weapons like, say, railguns? The firing arc limitations would mean that the flagship simply could not bring all it's weapons to bear on a single foe.

[Astral]

That would be one option. With the ABEM mod, I do see potential in using the Boring Drone Launcher (could use a better name, but meh) as they're like individual Macrosse Missile Massacres that do flat damage and launch more projectiles the bigger the size is, at least in fluff. Or if I wanted to go all out AoE, swap some rocket pods with flak turrets or torpedo launchers instead.

It was pointed out elsewhere that the ship itself is basically blind, as these designs were done before Sensors were implemented, so I have some further tinkering to do.

[Sirus]

...Sensors are a thing now? When did that happen?

[Astral]

Must be a part of ABEM. By default, you have a fairly low sight range, though this can be boosted with sensors, and scouts must fly through a system to get a full view of its contents. There are a few alternate sensors, such as armored versions, and ones less affected by nebula clouds, but you're fairly restricted in your engagement range when you don't have the ability to see what you're hitting.

[Firgof Umbra]

Base SR has sensors (semi-real-time FoW, but on a per-system level and a 'large area of space surrounding flagships' level) - they're not as mechanic-y as ABEM.

ABEM requires you to stay put in a system and scan it for a while depending on what you've got aboard in order to even see planets.  In vanilla it fills out quickly and without 'missing information' as comes celestial bodies (though you might potentially miss remnant flagships in large enough systems, depending on where you enter and exit).

[Sirus]

Yeah, must be a mod. I mean, scouts are useful for checking out systems to see what resources they have, but there's no sensor modules in vanilla AFAIK.