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[forsaken1111]

I can tell you that playing as a prewarp empire is goddamn infuriating sometimes, but in a good way. Pirates and independent traders all have warp drive but won't share it. The only way to get resources not plentiful in your home system is to offer smuggling contracts or hope an independent trader happens to bring some. When you finally do unlock the basic warp tech, "Warp Bubble Precursors" its incredibly slow and inefficient.

You really cannot effectively fight the pirates at first, and they can do whatever they like. I was raided several times while I watched helplessly as my ineffectual navy was pounded. You have no shields, you have nerf versions of each weapon. Its pretty bad.

But oh... oh when you finally get to the point where you can send out a fleet to knock out those pirates.

Oh god that feels good.

[Eduardo X]

I keep having my best ships stolen from me when attacking Pirate Outposts in my pre-warp game. I hate those jerks!

The race to discover warp tech and then colonizing tech is pretty tense, though you won't necessarily know the outcome until your exploration ships can really stretch across the galaxy to find other civs. That's when you discover if you're going to lose or not. In my most current game, I think the answer is "lose." Most other civs discovered colonization before me and had a big head start.

[forsaken1111]

I actually rush colonization tech first so I can colonize the habitable planets in my home system. Gives me a heavy industrial base for expansion outwards once I get those warp bubbles.

[forsaken1111]

I'd do that, but I end up with 5 pirate whips camping in my system, stealing any stations I make, and destroying anything else.

I found a solution to it, though. Set the pirate distance to 'distant'

Better solution: Build a bunch of defense stations.

[forsaken1111]

If shields aren't helping, double up on armor.

Its possible man, trust me.

If you need a reprieve, pay the pirates for a while so they stop attacking you then build up defenses.

[Zangi]

It really helps to pay off the pirates before your 1st edition large space port is built.  You should be able to withstand a few attacks early on with it, without armor and shields.

EDIT: Though, come to think of it, without even armor... you better be praying to the RNG.  I usually had armor before attacks come in...

[Brons]

I think I understand how your empire gains money (you tax the private sector, the money the private sector keeps is hopefully spend on upgrades of their ships) but sometimes I'm a little baffled. In one game my income (and money on hand) suddenly exploded. I'm not sure why, I did get a lot of starports but they don't increase revenue a lot right? I did make a lot of colonies but it takes forever for them to be profitable. My startports weren't constantly pumping out civilian ship either. Can anyone guess why I made a huge amount of money while I was struggling a long time?

Once resources are dropped off at a starport are they available to my entire empire without further transport? That is what the in game guide suggests to me.

Any tips on prewarp strategy? I rushed colonization to enable me to colonize inside my own system and that seemed to work. Warp is great but the first tech is too slow to be very useful and there is plenty to do in your own system anyway. Am I wrong?

And any tips on constructors? They dont seem to do their work very efficient when on AI mode. I queued a constructor to fix an escort next to my homeworld and they didnt fix it in 5 years. I had about 20 constructors. It looks like the AI queues a random (or nearest, dunno) constructor and doesnt take other things (like other things the constructor has to do) into account. Am I right that I should keep a few constructors on manual control to do useful stuff?

[kilakan]

I keep all my constructors on manual control, they build way to much needless shit everywhere on auto.  Like seriously they need to fix the AI a bit for that, 50 lead mines are pretty fucking worthless when even my colonies can mine lead.  Also has anyone else noticed that constructors repair RIDICULOUSLY SLOWLY in shadows?  There's no way it used to take 20 years to fix a single cruiser in one of the ship graveyards before.

As for resources, no it's only available at that space port ((you can check what a colony and spaceport have all in their stocks)), and you need cargo ships to transfer your materials around for you.  ((I think they used to be available universally but shadows has changed that.))

For prewarp I tend to build shields+weapons+warp drive.  While warp is researching I get some decent armor tech and maybe missles or the like, as well as getting sensors built up with fuel storage capacity for high tech.  Then once warp is up to the normal warp drive, I build a combat fleet and wipe out all the fucking pirates I can find.  THEN and only then do I try colonizing, otherwise you lose a ton of money to pirate raids on fringe colonies.

For the economy, you probably researched advanced commerce and some entertainment techs and then your constructors either built resort bases or you upgraded your spaceports.  You may have also gained access to some luxary items, which in turn ramps colony development a ton, and that in turn increases profit.

[Majestic7]

I haven't played with Shadows, but in the previous versions, the civilians paid you when building their ships. The ships are built in your starports, using your resources, so they pay you for the ships. The explosion you saw in your economy was likely a burst of civilian shipbuilding. For example, maybe you researched a tech making them upgrade their ships or colonized several planets, increasing the demand for transportation and such. Another source of income is tariffs foreigners pay when they trade.

[forsaken1111]

I think I understand how your empire gains money (you tax the private sector, the money the private sector keeps is hopefully spend on upgrades of their ships) but sometimes I'm a little baffled. In one game my income (and money on hand) suddenly exploded. I'm not sure why, I did get a lot of starports but they don't increase revenue a lot right? I did make a lot of colonies but it takes forever for them to be profitable. My startports weren't constantly pumping out civilian ship either. Can anyone guess why I made a huge amount of money while I was struggling a long time?

You make money when the private sector builds new ships too. Whenever it decides that it needs a larger trading fleet it buys time in your shipyards to build new civilian ships. That might account for the bonus income you saw.

You also make money on taxation of the civilian population, and trade with other empires. The more developed your colonies are, the more taxes you get, so you want to maximize your luxury resource access too.

Once resources are dropped off at a starport are they available to my entire empire without further transport? That is what the in game guide suggests to me.

Well.. they are available AT THAT STARPORT. If you have a construction project at the homeworld that needs steel and your only steel is in a far flung starport, your civilians will bring it to the homeworld over time. Resources must move around the galaxy in ships, there is no instant empire bank.

Any tips on prewarp strategy? I rushed colonization to enable me to colonize inside my own system and that seemed to work. Warp is great but the first tech is too slow to be very useful and there is plenty to do in your own system anyway. Am I wrong?

I do this too. I fortify my system and colonize any habitable planets in it first to give myself a large industrial base. I don't rush for large spaceports right away either because I've been stuck a few times on construction due to not having the resources available in my home system. Be careful what you build and upgrade because if you run out of something (steel and lead for me usually) and you have no sources, you have to wait for a pirate or independent trader to drop some off since you can't go get it from other systems.

And any tips on constructors? They dont seem to do their work very efficient when on AI mode. I queued a constructor to fix an escort next to my homeworld and they didnt fix it in 5 years. I had about 20 constructors. It looks like the AI queues a random (or nearest, dunno) constructor and doesnt take other things (like other things the constructor has to do) into account. Am I right that I should keep a few constructors on manual control to do useful stuff?

I leave all but 1-2 constructors on auto generally, and I have those 1-2 focus on what I want to build/repair immediately. If you have something you need done, don't be afraid to pull a constructor away from its tasks to do it. You can always go back and finish a construction (or they will do it themselves as it counts as a 'damaged' vehicle).

[Brons]

Thanks for the answers guys. I know about the shipbuilding but afaik it's counted towards bonus income and not cashflow. My cashflow went from ~0 to about 400k in a very short time. I think I had about 20 planets at the time and I did discover one of those extremely rare resources. Could that explain the big jump?

I know I did do something good to improve my economy but I don' t know what .

I like the game and I'm thinking about purchasing it anyway. I'm getting some good time out of it and it might actually be worth the extreme price. I love it when I launched my first pre-warp explorers that took forever to get to the next planet. Later on your ships zoom across the universe moving goods and rampaging your neighbors.

Any strategies when it comes to war? At first I let the AI do it but that didnt work out at all. It got indecisive and moved fleets from target to target without finishing a job. Once I took control of my biggest fleet the war was quickly over. My guess is that taking out starports in every system would cripple the enemy in short order. The micro involved in troop transports was a bit daunting to me though.

[forsaken1111]

This game is complex enough that sometimes things simply happen due to a serendipitous confluence of various events with no obvious cause.

[kilakan]

I tend to play the really evil races, well not evil but warlike, so that I can just bomb every enemy to death.  Equip a couple ships with nothing but high level bombard weapons, and send a wave of destroyers ahead of them then burn the enemies colonies.  You can always resettle them and build terraforming machines later, but right then it's a lot easier then actually conquering them.

[forsaken1111]

I have to say, it is really amusing to play as the badguys sometimes and just run around enslaving everyone who doesn't look like you. I love the fast hyperdrives the spider dudes have.

[kilakan]

I have to say, it is really amusing to play as the badguys sometimes and just run around enslaving everyone who doesn't look like you. I love the fast hyperdrives the spider dudes have.

Fast hyperdrives for them, would burning missles for the boskara, it's really good being bad.