Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

I'm still perplexed about fighter management. They group as they're launched, I gather, but where did these 11 fighter units come from? I don't recall missing launches, and even then it's an odd multiple. Do the groups merge under some circumstances?

Good to know that I need to seperate fleets between fighters and capships. What about ideal fighter group size? And if I transport the fighters from one system to the next in a carrier and launch them, will they be in one big blob? Is that bad?

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

They stick onto existing groups when you launch them.

You may have had a stack of 3 sitting around after battle losses killed them down to an odd number, and then tried to launch 8.

Those new ones stick onto the first fighter stack they see.

---

If you load fighters up and relaunch, they'll all end up in the same stack.
You'll have to launch, move, launch, move...
They can only stick to existing stacks in the same sector, after all http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

That sounds sufficiently irritating not to be worthwhile, though... Multiple turn operations just to split up stacks? Anyway, good to know I guess. Would there be advantages to having a lot of different stacks from a PD perspective? I've not done enough combat to understand PD, because my chief use of fighters is on WPs so they don't have so much approach time, but it's very hard to set up a simulator to show a close-engagement with multiple stacks of fighters, so I've not done much testing.

Heh, it'd have been easier if I'd never gotten fighters from ruins http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

It's now turn 25. I'm in first place, 5 settled systems. I have built a 40ish ship fleet, of which about 2/3rds are PPBIII light cruisers.

Thing is, I've faced off the fleet-heavy number 2 player, I've long had peace with number 4, number 7 or 8 is likely to be soon cutt off by number 4, and the only other opening pases a 3-way nebula system that is likely to be a mess to expand my empire through.

I have some moderate hopes for tortoising and using my comparitively good position and race design to build up safely.

What are some powerful research directions to move in at around turn 25? I am still on engines 2, PPBIII, sensors 1, light cruiser construction. I have fighters, mines, and thanks to a ruin, Massive Shield Generators, although I'm not sure with my large number of planets if that's practical.

For the meantime I'm backfilling and I'll probably pick up a few backward techs like my engines. But direction is much appreciated.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Hehe, it was funny in a PBW game, when 2 colony ships with no weapons attacked each other. My colony ship won http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Better sensors are good. Combat support for ECM is also a must. You should get point-defense cannons up to at least level 3 or 4. If you went through with the plan to get armor 4, go ahead and get 5 and 6 as well, and start putting one of each specialty armor on every combat ship. Your other main priority at this point should be military science 2, followed by advanced military science for the training facilities. Oh, and finishing off the last two levels of PPB is also a good idea.

Edit: Massive shield generators are never worth it in stock. You can get more protection for less cost from weapon platforms.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Good to know. I've gotten MS2 and will have mil science when the current turn is processed. Is there a significent next step in ship construction I should worry about beyond light cruisers? I know people like them, but I don't know what the next "good level" is, if any.

The fact that I might be in a peaceful situation for a while makes me wonder if economic choices might be best. I'll have to read up on whatever monoliths are, and I'm thinking of getting the atmosphere changing facility I, if it is adequate, since I'm unlikely to capture breathers. Other 'economic' techs developments would be good to know about. I'm browsing the complete tech tree pdf for the stock game, but it's a bit confusing since one only gets the tech names. I've been busy with work and I'm starting to experience the almost amusing sensation of having outplayed my research - that is, I've done very well and gotten very comfortable with my opening game, taken nicely from the book and you folks' kind advice, but I'm suddenly looking at each turn and going, "Oh crud, now what?"

EDIT: Now that I check again, I see that the planetary change techs start with climate control rather than atmosphere changing; I'd confused the two. Drat.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

I assume "MS2" is Military Science 2, and you just forgot to put "advanced" in front of "mil science". The difference is quite important. Anyway, Advanced Military Science is a very cheap tech field and very powerful. Research it at least to level 4, for the best training facilities and the cheapest to research and build cloak-detection sensors. When you get the training centers, build them on the planets with the most moons that you have. Multiple training facilities in the same sector but on different planets stack, making planets with two moons the best training sites available in stock. Assuming you don't have none breathers, make one place concentrate on ship training and another on fleet training. The main planet should have both, but domed moons only have room for one.
Going strictly for combat utility, light cruisers can last you a good long while. Cruisers are necessary for mobile space yard ships, but aren't really a big step up for fighting power. The next major step in ship construction is level 7 with battleships, which are large enough to get the heavy mount.
Monoliths are all-in-one resource extractors. In the long term, they produce much more total resources than standard resource extractors, but they cost a great deal more, both in resources and time, to set up. I wouldn't recommend them until later in the game, but if you really want them, research Stellar Manipulation. I highly recommend getting Space Yards 3 first, however. Also, they're only really useful on planets with multiple high resource values.
Don't. Atmosphere converters take a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time to research, and another LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time to give any benefit. You need Planet Utilization level 7 for the level 1 facility, and that takes 30 turns after construction to do its thing. They're just not worth it unless you have a huge amount of research or it's very late in the game.

Edit: Also, who ever said you have to capture other breathers? Try to arrange trade deals with your neighbors who have different breathers than you. You can each just load a transport with some population and then trade the transports.
Computers. Computers is the single most important economic tech in the game. It gives you facilities that give across-the-board 10%/level (max 30%) bonuses to all resource production, research, and intelligence on each planet you build them on. Levels 4-6 give the same thing, except it affects everything in the whole system, and one system facility stacks with one planet facility on each planet for a combined 69% bonus (no, that's not a typo, they multiply together like so: 1.3*1.3=1.69). Besides that, minerals extraction levels 2 and 3 are good. Beyond that, it just gives you minerals-only versions of the computer facilities that take a great deal of research to get any better than the computer facilities.
You still haven't even come close to maxxing out most of the techs you've started researching. Keep going in ECM and CS all the way to level 3, get adv. mil. science 4, finish off PPB, get good PDC, finish off armor 6, get at least computers 3 (the higher levels may be too expensive for now), and you should consider getting the other colonization techs sometime. After that, space yards is a good choice (get levels 2 and 3 back-to-back; no need to upgrade all your space yard facilities twice), and you might consider larger ships. Once you've done all that, then you can come back here and ask what you should research next.

Edit: Oh yeah, another nice thing to get is Stellar Harnessing. The first three levels give solar collectors which generate supplies, useful for long-range ships and fleets, and 4-6 give solar sails for bonus movement.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Excellent. Just the sort of advice I was looking for, thanks.

EDIT: In purely combat terms, how important are battleships with their heavy mounts, and are there improvements on them? I'm asking becasue of the emphasis people have put on the CL's 10% bonus and someone having mentioned that the heavy mount on a carrier is large and vulnerable in combat - and in simulator battles my carrier wasn't much of a fleet-conquering hero.

EDIT2: I know a methane breather who is likely to oblige - there's a lot of Oxys in this game - Do I need to remove the existing population of my domed worlds? This would be something of a project, I'd think.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Yes, you must remove the old population before you can get the benefit from the new, breathable population. Personally, I just space the old population. But I'm a rather evil ruler http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

As for battleships, they allow more spaces for armor and/or shields which in are much, much better than LC's in the end. But wait until you have good shields before going for Battleships, because their extra room for shielding is, IMHO, one of their best attributes. The heavy mount does more damage per kiloton of space used, so yes it's an advantage over the LC's large mount, but takes up more space per component which renders it more likely to be destroyed first in the event of a battle. Wait on Battleships until you get more important techs, like full PPB's, ECM, and combat sensors. Stellar harnessing tech too.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Actually, the greatest benefit of battleships is the extra tonnage - 200 kt more than battlecruisers. The heavy mount is just a nice extra - unless you're going up against large heavily-crystalline-armored ships, in which case it's essential.

Once you get light cruisers, ship construction just isn't a very important tech for quite a while. The step up to cruisers is only an effective 80 kt with the extra CQ/LS requirement, and comes at the cost of the 10% defense bonus. Battlecruisers get you another 100 kt, which is nice but isn't as big of a deal as ECM, CS, and good weapons and the specialty armors. Battleships are the first really major improvement in combat power with a full 200 kt extra, but you need good stuff to put on them to really make good use of them, and better engines and solar sails are highly desirable to offset their lower number of engines.
For a planet to be undomed, all of the population on it must breathe its atmosphere. However, there is no requirement that you dispose of the previous inhabitants in a humanitarian manner (i.e. moving them to other planets), and just stationing a transport in orbit for one turn and repeatedly transferring population and jettisonning it out into space until only the breathers are left has no negative effect besides the actual loss of population. It doesn't even lower happiness on the planet you do it on. In stock, compared with the bonus from suddenly having 5 times as many facility spaces on the planet, the population loss is inconsequential unless the planet was very highly populated. So what if you lose a 2% production bonus for having 40M population? That's nothing compared to the 400% bonus the extra space gives you.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

I would have to disagree. The following are calculations of Damage Percent / Tonnage Percent to show the increase in the damage ratio compared to the unmounted version of the weapon.

Large mount: 200 / 150 = 1.33x base damage
Heavy mount: 300 / 200 = 1.5x base damage
Massive mount: 500 / 300 = 1.67x base damage

Now to look at increases in damage between mounts:

Large mounted weapons do 33% more damage than unmounted weapons.
Heavy mounted weapons do 12.7% more damage than large mounted weapons.
Massive mounted weapons do 11.3% more damage than heavy mounted weapons.

While the increase from large to heavy mount is smaller than the increase from unmounted to large, it is still 12.7% more damage than you would do from a battlecruiser. This is quite significant, and should not be underscored. In my assessment, heavy mounts are most certainly not just a "nice extra," but are as necessary to use ASAP as large mounts are.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

I take it on a largish world it's going to take a good long time even to, eh colonize space? My cargo is handled atm by 2 cargo hold minelaying destroyers. So, one ship's worth per turn?

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif I'm not sure what you're asking about. Please clarify.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Spacing the non-breathing pop points. In a simultaneous game, that'll mean turn after turn of moving pop to orbiting ships and then jettisoning cargo?

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

No, you can do it all in one turn for each planet. You just have to use the cargo transfer screen rather than the load population order. This requires that the cargo ship be at the planet at the start of the turn. Both transferring and jettisoning cargo happens instantaneously rather than waiting for turn processing, so you can repeatedly transfer and jettison as much as necessary all in one turn.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Hey, no one's mentioning any repeat orders strategy. Get a fleet of transports automated to move population off your homeworlds and out to your new large "breathers." Having 3 or 4 Huge planets full of pop. when it's time to build Stellar Manip ships is pretty major.
Also, I do believe a Large size breather full to 4000M will turn out a sophisticated Light Cruiser every 2 turns.

Edit: Let me know if I need to "i.e." that strategy for you.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

It seemed pretty clear, but I'm not sure if I'll have a heavy-enough cargo fleet when I get my breathers for it to be worthwhile - unless repeat orders means something more complex and evilly brilliant than having the computer do ferrying for me over time.

Incidentally - the word is out that I'm fielding PPBs. Do Phased Shields make PBBs really sad, or do they simply act like normal shields, making PPBs like normal weapons? The damage on PPBs is quite adequate for my needs, but if phased shields actually make them useless that'd be good to know.

And on that note, what is next after PPBs for direct fire weapons? High Energy Discharge? Seems a bit far off, although the numbers look tasty. Need more research.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Phased shields cause Phased Polaron Beams to act as normal weapons.

Note that every single shield point on the ship must be from phased generators, otherwise they will count as normal, non-phased shields.

Anti-Proton Beams (energy stream weapons) are the most powerful general purpose weapon. Far cheaper to build than Phased Polaron Beams, and they have one of the highest damage ratios in the game. Combined with long range (8), they are killer. Very expensive to research, but well worth it.

Wave-Motion Beams are very weak weapons. In situations where you are only going to get one shot, they are ok. But for combats that last more than 3 rounds, Anti-Proton Beams are vastly more powerful. Damage ratios (damage / kiloton (size) / rate of fire) are a very important comparison tool.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Ah! Good point, I had actually failed to give thought to weapon size differing.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Don't forget rate of fire, too. There are only two weapons I would recommend in most circumstances as an improvement on PPB's: APB if you have TONS of research and your opponents have phased shields, and shield depleters if your opponents have phased shields. Neither one is worth concentrating on before getting maximum CS/ECM/scattering armor/stealth armor/training.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Ok, more good thoughts, although I do tend to sometimes shift my research around a bit - back off APBs back onto PPBs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It's hard to tell if my PBB design coming out in a recent skirmish will actually lead to phased shields being very common in the level of game advanced-ness we have.

Facility upgrades - I'm wishing I had more research and being outpaced by some people with TRs and uncrippled trade. I have a TR with a harmless seeming partner, but I have that crippled all the way. With upgrading, do I want to get research III and upgrade I -> III or is that possible?

It can be tricky, without the feel of experience, to know precisely what economic/shipaccessory/scientific/weapon tech to focus on over time. I want to keep my fleet up to date, but it may be that the only player strong enough to pose a serious threat has agreed to permanent peace out of a desire not to grind himself down against his strongest opponent. So I'm left in a bit of a cold war sitution hoping he doesn't use his greater free space to win, or gobble up the colonies of smaller neighbors.

Still number 1, but a generic figure like that isn't too reassuring.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

I'd say these things are worth getting before PPBs even. Having DUC V and more advanced CS/ECM is generally better than PPBs and less advanced CS/ECM. PPBs are very expensive weapons...

Facility upgrades will always be to the most advanced type available.

This is when the game is still fun. When you know the tech tree inside and out, it becomes boring and repetitive. This is where mods come in. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

You could also make some ships with high speed equipped with Ripper Beams, they're smaller than APBs and very powerful over short range. You can use your fast attack ships to dart in and pick away at an enemy, then get out of pointblank range before he can return fire.

One of the things I usually do first is build up to 5 bases full of cargo storage to fill with pop. Sometimes the vast amounts of pop that I put on the stations will cripple my HW's reproduction and construction, but usually I will keep the pop level minimized at about two thirds of max. The extra pop in the stations is handy to use when I want to colonize a new world (especially Large/Huge, and breathable) so that I immediately have a large amount of pop present there to speed up the initial buildup of the colony. Also, having approx. 4000M or more pop in stations is handy when building Sphereworlds.

This from a guy who has only read the last 5-10 posts, so I don't know if this was in any way helpful or if my comments were totally off topic.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Well, the game has progressed nicely and is now in the 80s turn-wise, at a turn a day, more or less. There were two dropouts, which unfortunately did tend to affect the play balance, as people were using stock AIs which tended to die abruptly playing against humans, even semi-inept ones. The leaderboard has turned out to consist of me, a warlike race to my southeast, and oddly enough my neighbor, quite new to the game, who I was originally kind of trying to support as as proxy against an aggressive AI player. He did a lot more than survive, and conquered the entirety of that AI and was well on his way against another - the two dropouts, in other words. I have been the number one empire for the entire game; this has a certain calming affect. I also had agreements with all of my neighbors - TRs with the two normal states, and an off the books, somewhat tenuous cold war with the warlike neighbor.

I tend to honor agreements, and at any rate didn't trust any of my allies enough to turn my back on them and deal with the warlike state, which I had seen as the greatest threat. I believe he has now fallen to either the third rank, after a long-time spot at number 2, or else 4th place. Meanwhile, I had to cancel my TR with the AI-conquering ally, to try and forestall his taking an economic lead.

On the advice of other players in the game I didn't focus a great deal on economic facility upgrades earlier, which was a bit regretable. I believe that between racials, ship design, and attention to stats and training I have probably always had the best fleet, and one unmatched in numbers - but fleets don't give you much return on investment in peacetime, except for peace of mind, of course. For most of the "cold war" I had about 30% of my fleet on the warp point with the cold-war neighbor, but slowly began shifting to a balanced deployment as the rankings changed.

My initial thought, because I had agreements with everyone, was to research SM, close all of my warp points, and set up warp points from one central fleet mustering-and-training world to each of my systems, for the best possible 'interior lines' in the event someone opened a WP into my empire. I've also secured a house rule against black hole generation using one system's sun to destroy another, so hopefully people would have to put more work into blowing me up than that.

However, relations with the former TR ally began to become strained - I didn't really want him to leave our frontier unguarded, because that let him conquer the second AI faster, which was no help to me. So I wanted to cultivate a little paranoia, but not enough to bring about a war; it struck me as bad form to stab an ally. I realize that's a bit 'carebear' to use diplo terminology, but I have a reputation as an honest ally in games, and it seems like good policy. At any rate, what I was afraid of came about a turn or two ago - he moved into the lead. Now, I have researched Monoliths III, and moved on to research better research facilities. And it's only 80/250 turnwise, so I could possibly do very well with a monolith economy and ringworlds, especially since most of the other players aren't all that experienced with the game. However, he started asking me not to attack him in a way that made me quite uneasy - like someone saying nice doggy and looking for a rock. From the number one empire, that didn't strike me as healthy. If I got part-way into a high-end stellar manipulation path without researching better fleet techs, building ships, etc, I could find myself a low tech, underproducing victim of the big boy or big boys.

So, somewhat regretfully, and with less premeditation than he's likely thinking - he seemed to think I've been preparing for war since I broke the TR - I've moved into his space. Although he has two empires conquest worth of experience, he also doesn't seem to have done a lot of online reserach into things - so, while he has twice as many worlds (around 80) as I do, and a good sized fleet apparently built on battleships, he apparently didn't know about weapon mounts. I haven't engaged any of his decent ships yet, just blew apart a shipyard ship that must have just reached his frontier.

I've only got 40 or 50 ships moving in, which is less than his total - but they are also fully fleet trained, indifferently ship trained (I had them on garrison duty, ship training is hard), with very high combat racials, and with ECM/Comp III, PPBIV. There are a few BBs into the mix with the same type of technology, but we're talking maybe 8 with more on the way; the rest are light cruisers, but all updated to the 2 latest designs. Most have one Solar Collector 2, I never got around to better and wasn't sure how many resources to waste on that when I wasn't conquering stuff.

The real disadvantage I'm facing right now is total inexperience - I noticed in the one battle I've fought, my "Break Formation/Wall" setup led to the BBs being left in the dust by the light cruisers; is this a problem? Is there a solution that isn't worse than the problem?

I'm in 3 fleets, moving into 3 systems, if all goes well glassing a half a dozen worlds when the next turn gets run. I would dearly like to be conquering instead of glassing, but as this isn't a premeditated strike I had (rather stupidly) economized by scrapping all of my transports ages ago, and I had no combat troops that weren't very old. I've never dropped troops before, and don't even know how many I need to beat a usual planet's militia. There are minesweepers on the way, transports and BBs on the rails, and 5 or 6 extra fully fleet trained ghost fleets massed in one of my systems. I'm moving reinforcements through that world and picking up ghost fleets as I go.

Again, as it wasn't premeditated, a lot of my industry is going into switching to monoliths and just now upgrading to better research. All of this is perhaps a bit poorly timed now that I'm in a major war, but I'm loath to terminate projects before at least the existing construction is finished, since the ships won't arrive for a few turns anyway. Propulsion tech is Counter-Terrine 3, perhaps a bit low but comperable with my current foe.

Diplomatically, I should be ok. My opponent made a bit of a gaffe by very angrily threatening to surrender - before he fired a shot, as the number one empire - to the number three power. I can see how this is a clever tactic for blackmail in a sense, but very much against the spirit of sportsmanship. It has apparently irritated the third place player, the one I was long in a cold war with - and we had at any rate agreed to a reasonably comforting policy of mutual non-aggression. If that holds there should be no realistic threats to my rear, which is still home to half my fleet or so. The game mod ruled that such a surrender was inappopriate and said he'd rewind the game if it was tried. I have yet to hear from my opponent - who I couldn't have a civil word with, really - so I don't know for sure if he'll quit, or be replaced, or what.

If his ship design indeed includes no mounts, and depending on his training and support/sensor use, it may be a walk. I have very strong space combat racials and he has none - in fact, I don't like his design much at all and will probably seed his worlds with my people whether I conquer them or recolonize. I would very much prefer to conquer, but if it becomes a walk it will be very disconcerting to leave good worlds in my rear while I chase down his ships... for now, at least, I am leaving planets on the target list, as I can afford to glass a few.

My warp closer ship is 3-4 months from completion, my warp opener is more than a year away. Both are the first level of development. Anyway, this has been quite a book, but I haven't posted in a long time, and it seemed interesting to me at least, and perhaps useful to lay out and think about as I was writing it. I credit my position in large part to having read up on the game here, and to the very useful help of Douglas, SJ, and several others. Thanks again. Further comments could be crucial! I may always be overlooking the painfully obvious; to wit, I only have level 1 shields. I just never had a research priority for them, and I was sitting on my own shipyards, with which I figured I could repair armoured ships. I'm aware that shields are very good at high level, and that Grav protection against SM stuff is at level 10... But so many things to reserach. I'm at about 130k reserach off the top of my head. I should likely have upgraded from (cringe) level 1 facilities a long time ago... But I used to be a very well developed empire, back when my rivals didn't have twice as many worlds. I colonized and rebreathed comparatively earlier than my competition, and my lead is only now vanishing.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Good idea. I always do this as soon as I have the tech for it, and not just for fast response time to invading fleets. Even in an offensive war, it can greatly speed up getting new ships trained and to the front.
I'd recommend not going for ringworlds unless you're certain you have resources to spare, and I really doubt monoliths will start paying off soon enough to make a difference. I would, however, recommend getting at least Stellar Manipulation 4 for the best planet creators and warp openers with decent range. Converting asteroids to planets can be a HUGE economic boost, especially if you have any asteroid ring systems in your territory. Asteroids can have values all the way up to 300% sometimes, and those values are preserved when they become planets.
Hmm, max fleet training, some ship training, berzerkers + 120% agg./def. IIRC, and max ECM/CS (that is what you meant by "Comp", right?) with an excellent weapon vs no racial bonuses, no mounts, and probably no knowledge that training exists... should be a cakewalk. I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if you can beat 3 or 4 or more to 1 numbers without breaking a sweat. Especially if you remembered to get stealth and scattering armor 3.
The only perfect solution is to give your LC's bad enough engines that the BB's can keep up. However, if you follow my strategy advice, this shouldn't be a problem at all. Set all your combat ship designs to the Maximum Weapons Range strategy. Then, go to the Empire Status(F11)->Strategies screen and edit Maximum Weapons Range to have primary/secondary movement strategies of Maximum Range/Don't Get Hurt. On the Firing tab, the default settings for this strategy are quite good, which are Has Weapons/Nearest/Most Damaged/Strongest and Do Not Use Type Priorities. Double check that it is set to break formation. Using this strategy, your ships will all try to stay at the edge of maximum range, which will result in the first ships on the scene falling back ahead of the enemy's advance while the rest of your ships are still getting there - but that's just an incidental benefit; the real benefit is that the extra range will drastically hurt his to-hit chances while not affecting yours very much proportionally.
It might be a bad idea to not wait for the minesweepers. Without them, any minefield is Bad News for your fleets, and could quite possibly halt your entire offensive for a long time.

For a typical colony with low (<50M) population and no armed defensive troops, 10 small troops armed with ground cannon 1's will do just fine. The only thing you have to do besides loading the troops on the transport is make sure the transport's design has the Capture Planet strategy.
Finish current construction and upgrade all your research facilities, but let further monolith construction wait.

Contra-Terrene engines are good enough for quite a while, but get Solar Sail 3's asap. They require Stellar Harnessing 6 and give 3 bonus movement points.
Surrendering to an ally (or enemy of an enemy) just to annoy an enemy is VERY unsportsmanlike and an excellent way to completely ruin a game. I'm glad the game host ruled against it.
In the absolute worst case, your better racial combat bonuses are a substantial advantage. In an only slightly better case (no training for him), they render you almost invulnerable in combat. Assuming your ships average 10% trained, if he doesn't have training (quite likely IMO), he will have at most a 30% chance to hit at point blank range, 1% if you have stealth and scattering armor 3. If he does have full training, that goes up to 70% (40% with the armors), and goes down 10% with each additional square of range (which is why I recommend max range strategy) and another 10% against your LC's. You OTOH will have an 85% chance to hit at point blank even if he has ECM 3, scattering and stealth armor 3, and maximum training, going down to 35% at maximum range in this absolute worst case. Without training for his ships and fleets, that max range chance to hit goes up to 75%.

If you don't have any population that breathes his atmosphere yet, you should leave at least some of his planets intact until you can capture them. Otherwise, go ahead and glass. BTW, captured population takes on all the characteristics of the new empire except atmosphere breathed, so disliking someone's racial design is not a reason to engage in genocide.
You're welcome. Since you're still relying on armor, you should build some repair ships to accompany your ships. Some dedicated supply ships may also be useful, just make sure they have enough supply storage beyond what your warships have to hold at least one turn's worth of supply generation from the solar collectors. Whether you should go for shields now depends on what else you still need to research.

Hmm, I've got some time to spare, I'm curious, and it would allow for the best possible advice - why don't you clear your password temporarily and send me the save game? My email is gtg078h (at) mail (dot) gatech.edu.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Sure enough, when the turn arrived tonight one of my fleets found my first minefield - ouch. Quite decent damage. My sweeper fleet is on the way, but in economizing, I really only had 100-mine clearance capability for one fleet. I could perhaps go system by system with one sweeping fleet, but that cuts my conquest speed by a third, against an imposing foe economically. I've also neglecting giving orders to one fleet, I'm pretty sure, and I'm just realizing that I need more Hyper-Optics ships - I had a real scare before I did the replays, because I thought he has cloaked some of his BBs from last turn and sent them in to lay waste to one of my systems. Should be quickly fixable.

EDIT: Comp does indeed mean 'combat scanner,' because my excessive regard for Moo1 has rotted my brain. Anything performing the function that CS performs in SEIV is a battle computer to me, in spite of there actually being computers that do something else.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

Email sent.

I wouldn't worry too much about the opposition's strength. Not only does he have no racial combat bonuses, but his maintenance aptitude is merely enhanced. If he has twice your resource production, you can still support twice his military by size, and your ships will be much more powerful for their cost.

Re: Jumping in at the deep end
 

With half of the engine classes, battleships and light cruisers move at the same speed in combat. When the light cruiser has an even amount of strategic movement points and the battleships have an odd amount, they get the exact same combat movement rate. Research more propulsion and stellar harnessing (for solar sails), if you haven't already. With maximum levels in these areas, LCs will be able to have a strategic move of 12 and combat move of 6, and BBs will have a strategic move of 11 and combat move of 6.