Terra Invicta Guide - early ship design (with common mistakes & example battles)

[@shortwave737]

I built 4 battleships with tier 2 weapons that were beasts in 2032. Those four ships murdered everything for almost an entire decade and they were my first warships. They were less than a year away from being retired to the ISS as relics before a fleet of 2 dreadnoughts plus escorts managed to kill 1 of them which was enough of a break in their firepower to allow another to die and then the last two to another double dreadnaught in late 2040. I’m planning to write a speech about those four captains and name the flagship of the next generation after those ships.

[@spikey6694]

First Mate: Captain the hydra’s are coming at us what do we do? Captain: Hold our ground, then do what we do best, kill the invaders! First Mate: Sir! We’re the last ship alive! Captain: well it’s been an honour serving alongside you, perhaps we will get a ship na-

[@dansiegel995]

were you playing servants? else, I dunno how you could survive the hate from killing all those ships. For me, if you win, they just keep on sending more and more ships - and they will be sending more and more shock troops to earth. How do you beat an army of 9 shock troopers that early without nukes? And certainly all of your mines must have been destroyed.

[@shortwave737]

@@dansiegel995 I focused on have a smaller but well defended space presence. Layered Defense on every space asset means alien attacks destroy 1 or 2 modules before their ship become scrap. The land army did take a few nukes, but nothing serious and my earth is fully clear of aliens at the moment. Lastly, aliens attacking you doesn’t increase tensions it seems like even if they lose ships. If it does it’s very slow. And having that fleet of 4 battleships out of stations make it a magnet for attacks that just kept coming. It was a good few years that gave me a ton of exotics to build a flagship for my gen 3 ships.

[@zhshsG7]

Mighty leader, share your knowledge with us! Firstly, how did you build your ships? I am also in 2032 and I have the resources to make battleships but I am so bloody scared I'll lose them all for nothing! Secondly, what do you mean by "Layered Defense", is it a specific tech or just the regular "point defense array"? If so, with what weapon tech, if it even matters? I want to bloody kill some aliens and some servants but I can't touch them in fear of reprisals... help me make space safe for humanity!

[@shortwave737]

@@zhshsG7 I went in with nanotube armor at 10-5-5, but I would change that to 20-1-2 since I don’t think the ships ever got hit on the side or rear. The nose I did the mark 3 railcannon, with a mixture of m3 light rail batteries and and the phase laser PD. The mk3 railcannons are just good enough velocity to hit targets consistently and the railcannons are actually pretty good at hitting the enemy mag batteries when you get enough of them on your ship, but I believe that the laser batteries (not PD) are better for that purpose so the light railcannons can probably be replaced. Everything else is up to you, but don’t forget you can save the design and try it out in skirmish mode.

[@TheDrDakka]

HOT TIP for sorting all items. Right click on the category(nose weapons, hull weapons, etc) to list the items as more of a spread sheet showing the stats side by side

[@conors7914]

Yo, that's huge. Thank you for the tip.

[@fang_xianfu]

Holy shit

[@daffyf6829]

Super hot tip, thanks

[@Thegreathairyone]

🔥

[@dmitryvensko3815]

Played the game for 22 years, didn't know that. Thanks!

[@ildiran]

the effort of remaking the video is greatly appreciated mate, I'm in about 2034 right now and I only just felt confident in starting to make ships so this helps

[@desertdude8274]

Is it normal for an alien invasion to initiate by 2032? I have one on Earth during my initiative playthrough and it collapsed in civil war within 6 months.

[@AnonSeacat]

@@desertdude8274 Going by Perun's latest video, there's a Servants project that creates an alien nation on Earth and for many people it can complete in the early to mid 2030s. Unless you sabotage it of course.

[@TheGrouch91]

@@desertdude8274 That's probably not an actual invasion but the Servants creating an alien nation which (spoilers) is one of their objectives.

[@eddapultstab2078]

2032-34 for normal, 2037-40 on cinematic for what I hear

[@desertdude8274]

@@TheGrouch91 Update Incase your curious. I've pushed the aliens out of Earth almost. I lost all my space stations and ground facilities twice but the aliens can no longer maintain their presence on Earth without opposition. I control The U.S, China and Europe and gave the Resistance Russia. Kicked the aliens out of Brazil and have been rebuilding it and have slowly been creating a fleet of project Orion battleships. The aliens keep targeting my stations making the game a slog.

[@2bridgesproductions392]

Some useful timestamps for quick reference: 6:36 - Early design to hunt aliens 29:37 - Ships to absorb enemy fire and survive engagement 33:08 - Outpost ship 37:52 - Marine Transport to assault stations 44:00 - Example battle to take down 1st alien ship

[@2bridgesproductions392]

@@ccdee89 Yeah - this video is one to index on my next run for sure. Very helpful as the physics can get quite techy with this game.

[@Niskirin]

@@ccdee89 This, or even better, add chapter markers to the video, like on his main channel's videos. It's not that important for the regular playthrough videos, but educational ones like this could use them.

[@JohnSmith-yc6uv]

Hero!

[@MrCharles7994]

@30:00 A quick correction for you-ECM modules only work against "familiar" missiles, I.E. human ones. Alien missiles go right through until you go down the alien computers tech (which requires killing them) and research the ability to scramble their guidance-there might be some other steps there in terms of computers tech too. The take away is that ECM is useless in the first engagements, even on survivor ships, unless you're going against humans.

[@Itsjustavy]

"Its the late 2020s and I dont have any spaceships, I feel like I'm really behind" If only NASA thought like this...

[@pougetguillaume4632]

I'm ready to bet Nasa thought like this during the cold war

[@dean_l33]

With the way China is looking to dominate space, you might just get your wish

[@Perrirodan1]

@@dean_l33 Yes China is willing to assert itself in the world and they are smart enough to know that control of space will be vital in the future.

[@roberteltze4850]

@@Perrirodan1 hopefully as soon as China dies something aggressive in space it will ignite a new space race. I haven't been following they're efforts but it seems like they are wasting effort on moon projects. There is little to be gained from the moon and it's an extremely harsh environment. Moon dust is very abrasive and wears out equipment quickly.

[@accountname9506]

blame congress for not giving them funding

[@parokki]

I trusted the autodesign for my first warship. It gave me the tiniest class of ship with a railgun... and an ion drive with something like 20 milligees of acceleration. Tried fighting with it exactly once before realizing you really need to learn to make your own ships in order to fight absolutely anything in this game.

[@andrewmattox1233]

Auto-design is limited to the selected ship type. The tinniest ship can only have a nose mount of 1 point. Granted you are still correct about auto design. Custom ships are better. But if you had selected the Escort or a larger ship class, the auto-design would have made a design that probably had missiles on it. Early game Escort auto-design 1 point defense auto-canon (30mm) and the starter missile. The dropdowns determine what the auto-design will try to make.

[@Jay2JayGaming]

Lasers also have the disadvantage/advantage that they gain nothing from energy difference between two ships. If you are firing with the direction of your momentum, kinetics do more damage- but if you are firing against it then they do less. With enough difference in momentum, kinetics become unavoidable, instant death shots.

[@frite2002]

I'm currently in a playthrough where luna generated with a 36 and 12 fissile resource. About to finish orion drives and fusion generators (to save fissiles for the drive). Definitely about to throw heaps of nukes out the back of my ships :D

[@PerunGamingAU]

yes. with those yields, go fission

[@GC13]

I was satisfied with your first ship guide, but this one went so much more in-depth in crucial topics (the engines especially, but touching on the weapon selection was also helpful) that it's an amazing upgrade. The time spent making this video was time well spent!

[@sparkz6135]

Thanks for the update cleared up a few things. One thing I noticed, the ECM says it only works on familiar missile systems, so I took that as ones I had reserched.

[@pacifistmob3568]

Yeah I took that to mean it's utterly useless against alien ships unless we get to research their weapons later down the line

[@shortwave737]

There is a technology later on to get the ECM to work against alien missiles.

[@sparkz6135]

I figured somthing like that. I've been using one of the small missiles, forget which one, but it can be used as point defense pretty well.

[@STzim]

Future interesting topics might be along the line of space station defense (when and how to defend your space stations) mid game ships or maybe a quick overview over possible uses of the other weapon systems. Could make use of the ship builder and cobble together something useful as an example for mid game ship types. Mentioned planetary bombardment with kinetic weapons, or the unlimited ammo of lazors for bringing the fight to them. But how would such a ship look like. Could use the examples to showcase diffrent tech path. Something to aim at. (Next game... this one failed, first actual invasion could be stopped, second... not there in time... lost china... yeah I got in a death spiral, but gave it a good kicking and left them nothing worthwhile)

[@varthaner4617]

I was hoping for some tips for tactical layer myself. Perhaps we will get dedicated guide. Also, I wonder if alien drop pod could be downed by low tech ramming kamikaze.

[@richardmichaelson]

Yes to this. Would very much appreciate guides on defending space stations and defending against planetary bombardments. The academy destroyed my four Martian bases and my lone Martian space station. 😢

[@soul1d]

Survivor vessels also can try to save people on the other ships, just a little roleplay detail.

[@Self-replicating_whatnot]

They can also leave them behind, which is my head canon :P

[@malloc7108]

Can't waste good pilots!

[@soul1d]

@@Self-replicating_whatnot in space you will always have more dead than injured, but morale is a precious resource and trained personnel for space are even rarer

[@Niskirin]

@@soul1d Well, realistically, anyone aboard a space ship that's headed for combat is going to be suited up 100% of the time. If you put some development time towards those and armor them up, you're going to have quite a bit better crew survivability than you'd otherwise have. So long as you don't have a massive nuclear explosion rip through the ship of course.

[@soul1d]

@@Niskirin the big issue is if the suits are damaged, and how quickly rescue can arrive. Do the suits have enough oxygen to be rescued. Space battles in reality would take hours to days to weeks as things scale up

[@conors7914]

My biggest takeaway here is that the "Autodesign" feature in the ship designer needs some major work. It's been recommending Ion drives to me regardless of the hull type/role I pick ever since I unlocked that tech. It led me down a trap and cost me a bunch of ships. Seems like the over-prioritization of cruise delta-v regardless of role by the autodesigner is a big problem.

[@OneRedKraken]

I think they might as well include TWR (Thrust To Weight Ratio) as one of the stats for the ship. Mass becomes very relativistic in terms of the impact it has to your ship. Having this value you could have a better idea of how much impact are the modules or tanks you are adding are having on the acceleration potential of your ship. This reminds me of KSP Ship Designing since there is a point where adding more fuel gets diminishing returns as you push your TWR further down. At least for me seeing the TWR helps me understand whether I'm causing a more significant impact to my acceleration than I am adding range by putting more fuel. You have to avoid being inside the diminishing returns pocket if you don't want to be essentially wasting resources in building an inefficient ship.

[@Cyberspine]

Acceleration = thrust/mass

[@Copperdust29]

TWR is basically just the acceleration, at least on Earth. 1G of acceleration = TWR of 1. It only changes if you are referring to other planets. 1G of acceleration is not a TWR of 1 on, say, Luna, but since we aren't designing landing vessels, a pure absolute unit for acceleration is more useful. That being said, we can take a look at the Fuel Fraction instead. If a vessel is 99% propellant and gets to 10kps, it's hugely inefficient, if a vessel is 10% propellant and gets to 100kps, it's hugely efficient. Generally you just care about "how much kps do I need?" and then you figure out how much propellant you require for that, and if it's an acceptable efficiency, and if the engines you have provide an acceptable acceleration.

[@zanaduz2018]

@@Copperdust29 1 G is a constant value: it refers to the value of gravitational acceleration of an object on the surface of Earth. Hence why you can pick a different celestial object (say, Luna) and it will display the surface gravitational acceleration in gees (or milligees). Luna's, for instance, is 166 milligees (1/6 G).

[@Tuzszo]

@@zanaduz2018 The G is a constant value, but thrust-to-weight ratio isn't because weight isn't constant. A TWR of 1 on Luna would be 1/6 G as you said.

[@zanaduz2018]

A more useful ratio would be thrust-to-mass, not thrust-to-weight. Still, I understand why he phrased it that way since thrust-to-weight is what it is commonly termed as in aerospace applications (which is something more commonly known).

[@lolroflroflcakes]

You would figure using disposable SRBs would be a thing for warships, atleast early on, so they can get in last ditch evasive maneuvers in a fight while still using more efficient engines. You could even pop them off the ship to ditch the excess mass if you needed.

[@ManyAsNone]

Great video dude, I was struggling with the written guides I found - was a bit hesistant to sit down and watch a 50 minute video, but I'm glad I did. Super helpful, I think I've got a an especially good grasp on how to evaluate drives and the colonization sequence now.

[@kerravon4159]

Great video Perun, extremely well explained and very useful. I had no idea that space combat was so deep and tactical, the devs did a fantastic job with designing the space combat system.

[@shawntorno]

Incredible video. Your play throughs have already helped me so much with the detail and depth of this game, but this is above and beyond. Really appreciate it.

[@caseygoddard]

I was looking forward to a deep dive into ship design and combat. Thanks for making this video, Perun.

[@PainFireFist]

Super helpful video. I have the Earth part down and dabbled (halfway successfully) with space stations and bases, but the shipbuilding and combat seemed super hard. This video helped a lot with understanding the mechanics!

[@daffyf6829]

Wow this was comprehensive! The maneuvering you pulled in the second battle was amazing.

[@wildwest664]

I think an interesting idea would be using a "kite" ship where you got a shit ton of armor in the back and as soon as you get off all your missiles you just start running. Plus the PDs will have more time to intercept/recharge before missiles stike.

[@StroominPrime]

The potential downside is that if the ship does take substantial damage, it will be to the thrusters. Then you might end up having to scuttle the vessel. The upside, as you said, is that you might not take that damage and the combat will time out before some enemy shots hit.

[@epicurus2163]

This is fantastic, I hope you make further guides down the line regarding use of combat ships in the midgame, then lategame. Loving the series too.

[@3dCraddock]

This was exactly the type of in-depth build guide I needed. Won my first space battle prior to this but it was a stroke of luck, and I used 1 Battleship and 3 monitors with mixed missile and PDL's against the one alien destroyer, with a casualty. I had made the Ion mistake, which was good for transiting between Luna and Earth, but those transits had been needless experimentation of gameplay. I had long restarted the campaign since to clean up messy first time gameplay and tonight was my plan to get the fleet underway as my space econ has been flourishing. Building ships made sense to a degree, and it looks like I had the right idea, but had absolutely no point of reference to compare to other players, especially armour. Thank you, great vid!

[@xw1ngnutsx952]

Excellent vid. Thank you for these uploads. You're producing the best Terra Invicta material on here. Suitably liked & subbed. Keep them coming!

[@VoxDargard]

This video was phenomenal. Really excellently explained the differences between engines, weapons, etc. I especially appreciated the example combats at the end. Thank you so much for this!

[@SierraSierraFoxtrot]

26 weeks to Mars is a basic Hohmann transfer, with the minimum dV at the best time. It doesn't matter which engine and what exhaust velocity you have, that's the cheapest in terms of delta V. A ship with high exhaust velocity engine can have more dV and spend it to get a shorter transit. You states that "if a ship doesn't have enough dV it would have to take an in-efficient transfer path", it's exactly the opposite. A ship with the minimum dV has to take the MOST efficient transfer, a ship with dV to spare can use an less efficient transfer and save time or leave at a bad time.

[@johannesd.492]

oh man the space combat in this game is really next level. Thanks for your videos!

[@gallusdomesticuskfptechpriest]

An alternative strategy that worked super well for me - build nothing smaller than a battleship, with at least 5 point defence on it. Point defence in a big phalanx is our biggest edge over the ayyys, and by the time they bring out the plasma, you'll (hopefully!) have your own plasma/phasers, and the economic edge

[@echadit]

Thank you! Building ships is by far the most confusing thing in this game, especially with tons of different engines and their unique characteristics. This helps a lot!

[@justanothercommenter5835]

Thanks a bunch for this guide! Bagged my first destroyers in the 2070s by launching a suicide run of 6 crappy little missile escorts. 5 perished, but one survived, and to the Resistance before 2030, those are good numbers!

[@MijnAfspeellijst1234]

Really like terra invicta on earth but i was overwhelmed to make a ship and temporary stoped playing. Thank you for making this video :)

[@Ba1th1azar]

i wish i could like this video more than once, im having so much fun with this game just restarting and learning the mechanics before i try to finish it, and your videos are awesome!

[@jasonwright8546]

Thank you very much for this video. I learned a great deal from it, and it likely saved me a lot of ships!. I would love to see more deep dives like this for other stages of the game, including how to take the fight to the alien assets effectively, station construction tips, and later game fleet makeup tips.

[@elijahsnow3119]

Name of my crash Monitor program is Operation Macross for a reason. Covering the drives is very much appreciated.

[@apollogamer8758]

A really, really good guide. Really enjoyed your video and hope to see more guides on this game. Keep up the good work :)

[@xanttis604]

I guess it has changed since then. My advanced pulsar drives on escort when I put it exactly like you did it on the video 20:16 are making slightly less cruise acceleration and cruise delta-v, but combat acceleration is nearly 10x lower - not even 0,5 gs. Turn rate is also nearly 3x lower now. That's a huge difference now

[@AgaresOaks]

Note that for high-thrust (non-rocket) drives you typically want to be using the 1x (at MOST 2x) version of the drive if you want to try to travel long distances. This is because the power requirements (and thus radiator size and reactor size) increase as you add more thrusters. This usually isn't an issue but the advanced pulsar drive should perform somewhat comparably (guessing around 2-3x propellant needed) to the ion drive because the ion drive is SO bad and the advanced pulsar is quite efficient for a high-thrust drive. Your prospective advanced pulsar ship goes from 1.7k tons to 2.4k when you bump it up to 6x. (and actually had a vector at 1x, it just took 80 weeks) Given you already have 1k in propellant, that extra thrust basically doubled the mass of your ship. The reason is the most efficient way to a place is typically some variant of burn as much as you can to gain speed, then turn around and burn in the opposite direction to slow down so you actually go into an orbit. For an ion drive, it's pretty easy to accomplish this because its thrust is so low, so you want to increase the thrust as much as possible. For the advanced pulsar drive, this is pretty much impossible even on 1x, so it's using different less efficient trajectories. Technically speaking, the turning around part and burning isn't needed, you just need a way to slow down. As far as I can tell, aerobraking isn't in the game yet though (but intends to be implemented eventually). Alternatively, you could just do what DART did and transfer all that speed into a larger object. For obvious reasons, Terra Invicta is not implementing that.

[@basbekjenl]

Yeah I'd imagine even if we put all our efforts together instead of competing with ourselves in the face of alien threat we wouldn't be able to put together a combat capable spaceship by the end of the decade. Stuff takes time and especially this stuff it's slow complex with many hard problems to solve, flying up all the pieces of a spaceship with the tech and capability of today it would be a nightmare to do it under pressure with no mistakes facing an intelligent threat. I can't imagine the work schedule of those ship builders but I doubt it was ethical. Great job on the inclusion of the combat demo at the end, a very nice demonstration of the smaller ship class vs the monitors.

[@richardmichaelson]

Thank you! Built my first two ships and took down my first Alien Destroyer thanks to this guide. 🎉😊

[@Slaaan]

Thanks for the Vid. Came to the vid at the exact intersection you described at the start (first opportunity to build and asking: should I?) and I struggled with wondering if I should expand more into space before building... You answering that right at the start and providing context is what I consider great content. I will come back to this vid once I actually feel like build ships makes sens :)

[@Astuar]

Great tutorial! As always. Found out a lot of useful new information, even though I spent a lot of time ingame. Decent combat and ship tutorials are scares this days. Thank you! I often use mass rattler escort fleet (3 rockets per salvo with quick reload, but low damage). They are relatively chip, so I'm ok with losing some of them. My main tactic is a full burn away from the enemy fleet. This gives you more time to put as many missiles out as possible. Additionally enemy fleets tends to extend and it is easier to prioritize faster approaching ships. You need to keep and eye out if any enemy ship (especially small nimble ones) are plotting a fast burn trajectory inside your formation. You can reorient couple of ships to go as closely as possible to the enemy flyby trajectory and massively increase a chance of rockets hitting them. Additionally ramming button will often create a perfect circular trajectory around and incoming enemy ship. It makes your multiple rocket salvoes reach enemy ship at the same moment basically overpowering their PD.

[@jamesbushell7280]

Great guide. I recon this could lend itself to an infographic of some sort for people who have the knowledge of the game and the skills for making them.

[@shortwave737]

Mark 3 rail cannons are actually just good enough for space combat in my opinion. I recommend them.

[@alrikster8377]

Have you compared rail cannons to rail gun arrays? How do they perform in comparison?

[@mergele1000]

Mark3 Rail cannons are pretty solid and quite usable in my experience as well. I don't like the rail guns, they trade in a lot of power for the turret and I have not experienced much trouble having the nose pointed somewhere in the rough direction of the enemy for most of the time. If you go with chemical rockets and try to dodge stuff you probably will have a different experience, but so far I usually just rely on pd and heavy nose armor.

[@shortwave737]

@@alrikster8377 yeah railgun batteries are ass and probably why people think railguns aren’t good at all. The projectile is too slow to hit anything or get through PD on slower targets. The only thing I found them good for was intercepting mag cannon shots, but even then they were very spotty.

[@MoonwalkSA]

Absolutely swear by Mk3 Rail Cannons for early-midgame alien hunting, yeah. They're really only functional on Destroyers out of the early ships, but a fleet of 4-6 Mk3 Rail Destroyers with point defenses can easily take down the standard destroyer scouts/scout fleets with no losses, and they can even consistently down a mothership if you decide to really take the fight to the aliens (albiet with some losses). The setup can challenge dreadnoughts too, but you have to play the tactics well to survive and it might take re-tries on the fight. Basically, Rail Cannons are just the right level of low investment cost, early availability, all-round effectiveness, and long-term viability. You do still wanna upgrade to coil/plasma tech or antimatter or whatever, but even in that era the leftover railgun ships won't be useless.

[@riffzifnab9254]

"Basic bitch liquid rocket" oh great, now I'm wondering if pumpkin spice is an oxidizer or propellant. (:

[@JWilliamsLangley]

This is a random gold comment to read while seeing what technical advice folks might offer in the Comments

[@fang_xianfu]

What an absolutely fantastic video, you're smashing it mate. Quality work.

[@ravenwargaming5612]

Really great guide! Especially the end displaying how to do ship combat in practice.

[@andrewugalde967]

Perfect tutorial, exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for putting this together!

[@anno-8473]

You should a chapters so people can skip around to the part of ship design they want to know about. Great video.

[@leonidas_bc8566]

Extremely helpful. Thanks for feeding my TI addiction

[@MrLuigi98]

Are you also willing to make a video about all possible formable great nations/federations?

[@HenriFaust]

It would be interesting to see some kind of refueling-ship mechanic to extend the range of ships after combat. That's how air combat already works.

[@thomasgordon9366]

Keep up the good work....You have the best guides I've found for the game so far. Look forward to your videos going forward

[@loveisontheroad7155]

You are an absolute hero for this guide my friend.

[@stoonersan2707]

thank you so much for this. I was really struggling with the drives.

[@steadyjumper3547]

"The onliest path" - Perun leader of humanity first. Never change

[@vincenty82]

Thank you! This helps a lot. Looking forward to mid and late game designs and fleet compositions.

[@xModerax]

Wow this video is informing and entertaining, very well done mate

[@alexanderpetras499]

Thanks so much for this video and for such a great lets play series on this truly amazing game!

[@onsholo]

Are tanker ships a thing? Something that you can use to refuel your ships without bringing them back to a supply depot?

[@xeroprotagonist]

The devs have talked about adding them soon, I think they're necessary considering how easily you can strand a ship. As it is, you can bring along a ship with a solar or fission platform and eventually build a supply depot at wherever you can get to. Hopefully we'll get tugs and carriers as well at some point.

[@hqiran3218]

Also it would be very helpful if you could do another video on how to set priorities for each kind of country

[@navi2710]

This game just becomes even more amazing

[@land0land0]

Thanks Perun. You convinced me to give this game a try and I absolutely love it.

[@Aspartic]

Another great video. How about another guide covering the uses and differences between different planets, obits and Lagrange points?

[@BenjaminIsip]

Yes, I'm not sure why you'd want to build or refuel in Extreme Orbit instead of at an lagrange point.

[@ricks4348]

You have inspired me to pick this game up. Thank you.

[@JohnVanderbeck]

One of these games I aim to actually get far enough to need this guide lol

[@Xorgrim]

Fantastic explanation! I am still a little unsure about which drives and powerplants to skip. However, since the skirmish mode looks like it's fun, I will just throw some ships together and test them in that mode before launching anything in my campaign. Better safe than sorry.

[@zanaduz2018]

Each drive/engine tech does provide something useful in some sense, but you will want to experiment to find which one fits into your requirements (economic, role, and preference). Non-combatants will prioritize endurance (delta-V) and cheapness; combatant vessels will tend to want more acceleration to both perform intercepts and avoid incoming fire.

[@GoWokeGoBroke1]

That end tho... Can't wait for the next episode

[@rido77]

Thanks, was waiting for this one

[@BottleWaterson]

i really wish the Skirmish mode let you customize ships so you could know what you want before researching instead of Save-Loading 5 turn in advance, build a fleet of ships with the parts available, Lose catastrophically, and Load to before doing the research to try it all again.

[@AgaresOaks]

You can prototype a bunch of candidate ships (don't actually build anything), save the game (or just go back to the main menu, it autosaves), and then in skirmish when you go to pick the class of ship you can choose to import from a save. You can test out your designs there.

[@BottleWaterson]

@@AgaresOaks wow that works... I Really Wish Skirmish Mode had a big obvious button with Import on it alongside a customization screen.

[@MoonwalkSA]

May as well post my first highly-successful alien hunter fleet here: *Ship Class* - Destroyers (Fleet of 4 ships) *Nose Weapon* - Mk3 Rail Cannon *Hull Weapons* - 1x Laser PD, 1x Particle PD *Armor* - Nanotube: 22 front/0 side/0 rear *Engines* - Advanced Pulsar Drive x6 (18 propellant tanks) *Power* - Solid Core Fission Reactor V *Batt* - Quantum Battery *Radiator* - Cobalt Dust Radiator *Utility* - Liquid Hydrogen Containment, Magazine, Lithium Heat Sink (you could put whatever in these slots honestly, like ECM is likely better than Mags) This fleet actually took down a Mothership as our very first kill (with heavy losses), before i learned about how dangerous the alien threat level is, and went back to snipe out one of the basic scout fleets instead. This was mid-2031 I believe. Most of the railgun batteries are not very effective overall, but Mk3 Rail Cannons in particular are extremely effective long-term for how accessible and low-cost they are to invest in - they can shred even the huge ships with surprising speed. This is also ABSOLUTELY more tech than you strictly need to just snipe an alien ship as early as possible, the vid's missiles are probably better for that. But this design makes a strong basis to establish and upgrade into Space Superiority functions going into mid-late game.

[@AeonStar1]

My tips. On missile boats and anything that doesn't need a lot of electrical juice, you should use the Salt Water Battery. It's the lightest option and still better than the Tesla batteries. For colony ships, I use escorts, not gunships, and equip them with a platform kit (or an outpost kit for asteroid hoppers) and a space science lab. Since the ship is faster than a probe, you can use the lab to do probing - particularly useful in the asteroids and outer system.

[@bulletstop100]

Thank you for this. It will help me when I get to that stage..

[@YoungIskander]

The padlock's existence and function has saved many lives (and resources).

[@amcgregor679]

One thing to add to this guide is that not all early game missiles are equal. I tried following this guide with rattlers instead thinking that their greater acceleration would make them harder to evade, and their high rate of fire would better saturate alien point defenses. It didn't work out the way I had hoped. Their low delta v meant that the alien ship could evade most of them, and their low damage meant when they did hit, they didn't do much. I ran out of missiles before I could destroy the alien ship.

[@conors7914]

If you're open to doing more tutorial videos I'd recommend a deep dive into the tech tree, looking at important techs to prioritize, important break points etc. I'm just now discovering the plethora of techs that MASSIVELY increase the efficiency of your Boost priority, which I could see being hugely beneficial in the early game. I also had one hell of a time finding the tech that permits the construction of earth based space defenses. It seems like the social research that results in super nations is kind of a trap? Something that is helpful to have in the late game but probably not something to prioritize early. I went hard after Super America in my Academy playthrough and ended up feeling very behind the eight ball.

[@andrewhull8314]

What is the name of those techs? I fell into that pitfall, its 2030 and I can't build a great ship, earth defenses? Boost efficiency? where are these things

[@conors7914]

@@andrewhull8314 there's a next generation aerospace tech (or something like that?) that unlocks 2-3 engineering projects that each give 10-20% Boost priority efficiency. If you search the full tree for "Aerospike Engines" and look for its predecessor tech I believe you'll find it. The ground based space defenses are unlocked by the "Transinterface Warfare" tech, I believe. They're improved by a bunch of the laser techs.

[@Davis-H]

In the previous video you had a nice explanation of deceptive alien early game combat power due to their large engines and delta V. Sad to not see it in this upload because that section was very informative to me to help be not be intimidated by those numbers. Also I have heard conflicting reports of ECM: Does ECM only work on missiles you have researched? It mentions "familiar" missile systems. What does ECM actually protect against?

[@socialcredit4435]

ECM only works against human ships until you research a tech later on which makes it effective against alien missiles.

[@GoalieJocke]

Love this video! I just want to make a shout-out for the Krait Missiles. They are by far the best starting tech weapons, and was what i used to bring down my first alien vessel in late-2026. I had them equipped on 4 Escort-class vessels and it did the trick, losing 2 of them while bringing down the alien vessel. That being said, the 6-inch gun is absolute trash...

[@railgun8160]

"The only-est route to do diplomacy with the aliens is to shoot them down." Hanse Castillo, probably on a hydra corpse idk...

[@devonwilliams9576]

This has been immensely helpful! Can't wait to give this a try. I'm in the early 2030s in my first game, and I've completely shied away from the ship building, and sort of neglected space for a while.... probably to the long term detriment of my run-through (Initiative), as now I'm feeling behind in terms of bases and stations. oh well. Could you do a guide at some point for mid/late game ship designs and combat?

[@slimpwarrior]

In my head cannon you're a scientist explaining me how things work lol

[@sternenwind00e]

Can you make a second video for more Space Combat Tactics? I have seen 3 things that may be interesting. 1. manuel dodge 2. using acceleration and or deacceleration to stack missle salvos to overwhelm the enemy PDS. 3. using acceleration and or deacceleration to increase the PDS intercept window against missles.

[@ImperativeGames]

Someone should make a list of maneuvers. Big one is sending an armored ship with lots of PD ahead of damage dealers.

[@Womblewobble1321]

Had to revisit this 9 months later!

[@Zeroscape]

What a fantastic video. Thanks Perun.

[@craigcollings5568]

God it's hard keeping up with you. I like that.

[@Vasious8128]

For the Colony ships, the Space Science Uttley allows them to survey a body in 28 days, so you can beat the probes pout to Juptier and get the bases on the ground with the ship.

[@Yrojrund]

I think of space combat in basically 2 phases. Phase 1 - The Alpha Strike, the most important part. This when your long range missiles start to first land. Either the enemy ship gets overwhelmed and basically killed due to just how many are landing, or they evade it/shoot it down and move into phase 2. Phase 2 - Test of endurance, essentially it’s your guns and armor vs their guns and armor, whoever gets luckier with hits or who can absorb more shots wins.

[@melanoc3tusii205]

Depending on the technologies involved, it can also be the reverse

[@Rose_Harmonic]

If you get the Space Research tech, you get a module that let's a ship prospect planets, moons, and asteroids. Good if you have a lot of asteroids to colonize or you think you can get to jupiter before the probes by starting from the asteroid belt.

[@Tarrtarus]

Thank you for this guide!! It was tremendously helpful!

[@HenriFaust]

Ion drives typically use xenon, krypton, or rarely argon but they can also use adamantane. Ion drives is one of the few IRL uses for adamantane, due to its low ionization energy (i.e. the energy cost to ionize something).

[@darthkarl99]

37:40 i feel like that was almost aimed at me and the time in KSP i did a retrograde, (relative to kerbin and duna's orbits around the sun), mission to put a comsat in mars orbit so i could control my probe when it got there because i boo-booed.

[@mildlyderanged]

Such a useful video, wish I'd seen it before my first space combat, id built 6 patrol ships with nose mounted naval cannons and figured I could just zerg the aliens. The answer was no, the destroyer ran rings around me and tore my ships to shreds, RIP Taskforce "Abduct me Senpai"

[@archerbascha8757]

I turned one corvette into a marine transport with two assaultroops hardpoints and one IR laser in the nose. Didn't used it yet but it felt like something I could use later.

[@hodlum101]

Perun is turning into the manual/wiki for this game. I would have had no idea what any of the settings were if not for this video.

[@leuk2389]

Hey Perun I know this video is a year old already so not sure if you will see this but I would really love a guide on stations (what are good pieces for your stations? Why build stations and how do you use them? What are common station types and strategies? When should I mess with other factions stations?) maybe something about bases here too

[@ChesterRico]

Still learning something, cheers!

[@dansiegel995]

What happens to the colony ship once its deployed the hab? Should you design colony ships to be able to return to earth? Or, should they linger in space for a while for a construction module, mine, and supply depot to be built to refuel locally (which seems would take longer than the return trip, but dunno). A small video on all utility ships would be good, going over marine use for orbital and land combat, the colony ship in more detail, and the ISRU....and of course any future utility modules that we still have no idea about.

[@Njordin2010]

Build the dock. You need to repair them and its faster mosg times depending ob where you transfer.

[@Wolfenacht]

Don't forget that missiles aren't exactly the greatest either, Eve has shown that. Missiles can be more accurate to targets moving, but they can be taken out by point defenses AND as crazy as it is, a ship can outrun the blast radius. So the missile "connects" and explodes, but the speed of the explosion is slower than the velocity of the ship... meaning little to no damage. Not sure if that is how it works in this game, just a thought. Secondly if missiles are slower than energy/projectile than you have to determine what to do. If your missiles do 200 damage but take 45 seconds to reach the enemy who has 1000 hp. You need just 5 missile hits to kill him, but it will take 45 seconds for the first missile to hit, then a solid 5-10 for the next four (Depending on how many you fire at a time and fire rate). Lets say you have 10000 hp. 10 times the amount of the enemy, and their lasers only hit for 50 damage, but it's instant and the firing rate is 1 second and they have 6 lasers. Every second you take 300 damage, can't miss and instantly hit. in 34 seconds they do 10,200 damage to you. So they blow you up before your first missile can even connect. Now this is the simplistic numbers, because armor and speed changes things. But that will show you how 6 less damaging lasers against you and you have ten times the health, but at best you will do is a draw of both dead.

[@mergele1000]

Regarding DeltaV for early ships: 1 is sufficient for low earth orbit defense and keeps the ship nice and cheap. Maybe do 1.2 to be comfortably on the safe side, but that is really enough unless you want to fight and catch human enemies.