If you look through the SoaSE Wiki (I don't remember the URL off the top of my head), someone's written up an article detailing how planning a trade port chain can be more beneficial than simply spamming them on every single planet you own.
Strikecraft are terrible at killing Flak, not to mention that they shoot back, so that's a feasible strategy. BTW: TEC flak has 4 guns, Advent has 6 guns, Vasari has 2 missile launchers.
Cutthroats and Rogues have the highest tendencies to go after trade ships, while Corsairs tend to go after structures and Reapers after strike craft (if no strike craft, they tag along with the Corsairs). With lots of trade ships milling about (pirate raid size increase as the amount of trade activity increases), you'll start finding invasion fleets composing of half Corsairs.
Really, the only good reason to seriously hunt for artifacts is to go after the Archeologist achievement (find all 9 artifacts). Admittedly, it was fun seeing a level 10 Kortul have a 200+ DPS from Pulse Beams alone with Power Surge (cooldown rate +75%), culture (+15% damage), research (+20% damage), and the Kinetic Intensifier artifact (+12% damage).
AI behaviour has changed somewhat with 1.1, but they usually surrender when you beat them around pretty hard or eradicate any remnants of their fleet (which usually coincides with them having 3 or fewer planets remaining). I've seen AI's continue to fight even after I've burned their HW and its last capital ship: it just simply relocates its capital and builds another capital ship factory. Oh, and ever notice with unlocked teams that after an allied victory your computer allie
Strike craft do attempt to return, but if the carrier departs first, then the strike craft are magically sucked into the carrier's hangar bay and released when phase jump is complete. Its fairly obvious when you're in an uncolonizable well with enemy trade ships or scouts regularly jumping in. Strike craft can't resist targeting these guys (unless you've specifically told them not to by turning off auto-attack or set engagement ranges to local/hold) so its entirely possible that a squ
The "Flagship" designation is only given to the highest level capital ship in your fleet, regardless of when it was built (1st, 2nd, or 10th). No capital will have this designation if there are two (or more) capitals with the same level and they are all the highest leveled capitals. In the Empire Tree, if my memory is accurate, the caps are sorted by level, then order of construction. If you had all level 7 capitals, for instance, they would be sorted in order they were built from old
CB has a charge time of 2 seconds and a duration of 8 seconds, so if you can count time accurately, order the Radiance to fire on a target which can withstand the 2000 damage CB will do over those 8 seconds (preferably a capital ship, though with the huge hull and shield buffs to light carriers, those could work), count 2 seconds and cast Malice immediately. Really, capital abilities work most optimally when microed properly. Malice could also work if you have lots of ships pouring on
If you're not involved in any alliances, two ways: no hostile colonies remain or your enemies have surrendered. If you are involved in an alliance, either your enemies surrender or there are no players hostile towards any member of your alliance.
No, they're definitely pulse beams as a result of Charged Missiles. The same effect happens with the Junsurak Sentinel and enemy strike craft (which helps clear large numbers of enemy strike craft). The Enforcer's Inertial Field doesn't give off a visible effect, it just inflicts a max speed/acceleration penalty.
Probe and Lingering Presence completely remove the fog of war. A similar thing happens if you observe any other gravity well, then lose visibility of it (either your ships depart or are destroyed). You'll be able to see a few explosions and the movements of ships, but it should disappear after a short time.
Malice will always cost 50 AM, last 8 seconds, and have a 10 second cooldown. The improvement you get is the number of targets affected (8/16/24). From my understanding, the damage taken by ANY ship is added up by Malice, then when the effect expires, 30% of the total damage that all of these ships took is dealt to them again. Its deadly when used with Cleansing Brilliance on the Radiance.
As soon as someone finds an artifact, everyone gets a message saying "Another empire has discovered a powerful artifact at X." but will not say what artifact it is. Searching for them is usually not worth it, but sometimes they can change the balance of the game if you've reached a stalemate with your opponents.
Upgrading extraction rates, although the effect is permanent, should only be done when you can spare the time to replenish the crystal used to perform the upgrade. What you don't want to do is spend your last 400ish crystal for that last upgrade to extraction rate and then find you need that crystal to build something that you urgently need.
The artificial phase lane network can be made even more efficient if you can get to the Tier 7 tech Enhanced Tunneling, which increases phase jump speed in phase lanes created by Stabilizers by 20%/40% (both levels is needed for RA anyway). A Phase Stabilizer network is also required to use the Antorak Marauder's ultimate ability, Stabilize Phase Space, which creates a temporary phase stabilizer (which explains the circular apparatus near the Marauder's engines) for 75 seconds.
If you look at the SoaSE Wiki, someone has put forth an analysis on the value of artifacts and what they've found is that the Data Archive artifact is considered to be the most valuable artifact, since it reduces research costs by 25% and makes up the cost of searching for it the quickest. The Kinetic Intensifier is second, but fairly distant. As for the remainder, well, think of it this way: you got $1 as a consolation prize when you could have gotten $1 million.
Their culture bonus supplements their military focus, since their ships can do up to 15% more damage in areas under their cultural influence.
Phase Stabilizers seem to take some time after completion before your ships actually consider them usable.
Just about any modification on a rate will have that kind of effect on overall time (like refire rate of weapons).
Minor note: the Dunov's Shield Restore description says it can be used on structures, but no structures that I know of have shields (although I don't have Entrenchment, so I don't know if that has changed).
Culture, in order to increase alleigance, grant my ships bonuses, hold off hostile culture, and prevent attackers from immediately colonizing planets under the influence of my culture. Trade Ports/Refineries for increased income rates.
And keep in mind that the change in overall build time is not a 17%/33% reduction. To find the actual build time, perform the calculation t/(1+R), where t is the normal build time and R is the researched increase in construction rate (either 0.17 or 0.33).
Fixes some stacking issues (abilities that normally are not supposed to stack were stackable). Although, it was fun dropping an enemy cap's Phase Missile block by 100% and its shield mitigation by 40% and watching it shrivel.
Fighters are pretty much the only ships in Sins that can hit any other damageable object (Bombers can hit anything except themselves and fighters). Pokletu: Yes, bombers can take out long range frigs and scouts, but far less quickly than fighters. This is reversed when you start talking about structures, capital ships, and heavy cruisers.
Auras, off the top of my head, don't stack on each other. Some, however, can stack with other abilities, such as the Skirantra's Repair Cloud with Reintegration and their Regeneration Bay. I do know for a fact that Hoshis cannot stack their Repair Bots on a target five times. However, you can still get 60.0 hull/second repaired if you have a fully upgraded Repair Bay nearby (this can even be 70 for a Kol using Finest Hour).
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