Saving Area and maximising bases

[Brogren]

Since they arent any guides about how to save and maximise area i decided to make my own guide. This guide is mostly ment for free players since upgraded players just can get more terraforms and multi level platforms

Saving Area :

Are you a free player or does the terraforms and multi level platforms cost to much for you?
Then this guide is good for you. Note that free players are also limited on antimatter plants and orbital bases.

First Thing to check:
Do you have any crystal mines on a metallic or crater astro? Or any research labs that are there for nothing. Disband these since the area can be much better spent. You should replace those structures with metal refineries since they give both 3 (assuming you have a metal 3 base) in construction and production and 1 economy while that crystal mine only would give you the 1 economy.

2nd thing to check:
Do you use your best energy plant (not antimatter plants) if you have 3 in solar and your base doesnt have more area then disband that solar plant and get fusion plants. You get 1 extra energy before energy tech comes into hand. So if you disband 4 solar plants you would only need 3 fusion plants and then saving 1 area. Note : If upgraded you really should get terraforms and multi level platforms when the fusion plants start to cost about half the cost of those structures since they give you area anyways.

3rd thing to check (only if free)
Have you maximised your orbital base and antimatter plants? Getting lvl 5 antimatter plants gives you freaking 100 energy at lvl 20 energy tech. You will then be able to take down fusion and solar/gas plants. The orbital base is like 2 urban structures. If fertility 4 these are even more important. Since they dont take any area they are very good.

4th thing to check
Do you have energy and that 1 area to get a biosphere modification? If so get it fast. If you had 4 fertility before and lvl 20 urban structures you would have 80 in population but after the biosphere mod you can now take away FOUR urban structures thus saving 1-3 area depending on energy tech.

If you now still cant get anymore area please check the maximising bases part.

Maximising area
Are you free and have saved all area you can? Then its time to maximise the use for that area.

1st thing to do :
replace all your robotic factories with nanite factories and andriod factories. They are mmore area efficent but are advanced structures so this is limited.

2nd thing to do:
Now replace all your robotic factories with metal refineries (assuming metal 3, if metal 1 do the opposite) That will give you 1 extra construction and production each hour. Doesnt sound much but replace 10 and you got 10 extra! And every bit is important for a free account. Note that after a while metal refineries will become VERY expensive and will take you ages to save up for it. You then have to think if its worth the credits for that extra 1.

3rd thing to do:
Unless it makes you being able to do 1 less kind of ship you should disband a shipyard and replace with another metal refinery or even robotic factory since they give construction too.

4th thing to do
Replace your defences that isnt planetary rings or planetary shields with either a new planetary ring or spend the new energy on a orbital shipyard.

After this there isnt much left to do. Your bases are kinda stuck and you should focus now on getting some production commanders high and your energy level higher so you can disband a plant and build another production structure.

[Morfraen]

bad guide is bad. do some searching there was a discussion about this exact topic recently.

[Arjani]

It makes sense. This guide was written with "pure" free players in mind - i.e. people who have never been upgraded and will probably never upgrade. Building only +4 and +10 energy buildings will indeed maximise your area usage. Even the bit about replacing robotic factories with (3 metal) metal refineries is sensible because if you have a hard cap on area, you'd end up with a higher prod cap that way. Hell, in fact such players will have a higher prod cap if they built on arid/tundra planets instead of rockies.

Of course, what also needs to be mentioned is that pure free players will never be able to grow a good account, because the base and advanced buildings limits are far too restrictive. You should always try to get someone to upgrade you, even if it is only for a month. And once you get an upgrade, the information is in this guide will no longer be of any use to you.

[Brogren]

yes i am aware of that its for PURE free accounts i myself had all my bases maxed when i was a noob and not upgraded. Then we didnt have any kind of guide that helped me

[deaths_soul]

Of course, what also needs to be mentioned is that pure free players will never be able to grow a good account, because the base and advanced buildings limits are far too restrictive.

Not exactly. Free players can have a good account, the only problem is that it will not be able to keep up with the upgraded people. But if the freebies use their Recs and fleet properly and know how to optimize their bases, they can do a good job without being upgraded. They'll have a good account, just not as good as it could be as a roadblock will finally be reached once MLPs and Terraforms are maxed out. Then they'll have to rely on their knowledge of the combat system.

[Arjani]

Of course, what also needs to be mentioned is that pure free players will never be able to grow a good account, because the base and advanced buildings limits are far too restrictive.

Not exactly. Free players can have a good account, the only problem is that it will not be able to keep up with the upgraded people. But if the freebies use their Recs and fleet properly and know how to optimize their bases, they can do a good job without being upgraded. They'll have a good account, just not as good as it could be as a roadblock will finally be reached once MLPs and Terraforms are maxed out. Then they'll have to rely on their knowledge of the combat system.

You'll have trouble even raising your total prod cap beyond 5000 as a pure free account. I've tried doing it - carefully calculated what structures I should build on each of my bases to maximise my econ and caps.

[Wlerin]

Not to mention its trivial to upgrade for a month and build several MLPs and Terraforms on each of your bases.

Well, unless you have some problem transfering the money...

[BlueZephyr]

What happens if you have more than 10 bases (either from the first 7 days or from upgrading) and then you disband a base. Are you restricted back to 9 bases if you don't upgrade?

[Aeri]

What happens if you have more than 10 bases (either from the first 7 days or from upgrading) and then you disband a base. Are you restricted back to 9 bases if you don't upgrade?

Yes. You can keep everything you have until that point but you'll have the free account restrictions again.

[Sarudo]

This seems to be the closest place where one would ask such a question, seeing as we haven't been sucessful in finding much on Base Commanders other than those related to production.

We have all of our bases with commanders in defence upto level 10 and 20 command centres and for us at least that has represented quite an investment, particulalry when one has over 15 bases. What we want to know is if there are precautions one can take to reduce the likelihood of one's commander being killed when their world is being attacked?

[basilisk101]

Nope, it's a flat 10% chance of the commander dying every time the base is pillaged.

[Sarudo]

Thankyou for that..
But damm! that's annoying.
You'd think that the greater ones static defences or the level of commander would have some effect upon their survivabilty.
Seems a little arbitrary..

[TheDonut]

CC's don't help you defend your base btw. If a person is smart, they'll send the minimum armor profile to destroy your fleet/base defenses. They'll have more derbs to slurp, but not substantially more as you should only have 1 dread per level of rings on your base as fleet defense. The 10-20 area/pop could be better used in production, or if you are a hardcore turtle, extra prings/pshields.

[Sarudo]

Greetings to you both theDonut and Basilisk101... our thanks to you for your advice concerning defence. Our apologisies for not responding sooner.
We have invested in cc's because we were under the impression that they reduced the profitability of the base they were on, as they increased the quantity of fleet it would take to sucessfully "hit" that base. We were also under a simillar impression that having a commander in defence at lv10 or above on that same world would also add to the raiders burden. Since we have done this we have found that when our worlds have been hit, now much less often, the profit margins those raiders used to enjoy has diminished significantly. Of course the presence of other substantial facilities may have also had their effect too, but others we have seen, who have far greater defences than ourselves, who regularly leave dreadnaughts etc.. in system, ostensibly as defence, have found themselves only attracting raiders, and then have to remove occupations, and replace fleet and only to have it happen all over again...We fail to see how having such large fleets, stationed at ones base does anything more than provide a source of income to those it is supposed to deter or defend against.
We do not seek simply to gainsay you, but speak only from our albeit limited experience and have found this to be so. We wonder why? Respective tech levels perhaps?

[Wuggla]

hello some named "Donut" says unless your hardcore turtle.
mmm thnx thats me hardcore turle "UBER" is preferd over hardcore though.
first thing i noticed is that some one said to drop robo factorys for nanite/androids.
well most players only get 5 of both NA/AD factories;so you dont' drop those robos
unless you wanna loose eco or to build metal 3's mines.
"""METAL #3'S"" Astroids/rockys/craters/metalic!!!!
ive seen it built/built them in evry server yes i have trust me.
long time playing free accounts unless you get 1 month upgrade-
only after you have cybernyectics researched and thats about 4months after you start account free.
then you build as many antimater plants on astroids as you can and rockys; never get craters or metal as free
thats just me i will wait till one of those U.C. reales a good 1 pos astro and take it.
yes astro is awsome only one and only if you get 1 just for deffence of research/capitols do not put trades
with capitols on this astro they will make it a target also 10/20 ring shield it.
also no fleet only eco centers and crystalmines as much as possible with that base
the rest of your bases should be planets unless you start on rocky moon then keep that moon.
i like Gia as free account i do not need to build Biomodes for this and saves me lot's area i spend on energy plants
just so i can build one fert 7 yes "FERTILITY 7" Area 90 are best overall base for free players
evry free player should build 20 CC 20 spaceports 20 shipyards 1 OSY you will then have to get 5/10 ringed shield
the reason for 20 CC is that as free acount with no ""SCANNER"" you probably don't play 24/7
wich means you spend like less than 12hrs playing thats more than enough time for some one to hit your base
20cc make it realy painful to farm you
the rest of your structres 2metal and robos are for eco you can take them down and go for prodution caps?
although i like eco better to research the 20 labs per base is lvl 8 tachayon is easy to get and research is the only thing to keep you playing after you hit the wall so 20 per base on 8 gia and 24 on astroid """""GOOD LUCK""""""