Newbie questions

[Tommy Schouw]

Hi, new player to the game, only clocked 10 days so far, so everything is new and confusing still. I looked around on the forums, but most of the discussions are about stuff that is way above level I'm playing at atm (only just found out where the chaos cluster was this morning, so very new). So here are some very basic questions for you pros. Hope you can help me out.

My stats:
I'm currently lvl 76, 5M power, Rank 9 in arena. Got S1 Lyon (Protector) and 3 A-ranked commanders, Jacob(Ranger), Sylver(Striker), Sophietia(Rover) and using Vulturine at lt for my flagship and cassandra as lt for my protector.

The first round of questions:
1. Enhance before or after upgrades?
I can see the prices change, but don't have the big picture to find out if it makes sense to blow your cubits on enhancements before or after you upgrade a piece of equipment

2. Which buildings should I focus on upgrading?
Currently everything is around lvl 11-12, is galactite center @ lvl 14 something to prioritize? Should I spend credits on speed-upgrading it?

3. What is a good initial fleet upgrade strategy?
At present I'm upgrading my flagship the highest, and then keeping everything 1-2 tiers behind that. It's working fine for doing questing and getting 60-70 upgrade plans, but I can see that others are doing differently in the Arena and beating me.

4. Galactonites vs. enhancement?
Where do I get the most bang for my cubits? Should I dump it all into autocompose/decompose until I get R-4+ galactonites or is it better to just refine once I unlock that feature?

5. Combat roles?
I can easily see the role of protectors, stick them in front, let them soak up punishment, but what are the roles specific for the rest, currently I'm using my flagship as the primary tank, since he has the best defenses.

6. Are there any must-do activities?
I've noticed that there is a lot of variation in how much power you gain from doing stuff. And there are a lot of stuff you can do. So what gives the best return on effort and ressources?

[0rca234]

Hi Tommy Schouw. Level 76 is quite high as you are well into the game now. Some good questions to answer below.

1. Enhance before or after upgrades?
I can see the prices change, but don't have the big picture to find out if it makes sense to blow your cubits on enhancements before or after you upgrade a piece of equipment

Personally I would upgrade as it will take a little while before you get to level 80 in order to upgrade to the next level, even if the enhancement level drops by 5 when upgraded. On the other hand it will drop regardless of if you upgrade or not. Infact the price might even be the same.
Also later on you will have far more enough cubits than you need when you are during the level 80s.

2. Which buildings should I focus on upgrading?
Currently everything is around lvl 11-12, is galactite center @ lvl 14 something to prioritize? Should I spend credits on speed-upgrading it?

I'm pretty sure everyone here will agree not to spend credits to upgrade a building. Save your credits for stuff you can't get for free.

With particular buildings it depends if you wish to unlock the extra galactonite slots. Do you still need to upgrade engineering hub in order to upgrade or enhance your equipment as tthis might be more valuable.

3. What is a good initial fleet upgrade strategy?
At present I'm upgrading my flagship the highest, and then keeping everything 1-2 tiers behind that. It's working fine for doing questing and getting 60-70 upgrade plans, but I can see that others are doing differently in the Arena and beating me.

This depends on your playing style. Most people here will say the flagship is less priority than other ships. Persoanlly though, my flagship is possibly the most powerful and I prioritized augmentation on her, simply because I "wanted" to, not beacuse it was the best strategy. It is fun for me as I'm sort of passionate about the flagship and it kind of comes as surprise to other players.

This aside it generally makes sense to prioritize other ships as they have more potential and the chips are cheaper than the flagship chips when aquired from Galaxy League. Cheaper means you can aquire more of them and augement your other ships faster to higher levels and get a better bang for the buck.

4. Galactonites vs. enhancement?
Where do I get the most bang for my cubits? Should I dump it all into autocompose/decompose until I get R-4+ galactonites or is it better to just refine once I unlock that feature?

The refine feature works very slowly. For instance to refine an R6 galactonite takes about 9 or 10 x R5s. You can only salvage 1 galactonite per day which means it takse 9 or 10 days to refine the R6 galactonite.

As you are level 76 you must be tight on cubit but as mentioned before you will get to the point of having far enough cubits. You will end up having 100s of millions. So enhancing your equipment is the best bang for the buck. When you are maxed out and no longer able to enhance your equipment then you can look at galactonite.

Your buildings also cost cubits to upgrade and quite a bit, so if the cool down period is almost over and you are nearly ready to upgrade a building, then prioritise that and save the cubits for the upgrade. The rule I guess is to never let a construction line go unused.

5. Combat roles?
I can easily see the role of protectors, stick them in front, let them soak up punishment, but what are the roles specific for the rest, currently I'm using my flagship as the primary tank, since he has the best defenses.

The protectors are the tanks that can take more punishment. Rangers are high in defence and reasonable attack. Strikers are high in attack and have high hit rate but low defence. Destoyers use E-atk which ignore normal defence so they can easily deal damage to even high defence ships. Rovers, personally I am not sure but I think they are suppsoed to be a bit tanky, have high dodge but lower attack.

6. Are there any must-do activities?
I've noticed that there is a lot of variation in how much power you gain from doing stuff. And there are a lot of stuff you can do. So what gives the best return on effort and ressources?

Others wil be able to give great answers to this one. But generally there are a few rules or principles.

One you will hear a lot is "don't spend credits on things you can get for free". Unless you are trying to be #1 ofcourse.

In terms of "must do" activities or activities which give you great value. Note the following:
-Pandora Cluster: [Weekend only] Source of class ship chips.
-Galaxy League: Souce of Class ship chips, cubits, tech points, and prestige.
-Arena: Source of credits and also source of cubits and tech points
-Mining: Source of cubits
-Crazy wormhole (next to Infinate cosmos): Source of class ship chip fragments which you combine to make chips. Each day has corresponding class ship which appears weekly. Can be rest and rushed every week.
-Primus: Source of cubits and prestige
-Primus Invasion: [Friday only] Source of cubits and more
-Colonial: Experience points
-Primary Mission: Experience points
-Alliance battles: [held every month or 2] soucre of flagship chips, and many other rewards, well worth it.
-Daily tasks: Free credits along side the other items like power amplifiers, TS3-module chips etc.

There are probably more.

[Ben42]

Focus your credits on getting a red commander, they will be a game changer for you.

[Tommy Schouw]

Focus your credits on getting a red commander, they will be a game changer for you.

Right, so, what makes them red? From what I can tell, they are still S-something and the different red commanders are not all the same S-level. How much should I expect to spend on acquiring a red commander, and how would I go about it?

[Pliusomiot]

Latest S rank commanders are S5 and they are really overpowered compared to S4.. or older commanders.
Most (all) of your questions have been addressed before on this forum, most of them in very well documented manner.
If it is not very rude, i would suggest you to check all the topics on this forum in "tactics workshop", battle academy and general sections. You will definetely find there some answers.
The price for latest S rank commanders is around 65..80 thousands credits but try to refrain from spending on them until you'll hit level 100 at least

[z3nithor]

Enhance before Upgrade.

Cost to enhance from n to n+1 goes up about 2% for every enhancement.
Cost to enhance from n to n+1 goes up about 25% for every upgrade.
It is much cheaper to maximally enhance at a low plan level (40) and then use Upgrade, Enhance x5, Upgrade, Enhance x5... until you have reached the maximum possible plan and enhancement.

I've written a calculator for it, as in some cases it can be cheaper to start over on a new equipment than it is to do suboptimal enhancements (neglecting Z-boson).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=2120659073

[Tommy Schouw]

Latest S rank commanders are S5 and they are really overpowered compared to S4.. or older commanders.
Most (all) of your questions have been addressed before on this forum, most of them in very well documented manner.
If it is not very rude, i would suggest you to check all the topics on this forum in "tactics workshop", battle academy and general sections. You will definetely find there some answers.
The price for latest S rank commanders is around 65..80 thousands credits but try to refrain from spending on them until you'll hit level 100 at least

I'm still not sure why some of them are listed in red. When looking in the hero handbook, I get the following ordering:
S with 1-3 small stars next to them
S with a single big star
S with double big star
S with double big star and name in red (red hero?)
SS with purple background
SS with red background (red hero?)
SS with red background and name in red (really red hero?)

My question was essentially why some of the names came up as red, and secondarily if "get a red hero" was a reference to the name being in red or just SS with red background.

About the reading up on my own. I read through all the sticked threads and anything else that seemed immediately helpful. Only then did I make my post. since there are over 3500 topics and something like 10 times as many individual posts, "just read everything" seems a bit excessive. Even more so, when most of the topics discussed are way beyond beginner level. I can read what people are writing, but without the basic understanding of the game in place, it quickly becomes random unstructured noise to me, rather than useful information I can learn from.

Enhance before Upgrade.

Cost to enhance from n to n+1 goes up about 2% for every enhancement.
Cost to enhance from n to n+1 goes up about 25% for every upgrade.
It is much cheaper to maximally enhance at a low plan level (40) and then use Upgrade, Enhance x5, Upgrade, Enhance x5... until you have reached the maximum possible plan and enhancement.

I've written a calculator for it, as in some cases it can be cheaper to start over on a new equipment than it is to do suboptimal enhancements (neglecting Z-boson).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...gid=2120659073

Excellent! Or nearly so, since I've already pushed upgrade levels aggressively. Oh well, I'll try to see if it makes sense to go back from scratch and enhance my way up.

[Myhay Nycu Maglasu]

The best its to enhance before upgrade on equipsand upgrade first the buildings that let you up your equips and increase your force ike research and galactonite lab also citadel too...

[Tommy Schouw]

Ok, follow up question. I recently become leader of my alliance. The previous inactive leader had specified himself as the protector, and given that he only made it to lvl 25 before quitting, that kind of sucks.

Whenever I try to assign a new protector, I get told that it was a success, but nothing happens. Also I cannot kick the inactive x-leader, since he is presently the protector. Am I missing something obvious, or is this a bug?

[Nopo]

There has been a rather long standing issue with newly appointed alliance leader function that took over as alliance leader automatically (i experience this in 2015, to give you an idea how long ago this bug is, and i am not sure if it has been fixed). Contact support to get it checked out.