The Colonies of Man - Guide

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Contents 1 Overview 2 Strengths 2.1 Space Based 2.2 Wealthy 3 Weaknesses 4 Starting Total Fleet Ressources 5 Starships 5.1 Starting Ships Armor and Damage 5.2 Virgo's Burn 5.3 Early Economic Boost Strategy 5.3.1 Heres How 6 Strategy 6.1 Space or Base? 6.1.1 Growth Rate 6.1.2 Money 6.1.3 Mobility 6.1.4 Lord Owl’s thoughts about this 6.1.5 Njin’s opinion 6.2 The Virgo Class 6.3 Morningstar's Opinion on this 6.4 Using Your Celestia 6.4.1 Gambling Deck 6.4.2 Pyramid Lounge 6.4.3 Show Lounge 6.4.4 GalBank 6.4.5 GalDraw 6.5 Doing Battle (by Lord Owl) 7 Enemies 7.1 The Birdman Republic 7.1.1 Beware the Deth Spec 7.1.2 World Crusher Missile 7.1.3 Other Bird Nastiness 7.1.4 Fighting the Birds 7.2 The Stormer Kingdom 8 See also

[edit] Overview

Unique among the Planets4 races, the Colonies of Man (CoM or Colonies) offer a different play style. Rather than invest all your time and energy into a ground base, the Colonies will be building a fleet while seeding a few colonies on planets to make maximum use of their Celestia ship and its devices. They alone start with every ship their race can build and a ground base with a population of only 1 colonist (if the host starts them with a base at all!) and no structures pre-built. While their inability to build so many base structures (8 missing base buildings from the standard list and 0 special buildings) marks their greatest weakness, it also clearly points to their strength - the CoM are a space-based race able to survive and actually thrive without ever setting foot on a planet (perhaps a mild exaggeration, bases will be necessary but more on that later).

This should be a warning to anyone that treasures their home worlds and rests easy behind base shields. The CoM will never have these things unless they are captured from the enemy so if that is something you cannot do without then look elsewhere, the Colonies are not for you. The Colonies are also not a race for swarming as their hulls tend to be expensive and ill-equipped for swarming. The CoM also have no access to any superweapons so if your looking to blast planets from space with the Super Laser or destroy jumpgates with the Anti-Matter Maul, look elsewhere, you won't find that in the Colonies.

So, why would you want to play them then? There are many reasons to consider the CoM. Among them is their ability to flourish in space and the supreme mobility this offers. If the sector of space your in happens to become inhospitable, no worries, just set a new waypoint and send your fleet off to a new area. If you play with this in mind, the bases you may abandon will be sparsely populated (and you will take all the peeps and stuff in storage with you) leaving only a handful of buildings behind for the enemy to take. Now, this alone will likely attract some people to the Colonies, but lets not forget that they are a fighter race. There are no better fighters in the game than those put into play by the CoM. Only the Rebels can boast fighters nearly as good as yours.

If you are looking for a fighter race, you need look no further, but it might be worth considering some of the advantages of the Colonies and the rebels (another fighter race). The Rebels are tied to ground bases and are extremely well equipped to bring in natives by the millions. All their ships have hyperdrives granting them speeds that will never be matched by the Colonies (unless the Rebels get caught in Gravatonic Mines of course). The CoM on the other hand have slightly better fighters, very little reliance on ground bases and the Lightspeed device goes a long way towards turning an otherwise slow fleet into a mobile attack force. And lets not forget that the fleet is backed up by one of the best battleships in the game, the Virgo Class which is also minefield immune (more on that later) and offers a massive fighter spread, holding 10 fighter wings of up to 1,000 fighters each. The Rebels can load no more than 1,000 fighters on their largest carrier.

[edit] Strengths

[edit] Space Based

• Colonists grow on all ships that are controlled by a CoM player without the stockpiles of food required by most races (Colonies need only 10kt of food for every 1 million colonists on the ship to grow at maximum rate).
• Growth rates on most ships .015-0.05 (yuck!), growth rate on Gemini Class Transport .05 (little better) and on Sagittarius Class .060 (yay!).
  Lord Owl adds: Growth rates incorrect (Host 194). The Gemini has 5%, the Cobol 4%. Other ships probably at 4%, too?
  
• In ships you don't get other factors to raise your Growth like Happiness, base mode peaceful, TOT ET
• Sagittarius 6% = 120 Stat Growth (On bases about 7.6%, 9% with first cloning TOT A ET, instead of 6% in the Sagittarius)
• Gemini 5% = 100 Stat Growth
• Able to mine metals and fuel from space.

Rapid Training

• CoM have capacity to quickly train a large force of troops without the need of training centers. Troops are trained on all ships controlled by a CoM player at rates noted below. Command code "NOT" stops all training.
  • Troops trained at .005 from colonists on all ships (without training centers of course).
  • Crew trained at 10% of ship crew size per turn (only if you have room on the ship for new crew).
  • Virgo Class produces 5 HG per turn if there are at least 2 food and 5 troops on the ship (no other CoM ship produces HG).

Fighter-Race

• CoM have the V15 Viper which is the best all-round fighter in the game per unit (but not per megacredit) and makes the CoM the second best race at fighter combat. CoM fighters can travel at 400 lightyears per turn making them the fastest in the game along with fighters belonging to the Rebels. This is backed up with the Virgo Class capable of carrying 10 wings of 1,000 fighters each.

[edit] Wealthy

• All colonists pay an extra 200MC per 100,000 colonists in addition to normal ship income when on ships that do not have full guest quarters (this generates more than three times as much money as they would in cities on the ground and has no impact on your growth rate).
• Celestia ship has three devices for making money - the Gambling Deck, Pyramid Lounge and Show Lounge.

Gal Devices

• CoM have two unique devices on the Celestia: the GalDraw and GalBank. These devices allow you to send all your money into the galactic bank in one turn, without the use of Government Centers or withdraw up to 10,000 credits per turn (for each Celestia doing it) from the galactic bank. Furthermore, these devices only work for the CoM even if your ship is captured or your hull plan stolen (or traded).

Minefield Immune

• The Virgo Class is immune to hitting enemy minefields during movement if it has at least 1 HG onboard and 1 fighter wing docked with it. Furthermore, it renders all CoM ships (owned by you) that start next to it immune to hitting enemy minefields for the duration of the turn. CoM ships are still hurt by detonated minefields.

[edit] Weaknesses

Space-Based

• Most expensive minesweeper in the Game (virgo).
• No starting base (you may start with a 1-man base).
  • No free base buildings such as a Base Shield or Terraformers that most races get in their starting base even if the structures cannot be built by their race.
  • No free starting engines or weapons in the base.
  • Missing base buildings. Some of the best base structures you will never be able to build, but you still need to raise your planet tech quite high for Air Attack Bases (tech 10) and Assault Plants (tech 12).
• No Air Attack Base at start (since you don't get a freebie ground base) meaning that you will need to get planet tech up to 10 to create wings efficiently (you do start with 4 wings of 50 type III fighters each). Setting ships to "Replenish Fighters" can create new wings which can be docked together later to make larger ones but if you want a specific ratio of fighter types it is not possible to produce more than one mixed wing per base per turn this way.

Nemesis Weakness

• A Nemesis Torpedo can destroy all your fighters in a single shot and even if you buy the exotic tech only a small number of your fighters will survive a nemesis hit.

No Minelaying

• No CoM hulls have the ability to lay minefields. You can sweep them with your Virgo Class, but unless you capture or trade for an alien hull, you can never lay your own fields.

Cloakers

• You have no ability to decloak cloakers. No CoM hulls can lay mines and no CoM hulls have a tachyon emitter. Watch out for fully-cloaked ships with boarding lasers. Enough boarding lasers will destroy any ship out there and do so without generating a VCR event.

[edit] Starting Total Fleet Ressources

With 2 000 000 starting pop, and 20k startting cash (including cargo in ships)
Megacredits:27 414, Supplies:1400, Ordnance:35 130, Med units:14 510, Food:2709, Repair:150

[edit] Starships

[edit] Starting Ships Armor and Damage

CoM starting ships do not begin play in tip-top shape. Excepting the Warrior Shuttle all starting ships are either missing some armor or have hull damage (or in most cases both!). Furthermore, all ships start with a measly Crane X40 shield.

		Ship Name		Starting Armor		Max Armor		Hull Damage		*Repair Units
1		Taurus Class Scout		900		950		< None >		< None >
1		Cygnus Class Destroyer		1,100		1,870		90		630
1		Little Joe Class Escort		400		550		15		60
1		Aquila Class		240		500		73		1,314
1		Cobol Class		1,900		2,600		57		912
1		Aries Class Metal Ship		1,500		1,900		75		1,350
1		Sagittarius Class		500		3,400		65		5,655
1		Celestia		340		1,200		85		1,020
1		Warrior Shuttle		100		100		< None >		< None >
1		Pisces Class Cruiser		240		800		85		3,570
1		Gemini Class Transport		240		4,200		73		2,774
1		Scorpius Class Carrier		240		900		78		936
1		Prometheus Class Frigate		140		200		90		720
1		Virgo Class		2,000		12,000		See below		See below
*For hull repairs only.

Totals

• 21,870 armor missing
• 150 repair units to repair hull damage to all ships (not counting damage the Virgo takes beginning on round 4)

All ship have 0 repair except 150 on the Virgo Host 195, 4 feb 2006

[edit] Virgo's Burn

If enabled on host beginning on turn 3 Virgo takes 10% hull damage and 20% engine damage. It cannot light speed and moves a maximum of 50LY per turn. Takes 5% hull damage each turn and 3% engine damage each turn until turn 18. Can be repaired during this time. Light speed and max speed returns on turn 18.

Turn numbers can be vague. The turn numbers referenced here are the turn numbers that the host is processing. When the players submit turn 3 for host processing, the Virgo Burn will take effect and present the players with turn 4. When the host processes turn 17, that will be the last time the Virgo will be limited and take damage, so when the player submits turn 18, all functionality is returned.

[edit] Early Economic Boost Strategy

The idea here is to capture your first homeworld by turn 4 (before your virgo begins to burn and lightspeed is disabled) in order to boost your economic capitol thru the roof and well ahead of anyone else in the game by turn 10. but its risky.

[edit] Heres How

Contested *

Turn 1:

• transfer all HG except maybe 3 or 4 for safetys sake to the Virgo,
• transfer all troops 3000+ nuetronium,100 food 100 supplies maybe 100 credits, fill the rest of the guest quarters to maximum with colonists. allow the virgo to continue training troops crew and HG
• set a LIGHT SPEED course to an apporximate area where you think another players homeworld might be.
• set light speed to ON, unicom to ON, scanners to high power.
• Dock all 4 fighter wings to the virgo.
• set one wing (i usuallly select the silver spar) to "Do Not Launch" ( Minefield immunity requires a fighter wing on board. if you lose all your wings to combat, you lose minefield immunity) all other wings should be set to attack enemies and anti-air.
• set virgo to attack settings but turn off the graound attack.
• set up a fleet leader and have all other ships set to escort that leader.
• Have fleet Leader set an intercept course to your virgo.
• set up sharing for the fleet but not for the virgo (dont want it to run out fuel.
• set fleet speed to 90 LY (any faster and the fleet will break apart)
• set tech to bump up your shields for after turn 5 purchases of replacements.
• Transfer all remaing colonists to "rising moon" and "egypt palm" be sure to transfer food to those ships as well.
• turn on all useful ships devices such as ram scoop, gal bank, gambling devices, agro dome , etc.
• transfer all credits to the "rising moon" each turn for gal bank transfer.

Turn 2:
if your virgo's scanners have located an enemy base your in bussiness. if not, dont move this turn as scanners need a sinature profile your enemy (perhaps he hasnt done anything warranting a higher sensor profile as yet) if youve found a base on turn 2 commence with a ground assault listed in turn 3.

Turn 3:
youve found the enemy base. just hopes its not one of the races that you cant do this with like lizards, borg etc.

• set transporters to beam down all troops and high gaurd. except maybe 5 (for minefield immunity purposes)
• set waypoint to enter orbit of the enemy base. there are no starting ships that im familiar with that can handle a lone (wounded) virgo prior to turn 5 in a surprise attack.

Turn 4:
by now you should have had a vcr reflecting the destruction of your enemys orbital fleet. and he has discovered that not only is his fleet gone. but on the planet an assault force with 1000 high gaurd has just landed. theres no way out for him. your virgo begins to burn. and the remainder of your fleet will be arriving soon.he may attempt to build fiighters or mechs but its too late for em. if he buiilds fighters your virgo will have to eliminate them before they began to bomb your assault base from orbit.or he may just decide to pod out of there. either way the base will be yours.

• Set base attack mode to "Capture"
• Virgo must remain in orbit to protect the ground force from fighters. or any ships that may be returning to defend the Homeworld.

Turn 5:
you have captured his base and taken him prisoner. you now have a full infrastructure at your disposal including a base shield. fighter factory, air attack base and an assault plant. not to mention up to 5,000,000 Gambling prisoners (corrected). once your gambling deck arrives in orbit, you find your fleet bringing in between 15,000 and 25,000 credits ( depends on population of prisoners.) per turn [gambling deck + pyramid lounge + Show lounge + the money earned by your colonists on board yor saggitarius + the complex tax sytem credits + the money for the cities on the planet below.....lost count here....] i dont have the actual numbers but for turn 5 income thats pretty good (this varies depending on starting populations growth etc.) yes Apparently prisoners gamble on the ship just like citizens a bug? dunno. and lets not mention the armor units you can use to repair the virgo just sitting in the base. a larger shield and many weapons to upgrade the ships in orbit. and a repair plant already in operation to suppliy repairs to put out the fires that started on turn 4 from virgos burn hconfig setting. you are now very in bussiness. what more could anyone ask for.

• refit your ships in orbit with the parts in the base. GBS-3000 shield to your virgo. place on order some bigger shields for the rest of your fleet. as soon as shield tech is up. should be up to tech 5 by now
• produce large amounts of repair units to repair your fleet and burning virgo.
• put large sums of money into fighter production.
• start up your ordinance factory to ressuply your ships.
• set fleet to damage control systems to beam up armor from base.

get your fleet up and running to full sstrength by turn 18/19 and repat ground assault on your next neighbor.

the risks vary but some examples are

• cant find the homeworld in the correct area. some races have the ability to conceal it. look for shipping paths, you may be able to deduce its location if you can trace back thier courses.

• finding homeworlds like the borg and Lizards. borg will assimilate your a good portion of your landing party before ground combat can occur. lizards have a high ground assalt rating especially with defense. and you should probably not attempt giving them that many prisoners.

• running out of fuel or virgo begins to burn, before you can find a Homeworld to invade.

---

• Many thing are wrong, you can only Use Virgo light speed oder in turn 1-2, arriving in orbit of enemy HW at turn 3.

- as posted above. It cannot Light Speed and moves a maximum of 50LY per turn. It appears that this restriction begins on turn 4. (some say 3 some say 4)--protomatter 00:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• Scanning is not only at beginning of movement (that is only for HYP) Virgo move via normal warp...

-still the scan radius from my experience doesnt cover the area of 400 lys ahead of you. always dark, or perhaps the enemy has yet to turn on his scanners to be detected.low sensor profiles etc,--protomatter 00:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

• When starting a game you normally start with 1-5 millions colonists, so you will not get 50 000 000 prisoners, but 5 000 000 Maximum.

Lord Lancelot 22:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

-yes 5 million, im not that great with actual number facts. but a combined total of 24,000 give or take 1000 megacredits from the combined fleet and planet is not an exageration.--protomatter 00:03, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Turn 1, all the com fleet should use their scanner to locate an enemy HW or starting ships, they could even spread oout and move at max warp speed to cover more scan space.

Turn 2, if light speed somehow block the vorgo scan, move at warp, or tow it at warp 90, but the scan are not working when towed. Lord Lancelot 00:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strategy

[edit] Space or Base?

One of the most important questions you will have to decide upon when playing the CoM is whether you wish to run your economy in space or in ground bases. Both have unique advantages and disadvantages. Some discussion of both can be found below.

[edit] Growth Rate

The Colonies actually achieve their fastest growth rate on bases (.07 as opposed to .06 on Sagittarius) however once you move to the ground you have a whole host of other problems to overcome. To make money you will need to build cities, which reduce your growth rate. You will also suffer growth loss for training centers and of course, if you don’t have a stockpile of food (enough to feed your colonists for 100 turns) you will not grow at maximum rate. These things are much less of a problem aboard Sagittarius. No cities needed, training can be turned on and off at will (using command codes) and your food stockpile requirements are extremely reduced.

Of note, even if you decide to grow aboard ships, you will always want to keep at least 1 million colonists on a ground base. This will allow your Celestia to work at maximum efficiency. Also of note, colonist growth rate aboard ships is not affected by the Tank-O-Tronic exotic techs. If you intend to use these to full effect, you will need to have your colonists on the ground.

[edit] Money

Taxes are collected from colonist’s whether they are onboard ships or on the ground. The primary difference is that when colonists are on ships, no tax money goes into the central bank (it all stays on the ship). Taxes collected from ground bases funnel 1/3 of this money into the central bank.

Of the other sources of income available to you, you will make more money with your colonists aboard Sagittarius ships than on the ground. 50 million colonists on the ground will produce 50,000 credits each turn, and only if you have 500 cities built. Your Celestia over this base can make another 20,050 credits for a total of 70,050mc a turn (not counting the Pyramid Lounge). This base will not grow any additional population as it will have reached it maximum for the world.

Aboard Sagittarius ships the same 50 million colonists will produce 100,000mc a turn without the need for you to invest in 500 cities and at least another 72,500mc from ship income. They will also continue to grow and therefore continue to produce more money turn over turn. If you have 1 million colonists on bases below your Celestia you can make 1,900mc a turn from the ships (not counting any money gained from the Pyramid Lounge).

[edit] Mobility

Another key question to consider when deciding whether you will focus on being space-based or ground based is your mobility. If you build a large (and expensive) ground base, you will want to make sure you protect that base. This will tie you to a specific place and you will be forced to protect a vulnerable base (you cannot build shields or any type of ground protections such as AAA guns or ion cannons). By keeping your population in space and settling a base only to make money with your Celestia and launch ships, you can retain the ability to completely relocate rapidly.

You will need to weigh the dangers of having your colonists in ships vs. a ground base for yourself.

[edit] Lord Owl’s thoughts about this

Growing on ships is great for mobility and protection and food issues, but if you have the luxury of a secure core space and enough food, settling on planets is the way to go. Set up bases of 1M colonists each, making new bases as soon as growth and food allow for it. A 1M colo base with cities and a Celestia brings in more money than 1M colos on a Sagittarius, and grow faster, too (about 7.6% instead of 6%, 9% with first cloning ET – latter only recommended when having a total of 12M colos or more on bases).

Put also an Aquila into orbit. This gives some protection to the base, helps with the food, and enables you to make a wing each turn on every base. 42k mc for planet tech 10 is a waste of good money (as long as you’re not filthy rich yet), and sooner or later you are ought to capture an Air Attack Base anyway.

Mind you, if you are under attack and don’t have a secure hinterland, living in ships might still be the better idea.

[edit] Njin’s opinion

• 1,000,000 Colonists in cities in a base with a Celestia above it containing 1000 colonists and at least 500 crew produce:
  • 1000mc (Cities) +
  • 1300mc (Gambling Deck) +
  • 150mc (Show Lounge) +
  • 1000mc to 1300mc (Complex taxes and happiness 240 to 300)
    • = 3450mc to 3750mc total (300mc to 390mc of this goes to the Galactic bank automatically).

• 1,000,000 Colonists in a Sagittarius produce:
  • 2000mc (COM bonus) +
  • 2166mc (Ship Income with Enslavement taxes)
    • = 4166mc total (nothing goes to the galactic bank automatically).

Colonists onboard Sagittarius's will always produce more money than the same colonists in a base with a Celestia above it but they will grow more slowly and not produce supplies or High Guard. Depending on the situation you will have to decide for yourself each turn whether to let your colonists grow on a planet or to "harvest" them on Sagittarius's.

Against some enemies Sagittarius's are actually harder to defend than bases (despite how weak CoM bases are). Glory Devices, Stellar Matter Launchers, Incarceration Beams and cloaked ships with Boarding Lasers can all cause serious trouble.

Bases are vital for building fighters and producing supplies but the CoM do not need to worry about food or metals much due to the Aquila and Aries. For this reason the CoM do not need to be very picky about where they set up their base unless they have not started to "harvest" yet and want to benefit from the growth bonus for bases on planets with a good climate. This makes the CoM one of the best races at retreating (Ground Chunnelers are better).

[edit] The Virgo Class

This ship is the undisputed leader of your fleet and a glance at the ship defenses (12,000 armor, 3,000 shields and 10PD slots) shows you that it will be able to take quite a lot of punishment before its destruction. This will likely lead you to the logical conclusion that you can safely spend money on heavy weapons for the hull. In particular, you will likely be tempted to sport some large turbo laser arrays and a grouping of turbo laser arrays. Be warned however, outfitting the Virgo with these weapons will quickly raise the price in both metals and money. Outfitted with the best guns you could easily pay twice as much for the Virgo.

So the question is, it is worth it?

To answer that question you need to decide if the Virgo is tough enough to stick it out. Just a quick glance tells you that the ship is tough, no doubt about that but is it tough enough? The CoM fleet is not constructed like other fleets. You won't be launching 15 Virgos and sending them out to do war. You will launch one, fill it to the brim with fighters, and send it forth to deliver its payload (the fighters). This has an interesting side-effect that you may not be considering. In a battle where your 10,000 fighters are tested to the limit, you are likely fighting a lot of ships and even if you set your Virgo to second wave, most of those ships will focus on the Virgo immediately. The effect has been, in my experience, that the Virgo dies quickly. Not because it's a bad ship (it is actually a very good ship), but because your enemy has very few other targets worth shooting at.

In the beginning I was quite gung-ho about outfitting the Virgo to the max. As the hull costs 50k+ before adding guns and engines, why not spring another 100k to outfit it with the best? In practice, I have found this to be a losing proposition. The truth of the matter is that you rely on fighters to do your killing and the Virgo is basically a means of getting the fighters safely from A to B. So I have begun to outfit my Virgos for base killing, which means a lot of blaster cannons and a few sand casters tossed in for good measure. This is but the opinion of one player, your mileage may vary.

[edit] Morningstar's Opinion on this

I would counter to this argument there is no reason to fill the Virgo until you have nothing better to do. Instead of sending 1 out with 10,000 fighters You are more effective sending 10 out with 1,000 fighters each in 10 wings of 100. The larger number of smaller wings are more effective and you get 10 times the battleline firepower for very little more actual cost relatively speaking except in metal. In addition this force is much better protected from minefields that 1 Virgo with full fighters as there are 10 minesweepers and if a Virgo is lost there is another to take on the extra fighters and protect them from minefield detonation in future engagements. Also in a fighter rich but mine and nemesis poor enviroment you can further increase this effectivness by breaking the wings down to size 10 using only type 2 and 3 and set to escort as this will keep up with a Virgo under lightspeed and size 10 wings in large numbers are still better antifighter than few large wings even under host 199.

[edit] Using Your Celestia

The Celestia has several devices that, when used properly, can generate a considerable amount of extra cash. The Galbank and Galdraw devices will give you extreme flexibility in getting money into and out of the galactic bank. Even though most of the Celestias devices work best over a base with millions of colonists, it can work in deep space as well. You can generate 100 mc per turn from having crew and colonists alone (high guard in this case would add more).

[edit] Gambling Deck

• The Gambling Deck generates 1mc for every colonist on the ship, with a maximum gain each turn of 1,000mc.
• The Gambling Deck generates 300mc for every 1million colonists in bases below the ship (you don’t have to own the base).
• To function at maximum capacity the ship must be over a base with a minimum of 1 million colonists. If it is over a base with fewer colonists it will generate a maximum of 50mc a turn.
• No more than one Gambling Deck device should be active within 15LY of one another. If more than one such device is active the maximum revenue generated a turn is 500mc (for all ships with said devices) and the 500mc is divided evenly between each ship.
• Maximum Income Per Turn: 15,000mc (with 1,000 colonists onboard and 50mil in bases below ship)

[edit] Pyramid Lounge

• The Pyramid Lounge generates 1MC per HG onboard the ship. It requires 1kt of food per 1,000HG to function.
• Load any HG not in use onto your Celestia for extra money. Make sure you leave HG on the base below for inclusion in fighter wings and loading onto starships.
• Maximum Income Per Turn: 10,000mc (with 10,000HG onboard and 10kt food)

[edit] Show Lounge

• Generates 1mc per 10 crew on the ship with a maximum gain of 50MC when 500 crew are onboard.
• Generates 100mc per 1million colonists in bases below the ship.
• To function at maximum capacity the ship must be over a base with a minimum of 1 million colonists. If it is over a base with fewer colonists it will generate a maximum of 50mc a turn.
• No more than one Show Lounge device should be active within 15LY of one another. If more than one such device is active the maximum revenue generated a turn is 250mc (for all ships with said devices) and the 250mc is divided evenly between each ship.
• Maximum Income Per Turn: 5,050mc (with 500 crew onboard and 50mil in bases below ship)

[edit] GalBank

This device, when active, transfers all the money on the ship to the central bank. This transfer occurs before you purchase techs but after you pay upkeep on exotic techs. You can move as much money as you can fit on the ship to the central bank in this fashion. You will never have more money than the ship can hold (maybe there is no limit to how much cash a ship can hold). This device allows you to quickly purchase techs and exotic techs, and is an essential tool for you, minimizing the number of bases you need (as you don’t need multiple Government Centers to transfer money into the central bank).

[edit] GalDraw

This device, when active, takes 10,000mc from the central bank and places them on the ship. If you use the command code “BDC‿ the money will be beamed down to your base under the Celestia (assuming the ship is over one of your bases). It can take no more than 10,000mc from the bank and will always take as much as possible (up to 10,000mc). If you wish to withdraw more from your bank each turn, you will need to launch multiple Celestia ships.

[edit] Doing Battle (by Lord Owl)

Fighters

Fighterwings are not especially cost effective in combat, even for the CoM, but still they are a very useful weapon. Their high range makes them very versatile, and they can travel inside a Virgo when it’s going lightspeed. Enough reasons to build lots of them. You ought to be able to afford it.

For general purposes, use small wings of 6/2/2 (advice from Scytale, who generally knows what he is saying when talking about fighters). Small wings are usually much more cost effective in combat than great wings! And you can use them as cheap terror weapon to intercept pods. But evade minefields! Also consider what lots of small wings can do to a web minefield – they are stopped, but take no damage at all, and reduce the fields power. Just take care that there are no other types of minefields around. For a non-sweeper race like the CoM this is an important option when enganging a Crystal. This works likely fine with Robot novas, too.

If you need to dock your wings for minefield protection, use wings a 100 fighters. 80/10/10 appear to be optimal. This is also recommended for micromanagment reasons if you already have 100+ small wings. Mixing great bunches of small wings (who draw fire) with the occasional big wing is a good idea anyway.

If you are filthy rich and want to fill your Virgos to the max, I’d go with 800/100/100 wings. This is a great investment of money though, so don’t be too lazy to sim an optimal configuration for your chosen enemy.

Ships

As nice as your fighters are, if push comes to shove they are not cost effective. If you meet a good enemy with an economy comparable to your own (or better) in a pitched battle, you will probably have to rely on your ships.

• Surprisingly, your ‘best’ (ie. most cost effective) ship is your tech 1 Taurus Class Scout. The CoM is a swarming race :). Build it without armor – you either have Borlox ET, or you build your armor with repairs. Fit it with a Sandcaster and a Fusion Cannon (or a PPC if you can afford it), and there you go.

• A few Pisces Class Cruisers with a full load of PTT (well, maybe a Sandcaster or two) are a good addition to such a fleet (PTT tend to disperse an enemy fast, making his big fleets easier to handle).

• The Prometheus Class Frigate is too light and too expensive for a battleship. Fit it with Disrupter Cannons (and of course Sandcasters) and use its high speed to hunt for promising single ships. If hull plan trading is forbidden you urgently need any minelayer you can lay your hands on. This is a priority.

• The advice given for the Virgo above is valid. If you accompany it with a fleet of ships, add some LTLAs and IGAs. If it speeds around alone, keep it cheap.

[edit] Enemies

The CoM are a pretty well-rounded race without too many natural enemies. You are not a tempting target for races looking for prisoners (as most of your colonists will likely be on ships) and not a tempting target for early-game attacks as you have an entire fleet sitting in space. By the time other races can launch a fleet ready to take out your starting ships, you should have scads of fighters in place for defense.

There are a few races to look out for though.

[edit] The Birdman Republic

As a cloaking race, the Birds will give you fits. In general, assume that you will not see their ships until they choose to attack you.

[edit] Beware the Deth Spec

The Deth Specula Class Frigate is your damnation. Twenty-five of these ships will destroy the Sagittarius, and you won’t get a VCR event giving you a chance to blow them up first. The means of your destruction is their boarding laser.

A Bird gunning for you could launch twenty-five bare-bones deth specs fully capable of killing your Sagittarius for as little as 21,500 credits. The trade-off might not be valuable as a general rule, but against a Sagittarius sporting upwards of 10mil CoM colonists, it’s a drop in the bucket.

The worst part of it all is that you won’t get a chance to shoot down these deth specs before they decimate your thriving economy.

[edit] World Crusher Missile

The WCM is another nightmare device, but one that you can mount some defense against. Mounted on the tech 9 (and 10) Darkwing, the WCM launches with a range of 100LY and has something in the neighborhood of a 30% chance to strike (and destroy) a base on the planet it hits.

You will get a chance to intercept this ship before it fires the WCM but only if you have defenses setup to auto-intercept. A canny Bird is also going to expect interceptions and likely bring in Darkwings from multiple directions so you will need multiple interceptors. Lastly, it will take you about 1,000 fighters to take out a well built Darkwing (note: 10 wings of 100 (50/25/25) not 1 wing of 1,000) and you should expect multiple Darkwings, so you will need multiple interceptors.

You can take some consolation in knowing that most of your colonists are probably aboard Sagittarius ships and therefore perfectly safe from the Darkwing. Of course, read about the deth spec above and you will see that the birds are going to lay waste to you if you give them a chance.

[edit] Other Bird Nastiness

The Birds have some other toys in their arsenal such as the Super Laser but if you have found a way to defeat the WCM the Super Laser is not going to offer you a great deal of threat as you should have the capacity to defeat the ship sporting it (the Darkwing).

[edit] Fighting the Birds

So, you cannot make friends, you must fight. How can you survive total destruction at the hands of the Birds? First, offer a quiet prayer to the lords of Kobol. You will need their help.

Following your time of prayer, make your first priority getting a tachyon emitter. If you can get something able to decloak the deth specs you are pretty much set. Once you neutralize the specs the Birds are a nuisance that you can toy with and destroy at your leisure (well, maybe not exactly true, but you have nullified their primary threat).

Failing that, you can approach your problem in one of two ways.

First, you can move all your colonists off Sagittarius ships and onto the ground. This poses a host of problems, as you have no base shields and the Birds have the WCM but at least you can try to mount a defense. If you choose this route you will need to build cities, get scads of food to grow and find a way to defeat the WCM, which is now your biggest threat, especially as you cannot build base shields.

Secondly, you might consider moving out into deep space and building a small armada of Celestia ships to move money from the galactic bank into these ships (and then down to your ground base). If it is later in the game, beware of this tactic though as the Birds may already have cloaked ships over your homeworld keeping track of you. It won't do you any good to send your ships into deep space if the Birds can follow along (if there are minefields around you could fly through them while escorted by a Virgo to try and shake off pursuing cloakers).

And of course, while defending launch a devastating assault on the Birds themselves. Find their homeworld and jam some Virgos down their throat. Pump up your galactic credits and deactivate their base shields (500k gah!) or at least get them blockaded and shoot down new ships as they are launched.

Using a few large fighter wings to destroy the base shield will cost a lot less.

[edit] The Stormer Kingdom

The Stormers share some of the nastiness of the Birds, described above. They share the Deth Specula Class Frigate and the World Crusher Missile. On top of that they also get the Nemesis Torpedo, which will kill all your fighters in combat if you don't destroy the ship carrying it first (Nem Shields Exotic Tech will also help here). Stormers also have Glory Devices, which can destroy undocked wings at a distance of 10ly, and can be very dangerous when used in numbers against your lower mass ships.

[edit] See also

• Stuff concerning the Colonies of Man
• [1] Offical Race Guide
• [2] Race Guide by Skies