Finished my 0.9.1 RC8 game few days ago, with four size 7 colonies that were mostly self-sufficient and made almost a million per month together. I wanted more colonies, but decided to quit after getting stuck with decision paralysis. (Like do I colonize that 75% Terran and mild Arid far away, or take the 125% desert close to my four colonies?) Same thing with skills at the time, do I get more combat power that I crave, do I get more than four officers which did not feel quite like enough for big fights, or do I get campaign skills like Navigation and Planetary Operations that remove some of the aggravation that has really bothered me lately (like wasting an in-game week from planet to jump point when I can click Transverse Jump and get out almost immediately instead)? By a day or two ago, I decided to give priority to "babysitting mitigation" skills, but that is too late for that game.
Seed MN-7. Colonized Salerono constellation short distance east of core, with four good if not great worlds between two systems, plus a possible fifth in a third system.
I like the Shift toggle. Game was always played at accelerated time, and I did not need to hold Shift constantly like in classic Doom. Took a few days to overcome muscle memory. Wish it remembered the toggle setting after restarting game so I do not need to press Shift again when game moves so slow.
Wished combat itself has a similar speed toggle feature. It stinks going to settings.json just to raise speed to a more reasonable value like 2f. (I would raise it even higher, probably to 3f, but the game does not handle speeds over 2f flawlessly.)
New escort behavior is nice. I can command my whole fleet to hug the wall so it can retreat as soon as peak performance times out, which I did starting around late game when named bounties spiked faster than I could upgrade or support. I am not hauling ten capitals across the sector just for 350k, not when I can make slightly less with a much more lean fleet. I posted a topic about this fleet wide wall hugging cheese recently.
Battle map size was initially 300, then raised to 500 by endgame after I got fed up with 3v3 endurance battles and frequent peak performance time outs by endgame with multi-capital fights one after another. Even map size 500 did not completely mitigate the issue.
Started game with Apogee. Tried Freelancer start a couple times but was dissatisfied with the clunkers I was handed with, to the point that I probably prefer Wolf start over it. But Apogee is really good to speed up and get out of early-game hell as quickly as possible. I prefer endgame play more than early or mid-game. Yes, I am a power-hungry maniac.
Skill Progression
Electronic Warfare 1 as first skill. Next was Loadout Design 3. Afterwards, the order gets hazy, but it was something like Combat Endurance 1, Evasive Action 1, Helmsmanship 2, Fleet Logistics 3, Coordinated Maneuvers 1, Gunnery Implants 3, and Power Grid Modulation 2.
When I built my first colony, I got Colony Management 1 for more adminstrators. I did not get more Industry until my biggest colony reached size 5, when I thought I could no longer avoid expeditions. Then, I maxed Industry and its two colony skills for more colony slots and income.
Slogged through the whole game without any Navigation, but it was not an enjoyable experience traveling through big systems without +2 burn or Transverse Jump to escape big systems that take several in-game days (and too long real-time) from a planet to the nearest jump point. Not to mention increased fuel use from Erratic Fuel Injector. I had unspent skill points by level 50, but only because I had more skills I want than points. As written above, I will probably pick campaign convenience.
Only four officers, one cautious for carrier duty, and three steady for anything else. One steady was optimized for Doom, a second had Carrier Command in case the warship had fighters (Legion or any ship with Converted Hangar), and a third for generic warship use. Would have loved two more officers, but was indecisive about Officer Management at the time. In hindsight, I should have taken one Aggressive officer for those ships and loadouts that only work with Aggressive or Reckless AI (like Conquest with Storm Needlers, or just about any non-beam loadout Aurora uses). For fleetwide non-officer behavior, I use Steady for general-purpose use.
Colonies
Hazard rating is still important, especially when upkeep scales faster than income from population at large sizes, but now most important is proximity to each other and high resource output for those with extraction industries (like mining), especially since most resources need to be at +1 to meet demand instead of -1, assuming Industrial Planning.
At first, I built only one colony and built only Mining at first. Much as I wanted Heavy Industry to build stuff, I was not ready to fight expeditions. Next, I built orbital station to defend against pirates, waystation for fleet essentials, and patrol hq to manage relays. I did not use Growth Incentives at first to prolong the time I have before colony grows big enough for Mining to attract Tri-Tachyon expeditions. In addition, I did not pump colony skills because I did not need them, and I suspect Industrial Planning 2 might attract expeditions sooner.
Once colony size reached size 5, I figured I could no longer avoid expeditions and pump colony skills to the max.
When colony reached size 6, it was time to build Star Fortress and unleash Free Port for more income and faster growth.
Overall, colonies are much more expensive and slower to build. Player also needs about more to be self-sufficient than in 0.9a.
With Growth Incentives massively toned down, Free Port is a must by size 6, despite increased expedition annoyance.
Industries
Farming is a nice safe industry useful anytime.
Mining may be safe early if ore output is low, but will eventually attract Tri-Tachyon expeditions.
Other money making industries will attract League and/or Diktat. They are just not safe until player is ready to deal with expeditions.
Commerce is only good if I need +1 stability badly and too cheap to afford military base upkeep. Beyond that, it is worse than useless at my primary colony by forcing me to click more times to access my ships in storage.
Military Base is mandatory for colony defense, because the sector cannot help stop picking fights with you instead of their mortal enemies.
Tech-Mining has become mostly useless due to how long and costly it is to build colonies and tech-mining, how blueprints are much easier to raid for (in that save-scumming is no longer required), and tech-mining yields mostly junk aside from the rare find. Basically, once I find a synchrotron and pristine nanoforge, I do not bother with tech-mining if I need another industry. Maybe the only good thing going for tech-mining now is it does not attract expeditions.
Warning: From here on out, feedback is a bit disjointed and could have been written better. Should have taken better notes when the action happened. Probably forgot some details that I probably end up posting in a reply later once I remember.
Early game
Started game with Apogee, skipped tutorial to get head start on bounties' time scaling. Fought one or two battles in Corvus before heading out to make more money.
For early income, I mostly smuggled and fought system bounties and few named bounties. Once I got more ships, I went after pirate bases. Then after I had enough money to afford few hundred marines, I frequently raided New Maxios for blueprints and pirates for free junk that was sold later for more credits. A few times, I acquired a capital blueprint from raiding, and could sell it for lots of money (which I did not, since I want it for myself). Did some limited exploration, and found synchrotron, pristine nanoforge, and other stuff.
Raided New Maxios much for blueprints. Also raided core Pirates like Qaras after shopping for free loot. Only needs a few hundred marines to get blueprints and some loot. Accumulated most ships from after-battle recovery. From pirates, that meant mostly Mules, Enforcers, and Shrike (P).
Tried to build up reputation with Pathers. Eventually got it up to inhospitable through some missions by mid-game or late-game.
Midgame
Built a colony early. Only put farming or mining at first, then a battlestation to keep pirates aways. I kept growth slow until I could handle expeditions. Spent much time fighting pirates and bounties for income. Did occasional missions here and there.
I made an effort to not attract pather cells. One of the 100% hazard colonies had some nice resources for a quick buck, but Mining was removed so that I could build Advanced Fuel Production without an Pather cells appearing.
Endgame
I had few unknown ships left, all of them Tri-Tachyon exclusive. I got tired of very close fights with my current fleet of clunkers led by damaged Conquest, and I wanted a pristine Paragon to smash fleets. Waiting for Culann to be clear of patrols was a crapshoot and too hard to sneak by with a typical war fleet. I eventually resorted to a pure phase fleet to minimize profile. I brought as many as I had already built, probably little more than a dozen ships. Phase fleet has a much easier time sneaking, or better yet, hiding after attracting patrols. What I did was sensor burst to attract patrols, move around the star opposite of Culann, E-Burn through the star to shake off patrols, then go dark and dock to raid. Patrols will forget soon when they cannot find my fleet quickly enough, and a phase fleet has a small profile.
Combat was mainly multi-capital slugfest affairs that lasted multiple rounds until I stole all of the blueprints I needed and built my ideal pristine fleet. Until I got my pristine fleet, running out of peak performance and full retreating to reset peak performance clock was common, especially on smaller map sizes. With the best ships and high map size (basically the current "I WIN THE GAME" condition), only some of the cruisers ran out of peak performance by the time much of the fight was over.
That is all for now.