Sins of a Solar Empire Rebellion Beginner’s Guide and Tips

مقدمة

This guide is aimed to help you understand how to play sins 2 on intermediate and higher levels.

As of right now, sins 2 is bare bones, and a lot may change. But even so, there is a map, and up to 3 enemies to defeat. So how to do it the most efficient way? If you are eager to master the impossible difficulty, هذا الدليل لك.

Basics

As this is aimed for intermediate+ level, I will not be going much into “how to select your colour”, or similar stuff. For that, there is nicely written guide in your installation directory, written by one of the devs (ping me if you know, who exactly it was – yarlen, blair?)

But for those who are too lazy, to read it entirely, here a snip of that guide, for understanding the UI, as this one may be tricky even for experienced sins1 players:

الخطوات الأولى

As your first capital ship is free, you should build it asap!

Currently there is not much choice, it’s either Akkan or Kol. Unlike sins1, ال

obviousfirst capital ship is Kol.

This has multiple reasons.

*أولاً, the strength of akkan from sins1 is neglected by the fact, that no ships use antimatter for jumps between wells (similar to the Ultimate Balance Mod). This means, that even a single Protev will be enough, to substitute Akkan for colonization purposes.

*The colonization buff provided by akkan, is neglectable even for early game economy.

*”Inspiring Broadcast” ability is a fleetwide one, and you aint having anyfleet early into the game. While the tradeport ability requires an already existing tradeport, so that you will not be able to make any use of it in the early game.

*أخيراً, combat stats of an Akkan are much lower. 30 dps vs 57 on Kol, lower armor penetration (more on “ap” later), lower armor, lower hp. And Kol also gets a few nice abilities on Top.

Since you are short on coloization ability, also get a protev, and up you go (for Asteroids!).

For now, you can ignore the garrison at your hw. Kol will easily clean Asteroids, while you also do not care for the third guaranteed planet (ice/vulcanic), as those provide resources, and not credits.

Economy Basics

First seconds into the game, you want to get 2 levels of “commerce” on your homeplanet.

Scaling mining income is quite easy as of right now. But getting a credit economy up may be a challenge, as trade ports are Tier 5, and selling resources is impossible until you meet minors (and even then, the exchange rate is awful). And even first techs for credits come at Tier 2.

This is why you want to go full in on commerce, generatting at least some credit overflow. No worries, it will deplete in no time.

Get the final commerce level, once you gather enough resources. Around this point of time you will be sending your fist cap to roid, to clean it.

You can send your colo frigate directly to the roid, even before cleaning the planet, as unlike to sins1, militia will not retarget. You only need to focus on the Krosov siege frigate.

Once the roid is colonized you should go for 1 (max) point in commerce.

BUT ATTENTIONunlike sins1 upgrading social (commerce) will not prevent you from loosing credits to “underdevelopment”. For that you need to get 3 (on bigger planets 4) economy upgrades on a planet. So even if you are floating in metal & crystal, you have to upgrade “mining” by 2 نقاط, to begin making credits from that roid.

Once the first roid is cleaned, continue this pattern with at least 2 more roids (better 3).

All this time, أنت

DO NOTupgrade mining on your hw. You may get a third mining level on one of the roids, after you have upgraded to basic level all your 3 roids, and get those mining facilities up. Mining on your Homeworld should be upgraded only once you have nothing better to do, somewhere in the early-midgame.

Combat Basics (changes from sins 1)

There have been multiple changes to battle mechanics in sins2.

You will notice that shieldmitigation is no longer a %, but a small flat value. And armor is now a relatively high value (especially on captialships).

But this is not all, that is hidden behind the new codding.

ال “damage multiplier” system was removed. I do truly hope, that it is just an alpha-thing, because otherwise we may end up in similar balance loop-whole as Ashes of singularity.

على أي حال, for now it means, that you do not build “flak” مقابل “corvette” because it deals extra damage to them, but rather based on ship stat’s some ships may counter others.

Shieldmitigation does not reduce incomming dmg by %, by a flat value. It says “8 mitigation” on your kol, which means, that each salvo from a cobalt, which has 9.5 dps (or rather 40.3 dmg per salve), will deal 32.3 dmg to shields of Kol, بدلاً من 40.3.

Armor now actually works very similar to mitigation. 100 Armor will mean, that 50% of damage is absorbed. 200 armor stands for 67% damage absorbed, بينما 50 armor absorbs 33% and so on.

Armor penetration simply substracts a value from ship’s armor, reducing the “damage absorption”. معنى, a javelis with 200 armor penetration will deal full damage to your lvl 1 Kol, مع 200 درع.

Currently it’s unknown, if negative armor (from high “ap”) results in extra damage – most likely not.

TEC no longer use lasers, and even Kol beam is an ability.

Missiles are now destroyable units. Each individual missile can be shot by point defence. Currently only Gardas and Akkan can do it automatically, but some abilties can achieve same effect. -> Beware lag.

Capital ships can be armed with items. But it’s a long topic, so more on it later.

Turrets move! لا, not the defence platforms – individual turrets on ships! While nice feature, there is a lot of micro involved currently, as targetting is not optimized (especially with Kol)

Economy – Preparing a Boom

مع 3 roids colonized, and having mining facilities on 2 منهم, your next step should be 2 research facilties. As this will unlock you following tech:

Or in other words: extra 1 cred/s. Not much, but it has just a 7 minute ROI.

I recommend constructing labs on roids, as your homeworld should be reserved for tradeports (they have higher yields on your HW). Once you get to colonize vulcanic or ice planets, build labs there, as you will barely need to get some extra metal/crystal by tradeports.

Oh yes – tradeports now may boost your metal or crystal income, if they are built on ice/vulc planets. But with general lack of credits, we won’t be using this feature until later patches.

Once you have enough cash, get a third lab, for similar tech for roids:

مع 3 roids, it will result in same 1 cred/s, while costing just a tiny fraction more.

مرة أخرى, you still should not have mining facilities on your homeworld. Ofcourse, if your expansion is slow, it’s better to spend resources somewhere, than to sit on them, but if you want to get better, you should work on your expansion speed.

But otherwise,

ALWAYSprefer building mining upgrades and therefore facilities on roids. It will cost less, for higher income.

While you do have 3 labs, rushing ice/vulc is not wise, unless you are short for some reason on resources. And even then, check for the amount of possible facilities on the planet. Often you get just 2, and the mining upgrades provide you only a single resource, while of the same amount, as a roid provides of two resources.

عند هذه النقطة, you have a tiny empire, waiting on those labs and techs to be up and running. You can either just sit there, or play around a bit, and try to clean a bigger planet with your Kol. في حالتي, it’s a desert planet – extremely tasty for our later trade ports.

But it’s heavily protected, so do it, only if you are sure in your micro.

Even with micro, I will have to retreat for repairs (which are T4, so glad we are already T3!)

Advanced Planet Clearing

In this section we will talk about clearing a planet with big militia, while having a single Kol.*

*Abusing scouts as in sins1 will not work, since militia does not care for them. You could potentially build a cobalt, and fly him in circles, but what’s fun in that? (and it also cost money, which could be invested into repair platform)

Most important is to check how many javelis we will be facing. If it’s more than 4, do not even try it. You will kill 1 javelis at most, and face great chance of losing capital ships, which is not replaceable due to “exotic resources”, which you do not poses.

Once you jump in, use your beam (hopefully you got it to lvl 2) on closest javelis. And once those javelis launch salvo at you, be ready to activate “adaptive force field”. It has 30 seconds duration, while javelis reload 17 ثواني + flight time, لذا, to get 2 salvos absorbed by shield, you actually need to time it.

You will also need to keep your Kol moving, as this is the only way to force it’s “main” guns (Gauss Cannon) to shoot at stuff. Without tilting to a side, 40% of your dps is just being waisted. As enemy turrets can also turn, there is no need to make some “Pikard Maneveur” out of it, just keep moving.

But sometimes both cannons shot while even standing in place. In this scenario

do not breath, just enjoy the show. (As seen below)

And keep shooting Beam at Javelis, until you are out of

ذخيرةantimatter.

ضع في اعتبارك, that even lvl 2 Beam cannot oneshot a javelis, so you should attack it, to finish the job. Gladly you can shift your commands. Just shift “attack” order after beam, and Kol will immediatly engage the javelis after shooting the beam.

For those of you common with sins1 abiltiies, you do not need to worry about “interrupting” the beam, as it is not “interaptable”.

All Javelis were destroyed in first attack, which is a good result, but we are now low on life, so that we need to retreat to a repair bay.

Once repaired, cleaning all other ships will not be an issue at all.

Economy Boom

While we are playing around with militia and our Kol, it’s important not to forget to invest into economy. For this, you should get 5 research facilities.

I recommend 3 labs on 3 roids each, وثم 2 civic slot upgrades on 2 of the roids, and get “surface research faciltiies”

This way we get our 5 labs, while also prepare 2 of the roids, to build trade ports on them.

Notice that trading between roids yields you 2.0 cred/s, while trading with your capital 3.4 cred/s, that’s a 70% boost!, so after you get 4 ports on your 2 roids with extra logistic slots, try getting 4 ports at your HW.

While I did not try to set a record in a playthrough for this guide, I still managed to get an income of 30.5/6.2/5 (cred/metal/crystel – per sec) at minute 34*. A stable economy, with which you can go for a regular fleet, or tech up, or continue snowballing your eco.

*As sins2 does not have speed settings, it would would around min 20 in regular sins on fastest game settings.

For your economy perspectives, I recommend colonizing now the ice/vulc closest to your HW, getting there extra labs, until you have 9, and getting the access to “exotic resources”.

Ship Components & Exotic Resources

As mentioned, exotics are required to build caps, but also to upgrade existing caps with “components”. Those components range from “meh”, to op.

Additionally you will require tech for components, so even if you randomed an exotic, it does not mean, you will be able to use it, since you may (or most certainly won’t) have enough labs, until you actually get to refineries, and exotics are no longer an issue.

We will go through components based on their research tier. ضع في اعتبارك, that everything beyond first 2 entries require some exotic resource.

THE META

So we have our economy up and running, techs are flowing, but what should we build? Rush some high tier unit? Maybe some capship spam?

Against current AI, the answer is pretty simple – Javelis. With it’s high penetration and dps, you will obliterate AI. But let’s assume the AI was smart, or a human oponnent, what would be best fleet composition?

For early fleetup it would be actually a mono-Garda fleet.

Remember how I mentioned in “Combat changes” that damage multipliers no longer exist? حسنًا, now cobalts no longer counter Gardas. Gardas are just T6 unit, so with a base economy, you can begin spamming those.

The have higher dps than cobalts, نعم, it is not focused dps, but cobalts deal poorly with capships anyway. Garda also has more HP, while costing less supply. Even cost-wise cobalt does not come to the efficiency of

basicgarda.

It is worth mentioning that corvettes have slightly higher dps, but they don’t have even half the life of a Garda. And let’s not forget, that directly after researcch Garda at Tier 6, you can upgrade it at Tier 7 with an extra gun, which will bring Gards’s dps up to 18.2. Only Harcka (Kodiak) would have higher dps -> 22.5.

But we are already comparing a frigate with most “strongest” cruiser. Which is an obvious “نعم”, to get them in early-midgame.

But what about lategame? Would not Harckas or Javelis be better?

حسنًا, no. Javelis are actually hardcountered by Garda’s due to their point defence. 1 Garda can potentially shot all 4 missiles of a javelis down. Basically disarming a Javelis. But a Javelis shoots only every 17 ثواني, while Garda’s PD can shoot every 3.6 ثواني, giving you a 13.4 second window to deal dps.

So what about Harcka? Well Harcka does have nominally more dps, or hp. But it also costs more, والأهم من ذلك, takes 2.5 more supply. In a battle, due to armor and mitigation a flak would deal 9 dps to Harcka, while receiving 21.5 dmg. So a Harcka deals 2.4 more dmg, but you could potentially bring more Gardas to battle by a factor of 2.5, making it a more even battle.

Overall it can be said, that should you reach T13, you can begin switching to Harckas. Especially since all the upgrades working on Gardas, will affect Harckas as well. But a total switch may make your capital ships vulnerable to javelis spam. But you also have the option of playing from start till end with Gardas, and will be totally okey with it.

Adding some extra ships to your mono fleet may be useful, but to sum up, Garda is the meta.