You have no idea how much it hurts to watch his HF playthrough and see that you're literally 20 years behind. At 2055 i'm basically about to start fighting back in space.
@Tim I did, but since the tech tree doesn't tell you what ship components are good, i spent way too much research on actually finding something decent. My cost sunk into ship tech by itself cost me like 3-4 critical global techs. Not to mention the aliens just keep sending ships. I don't have to break through a measily 2K defense fleet: at this point it's a 8K defense fleet with mothership, and 2 more 4K defense fleets each with a mothership on their way. I've had no less than 3 full alien invasions. But also: i don't know why, but the other factions in Perun's playthrough basically did nothing to stop him. Enemy councillor agression has been absurd to the point where in one case, i had to fend off 4 enemy councillors all trying to coup/crackdown/purge my main powerbase. The game easily allows for a downward spiral where, if you never manage to break the chokehold, you're just getting in a worse and worse position where you can barely recuperate before the next big thing hits.
Perhaps it's also my mistake to play as Exodus because their default economic profile is Escape, which is true absolute garbage. Humanity First seems to get a shitload of decent bonuses to critical stuff like Economy.
*Intro* 0:00 Intro 1:13 Basic concepts 1:43 Mistake 1 - Overinvestment in engineering over global research 3:23 Multithreading research bonus 4:04 Tech tree *Early game goals* 6:55 Early game goals 7:42 Target 1 - Organizations 9:17 Target 2 - Space Mining 10:59 Target 3 - Boost 10:59 Target 3.a - Interplanetary rocketry 12:30 Target 3.b - Nuclear freighters *Further space expansion* 13:18 Further space expansion 14:00 Target 4 - Industrialization of space 14:36 Target 5 - Anti-RNG space techs 15:02 Target 6 - Tier 2 modules 15:49 Target 7 - Directed space research 16:06 Target 7.a - X Research Centers 16:57 Target 7.b - Research Campus *Middle game goals* 18:12 Middle game goals 19:10 Covert Operations 19:57 Trap - Social Media Campaigns *Categories of research* 20:18 Sidegrades and bad decisions 21:20 Sidegrades - missiles 22:48 How to use sidegrades well 32:20 Unification technologies 25:03 Militarizing space 25:33 Early game warships 26:27 Colony ships 26:47 End game warships 28:28 Early game engines 30:03 Middle game engines 30:44 Late game engines *Late game* 32:50 Target 8 - Colony habs + ring habs 33:12 Target 9 - Nanofactories 34:26 Target 10 - Layered defense arrays 35:23 Lasers and phasers 36:27 Trap - high-tech missiles 36:55 Target 11 - Strategic deception + arrival security 37:32 Target 12 - Xenology *Conclusion* 38:13 How to learn the tech tree better 39:23 How to generate more science and tech on earth 42:04 Future video plans and summary
The thing i underestimated the most is just how many faction projects are utter garbage and worthless and that main research will trivialize your stuff extremely fast. The tech tree is intimidating and vast and yet most of it is an actual, genuine waste of research. There are way too many engines that are just small trade-offs of the same numbers, way too many reactors that are a trade-off of the same numbers, there are too many weapons that all do largely the same thing. But also: better missiles don't require prior missiles, coilguns don't need railguns, etc etc. So getting the next global level is vastly superior to trying to optimize your existing stuff.
Personally I liked the tech tree aspect, although I played with the github tech tree to guide me and enjoyed researching the real world science behind various stuff so that helped. Now I'm doing multiple playthroughs testing various paths and solutions to problems, and it's a blast. Definitely a learning curve though.
@@JustinThorLPs In reality technology is like 99% improvement of existing stuff. The fundamental physics that underlines everything hasn't changed. Radical breakthrough technologies are rare. But also, e.g. coilguns and railguns suffer many similar problems: learning about one greatly helps the other.
Actually i forgot to mention: the fact that the tech tree doesn't actually tell you what the ship modules do mean that when you play this without cheat sheets, you're basically hoping that someone called a "nuclear drive" is actually powerful and what you need. There's literally no way to tell where you need to go if you play this for the first time. The full tech tree reveals what various bonuses do (like to economy , or giving bonuses to rolls) but the one thing that's 100% blind is ship modules, yet it's one of the most important things in the game.
I found this frustrating, too, I actually think it’s bad design to have such a bloated tree with so much junk. I really like some of the ideas in this game but I hope it gets so,e refinement.
8:02 You can save even more research by skipping the techs to spawn more orgs by instead relentlessly targeting the other factions with hostile takeover missions. Generally the AI will spread their admin boosting orgs among all of their counselors so you get an opportunity to stack every single admin boosting org on one counselor who can do hostile takeover missions to begin hobble the other factions. There is a snowball effect in that admin both counts as both defense and offense in hostile takeover missions so the faster you can boost one counselor to 25 admin the better. Once you take every single admin org you can then move on to taking every other org you want from them as your percentages to succeed more hostile takeovers easily become 95%+ as early as 2023 without any cash to boost the roll.
Around 2025, all your councilors should have close to max admin anyway (prioritize admin first, then use the slots to get what you actually need), so yeah, steal to your heart's content...
@@autolykos9822 Never put points into admin, there are enough orgs in the game to max all your chars. Admin is the easiest stat to get from orgs, you can't max any other stat through orgs.
@@kevinblackwellwelder Nonsense, points in Admin are great, as they free up valuable spots! It's not uncommon to find 1 or 2 point orgs that give 2-4 stat points. Investing 2 point in admin so you can drop that 1-point org that consumes 30funds per month and gives 3 admin, and replace it with orgs that give +1 inv, +1 sec, and CMD income is a great deal.
I am still very confused on why it takes research to create a super state. I can understand it from a gaming standpoint but I cant help but giggle at the idea of a bunch of guys in a lab just all staring a map of the earth pondering deeply, then one moves forward and erases a border and they go... "Ohhhhhhhhh!"
I imagine that the logistical, legal, and public relations work to merge two governments into one government would be astounding- particularly at the scale of the more expensive unification techs.
Only recently started playing, and honestly, your guides and gameplay episodes have, in my opinion, the best material for actually learning the "why" rather than just the "how". Very informative. Just learning about why to micromanage has shown me a great deal of mistakes in my early game. Thanks, I will delete all my current games now and cry in the corner.
A quick comment on optimizing the research minigame: Don't be too greedy monopolizing the research slots. The AI will invest quite a bit more research to stay in the lead, in the hope of picking the next research, but lose interest once you overtake it. If you want to micromanage it, you can try to push another faction ahead of you to maximize their contribution and scoop them in the end - they will never learn. If you don't want to bother with the micro, try to get a faction with somewhat sane research picks to take over one slot, and contribute if you like the tech, to get them to put in a bit more. Exodus is great because they like engines and lasers, Resistance and Humanity First are decent if you play the other one, and want ships and weapons, and Academy will also do, if the other factions are hopeless at tech. Initiative gets you some space economy mixed with a fair bit of junk. Just don't let Servants or Protectorate hog a slot, they will waste it on pointless Social Science stuff.
I have also found that once you get about 4 levels into the tech tree you can start to steer the AI picks. For example if you want Phased-Array Lasers just make sure the prerequisites are researched and it won't be long before an AI chooses it. This won't always work, you might have to take the lead on some big research. But you can save some by encouraging the AI toward the techs you want.
the protectorate and servants in my game have on a few occasions dumped all their research into a tech just to pick the next one which annoyed me cause as u said they go and pick a fairly useless tech it wouldnt surprise me if the AI did that out of spite for me killing like 5 servant counselors in a row :D
@@dkc2300 Don't kill them all off. Turn one so you can keep an eye on them. I've been able to completely stop their engineering project research for several years by disrupting it anytime they get close completing something. They've been trying to get Hydra Language and I'm not going to let them.
I've been listening to you play this game while I'm doing other stuff around the house. Today was the first time I spent more than a couple of minutes actually looking at the video. I love a good god game, I really do. I now know why people would get a glazed look when I tried to get them into Star Fleet Battles and I pulled out 3, three inch, three ring binders and told them that was the rules.
I thought I already knew how technology worked but I soon realized that there was a lot really important stuff I didn't know, thanks for making such a comprehensive video.
Another fine example of Perun in action and also that this game is mean to play in a tall strategy, instead a wide one. Such QoL improvements are needed in the research screen to make MORE clear the range, power and fuel class of every engine and make more obvious which project are side projects. I have no problem having the full set of Australian pets in the missile area, but having and idea of what swarming, HE or penetrator will help a lot.
Some of the weapon stats aren't available unless you've got the detailed screen open on the ship design screen by right clicking the category. For example, the missiles will tell you how many are launched in a salvo, and how fast each missile in the salvo are launched... (the starter Krait launcher fires two shots five seconds apart) but not how long it takes to reload the launcher (again, for the Krait, a full minute.) Presumably, that sixty second cooldown starts when the second missile launches. Presumably.
Those story line techs can often be critical - everyone doesnt have a MAX operative who can coup any nation or assassinate any aliens automatically. There are several techs to give your armies +25% damage against alien armies and xenoflora (awesome when you dont have the US Military), DOZENS of techs to reduce alien terrorize/abduction/pubbliccampaign missions, which can be useful if you cant keep the aliens off of earth, and of course the MC Reduction techs.
Bro i wanna play this game so bad. But i only have a couple hours a night. And dude its such a chore once you hop in. Like ck3 is too basic, but this is way too complex. What the actual F am i looking at. The fact it takes the better part of an hour to QUICKLY explain one tab on the screen is wild
Love this so much! Thanks for your amazingly insightful guides on this fantastic game. It's cut through a LOT of the garbage and helped put me on the right path. Your "kill your first ship" guide was fantastic. Most wanted topic? ------- National Priorities and what they actually mean and do. The game would have you believe you need them all, but that's crazy :D
The lag when opening certain windows in this game (intel, tech tree, etc), needs to be fixed by the developers. It's borderline softlock territory in some cases.
Just thinking about it - I could see an investment into a side-grade engine be worth it later into the game to split the strain of fueling ships between two resources if the need for ships is outpacing the economy
Great time to release such a comprehensive guide. Next patch is going to change all tech strategies by introducing a lot of RNG, so timing was perfect :)
@@kevinmoore9196 Well, it's an increase in RNG. Right now, if you wait long enough, you'll eventually get every project for every global research. An upcoming patch is supposed to change that so that there's a chance you won't, although that'll change depending on faction. That is, like in _Master of Orion 2_ there will be projects that you may want that you can only acquire by trading/espionage with other factions.
@@boobah5643 that sounds terrible, obviously you shouldn’t get every faction project right away so tech rushing isn’t the meta but the AI by mid game takes years to unlock certain techs (20,000+) because they suck at research. If you end up getting locked out of certain drives or weapons because of rng it could make keeping up with the aliens extremely difficult and rng dependent
I think this game has a massive problem with the tech tree, especially the weapons and engines. Maybe would be a good idea for the devs to prune it down a bit and make it more straight forward. Giving a 1000 different options for weapons and engines sounds good on paper but it makes it a nightmare to navigate as a new player. There's just no need for this many variants when they barely differ between each other.
I’ve been playing TI pretty much nonstop since it hit Early Access. I consider(ed) myself fairly knowledgeable about the game. I am 5 mins 17 second into this video and I’ve already learned two things that will change how I play the early game completely. 😂. Keep up the great work Perun. We need you
I'd love to someday see a video that shows every variation of faction-specific story events, including the endings. Preferably arranged by faction. I understand that would be incredibly difficult to make, though.
One thing that might also drive a "Mission to X" tech choice that I have found useful is: how much STUFF can I distract the AI with? Unlocking the Mission to Asteroids gives the AI faction oodles of targets that aren't my things to play with and as the AI can't seem to handle a space economy all that well will pretty much ensure your rivals all wither on the vine in a few years, leaving you in peace. Mostly.
It would be cool if there were terraforming techs to say let you build habs on Venus and I wonder how the full tech tree will look when the earlier start gets released
@@todo9633 I mean some of the late game techs effectively remove the greenhouse on earth which is essentially the issue with Venus so doesn't seem that far fetch to me
@@macaronisushi4512 the problem is you'll never see returns in under a century, for terraforming venus or mars. you might be able to disassemble mercury into a fledgling dyson swarm by late in the century, but probably no game purpose to terraforming those planets if you won't see a bonus any time soon.
Love this guide. Huge thanks. Really like how u explicitly described the "what, where, and why" for building a research space eco. I used to not understand why ur research was really high around year 35-40. Like 3x my own output. Didnt know there were tier 3 versions of science and i definitely dodnt tske advantage of all the orbits in mercury. I did mostly mines on mercury with some modules.
Excellent guide. Very helpful. The one thing I would have liked your feedback on is the tech spread. As you mentioned, there is a bonus to contributing to all the research projects. I noticed that Tortuga is obsessively avoiding having more than one of those projects be the same type (like, don't have 2-3 space research projects at the same time). How bad is the inefficiency of researching the same category of thing compared to spreading the categories out?
A quick check in one of my saves shows that you sacrifice roughly 1/10th of the total bonus for each extra project or tech you pursue in a category. Because it's a penalty to the bonus itself, and not the base research, I'd say it's appreciable if you're min-maxing, but not something you have to avoid at all costs. It appears as though the penalty itself might even have diminishing returns: a 71% bonus in energy science was reduced to 64% for two projects, 57% for three, 51% for four, and 46% for five. So the cumulative bonus was reduced to 90% -> 80% -> 72% -> 65%. (I didn't have a save handy where I could see what happens if you put all six slots into one category.)
There's also a "space tugs" engineering project in the chemical rocketry tree that also speeds up colony deployment and boost investment like Nuclear Freighters does, and its pretty cheap.
Yup - the difference is that it doesn't provide the same boost+ LEO cost reduction that freighters and interplanetary rocketry does. So it's handy but you can give it a pass if you want.
@@PerunGamingAU oh fuck yeah I really hope you on theme meme by having the caliphate absorb big turkey and all of Africa, even if it’s just for the finale lmao
@@PerunGamingAU haven’t seen your play through a when I saw 1.3k research in 2025 I assumed you were playing a game with console commands enabled for guide/time purposes lol
Awesome work. Great clues and very useful advices you gave! Straight to the point and never ruined the game by giving out your peronal opinion. Ty! Best video out there!
Another invaluable entry in this excellent 'Guides' series and once more I am immeasurably grateful. I am now on approximately my 8th or 9th start and am only beginning to understand how in-depth this game really is, and how no 2 play-throughs will ever be the same. Here's a question though - Lunar resources. I understand this is randomly generated as I have seen many variations but exactly when are the Lunar resources actually generated? I ask as after some serious save spamming, I have discovered that even though I was first to get a Luna probe done, the resources available were about the worst I had ever seen - pitiful only begins to describe it with one only source of water (5 units) that had almost no other resources there and the only 2 fissile sites had nothing else either. No matter how far back I reloaded I got the same probe results even with several turns before the probe arrived, I got the same. So are they decided right at the start? A great way to prevent save spamming but not so good to try & sort out a mission to Mars. Everything now depends on getting those Mars sites claimed - and somehow getting the resources. to borrow a now famous quote...'Leave it with me'.....
They're generated at the game start. Generally you use the moon to get metals income, really any metals income is enough. This will massively reduce the boost cost of settling Mars for better resource sites. If you got a dregs site for the Moon, you can always sell it to another faction after you get a mine up on Mars.
@@thedarkmaster13 Okey Dokey. 'Dregs' only just begins to cover it - one site only had water, and not much of much else. Some metals. Will try what you suggest - got a couple of Mars sites already taken, with a couple more getting added soon. One thing I keep forgetting to do though is releasing Kazakhstan from the Eurasian Union - the loss of raw boost right there between 2022 and now (2025) is staggering my mind. Next playthrough I will remember to do that, too. At last.
Really good guide. There's nothing I can disagree with. There are many ways to play - I've used escorts, chemical rockets and missiles to take on big fleets (including mother ships). One thing about engine tech to consider: fuel type. Current playthrough, I'm struggling to feed my fleet on Hydrogen, so have employed alternative tech for different roles to save water for my main battle fleets.
Buildings still consume the water/volatiles listed in their upkeep even with farms, the crew upkeep seems to be separate and not listed in the colony resources.
Perun, how is it that your in game windows open and close so smoothly? Is there a certain graphics setting or a mod that I'm missing? My windows are clunky and take a long time to open and close!
Im on my 3rd paythrough attempt and its starting to make sense thanks to your help. You implied that there is an MC max by country yet i cant find any info on this topic. What am i missing?
Mission to Mars-> Industrialization of space -> Mission to The Moon. Here is how it works. You research Mission to Mars (Or let the AI do it as Humanity First loves rushing it), as it is researching you start Industrialization of space. When Mission to Mars finishes you send a probe and a station in orbit. Until the station hab gets there, you dump all research in Industrialization of space, so it finishes and you get Construction Module project ASAP. In the meantime get Mission to Mars and settle a mining base on a spot with water (there are 2 of them). All the boost you ever need is to send the first hab with a mine, a second hab and the mars station. Having an org giving boost is useful. When first mine is operational you quickly set down a second base and get the second mine build in space so it costs minimal boost. The second base must be placed in such a way that you get some of every resource! Even 0,1 fissiles/precious metals is enough, but you must have some. Provided you sent a probe and a station as soon as Mission to Mars finished and timed your construction module (build in space while the hab is still traveling) you should just barely have a trickle of every resource from your 2 Luna bases and a station with a construction module around Mars about the same time (or even slightly earlier) than you would usually get your first mining base on Mars. At that point you don;t need boost as you can build all the habs you want on Mars in 30 days no boost needed. So you can settle every single base and have it mining as early as 2025 while never investing in boost on earth. The reason you need every resource is that mines and power sources use trace amounts of rare resources and if you don't have any then you must wait over a year for a damn 0.00something precious metals to get there from Earth ruining the whole plan. I even had to build a whole third base on Luna to get this plan done. As a side note when colonizing an outpost or a station the game must be changed so that travel time to destination and picking a place to settle are split up. When you send the hab from Earth you select Mars (or another destination) and when you are 30 days away (time when hab arrives and actual construction begins as per building time in space) only then you pick a destination and lock it in. And if the one you wanted is no longer free - tough luck [pick another landing site. No landing sites left? Well you just wasted a hab and the resources to get there so get out off of my planet! I am not pissed or anything but when my construction module finishes I sure as hell am settling where I want. I will not wait politely a year and 3 months staring at the empty site I wanted for some other faction to get their hab to Mars from Earth while I already filled all other spots. Especially when it's the damn servant calling dips on Olimpus Mons. I am building a base there and if you want it when you get there in a year go ahead and try to take my already mining base with a hab on a rocket...... No I am not pissed at all. ;D Speaking of infuriating things we ned to be able to abandon control points in a nation on per-control point bases, not per-nation bases. It's stupid if I am in charge and I want to abandon all control points in a nation except the executive, to save on my control limit but retain control of the executive of a nation and not being able to. All or nothing just makes no sense here.
Just a quick tip: If the engineering project you need isn't popping out research techs (EngProj) in the same category. It SEEMS to spawn new options in the same category, so if you are waiting for a key drive, researching cheap unrelated drives will give you huge boost to finding the one you need.
How do you make it so that when you mouse over the tech, it shows the details? When I mouse over the tech in the full tree, it only shows the top part with no details. I can't tell how good components are in my game without researching them unlike in yours.
Engines: Higher exhaust velocity means more deltaV. Early game this is going to be your ion drives. Basically only useful for colony ships. Higher thrust means more acceleration. Acceleration is used in combat for maneuvers. Determining if you can catch up to another ship while they're mid-transfer, and for determining the types of transfers you can do. An Ion engine while having a lot of deltaV to use, will take a looooooong time to get outside of Earth's gravity well because of its poor acceleration. Generators: Watt-tonnage will determine how many tons are required for a Watt of power (usually measured in Gigawatts). Maximum wattage determines the maximum output of the generator. If you've put on an underperforming generator and noticed you could only have 3 engines of x but says you can have 6, that's why. The ship isn't generating enough power. Certain generators can also only be used with certain drives. Weapons: There's a lot here. So I'm gonna just give a basic rundown for each type. Missiles: Good for securing early game kills in overwhelming numbers. They can retarget after being in flight because they have their own DeltaV and acceleration. They'll even function after the mother ship is destroyed. They drop off late game due to ammo limitations despite having great damage. Due to fire and forget nature they can be used in hit and runs. Railguns/Coilguns: Long range kinetics that deal a lot of damage but can be targeted by PD. While still having an ammo count they don't really suffer the same issues as missiles if you have a magazine utility. Larger slugs take more PD damage to destroy, but they deal less damage if they've been partially chipped once they hit the target. Lasers: Can't miss. Deal more damage the closer you are. Can't be targeted by PD. They weaken armor to allow kinetics to punch through more effectively. Plasma: Can't be targeted by PD. Middling damage. But they have longer range than lasers so you can really pelt someone from beyond their combat range. Armor: Some armors are better at dealing with certain weapon types than others. Those are noted in the ship designer. Every 'point' of armor represents how much tonnage is required for that armor type to mitigate a certain amount of damage (can't remember the exact number). The cost of the armor displayed is the amount of resources required for 1 ton of armor. Armor can be chipped or bypassed completely. Certain weapons (like kinetics) first have a higher chance of chipping armor. Once armor has become chipped, the chance for a critical increases. Critical hits bypass armor. A tip for armor: Side armor is extremely heavy because you're covering the entire side of a ship. Nose armor is much lighter. But they both *mitigate the same amount of damage*. Basically from the start of the game to the end of the game your going to stack nose armor and keep side and tail armor as light as you are comfortable with and keep your nose pointed towards the enemy. A lot of weapons require this anyway to be most effective. Such as spinal or nose weapons.
I do not know how would you do this. If you play well, your research output will be so much greater than all other factions that you will automatically win every research slot in which you participate at all for huge part of the game. You would have to intentionally research bullshit engineering projects to not pick something at least sometimes.
What Pecka said. By midgame you should be dominating almost every tech with only a single pip of investment barring AI focus. By end game the AI shouldn't ever be able to take a tech away from you unless you ignore it for a decade.
Personally, I take all 3 research slots asap, usually 2 until I'm out teching the other factions by a margin. The reasoning is to control the expansion into the solar system until I am ready to, by preventing the 'mission to' techs. Max pips research until you have 50% of TOTAL required research and can remove all investment pips and still win the research. You can safely max out projects and let ai finish the projects for you. Thus, getting AI to research things for you, although be aware they might not invest any points if your too far ahead and they aren't interested in that tech. This means you can ensure you have all required projects unlocked and built up enough resources to take more locations before anyone else. Initial research I usually get Augmented reality and biotech first, leads to early Councilor cybernetic upgrades. Generally, focus on nation building from there up to Great Nations. Once you've got a large unified nation or several, taking say Mars in one massive push before any other nation even gets a probe there should be easy.
40:32 Cohesion very easy to ou on US, if you have 5 wars (no matter with who), 5 rivals with (control points of country - 1 or more) and advising of councilors. Its easy to 2025 up to 10 and have 1k+ research (Cohesion boost research up to 7)
I would love to see an H-Orion drive only run. Especially as HF, the aliens would be questioning how humans have ships that can outmaneuver them before 2030 just to realize the mad lads are riding nuclear shockwaves into there battles fleets.
I fell victim of thw Great Nations research sink when I first got the game for at least 3 saves, and I also fell victim of researching every reactor tech that I unlocked because I didn't have a guide to tell me how all drives compared to one another. Now I always rush for Adamantines and Molten Fission to get a Pegasus fast, and I never even touch solid fission reactor I.
I think merging countries is more than just cp bonus. It improves the efficiency of economy, welfare, Unity and knowledge priorities. Further, it provides extra defenses for that population. Laos is easy to take with coups or purges. However, incorporate Laos into China and it is almost impossible to take it.
So I am a new player and I have to be honest that the tech tree to me is one of the more frustrating things that I have with this game. This is not meant as a criticism of Perun. I loved his series on Humanity First and Academy, but even with this guide I am still struggling to maintain a coherent research path. For example why are there so many engines? I also wish that you can queue research. For example if I wanted to go towards Space commerce and see what techs I need why not have it be queued. If I don’t get enough research to lead the next tech that is fine and the next global tech would still be siting in queue until I will be able to choose the next one. Sorry, I am not trying to bash the game, but I feel like the research can be slimmed down by a lot. Not sure if you guys agree and this was more of a rant of me liking the game but really not enjoying the tech tree.
I feel that this guide, while very informative, is still missing answers to some important questions players may have. Like sure, mining in space is important. But if you have a choice between more mines or better mines, how do you determine which to take? Or yes, you want to skip a couple of early engine designs. Makes sense. But how do you determine which engine is good enough to aim for? You want to plan ahead with research, but short of reloading a game how can you tell when you'll need what? How do you turn reactive use of the tech tree into proactive use of it? Like say you plan to run your ships on water. But turns out your game spawns with little water and instead you find tons of fissionables. How do you go about adjusting your research path to adapt to this new resource situation? I agree that the whole tech research screen could do with a big UI overhaul. More filter options would be great. Like for example tick a box and see only the techs that improve space mining.
What do all the 40 different laser types do? Which ones go on your Layered Defense arrays? I still don't get it. Just the largest one, the medium one, small?
This is, at the time of my comment, still not on the live build (validation branch has it already). Some projects have a non-100% chance to ever unlock for your faction in a given playthrough (barring future tech research when you finish all techs) - this is that chance as far as I'm aware.
Did you talk about batteries (not gun kind), heat sinks, and radiators in this one? So much. I also wonder if nano factories around Venus can be cost/time effective way of making the transition to anti matter production around Mercury? Solar arrays are probably just as effective at Venus and swapping out your Mercury nano factories with ones at Venus might be the way? There’s not much building to do at Venus so nano factories could make money for longer if you build them at Venus perhaps without doing upgrades and just starting out there with level 3 Hab.
How do you show the details of the projects in the tech tree? Whenever I hover over a project it only shows like Nerva drive I, Nerva drive II... Not any actual information about what it is and what it does.
I believe that's a feature of the validation patch I use (which means it should go public in the main release very soon, it just means we test the upcoming patches before they 'go live')
@@PerunGamingAU Cool, I think it really will help with planning your research. As it is right now, you really have no idea what you will get other than whats in the name of the tech.
Perun very good and informative, thank you. Something that I am having issues with when I play is how do I unlock the second and third counsel engineering tech slots? And a interesting house rule for your play through, all space stations and colones must have at least one science building on it.
You get the second one by giving one of your councilors an org that has the gear icon, those also give you +5% research for all your faction projects so they are good to have; each councilor can only benefit from three though. You get the third slot by building the skunkworks at one of your habs or stations, those also give +5% to all faction projects.
So what is the smallest population you would consider for a knowledge nation? Is Egypt too small at around 100 million? I've been experimenting with an "uplift" playthrough.
I've been working on certain tech rushes using the science traits to boost relevant fields. It's kinda frustrating because it's really rng dependant because ideally you want to stack councilors. So with 2 chemists I got nuclear fusion in space done in January 2026. Great Nations rush is also really strong, I was able to get the Pan Asian Combine in 2027. The social science is much easier than chemistry as you can find social science very easy. I also had 4 computer scientist run but I didn't really gain much from all those techs. What I found over the course of these playthroughs is that these research fields are not created equal. A doctor is practically worthless. Physics doesn't really have any application until you've done a massive amount of chemistry. Military science is very strong. Computer science is almost worthless. Social science will let you control the entire world. The bonus you can get from having a councilor in the field of research is equal to all the org bonus you could get on all your other councilors, you just have to level the trait to 35. Two councilors will get 70, which means with a few good orgs you could get over 100. So the science traits can literally double your research into a given field, and you will get it twice as fast. One good way to get science councilors is to turn the academy. When another faction fires a turned councilor you can hire them. This is the best way to get new characters because they are already leveled. So find a professor or astronaut with a good science trait, turn them, and max their fail chance.
Great info, I hope your comment gets more attention. Turning an exposing a councillor in order to make them available for yourself... that's both clever and so very obvious, yet I haven't seen anyone mentioning it before. I'm definitely going to use it. Thanks!
@@OddityDK yeah if you get good Intel you can actually use the enemy factions as recruiting pools, finding the best characters in the game. I was really surprised when I discovered this feature as well. Goes to show how many fine details the devs included.
The real problem with engine, is that except for the ion engine, and most very end of the tree ones, all the other ones you can research are utter garbage. None of them are improvement to what you already are, they are slow, can't go anywhere, and can't be used for combat. They are cheap, but frankly, you are not killing aliens with any of them, and human faction are worthless at space superiority so... Also, I think some of the tech branch should gain a bonus for other tech of that branch: E.g. All arc laser should give a bonus to other arc laser research, same for phaser, plasma, laser(IR->Green->UV), missiles, coilgun, railgun. Similar should happen to engine from the same global tech... or just "fusion, fission, propellant" distinction. Make researching those tech have value. The only difference with the various engineering project, is just bigger guns(or smaller). Making the first one can be difficult, but any other size should be far easier after that.
Are the project filtering and alien threat meter on the main map features on the experimental branch? Edit: Oh, and do you have any opinion on producing boost and using orbital facilities to generate cash instead of developing Funding planetside?
Is there a website or in game way I can see engine or weapon stats before unlocking the engineering project? Its hard to aim for the right stuff if I dont know what anything does ...
How come like Covert Operations is unresearchable? I have done the others. Finally Pulsar drive showed up as a researchable item but it was just random during a turn while I was just humming along burning research into advanced hera drive because I don't understand how or when it will come about.
Each faction project has a chance to spawn when it comes available. With some luck, it can spawn instantly but it can also take months or years. Or in some cases, never.
@@jojo-gy9pp You intercept them (make them your fleet's destination) and once you arrive you're given the option whether or not you want to engage. If at least one side chooses to engage and the faster one doesn't choose to flee you get a battle.
How much should I prioritize the story projects? Is it reasonable to deprioritize them until I get a bunch of xeno research centers in orbit? I guess it is reasonable to get the one that allows me to see aliens (but they are also very cheap until that point)
I just wish we could mouse-over or click us to a list of what the engineering projects and engines actually _do_ in the techtree - first playthrough is _very_ much in the dark.
Dumbo Drive. Best engine ever. For the name alone. But jokes aside, best simpley start researching the basic tech, the more one has of those, the more options one gets later on.
If you are lucky you should try to go for the nsrw or in the game called the neutron flux tourch. Extremly cheap research for the quality of the engine.
I stare at this guide.
I stare at my current play-through.
I stare again at this guide.
... I have regrets.
You have no idea how much it hurts to watch his HF playthrough and see that you're literally 20 years behind. At 2055 i'm basically about to start fighting back in space.
@@thakillman7 to be fair, he seems to have an above average understanding on how the game functions in every aspect
@@thakillman7 wait that's kind of incredible actually.. what were you doing for all that time?
@Tim I did, but since the tech tree doesn't tell you what ship components are good, i spent way too much research on actually finding something decent. My cost sunk into ship tech by itself cost me like 3-4 critical global techs. Not to mention the aliens just keep sending ships. I don't have to break through a measily 2K defense fleet: at this point it's a 8K defense fleet with mothership, and 2 more 4K defense fleets each with a mothership on their way. I've had no less than 3 full alien invasions. But also: i don't know why, but the other factions in Perun's playthrough basically did nothing to stop him. Enemy councillor agression has been absurd to the point where in one case, i had to fend off 4 enemy councillors all trying to coup/crackdown/purge my main powerbase. The game easily allows for a downward spiral where, if you never manage to break the chokehold, you're just getting in a worse and worse position where you can barely recuperate before the next big thing hits.
Perhaps it's also my mistake to play as Exodus because their default economic profile is Escape, which is true absolute garbage. Humanity First seems to get a shitload of decent bonuses to critical stuff like Economy.
*Intro*
0:00 Intro
1:13 Basic concepts
1:43 Mistake 1 - Overinvestment in engineering over global research
3:23 Multithreading research bonus
4:04 Tech tree
*Early game goals*
6:55 Early game goals
7:42 Target 1 - Organizations
9:17 Target 2 - Space Mining
10:59 Target 3 - Boost
10:59 Target 3.a - Interplanetary rocketry
12:30 Target 3.b - Nuclear freighters
*Further space expansion*
13:18 Further space expansion
14:00 Target 4 - Industrialization of space
14:36 Target 5 - Anti-RNG space techs
15:02 Target 6 - Tier 2 modules
15:49 Target 7 - Directed space research
16:06 Target 7.a - X Research Centers
16:57 Target 7.b - Research Campus
*Middle game goals*
18:12 Middle game goals
19:10 Covert Operations
19:57 Trap - Social Media Campaigns
*Categories of research*
20:18 Sidegrades and bad decisions
21:20 Sidegrades - missiles
22:48 How to use sidegrades well
32:20 Unification technologies
25:03 Militarizing space
25:33 Early game warships
26:27 Colony ships
26:47 End game warships
28:28 Early game engines
30:03 Middle game engines
30:44 Late game engines
*Late game*
32:50 Target 8 - Colony habs + ring habs
33:12 Target 9 - Nanofactories
34:26 Target 10 - Layered defense arrays
35:23 Lasers and phasers
36:27 Trap - high-tech missiles
36:55 Target 11 - Strategic deception + arrival security
37:32 Target 12 - Xenology
*Conclusion*
38:13 How to learn the tech tree better
39:23 How to generate more science and tech on earth
42:04 Future video plans and summary
@PerunGamingAU made a list of timestamps for this video.
The thing i underestimated the most is just how many faction projects are utter garbage and worthless and that main research will trivialize your stuff extremely fast. The tech tree is intimidating and vast and yet most of it is an actual, genuine waste of research. There are way too many engines that are just small trade-offs of the same numbers, way too many reactors that are a trade-off of the same numbers, there are too many weapons that all do largely the same thing. But also: better missiles don't require prior missiles, coilguns don't need railguns, etc etc. So getting the next global level is vastly superior to trying to optimize your existing stuff.
That's pretty much how technology works in reality
Personally I liked the tech tree aspect, although I played with the github tech tree to guide me and enjoyed researching the real world science behind various stuff so that helped.
Now I'm doing multiple playthroughs testing various paths and solutions to problems, and it's a blast. Definitely a learning curve though.
@@JustinThorLPs In reality technology is like 99% improvement of existing stuff. The fundamental physics that underlines everything hasn't changed. Radical breakthrough technologies are rare. But also, e.g. coilguns and railguns suffer many similar problems: learning about one greatly helps the other.
Actually i forgot to mention: the fact that the tech tree doesn't actually tell you what the ship modules do mean that when you play this without cheat sheets, you're basically hoping that someone called a "nuclear drive" is actually powerful and what you need. There's literally no way to tell where you need to go if you play this for the first time. The full tech tree reveals what various bonuses do (like to economy , or giving bonuses to rolls) but the one thing that's 100% blind is ship modules, yet it's one of the most important things in the game.
I found this frustrating, too, I actually think it’s bad design to have such a bloated tree with so much junk. I really like some of the ideas in this game but I hope it gets so,e refinement.
Everytime Perun does a guide, I need to start a new game... This game feels a bit like a job. Thank you for this guide, please more of them!
It's extremely satisfying to get right, though.
8:02 You can save even more research by skipping the techs to spawn more orgs by instead relentlessly targeting the other factions with hostile takeover missions. Generally the AI will spread their admin boosting orgs among all of their counselors so you get an opportunity to stack every single admin boosting org on one counselor who can do hostile takeover missions to begin hobble the other factions.
There is a snowball effect in that admin both counts as both defense and offense in hostile takeover missions so the faster you can boost one counselor to 25 admin the better. Once you take every single admin org you can then move on to taking every other org you want from them as your percentages to succeed more hostile takeovers easily become 95%+ as early as 2023 without any cash to boost the roll.
Also can make money in a pinch doing this and selling the orgs
Around 2025, all your councilors should have close to max admin anyway (prioritize admin first, then use the slots to get what you actually need), so yeah, steal to your heart's content...
I like to strip my enemies of all orgs as a response to minor slights. Triggers way less reactions from the aliens
@@autolykos9822 Never put points into admin, there are enough orgs in the game to max all your chars. Admin is the easiest stat to get from orgs, you can't max any other stat through orgs.
@@kevinblackwellwelder Nonsense, points in Admin are great, as they free up valuable spots! It's not uncommon to find 1 or 2 point orgs that give 2-4 stat points. Investing 2 point in admin so you can drop that 1-point org that consumes 30funds per month and gives 3 admin, and replace it with orgs that give +1 inv, +1 sec, and CMD income is a great deal.
I am still very confused on why it takes research to create a super state. I can understand it from a gaming standpoint but I cant help but giggle at the idea of a bunch of guys in a lab just all staring a map of the earth pondering deeply, then one moves forward and erases a border and they go... "Ohhhhhhhhh!"
I imagine that the logistical, legal, and public relations work to merge two governments into one government would be astounding- particularly at the scale of the more expensive unification techs.
Only recently started playing, and honestly, your guides and gameplay episodes have, in my opinion, the best material for actually learning the "why" rather than just the "how". Very informative. Just learning about why to micromanage has shown me a great deal of mistakes in my early game. Thanks, I will delete all my current games now and cry in the corner.
A quick comment on optimizing the research minigame: Don't be too greedy monopolizing the research slots. The AI will invest quite a bit more research to stay in the lead, in the hope of picking the next research, but lose interest once you overtake it. If you want to micromanage it, you can try to push another faction ahead of you to maximize their contribution and scoop them in the end - they will never learn. If you don't want to bother with the micro, try to get a faction with somewhat sane research picks to take over one slot, and contribute if you like the tech, to get them to put in a bit more. Exodus is great because they like engines and lasers, Resistance and Humanity First are decent if you play the other one, and want ships and weapons, and Academy will also do, if the other factions are hopeless at tech. Initiative gets you some space economy mixed with a fair bit of junk. Just don't let Servants or Protectorate hog a slot, they will waste it on pointless Social Science stuff.
I have also found that once you get about 4 levels into the tech tree you can start to steer the AI picks. For example if you want Phased-Array Lasers just make sure the prerequisites are researched and it won't be long before an AI chooses it. This won't always work, you might have to take the lead on some big research. But you can save some by encouraging the AI toward the techs you want.
the protectorate and servants in my game have on a few occasions dumped all their research into a tech just to pick the next one which annoyed me cause as u said they go and pick a fairly useless tech it wouldnt surprise me if the AI did that out of spite for me killing like 5 servant counselors in a row :D
@@dkc2300 Don't kill them all off. Turn one so you can keep an eye on them. I've been able to completely stop their engineering project research for several years by disrupting it anytime they get close completing something. They've been trying to get Hydra Language and I'm not going to let them.
@@roberteltze4850 He's refering to global tech which you can't sabotage.
@@roberteltze4850 i never said i killed them all off the last kill was an accidental one on my spy have not gotten another one since 😢
I've been listening to you play this game while I'm doing other stuff around the house. Today was the first time I spent more than a couple of minutes actually looking at the video. I love a good god game, I really do. I now know why people would get a glazed look when I tried to get them into Star Fleet Battles and I pulled out 3, three inch, three ring binders and told them that was the rules.
I thought I already knew how technology worked but I soon realized that there was a lot really important stuff I didn't know, thanks for making such a comprehensive video.
"Don't just research it to clear . . . your list" but I am sooooo tempted by this game
You lose some research bonus if you pursue multiple things in the same area at the same time.
I did not know about the right-click. Extremely useful.
Another fine example of Perun in action and also that this game is mean to play in a tall strategy, instead a wide one. Such QoL improvements are needed in the research screen to make MORE clear the range, power and fuel class of every engine and make more obvious which project are side projects. I have no problem having the full set of Australian pets in the missile area, but having and idea of what swarming, HE or penetrator will help a lot.
Completely unrelated, but now I have an urge to make an Irwin-class dreadnought with one of each of the snake-themed missile bays...
Some of the weapon stats aren't available unless you've got the detailed screen open on the ship design screen by right clicking the category. For example, the missiles will tell you how many are launched in a salvo, and how fast each missile in the salvo are launched... (the starter Krait launcher fires two shots five seconds apart) but not how long it takes to reload the launcher (again, for the Krait, a full minute.) Presumably, that sixty second cooldown starts when the second missile launches. Presumably.
Those story line techs can often be critical - everyone doesnt have a MAX operative who can coup any nation or assassinate any aliens automatically. There are several techs to give your armies +25% damage against alien armies and xenoflora (awesome when you dont have the US Military), DOZENS of techs to reduce alien terrorize/abduction/pubbliccampaign missions, which can be useful if you cant keep the aliens off of earth, and of course the MC Reduction techs.
Really enjoying and appreciating your guides/playthroughs, your understanding of the mechanics of this game is simply astonishing.
It would be great if you could add timestamps/chapters to the guide videos, so that we can find and refer specific topics easily!
I would really like a transcript or even just a chart that I could refer to while playing.
Bro i wanna play this game so bad. But i only have a couple hours a night. And dude its such a chore once you hop in. Like ck3 is too basic, but this is way too complex. What the actual F am i looking at. The fact it takes the better part of an hour to QUICKLY explain one tab on the screen is wild
Love this so much! Thanks for your amazingly insightful guides on this fantastic game. It's cut through a LOT of the garbage and helped put me on the right path. Your "kill your first ship" guide was fantastic.
Most wanted topic? ------- National Priorities and what they actually mean and do. The game would have you believe you need them all, but that's crazy :D
The lag when opening certain windows in this game (intel, tech tree, etc), needs to be fixed by the developers. It's borderline softlock territory in some cases.
Yes! There is still some optimization that needs to happen… opening screens and the load save
Just thinking about it - I could see an investment into a side-grade engine be worth it later into the game to split the strain of fueling ships between two resources if the need for ships is outpacing the economy
Yeah, pure Pion Torch isn't as good in practice as it sounds on paper.
Great time to release such a comprehensive guide. Next patch is going to change all tech strategies by introducing a lot of RNG, so timing was perfect :)
Whoa really, is that in some patch notes
@@kevinmoore9196 Well, it's an increase in RNG. Right now, if you wait long enough, you'll eventually get every project for every global research. An upcoming patch is supposed to change that so that there's a chance you won't, although that'll change depending on faction.
That is, like in _Master of Orion 2_ there will be projects that you may want that you can only acquire by trading/espionage with other factions.
@@boobah5643 Yea, don't like that. Currently I'm so far ahead of the AI they're never gonna catch up.
@@boobah5643 that sounds terrible, obviously you shouldn’t get every faction project right away so tech rushing isn’t the meta but the AI by mid game takes years to unlock certain techs (20,000+) because they suck at research. If you end up getting locked out of certain drives or weapons because of rng it could make keeping up with the aliens extremely difficult and rng dependent
@@boobah5643 like if you get locked out of construction module or some shit like that your basically screwed lol
I think this game has a massive problem with the tech tree, especially the weapons and engines. Maybe would be a good idea for the devs to prune it down a bit and make it more straight forward. Giving a 1000 different options for weapons and engines sounds good on paper but it makes it a nightmare to navigate as a new player. There's just no need for this many variants when they barely differ between each other.
I’ve been playing TI pretty much nonstop since it hit Early Access. I consider(ed) myself fairly knowledgeable about the game. I am 5 mins 17 second into this video and I’ve already learned two things that will change how I play the early game completely. 😂. Keep up the great work Perun. We need you
Thanks you so much! I needed this terribly. I can already tell, you've helped my gameplay immensely.
Please keep up these awesome guides!
one every 50 min or so would be perfect!
seriously though you are awesome!
I'd love to someday see a video that shows every variation of faction-specific story events, including the endings. Preferably arranged by faction. I understand that would be incredibly difficult to make, though.
One thing that might also drive a "Mission to X" tech choice that I have found useful is: how much STUFF can I distract the AI with? Unlocking the Mission to Asteroids gives the AI faction oodles of targets that aren't my things to play with and as the AI can't seem to handle a space economy all that well will pretty much ensure your rivals all wither on the vine in a few years, leaving you in peace. Mostly.
Thanks for all these great guides!
btw, volume seems to drop a bit around the 7:00 mark.
It would be cool if there were terraforming techs to say let you build habs on Venus and I wonder how the full tech tree will look when the earlier start gets released
Would be cool, but would also hurt the hard sci-fi aspect a bit I think
@@todo9633 I mean some of the late game techs effectively remove the greenhouse on earth which is essentially the issue with Venus so doesn't seem that far fetch to me
@@macaronisushi4512 the problem is you'll never see returns in under a century, for terraforming venus or mars. you might be able to disassemble mercury into a fledgling dyson swarm by late in the century, but probably no game purpose to terraforming those planets if you won't see a bonus any time soon.
A long war mod that starts in 1950 and ends in 2150?
@@todo9633 dude you can build floating Venus habitations with giant balloons. Plus you can cool the planet down with giant mirrors in orbit.
Love this guide. Huge thanks. Really like how u explicitly described the "what, where, and why" for building a research space eco. I used to not understand why ur research was really high around year 35-40. Like 3x my own output. Didnt know there were tier 3 versions of science and i definitely dodnt tske advantage of all the orbits in mercury. I did mostly mines on mercury with some modules.
Excellent guide. Very helpful. The one thing I would have liked your feedback on is the tech spread. As you mentioned, there is a bonus to contributing to all the research projects. I noticed that Tortuga is obsessively avoiding having more than one of those projects be the same type (like, don't have 2-3 space research projects at the same time). How bad is the inefficiency of researching the same category of thing compared to spreading the categories out?
A quick check in one of my saves shows that you sacrifice roughly 1/10th of the total bonus for each extra project or tech you pursue in a category. Because it's a penalty to the bonus itself, and not the base research, I'd say it's appreciable if you're min-maxing, but not something you have to avoid at all costs.
It appears as though the penalty itself might even have diminishing returns: a 71% bonus in energy science was reduced to 64% for two projects, 57% for three, 51% for four, and 46% for five. So the cumulative bonus was reduced to 90% -> 80% -> 72% -> 65%. (I didn't have a save handy where I could see what happens if you put all six slots into one category.)
There's also a "space tugs" engineering project in the chemical rocketry tree that also speeds up colony deployment and boost investment like Nuclear Freighters does, and its pretty cheap.
Yup - the difference is that it doesn't provide the same boost+ LEO cost reduction that freighters and interplanetary rocketry does. So it's handy but you can give it a pass if you want.
Loved the guide, but seeing the academy run still in 2025 made me sad :(
Thanks for all the quality content!
it's a tad further along. that's just the save I loaded
@@PerunGamingAU great to hear can't wait for more
@@PerunGamingAU oh fuck yeah
I really hope you on theme meme by having the caliphate absorb big turkey and all of Africa, even if it’s just for the finale lmao
@@PerunGamingAU haven’t seen your play through a when I saw 1.3k research in 2025 I assumed you were playing a game with console commands enabled for guide/time purposes lol
Oh thanks! i also didn't bother with Arrival Security during early game, will do that from now on.
Awesome work. Great clues and very useful advices you gave! Straight to the point and never ruined the game by giving out your peronal opinion. Ty! Best video out there!
I was looking at the wrong tech tree, game should come with instructions like those in the vid, thank you.
Another invaluable entry in this excellent 'Guides' series and once more I am immeasurably grateful.
I am now on approximately my 8th or 9th start and am only beginning to understand how in-depth this game really is, and how no 2 play-throughs will ever be the same.
Here's a question though - Lunar resources. I understand this is randomly generated as I have seen many variations but exactly when are the Lunar resources actually generated? I ask as after some serious save spamming, I have discovered that even though I was first to get a Luna probe done, the resources available were about the worst I had ever seen - pitiful only begins to describe it with one only source of water (5 units) that had almost no other resources there and the only 2 fissile sites had nothing else either. No matter how far back I reloaded I got the same probe results even with several turns before the probe arrived, I got the same.
So are they decided right at the start? A great way to prevent save spamming but not so good to try & sort out a mission to Mars.
Everything now depends on getting those Mars sites claimed - and somehow getting the resources. to borrow a now famous quote...'Leave it with me'.....
They're generated at the game start. Generally you use the moon to get metals income, really any metals income is enough. This will massively reduce the boost cost of settling Mars for better resource sites. If you got a dregs site for the Moon, you can always sell it to another faction after you get a mine up on Mars.
@@thedarkmaster13 Okey Dokey. 'Dregs' only just begins to cover it - one site only had water, and not much of much else. Some metals.
Will try what you suggest - got a couple of Mars sites already taken, with a couple more getting added soon.
One thing I keep forgetting to do though is releasing Kazakhstan from the Eurasian Union - the loss of raw boost right there between 2022 and now (2025) is staggering my mind.
Next playthrough I will remember to do that, too. At last.
This really helped me with my play-through. Your videos are really great.
Really good guide.
There's nothing I can disagree with.
There are many ways to play - I've used escorts, chemical rockets and missiles to take on big fleets (including mother ships).
One thing about engine tech to consider: fuel type. Current playthrough, I'm struggling to feed my fleet on Hydrogen, so have employed alternative tech for different roles to save water for my main battle fleets.
Wonderfully done Perun!
Buildings still consume the water/volatiles listed in their upkeep even with farms, the crew upkeep seems to be separate and not listed in the colony resources.
Perun, how is it that your in game windows open and close so smoothly? Is there a certain graphics setting or a mod that I'm missing? My windows are clunky and take a long time to open and close!
You know the game is good when theres a 40+ minute guide about what to research that doesnt even cover everything
Your intro was clipped started with day everyone
Im on my 3rd paythrough attempt and its starting to make sense thanks to your help. You implied that there is an MC max by country yet i cant find any info on this topic. What am i missing?
you can only fit 6 mc I a province. 8 if it has a core economic region.
@@PerunGamingAU Thank You! So many layers to this game, its like an onion!
So when I want to find something about Terra Invicta, then I found Perun again.
Mission to Mars-> Industrialization of space -> Mission to The Moon. Here is how it works.
You research Mission to Mars (Or let the AI do it as Humanity First loves rushing it), as it is researching you start Industrialization of space. When Mission to Mars finishes you send a probe and a station in orbit. Until the station hab gets there, you dump all research in Industrialization of space, so it finishes and you get Construction Module project ASAP. In the meantime get Mission to Mars and settle a mining base on a spot with water (there are 2 of them). All the boost you ever need is to send the first hab with a mine, a second hab and the mars station. Having an org giving boost is useful. When first mine is operational you quickly set down a second base and get the second mine build in space so it costs minimal boost. The second base must be placed in such a way that you get some of every resource! Even 0,1 fissiles/precious metals is enough, but you must have some.
Provided you sent a probe and a station as soon as Mission to Mars finished and timed your construction module (build in space while the hab is still traveling) you should just barely have a trickle of every resource from your 2 Luna bases and a station with a construction module around Mars about the same time (or even slightly earlier) than you would usually get your first mining base on Mars. At that point you don;t need boost as you can build all the habs you want on Mars in 30 days no boost needed. So you can settle every single base and have it mining as early as 2025 while never investing in boost on earth.
The reason you need every resource is that mines and power sources use trace amounts of rare resources and if you don't have any then you must wait over a year for a damn 0.00something precious metals to get there from Earth ruining the whole plan. I even had to build a whole third base on Luna to get this plan done.
As a side note when colonizing an outpost or a station the game must be changed so that travel time to destination and picking a place to settle are split up. When you send the hab from Earth you select Mars (or another destination) and when you are 30 days away (time when hab arrives and actual construction begins as per building time in space) only then you pick a destination and lock it in. And if the one you wanted is no longer free - tough luck [pick another landing site. No landing sites left? Well you just wasted a hab and the resources to get there so get out off of my planet! I am not pissed or anything but when my construction module finishes I sure as hell am settling where I want. I will not wait politely a year and 3 months staring at the empty site I wanted for some other faction to get their hab to Mars from Earth while I already filled all other spots. Especially when it's the damn servant calling dips on Olimpus Mons. I am building a base there and if you want it when you get there in a year go ahead and try to take my already mining base with a hab on a rocket...... No I am not pissed at all. ;D
Speaking of infuriating things we ned to be able to abandon control points in a nation on per-control point bases, not per-nation bases. It's stupid if I am in charge and I want to abandon all control points in a nation except the executive, to save on my control limit but retain control of the executive of a nation and not being able to. All or nothing just makes no sense here.
You saved me countless hours of my life, thank you sir
Just a quick tip:
If the engineering project you need isn't popping out research techs (EngProj) in the same category. It SEEMS to spawn new options in the same category, so if you are waiting for a key drive, researching cheap unrelated drives will give you huge boost to finding the one you need.
Pretty sure this behavior is due to be patched out, looking at the validation branch patchnotes.
How do you make it so that when you mouse over the tech, it shows the details? When I mouse over the tech in the full tree, it only shows the top part with no details. I can't tell how good components are in my game without researching them unlike in yours.
will you do separate guides on engines/generators + weapons/armor please, ist bit overwhelming
Engines:
Higher exhaust velocity means more deltaV. Early game this is going to be your ion drives. Basically only useful for colony ships.
Higher thrust means more acceleration. Acceleration is used in combat for maneuvers. Determining if you can catch up to another ship while they're mid-transfer, and for determining the types of transfers you can do. An Ion engine while having a lot of deltaV to use, will take a looooooong time to get outside of Earth's gravity well because of its poor acceleration.
Generators:
Watt-tonnage will determine how many tons are required for a Watt of power (usually measured in Gigawatts).
Maximum wattage determines the maximum output of the generator. If you've put on an underperforming generator and noticed you could only have 3 engines of x but says you can have 6, that's why. The ship isn't generating enough power. Certain generators can also only be used with certain drives.
Weapons: There's a lot here. So I'm gonna just give a basic rundown for each type.
Missiles: Good for securing early game kills in overwhelming numbers. They can retarget after being in flight because they have their own DeltaV and acceleration. They'll even function after the mother ship is destroyed. They drop off late game due to ammo limitations despite having great damage. Due to fire and forget nature they can be used in hit and runs.
Railguns/Coilguns: Long range kinetics that deal a lot of damage but can be targeted by PD. While still having an ammo count they don't really suffer the same issues as missiles if you have a magazine utility. Larger slugs take more PD damage to destroy, but they deal less damage if they've been partially chipped once they hit the target.
Lasers: Can't miss. Deal more damage the closer you are. Can't be targeted by PD. They weaken armor to allow kinetics to punch through more effectively.
Plasma: Can't be targeted by PD. Middling damage. But they have longer range than lasers so you can really pelt someone from beyond their combat range.
Armor: Some armors are better at dealing with certain weapon types than others. Those are noted in the ship designer. Every 'point' of armor represents how much tonnage is required for that armor type to mitigate a certain amount of damage (can't remember the exact number). The cost of the armor displayed is the amount of resources required for 1 ton of armor. Armor can be chipped or bypassed completely. Certain weapons (like kinetics) first have a higher chance of chipping armor. Once armor has become chipped, the chance for a critical increases. Critical hits bypass armor.
A tip for armor: Side armor is extremely heavy because you're covering the entire side of a ship. Nose armor is much lighter. But they both *mitigate the same amount of damage*. Basically from the start of the game to the end of the game your going to stack nose armor and keep side and tail armor as light as you are comfortable with and keep your nose pointed towards the enemy. A lot of weapons require this anyway to be most effective. Such as spinal or nose weapons.
@@hohhoch3617 thanks helpful, i was planning to use vasimir or pandramotiv drive
Great guide! could you do one on councilors, what traits or missions to look for at early, middle and late game stages?
It would be really interesting to see you play the initiative and never pick the tech, just respond and adapt entirely
I do not know how would you do this. If you play well, your research output will be so much greater than all other factions that you will automatically win every research slot in which you participate at all for huge part of the game. You would have to intentionally research bullshit engineering projects to not pick something at least sometimes.
What Pecka said. By midgame you should be dominating almost every tech with only a single pip of investment barring AI focus. By end game the AI shouldn't ever be able to take a tech away from you unless you ignore it for a decade.
@@Blxz which is why this would be a challenge
@@electricVGC what is the challenge exactly?
This makes me want Perun to try a Brannigan style Missiles-Only playthrough.
Personally, I take all 3 research slots asap, usually 2 until I'm out teching the other factions by a margin. The reasoning is to control the expansion into the solar system until I am ready to, by preventing the 'mission to' techs. Max pips research until you have 50% of TOTAL required research and can remove all investment pips and still win the research. You can safely max out projects and let ai finish the projects for you. Thus, getting AI to research things for you, although be aware they might not invest any points if your too far ahead and they aren't interested in that tech.
This means you can ensure you have all required projects unlocked and built up enough resources to take more locations before anyone else.
Initial research I usually get Augmented reality and biotech first, leads to early Councilor cybernetic upgrades. Generally, focus on nation building from there up to Great Nations. Once you've got a large unified nation or several, taking say Mars in one massive push before any other nation even gets a probe there should be easy.
40:32 Cohesion very easy to ou on US, if you have 5 wars (no matter with who), 5 rivals with (control points of country - 1 or more) and advising of councilors. Its easy to 2025 up to 10 and have 1k+ research (Cohesion boost research up to 7)
I would love to see an H-Orion drive only run. Especially as HF, the aliens would be questioning how humans have ships that can outmaneuver them before 2030 just to realize the mad lads are riding nuclear shockwaves into there battles fleets.
I fell victim of thw Great Nations research sink when I first got the game for at least 3 saves, and I also fell victim of researching every reactor tech that I unlocked because I didn't have a guide to tell me how all drives compared to one another. Now I always rush for Adamantines and Molten Fission to get a Pegasus fast, and I never even touch solid fission reactor I.
Thanks for making this, and for continuing to cover psycho-level strategy games after the real world military stuff blew up
About researching all the missiles: When ECM says it counters "familiar" missiles, does that mean you have to have researched them yourself?
Fantastic video. Thanks! Signed up as a patron. :)
I think merging countries is more than just cp bonus. It improves the efficiency of economy, welfare, Unity and knowledge priorities. Further, it provides extra defenses for that population. Laos is easy to take with coups or purges. However, incorporate Laos into China and it is almost impossible to take it.
27:40 Oh god, they finally patched in a way to hide useless research. I think I can finally go back to this game.
This is the preview patch - so that feature will hit the main branch pretty soon yeah - huge QoL improvement
@@PerunGamingAU Tell me about it! When I saw that tip I could not at first believe I had missed it. Wonderful addition.
So I am a new player and I have to be honest that the tech tree to me is one of the more frustrating things that I have with this game. This is not meant as a criticism of Perun. I loved his series on Humanity First and Academy, but even with this guide I am still struggling to maintain a coherent research path.
For example why are there so many engines? I also wish that you can queue research. For example if I wanted to go towards Space commerce and see what techs I need why not have it be queued. If I don’t get enough research to lead the next tech that is fine and the next global tech would still be siting in queue until I will be able to choose the next one.
Sorry, I am not trying to bash the game, but I feel like the research can be slimmed down by a lot. Not sure if you guys agree and this was more of a rant of me liking the game but really not enjoying the tech tree.
I want an org/councilor guide!
Thanks for the info and valuable tips ;)
Q : How do you unlock the 3rd research slot ?
build a skunkworks in space
I feel that this guide, while very informative, is still missing answers to some important questions players may have.
Like sure, mining in space is important. But if you have a choice between more mines or better mines, how do you determine which to take?
Or yes, you want to skip a couple of early engine designs. Makes sense. But how do you determine which engine is good enough to aim for?
You want to plan ahead with research, but short of reloading a game how can you tell when you'll need what?
How do you turn reactive use of the tech tree into proactive use of it?
Like say you plan to run your ships on water. But turns out your game spawns with little water and instead you find tons of fissionables. How do you go about adjusting your research path to adapt to this new resource situation?
I agree that the whole tech research screen could do with a big UI overhaul. More filter options would be great. Like for example tick a box and see only the techs that improve space mining.
What do all the 40 different laser types do? Which ones go on your Layered Defense arrays? I still don't get it. Just the largest one, the medium one, small?
Oooohh nice. 2 guides in 2 days
Is there an engine guide? I have questions.
wonderful insights. i normally research everything but now ...
what does x% chance of unlocking mean? is that a roll after any research is finished?
This is, at the time of my comment, still not on the live build (validation branch has it already). Some projects have a non-100% chance to ever unlock for your faction in a given playthrough (barring future tech research when you finish all techs) - this is that chance as far as I'm aware.
protip 1: labs give benefits to specific tech categories
protip 2: buildings are super cheap to rebuild
Did you talk about batteries (not gun kind), heat sinks, and radiators in this one? So much. I also wonder if nano factories around Venus can be cost/time effective way of making the transition to anti matter production around Mercury? Solar arrays are probably just as effective at Venus and swapping out your Mercury nano factories with ones at Venus might be the way? There’s not much building to do at Venus so nano factories could make money for longer if you build them at Venus perhaps without doing upgrades and just starting out there with level 3 Hab.
oh............. wow
furiously starts taking notes
How do you show the details of the projects in the tech tree? Whenever I hover over a project it only shows like Nerva drive I, Nerva drive II... Not any actual information about what it is and what it does.
I believe that's a feature of the validation patch I use (which means it should go public in the main release very soon, it just means we test the upcoming patches before they 'go live')
@@PerunGamingAU Cool, I think it really will help with planning your research. As it is right now, you really have no idea what you will get other than whats in the name of the tech.
Perun very good and informative, thank you. Something that I am having issues with when I play is how do I unlock the second and third counsel engineering tech slots? And a interesting house rule for your play through, all space stations and colones must have at least one science building on it.
You get the second one by giving one of your councilors an org that has the gear icon, those also give you +5% research for all your faction projects so they are good to have; each councilor can only benefit from three though. You get the third slot by building the skunkworks at one of your habs or stations, those also give +5% to all faction projects.
@@Maladictem thank you.
@@Maladictem The counselor display caps at three "+," but you get the research bonus for as many as you have equipped.
So what is the smallest population you would consider for a knowledge nation? Is Egypt too small at around 100 million? I've been experimenting with an "uplift" playthrough.
I've been working on certain tech rushes using the science traits to boost relevant fields. It's kinda frustrating because it's really rng dependant because ideally you want to stack councilors. So with 2 chemists I got nuclear fusion in space done in January 2026. Great Nations rush is also really strong, I was able to get the Pan Asian Combine in 2027. The social science is much easier than chemistry as you can find social science very easy. I also had 4 computer scientist run but I didn't really gain much from all those techs.
What I found over the course of these playthroughs is that these research fields are not created equal. A doctor is practically worthless. Physics doesn't really have any application until you've done a massive amount of chemistry. Military science is very strong. Computer science is almost worthless. Social science will let you control the entire world. The bonus you can get from having a councilor in the field of research is equal to all the org bonus you could get on all your other councilors, you just have to level the trait to 35. Two councilors will get 70, which means with a few good orgs you could get over 100. So the science traits can literally double your research into a given field, and you will get it twice as fast.
One good way to get science councilors is to turn the academy. When another faction fires a turned councilor you can hire them. This is the best way to get new characters because they are already leveled. So find a professor or astronaut with a good science trait, turn them, and max their fail chance.
Great info, I hope your comment gets more attention. Turning an exposing a councillor in order to make them available for yourself... that's both clever and so very obvious, yet I haven't seen anyone mentioning it before. I'm definitely going to use it. Thanks!
@@OddityDK yeah if you get good Intel you can actually use the enemy factions as recruiting pools, finding the best characters in the game. I was really surprised when I discovered this feature as well. Goes to show how many fine details the devs included.
What is the mission control cap for the aliens not hating you
is their any benefit or reason to going to venus?
The real problem with engine, is that except for the ion engine, and most very end of the tree ones, all the other ones you can research are utter garbage.
None of them are improvement to what you already are, they are slow, can't go anywhere, and can't be used for combat.
They are cheap, but frankly, you are not killing aliens with any of them, and human faction are worthless at space superiority so...
Also, I think some of the tech branch should gain a bonus for other tech of that branch:
E.g. All arc laser should give a bonus to other arc laser research, same for phaser, plasma, laser(IR->Green->UV), missiles, coilgun, railgun.
Similar should happen to engine from the same global tech... or just "fusion, fission, propellant" distinction. Make researching those tech have value.
The only difference with the various engineering project, is just bigger guns(or smaller). Making the first one can be difficult, but any other size should be far easier after that.
Are the project filtering and alien threat meter on the main map features on the experimental branch? Edit: Oh, and do you have any opinion on producing boost and using orbital facilities to generate cash instead of developing Funding planetside?
Do you have mods on? Some parts of your visuals seem different from mine such as the light blue for engineering projects
I'm on the validation patch
Thanks for another awesome video. What mod is that, that let's you hide tech you do not want to research like ever?
I think this is an upcoming feature for .30.
I play validation patch. so one patch ahead of the main release branch, testing it before it comes out
Is there a website or in game way I can see engine or weapon stats before unlocking the engineering project? Its hard to aim for the right stuff if I dont know what anything does ...
What's that? You like drinking from a fire-hose? Have I got a tech tree for you!
Can you do one of these in detail on techniques for map painting
How come like Covert Operations is unresearchable? I have done the others. Finally Pulsar drive showed up as a researchable item but it was just random during a turn while I was just humming along burning research into advanced hera drive because I don't understand how or when it will come about.
Each faction project has a chance to spawn when it comes available. With some luck, it can spawn instantly but it can also take months or years. Or in some cases, never.
@@thakillman7 ohh so scumbag save I got it. iol
@@thakillman7 I wonder if you might tell me how to attack an alien ship. I see no engage or something button.
@@jojo-gy9pp You intercept them (make them your fleet's destination) and once you arrive you're given the option whether or not you want to engage. If at least one side chooses to engage and the faster one doesn't choose to flee you get a battle.
How much should I prioritize the story projects? Is it reasonable to deprioritize them until I get a bunch of xeno research centers in orbit? I guess it is reasonable to get the one that allows me to see aliens (but they are also very cheap until that point)
IIRC, its the best Battery (layered defense) and Heavy Battery (BattleStation) which are assigned to your defenses, not the best Cannon.
I am so going to get this game at some point & it will take over my free time
I really want to see you do an Africa only run. If anyone could nail it, it'd be you.
I just wish we could mouse-over or click us to a list of what the engineering projects and engines actually _do_ in the techtree - first playthrough is _very_ much in the dark.
Dumbo Drive. Best engine ever. For the name alone.
But jokes aside, best simpley start researching the basic tech, the more one has of those, the more options one gets later on.
This was very helpful, thanks!
If you are lucky you should try to go for the nsrw or in the game called the neutron flux tourch. Extremly cheap research for the quality of the engine.
I guess the other guides mentioned are never going to be a thing at this point?
One of the first mistakes I made was playing Academy and trying to beeline for unification techs with the EU.
I’ve got to sleep… but I also gotta gee Perun/Terra Invicta fix…