Early Game Domination
Welcome! My name is WickedWon, and I love helping people. So let's get started.
***UPDATED 2017/09/20***
Hade's Star is a mobile MMO, a sci-fi base builder strategy game. Here's some learning to get you started on the way to dominating the leaderboard!
Hade's Star is geared towards very long term planning. At present, not even the top players have reached max red star. There's no pay to win, unlike most mobile mmo's. However the 5$ starter pack is a great buy. The 10% credit discount applies to ship construction and ship upgrades. The discount will pay for itself in no time.
Disclaimer: The advice given below is geared towards players who will be very active, and intended to help people create a foundation that will lead to being competitive and quick advancement.
Everyone's playstyle is different, so take that into consideration.
su·per·no·va
ˌso͞opərˈnōvə/
noun
ASTRONOMY
a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness because of a catastrophic explosion that ejects most of its mass.
There's no pvp in the game (yet), but there are griefers. So be wary when running public red star events.
Join a corp for access to private red stars. Corp mates, teamwork, organization, and coordination are increasingly critical to success in red stars as the RS tier increases.
You should join any random, open corp until you are ready for Red Star 3+
Artifacts are broken down in types. Brown orbs give military tech, blue crystals give economic tech, and purple tetrahedrons give support tech. Support modules include emp, teleport, remote repair, etc
Artifacts are obtained from Cerberus planets inside the red star mini-dungeons. Clear alien ships to steal their goodies.
For early credit income, run shipments, farm red stars, keep your research center full of artifacts, salvage extra artifacts. Upgrade water/terran planets, it's ok to skimp on fire/desert planets.
Basically when it comes to planet upgrades, you want to be basing your upgrade priority on the total shipment value for a planet (and how that raises). See the Wiki for more information. Desert are rubbish, though, upgrade them last and the least.
There are five types of planets: Gas = Terran > Water > Fire > Desert. Desert planet is your starting planet, and should be upgraded the least. Gas planets tend to be revealed on the edges of the map. For early income, Terran planets are best. For long term income, Gas and Terran are pretty equal.
General early game priority is scan new sectors > upgrade red star scanner > colonize new planets (if they're not too far away) > upgrade planets > upgrade tech
In the very beginning, you want to always be scanning new sectors. This should take priority over everything else, up until you have 5 or 6 planets.
Scanning new sectors will provide access to more asteroid spawn locations. Upgrading planets increases the number of spawn locations available in each sector. Hydrogen is the key resource you need. Without fuel, you cannot run red stars or generate credits.
Be careful not to over upgrade your ships. Higher tech level ships consume more hydrogen. Modules increase fuel consumption. Several modules are noob traps, which is a topic worth further discussion in a separate blog post.
To disband or rename your ships, select unit, click on the magnifying glass on the bottom left, scroll down and select the option .
To repair damaged battleships, move them to one of your colonized planets.
Don't upgrade your battleships level until RS4. Skip over lasers & mass battery, also, until RS5.
Upgrade your battery to level 2 when you can. Use alpha shields until you get to passive shields from RS3, skipping over delta shields.
Delta shields might look like an upgrade over alpha shields, but in practice they just aren't worth the credits spent to research and then install. You can use alpha shields at level 1 all the way through to starting red star level 3. Upgrade alpha to level 2 for quality of life and comfort.
Upgrade your transports & cargo bay extension until you have 4 ton capacity. Upgrade your miners, get mining boost & remote mining. Skip hydrogen bay extension.
Skip support modules until RS4, unless you feel comfortable using EMP. EMP is a nasty module that can help you win, or will cost you everything. I personally don't bother with it.
Teleport is a great module to have, especially as you move into RS3 and higher. It gives you access to more tactical positioning.
Purple Gas (hydrogen asteroids) will respawn roughly once a day. Mine them all as often as you can. More gas means more credits.
Diplomacy Station: the means by which 2+ players connect their star systems. Most efficiently put to use if attempting to conserve/generate Hydrogen. Ignore unless you got a sugar daddy to feed you artifacts.
In general, Diplo is very underwhelming. Trading can only be done by leaving your artifacts on your planet and allowing the other player to pick them up from said planet. You cannot give another player artifacts.
Diplo station can be very worth obtaining if you multi. I multi, and use my alt account to complete my shipments. This allows me to use all my hydrogen on my primary account to farm red stars for salvage income.
Scanner placement is important to long term success. You will want to plan out how you proceed in where you reveal sectors. You cannot move scanners once they are placed, nor can you destroy and rebuild them. They increase in cost, with scanning also increasing in cost to match. Ideally, you will end with 10 to 12 star scanners, in order to minimize cost and maximize revealed sectors.
Guide to the Short Range Scanner placement is here.
Check out the Discord channels, there is also a Wiki and a Reddit sub.
Remember always, efficiency is success! Success in efficiency.
For further reading, see Noob Traps and the New Player Walkthrough tutorials.
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This is WickedWon wishing you a wicked day!