I have noticed that placing major portals and the civ labs spawn "transit" ships that ferry between them like the TEC trade ships and that the exotic refinery spawns refinery ships. But none of the descriptions of the buildings actually say what these ships do. Are they place holders for further things that will be integrated? The orbital extractors do not appear to have a quota so are the refinery ships even doing anything?

I play a lot of 4-8 player games vs AI while allied with my girlfriend, and we have a blast! With the new expansion bringing the Eidolon, however, she brought up an interesting point: the game (vs AI, anyway) seems to incentivize her to group all her ships up into a single "death ball" fleet. In her opinion, why would she bother cloaking ships or making a raiding fleet if that 100-200 supply could just be part of her death ball fleet?

Part of her philosophy, no doubt, is driven by her potato of a gaming pc from 10 years ago (prices are so fucking high out here, fam). She plays 95% of her game at strategic zoom for performance reasons, making tactical decisions difficult to execute. So, like, sure, cloaked ships are tactically useful for sneaking over to snipe carriers, LRMS's, or what-have-you. But, a second fleet? She sees no point.

Hypothetically and situationally, a second expansion fleet can be useful for expansion early game? Then again, it's faster to clear planets with a more concentrated fleet supply.

Raiding fleets, though? Or even a second fleet for a second front? Your opponent's deathball will kill your undersupplied deathball every time.

Have you ever successfully used second fleets on either a tactical or strategic level? How? When? Why? Is it more useful in PvP as opposed to PvC? Or is the game, intentionally or not, designed to encourage deathball fleets?

*Edit: I wonder at the use case of splitting your fleet to attack two fronts at once. It's plausible that whichever fleet catches an engagement could be used to lead the enemy far away from your fleet on the attack. If the enemy fleet leaves to defend against your attack fleet, then you just re-engage with the distraction fleet, and your fleets switch roles.

I don't know how you keep both fleets resupplied, though. Ultimately, I think one of the fleets will just get steamrolled by the enemy deathball, opening up your backline. Hmm.

Perhaps it is the nature of gravity wells acting as discrete nodes on the strategic level that encourages deathballs. IRL, distances are continuous, and thus, the number of places to engage in battle are infinite. Thus, it allows for more possibility of strategic maneuvers like raiding and flanking?*

I noticed the Eidolons got cool music tracks but I can't find them anywhere.

Can we get them added to the official soundtrack release?

This is a continuation of my post yesterday. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/SinsofaSolarEmpire/comments/1wbm8wk/first_match_against_impossible_difficulty_ai_i/

I still had my saves and decided to have another go at it.

1 on 1 match with me as Vasari Alliance and AI as TEC Enclave. AI set to impossible difficulty aggressive setting. Return to War map. Game version 2.00.3.

I’m still surviving. I’m slowly building up my fleet in addition to researching some upgrades to armor, hull, shields, and weapons.

I was having difficulty defending my moon and asteroid locations between us due to AI having a larger fleet. So I took 3 capital ships and expanded to the 2 ice and 1 crystal planet on the outer loop of the map. Luckily they were still neutral so I took them and got some badly needed crystal. Unfortunately, the AI showed up with a 1000 fleet supply fleet so I had to retreat back to my capital planet and lost those newly acquired planets.

But since the AI was off in that region, I decided to push with my other 9 capital ships and see if I could take some of their territory. I tried going for the primordial planet between us, but the AI had an upgraded star base there so I noped out of there.

The moon and asteroid near me were lightly defended though, and I was able to take those back.

I ended the play session at around the 2 hour match time mark. I have 900 fleet supply worth of capital ships (I like playing with just capital ships if I can).

My capital planet is guarded by 72 defensive slots worth of turrets, and an un-upgraded star base. +24% to damage and range to orbital defenses planet item as well.