I’ve previously written about the browser based game Neptune’s pride, and having played a few games now I’m going to share some of the tricks and nuances of the game I’ve come across. I won’t be covering the basic stuff like capturing planets since this can be read from the game’s help page. The first part of this will cover an area of the game that causes a great deal of confusion for new players, the combat system. Once you’ve read this those confusing defeats where your 10 ships were beaten by 1 should make make more sense.

Combat System

You need to drop any preconceptions of how this should work, as it is different to what you would intuitively expect. The way you probably expect the combat to work (as a rough formula) is

‘Number of ships’ x ‘Weapon skill’ = ‘Damage caused’

However in practice, this is completely wrong and you will frequently see cases where you opponents’ 2 defenders manage to kill 15 of your 500 strong fleet before you take them out. So what is really going on here? Firstly you need to start thinking of your fleets as a single ship with a ‘health’ value, rather than a lot of individual ships. Secondly you need to realise that each of these ships take turns to damage each other, and that the damage done is equal to your weapon skill (+1 for the defender). The defender strikes first. Lets run through an example, Player A has 9 weapon skill with a 25 strong fleet, and is defending against player B with 10 weapon skill and a 45 strong fleet. Since A is defending they get to strike first, and also get +1 WS bringing them up to 10.

Start: A = 21; B = 45
Round 1: A attacks B for 9+1 damage. A = 21; B = 35
Round 2: B attacks A for 10 damage. A = 11; B = 35
Round 3: A attacks B for 9+1 damage. A = 11; B = 25
Round 4: B attacks A for 10 damage. A = 1; B = 25
Round 5: A attacks B for 9+1 damage. A = 1; B = 15
Round 6: B attacks A for 10 damage. A = 0; B = 15

Hopefully this illustrates better how the combat system works. Note that it cost B 30 ships to kill A’s 21 – the defender has the advantage in this game.

Now the good thing about this system is that you can work out exactly how each combat will go and plan accordingly, but bear in mind extra ships and tech gains that your opponent might make while you are in transit to their stars. There are also the following tactical points that we can apply as a result of the combat system.

Have a minimum defense of 1 ship

In many cases your planets will be under attack by an overwhelming force and you will want to pull your ships back to regroup. In these cases you should always leave at least one ship stationed at your star. That way you will kill your WS+1 of their ships, for the cost of only one of yours. If you apply this across a few planets a large fleet can be reduced to nothing by the time it reaches your core systems. There isn’t really any excuse not to have 1 ship stationed at all of your planets all the time – it provides a deterrent and stops small fleets from quicly capturing your stars. This leads us onto the next point.

Know your minimum attacking force

If your opponent has WS 10 and you send 5 ships at one of his (defended) stars you are wasting your time – he will wipe out  your forces before they can retaliate. In this example, assuming there is only 1 ship defending you would need to send at least 12 ships to take the star. 11 of your ships would be killed and you would be left with 1 ship on the star.

Try and be the defender

You will always come out better in a fight if you are the defender – if possible try and draw your opponents into attacking you rather than the other way around. Weaken the defenses on a planet but have reinforcements close by, out of your opponent’s sensor range. Once they take the bait move your ships back to defend the star, then if you feel strong enough retaliate against their now weakened defense. You can see you opponents sensor range on the map or the minimap – select one of their stars and look for how far their colored border extends – this is their sensor range.

Pick your fights

You can see tons of info about other players in the player browser, including their tech levels and number of ships. Don’t pick a fight with someone who has better weapons and more ships than you unless you have a very good reason (eg, an alliance of other players helping you out). You are very likely to lose and get wiped out in their counter attack.

In the next part I’ll be talking about diplomacy and a rough guide of how to deal with other players.