About Ascendancy

Species

Planets

Ships

Research

Winning

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Design © 2007 b-sting.nl
Content based upon Darth's
Ascendancy page which
in turn was based upon
"The Way" by Jason Goldman
and others.

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Winning:

Strategy

B-sting's personal favourite strategy

Ascendancy is not a hard game to beat. Even with the Antagoniser module, most will still find it too easy, but at least entertaining. Still for those who want to improve their game, here's my personal tips.

Species: There's a lot of species with useless special abilities if your planning on conquering and/or expanding fast. Like the Shevar (drains all power in alien ships in their systems ... once every 90 days) or the Dubtaks (if you're the most advanced species, there will be no research to steal). Instead I prefer species like the Minions (more invasion for less invader modules), the Chronamyst (gets to new/hostile colonies much faster) or the Chamachies (more quickly get all the research you need to make an invincible fleet).

Star system expansion: Do everything you can to develop all the research you need to build medium ships, stock them with colonisers and capture as many systems as you can before you run into other alien colonies. Don't bother with small planets, unless there's an archeological dig site on them. Go for the hugest planets possible in each system. Build your coloniser on a black square, preferably next to a red and green square. If there are plenty of green squares, put the coloniser on a green one, for an extra boost at the start. In the future, these huge planets will be your refitting and ship construction planets. You really want those archelogical dig-sites too. Build your coloniser to them and at most build one factory and then go straight to the Xeno-dig. You might end up with a Nanomanipulator weapon straight from the beginning of the game.

Planet expansion: Keep the peace for as long as you can and improve your colonies as fast as you can. Find a healthy balance between lots of production and lots of research. As soon as you have them build nothing but Industrial Megafacilities, Metroplexes and Research Campusses on your planets. Build one Hyperpower Plant, Internet and Fertilization Plant on each planet. Use Outposts only when needed, upgrade to habitats asap and switch to Metroplexes in the end. You might even demolish a few Outposts and Habitats when you have enough Metroplexes and need the space for other useful stuff. Make sure your outer colonies have at least some orbital shields and weapons in case of an attack. Most species are stupid enough to declare war at their least tactical moment (when they are still far away from you or have their weakest ships next to a fully armed planet of yours). Make sure your strongest planets have shipyards and orbital docks.

Ships: In the beginning of the game I build a few medium ships for colonising, later in the game I usually make them into small patrol ships. I neve understood what one would need small ships for. I might build a few large ships, but ideally my whole fleet is only enormous vessels. My usual config of an enormous ships is:

3 weapons

2-3 shields (if they're strong enough, 2 suffice)

1 recaller (if available, usually home planets are furthest develloped to refit ships)

4-6 Starlane Hyperdrives (or regular if not yet available)

2-3 engines (really who cares how fast you can travel within a system?)

5 energy generators

1-2 Lane Magnetrons or Lane Destabilizers (if available)

3-9 Invaders and/or Colonizers

I bring along one lane magnetron for every red lane I plan to encounter (one way only, since I have a recaller). Alternately, if you're flying in a pack of ships, fit two ships with each one lane destabilizer. Send in all your ships in a red lane but one, make the remaining one destablize it, then jump into the red lane as well. On the next turn, you can use the pack to destablize the lane again so the last ship is through as well.

I never understood scanners by the way. If I'm gonna destoy an enemy vessel, I'ld rather bring an extra weapon instead of stuff to know what its armament is.


What other people have sugested in the past

Favorite battle techniques

• Load a ship with four Plasmatrons and a Replenisher. This is a deadly long range combination that may be achived fairly early in the game.
• Use the Mass Condensor or Gravimetric Condensor to get all the target ships close to you at once. Then use the Invulnerablizer to protect yourself. Finally, proceed to use Disintegrators to wipe the lot of them out of existance. Make sure you have a LOT of power available.
• The same effect as above may be achived when attacking a single ship by using the Tractor Beam to pull him in and the Disintegrator to dispatch him.
• Construct tiny hulled bomb ships with a Gravimetric Condensor, a Nanotwirler, a Nanowave Space Bender, a Star Lane Hyperdrive, and a Destructotron. Use the Gravimetric Condensor to get all the target ships close to you at once. Then use the Destructotron. Make sure your bomb ship is the only friendly ship in the system.
• Here are two additional ship designs that are very nasty:
  1) A ship with Plasmatrons and Positronic bouncers. Fire the plasmatrons, and when the enemy ship comes to within its own weapons range of you, bounce it away.
  2) Once you have all the gadgets, put together a ship with a few powerful shields (ideally the nanoshell), a tractor beam, a brunswick dissapator, and whatever weapons you like. Put up your shields, tractor the enemy ship in close, drop your shields, fire the brunswick dissapator. You can now engage the powerless enemy ship at point blank range with whatevere awesome arsenal you have seen fit to put aboard. I've never lost a ship using this tactic, although it requires a bit of revision when you are facing 3 or more ships at close range. Don't forget a remote repair facility, just in case.
• Build 2 or 3 awesome attack vessels with plenty of replenishers and weapons and not much else (no scanners and few generators) Essentially floating weapons platforms. Then build a support ship one with scanner, megagoggles (or whatever) tons of generators, a remote repair facility, a sacrificial orb, and the plasma coupler. You can then use this ship to repair and re-energize the weapons platforms instead of each of them having to have thier own repair facility and hyper fuel. For extra emergencies, your tanker can be equiped with a canabalizer.
• I have had difficulty with losing ships stationed as guards at other species home worlds that I've conquered. When they use a Recaller they appear at their former home world without any warning from the game. I've paid close attention, and moved along one day at a time. The instant that I see an enemy ship appear, I go right to that system. Most of the time Ive already lost a ship. Sometimes the defending ship is almost dead. If I dont leave a guard, the planets defenses are gone by the time I get there. So I must cover the planet with mega shields. They still manage to erode them away. They best solution I've found is to position the guard at an extreme altitude. Then The new ship goes striaght up to get your guard, but it takes him a couple days to get there.
• The easiest way to defend a system from invasion is to position three ships very close to the Star Lane entrance into the system (this is especially effective if there's only one direction from which the invading ships can approach). Each ship should have 1 Brunswick Dissapator, 3 weapons at least as powerful as a Fergnatz Lens (this is usually pretty easy if you've gotten a Xeno Dig or three under your belt), and at least 2 "bubbles" worth of shields. Just park outside the Star Lane and it's almost a guarantee that you can toast any ship that comes into the system, regardless of how big or how many (within reason, of course...)
• Use the positron bouncer to knock a ship away, then let him come back to you. By the time he gets there he's down on power and you can destroy him easily. Works best early in the game.