Advice from one ascension noob to others
Posted: Tue Jun 19, 2007 7:58 am
I am far from an expert on ascension. As a prior with but a single ascension under my belt, I hardly qualify to provide the kind of advice that a more experienced player can give.
That said, I do have a perspective that some of the "big" players haven't had in a long time. I see the game through the eyes of a fairly weak player and have had to make use of the very limited resources that I have access to.
Here are my tips for playing on ascension and growing at a reasonable pace, in no particular order. As with any game, there are a myriad of options available to you so your mileage may vary. I welcome any input or suggestions that others have as well.
1. Ascension, like main, is driven by your ability to gain planets (UU in main). Since there is no market and no direct player-to-player transfer, you will have to rely on your own devices to acquire planets and keep them. Unlike main where you can easily raid with abundant turns, purchase UU from other players, have other players easily transfer UU to you, etc., your raw UP (fleet count in ascension) is critical to your growth. Turns in ascension are precious, you can't easily "purchase" planets, and no one can send them to you.
2. When you are first starting out, most of the upgrades available in the Power Up section are of little value to you. In fact, some may be downright dangerous to your survival (more on that later). In the beginning, you should concentrate your efforts on boosting your Outward Charisma and your Production Capacity, with emphasis on Charisma first.
3. That's not to say that every upgrade except Charisma and Production are of no value. But when you are starting out, acquiring planets should be your first mission. Train all your planets into income planets and spend whatever DMU you generate on more fleets.
4. At some point, you will have enough income planets that you will begin to be attractive to raiders. I don't know exactly what that threshold and it probably varies depending on how desperate a raider is but I would work on building up some defense if you start to see a few raid hits. What is a good point to begin building a defense? IMHO, something around 50-75K income planets.
5. Your Maximum Natural Energy Capacity is going to have to be upgraded eventually, along with Energy Flow and Energy Channeling. However, they do not need to be bumped very high, at least not at first. In fact, the higher you bump your Natural Capacity, the easier you make it for someone to descend you since the maximum damage you can take in a descension attempt is related to this number. When starting out, I wouldn't go much higher than level 20 for this value. Energy Flow is more valuable than Channeling, in my opinion, and I don't have either value higher than 20, for now.
6. Ignore your Command Star (mothership in main) for now. Unless you plan on doing a lot of farming (which you won't have the resources to do in the beginning), you won't need it. The amount of defense you gain from it isn't worth the significant cost to upgrade slots and add defense facilities. Additionally, it contributes to your overall rank and when starting out, it's better to keep that rank fairly poor for two reasons: 1. the rank modifier limits the damage that bigger players do to you and 2. you gain fewer turns the better ranked you are.
7. Since you gain 1-3 turns (based on your rank) every 30 minutes and there is absolutely no way possible to make that happen any faster or get turns from another player, turns are a valuable resource. Never let your turns hit 2000 and stay there. You should ALWAYS be using your turns to raid and possibly farm. By allowing your turns to hit 2000, you are essentially wasting valuable turn generation that is being given to you for free.
8. What are you supposed to do with the turns? Raid, raid, raid. Find some inactive accounts and raid them. How do you find inactive accounts? Put a few planets into covert and go roaming through the bottom of the rankings. Look for players that have 30-50K planets in the first number and zero or very few in the second. Hit them with one attack turn. If they have no defense, they may be potential raids.
9. How many planets should you get on a raid with 15 turns? I've seen numbers quoted all over the scale on this one. Some say 1000+ planets, others are more along the lines of 400. I know this: I have never been able to raid someone for more than 500 planets to date. This is due to my only having a single attack planet and having to raid 0 defense targets. I'm sure the bigger players would find it rather comical but I typically see 100-300 planets with each hit. If you happen to find a good target, great. If not, use your turns anyway on SOMETHING. Even 100 planets is better than 0 planets when you're only making 1000 a day on your own. Don't let your turns go to waste.
10. Don't run your turns all the way down to 0. I never let my turns drop below 1000 or so. You never know when you're going to find a super great raid or the super weapon sale makes farming attractive and you'll need those turns.
11. Watch the super weapon auction closely. Note when the auction ends so you can be online when it does and use the DMU from it immediately. Once you have used your DMU, look over your raid/farm list and try to farm as much as you possible can before it's taken. I would recommend that you have two windows open so you can quickly hit someone and immediately train it into fleets or the like in another window. If you try to farm 10 people and then use the DMU, I can almost guarantee someone will take it off you before you have the chance to use it.
12. Don't annoy big players. Don't annoy players that are ranked higher than you. Don't annoy players that are ranked NEAR you.
13. Don't do rapid ascensions from main. The problem from doing so is two-fold: 1. You don't get much benefit to your ascended account from low APP ascensions and 2. You don't give yourself time to build up your main account between ascensions and leave yourself weak in both main and ascension. With a weak ascension account and a strong main account, you stand a slightly better chance of not being severely pummeled in ascension if you can take out revenge in main. If both accounts are weak, you'll have little recourse on either server if you're being hit a lot.
14. Listen to the advice of the guys who have been playing ascension for a while. While their perspective may be somewhat skewed from a resource standpoint (they will laugh when you proudly announce you're now making 1 million DMU a turn), they know more than you do about the game.
15. Once you start building a defense, you must also put some resources into both covert and assassins. Unlike main, you can't get away with having a defense only with low covert. It makes it too easy for someone to inexpensively sabotage away your defense and then raid or farm you. I try to keep my ranking for defense, covert, and assassin strength near each other without a huge difference between them. For example, if your defense is ranked 1500, your covert and assassin strength should be near that amount as well. You should not have a defense that is ranked 600 and a covert that is ranked 2400. Bad idea.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. I'll probably add more as it comes to me and/or I learn more about the game. As I said, I'd welcome input from other players as to strategies that have worked for them.
Ascension is a great game and more strategy and critical thinking based than main, although growth is admittedly much slower. Good luck.
That said, I do have a perspective that some of the "big" players haven't had in a long time. I see the game through the eyes of a fairly weak player and have had to make use of the very limited resources that I have access to.
Here are my tips for playing on ascension and growing at a reasonable pace, in no particular order. As with any game, there are a myriad of options available to you so your mileage may vary. I welcome any input or suggestions that others have as well.
1. Ascension, like main, is driven by your ability to gain planets (UU in main). Since there is no market and no direct player-to-player transfer, you will have to rely on your own devices to acquire planets and keep them. Unlike main where you can easily raid with abundant turns, purchase UU from other players, have other players easily transfer UU to you, etc., your raw UP (fleet count in ascension) is critical to your growth. Turns in ascension are precious, you can't easily "purchase" planets, and no one can send them to you.
2. When you are first starting out, most of the upgrades available in the Power Up section are of little value to you. In fact, some may be downright dangerous to your survival (more on that later). In the beginning, you should concentrate your efforts on boosting your Outward Charisma and your Production Capacity, with emphasis on Charisma first.
3. That's not to say that every upgrade except Charisma and Production are of no value. But when you are starting out, acquiring planets should be your first mission. Train all your planets into income planets and spend whatever DMU you generate on more fleets.
4. At some point, you will have enough income planets that you will begin to be attractive to raiders. I don't know exactly what that threshold and it probably varies depending on how desperate a raider is but I would work on building up some defense if you start to see a few raid hits. What is a good point to begin building a defense? IMHO, something around 50-75K income planets.
5. Your Maximum Natural Energy Capacity is going to have to be upgraded eventually, along with Energy Flow and Energy Channeling. However, they do not need to be bumped very high, at least not at first. In fact, the higher you bump your Natural Capacity, the easier you make it for someone to descend you since the maximum damage you can take in a descension attempt is related to this number. When starting out, I wouldn't go much higher than level 20 for this value. Energy Flow is more valuable than Channeling, in my opinion, and I don't have either value higher than 20, for now.
6. Ignore your Command Star (mothership in main) for now. Unless you plan on doing a lot of farming (which you won't have the resources to do in the beginning), you won't need it. The amount of defense you gain from it isn't worth the significant cost to upgrade slots and add defense facilities. Additionally, it contributes to your overall rank and when starting out, it's better to keep that rank fairly poor for two reasons: 1. the rank modifier limits the damage that bigger players do to you and 2. you gain fewer turns the better ranked you are.
7. Since you gain 1-3 turns (based on your rank) every 30 minutes and there is absolutely no way possible to make that happen any faster or get turns from another player, turns are a valuable resource. Never let your turns hit 2000 and stay there. You should ALWAYS be using your turns to raid and possibly farm. By allowing your turns to hit 2000, you are essentially wasting valuable turn generation that is being given to you for free.
8. What are you supposed to do with the turns? Raid, raid, raid. Find some inactive accounts and raid them. How do you find inactive accounts? Put a few planets into covert and go roaming through the bottom of the rankings. Look for players that have 30-50K planets in the first number and zero or very few in the second. Hit them with one attack turn. If they have no defense, they may be potential raids.
9. How many planets should you get on a raid with 15 turns? I've seen numbers quoted all over the scale on this one. Some say 1000+ planets, others are more along the lines of 400. I know this: I have never been able to raid someone for more than 500 planets to date. This is due to my only having a single attack planet and having to raid 0 defense targets. I'm sure the bigger players would find it rather comical but I typically see 100-300 planets with each hit. If you happen to find a good target, great. If not, use your turns anyway on SOMETHING. Even 100 planets is better than 0 planets when you're only making 1000 a day on your own. Don't let your turns go to waste.
10. Don't run your turns all the way down to 0. I never let my turns drop below 1000 or so. You never know when you're going to find a super great raid or the super weapon sale makes farming attractive and you'll need those turns.
11. Watch the super weapon auction closely. Note when the auction ends so you can be online when it does and use the DMU from it immediately. Once you have used your DMU, look over your raid/farm list and try to farm as much as you possible can before it's taken. I would recommend that you have two windows open so you can quickly hit someone and immediately train it into fleets or the like in another window. If you try to farm 10 people and then use the DMU, I can almost guarantee someone will take it off you before you have the chance to use it.
12. Don't annoy big players. Don't annoy players that are ranked higher than you. Don't annoy players that are ranked NEAR you.
13. Don't do rapid ascensions from main. The problem from doing so is two-fold: 1. You don't get much benefit to your ascended account from low APP ascensions and 2. You don't give yourself time to build up your main account between ascensions and leave yourself weak in both main and ascension. With a weak ascension account and a strong main account, you stand a slightly better chance of not being severely pummeled in ascension if you can take out revenge in main. If both accounts are weak, you'll have little recourse on either server if you're being hit a lot.
14. Listen to the advice of the guys who have been playing ascension for a while. While their perspective may be somewhat skewed from a resource standpoint (they will laugh when you proudly announce you're now making 1 million DMU a turn), they know more than you do about the game.
15. Once you start building a defense, you must also put some resources into both covert and assassins. Unlike main, you can't get away with having a defense only with low covert. It makes it too easy for someone to inexpensively sabotage away your defense and then raid or farm you. I try to keep my ranking for defense, covert, and assassin strength near each other without a huge difference between them. For example, if your defense is ranked 1500, your covert and assassin strength should be near that amount as well. You should not have a defense that is ranked 600 and a covert that is ranked 2400. Bad idea.
Well, that's all I can think of for now. I'll probably add more as it comes to me and/or I learn more about the game. As I said, I'd welcome input from other players as to strategies that have worked for them.
Ascension is a great game and more strategy and critical thinking based than main, although growth is admittedly much slower. Good luck.
