Imperion Newbie Guide

[techmaster-glitch]

Another mechanics question: I'm not sure if this is possible (and if it isn't, I'm probably going to send a suggestion to the imperion folks), but can you give fleets new orders while in transit? Like, you send them out on a mission, but you then decide you want them to go somewhere else, or to do something different once they got to their destination. Can this be done?

[Tezkat]

In the first 5 minutes after you deploy a fleet, you have the option to recall them back to base.

[techmaster-glitch]

That I already knew, I was just wondering if you could do more.

[Darkdragon]

That's another thing, how can you tell if someone is "active" or not, and what is the criteria for such?

Heh. If they whine when you raid them, they're active.

Do you think it would prevent people from raiding if you preemptively write to ask them politely not to raid you?

Another mechanics question: I'm not sure if this is possible (and if it isn't, I'm probably going to send a suggestion to the imperion folks), but can you give fleets new orders while in transit? Like, you send them out on a mission, but you then decide you want them to go somewhere else, or to do something different once they got to their destination. Can this be done?

From what I've read, you can't, but by no means I am any authority on this issue.

[Tezkat]

Do you think it would prevent people from raiding if you preemptively write to ask them politely not to raid you?

Heh. Depends on the player, I suppose. Small colonies aren't really worth the effort to raid compared to unoccupied worlds anyway, so anyone big enough and close enough to raid you will probably have their eye on you already, waiting until you ripen into a nice juicy target. The ones who would respond favourably to such a message probably wouldn't raid an active the first place. The ones not so inclined... may very well take it as an invitation.

[techmaster-glitch]

A question about comet-bumping...

So, if you send only recyclers to a comet, they are harvesting, someone else sends only recyclers, your fleet gets bumped back home, and vice versa. If you send military escort with your recyclers, they will stay at the comet and duke it out with anyone who tries to bump you. If they have a military escore too, and it's better than yours, you'll get wiped out. But...what happens if you send unescorted recyclers, and a military-escorted fleet  tires to get there after you? Will you be bumped and sent home safely, or will the presence of military ships on the the bumping fleet cause combat to happen and wipe out your unescorted recyclers?

[Darkdragon]

I've noticed in the fine print that propulsion technology only works if you travel more than five systems. What do they mean?

A question about comet-bumping...

So, if you send only recyclers to a comet, they are harvesting, someone else sends only recyclers, your fleet gets bumped back home, and vice versa. If you send military escort with your recyclers, they will stay at the comet and duke it out with anyone who tries to bump you. If they have a military escore too, and it's better than yours, you'll get wiped out. But...what happens if you send unescorted recyclers, and a military-escorted fleet  tires to get there after you? Will you be bumped and sent home safely, or will the presence of military ships on the the bumping fleet cause combat to happen and wipe out your unescorted recyclers?

For that matter, what about the opposite situation; you send unescorted recyclers but hits a escorted fleet at the asteroid?

Also, does anyone know what the deletion timetable for inactives are? I'd like to use the three other inactive's planets in my system to raise my raiding yield.

[techmaster-glitch]

For that matter, what about the opposite situation; you send unescorted recyclers but hits a escorted fleet at the asteroid?

So, if you send only recyclers to a comet, they are harvesting, someone else sends only recyclers, your fleet gets bumped back home, and vice versa. If you send military escort with your recyclers, they will stay at the comet and duke it out with anyone who tries to bump you...

if it's unescorted recylcers trying to do the bumping against escorted harvesters, there will be no survivors. That much I (think I) know already.

Heh heh heh! I literally just learned otherwise, firsthand If you send unescorted recylcers to a comet, and they come across an escorted recycler already on site, you recyclers will automatically withdraw. You gain nothing and wasted whatever fuel was used for the trip.

[Darkdragon]

Good thing I asked, since it was counter intuitive. Now I just need to wait for my recycler to actually finish so I can actually apply this theory....

Although I would presume that if two escorted groups clash they will duke it out. Not that I want to test that, myself, mind.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I've noticed in the fine print that propulsion technology only works if you travel more than five systems. What do they mean?

They mean "we forgot to update this text; actually, the propulsion updates always change how long it takes to get places."

A question about comet-bumping...

So, if you send only recyclers to a comet, they are harvesting, someone else sends only recyclers, your fleet gets bumped back home, and vice versa. If you send military escort with your recyclers, they will stay at the comet and duke it out with anyone who tries to bump you. If they have a military escore too, and it's better than yours, you'll get wiped out. But...what happens if you send unescorted recyclers, and a military-escorted fleet  tires to get there after you? Will you be bumped and sent home safely, or will the presence of military ships on the the bumping fleet cause combat to happen and wipe out your unescorted recyclers?

Unescorted recyclers are scaredy cats. They will ALWAYS retreat without fighting.

Escorted recyclers stay with their escorts, and take part in the combat, and losses, that follow. Hence... unless you have a huge military presence, which is probably counter-productive, escorting your recyclers is silly.


One of the advanced tactics is to send a "bump fleet", or a small to medium military presence, to a comet ahead of your recyclers. That bumps anyone else off the comet, and your recyclers can land without fear or problems.

[Tezkat]

Also, does anyone know what the deletion timetable for inactives are? I'd like to use the three other inactive's planets in my system to raise my raiding yield.

It depends on size. At most, they drop after 21 days of inactivity.

http://wiki.imperion.com/wiki/Deletion_of_inactive_accounts

[Darkdragon]

I'm a little bit confused with the expansion panel in the embassy. I don't think the Wiki explains it to my satisfaction, as the article has no pictures. What does each fancy bar and number represent? How does one gain EPs?

[Tezkat]

Yeah, they have a lot of UI and localization issues.

Each building on the planet generates a certain number of EP per day. You can see your production breakdown at the embassy... assuming you can parse the German. When you have enough points, you can send out a dropship to colonize a new planet.

http://wiki.imperion.com/wiki/Colonizing_planets

Rather than telling you how much EP you have, they have a bunch of countdowns. (They like countdown timers.) The big one near the bottom is the total number of hours to next planet at your current rate of EP growth. As if that wasn't confusing enough, they have a bar that counts down to each 1/10 of the way to your next planet. It would probably be helpful to ignore that completely.


What's amazing is that older versions of the UIs on many buildings provided the actual numbers. Apparently, they decided all that evil math was too complicated for their players and replaced it with these silly graph things. 

[Darkdragon]

I like the math, though. >.<

It says I need to wait thirty days to be able to build my next planet, but let's see if I can't get things to go before that 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

That's at your current build size. As you increase various buildings, it'll improve.

Note that you need to get dropships, too, which is what's currently delaying me.

[Darkdragon]

On that note, do you guys know which buildings generate the most EP? I can pull off at least 50k resources a day (which, admittedly, I have no reference as to that is a good or a poor number), which is plenty for me at my size. I've already reduced the time it takes for me to generate enough EP for colonization to 22 days, although I think the drop ship blueprint could be problematic to obtain quickly.

[techmaster-glitch]

Check the Imperion Wiki. It has stats for all the buildings, including EP per level. I think the Embassys and (if you are Terran) the Colonization Center give the most when upgraded (I could be wrong).

[techmaster-glitch]

Question: Has anyone gotten any quests beyond the tutorial, and if so, how/where/when? Are there any quests beyond the tutorial?

[Darkdragon]

I haven't seen any quests beyond the tutorial, but then again, I'm not that much ahead of you.

I have a new type of problem. I can't seem to spend my resources faster than I get them from raids. All of my raids return within 2.5 hours, and on average they get about 4.4k total resources and I send fleets 6 at a time. This (generally) will fill up my resource stockyard because of the large amount of unused resources (which I could spend on more transporters, but that would just net me even more resources which I can't spend), prompting me to upgrade my resource stockyard, which I can't because all of my building slots are full. This doesn't sound like a terribly efficient arrangement, so does anyone have any suggestions on how to make this arrangement more effective?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Increase your building yard.

That'll increase the speed at which things get built, and hence the speed of eating resources. And stop sending out your ships until your build queue catches up, I guess. At least, not until you're not going to lose resources by not having anywhere to store them.

Building yard should be maxed asap, really, for maximum building speed. It's the only one I have maxed - although I could push the transmitter, I'm saving up for a dropship.

What are your buildings at?

[Darkdragon]

My buildings (after what I have constructed finishes):
Building Yard - 10
Resource Cache - 7
Embassy - 9
Arms Factory - 4
Fleet Base - 6
All three stockyards - 6
Research Facility - 9
Trade Centre - 7
AEC - 2
Civilian Shipyard - 8
Hanger - 6
Colonization Centre - 5
Metal Mine - 6/5/5
Crystal Mine - 6/5/5
Deuterium Mine - 6/6/5

50 Fighters
24 Small Transporters (@ 2200 cargo each)
10 Recyclers

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Ah, you're not Titan, are you? Hrm.

I'd look into punching the research center up some more, and researching heftier ships, perhaps. Not sure.

If you were titan, I'd suggest pushing your AEC up there, but since you're not, the only bonus you get from it is improved EP, and the cost/benefit for that is not sufficient to make it worthwhile.

I will say, though, that pushing your stockyards as fast as you can can't hurt, and pushing your mines up will help, also - they're still cheap, it's not until they get past L10 or so that the price really starts to increase in both resources and time. And it's mainly resources, IME...

[techmaster-glitch]

Counterespionage question: The Titan Jammer, a building I was actually looking forward to as it is supposed to give enemy inaccurate espionage information, apparently cannot be built because its prerequisite, the Scan Link System, is disabled (and I learned this shortly after signing back up). I just learned, however, that the Titan Observer, our own espionage unit, apparently cannot detect Xen Zekkons, the Xen's espionage unit. The Titans also lack any sort of missiles at all, let alone the bionic blasts of the Terrans. So, what actual countermeasures do I, as a Titan player, have against Xen Zekkons?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Stealth Generator.

[techmaster-glitch]

So, there's no way to actually get rid of them? (and hiding ships doesn't do me much good if I have no ships to hide...)

[Tezkat]

Ask a friendly neighbourhood Terran to shoot them down for you?

Otherwise, there's no practical way to get rid of Zekkons. You can try boosting your Espionage research a bit to prevent them from gaining useful info. I might also add that the general lack of shielding makes Xen ships pretty weak overall against Titan defenders, so a properly defended planet can stand up quite well to Xen assaults.

[Darkdragon]

I have a question -

Should I first invest in a Robot factory (which decreases the construction time for ships, missiles and defence systems) or in a Rocket Silo (which allows me to build missiles)? I can only build one of them before I have to research another building lot, which would not be for quite a while (because I have everything in Civil engineering to speed up the time needed to get drop ship blueprint)

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I would guess that a rocket silo lets you build defences. A robot factory lets you build defences faster.

My call would be putting the Robot Factory second.

But then, I've already got one...

[techmaster-glitch]

   Hey, I've got a question. What's up with the Titan Teleporter battery recharge times? I have several slots thanks to upgardes, and for some reason, they keep flying all over the place. Sometimes I get recharge times of 2 hours for a slot, sometimes for 10. In fact, that's exactly what I have now; four slots recharging at the same time, two of them started with 1:30 an 2:00, the other two at 10:00 and 11:00 What's going on here?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Depends on how far you send the resources, I think.