UC: exploring VS conquering VS planet core capsules

From BluWiki

Exploration

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> Also I want to know how it is you can explore so many planets when I have trouble getting above 100k (even without DP)?

the idea is that lower the number of total planets you have on your systems, the more planets you can find. more -> slower exploration, that's why I'm saying that you need to keep the planet count as low as possible

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Exploring is capped at 500,000 planets, you can't explore beyond that.

NEW! you can explore as Collective, did you know that?

you have your own ships capable of exploring and you could use the neutral ships to explore, too to get the most out of exploring, check the report for all the ships from your shipyard:

RESULT=Scanner_points/upkeep

the bigger RESULT, the better exploration results ;)

Or, you can capture scouts from other races (like Viator II from Terrans). Don't ask someone to build scouts, to capture them via skirmish ;)because that's arranging battles and is deemed as cheating, and that you may get suspended for doing so.

Exploring your lvl X systems for terrans

read below

Exploring your lvl X systems (for terrans but for others, too)

The idea of this guide is for those Terrans which embrace the taxation (housing) method to gain profits, but it can be used by other races to put darks in front of their main system. This guide can be used also to have as a main system something different than the Orion system.

The idea is to have 5 Dark systems and on bottom an Orion system. This way you'll get +30% defence bonus on your Orion.

It is important for the following steps to get the number of planet as low as possible. Thus we must use orion systems and others to make darks.

To start this you need to have ALL the following:

1. have at least one Orion given when finishing the missions (or a system which will be the main system - usually - 90% - it's about one Orion or one Eden)
2. to have fresh taken DP (at least 8-9 hours of DP remained)
3. have the Upgrade system and Destroy project researched and activated (ready to be used)
4. have the Minister's Office project researched, so that you can move ministers on the right systems
5. have like 40+ bills as money
6. have 8-9 hours at least to play continuously
7. have a minister with Tax collector on your Orion system with at least lvl 15 in tax Collector trait (in case it's not about a system based on taxation the minister can differ, so contact me for additional info)
8. don't exit DP until you're done ;) at least until you have 18k in EVERY system (including the Orion system). read the whole guide to understand how to use it
9. in case your main system is based on population income then have the loyalty of the system up to 5000. without it you`re gaining only 1/3 the money out of taxing

steps to do it:

1. remove all your fleets you have (including from the outpost) - ALL of them
2. you need to have at least empire lvl 5 (that means at least 50000 population) to be able to use the projects Upgrade and destory. to do this just remove the population until you get >=50000 population - but not LOTS more). this way you'll be able to use the projects and you can also remove some planets from the Orion, so that the exploration process will take a little shorter
3. you'll need to free all planets from the Orion system you wanna keep. free as many planets as possible without removing population. this way you'll have only the needed population into the Orion and the minimum planet number to sustain that population. by getting less planets into your Orion you get very fast planets by exploring
4. now with the planets you just freed in the above step make a Dark system (with all the available planets from the Orion system)
   1. if you can't make one (too many system), then destroy one system below (on the page of manage planets) than the Orion - usually a good choice is the system with the less planets
      1. if you don't have any systems which are below the Orion, then start from the Orion and up (on the manage planets page) and pick any system which is not Dark (the less planets the non-Dark system has the better)
         1. if you can't find any possible solutions then just destroy a Dark system of your choice which is not upgraded
5. now, on the newly created Dark system, upgrade the system as much as possible. don't assign any planets in it, not yet
6. now we'll need to get rid of the non-Dark systems you have above the Orion system (you wanna keep). we are going to use all the planets from these systems to make one dark systems out of every non-dark system you have above the Orion system. if you can't make a system out of it, just destroy it. to make new dark systems out of it, just free all the planets from it and use them all to make a new Dark system from a system. upgrade the new darks systems (always)
7. now do the same (as in the above step) with the systems below (when you have to choose between more darks - which one to destroy, just calculate how many planets will have the new dark system and compare it with the smallest Dark lvl 1 system you have; e.g. if you have one dark with 5600 planets and the non-Dark system has less than 7600 planets, just destroy the non-dark system directly, or if the non-dark system has more than 7600 planets then destroy the dark system ). after finishing don't forget to get rid of the all non-dark systems you may have left
8. now make as many Dark systems as you can out of the free planets from the darks you have until you reach the maximum number of systems you can have (choose mostly the systems which have a greater number of planets to make a new Dark system out of all the free planets).
9. free all planets you have assigned in all systems (except on your Orion)
10. don't forget to upgrade all darks you're having now
11. now check if you still have like 40 billion credits. if not stop and get those money from your lord
12. now build 5000 Viator II scouts (or for Guardians: Lapiz -- the idea is to build the most advanced scouts the race has)
13. start exploring with them in the dark system you have most planets on
14. explore 1 turn at a time (only 1 turn because you're gonna explore more than 800 which is the maximum it's displayed). the quickest way in terms of turns is to do it one turn at a time because in dp the max is 800 a turn but done one turn at a time with a paid account you explore for 1,920 planets a turn more then double your max amount per turn.
15. continue exploring until you can upgrade the dark system. as soon as you can upgrade the system stop exploring in that system and move to the other dark system which has the most planets on. to upgrade a system you need x*10000 planets, where x is the system level. as soon as you get enough planets to upgrade the system, upgrade it
16. in case you have too many scouts you're going to explore exactly 800 planets, so you'll need to move some scouts to another system (you get the right number of planets again - it's a bug in the formula for getting the number of planets per turn -> too many scouts and too few overall planets). when the number of planets explored during one turn starts to shrink, just move back the extra scouts
17. continue until you have all your systems to lvl X (including the main system in case it can be upgraded - Orions cannot be upgraded, but other systems can be)
18. then start from the higher up system and explore it to over 18k planets, then the next, and the next and continue until you get to your Orion. you're doing this to prevent the fact that someone can destroy your system in a series of 5 suicide attacks on one dark
19. assign all your Darks with agriculture and upgrade the loyalty on them to 300. it's not a viable solution to keep population on the dark systems, since you're gonna spend a lot of turns to fill them with population after every attack. so the next good solution is to build agriculture, so that you get some food for those many mouths you're going to have
20. then continue exploring on the Orion until you rich a total of 500k planets
21. when you'll get to under 50 planets/turn then just double the number of scouts you have
22. and again: when you'll get to under 50 planets/turn then just double the number of scouts you have ;)
23. and continue doubling the number of scouts when you get under 50 planets per turn until you get under 10 bil cash, then stop and continue with the below steps
24. then disband all the scouts
25. then assign all the planets you have on the Orion on housing
26. before filling your Orion with population check to see if you have enough food
27. then fill the Orion with population
28. after you finished filling it with population upgrade your loyalty back to 5000

and you're done

now you should have LOTS of money from income

remember to build your fleet on the Orion system, and not on the dark system

to fill your dark systems, just use the space programs, by now you're ready to use space program I and II, maybe even III. use the space programs on your dark systems to get them to 30k

when all your dark systems have at least 30k, then use the space programs to fill your Orion system

if one of your dark systems gets under 15k stop attacking and building ships until you get the space programs to fill it up again to at least 18k. NEVER move your fleet from the Orion system to a dark system

MSN id - dacian_hantig@hotmail.com