Game questions ?

1. No. Would be nice if we could.

2. Micro for max damage, keep an eye on stuff elsewhere.

3. Separate.

Capital ships are dangerous for their abilities, not their damage output. Unless the enemy capital ship(s) are leveled up and have extremely dangerous abilities (like a L6 Marza or something), if you want to hurt the enemy's ability to deal damage, target their frigates instead. Generally, don't focus fire on their cap.

 Also, if you have heavy cruisers, they're strongest against enemy LRF, but often will not move in to engage because they're too far away: often, you should manually order your heavy cruisers to attack enemy LRF.

Also, depending on how large fleets are, it's a good idea to have your carriers either kite or sit right on the edge of the gravity well so individual ones can warp out when you can tell they're taking significant damage.

Ships are generally good at targeting what they're most effective against.

What I like to do with my siege fleet is to keep them positioned on the edge of my gravity well. When the enemy starts warping in, I tell all my siege frigates to warp out to attack the enemy's planet while he's attacking your gravity well. Unless the enemy is prepared with a scout mob, he might have to retreat some of his ships if he doesn't want to lose the planet.

You probably don't want your siege fleet with your main battle fleet, especially if you're on the defensive: they die very easily, have next to no damage output, and have a high replacement cost. Same for your antistructure ships.

Your carrier ships should almost certainly be with your main battle fleet.

2. It really depends how serious of a game you are playing. You can of course micromanage everything for maximum effect, but its really overkill in most situations except multiplayer and against cruel/vicious AI (the former because they will be microing against you, the latter because they'll send so many ships against you that you'll never have a fair fight). The AI will do a respectable job of fighting for itself without too much supervision (though you should check on it every now and then), especially if you adjust its engagement settings for each battle (local area to keep your fleet near repair bays for example). Then you are free to manage other parts of your Empire or just watch the fireworks.

3. Siege definitely keep separate. Antistructure ships can be with them if you want, but you'll also probably want them with your main fleet when launching a full out assault on a fortified planet. Go with the former if you want to use them as raiders, the latter if you need assistance with starbases.

How do i make a ai player ally with me if they keep attacking my fleet/planets  ?

On a 1human  vs 1ai player game is it possible to make the ai player ally with you ?

First try not killing their ships unless you really have to. Killing their ships hurts your relationship with them.

Also research the 3 diplomacy relationship upgrades to improve relationship. Also, research the ability to donate credits/etc, and research the increase to the max relationship boost: then, try to donate what you can to that AI until you reach the cap. Hopefully that'll be enough to get a cease-fire going (offer one to the AI). Then send envoys to keep the cease-fire alive without having to donate more. Eventually you'll be able to get a peace treaty then.

Completing the missions the AI gives you can provide a small extra initial boost, but it's often difficult or stupid to try to do what the AI asks you to do.

No. Not  even in locked teams with both on the same team, I think.

Sorry for the endless question but am confused about the following aspect of the game.

Can ai player give credits,metal,crystal to you to aid in relations ?

I can improve what any ai player thinks of me simple enough but how do i improve what i think of them enough to go past the 3.50 relations rating so i can get a ceasefire with that ai player? 

Are missions worth completing even if it means opening up a hole in my defenses at the start of the game ?

Only if you give the AI a give resource mission.

Research the relation techs and give the AI envoy missions.

That depends too much on the game situation to say, really.

It really depends on what difficulty you're playing against. If you're playing against anything other than Cruel or Vicious, it's very simple to set up a starbase or two at choke points and watch your other enemies suicide their entire fleet on it (if they attack you) - this allows your own fleet to go and try to complete a mission the AI you're interested in asked you to do.

It also depends on whether you'll have enough resources to get a cease-fire with the AI - it might be easier to complete a mission than to get the relationship bonus from some other source (like expensive research, or expensive donations to the AI). For some missions, it's relatively easy, even without doing anything: sometimes the mission will just be "Kill Ships: 5" and if the target enemy sends a few ships to attack your starbase, you can just sit back and watch and the mission will be successfully completed.

This is just a thought, but it might be possible to boost your relationship to reach that key point of a cease-fire by sending envoys to one of that AI's gravity wells - one with very few ships, or the envoy'll be shot down immediately. If you can, use the envoy's abilities to increase your relationship with the AI.

However, if the AI's main battle fleet arrives, the envoy will be in serious trouble: if this happens, you should have a couple envoys in reserve, ready to warp in to the AI's gravity well at a moment's notice. When the first envoy starts taking serious damage, activate the ability to make it invulnerable, and then order it to warp out a few seconds later while telling one of your other envoys to warp in. Kite around, repeat. If you have 4 or so envoys, you'll be able to keep this going almost indefinitely. (You always need to have an envoy at the gravity well or in route ASAP so that you don't lose the relationship bonus from the gravity well)

That's only an idea though, and requires a lot of attention - it would only be worthwhile if it's too difficult to get the AI to like you any other way.

These numbers are useful to know:

https://www.sinsofasolarempire.wikia.com/wiki/Simple_Diplomacy_Modification

especially the

"offerOrAcceptTreatyHappinessThreshold:CeaseFire" value of 0.5 - that's the magic number you need to get to to get a cease fire going so you can start sending envoys.

I remember once I was trying my best to get an AI to like me but wasn't able to quite reach that 0.5. In the end I had to scuttle one of my fully upgraded planets to remove the "Adjacent Territory" penalty, and I was finally able to get a cease fire, envoys, and then recolonized.

A bribe would be the ideal thing to do in a situation like that.

I'd already done that and had reached the limit of relationship increase due to credit donations and couldn't go across the whole galaxy to attack some other AI's civilian structures (the mission I got). This was the only thing I could think of doing. This was before I'd thought of the kiting-envoy trick I just mentioned above.

It didn't help that I accidentally wiped out that AI's whole early-game fleet on one of my starbases. He absolutely hated me (but everyone else hated me even more).

Hum the 0.5 value you point to for the cease fire is wrong I think. I'm quite sure it's 3.50 relationship (so 0.35) in Diplomacy 1.31...

I looked at my up-to-date gameplay.constants file, and it says 0.5 as well... given that that file specifies the diplomacy constants, I find it quite unlikely to be wrong, but maybe it is. I'm currently testing it out... I could be wrong, I haven't played against the AI in ages.

Yarlen has said that some of the diplomatic lines in the gameplay.constants file are archaic. The real numbers seem to be hardcoded in some sort of formula. Perhaps that is what is going on here?

Yes I played an AI game today and I'm pretty certain that it said 3.50, and that I really could get a cease fire at 3.50.

I think what you're looking at is the minimum relationship the game requires for a cease-fire, which is indeed 3.50 = 0.35 (for both players). The level at which the AI will decide to reject or accept the cease-fire is in a different place.

The 0.5 I mentioned is only listed deep in that gameplay.constants file, and isn't made explicit in-game, although it of course affects what happens ingame.

I did just play a game against the AI and it did actually offer a cease-fire when we only had something like 3.7 relationship going both ways. I guess my gameplay.constants "offerOrAcceptTreatyHappinessThreshold:CeaseFire.50" actually isn't affecting the game

        breakRelationshipThreshold:CeaseFire 2.0

        relationshipRequirement:CeaseFire 3.5

You're looking at either the Original Sins or Entrenchment files, not Diplomacy.

You're right. It's correctly declared in the Diplomacy folder.

I'll edit the Wiki page I linked to to make things more clear.

Is there anything ive missed ? what do you do in order when you try a get a ai player to be allied?

To improve what  faction a  thinks of you:

send credits,metal,crystal

complete mission 

send envoy

To improve what you think of faction a:

offer a mission to faction a to send a envoy to your homeworld 

I have some planets in another star system which have low allegiance 50% even with a broadcast tower in orbit my question is how do i improve the allegience of the planets if i can only have one home world ?

Is it possible to disrupt the enemy phase of a fleet in a gravity well ie stop it from escaping in a gravity well that does not have colanizeable planets ?

Be Advent. Upgrade max allegiance via research.

Or relocate your HW.

Those are the only ways.

Basically, a mobile phase jump inhibitor? The only things which come close are the capital ship abilities that can slow, stop, or disable an enemy's phase jump or engines, such as Ion Bolt and Gravity Warhead.

Stupid question but why do they say sins of the solar empire is a 4x game ?

 I noticed a lot of hype for the long range frigate but what about the light frigate is that even useful ?

Scale, complexity, and pacing are all much closer to that of 4X than most real-time strategy games.

LF are good against carriers, support cruisers, and flak frigates, iirc. However, they're countered hard by the LRF and not nearly as good for killing capitals.

The light frigate is the most cost-effective unit for fighting enemy ships with heavy armor: the flak frigate, offensive/defensive support cruisers, and carrier cruisers.

The LRF is often preferred because it's significantly more difficult to counter and does good amounts of damage against nearly any ship type.

When you start a game is it always best to fast track to two miltary labs to get the LRF ?

Is the light frigate any use in mid-late game or are they just suicide vessels ? 

1. Depends on your play style though in MP it is an excellent choice.

2. As others have stated they can be useful against ships with heavy armor. Namely support vessels that come out during the mid-late game.