Slavic Federation and Orbitals 2015?

[Citadel97501]

Hello all,

I was about to start playing with the Slavic Federation because I rarely if ever play with the sattelites and I thought I would make an entire game designed around using them so what would be the tech and other starting stuff you suggest after the 2015 patch? I am going to post the relevant information from your posts so think of this as a crowd sourced guide.

Sponsor: Slavic Federation

Colonists: Scientists or Aristocrats?

Ship: Retrograde Thrusters or Tectonic Sensors?

Cargo: Laboratory, free pioneering tech is always good.

Planets:
I would suggest avoiding the water worlds as Petroleum doesn't spawn in the water, but only on land according to the wiki.

Tech Tree:
Chemistry of course but I can't decide which direction to go after that? I can see going for culture with the Holo sattelite, or production.

 

[lilgamefreek]

Petroleum spawns fine in water. It's rare, but it is the only strategic resource that can be found in it. This can be useful when using orbital fabricator satellites, as they will generate only oil when placed exclusively over water.

 

[Gritf]

Hi. First, petroleum does spawn in water. In fact, it is the only strategic resource to spawn in water.

For colonist I would suggest either scientist to reach for those techs, engineers to build them fast, or artist to get tiles with petroleum.

For ship, any of those is good, maybe depending if you spand fast you may actually want the tectonic scaner. For example, tectonic sensor with laboratory, to begin with the prosperity virtue tree; or retrogade thrusters with worker if you go with industry virtues.

You may also pick the cryotome with laboratory if you go prosperity or the extra 2 supply pods to get a better chance to get free solar collectors with extra duration (if you own starships or dowload the starships unlock mod).

In the tech tree you begin with the inner circle of techs, (chemistry, ecology, computing, etc.) then either go for academies or biowell (since apparently those are the meta), then you move to communications for the lasercomm satellite if you are either purity or supremacy or solar collectors if you are harmony. Finally its just grabbing whaterver techs you need for affinity or those needed for the contact victory.

I usually don't grab virtues from the knowledge tree first (at least at the beginning of the game) since you need that extra health for expansion from the other trees to secure petroleum.

 

[Ryika]

Best strategy is probably using the Pioneers Loadout if you've unlocked it or otherwise using artists. Either way you want early Culture and fast expansion to go wide.

Most efficient (and also most boring) strategy is probably to just ignore the Orbital Fabricator as they are too slow in general (for single player) and have a bit of an anti-synergy with the Slavic Federation anyway (More orbital Uptime = Less Resources spawned) and just use a standard "Solar Collectors to finance Academies"-strategy (+sell all strategic resources to the AI). Unfortunately there's not much "efficient" non-military stuff you can really combine with the Slavic Federation.

If you're fine with ignoring efficiency though... I'd say go for Orbital Fabricators and become the interstellar Oil-Sheik. :>