I have no idea....

get an excel ships list thers one linked on "new player help" thread somewhere. if you dont already have one. I find them pretty handy for quick reference.

I guess I should probably make a post here saying that kelti and wing aren`t doing it right for RT...

Get 10-20 housing infra at the start... plundering will REALLY help in the beginning with making cash, its where I got my start (I`m a newb and got 30 housing but that was because I`m a newb). After that, only agri, and take planets that have 500+ land and slowly start clustering them. In the first part of being collective you CAN`T wait for 800+ land barrens cuz it will take you 6 months to have your first c3 and thats no fun D:. After you get a c4 is when I`d say switch to 800+ barrens, but I haven`t gotten to that point yet (almost there, 12 planets to go lmao) so I`m not entirely sure. Tax collective is AWFUL fyi, but a bit of housing to make your land go further and your plundered cols be better is totally worth it. Anyone who says otherwise obviously has never actually played collective. I love it when people that don`t know what they are talking about come in and tell other people they are wrong... it just warms my heart.

As for stacking... figure it out yourself. Thats what we`ve all done XD.

Plan everything. You must not idle when obtaining border planets. The first attack is the most tense because of your mortality.

I built on Slow using Freelancer`s about15housingresearch advice.
So what... I could have put that into agriculture, which is still my primary money-earner, but when UWs come around, it helps to have some extra populated colonies ready to plunder after the 90% resource reduction. And the biggest motivator to research some housing is:
- You will be unable to farm on foreign clusters. You ARE able to assmiliate and populate them.
If you capture a healthy foreign cluster, you can accrue quite a hefty payoff through plundering.

Almost all of your special ships are great.
Pinnace, Brigantine, Sloop, Galleon, Barkentine, Snow... even the Man-O-War starbase puts up an unexpected fight when you`re attacked.

You might want to avoid the Schooner during blind attacks, though... while its range is great, the weaponry isn`t the most unique, and it`s quite vulnerable to the very common Energy+Missile attacks.

I love to lead with some stacks of H. class, with R.Snow somewhere up in the list, so I can assimilate juicy things. I have had up to 24 stacks in the past!!!!!
As of this moment, 57% of my fleet`s pR is foreign...


Nuisance: Can`t use U.class planets
Redemption: Let them get recaptured...after having demolished everything on them

Nuisance: Can`t attack with above 10 colonies
Redemption: Can snag planets from your border by assimilating and clustering with closer planets

Nuisance: Your assimilated Aspha ships have unusually high upkeep
Redemption: They`re yours

do not research any housing as collective
put all research into agriculture
as collective you can pick and choose what planets to cluster . i suggest clustering planets with 500+ land to use for producing food (agriculture) and also cluster planets with ore on them but once the ore is mined then plunder the cluster
<< collective on normal

freelancer, you obviously know nothing about how the game works. I`d suggest against listening to this guy. If ur gonna listen, listen to someone who has actually beat the game as a collective and is on the winners list (me).

tax coll only makes money when loyalty is 5000 and food prices are 1. Putting infra in housing/agri is a huge waste of time. decide if you want to be plunder (housing) or agriculture (agriculture) and put research in the proper areas.

You start off with a 500 balanced planet. mine the ore from there and put as much infrastructure as you can in agriculture. Then spend time researching some agriculture infra and ships. Sell the food that you make right away, for about 2-3$ less than whatever is on the market right now, so that people will buy it up. Eventually when you make a good amount of cash, start building ships to attack people, and you can plunder bad planets right away, to supplement your income

READ: it`s not worth it to build housing/plunder planets for money if your housing infrastructure is at 0.

Hope this helps....

MD is right and your a moron freelancer. before you respond, go look at my collective on normal server.

lol, that is terrible advice...

Pretty much you`ll slowly mine the ORE you need, make an excess of food, which is later used when you populating a planet to max pop. Then you plunder the planet for money. Repeat the process and you make money from the plunders and slowly you start finding good planets worth keeping or planets worth plundering or planets worth mining. Nothing goes to waste as collective.

Then later on as collective its best to collect 400-500 land planets to make a collective C3 to make money from. After you get to make good clusters you start slowly producing all food and increasing your agriculture research to make more food then sell that on the market.

TAX collective isnt bad, but a high base power sucks and its best to make your own food anyways. But pure food collective is the preferred way for most people to go.

Later when your an old collective you do Majro Dinero 800+ land idea for clusters. But as a starting up empire your wasting your time and hindering your own start up progress.

@Major Dinero thats bad start up advice.
@Khamon thats really useful information
@Mazuku lol, nice job to noticing the main point he is collective.
@forgottenone2009.... i dont see KnightOftNi here, but ya he would be useful to ask about collective.

@AngealNephilim
Best advice i got about starting up as collective. Make positive income to start with. Normally make my homeworld with only 20 housing built then i put the other infra on food production, then i research housing to about level 15. (15 housing cause you have 10 base housing which equals 25 housing per planet then collective have a 2x housing standard which increases your housing on a planet to 50.) So your balancing out your income at the start sorta, and also increasing your housing and food production. Dont increase your food on your homeworld to much until you housing goes high enough, got to watch food / income at start and keep both of them from going to far negative. Next after i manage to get housing to level 15 and my planet fully popped, still keep an eye on balancing your income but now research argiculture. You should be making a good bit of food and barely any income, increase the housing on your homeworld slightly, this will increase your income, but dont over due it since you still need to make a good fair bit of food. This process of making money is slow, but once you got the money slowly start buying minerials that you would need to build ships. Also start researching ships around now, you should be around 25 total infra, 15 in housing and about 10 in argiculture. Once once you finish researchin to destoryer, and got a good supply of minerials / cash, your ready to fight a little. So watch the ranks for an easy target under 10k power. When you see one build up and hit them for planets, afterwards disband your fleet and go plunder the larger of those planets you took, you want to get under 5k power again.

NOT ENOUGH ROOM TO COMPLETE WRITING THIS.

hmm Knightoftni sound like he know something on gc LMAO

notice he said he hates terran and miner...but Khmon makes a good point contact knightofni on RT he should be able to help you if he chooses too. :P

Don`t forget collective can`t explore, when your empire is up and running you must be on every for borders. It`s a very challenging race to play but the ships are very decent. I don`t know how long you have been playing all three unpaid races can be a lot of fun.

Terran: very versatile and balanced, tax,commercial, agri income. Natural guard killers.

A miner: Mostly defensive, makes insane money as tax empire,mineral, consumer goods empire. Very easy race to play and with new updates its a well rounded race.

Collective: very hard to play, designed as a planet holding race agri is the most often used source of income. Can`t explore so you must be versed in sfgc stacking and battle theory. The ships are well rounded in all being both good in offence and defence. If you don`t have a lot of experience in this game this race will frustrate you.

I suggest playing Terran and a miner for some time and be familier with ship interaction before choosing this race. Hope this helps. Also I believe slaves, and knightofni are the foremost collective currently on rt. And drunkenmaster on ultra server is awesome as collective.

option 1:

fight a lot and keep 800+ barrens. assimilate them and put agricultural infrastructure on them. Research agriculture. sell food on market for cash.

option 2:

fight a lot and cluster everything. build housing on them and plunder when population reaches max. research housing