Introduction

A strategy game is not only about battles; it also involves your attention to economic matters. Sins: Rebellion had some economic differences between factions, but Sins II takes asymmetric economic styles to a new level.

For those familiar with Sins: Rebellion's economy, the TEC will have the least surprises in Sins II. Meanwhile, the Vasari's economy has been fully reworked, as they now have little use for credits. Due to this, we will need to treat each race separately.

If you are completely new to the game, please make sure to read our Getting Started Guide. (link)

Economy basics

There are anti-snowball mechanics, however generally you want to play “wide” in Sins II. After all it is an extermination strategy game, and by expanding, you also take away territory from your opponent.

Therefore, your goal is to expand as much as possible and you do that by colonizing planets. Each planet is defended by neutral militia, so you will need to build some ships even before you engage your main opponent. Some planets are so heavily defended that you may require a mid-game fleet just to be able to take on them.

There are 3 types of main resources: Credits, Metal and Crystal.

The icons are new, but the concept is same as in the previous game. Credits are a universal currency used in large masses (unless you are Vasari). Metal is used more heavily in ship construction and crystal is used more heavily in research.

Credits

As we've already differentiated, Vasari do not use credits with very few exceptions. But for TEC and Advent this is your most common resource.

The main source of credits are planets. Planets no longer have population; instead, they feature Commerce infrastructure upgrades. This means you do not need to wait for your population to grow in order to increase your credit income.

As you can see above, different planet types have different amounts of max income. This may, and even should, influence your decision making on which planet to colonize next and how to utilize them.

Both TEC factions also have access to trade, which we will handle later on.

Metal & Crystal

While credits are mostly the same, at least for the TEC, there is a significant change for metal and crystal. You can still get them through extractors, but those are now locked behind technology.

Moreover, extractors require orbital slots as well. So, an undeveloped asteroid will not be able to house those, even if you research the technology. Quiet an investment! Just look at how much the technology would cost:

Add on top the cost of 4 labs, with a logistic slots upgrade, and your economy will idle for a long period of time.

But worry not. There is a new, alternative source of income for resources. Your planets now have “Mining” upgrades (right button to “commerce” in planetary menu). Those provide decent resource income. Your homeworld starts with level 1 mining:

As you can see, you are getting 1.9 per second of each, and could upgrade it for much lower cost, to achieve the same effect, as you would with a single extractor. This will require old veterans to make a change of their mindset, as extractors are no longer a spammable structure you always build without any thoughts. Now extractors will require you to make a strategic decision, when and how to build them.

Planetary Upgrades

Now that you know that planet upgrades provide you with a full self-sustaining economy, should you just always grab all of them?

No!

Sins II mechanics ensure you do not have to do repetitive mindless tasks: It’s always about strategic decisions. These decisions are tied into how planetary upgrades work. Particularly, how the cost scales. It’s no longer individual for each upgrade, but the same cost for any type of upgrade.

Let’s look at an example: At the beginning of the game, our TEC homeworld has level 2 in Commerce and level 1 in Mining. If we were to upgrade commerce to next level, we would have to pay 450 credits/180 metal/150 crystal:

If we were to upgrade Mining to next level, we would have to pay… the same number of resources!

Even upgrading Defense from level 0 to level 1 costs the same:

Now if we were to make any upgrade, any following upgrade would cost more. Look how I am upgrading Commerce to level 3, but Mining level 2 increased in cost:

So how do you do it? Well, the beauty of this system is that now your global strategy decides. You want to go heavy on technologies? Skip Commerce and prioritize Mining. Need more logistic slots for factories? You cannot also go for income on that planet easily.

There is also the factor of planet types. As mentioned earlier, a fully upgraded homeworld can provide 19 credits/second for TEC, while an asteroid will max out at 1.2. In the early game you will struggle to colonize other credit heavy planets (such as terran or desert), because of militia, and naturally will expand to asteroids.

This means that the rule of thumb for the early game is to maximize Commerce on your homeworld, before you upgrade Mining. Should you find yourself in need of metal or crystal, you should colonize more asteroids and upgrade the Mining there.

Exotics basics (new resource)

Sins II introduces a new resource category – exotics. There are 5 of them, of which “Quarnium” is super rare and expensive. Here are they:

Exotics are used for high end technology, capital ship modules, planetary modules, starbases, capital ships and titans. So, everything related to more sophisticated parts of the game, and this makes them very precious.

Every single capital ship requires 2 exotics in different combinations. This means you have to choose your first capital ship wisely, as you will not be able to change to a different capital ship until you acquire more exotics.

There are 4 ways of getting exotics: first is to produce them through refineries; second is to gather them through derelict loot (if you do not know, what derelict loot is, you can read on those in our “Getting started” guide); third is through planetary excavation and fourth is via auctions from minor factions.

Refineries are either tier 1 or tier 2, depending on your race. The basic exotics cost only 400 credits/125 metal/125 crystal for TEC/Advent or 0 credits /225 metal/225 crystal for Vasari. This may make it sound like an easy grab, but exotics are only parts of your production and take a long time to ‘build’. In a global scope, setting those up too early may mean too few ships, too slow expansion and losing the game.

Exotics take 120 seconds to produce, so a single refinery will be enough until late game. You can also see individual items unlocked by a specific exotic by hovering your mouse over it.

Quarnium is a late game exotic, required for titans and some super late game technology.

TEC – Trade Specialists

Now you know about all resources in Sins II. However different races have unique economic features.

Not surprisingly, the TEC make use of trade. If you are familiar with Sins: Rebellion, do not be quick on skipping this part, as trade got a major rework.

First of all, let’s look at the trade menu:

You can see that there are 3 fields. This is because trade can now generate metal and crystal, along with credits. But you have to make a decision on what you want to produce.

In this specific screenshot you can see that I have 1 “export point”, and 2 slots in credits and crystal, while I have 0 slots in metal. This means I can spend 1 point in either the credits or crystal section, while my current cap is 2 slots for them.

Should I assign my export point to credits it will generate 1.4 credits/sec:

Should I assign the same export point to crystal, it will generate 0.8 crystal/sec (and no credits):

This means a conversion rate of slightly better than 2-to-1 between crystal and credit. If you were to produce pure credits, and then buy crystal on the market, you would face a 4x price mark up. This shows that properly managing your trade economy can double your actual yields.

Now let’s dive into the mechanics of export slots.

At start of the game, you will sit at 0, both export slots and allocation slots for all 3 resources. There are 2 ways to get export slots. The first is the simplest – upgrade the ability on your Akkan:

Each level gives an extra export point. So, at level 4 you would have 4 export points (equal to 6.4 creds/sec). You will have to give up on the fleet boosting ability until later, but this will turn your Akkan into an absolute economy powerhouse.

The second way is through building trade ports. Each trade port will give you an export point.

However, getting export points is just half of the job. You also need to find a way to sell those goods, aka create allocation slots. This is an entire minigame in itself, because each planet type provides different trade allocation slots.

We will compare our homeworld:

To an asteroid:

You can instantly see the difference in trade capacity. What this means, is that an asteroid can house a single trade port, while your homeworld can house up to 4 trade ports. (Don't worry, the game will not allow you to build more than the allowed trade ports, so you cannot make a mistake here.)

But there is more to it. If we look closer into our homeworld’s trade capacity, we will see these icons:

Those icons represent amount of allocation slots you will be getting:

• At 1 trade port you will get 1 export point along with 1 allocation slot in credits, metal and crystal.

• At 2 trade ports you will get 2 export points along with 2 allocation slots in credits, 1 allocation slot in metal and crystal.

• At 3 trade ports you will get 3 export points along with 3 allocation slots in credits, 1 allocation slot in metal and crystal.

• And at 4 trade ports you will get 4 export points, but no more extra allocation slots than you had with the 3 trade ports.

This means that if you are low on credits (which you will be in early-midgame), you do not need the fourth trade port on your homeworld. You can stop at 3 and add a 4th one later.

If we go back to our asteroid screenshot, you will also see that asteroid has 0 credit allocation slots. So, getting a trade port at an asteroid will never provide you with an extra credit slot. For this reason, you usually do not want trade ports on asteroids, at least not until late game.

In early-midgame what you want to do is to increase your credit income. This can be done EXCLUSIVELY with terran or desert planets. And desert planets are actually even more desired, than terran worlds.

In the topic below you can find all planet types and their trade points.

Trade Points Cheat Sheet

Terran:

Asteroid:

Ice:

Volcanic:

Desert:

Ferrous:

Gas Giant (YES, they are colonizable!):

Oceanic:

Vasari Economy

As highlighted before, Vasari have no use for credits.

Well, almost no use. They can use them for auctions, markets or send them to allies, but that’s pretty much it.

NOTE: The Vasari Alliance also has an extra planet module (Intercultural Exchange) to generate credits:

This means Vasari players only have 2 main resources – metal and crystal; and your “Commerce” planetary upgrade is disabled. You may think it’s easier to manage if you only have 2 resources, but actually it may be the opposite. Since you have no credit income, transferring resources via the market is not really viable. Also, you cannot compensate by simply readjusting trade points since the Vasari don’t trade. You have to plan your economy much more carefully than the TEC.

You do have more starting resources, so you shouldn’t bottleneck in the early game. But since your homeworld has rather bleak income, some 20 minutes into the game, you may get into economic troubles unless you proceed carefully.

Vasari need much more crystal than their capital planet provides, as their technology relies on it and not even Ravastras are made purely out of metal. Luckily, Vasari resource extractors are only tier 1 technology, which makes them accessible from the get-go.

You may go as far as colonizing ice planets, which are rather uninteresting for TEC players, if you find yourself low on crystal.

You should also research respective income technologies, but be careful, as planetary mining, and extractor mining are two different technology paths.

Orbital Extraction Rate buffs your extractors. So go for it, if you manage to build them in significant amounts:

Meanwhile “Surface Mining Rate” is the one which buffs your mining planetary upgrades.

When making a decision to build an extra extractor, or upgrade planetary mining, the rule of thumb is to go with the extractor. It has a better price to yields ratio in most cases. But keep an eye on planetary bonuses such as the one below:

With 30% extra surface mining income it’s much more efficient to upgrade the planetary mining first.

Another semi-unique feature for the Vasari is that they start with 6 exotics. In theory this allows you to build 3 extra capital ships without the need to research the refinery. If you are trying some cheese strategies with capital ships, this may give you a huge advantage in timing.

Of course you can use those exotics for standard gameplay. In this scenario exotics will come in handy to win early auctions, as even a single exotic will win against an infinite amount of credits. The 6 you have in supply should be enough to win auctions until you get a refinery, as for Vasari refineries are just tier 1.

This also means, you can support your TEC ally in team games with early exotics, if your ally wants to go for more capital ships. Furthermore, your “Quarnium” is just tier 3, making titan rushing more viable, than it is for other factions.  

This sums up the overall Vasari economy, but we still have to talk about the Vasari Exodus.

Vasari Exodus – The Space Nomads

The Vasari Exodus faction inherits the “Strip to the Core” (short STTC) mechanic from Sins: Rebellion. STTC is a late game technology which allows you to consume planets. This provides you with vast amounts of resources in a single tick, but destroys the planet, making it an empty gravity well as no structures can be constructed there (with the exception of starbases).

It is a tier 4 technology, which requires 13 labs at the minimum. Tier 4 also requires the “Kalanide” exotic, but at that point you will have them in big quantity. Still, you cannot rush the technology from the start of the game, as tier 4 is no joke for your economy. It will be a great addition to your mid- or late game, as STTC does not only provide a short-term economy boost, but also allows you to destroy enemy planets for good.

Every planet type provides a different set of resources, with bigger planets providing more resources.

Should you decide to STTC your own planets, it will give you a major boost for the one final push, but at the same time it means that you have to win in that single push – bringing the “all in” strategy to a new level, as you are physically destroying everything.

STTC in process:

There is no rule of thumb here, but you can make your decision based on the cheat sheet below.

STTC Cheat Sheet

NOTE: “Benefit in time” section gives you an estimate for how much time it would take for a maxed-out planet (including max possible asteroids) with tier 4 technology to provide same number of resources, as you get from STTC.

Cost for technology is not included. Cost for planet module is included.

What we can see is that using STTC on a pirate base is the easiest decision, while using it on an asteroid will be good only in niche situations. Furthermore, the actual benefit in time will likely be higher in a real game, because planets rarely have the max number of extractors.

Advent Economy

[UPD (Depending on features, either merge with TEC, or write a short subsection)]