The Dominion

Dominion game play is an exciting and unique experience compared to the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans. Stations and chassis upgrades are not required to unlock new ships. Any ship can be built from a yard, so long as its prototype has been built. Prototypes are vessels with the same stats, but without the special abilities of the vessel you want to build. They also cannot gain experience. Keep these ships safe, because if they are destroyed, you will no longer be able to build new ships of these types until you rebuild your prototype. However, any ships of the prototype’s design in the building queue will still be constructed even if the prototype is lost.

The Dominion has one of the most complicated economies in Fleet Operations. What sets them apart is their heavy need for supply, which simulates the production and distribution of Ketracel-White. For the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, supply is simply something bought at the starbase when it gets low. It is a soft limit for ship construction, nothing more. However, it is a major resource for the Dominion, as important as dilithium or tritanium. To confirm how important supply is, the Dominion has been given a new type of mining station to mine supply directly from any moon: the Ketracel Synthesizer. This process only takes a few seconds, and is very efficient because most factions have a small two to three second window where no mining occurs when only using two miners. Supply miners then become the perfect fit. Unloading supply at the Ketracel Synthesizer takes a longer period of time in order to balance out the speed at which miners can gather supply from these moons.

The standard way to place Ketracel Synthesizers is to have one between two moon pairs, after you have built your dilithium and tritanium Space Refineries. At your expansions, have one of your tritanium miners switch to construction mode to build the Synthesizer, rather than wait for a construction ship from your Cloning Facility, while creating replacements for your tritanium gathering. An alternative way to place Synthesizers is to eventually have up to four surrounding one tritanium moon. This is useful on large maps when you want to lay in heavy defensives in one place, such as your main base, to protect your supply income.

Playing the Dominion well means becoming comfortable with the more complex economy they need to have and maintain. It is important to build Ketracel Synthesizers as soon as possible, but not at the expense of shutting down ship production.

It is best for your ships to be set to low special weapon autonomy, as many of the Dominion’s abilities are situational, and should be controlled by the player. All Dominion special ability researches are researched at the Technology Lab and general upgrades are researched at the Ketracel White Facility.

Many Dominion ships have limited firing arcs, with either their primary and/or secondary weapon (if they have one). This can make retreats difficult, so keep this in mind when planning your attacks and fleet composition.

Dominion workers act as both construction ship and miner.  Due to this flexibility, there is rarely any need for a dedicated construction ship, as there is always a task for a Worker Ship to do.  Miners can also be pulled off of duty temporarily to construct something near a base or expansion, if needed.  Also, send one miner away if your main base gets attacked.  If your base is destroyed, that one Dominion worker can replicate more workers by constructing Space Refineries, quickly rebuilding your economy and eventually a new base from which to strike. Obviously, this flexibility also makes it possible for a Dominion player to expand his or her mining very quickly.