How to play empire of the hand

[Admiral AHDIS]

I have been playing empire of the hand a lot but I am not certain how to play them, any tips for a new player.

[Papa Palps]

I have been playing empire of the hand a lot but I am not certain how to play them, any tips for a new player.

I don't really play as the Hand but from what I can tell its forces are meant to make rapid, precise strikes deep into enemy territory while also having its own territory adequately defended at the same time to prevent the enemy from making raids of its own.  Its fast ships can also come to the aid of worlds in distress rapidly as well.  This is a very broad theme though.  Some of its ships are adequate for head-on fights and grueling defense work as well.

Here are the ship designs:

http://thrawnsrevenge.com/forums/index.php?topic=5818.0

From the Wiki:

The Empire of the Hand is heavily focused on fast movement and strong defences, both tactically and strategically. Their ship designs are known to sacrifice greater firepower for quicker hyperspace travel and the ability to perform tactical microjumps. In addition, while their planets are less directly fortified they can build more defensive infrastructure than other factions and have access to the most powerful defensive structures in the mod.

From the faction overview:

As a faction which exists with limited resources to fight off countless threats in the vast Unknown Regions, the Empire of the Hand is all about speed. They are less about outright overpowering the enemy (though they're still no joke), and more about getting in to the right engagements and away from the wrong ones. Techs like Afterburn, which provides a speed boost after exiting hyperspace, and abilities like Microjump which allow certain ships to instantaneously move across and gravity well help accomplish this goal. Their combat abilities exemplify this as well, as with the Phalanx's Close Quarters ability, which microjumps the Phalanx towards a target enemy ship and increases the Phalanx's firepower for a short time. This also means their defensive tech and structures have to be up to the challenge of helping them hold off and push back large-scale attacks, which is an aspect we'll be expanding on going into 1.1.

Culturally, they are far more open than the other Imperial factions (though less so than the New Republic) and their vast information archives allows them almost constant vision and information on certain enemy movements. Economically, they gain less from trade than anyone else, being a rather isolated faction. However, through their Primary Industry tech they are able to gain credits directly from resource extractors.

[Revanchist]

I'll do my best not to get ahead of myself here. The EotH have relatively strong ships, but suffer from a weak starting economy. The first frigate (Kariek) is just behind the Gladiator in terms of best starting frigate, with decent firepower and a hangar. They receive their fleet tender the earliest of the factions as well (1 military lab), and this can be leveraged to your advantage early game, making a small fleet able to withstand larger forces.

     As they only have 4 capital ship types, they don't have definite roles like say the IR. This means your starting capital ship is actually very powerful, and not something you feel bad buying multiples of (unlike ISD 1s).

     As far as frigates go, the carrier (Au'reitte I believe) is a very good buy, as it is decently armed. Nuruodo Broadsides are basically the EotH equivalent to the Strike Cruiser, and I think they have Overwhelm too. Bu'direchs are better Dreadnoughts, with a nifty ability to boot. And Chafs are better VSD 2s pretty much.

     For research you want to get to Primary Industry ASAP. That'll bring resources from your crystal and metal extractors, which is what you're going to base your economy on. Also get the research cost reduction quickly. Anywhere you can save money is a good place. As far as non ship-unlock military techs go I tend to get the speed increase techs quickly, as they only apply to ships that are built after they've been researched and nothing drags more to me than having a fleet that can't keep up with each other.

     A decent chunk of what I said will be rendered completely pointless with the release of 1.1 more than likely, but this should give you a basic start.