Black Sun is the hardest faction to play in the mod.

I found most success by focusing on the south east first, Tatooine, Geonosis and co.
Xizor is the best one to start with and i kinda stick with him for most if not all of the game.
He is the one who makes money with lots of economy buildings and the best freighter in the game. Good light units. Decent source of heavy weapons, though a bit flimsy.

Produce a lot of Trireme Corvettes and HWK combat freighters. The Triremes are very cheap and effective enough vs fighters. The HWK murder anything larger by deploying their mass driver turrets. (Seriously, those things are totally overpowered)
And then you just kite the enemy, fly away from the enemy fleet, the turrets deal with the ships, the triremes deal with the fighters. The HWK themselves got heavy firepower and can deal with gunboats and corvettes.

Secure Christophsis and the surrounding area. This planet is one of, if not the biggest money printer in the game.
Research Xizor to level 2 to get the big XTS freighter and start building those to print more money. Cantinas etc on any planet you have room.

This should give you enough of a foothold to start building big and expand.

Originally posted by Kajar:

Black Sun is the hardest faction to play in the mod.

I found most success by focusing on the south east first, Tatooine, Geonosis and co.
Xizor is the best one to start with and i kinda stick with him for most if not all of the game.
He is the one who makes money with lots of economy buildings and the best freighter in the game. Good light units. Decent source of heavy weapons, though a bit flimsy.

Produce a lot of Trireme Corvettes and HWK combat freighters. The Triremes are very cheap and effective enough vs fighters. The HWK murder anything larger by deploying their mass driver turrets. (Seriously, those things are totally overpowered)
And then you just kite the enemy, fly away from the enemy fleet, the turrets deal with the ships, the triremes deal with the fighters. The HWK themselves got heavy firepower and can deal with gunboats and corvettes.

Secure Christophsis and the surrounding area. This planet is one of, if not the biggest money printer in the game.
Research Xizor to level 2 to get the big XTS freighter and start building those to print more money. Cantinas etc on any planet you have room.

This should give you enough of a foothold to start building big and expand.

I see. I appreciate the advice. I've been looking at IG-88 and Zann when it comes to building enough for expansion and money with Xizor. Any opinion about those two and who'd be better? Personally, I feel Zann would be better since a lot of his units seems more tank and heavy hitters as opposed to the old CIS units to be used from IG-88.

Zann units are all about dealing damage, they aren't that tanky. And he has zero economy buildings. Just really expensive and good damage dealers in both space and ground.

Hutt units, you can unlock their research by doing their mission, are the tanky ones. Their ships give you the most durability for the credits spent on them. But they don't do a whole lot of damage. Their damage dealers are their pretty darn nasty gunships. Those things pack a serious punch.
Hutt ground units though, i just can't make work. Their beast just seem to die without doing much, thanks to being melee units.
They got some economy buildings too. Oh and the funny salvager units.

IG-88 has a bunch of funky and weird units which i simply don't have a place for in my playstyle. I just dunno what to do with those.

I find myself going just Xizor and then maybe Hutts later. I dont really use the others.
Xizor already gives you plenty of firepower with the acclamator and venator refits. Tons of moneys, and then the Hutts can add some tank and small unit power to the mix, and some money too.

I prefer Zann. I can use sky figthers to rule the skies. Only fighters is enough.

star withj xizor teck for the freighters and a few space casinos then swith to zann and get the kendosi battle ships and lichters dungeon ships then either hutt or ig 88 then back xizor teck for more freighters and casinos.... when you star sell off your power generator and sheild/sensor on all starting planets, and build 2 cantinas in their place. if your playing the grand map do this on all 3 starting planets and your income will jump to about 6k right of the bat. then your freighters start kicking in itll be even more.. your gunna want 3 battle crusers and 2 venators and the rest in interseptor 3 and tri-remes a few long horns and a acclumator or two, ipvfs are good in mass i try to stay away froim using fighters mainly cuz it laggs my game but if you do just spam t wings they are cheap but the proton torps they have are deadly in mass .really all you need is a few tri remes and cr 95 when there available. once you get the re fit acclumator and venators youve pretty mutch won at thatr point. the lichtors do really nice damamage aswell ..the hutts are solid end game they have some powerfull capitol ships ig 88 is better for ground in my opinion. i dont really like the lucerhulk as there command ship. xizor and zann have really good command ships

Originally posted by DarthPhader:

star withj xizor teck for the freighters and a few space casinos then swith to zann and get the kendosi battle ships and lichters dungeon ships then either hutt or ig 88 then back xizor teck for more freighters and casinos.... when you star sell off your power generator and sheild/sensor on all starting planets, and build 2 cantinas in their place. if your playing the grand map do this on all 3 starting planets and your income will jump to about 6k right of the bat. then your freighters start kicking in itll be even more.. your gunna want 3 battle crusers and 2 venators and the rest in interseptor 3 and tri-remes a few long horns and a acclumator or two, ipvfs are good in mass i try to stay away froim using fighters mainly cuz it laggs my game but if you do just spam t wings they are cheap but the proton torps they have are deadly in mass .really all you need is a few tri remes and cr 95 when there available. once you get the re fit acclumator and venators youve pretty mutch won at thatr point. the lichtors do really nice damamage aswell ..the hutts are solid end game they have some powerfull capitol ships ig 88 is better for ground in my opinion. i dont really like the lucerhulk as there command ship. xizor and zann have really good command ships

I've been going through the thing mostly as Xizor and have been having a solid time with him. His refitted Venators and Acclamators are solid heavy hitters. The AT-TEs are great ground units to use with the AATs and the Speeder vehicles. Plus, there's all the money to make from it. Perhaps next time I do a Black Sun playthhtough, I'll switch to Zann along the way.

I'm not too fond of what the Hutts offer. Yeah, they have solid ships and can take a lot of punishment, but their damage output isn't the best and a lot of their ground units are more for melee which I just don't think works well. IG-88 seems interesting on paper, but I think he needed some better units. Like the Homing Spider Droid and the Lucerhulks being so bad makes me weep since those are my favorite capital ship in Star Wars.

yeah just play around with it i wouldent recomend a straight zann run xizor is the best, the huts are all about the rancor and the arklay...rancor is best against heavy armor and the arklay for light units like infantryand light vehicles i dont use any other units from them, its kinda funny when you show up with a bunch or rancors. lol its complete chaos..

really depends on the player, i like going zann all the way and its pretty doable if u manage corruption and stuff well.

Originally posted by the_dragon_warlock:

I've been recently playing this mod and have been having some fun in learning how to understand how it works and in playing it. The one faction though I've been having a little trouble with is Black Sun. Since you can only have technology from one leader, at least that's what I got from the tutorial, then it's left me wondering something; who would be the best "leader" to support at the beginning? Stick to Xizor? Go to Zann? Support IG-88? They all have different units and styles with their leadership. Since there are a lot of people more used to this mod than me, I ask who's the best leader to start off initially before making a change?

You're not the only one to be confused by the Black Sun. They will be getting some changes in the upcoming update that will simplify the faction and make it more player friendly, according to the devs' last announcement. So, if you really get stuck, you can always wait for that update.

For now, though, there remains the issue that the AI is able to play the Black Sun much better than you can as the player, because it doesn't have to follow the same economic rules that you do. It can start with any leader in any order. But when you as the player take the helm, suddenly the variety of options becomes confusing and full of dead ends because only Xizor really has the tools to build an economy in the beginning.

So I would suggest starting with Xizor, as others have said, as he is the most well rounded and the best economically. You can't use the other leaders' strengths if you don't have any money. Also don't be afraid to abandon planets or remove their defenses in favor of economic buildings. Once you've reached a place of actually being able to use most of your production facilities, then you can consider swapping to another leader based on what your needs are at the time.

This has been my experience on Hard difficulty, anyway. It may not matter as much on Normal.

Originally posted by svartalfur:

Originally posted by the_dragon_warlock:

I've been recently playing this mod and have been having some fun in learning how to understand how it works and in playing it. The one faction though I've been having a little trouble with is Black Sun. Since you can only have technology from one leader, at least that's what I got from the tutorial, then it's left me wondering something; who would be the best "leader" to support at the beginning? Stick to Xizor? Go to Zann? Support IG-88? They all have different units and styles with their leadership. Since there are a lot of people more used to this mod than me, I ask who's the best leader to start off initially before making a change?

You're not the only one to be confused by the Black Sun. They will be getting some changes in the upcoming update that will simplify the faction and make it more player friendly, according to the devs' last announcement. So, if you really get stuck, you can always wait for that update.

For now, though, there remains the issue that the AI is able to play the Black Sun much better than you can as the player, because it doesn't have to follow the same economic rules that you do. It can start with any leader in any order. But when you as the player take the helm, suddenly the variety of options becomes confusing and full of dead ends because only Xizor really has the tools to build an economy in the beginning.

So I would suggest starting with Xizor, as others have said, as he is the most well rounded and the best economically. You can't use the other leaders' strengths if you don't have any money. Also don't be afraid to abandon planets or remove their defenses in favor of economic buildings. Once you've reached a place of actually being able to use most of your production facilities, then you can consider swapping to another leader based on what your needs are at the time.

This has been my experience on Hard difficulty, anyway. It may not matter as much on Normal.

I've found Xizor to be the best of them all and won a campaign just using him. Granted, I was only doing a small map playing this faction, but I enjoyed Black Sun for what they are. I may do a Xizor and then switch to Zann as I gain more money down the line next campaign.


And I got to say, in terms of player friendliness, I think the Rebels aren't exactly like that. I generally didn't really enjoy playing that faction. Maybe I didn't do something right or have a good strategy, but I could NEVER build money and a lot of the space units felt just frustrating to use. It felt like they weren't very player friendly and just a constant struggle on what to do.