Re: Newbie question
 

let me add to the tractor question: I think they pull and push at a rate equal to the damage level of the weapon ( never used em, cant say) but what I would like to know is similarly, how does the damage number for boarding parties / aliegance subverters translate into odds? its not always a fixed number, so it must be a percentile (sometimes it takes more attempts to take over the same class of ship than other times)

and as for question 2 about production priorities, i am not sure, but i think it divides them evenly (which may mean that nothing gets done). I work arround this by putting some queues on hold when resources are low. for example, some yards have orders to repeat build mines or fighters. when i am in a crunch and am building lots of planetary facilities or warships, those other queues go on hold to free up the resoruces.

[This message has been edited by Puke (edited 02 January 2001).]

Re: Newbie question
 

OK - got some more -

6) Combat sensors & ECM's - what exactly do they modify? They say it adds say, 20% to attack/defense. What does that mean? Is it 20% added to the ToHit %? 20% more damage? What? & the 20% defense bonus - is that -20% to the attackers %? Does it mean your armor/shields will sustain 20% more damage?

7) In the colonization screen, is there any way to sort the planets, say, alphabetically in the screen that pops up after you hit the "send colony ship to planet X" button. It's a pain in late game to have to sort through 50 planets to find the one listing for Zoltar VII when it's buried in the Medium sized planets (it apparently sorts all available planets by size automatically).

Thanks for the info so far.

didn't know that about the Max Wpn range - opps Just got another question...

8) If a ship is set to Max Wpn Range and it has 2 types of wpns - say a 3 range and a 6 range DF type wpn, which range will it use for the Max wpn range - the 3 or the 6? Would this prohibit putting extreme long range wpns on with medium range wpns?

Re: Newbie question
 

If you use maximum range go into your empires menu and click on strategies. You can then change the secondary strategy to don't get hurt. Then the ship will fire weapons at maximum range then move away and fire again when the weapon is usable again. This works well for missle weapons except when fighting against a planet. For planets the maximum range the computer sees and the real maximum range are not always the same and sometimes the missles don't hit the planet. If you have a mix of weapons on your ship the computer will go to the maximum range of the longest range weapon, fire, then go to the maximum range of the next longest, fire, and so on. You might want to set the strategy to primary: maximum range secondary: optimum range to fight against planets.

Be aware that if your ships are in formation some of them will be too close and some to far with these settings because the lead ship is the one that these strategies are used for. I favor a wall formation if I use one but after a few movements the results are about the same as in the arrowhead formation.

Ok on to combat sensors and ECM. Combat sensors add to the to hit percentage and do not affect damage. ECM subtracts from the enemies to hit percentage. So if you have both on your ship you will both be able to hit easier and will be harder to hit.

[This message has been edited by Tomgs (edited 02 January 2001).]

Re: Newbie question
 

More Newbie Questions -

While reading another thread on stellar manipulation and the computer's use or lack of use of Monoliths I thought of 2 more Ques:

9) Do Monoliths get the same bonuses to production from pop lvl/happiness/planet resource levels that regular resource extracting facilities get?

10) If you did alter the AI research file to sub in Stellar Manipulation in place of Mineral/organic/radioactive extraction (in hopes of letting the computer have access to Monoliths) would the computer actually use the other tech components that are available in Stell Mani (ie- building/destroying planets, stars, storms, nebula, black holes, warp points?)

Re: Newbie question
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Taqwus:
- Invade the colony with troops (note: quite difficult, it seems. Not sure what the rules are here).


<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You get a fleet of about 4 or 5 attack ships. and one troop ship you then head for the planet. As soon as the troop ship is close enough you drop the troops on the planet.

Re: Newbie question
 

I do not think it's that hard to invade planets with ground troops, as long as you have researched the techs required.

In case you don't know what's the tech required... you need "Troops" & "Troop Weapons". But if your race has access to another tech tree, such as Organic, then you can research "Smaller Weapons" instead of "Troop Weapons". They are much more powerful than the standard troop weapons.

Assuming no other ground units on the target planet, the defending force is approximatly 1 per 20M to 25M. For a small AI start-up, with around 40M, the defending force will be only 2. So if you can land a much larger number of troops, you can take the planet without lossing any unit.

Re: Newbie question
 

bump - still lookin for answers

Re: Newbie question
 

this is turning into my own little personal thread... which isn't good since I obviously don't know the answers to my questions.

anyway - another thought.

Read somewhere, cant' find the thread, about Monoliths and the computer's failure to research Stellar Manip and how this could be fixed by subbin the stellar Manip tech for the resource extrction techs in the AI's research files.

10)My question is which research files need to be modified? The default research file or the research files in each races individual folders?

Any help on any of the 10 below unanswered questions would be helpful - thanks.

------------------
Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

Re: Newbie question
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by WhiteHojo:
10)My question is which research files need to be modified? The default research file or the research files in each races individual folders?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Individual race research files. But it is better not to do it if you haven't done it before. I am working right now on all the standard races to make them MUCH more competitive (looking to challenge EA). However, I will post these races one by one as they get finished, and with first on (Sergetti) I will post a little modified components and facilities files with some of the fixes that have been reported on this forum and can be fixed by moders. That mod will be compatible with Mephisto's and will enable AI to use monoliths. So you don't need to fix this yourself, just wait a day or two until I finish (and test) Sergetti and download the mod.

Re: Newbie question
 

excellent news daynar - I'll be lookin forward to it.