Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Another bit -- after meeting an AI race for the first time, read its description quite carefully. Some happen to be quite warlike xenophobes, and may give you less prep time than you'd like.


Logistics: an unsupplied war fleet isn't very useful. It can move only one square per turn (either strategic or tactical), and its shields (if any) stay down. _And_ it's still costing full maintenance despite its low utility. Hitting the only enemy colonies close enough to be used as staging grounds can be more useful than hitting the fleets directly. Conversely, it's good to have redundancy in your own supply network so the loss of a single colony doesn't effectively cut your empire in half.


Design and counterdesign: Examine enemy ship designs. Consider adding your own designs to counter them if they pose particularly dangerous threats.


Intelligence: "Communications mimic" is a nice toy for starting wars between other players, especially AIs who won't necessarily question the authenticity of the DOW. Even between human players, a successful mimic DOW will zero their trade level, which can be substantial between two economic powerhouses, and it'll take twenty turns to recover. "Crew Insurrection" is another fun op, since a subverted ship in a fleet may not only remove itself from action, but perhaps damage its former compatriots, as well. A solo ship might be safely brought back for tech analysis.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Hey Atrocities


I have a 2 week vacation coming up from Nov 26th on. First week will be fun in the sun and then the second week will be quiet.

Anyway. During that time off I can write up a fraq for you. I will do the standard text based on and a hyperlink doc as well with table of contents etc. (Perhaps get permissions to add pictures ). I am still hiding my home email but we can figure out a way to comunicate. I do know that I will have 2 solid days To work on it and Prob. about 3 to 4 hours a week ( except the week when I am in Dom. Rep, and christmas week )

Let me know what you think.

And if this goes anywhere we can work out the requirements and responsibilities of the document.

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Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant!

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Thanks for all the comments guys. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
Man to be a new player again, what a dream some of this information would be. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Tesco, I hope you have a great vacation. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Any info you want to provide for this community effort is very much appreciated.

Thank you all for posting these tips, suggestions, and game knowledge.

I agree with Andres, and feel that a list of useful Newbie FAQ attached to a few links would be the best course of action. This way, as we develop new ideas, we can keep adding to the FAQ, and eventually it can be compiled down into a general Newbie FAQ Guide by the SEIV Community. This way everyone will be involved. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Again, thanks. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif



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New Age Ship Yards

"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Captain Picard STNG

Borg Breen Species 8472 Cardassian Dominion STNG Ferengi Klingon Romulan
Trek Movie era TOS Illuminati Starwolf Rogue Fleet

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

1)Don't forget to use the upgrade button when you discover new tech..
2) In beginning research and get mines & upgrade missles. They are good for defense in beginning.
3) Try not to colonize systems in beginning where the AI has colonies unless u have no other option. This tends to upset them towards you.
4) When colonizing outside of your system in beginning be sure you give your main planet time to replenish its people, or you will lower pop to the point your colonization will come to immediate halt until it grows back up.
5) when building colony ship make sure you have cargo componet in order to carry pop outside your system, otherwise when you get there you will be unable to colonize, no people on board, or at least make sure you load pop before sending out system, 1 cargo gives extra pop to help grow
6) try and make trade & research treaties with every AI you meet. Some won't ck them out. This increases your resources & research
7) put at least several small wp's on your planets in beginning. Nothing worse then AI sct coming in and wasting your nice planet because yu have no defense
8) research your special tech ie; temporal etc as soon as you can afford to
9) colonize available planets in your home system in beginning while your scts are cking other systems. otherwise, AI will come in and coloize them before you if they have same type enviroment.

just some ideas mac

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>5) when building colony ship make sure you have cargo componet in order to carry pop
outside your system, otherwise when you get there you will be unable to colonize, no people on board, or at least make sure you load pop before sending out system, 1 cargo gives extra pop to help grow<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>This isn't quite accurate. The Colony component itself automatically includes enough cargo space for 4M colonists, but adding a Cargo Bay boosts the capacity to 34M, which can make a huge difference for growth. If you use the (F4) Planets/Send Colony Ship button or the (C) Colonize order, the ship will automatically load the pop from the planet it's at; otherwise, you do have to load the pop yourself first. Also note that if the colony ship runs out of supplies before reaching the target, it can't plant the colony when it arrives; for really long range colonizing, either resupply the ship at a border colony, send it in a fleet with a supply tender design, or swap out the Cargo Bay for Supply Storage component.

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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Also note that if the colony ship runs out of supplies before reaching the target, it can't plant the colony when it arrives; <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Since when? I recall purchasing an out-of-supply EEE colony ship for a captured Battleship as it approached a nice planet in my system.
Certainly under V1.49, and I planted perfectly fine.

It does take one extra turn, since you need 1 MP to land once you've arrived at the planet.

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Also don't forget that colony modules can be placed on other hulls; transport hulls can be a good choice for this, as you can put on lots of extra cargo (and, for the bigger transports, a number of supply storage components).

My first big tip for newbies: watch that happiness score. Research troops early, design a small troop with just a troop cockpit & build troops on any planet that's getting unhappy. The next step is researching the various happiness centers (standard traits, I think you research political science & maybe something else to get the appropriate facility; temporal tech gets the "Temporal Vacation Service"; I believe organic and religious also have facilities that will raise a population's happiness). The second (sometimes first) facility I build in a new system is a happiness facility. Makes life much easier.

My second big tip: if you start with multiple homeworlds in the same system, the game will still put a spaceport and resupply depot on each homeworld. So scrap the extra spaceports & resupply depots (remember to leave at least one of each in each system) & build something more useful in their place (like one of the happiness facilities mentioned above).

One Last tip: be careful when retrofitting ships at planets that don't have a resupply depot. If you retrofit the engines at a planet that does NOT have a resupply depot (and your design does NOT include a quantum reactor), the ship will have 0 supplies after the retrofit.

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L++ GdY $ Fr&gt;Fr++ C++ SdS T-- Sf Tcp? A%% M- Mp! RTH!P Pw Fq--&gt;Fq+ Nd&gt;Nd+++++ Rp++ G+

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

CAP, tks for clearing up#5, you said what I meant to say, sometimes my mind races way ahead of my typing and it doesn't always come out the way I meant, tks

just some ideas mac

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Also note that if the colony ship runs out of supplies before reaching the target, it can't plant the colony when it arrives;

Since when? I recall purchasing an out-of-supply EEE colony ship for a captured Battleship as it approached a nice planet in my system.

Certainly under V1.49, and I planted perfectly fine.

It does take one extra turn, since you need 1 MP to land once you've arrived at the planet.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I distinctly remember a colony ship parking over an empty planet and doing nothing until I noticed the red barrel and sent it back for resupply, but I haven't let the situation occur again; I'll start up a test game and see if I can reproduce it.

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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 31 October 2001).]

Re: Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)
 

Is it possible that an enemy ship appeared and caused the colony ship to stop? And were the ship's orders cleared?

It could be a difference between simultaneous and sequential.
Perhaps modding a solar supply generation of 1 point into the colony module would help.
Then colony ships would always have two MP when they're "out" of supplies, and always have 1 supply at the beginning of a turn to land with.