Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Grrrr! I HATE that you posted that! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif It always suprised me how few people have figured that out.

Turin[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon42.gif[/img]

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

If you increase the maximum number of systems beyond the default (100) in "settings.txt", you will need more names in the system names file. If you don't do this, you can end up with systems that have no name. The game will still run but it will be a pain to distinguish between different blank planets and systems. There are lots of system name files available or you can add your own.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I wrote a program to number all the blank spaces.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Buh?

In the Borders map?

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

If that was directed at me...No, in the systemnames.txt

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Read THIS if you're a newbie just starting out.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Why not just use one with 10s of thousands of names, such as the one in FQM? Never have the same system names twice! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Cause...I didn't know you could do that? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Mineral planets are the best. That's a really good tip http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif In your racial screen, make sure mineral production is higher than organics and radioactives.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

When you have "Players can see all systems" on at the game setup, do NOT choose Ancient Race as a racial trait http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

No, but seriously.

In stock SEIV, research troops quickly while still keeping an eye on other research, so your weapon/construction/whatever technology doesn't get too outdated. Once you have strong troops, create a couple of hundred (or thousand, if your economy allows) and load them on cargo bases in orbit/in a specific location like an obscuring storm or nebulae.

Here's something I always do:
Create bases with ONLY cargo storage (as soon as you've met the requirements for B/CQ/LS by placing those or MC) and build one/a few in orbit around your Homeworld. Then, whenever your population gets above a certain level, place a set number of pop on those stations. That way, you can have billions of people in orbital stations, even if you start on a Tiny world. The reson for this is that this way, when you colonize a new planet, you can immediately fill it up to max pop to speed up its growth tremendously while not emptying your HW this way. Also, when an important colony has suffered severe population losses, you can replenish the pop. Or, when an important colony has been depopulated with - what are those things called again? Neutron Bombs? you can immediately repopulate it completely so you get the full income again after just a few turns, instead of suffering perhaps crippling losses to your economy over the course of perhaps several years.

It pays to have decoy drones. They can draw fire away from, say, your heavy fighters. Seekers can also perform this task, and don't need to be produced. Make your drones contain nothing but a computer, engines, and armor, and set their strategy to something like Point Blank.

Do NOT underestimate the power of heavy fighters stored on a planet. I've had multiple occasions when, in strategic combat, my heavy orbital bombers were suddenly destroyed by massive streams of fighters from the surface of the planet.

Also, do NOT underestimate the sheer defensive power of a Large Weapons Platform design containing nothing but shields, regenerators and armor. Place a few of these on your planets and orbital bombers will have a hard time bombing as they're up against heavy regenerating shielding AND armor, while WPs keep pounding away at them from the surface.

It's always handy to have at least one WP on a planet full of long-range weapons like the WMG, while others are packed with heavy short-range weaponry. The WPs with the WMGs (or other heavy long-range weapons) can probably get off at least one shot at an enemy fleet before they can fire on you. If they're unshielded, it's even better - you can cause severe damage to their internal components, perhaps you could even eliminate crucial comps like the command comps, engines, heavy weapons or orbital weapons.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Oddly enough I just tested this.
Platform: 1550 shields, 140 hull, 2500 regeneration.
Ship: 100 damage per shot, spread over many turns.

Result: 33rd hit dealt -1350 damage, killing the platform plus 10m people @ 10 hitpoints each.

Conclusions:
- The platform did not absorb any damage from the shot that killed it.
- This implies that the platform had an effective strength of between 3200 and 3300 hitpoints.
- 1550 of the hitpoints were not accounted for by the hitpoint meter on the planet.

-----

The same test was repeated with 3 ships, capable of delivering the entire volley in one combat turn. Identical results were achieved.

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The same test was repeated with the shield regenerators replaced with inert PDCs.
Identical results were achieved. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

-----

Overall Conclusions:
- Shield generation counts double on platforms.
Presumably once as shields, and again as hull structure.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Shield regeneration doesn't work on units, right?

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Or planets, yes.

For the most part, it dosen't really matter, as units are often killed by the handful and would never have a chance to regenerate.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

QUESTION BY: Smolf
ANSWER BY: Fyron
If retorical please excuse, but it is good advice and should be mentioned twice.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

And as a detailed reminder:
To calculate the distances, use the Pythagorean theorem:
Distance to system = 10LY x squareroot( (horizontal)^2 + (vertical)^2 )

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Y'all don't remember there is a way to see distances in Y'all don't remember there is a way to see distances in SEIV I can't remember how but it had something to do with the stragic map and locating the distance it will tell you distance from point to point just click on point of origin and click on the point you want measured and the Distance in light years will come up this is in the game somewhere I am sure as I have used it before.

Tip:
Fleet strategies and experience are critical for winning a fleet action.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

That's available only if you have a warp opener, on the screen to choose the destination of the warp opener. and you have to select a checkbox to turn that on.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Ok esoteric stuff I have leaned in a year of this..

Mines do not stop a fleet from moving if they have sufficient sweeping capabilities. They do stop fleets without such but this may be merely due to engine damage.

Even if you have class 4 sensors of any type in a given system and your enemy warps into said system onto a planet of yours (Assuming it met no interference), that planet will not fire upon the ships (although it will suffer blockade) until it has at least 1 unit in space above it.

Please do note that in no way am I implying that mines are skippable with cloaking. They are the best sensor that exists.

If fighting a crystalline opponent, pay extra special attention to how crstalline armor works. (page 1 or 2 of this thread) All I can suggest is to use REALLY REALLY BIG guns. Shield depleters followed by the largest thing you can muster seem to work the best. Toss in engine destructors and battle warpers and you have a chance.

This advice is also oddly useful for fighting races with the talisman. Your ships are likely not to get second shots anyways, hope to blow them up instantly.

If they have both abilities, you are in trouble, follow same advice but...

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

You forgot to mention that this is for when the enemy fleet is cloaked. Ships and bases will also work.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Amazing how a bit of drink can cause one to leave out the whole point of one post, heh heh

I guess, thats a tip too. Don't drink and post!

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Or make sure that everybody reading the post are drunk too... That way it all makes sense http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Has anyone tested the "double shield effect" for other units?

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I also tested this and here are my results:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I started a new high tech game with 2 human controlled empires, turn based. On homeworld A I built Weapon Platforms. On homeworld B I built 2 dreads with heavy mounted APB's. I conducted tactical combat at homeworld A using 1 weapon at a time, checking for surviving WP's after each shot.

Series 1
On Homeworld A I built 6 WP's as follows:
1 small WP with only WP computer core
1 medium WP with only WP computer core
1 large WP with only WP computer core
1 small WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's
1 medium WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's
1 large WP with WP computer core and filled with APB's

Result: the first shot would always kill the 3 empty WP's then the remaining would be successively killed in order from small to large. 20 tries, exact same result in all cases.

This result is what might lead one to believe that WP's are destroyed from weakest to strongest since there usually is a significant difference in WP hitpoints in real games. And at first, I thought I proved it worked this way.

But then I started wondering if my test method was valid. After consideration I realized that randomly applied damage would still show the same results. This is because a small amount of damage would destroy a weak WP while it would "accumulate against" the strong WP without destroying it. So this test series didn't really prove anything.

Series 2
On Homeworld A I built 10 WP's as follows:
1 small WP with WP computer core
1 small WP with WP computer core and 1 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 2 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 3 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 4 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 5 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 6 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 7 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 8 PDC 5
1 small WP with WP computer core and 9 PDC 5

The idea here is that there is only 20 kt difference between successive WP's.

Result: 20 runs. The WP's were NOT destroyed in order from weakest to strongest. Weaker ones TENDED to be destroyed before stronger ones. But there were several cases where the stronger WP's were destroyed before weaker ones. This validates the "random damage" position. If you randomly apply damage, you would expect this result.

Conclusion: WP's are not destroyed randomly but are damaged randomly; WP's with less hit points tend to be destroyed first because it takes less random hits to destroy them. [edit] This makes the idea of "shield platforms" interesting. Shield WP's will help absorb random hits to keep your weapon WP's alive longer, but only so far as they add more targets for the random damage - NOT that they get hit before or after other WP's.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

It can pay to keep a small number of ships with WMGs in your fleets. If the enemy uses mainly, say, APBs, you can get a rather large advantage over the enemy if you can get off a WMG volley from a few of your ships before the enemy ships are in range of their weapons. You might deal critical damage to them, perhaps even destroy a ship (or perhaps two, if they are weakly armored) before they're in conventional weapon range. I don't know how the AI handles it if a fleet/combatgroup leader loses all of his movement, but I think the fleet would just hang motionless in space. This would be ideal for you (especially fighting AI enemies in a classic turn tactical combat) if you kill the engines on the lead enemy ship and then stay out of weapons range and patiently pummel them with WMGs until their weapons are mostly gone, then close in for the kill with the rest of your warships.

(The following tip is especially true for mods with very fast ships, speed 10-20 or above on strategic map) It can really pay to have a few very fast strike ships armed with Ripper Beams. They can wait patiently until the enemy ships are nearer, dart into enemy range, fire a powerful volley and then retreat out of enemy range again. This is also handy in massive fleet actions, if a large fleet of yours and a large fleet of the enemy duke it out over a planet with these strike ships as defenders. While the fleets pound away at each other, the strike ships can pick away at the enemy and wither them down. This can be especially handy if the enemy utilizes long-range seeker-armed ships that stay out of your fleet's weapons range, the strike ships can destroy these fire-support ships to give your fleet an edge over the enemy, then pick away at medium/long-range warships that pour (heavy) fire into your fleet from a good distance.

If the above makes no sense at all, please let me know and I'll try to explain.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I'm not sure of the exact point but AI fleets definetly break when the leader is too heavily damaged. I think its percentage based as it seems fairly random, on the other hand it could be just no weapons and/or low movement and I just haven't been paying enough attention.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Yes, but if your warships stay in tight formation that will mean increased protection to the more vulnerable ships (less armor/shields, more weapons) while the enemy mobs provide for easy kills for you, as you can just kill off the lesser-armored enemies easily.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

A tactic I am starting to use against deadly foes concerns fleet experience.

I make sure I always put one or two ships in each fleet with "Do not get hurt" and "Break from fleet" orders. If a few ships survive a multi-fleet battle it should be them. This will save the fleet experience for use when it is reconstituted later. The fleet could even gain experience if the only survivor was the one who ran away.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Unless they are hunted down and destroyed. I just keep a couple of skilled ships at all my training facilities and have all my construction yards send ships there. (I use the neural net). Share the experience and your off and running while only training a minimal amount of your ships. The most trained ships are heavily armored with shields and armor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

In my assessment, Neural Combat Nets are dubious at best.

With two moons, it only takes 3 turns to get full training (training facilities on the planet and both moons will stack). 2 turns for 18% if you need the ships much more quickly. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Also, you can even set up routes to move your ships along to get training. Training occurs if the ship ends up in a sector with a training facility at the end of the turn. You can move your ship to a planet with a training facility and it will recieve training on the next turn. Move it to another planet with a training facility, it recieves more training. By carefully setting up training routes, you can get your ships trained to 20% while they are moving to the front lines with a minimal amount of time wasted sitting at training planets.

Why do you think I eliminated sector training entirely in Adamant and replaced it all with (1% per turn max for non-psychic races) system-wide training facilities? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Also system wide gives the AI a chance of actually training their ships/fleets, if only by complete accident. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Even if this change were made, you would need to go back to modify the AI constructino files to ensure they are actually built. I believe most AI facility construction files don't call for building any fleet or ship training facilities.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I've seen them turn up from time to time, but I couldn't swear in which mod. But probably not in stock, although don't hold me to it.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I take it one step farther. I build a cargo base around the sun and use escorts and frigates with very specific movement and cargo capacity to ferry population from all plamets in the system automaticly.

Example: Huge planet holds 8B population with a growth of 5% per turn you can take 380M off each turn and it will fill back up fully. If, say, it's 2 spaces from the sun, build a cargo ship with 4 movement and can store exactly 380M Then just use 'load cargo' 'drop cargo' 'repeat'. Of course this can be a problem if you have low ship limits in the game, and it can also decrease your production. you can use one ship to do multiple planets if they are close enough to the storage base and are the same size and repro. rate, and you can use the 20% storage racial trait to ofset the production loss.

I've also found that creating planets is not random, but thats more of an exploit than a tip so it may be more apropriate under a different topic

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I've also noticed the AI has a problem determing when not to build production facilities on planets. eg. They colonize a planet with 10% mineral 1% organic and 0% rads and because the minerals are so much higher in relation to the others (120% is the stock percentage in the AI files IIRC) they fill it with mineral miners. I raised the lower limit for value, so when they do this at least it isn't a compleat waste. Of course they still use a planet that is 140%,120%,120% as a reserch or intlegence planet, as 140% is not more than 120% ofeither of the other two. you will get a few more planets that fall into this area though unlessyou change the AI files the a lower prcentage difference to build. So if you make the resource range 50%-150% the AI to about 113%. I have stronger AI's now but then I changed alot of other stuff and haven't yet tried it on the stock game. If someone else wants to try it out and see what you think, I'd like to hear your thoughts (or point out anything I forgot).

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I was wondering if someone could tell me,..

Do fleets of fighters help the happiness of a systems population get better?
Also, I have been told of a bug that affects messages you send to other players. If you reply to messages first and then spend the next few days playing and saving your turn, your messages don't get sent,.. or something like that. I now do my messages last but I have started to wonder why my intel projects fail against a races with next to no intel points?? Is there a similar bug which affects Intel projects? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon27.gif[/img]

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I don't think fighters help with happiness... only ships and bases.
Dunno about the bug...

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

The messages problem occurs in multiplayer games for sure. Can create a lot of havoc.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

There are three possible reasons for intel projects to fail:

1) It was blocked by counterintel. Keep in mind that counterintel can be built up during an empire's height and saved indefinitely as long as it isn't being depleted faster than it's being generated. In a worst case scenario, you could have to wade through 12 nearly full Counter Intelligence 3 projects before seeing any success, which would take near 21.6 MILLION intelligence points of offense, not counting further intel defense produced while you're trying to wear it all down.

2) You tried a Puppet Political Parties project and didn't get lucky. This project, and this project only, has a 50% (I think) chance to fail even if counterintel fails to block it.

3) There are no valid targets. If, for example, an empire has been so badly beaten that it has no ships at all, Crew Insurrection projects used against that empire will all fail. This will usually produce a log message that simply states that the project failed, rather than saying that it was blocked.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

I think it is the Puppet Political Parties that I have the most trouble with. Sometimes it has worked but instead of the target planet joining my race, it goes off and makes its own race. I would like to know more about how Intel works,... seems to be a strange beast! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/egg.gif [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Read section "10.1 Intelligence" in the FAQ for the rundown on how intelligence works in general.

PPP is a special exception to the all-or-nothing rule of counterintel. It has a chance to do nothing, a chance to make the target planet form its own empire, and a chance to make the target planet switch sides to join you. If there are already 20 empires in the game, including any that may have alread been wiped out, the possibility of forming a new empire disappears. I don't know what effect this has on the probability of success. A new empire formed by a rebelling planet inherits all aspects of the empire design of its parent empire except name, population picture, and planet and atmosphere types. Somehow, all the population on the planet will spontaneously mutate to breathe the atmosphere of that planet, which can be quite useful for undoming planets without waiting for atmospheric modification plants. The new empire will also inherit all of the parent empire's technology, which may make it an attractive target for technological espionage, since it will only have the resources of that one planet and will not have any counterintel built up.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

As you have pointed out, a planet that has rebelled is an easy target for PPP and other projects. The other information is going to be useful so thanks for your comments.

Another issue I wondered about was to do with counter Intel. Lets say you have 4 slots of Counter Intel and you loss them all in one turn to multiple Intel Sabotage attacks. So you add another 4 slots of Counter Intel. I have done the above but suffered loses the next turn, such as resource procurement and crew insurections, which previously were kept at bay by the original 4 slots of Counter Intel? So it is my observation that any new counter Intel projects take one turn to actually start working. Would this be correct?,... Gee, maybe I should take a look at that FAQ thread you mentioned,... before asking these sorts of questions,...lol [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Fish.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_Checkered.gif[/img]

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Crikey! I just had a look at the FAQ thread,..... OMG! I should have paid more attention in my speed reading class,.. Its huge! This game is hell!

Section 10.1.6 covers my last question,... I think. Don't really follow it fully but I have a rough idea.

Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

I just wanted to know more about them. They generate 5000 shield points for the planet. Are weapons platforms also protected by them or does the 5000 shield points apply to the planets only? [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

I assume you're asking about Massive Planetary Shield Facilities. The 5000 shield points protect everything on the planet, including weapon platforms, but it's non-phased shields so Phased Polaron Beams ignore them.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Pretty much the only special ruins tech that most everybody thinks doesn't suck is neural networks.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

I haven't done formal testing, but through game experience, I think that fighters over a planet just might help happiness. My general way to overcome a rioting system (such as when another empire surrenders) is to gang up all available ships to a single planet, get it to stop rioting and then build an Urban Pacification Center on it (maybe after some troops).

There have been a few cases where I only had fighters available to do this and I was able to overcome riots. The happiness effect may have been due to other things such as battles won elsewhere, etc. That being said, it appears to me that fighters do positively affect happiness.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Actually, it sucks big time, as it is said not to work. At all. Douglas tested it under the latest patch, and found out it was about less useful than 30kt of cheese

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

No, I think cheese would have less structure, it's too soft. A Neural Combat Net is exactly as useful as an empty fighter bay, but it costs more.

Re: Gameplay tips & tricks
 

Good to know!

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Hey, thanks Slick, I had a hunch they (Fighters) would affect the happiness thing, just wasn't sure. Will try what you have mentioned and see if I get similar results. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cheese.gif[/img]