Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Yes I was refering to them (Massive Planetary Shields). If Phased Polaron Beams ignore those shields, then is it safe to say that Null-Space Projectors skip those shields also? [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Cheese.gif[/img]

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Yes.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

You can't transfer cargo off of a Plagued planet.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Massive Shield Depleter does not suck.

When someone surrenders?
 

I couldn't upload my game turn due to a server problem on SEIV PBW so I thought I'd come on here for a while and ask another silly question. I think I'll choose one from a book I have been reading lately entitled "The delicate art of creating mindless conversation" by Myndles drivelle.

Anyway, In our game we have had a race surrender to another race (nevermind Bearclaw, better luck next time mate!) I am GM for the game. The surrendering player left the game a turn after surrendering (I removed him from the game). It was then pointed out to me, by another player in the game, that I should have left the player in the game so that the "dead race" isn't listed as "open Slot" as it was after I removed the surrendered player. It didn't make sense to me to leave a player in the game that isn't actually participating in the game. I assume that player would still get "last player to upload" messages etc. I didn't see the point in that. Then I got to wondering why would a "dead race" be listed as an "open slot" on PBW? I asked Geoschmo what would happen if someone was allowed to apply and join our game using that race. His reply was that that person would not be able to do anything due to the fact that that race has no planets, ships etc. Other people I have spoken too have said the same thing.

I decided to get a new account with PBW and apply for that open slot in our game. It has been two or three turns since the last player surrendered that race. I then downloaded the current turn and accessed that race (Sons of Thunder Clan) As expected there are no planets, ships etc but the race still has all comm channels and technologies and 200 points of each resource. My normal race in the game is the Sethillans and in that races current turn the SOT are listed as dead and I can no longer communicate with them. So what I did with the SOT race is to send the Sethillans a message asking for a gift of a planet or two. I then ended the turn and upload the game file. The idea is to see if a "dead race" can be re-established. Geoschmo has told me thats this is as far as I will be able to go. I am keen to see what happens next turn!

Now,... for the silly question! lol
What sort of cheese does narf poit chez BOOM like?

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Does too suck, better off having a Cargo facility with heaps of extra Weapons platforms,... well, I reacon anyway!!?? [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Your thinking of Massive Planetary Shield Generators. And yes I believe that in stock, 1 large weapons platform full of shields will give you more damage resistance. Although they can be of use at the beginning of a high reaserch cost game, as it takes a while to get more powerful shields.

Massive shield depleaters on the other hand can be very useful if your enemy uses alot of shields. I've needed them a few times.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Lol,.. your correct, I was refering to the massive planetary shields. It was 4am in the morning then and I should have given up long before then,... lol.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

lol... We've all had those nights. And when SEV comes out, we will havewhole weekends. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

The Massive Shield Depleter has a reload of 30 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif which means it fires only once at most per combat. I think that makes it suck.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Unless your enemy has shield regeneraters, that once is enough.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Too much cheese in your diet narf! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif The only race that can benefit fully from that weapon is a religious race, as it tends to miss its target otherwise,.... better off with Shield depleting weapons that fire every turn I say,... but hey,... your welcome to use that weapon against my fleets any day!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Hey,... can anyone tell me how to make "screen shots" of your game,... would love to know.!!

PS, here is a big explosion I made for my game, if anyone likes you can have.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Hit the Print screen key on your keyboard. This will "copy" the current image on screen.

Then open any graphic editing program, (MSPaint works just fine) and hit "paste" (CTRL-V).


Note:
The print screen key is typically found right beside the scroll lock and the pause/break key.
Also commonly found in the region near the insert/delete keys.

Screenshots
 

Thanks for that, ya learn something new everyday. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Hmmm, wonder what happened to my big explosion???

Anyway, here it is, let me know what you think?

Re: Screenshots
 

Pretty and good.

Ship Upgrades
 

Does anyone know a little bit about Ship upgrades? On some turns I have done a lot of ship upgrades, sometimes more than 50 ships per turn. I have a problem keeping track of how much resources I need to complete all upgrades successfully. I have a resource converter facility and plenty of resources to work with. I usually find that I need more mineral resources. The problem is I can’t seem to figure out exactly how much of the other resources I need to convert to cover all my upgrades. I always seem to find that some of my upgrades didn’t go through because I have a lack of resources. Is there a way to calculate how much resources I need for bulk ship upgrades without having to write down the cost of every single individual upgrade?? [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

Multiplication is the best method I've found. if you select 10 ships that cost 5kT of minerals each, you need 50kT to compleate the upgrade. If I'm not mistaken, all ship need to be from the same class. After selecting them and clicking "retrofit" it should list the costs of each shipto the right of the class name. It would be nice, though, if it totaled them up for you.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

Yeah, I agree,.. a total is necessary. I have just upgraded 70 odd ships, mostly different classes. I have tried to calculate things but I am missing something somewhere. I think that you only have the resources you have left from your last turn to work with. You might have 500000 minerals coming in on your current turn but I think that it is not accounted for with your current upgrades?? not sure really.

You also have to account for any resources you gift to other races.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

Yes you can only use resources you have in storage. None from production mining or trade are counted. I don't gift too much, but then I only play the AI, most of the time I've already ticked them off enough that I can't change their mood much. When your empire really starts to grow retrofit costs can kill you if you havent kept up on storage. Several mods have added storage to the production facilities. This helps alot, but I've found tiny planets full of starage facilities to be useful as well, since you cant get as good production and build bonuses from them.

Upgrades
 

On Upgrading ships, write down the cost of each upgrade the first time you do it. Go to the ship screen, show orders and sort by Ship class, then orders. All the upgrade orders will then at one location in the list. It makes it easy to count and multiply even if there are upgrades at multiple locations.

Check out the turn order to see what comes first, but I am pretty sure that Maintanace, resource conversion and gifts/trades come first, then upgrades, then production and building.

According to what you are upgrading make sure you are mineral bound. Vast engine, SM, or PPB upgrades can really suck down the Radioactives... Even more than you expect. Production later in the turn will then cover up the lack.

Re: Upgrades
 

Thanks for the advice, I have been working at building my resource storage and production. Where I think I have been caught out is converting too much Radioactive or Organic resources into Mineral resources, leaving myself short of the Radioactive and Organic resources. It would be great to have an upgrade cost tele in the Ship screen.

Wish List for SE5
 

This was proboably listed a million times already but from most important to least important:

1. Better AI (possibly upgradable/patchable through a learning algorythm like in galactic civilizations)

2. More interesting research tree (something like Master of Orion 3 or Civ 4), just not like lasers 1, lasers 2, but maybe lasers, then phasers, then quark gun, etc. Also have an option for your empires, like in MOO3, which determines how many techs are available to your empire to research (forcing you to trade for and steal techs from other empires).

3. Better graphics, and possibly combat using fleets, rather than moving one ship at a time, you move one fleet at a time, with damage being assigned just like in normal SE4, but to individual ships within a fleet.

4. More lucky specials (which is a selectable option when configuring the galaxy), lucky planet specials, lucky tech specials (on planets or a random event, or you get the option to buy them using resources).

5. Rare resources that can only be found on certain planets, which are used to build the most powerful weapons. This will force people into war or trade for those rare resources.

6. Ship and system heros like in MOO2.

Re: Wish List for SE5
 

Warshed, I think you posted this in the wrong thread. Looks like SE5 wishlist stuff.

Re: Wish List for SE5
 

ohhh damn sorry. I hope it can be removed. I thought I clicked on the right thread. I guess not.

Re: Upgrades
 

With regard to upgrades, I believe the total of resources available for upgrades also does not include points reclaimed from recycled facilities in the same turn. I sometimes keep track of retrofit expenses with Excel, and I got burned one time when I was retrofitting down to (almost) the last mineral in storage.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

In sequential movement mode, resources from scrapped facilities are available immediately. In simultaneous, unless this was fixed in the Deluxe patch, there is a bug that prevents you from getting the resources at all. They will show up immediately when you're playing the turn, but they disappear when the turn is processed.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Ah, that explains it.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

The ship upgrading has been a source of frustration for me. I think it may be a bug - I am sure that others here must have encountered it. Here's what happens:

I give the upgrade orders. [when this happens there's usually pretty many ships and a large amount of resources involved, with maybe a stellar manipulation upgrade or two] I add up all the resources needed and check my STORAGE amounts to make sure I have enough. Sure enough, I have plenty because I have been good at building many storage facilities. Now I also convert some resources, because I have so many extra organics and radioactives but am light on the minerals. I am careful NOT to convert more organics and radioactives then are available for the upgrades. Great, good to go... next turn I'll be ready to move...

NEXT TURN: Sh--! Not one ship upgraded. "Not Enough Resources" message for every one. But there are all the resources - still in storage.

Anyone have this happen (or am I just really burned out and not calculating everything right -- nine or ten times now)? Sometimes it happens, sometimes it does not. Anyone know how to avoid it? It has screwed me up so badly that now I never convert and upgrade in the same turn, unless I really don't need the upgrades that badly.

Re: Screenshots
 

Were any of the planets you had doing resource conversions on repeat orders? If so, that planet would have continued converting until you ran out of the source resource or it had executed the maximum number of orders.

Also, resource conversion happens before retrofitting, and retrofitting happens before income. Be careful that your current storage plus or minus whatever you convert is sufficient to pay for all retrofits.

Re: Screenshots
 

The fact that you have not encountered it tells me that it must be me. Jez, I thought I had added everything up very carefully each time, too. No, I did not have RCF planets on repeat orders. Weird, the times when it has happened nothing retrofitted at all - and I would think that if I were a little off on my numbers that at least some would retrofit. I know that if I were off those times it couldn't have been by that much. On my upcoming turns I will write down the numbers to be sure.

Thanks again Douglas.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

I would check the planet with the RCF again. I have had one on on repeat orders to launch sat, mines, or fighters, then when I convert resources, it gets moved up into the repeat as well. Check all the RCF planets, then check them again. If you are getting Out of Resource messages, that is almost certainly it.

A minor possibility is you are getting hit by intellegence attacks to steal or destroy them. Could this be happening? If you have any counterintel up, you should get at least notification of attacks.

The game does not say which one is out, but you mentioned that you keep track of all three. Even Organics can be a problem if you are doing SM ships or Master Computers. Check all the messages, if some high cost ones fail first, later cheaper ones may still convert.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

Thanks. You guys know this game inside & out so this answers my question - it isn't a bug. I read something about a scrap resource bug (maybe this thread, I forget) and that may be doing it. I am going to be very careful when cutting it close & not count on any scrap resource gains. There's a lot of good stuff in this thread that has helped me out - thanks to all contributors.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

The bug is that resources from scrapped facilities, despite showing up immediately when you're playing the turn, vanish without a trace in turn processing.

Resources from scrapped ships come in when the ship is scrapped, which happens when it executes its orders for the turn. When that happens relative to any retrofit orders depends on the speeds of the ships involved and on their ship ID's. Resources from a ship with speed 5 will never be available on the same turn to retrofit a ship with speed 6. If they both move on the same day (eg, same speed or speed 10-13), it depends on ship ID, which I most recently explained in this thread

Note that bases and ships with no engines "move" on day 0, so resources from scrapped bases will always be available to spend on retrofitting mobile ships, while scrapping mobile ships can never pay for retrofitting bases.

Also, there actually is one way to get resources from scrapped facilities in simultaneous play - abandon the planet and answer the prompt about scrapping the facilities with "yes". When the abandon/scrap order is executed (on day 0), you will get the correct amount of resources for scrapping every facility on the colony. Of course, this does completely destroy the colony, so you probably don't want to do it very often.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

Hi CaptainAl,... Have just been catching up on this subject. I have read your posts and I thought I'd add my ten cents worth. (with the exchange rate and tax that comes out at about half a cent!)

From what I have read you are talking about a problem which you have encountered on a perticular turn. I am not sure if repeat orders would be the cause of what you discribe. If I'm not mistaken you have added up the cost of your total upgrades for a turn. You have taken into account your availible resources and converted resources to make up a mineral shortage, making sure you have left enough Organics and Radioactive resources for your upgrades. On the next turn you say that none of your upgrade actually worked.

I have always had a problem doing large amounts of upgrades but I have never encountered a turn where none were upgraded at all. What I am about to say is only based on my own theory as I don't know how the turns are processed. I am taking this opertunity to table my theory now.

Firstly, and probably quite simply,... are we forgetting the actual costs of ship repair??? In the situation where you have a number of ships that are damaged from W.H.Y and they are being repaired that turn. Have those costs been accounted for in your available resources total? I don't think so. Remember that each space yard can only repair at a certain rate. Sometimes a ship that has 50% damage may still have 20% damage to repair for the following turn. It is because of this that I believe that the cost to repair damaged components must be taken out at the beginning of the following turn BEFORE the cost of any upgrades are accounted for, and then it is dependant on how many components have been repaired from the previous turn. Did that make any sense at all??? I hope you catch my drift. It is also my understanding that if you are too low on resources no repairs will be completed regardless. If the above is correct then that could explain why you didn't have enough resources to upgrade you ships,... repairs must come first!?? .... anybody????

Another thing you might want to check is exactly how much resources did actually get converted,.. eg,..is it posible that you accidently converted 100000 Organics into Minerals when you only intended to convert 10000???

Another thing I have wondered about relates to the cost of an upgrade. As we all know you can only upgrade to 50% the original cost of that ship. If you are like me you may do several upgrades to get to the end result. eg,.. you start with a basic hull. Lets say you require four upgrades to get the ship you want. If you start with the first upgrade and accidently try to upgrade it to the fourth upgrade then you would receive a message telling you that you can not upgrade a ship more than 50% the original cost. That is well known,... but if you do not have enough resources to do that upgrade,... you will get the "you do not have enough resources to complete this upgrade" message before the "50% upgrade message" I believe the game considers the cost of an upgrade before the ability to upgrade. So,.. this may be another posible explaination for what you have discribed, and you would have no way of telling which upgrade you were trying for. Maybe this might also be useful in the new version. ie,.. if an upgrade order is not completed it would be great to know what you were trying to upgrade too, and if you were short of resources, how much and which resources would also be handy????

Sheeesh,.. maybe thats just a little too hard. We should just like it or lump it I reakon! lol..... and what about riots,... haven't even gone there! lol

Merry christmas to you all from Alienboy. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img] [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

Repairs do not cost any resources at all. Damaged components still cost maintenance, but there is no extra cost for repair beyond just getting the damaged ship and a repair bay or space yard in the same place.
If the problem were the 50% limit, the log message would say so.

The problem seems to have been figured out already. Unless I am mistaken, he was depending on resources from scrapped facilities for at least some of the upgrades, and there is a bug that makes those resources disappear in simultaneous mode turn processing.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Hi Douglas,
Sorry dude, the quote from CaptainAL that I was refering to in my last post is quoted above and does not mention anything about scraping facilities at all. I was not refering to the bug you mentioned.

I have always wondered about ship repairs and I have been under the belief that all repairs do actually cost resources to complete. I based this on my observations but of course I may have not taken something into account and therefore may be mistaken. If your ships are damaged during a battle surely it costs something to fix them? Thanks for your comments, I will have to pay more attention to see if my original thoughts are correct.

With regards to the 50% thing. A little while ago I designed a ship that took three upgrades to complete. I must have made a slight error in my calculations because I was unable to do the last upgrade, due to it costing over 50% more that the second upgrade. However I did not find this out at the first time I tried to do that upgrade because I was too low on resources and in the next turn I got the"you do not have enough resources" message. I then tried it the following turn. My resources were fine but this time I got the "50% more than cost" message. Thats what I was refering to.,... thats is,.. unless somehow again I have overlooked something??? I'm sure I remembered it correctly though??

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Repairs are indeed "free" (i.e. they cost no resources) In game terms, that's what the "Maintenance" cost is for. It doesn't seem too logical, but hey, that's how it works. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

When quoted text is more than half of your post, that's a good indication to either remove the quotes or shorten them, possibly with elipses, just showing the first line or two. Readers can always scroll back to see the full original post.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

He mentioned scrap resources as a possible culprit a few posts later.

I have played in a game where I regularly did an IMMENSE amount of repairing every turn (retroseries building for ordinary combat ships) and had a rather tight budget. If repairs cost resources, my calculations in that game would have been very far off and I would have run out of resources quickly. They weren't, and I didn't.
The game may indeed check for resources before checking the 50% limit, but that is completely unrelated to CaptainAl's problem. He was getting out-of-resources messages after carefully calculating that he did have enough resources.

Re: Ship Upgrades
 

If you say so douglas, have a nice christmas.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

It’s a little known fact that the monthly maintains cost for ships included an insurance policy for full replacement of any damaged components, so repairing a damaged component doesn’t cost extra. There is an exception clause in the case where the ship is totally destroyed they don’t have to replace anything.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Thanks for all the posts.

Well, it happened again and I think I know why. I did not elect collision coverage http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif Until recently I did not know about the 1.36M resource conversion limit for each RC III. So I started keeping an eye on that to make sure I did not exceed the limit. What I did not know until now is that resource conversion orders above the 1.36M limit carry over to the next turn. I must not have noticed the lit-up view orders icon when I gave the converter new orders for more conversion. The resource conversion backlog must have been for radioactives, and I guess that I put the radioactive conversion first on my new orders last turn. I figure this because only radioactives converted this turn and not the organics I ordered. So the backlog conversion of rads added to the new order to exceed the 1.2M rads I had in storage; therefore, nothing retrofitted. AAAAHHHHH - The Bug is ME!

LESSON I LEARNED: always clear any left over conversion orders before issuing new ones! OR - keep your eye on the eyeball! Sorry for wasted time guys - I would have noticed this sooner if I read sooner about the 1.36M converting limit. Perhaps these posts are worthwhile though in case someone else also does not see the 1.36M limit noted in the FAQs but does pick it up here.

Oh - and I have often thanked God that repairs do not cost anything. That would really drive me nuts!

Have a happy holiday all and thanks for your help!!!

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

I noticed you did a similar thing with your former empire in Stellar Battles after noticing a bunch of retrofits not going through.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

I believe the Resource Conversion limit is per converter so you can convert more resources by making facilities on other planets.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Yes, in every game that I had that many resources to convert I made this mistake. I just assumed it was a bug, but started to wonder when I didn't hear of it happening to anyone else. I don't know why I didn't notice before that there were conversion orders still pending when it happened and they related to resources that had not been converted. But anyway, I now know I no longer must deal with this affliction! [Cap'n Al rolls on floor imitating Gullom, shouting "I'm Free, I'm Free"]

You should be in pretty good shape in that game despite the wasted resources. I was giving some away to the Earth partner periodically - he seemed to be the most loyal ally to the Zappazoids in that game.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Need a bit of help once more. I looked over the FAQ and didn't see this, but if it is there I apologize & just let me know that. Thanks.

Question is regarding firing priority: What does strongest and weakest relate to - is strongest gauged by damage points the ship can sustain or the firepower of the ship? My fleets keep hitting my opponents "decoy" ships first - you know, the ones with 25 Crystal Armor plates and 6 shields. I can't afford another big loss. I had strongest as priority, so maybe that seeks the ship with greatest damage resistance. But I tried weakest in the simulator - same thing happened. I tried it with no strongest/weakest priority, and still the ships targeted the decoy first. Hopefully someone can give me a quick answer to this one, or I might as well give up on the game (and without me the game is essentially over for everyone). Thanks again.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

I think the addition of my post above is not obvious to most, since there is no answer and little views. I am going to post it as its own topic. Probably shouldn't be here anyway.

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

I think this is the right place for your post. The simulator can't be trusted but I will add something I noticed. I haven't got to the bottom of this "issue" so I will only say what I have seen so far, in the hope that others may have seen this too!. I have tried different firering priorities and sometimes there seems to be no change even though I have done similar to you,... (changed from strongest to weakest etc) On many occasions I have given up and gone to resume my game. Thats when I noticed that the spaceyard build rates had changed, eg,.. a ship that normally takes 2 turns to build would now be taking 3 turns to build??. Also the amount of resources I had stored had reduced! ... and all I had done was use the simular!??. So I saved and quit. I then re-opened my game and everything was back in order. I then checked the same simulation and this time I did see a difference. So I only do a few simulations at a time and I always re-open to resume my game. Seems to work better?????? I think ! lol

Out of fustration I just made my firering priority Nearest, Nearest, Nearest, Nearest!

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

Oh yeah,... was going to ask if anyone could recommend a good map for up to ten players. The game I am playing has a custom map. I would like to find something big??? Just interested in some feedback really. What your fav map?

Re: Massive Planetary Shield Generators
 

That sort of question should probably be posted in a new thread. Stickied threads should strive to remain on-topic, else they are not as useful as stickied threads.