Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

I am working on redoing the Game Guide, and forgot what the DEFUALT Max number of ships and units are.

Please help.

Thanks.

[ August 04, 2004, 21:41: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

200 ships, 1000 units.

[ August 01, 2004, 06:53: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Default Number Of Units Per Player := 1000
Default Number Of Ships Per Player := 200

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Hmm... both from Portland, Oregon. You two happen to know each other?

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

hehe just a "minor" difference between the number of Posts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Thanks all.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Damn this is a major arse under taking. All I have been doing for the Last six hours is taking screen caps of everything step by step. (After about an hour I realized that I had made a mistake in paint and was saving the images with part of them missing.)

Writing this new game guide is going to be interesting. I figure that most people will read the MANUAL, and most like likely play the tutorial game, but may still want more info.

A step by step guide with pictures will help them. I will do my best to explain basic player set up and why characteristics and such are important to the game.

At this point any one willing to offer up some standard new game SP or MP strategies for say the first 50 turns, would be much appreciated.

I will try an compile an updated list of good game tactics and strategies and include them with the guide, but no promises.

If my old PC would not have died, the guide would most likely be done by now. I have been putting it off for so long because of the major undertaking it is, and since I had already had the first one about 50% completed when the crash occured, I just didn't have the heart to restart it until now. At least the part of the old guide survived and was used to some small degree. Now I have to reconstruct the whole guide from scratch, and I intend to make it a bit more indepth.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

i cant really promise that its a new and good strategy, but my first 4 turns are usually emergency building 4 base space yards. I think it may turn out faster than emergency building 10 colonizers.

Using "my" strategy you will have 4 base space yards by turn 4. Then you start colonizers on homeworld (6). So by turn 10 you will have 4 base yards and 6 colonizers, and in addition 4+ colonizers from the base yards.
It mainly depends on 2 values, primary the build cost of the colonizer (do you need 1 or 2 turns when emergency building from each yard for one colonizers) and your construction appitude (which may provide enough construction output to allow each base yard to build one colonizer each turn with emergency building).

So by turn 12+ you will have outrun the standart "emergency build 10 colonizers" build order.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

I need help in describing the Quadrand Types. This is what I have so far.

Mid-Life – Standard Game Map. Good planets and resources.
Cluster – Good for Play By Web and Hot Seat games.
Galactic Edge – Never played it, I have no clue.
Spiral Arm – Never played it, I have no clue.
Grid – Never played it, I have no clue.
Ancient – Really bad resources, few planets.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

As I recally, all except the ancient quadrant have the same distribution of systems & planets, and merely different warppoint connection patterns.

You could probably generate a few and comment on the relative number of chokepoints, cluster sizes and whatnot, but I think its mostly an aesthetic thing.

Grid - systems are laid out in a square grid pattern. No chokepoints, free roaming. Right angles everywhere.
Spiral - looks pretty. Chains of systems near the outside, cluster near the inside.
Galactic Edge - like midlife. If you have only a small number of systems, the warp connections will be spread more evenly.

[ August 02, 2004, 03:59: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Ok, now I need to know what each of the racial traits strong points are. Just basics. This is what I have:

Crystalline Technology
Good Armor

Organic Technology
Good Armor and Weapons

Psychic Technology
I DON'T KNOW

Religious Technology
The Tailisment

Temporal Technology
Good Shipyards

Can any one offer brief additional info for each of these. Thanks.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Well with Crystaline tech you get weapons that skip armour. Drawback is shields stop that, also if you rely on crystal armour than weapons that skip armour are a threat (such as weapon or engine destroyers)
Organic technology. Missiles are quicker, and you actually make use of any organics you grow. Drawback you have to grow organics, something other players ignore unless they are colonising.
Psychic tech allows you to mind control other races. When they get computers you lose your advantage.
Religious races do get Talismans, eventually, but everyone is paranoid at you getting such power and will turn on you if you appear a threat. You also get shrines
Don't know much about temporal tech.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Organic also get facilities that increase the population of your planets. Armor that regenerates.
Religious tech gets a facility that increases the value and condition of your planets.
Psychic tech gets a facility that trains all the ships and fleets in the system.
Temporal tech gets weapons that do quadruple damage to shields and also weapons that skip armor and shields.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Thanks guys.
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

What exactly does the COMPUTER PLAYER DIFFICULTY Setting and COMPUTER PLAYER BONUS do?

I have never figured them out. Basically CPD is an unknown to me. CPB is how badly the Computer player will cheat.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Setting CPD to anything less than "hard" will disable some of the AI's ministers (it makes the AI even less able to do what a human can)

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

I Really need the info on this.

Also the revised Game Guide is no at 40 pages.

This does not include the Race info or any of the component, facility, ship info.

Nor does it include the 25 turn walk through.

LOL, I have my work cut out for me. Why you ask, because I just want to do it.

There is no way I can take all of the info about this game and use it in this guide, so I am focusing on the basics that the game manual does not. Things like I have posted below and more.

What are the best Advanced Racial Traits, why? What are the best Advanced Traits, and why?

so on and so on. Hell if I don't know the answer to these, and I have been playing since day one of the offical beta, then I guess they are not really all that important, but still I would like to know.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Bonus:

Low: x2 resources, x1.5 SY rates
Med: x3 resources, x2 SY rates
High: x5 resources, x3 SY rates

I am certain about the resource bonuses, and fairly sure about the SY rates...

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

I would like to see a listing of the quick keys. I came into a situation yesterday where my mouse got stuck and was only going up and down. I would have loved to press whatever key it was to save the game before I reset. I looked through the original manual, but I couldn't find a listing. I thought there was one, but I don't know where to find it. So I had to re-boot my computer and replay that turn. So if you could include that, I'd appreciate it.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Good point. Thank you.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

They are listed in the in-game help manual, as well as the Online help manual in the SE4\Manual folder. However, there does not seem to be a hotkey to save the game...

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

I will still include them in the Walk Thru as added info.

I have finished the Game Set up portion of the Game Guideand will beging on the races next. Stock races won't take long. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif I hope.

Then on to the Facilities and such.

When I write the Walkthru I would like to include important things that are found in the FAQ and such.

I would also appreciate any help on proofing the guide and such. Mainly aside from spelling errors, I would like input on additonal info needed to help new players thru the first 25 turns of the game.

(Kind of like what the tutorial does, but in print.)

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Game Guide Demo In Word2000 format.

Sorry guys, I don't have the means to convert to Acobot.

Perhaps once it is completely done we can do that.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

search and spellcheck:
"Quite Game"
"WARRING"


looks really good, like the pics

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Thanks Ruatha.

I hope to add more content and such as I go. This first section is just a basic "this is this" and the next section will deal with setting up an empire and playing thru 25 turns. (Kind of like the demo, but with actual player tactics.)

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Some random comments:

- About early expansion: the problem with using base space yards in the first turns is that it will slow down your expansion a lot, which can be a death warrant under certain circumstances. Your first colony ship will only come out of the space yards on turn 5 (from the first base space yard), unless you have 150 construction aptitude and Propulsion II (or perhaps III). Then you will probably need to colonise a planet with a lot of minerals, as you are spending a lot more resources than with a "regular" 11 colony ships at the homeworld. So you will have to wait for turn 6 (perhaps later depending on the game) before being able to send colony ships to establish outPosts far away from your homesystem.

On the other hand, the 11 colony ships way allows you to have your first colony ship on turn 2, which should go as far away from home as you dare. Then it will build a space yard on a small moon, enabling you to produce other colony ships farther away from home. It is especially important if you are close to an Empire with an aggressive expansion (sending its colony ships near your systems), as otherwise you may find yourself boxed in a smaller part of the galaxy.

While there are other ways than the "11 colony ships on the homeworld" method, I would certainly not advise a new player to use them since it makes the early game more risky. Expansion is risky by nature, so making it more dangerous is probably not the best for someone playing her first game (being involved in an early war while you are busy colonising usually means a disaster).

- About the current guide: You should add something about the true effects of ER Atrocities, as the ingame description is fairly confusing. Decreasing ER by five points is equivalent to decreasing both Happiness and Reproduction by one point, which isn't really what is advertised by the game.

- About racials: besides what has been said below:
* Religious: gives you some nice shrines (+15% production, +15% offence, an UPC-like shrine) and the Nature Shrine (mentioned by Kamog). They can be helpful to give you a small advantage early on. The Religious trait is also the cheapest to take, as you can safely reduce your aggressiveness a bit (15 or 20 points if you want to play it safe), and the Time Shrine improves your resource production (which could equal a "free" bonus in resource characteristics early on).
* Organic: cheaper components, and some pretty good weapons (the Enveloping Acid Globule has a damage/kt value superior to the WMG, and costs less. It doesn't have the +30% bonus to hit of the WMG, but its rate of fire is better (2 against 3).
* Crystalline: you have a facility reducing maintenance in a system (nice if you want to go above your "reasonable" upkeep limit; you can always stop some of your space yards once the fleet leaves the system), a very nice armour (at best you need to do 150 damage in order to break the Crystalline Armour; anything else does no damage whatsoever to the ship) and the Energy Dampener. This weapon prevents the target from firing its weapons for a duration equal to the damage dealt, so firing three Energy Dampeners III (3 damage each) on a APB ship will mean that this ship will need *ten* turns before being able to fire its weapons. It cannot be countered by armour, shielding or the Master Computer, though it may not work against PDC (it doesn't work against units fortunately).
- Psychic: their training facilities are helpful to either increase training rates (they stack with sector wide training) or to train ships "on the go", as they travel through your systems. They have the best racial weapons: the Telekinetic Project V has the same damage ratio as the Meson BLaster VI, costs less and deals more damage per hit (its range is of 6 though), and the Mental Singularity Generator is your best bet if you don't expect your ship to Last more than one turn in battle. This weapon has a rate of fire of 4, deals more damage than the WMG (for an equal damage ratio) and is fairly accurate (+20% to hit if memory serves).
- Temporal: They have a versatile array of weapons, which especially shines if you are facing someone fond of shields. They also have an UPC-like facility twice as effective as the regular one, and a facility giving a +30% to offence in a given system. Note, however, that you need to scrap your regular Spaceyard before building the Temporal Space Yard.

You would probably want to cut down my babble, as the explanations are mostly here to justify why I say, for example, that the Psychic trait has decent racial weapons (which isn't that common for racial weaponry).

- Besides this: what about adding a "pitfall" list at the end of the guide? It would explain, for example, why happiness is very important (it alters your production levels and, more importantly, can mean rioting) or why you should not overlook Stellar Manipulation. These seem to be the two most common pitfalls I have seen on PBW, and they can alone spell the doom of an Empire.

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

Thank you. This helps a lot. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Updating Player Guide and Walk Thru
 

If any one is interested in the latest beta Version of this guide please let me know.