Building New Planets
 

Do you REALLY have to build 3 huge base stations to make a planet?

Re: Building New Planets
 

No.
You have to build a ship with a matter gravity sphere and move it to some asteroids (of the correct size).

To build a ringworld, you need 5 base stations with high density cable + 5 base stations with plating and one with a ringworld placement device all over a star.
Sphereworld requires 10 each of plating and cable stations + a sphereworld placement station.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Make sure you build those bases at the star, (do i hear a duhhhhhh), i have read many Posts where people constructed the base at their planet only to find out they are useless there. So as you end up building these bases with construction ships it may be smart to add a few points to construction aptitude when assigning your points at the start of the game if you intend to build ring/sphere worlds.

Re: Building New Planets
 

and while we are at it, make sure you send a little repair ship along with your new "planet creator" so you can reuse the ship in place over and over.

Send a planet creator and a planet destroyer onsite and create/destroy till you get the planet you want.(creating planets is a random afair) although the size is fixed by the size of the asteriod field.


(sorry for reposting this old stuff, but he asked for it)

Re: Building New Planets
 

I was specifically speaking of creating planets (sphere worlds & ring worlds) out of thin air. There wasn't a ship that could carry any of the components, and only the biggest base could carry just one of them. Which meant that I have to remote-build a bunch of huge stations....which could take forever.

The asteroid thing is fairly straight forward and I had that figured out already http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Someone said to build the stations "at the star." Does this mean ON the Star's hex?

Will the Stations be consumed, or, can I repair then and reuse them to form further planets in the same system?

Thanks

Re: Building New Planets
 

1. Same square as the star.
2. The bases are consumed. But because of (1), bases being immobile, and stars not stacking (IIRC), no great loss. You'd just scrap 'em anyway to not pay maintenance.

Yup. Bring, oh, 11 spaceyard ships to the sun and start building...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Building New Planets
 

ACtaully. . . it doesn't take forever to make these planets! It only takes 30 turns - 3 years!

THREE YEARS.

How old are you? How many people could you house on one of these planets? How many planets could you make in your lifetime, and so how many people could be born in that time? - hmm? hmm?!

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

I think Sphere Worlds and ring worlds are great fun to build. You need to be organised and put in hard work. When you have, the rewards are great.

Re: Building New Planets
 

That seems pretty quick. Maybe there should be a delay before it is habitable, like an atmospheric converter works only a longer tme frame. Then you would have to defend it while it came on line.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Keep in mind that 3 years really means 30 game turns. And, you are only getting it that fast by using emergency build at 11 spaceyard ships. The resources required to build a single ring world are pretty hefty. In other topics, some people have offered up the idea that if you have enough resources to build a ringworld, then you probably have enough resources to conquer the galaxy. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif



[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 20 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

Still seems pretty fast for what you get. It takes an atmospheric converterI 30 turns just to convert the atmosphere.
You probably are right about being in a position to win if you can build one unless you are playing a lot of human players in a huge, 250 system, quadrant. Then you might have more than one person in a position to build them.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Well actually I think creating an RW can be done with 6 SY ships in 10 turns (concerning TG contest ruling on one retrofit per turn)
using retrofit SB designs (RD later in post).1 ship builds RD for RW placement component (RDP0), other five a constructing 5 RD for platings (RDS0), these designs have SYIII component(SY=space yard).This job on emergency takes 2 turns.RDP0 is refited in the next 7 turns (starting from turn 2 when RDP0 is created) (one refit per turn) to RW placement SB
(RDC0->RDP1->RDP2->RDP3->RDP4->->RDP5->RDP6->FINAL).Meanwhile 5 RDS0 construct on emergency in 2 turns 5 RD for cable SB (RDC0).These are retrofited after 5 turns into 5 plating and 5 cable SBs
(RDC0->RDC1->RDC2->RDC3->RDC4->FINAL,RDS0->RDS1->RDS2->RDS3->RDS4->FINAL).After this all 11 SB must be reparired in one turn (you could put repair bay in SB design or use SY or repair ships)and the next turn RW can be placed.

RD desingn must have totals in minerals something (I haven't tested this yet, but I've done the math) like in this table

PLasting & cable placing comp.
RDS0 & RDC0 20900 RDP0 18100
RDS1 & RDC1 31400 RDP1 27200
RDS2 & RDC2 47000 RDP2 40700
RDS3 & RDC3 70500 RDP3 61100
RDS4 & RDC4 105800 RDP4 91600
RD5 RDP5 137400
RD6 RDP6 206170
FINAL 158500 FINAL 308500

You can notice that there is need for SY ships for only 2 turns.These babies do their part in two turns on emergency and sail away to another "victim" (this would very likely take 2 turn in SY capabily will be on slow anyway).Or they can be scrapped if not nedded anymore.For this final SB designs (maybe just some of them) must have repair bays to repair themselves.It seems that retrofiting (thanks to Drake on this tidbit and a hint on cheapness)
take 10% of removed components value and 70% of newly installed one resulting in 80% maximum resource usage making this method actualy cheaper then building it the normal way.



[This message has been edited by alasyr (edited 20 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Markavians:
ACtaully. . . it doesn't take forever to make these planets! It only takes 30 turns - 3 years!

THREE YEARS.

How old are you? How many people could you house on one of these planets? How many planets could you make in your lifetime, and so how many people could be born in that time? - hmm? hmm?!

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

I think Sphere Worlds and ring worlds are great fun to build. You need to be organised and put in hard work. When you have, the rewards are great.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, its relative....as late in the game as you gain the technology, is it really worth it to build your own planets? At this point, I'd say no. 40 turns and an unbelievable amount of resources for ONE PLANET which you still have to populate & develop before its useful....not worth the time & trouble at that point in the game I'd say...doesn't have anything to do with my age (43, btw).

At this point in the game, if you aren't well on the way to winning, you should at least be nearly equal to your main competition where the resources would be better spent on offensive & defensive materiel. Of course, playing against real folks could be different...but, because the time lines don't change (ie, it still takes pretty long to get that far out on the research tree), I don't think so....
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif


[This message has been edited by Spyder (edited 20 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

Your abbreviations threw me off a bit, what do RD and the variants (I assume P0-5 = plate 1-5, and c0-5 = cable 1-5; but what is RDS1-5?) stand for?

So what you do is build the in-progress bases to have their own shipyards and use them to retrofit themselves/each other so the shipyard ships can move off to build the starting bases at another star? That's brilliant! Don't you need one non-basemounted repair bay or shipyard to do the final retrofit of the Last base though (or is there enough room for the shipyard AND the cable/plate I don't recall off the top of my head)? Still, that looks like a great idea. I especially like how the emergency build slow-effect is used up while the spaceyard ships are in transit and can't build anyway. That's an elegant strategy Alasyr!

As long as each design uses enough tonnage of equipment to be too large for a battlestation and you don't retrofit more than once in a single turn, it does appear to be legit for the contest.

---------
Editing here: I just looked back and saw where you said s=ship yard. Sorry. But I still wonder what RD means.

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Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[This message has been edited by Nyx (edited 20 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

RDS stands for SBs that start with SY and build other five cable SB (SBC0-4 in post), SBP0-7 are SB wit RW placing comp. mid-retrofit designs.I thougt of puttin repair component on all designs, maybe if there will be enough room for it on final designs.I haven't test it yet, it is still just an idea.If repair bay won't fit I guess I can always bring a repair ship after the retrofiting is done.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Thanks, I'm interested to see if this works. But won't it cost more than building them normally? Sure you only pay 80% at each step, but you pay 80% several times. Even if you only retrofit once you're paying 50% (original design that gets upgraded)+ 80%(cost of SB with cable or plate) = 130% total. Add in all the extra steps and it appears a lot more expensive. Very fast, but very expensive.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

Re: Building New Planets
 

I've been building 'em the 'old fashioned' way. I guess I'm ignorant, but I still don't quite see how you get the Star Bases retrofitted / configured with components that don't violate the "50% upgrade" rule. Do you possibly have a design file that has those bases in it? I would be extremely curious to see it (or parts of it). Maybe just a more detailed list of your previous post - I'm still confused as to your component lists...

As to others, I like building RW's and SW's and do think they are important. They can be a gamebreaker (I would think) ina Human vs Human game. There are other ways of making RW's interesting....

I am currently playing a game now where I have a system with 3 RW's - 2 are steadily building Monolith facilities and are at over 50K of each resource output. The 3rd is filled with Research and Intel fac's. Once I got them built, I gave everything else away (more or less evenly) to all the remaining AI's execpt for 6 Baseships. Then I declared war on all of 'em.

It's been fun fighting my own designs AND theirs as well as trying to recapture all the "strongholds" I had built before. It kept my fleets together (25 plus fleets avg 20 ships each) and attaked me a lot. It makes for a pretty good "scenario". The only downfall is I know all the systems and designs (which are also my own). You guys ought to try it....

EDIT... I forgot to mention that I also gave away 3 RW's. I can't wait to get to them and find out what the AI did with 'em...

[This message has been edited by rdouglass (edited 20 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Thanks, I'm interested to see if this works. But won't it cost more than building them normally? Sure you only pay 80% at each step, but you pay 80% several times. Even if you only retrofit once you're paying 50% (original design that gets upgraded)+ 80%(cost of SB with cable or plate) = 130% total. Add in all the extra steps and it appears a lot more expensive. Very fast, but very expensive.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nyx, where are you getting the 50% in your figuring here.

When I read Alaysr's post the first thing I thought was what you thought, fast, but more expensive. But I checked out his math and it is correct. Each time you retrofit you only pay 80% of the DIFFERENCE between the two designs. In other words, the sum of all your steps is less than the total would be.

Also, a SB is big enough to hold a ringworld component and a repair bay, but not a Space yard. Keep in mind that the actual work of the retrofit can be done by a repair bay, but you have to have a space yard present to start it. You could design your early steps with space yards and repair bays and not take the space yard out until the Last step. That would work.

Keen insight Alasyr, or Drake or whoever noticed the 80% thing. I had been going on the asumption that retrofit was more expensive than that. Had never bothered to test it before.

Geo

Re: Building New Planets
 

With master computers you can fit the spaceyard and ringworld comp on the SB.

On mine I set up a progression of ships to use refit. I set up all of my progressions with the spaceyard. That way it can keep building a new SB while it is being retrofitted itself.

I used the same basic bases and decide at the end if it was becoming a plate or cable at step 6 or to go to step 8 to become a RW component.

I also noticed that you can build the ringworld with all Stellar manip components destroyed. However for the contest I waited the turn to let them be repaired.

Re: Building New Planets
 

I took a look at retrofit number for smaller ships and from the retrofit cost is seems that adding new item in design cost 75% (number that Drake suggested was 70%) and removing item from desingn cost 10% of item value.For retrofit you pay max.
10% of 2/3 value of a new design (it's actually value of current design) and 75% of 1/3 of a new design (difference in resources between designs) resulting in 6.66%+25%=31.66% of a new design which is by 1/3 (33.33%) richer in resources than design it derivates from.So in worst case you save 1.66%.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Alrighty.....

I built a RingWorld Last night. I used 7 construction ships. It took 54 turns (WITH a racial production bonus of 25%) to produce the Space Station with the RingWorld Generator. The other Space Stations were built much more quickly.

As a side note to support my statements below, in the time it took (54 turns) to build the RingWorld, I had completely destroyed my primary competition through Crew Insurrection, Political Puppet Parties, & Resource Appropriation. I didn't even do any other building or combat...I just clicked the mouse 108 times (God, I hate confirmation boxes).

I have to admit that a world that is 5x a Huge Gas Giant is nice, but, at that late point in the game it is irrelevant. This game was my first complete game which was played with fairly easy settings: Few Opponents, Wormholes anywhere, Not all systems Connected, Huge Galaxy, No AI bonus...all else medium or normal.

I met an opponent fairly early, but, I had researched Wormhole makers/killers early and after awhile I closed off his access to me so that I could finish developing the systems I had. After awhile, because I killed his wormhole and separated one of his systems from the others (Evil Grin), he declared war on me and I took over that system and then destroyed him with Intelligence (he eventually surrendered) while I developed planets.



[This message has been edited by Spyder (edited 21 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

Spyder

It doesn't have to be that late in a game to have these babies up and running.If is not just a huge amount of facilities that is impressive about RWs and SWs but also the fact that they start with 150% value and therefore can very effectivly boost your economy (to bulid more RWs and SWs)if combined with monolith (lies on the same tech. line as RW, ultimate in resource production).

Re: Building New Planets
 

Hmmm....you need 2,619,999 research points (minimum) to attain the ability to make RingWorlds (500,000 for Starbase, 103,333 for Ship Construction, 2,016,666 for RingWorld Generator).

4,966,666 more to make SphereWorlds.

You start the game with 25,000 free points, one planet with a dozen or so Research I buildings.

It seems to me that there would be much more important areas of research early in the game. Things like improved mineral production, improved research, weapons research & Intelligence after meeting your first enemy....I don't see (and maybe I need to play more) how you can get here and still have a need for an artificial planet. If you DID rush here and still had a viable empire, it seems to me that you'd have PLENTY of regular planets to develop without having a need for an artificial one.

Re: Building New Planets
 

The main reason I'M building a ringworld is because I can. And they're cool. A sphereworld is an even cooler idea. Why would you need a better reason? If the only reason you're playing is to beat up on a human or on a bunch of AI's, ignore ringworlds and sphereworlds.

HOWEVER. (The rest of this post may sound a little harsh, but it's not intended to be. Please just take it as educational in nature.) I want to point out that most of the research required to get to the ringworld/sphereworld tech is useful in its own right. If you want to finish the game with no ship bigger than a Light Cruiser, no base bigger than a Space Station, and no Stellar Manipulation techs (or just the create/destroy storms, create/destroy planets, warp point closers and lower-level warp point openers), feel free. If you want to take it to the extreme, don't research any of the ship size tech levels, base size tech levels, or stellar manipulation tech levels at all.

As for me, I researched most of the required stuff anyway, and getting to the ringworld components was just one more tech level in Stellar Manipulation. One that also includes the Sun Creation component. And getting the Sphereworld component also gets you the Black Hole creator/destroyer, the sun destroyer, and nebula creator/destroyers.

So, in summary, you're getting more than just a Ringworld for those 2,619,999 research points. You're also getting Frigates, Destroyers, Light Cruisers, Cruisers, Base Stations, Starbases, and a slew of Stellar Manipulation techs, some of which might even help you beat up on the AI. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Building New Planets
 

Well, I tend to be highly competitive and an optimizer. My strategies tend to be research, development & retaliation. I research heavily, colonize & develop as many planets as I can until someone declares war on me, then I wipe them out. Repeat until done http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif For the purposes of winning the game as quickly as you can, the artificial worlds, the recycling stuff and some of the other technologies just don't seem to meet the mission requirements.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Now that I think of it... it would be nice to actually -build- artificial planets and such. Say 4-6k worth of plating and cabling and a planet generator or something an suddenly you have a new planet. Or moon. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif


O'Neill style colonies might be neat as well, especially for games where you can't colonize certain planet types and/or atmospheres.



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--
"What do -you- want?" "I'd like to live -just- long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this..." *waggle* "...can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

Re: Building New Planets
 

i dont have a saved game with a stellar construction in it right now, so it will be a while before I can try this. It occurs to me though, when you build a RW/SW it replaces then star in the system with a planet type RW or SW from the planet types file. this means there is no more star in the system. could you then use stellar manipulation to create another star and build another stellar construction? if so, you could park 33 construction cruisers over a star, time them to finish building one turn appart, and create 3 ringworlds within 3 turns of each other. wow.

then if you just moved your entire imperial population to those worlds and opened 10 wormholes on the same sector, what more would you need? talk about impervious defenses. once you had 11 of them you could build all the starbases directly from ground based shipyards, and you could see how fast your could induce a range check error by having 226 planets in the same sector. that would sure be ugly in tactical combat. yow. then if you saved that map and entered it into the TG contest.. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/tongue.gif

Re: Building New Planets
 

Puke: I think someone's tried that, and got some message about "can't create a star in this system". Probably to prevent the kind of abuse you mention http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

Re: Building New Planets
 

Well it seems that retrofit cost for new component in setting.txt is 70%.But retrofit than must be affected with some racial characteristics.Two of those come to my mind Repair and Mantenance.Repair is my bet because I had that at 50% now and it seems that for every 10% decrease retrofit cost goes up 5%.Maintenace does not seem valid candidate because my race have 90% plus 2% for engineers.This suggest a possibility that with an increase in repair (over 100%) retrofit might be cheaper.Also I think tha repair affect the number of components repaired by repair bays and SYs in a way that actual number of repairs per turn is percent of nominal number of comp. repairable, percent being repair value.

Re: Building New Planets
 

RDouglass

The basic idea is to make all designs with space yard or repair bay component as components need to be repaired afterward.For the design of first base is important that it has as balanced resources as possible.The more balaced those less time is needed to build them as they reach required value faster.The good components for this design are viruses (500 Min., 500 Rad.) and organic armor (70-130 Org).
For other designs you can just fill them with master computers (4000 Min, 1000 Org and 1000 Rad) and/or wiruses (500 Min, 500 Rad) or any other component with high (total resouces)/size ratio taking out components from previous design when you need more space.


[This message has been edited by alasyr (edited 21 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
Puke: I think someone's tried that, and got some message about "can't create a star in this system". Probably to prevent the kind of abuse you mention http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Perhaps I can add a little bit so you can understant this most excellent theoretical idea by Puke.

In the past, folks have complained the game wouldn't let them build planets out of asteroids in systems with ringworlds on the star or all the stars. It displays the error message: "There must be a star in the system." So, Puke is guessing that you should be able to build a star in such a system. He references the fact that the game changes the star to a planet of type 'x'.

This is really quite ingenius if it works.

P.S. Oh, and this is quite trivial, Puke, but with the 0 to 12 (x,y) coordinates, you would be limited to just 169 planets in the same system. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif


[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 22 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

There problem is that in the past (I have not tested this on v1.27) you can NOT create a star in any system that contains a star OR contains a constructed planet. So nature can create binary + star system. Us living beings with all the Stellar manip tech that we can research can only create single star systems.

Re: Building New Planets
 

So, does this mean that if I create a RW or SW on an existing star with surrounding planets, that the existing planets would no longer be viable? That the surrounging asteroid fields would no longer be viable as planets?

Re: Building New Planets
 

AS it stands currently. When you create a constructed world. You lose the star and any pros or cons there off. The star will not blow up(bomb) or be destroyed(nova); the star will not provide Crystal races solar generators cease making resources; Solar collectors probably stop working. Apparently asteriods to planets require solar energy. However the lost of a star in this fashion is not noticed at all by current planets in the system.

Hmm, can a constructed world be destroyed? If not, I guess someone could go in and destroy all the planets around the constructed planet into asteriods and make them non convertable back into planets.

A binary or trinary system may have a star that a star destroyer can destroy and take out the contrusted planet, but if there are not stars left??

Re: Building New Planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by raynor:
P.S. Oh, and this is quite trivial, Puke, but with the 0 to 12 (x,y) coordinates, you would be limited to just 169 planets in the same system. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

that many sectors maybe, but you can have mutliple planets per sector.

ahh, there are too many conflicting ideas on how this works. if you cant convert asteroids without a star, can you even destroy planets then? if you create one ring world in a trinary system, does the mere presence of the RW prevent planet creation from asteroids? has anyone destroyed a stellar construction yet? do you use a planet buster or a star killer? I will have to do some testing with the new patch, I just want a stack of 11 ringworlds around my 10 wormholes.

Re: Building New Planets
 

For what it's worth I tested this on 1.19 and you get a message, "Cannot create a star when there is a construction around a star already present" Apparently the star creating component still recognizes that there is a star in the system, even if the planet creating component doesn't.

I also know from experience that you can't create a star anywhere but in the center of the system. As stated earlied in the thread binary and trinary systems are natural forming only. You can only make a star in a system without one, so obviously you can only put one to a system.

More than one planet can occupy the same sector, but only one can be larger than tiny, unless you modify the system.txt file, and you can only make planets from exsisting asteroid fields, and you can't make asteroid fields. (except by blowing up planets, laf)

So the limit to RW's per system is 3, (again unless you modify the system.txt file and come up with a system with more than 3 stars)

Geo

Re: Building New Planets
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by geoschmo:


I also know from experience that you can't create a star anywhere but in the center of the system.

Geo<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The very first star I created was underneath a wormhole in the far upper right corner of the system...I had assumed that it would automatically place it in the middle...it did not. The Wormhole & the star occupied the very same hex at about 3,3....

Re: Building New Planets
 

What Version were you on Spyder? I think they eliminated that a long time ago.

Re: Building New Planets
 

1.19 I think...whatever it was before this 1.27 patch.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Well...I adjusted my research and targetted Stellar Manipulation so that I could build artificial planets as quickly as possible. I got there, but, I have already (essentially) won the game and haven't even built a planet yet.

This time the game was on a medium type setting(s) instead of easy.

I still don't see the viability of building artificial planets in a competitive game....

This game went this way:

Colonize all green + planets, build research units & a shipyard on all, resource producers on a few, storage on tiny planets.

Made first contact after a short while, established trade & research with them. Colonize, develop & research.

They declared war on me.

Built a navy, lost a system while doing so.

Relaliated, & wiped them out except for one system.

Closed wormholes to systems outside my sphere of influence.

Terraformed, populated & developed the 12 or so systems under my control.

Began to build a sphereworld....

However, at this time, I have completely researched the entire research tree and will need to convert all research based buildings to Intelligence & Resource buildings.

There are still 9 critters out there which tells me that none of them have expanded much, except maybe player 3 who's turn takes a noticeable amount of time. I believe that at this time noone has the technology to defeat me, including player 3 (although, I don't know for sure because I haven't met any of them).

I still haven't built an artificial planet...about 15 turns to go. Which seems to support my earlier proposition that this activity is not useful in a Meglomaniac mission.

I invite comment http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Spyder


[This message has been edited by Spyder (edited 26 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

Spyder: Try a Hard AI setting. Maybe add one of the bonuses. And, of course, latest patch (although I haven't started a game with the new patch yet - I wanted to finish my Ringworld in a 1.19 game first!)

In 1.19, with Hard AI and Low Bonus, I've never gotten higher than 5th place. And the only reason I climbed that high is because I've destroyed a few other empires (and the top AI's have destroyed or nearly destroyed a few more). Of course, I'm not playing very aggressively...

Re: Building New Planets
 

the other thing i have noticed is that people will select 5000 racial points and then not edit the AI to take advantage of those points too. If you decide to play with extra points, make sure you hand add your enemy and give them bonusses which will help them out like advanced storage tech etc.

Re: Building New Planets
 

I only use 2000 racial points, however, I twiddle the points a bunch and have a huge research bonus along with 20% cargo & 25% production.

I will apply the new patch and start a new game under more difficult settings and see http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif I am easing my way up while I figure out efficient ways to do things....

Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: Building New Planets
 

Triumvir - as much as I play w/this game I can't believe I never realized this - are you sure that if you select 5000 pt setup and let the computer randomly pick its starting races, the extra 3000 pts will not be used?

bummer - but would explain some things I suppose.

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

Re: Building New Planets
 

Spyder,

You are probably not going to get much of an argument to your position. The fact is that in a "conquer the galaxy as fast as you can" type of game there are probably more efficient uses of your researce and production points. The ammount of work involved to build a ring world or sphereworld is pretty staggering.

But that isn't really the point. There are a lot of things about this game that are really cool that aren't necessary to wipe all the ai of the face of the map. The variety is what makes it so interesting for someone like me.

I can defeat all the ai without researching past CSMII and destroyer, but that would be a pretty boring game if that was all we had.

Against the ai ringworlds are not really necessary. I do think in a large galaxy against several evenly-matched human opponents, the game could stretch out long enough where they became usufull, or even neccessary to have.

Geo

Re: Building New Planets
 

Spyder,

I think you will have a lot more fun playing if you jump immediately to high difficulty with medium bonus. But you absolutely have to restrict yourself from using SM ships to open/close wormholes. Unless the 1.27 AI is smarter in its use of SM ships, you have won the game as soon as you close off all your wormholes. I personally have never seen the AI use SM ships; so, I try not to use them myself even on high bonus.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Geo....you probably are right. However, I tend to be an aggressive & competitive person....thats how I play games. Thats why my wife and her children won't play Risk/Civilization/Cards with me any more http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

But, that's what I look for in a game. The logistical (not Military) challenge of taking over the galaxy. I approach all of these games as a logistical puzzle, and, at every move I ask what is the most efficient way to accomplish this.

Of all the games I have played, in all but one I used very same strategy at the difficult levels which I had developed at the easy level. MOO II was the only one that made me change my strategey significantly at the hardest level (had to go strongly to defense significantly early in the game, negating any chance for heavy research).

Raynor...I figure that you are correct, however, one of the very first games I started, one of the AI critters actually opened wormholes into a couple of my systems...soooo, I don't know how much use they make of Wormhole maniuplators, but they DO use them (its actually what gave me the idea http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif ). I'd like to see the AI improved to make use of those tools...the wormhole manipulators & planets-out-of-asteroids planet builders. it would definitely make them more challenging.

Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Re: Building New Planets
 

Start a game with minimal bonus and after the game starts take control of the AI and check his stats.
next start a game with 5000 points and do the same, there is no difference.

I have it quite a bit, when i start a pbem invariably i have to restart because someone forgot to assign points in their emp, that is why i started checking the ai in the first place,....

once you assign points to him in a fair manner he gets quit a boost,... increases in research/mining and simple techs like advanced storage techs seem to work best.

Re: Building New Planets
 

Aw, man! Spyder, I was just starting to like you. But then you go and say you saw Bigfoot, err, SM wielding AI's. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Seriously, a couple of other folks have seen the AI open wormholes too.

I WANT to believe!

Next time it happens, please post a savegame. PLEASE!!!

Just think of me as the equivalent of Fox Mulder searching for SM AI's instead of
UFO's. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Puke, you be a figment of my imagination too. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 27 February 2001).]

Re: Building New Planets
 

the AI will definitly open wormholes in 1.19, but they have to think that they are cut off from part of the galaxy. start a max-tech no-wormhole game, and they will open up all over the place.

ALSO: I have seen the AI use star destroyers. I was once moving a fleet of DNs through an AI system. another AI who was at war with the first AI came in and turned the star into a blackhole, wasting my innocent DNs who were just on military parade.