A couple of Component questions...
 

Greets Gents! Relative Newbie here with some questions:

1) What are the differences between Hyper Optics/Scanners/Gravitic Scanners?? What ~exactly~ do they do anyway? Are they related to Cloaking? Are Scanners giving me component info, presence info or allowing me to see Cloaked ships or all the above? (for instance).

2) What is the "Cloak" button actually doing to my ships which have only Cloak Armour III? (The one with the defensive bonus, no other Cloak related components on ship <<to my knowledge>>). Does it need to be clicked in order to work? Is there any reason to ever turn it off? (does is use supplies when turned on?)

3) Is there some document/excel sheet out there that actually tells what everything does? Some of the in game descriptions really don't tell me much -- like Hyper Optics vs. Scanners vs. Gravitic Scanners for instance.

4) Warp Weapons -- Do they damage a ship or Warp it to another Star System? Both? If to another Star System is is adjecent or random?

5) Do Phased Weapons damage Phased Shields at all or should one stop deploying them when first seeing Phased Shields?

6) Related: "Tachyon Projection Cannon....penetrates 'shields' and destroys weapons"...does that include Phased Shields?

Thanks in advance for your answers! I'm a relative new comer to SEIV, and just pushing past my first game over 100 turns. Having come across some of these new technologies I don't want to start adding them to ships only to have to refit them as soon as they float out of the shipyards hehe...

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Greetings, and welcome aboard!

1) In the stock game, there is no difference between all the sensors: any can pierce all cloaking devices, so long as the scanner is of high enough level. Their sole purpose is to detect cloaked ships: the best sensors are powerful enough to detect the best cloak. Note that storms and nebulaes also provide automatic cloaking, and nothing can be detected inside red nebulaes. Again in the stock game, Hyper Optics are by far the cheapest to research, so you should only by using these (and perhaps the Physic or Temporal Sensors if you have the appropriate trait).

Long Range Scanners allow you to detect what is inside a ship, ie its components, the damage it has taken, its cargo, and so on. You will thus gain all information you have about your own ships. However, the Scattering Armour negates this effect, and it is unfortunately a very popular component due to the +15% defence boost it gives.

2) The Cloak button activates all the cloaking devices on board your ship, as they are not activated by default (for ships at any rate, as satellites are cloaked by default, though it does not show on the game screen). You may want to turn the Stealth Armour off under specific circumstances: for example, Minesweepers must not be cloaked in order to work. You could also lay a couple of ships in the midst of an enemy system, with a cloaked armada in the same sector: if the enemy engages, all your ships will join in the battle, regardless of their cloaking.

4) Warp Weapons (under Physics 4) give you Wormhole Beams, used to "teleport" enemy vessels during a battle. A ship hit by a Wormhole beam will be moved somewhere else in the battle, and the effect is pretty much random.

5) Phased Weapons perform as ordinary weaponry (Normal Damage) when they hit a target protected by Phased Shields. Since they are quite expensive, you might want to switch to another weapon once Phased Shields become standard, but they have no other drawback when they hit a Phased Shield.

6) All special damage types (Only XXX) bypass all sorts of shields, including Phased Shields. If you are playing SE4 Gold with one of the Last patches, Ionic Projectors are an exception to this rule, as these are stopped by shielding (normal or phased shields).

5 and 6) Phased Shields perform as Normal Shields in all matters, except that Phased Shields stop Phased Weapons.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

1) In the unmodified game, no difference in function between Hyper Optics, Gravitic Sensors, and Tachyon Sensors. They all pierce the level of Cloaking specified in the component description. They are unrelated to Combat Sensors and Scanners. A single unit with one of these in the system will enable you to see all cloaked objects - their range is the entire system.

Scanners let you see the components and cargo on ships which you can see. They have a range of 1, 3 or 5 sectors. They are blocked by Scanner Jammers or Scattering Armour. They do NOT let you see cloaked ships or planetary facilities or cargo.

2) The cloak button switches it on or off. Cloaking devices use supplies, so you may not always want it switched on. All levels of Stealth Armour function the same as the first level of cloaking, and still needs to be switched on before your ship is cloaked, even though it does not use supplies. (As the captain of Nasty Surprise 0001 found to his cost.)

3) I wish there was :-/

4) They may do a trivial amount of damage - I'm not sure - but the main effect is to warp the target ship to a random spot of the combat map. I think the distance is generally greater with larger weapon mounts. The ship will still be in the same sector of the same system.

5) Phased weapons do normal damage to Phased Shields.

6) I believe so.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Beaten to the reply :-( Must learn to type faster!

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Gents thanks much for the rapid reply. hehe must have taken a ~lot~ of playing to get to know those little gems -- glad I didn't have to find out the hard way....now to take Long Ranges Scanners the *&^%$#@! off my Research Queue....;-)

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Note: Warp weapons can be quite handy on a support ship.
Since they teleport the ship to a random location on the combat map, they are usually more effective than repulsor beams would be. Most of the time, the enemy will end up 3-4 turns away from combat, and you'll improve your odds locally.

If you manage to hit the fleet leader, or just provide a good volume of fire, you'll be able to massively disrupt the enemy formation. Fighting a handful of ships at a time is much better than fighting the whole fleet http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

There is always the risk that it will be moved behind your lines or beside your retreating support ships, so consider your fleet composition when deciding to use them.

---
3) Don't look to the descriptions, they're more atmosphere than details.
Look at the stats listed on that page, particularily the abilities at the bottom.

Ship hulls also show their abilities in the small window below the hull selection box in the design screen, and you can click the abilities tab of any ships you've constructed to see a handy list.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Ah....very nice tactic there with the Warp Weapon on Support Ship SJ....I wonder...on a related note, does that WWeap count as an actual weapon for purposes of "Capture Planet", in "Fleet Formation" and not having your DropShips running for the corners if they break formation with no weapon?

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Gravity weapons can't be installed on platforms in stock.

Although, for the purposes of comparing mass for tractor/repulsor beams, planets always win against ships. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Funny, I thought wormhole beams placed the target X number of squares away in a random direction, where X was the damage of the weapon, so a regular WB would place you 5 squares away, a Large Mount 10 squares, a Heavy Mount 15 squares, and a Massive Mount 20 squares http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

One other thing to remember, too, is that wormhole beams work vs. ANY size ship - you can even beam starbases around with your escorts... or drones! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif (Hmm, that could be an interesting strategy in Devnull... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/evil.gif)

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Oh, yeah. With starbases packing a lot of power, and all collected in a small section of the combat map, spreading them out to fight one at a time can have a huge effect.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

3) i once made a PDF expaining what every ship component, planet facility does, but it's on spanish, i guess i can translate it, if you are intrested on the file.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

I do believe that you can lay mines from a cloaked ship. I will have to verify, but I believe you can.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Nice thread starting here...New tactical ideas are always a good thing ;-)

Hey EaX...I can speak a little Spanish...maybe you can send me a copy of that PDF to 'jfp3@plantfind.com'? I suspect there's so much game specific jargon in that .pdf it should be easy to read for anyone who's had SEIV installed for more than a month eh? Tell me though...how would you translate Null Space Projector into English anyway? ;-)

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Simple...'Null Space Projector'. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

I have done so in one of my PBW games.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

To summarize even more -- stealth armor is cheap and common, for either the A.I. or people on PBW. If you don't get level 1 sensors up and running, you'll regret it sooner, not later.

The higher level sensors let you see what's happening in nebulas. If one borders your space, they're a good place to see an incoming enemy fleet. You can build fighter bases and ship yard bases and use them against the fleet if you can see it. If the nebula also disrupts shielding, fighter Groups can really rip though those shielded dreadnoughts and stall the fleet.

The cloaking device gives higher cloak levels, but it takes much less research to get level 3 sensors than to get a level 3 cloaking device. So its not a real show stopper. You might get lucky.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

hi!, i've sent you the PDF to your mail, if you have any questions ask, i hope you find it usefull, by the way, i think what you mean was how Null space projector is translated on spanish don't?, well... anyway it should be something like Proyector de Espacio Nulo

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

That is new. So tachyon projector cannons go through all shields hrm?

Brian

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Tachyon Project Cannons go through all shields just fine (as Shield Disruptors incidentally).

And while on the topic of shields, they need supplies to work: if your vessel does not have any supply, all shields will fall. Of course, you will have other problems when you run out of supplies, like figuring out how to fire any weapon. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

hehehehee...

[Chinese accent]
Supplies! no shields!
[/Chinese accent]

get it?

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Me kills Slick for the really bad joke

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Except "Only Security Stations" damage type. Afair, it damages shields first.

edit: not afair, but for sure. just tested it.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Speaking of Security Stations...I tried Boarding parties on a couple of ships a few games ago...after they boarded and captured...they would not repair themselves at a SY. What is the deal with using them effectively then? You have to "retrofit" just that one slot or something? That would be kind of ugly~~

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

I didn't know about those Aiken (but then, I never actually used them); the same may hold true for Only Boarding Parties, or perhaps Only Planet Destroyers.

I don't really get your question Jfp3. Boarding Parties and Security Stations will be repaired by repair bays or spaceyards. However, you may have trouble to repair the captured ship, as you need to know the technology to use a component before being able to repair it. So, if you have captured a Talisman ship, but you don't have the Religious trait, you will be unable to repair the Talisman (it will work just fine until it is destroyed).

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

hmmm ok I must have done something wrong with re-populating my Boarding Parties then....

Ok another couple of questions:

If I'm terraForming a no atmosphere planet (none) with 2 species, does it TF to the atmosphere of the majority? If I swap the population type at level 2 TF to a new species, then upgrade to TF 3, will it convert the atmosphere to the new species type?

How does one get the new ships to show up in listings for a Neo Shipset? Is it all/only in the Settings.txt? Can I change add the Neo Ships to a game-in-progress or till it cause a melt down?

Thanks Gents!

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

- The atmosphere will adapt to the species with the most members, but the planet would be domed then. If you are using Atmosphere Converters, you should have only one species on the planet.

- I think the Atmosphere Converter will convert the atmosphere every turn after the atmosphere delay, so you could change your atmospheres by changing the leading species on the planet. I have only read that however, as I do not see why you would want to do that.

- Neoshipsets are only used by certain mods, such as the Highliner mod, and perhaps Proportions (among others). Mods using Neoshipsets add hulls to the Vehiclesize.txt file, and the images from the Neoshipsets are used. You could use an image from the Neoshipset for a regular hull though, but I am not sure you would like to do that.

You could change a mod in the course of the game, but you would have to put all your additions at the bottom of the appropriate file. Changes to already existing components/facilities... can be done, but they will not necessarily affect already built components/facilities... (A lower construction rate will affect already existing spaceyards, but increasing the cost of spaceyards will not affect the spaceyards you have already built)

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

will* it cause a meltdown~~

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Thanks Alneyan...I was thinking if I wanted to have 2 species temporarily just for reproduction rates, while awaiting a large transport arrival with the proper final species from a long distance.

So if a planet has atmosphere "none"...and has 2 species, dominated by Oxygen breathers, it would TForm to Oxygen...and if I dropped Methane breathers on it Last second, before the actual "upgrade", the program would decide on Methane even though the species dominance was many turns less...is that the gist of it? (Hope that makes sense).

Another question: I've noticed a species creating new Planets (!) in his homeworld system. I'm assuming these are created from Asteroids...what tech level/family does this ability come from?

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

And EaX...thanks so much for the component/weapon PDF...I can understand it just fine...very nice work and complete with Icon's no less!

I'm thinking about translating it so you can post it with proper honours for us Newbies.

I wonder if perhaps we could add a Last column that mentions a particularly good use or 2 for each (the ones that aren't obvious). I think a bunch of the Forum Groupees would love to throw in their 2 cents....hell there could probably be a forum link added for several facility/component/weapon 'families' on "Best usage" ie. "Don't bother building this past level III, you should have XYZ by then anyway" or "I put this level XYZ on these types of hulls" or "Don't bother putting these XYZ's on ANY ships till you've gotten at least level III", etc...

Any thoughts on this from others reading this thread?

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

You should usually not play much with reproduction, unless you have high numbers of settlers on that particular planet; population itself is only worth it when you reach fairly high numbers (a few hundred millions or one billion or two). You will get as many reproduction checks as there are populations on the planet though.

The dominant species should be determined on every turn the Atmosphere Converter is built, at least according to the newbie guide, regardless of upgrades and construction of the facility. So even if it were 100 turns after the Atmosphere Converter had been built, dropping a domining Methane population should transform that planet to a Methane atmosphere. I have never actually done so myself however, so I am just quoting the Newbie FAQ here (it makes sense given how the game works though).

Planet Shaping requires Stellar Manipulation 2 to 4, which itself requires Astrophysics 1. Stellar Manipulation has many very powerful technologies, including Warp Opening, Warp Closing, Creating and Destroying Storms, and even blowing up whole systems by destroying a star. To create a Planet, you will need asteroids and a star in the system, and a vessel equipped with a Matter Gravity Sphere.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Thanks again Alneyan...I forgot to ask a critical question:

Once the atmosphere is TFormed, will it stay that way if I Scrap the facility or revert? It's questions like this that make me save every turn @ 5 times hahaha...

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

The atmosphere will remain the same if you scrap the facility after it has been converted.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

After the initial period is passed, if you leave the facility there, you can swap the current population for those of a different atmosphere and change the atmosphere of the planet every turn. It is funny, if quite useless overall. [img]/threads/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Ah good to know ...ok another question:

I've seen some posts saying that later in game, smaller ships are almost worthless...does that mean there is rarely a time when let's say 10 Frigates can successfully take on a Dreadnought, all techs being equal?

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

Those frigates will waste 900 kt of space on engines and bridge/lifesupport/crew quarters, while the dread wastes only a little over 100.

The dread also gets heavy mounts, so it gets a bonus 70% more damage per kt of weapons.

The little ships will pop one by one, reducing the firepower coming back at the dread, while the dread only loses shields.

So, the dread will blow them away.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

One use they have is as boarding ships as you dont wont to lose big ships trying to board. So you have a DD with shield depleters, lots of BPs, and stealth and scatter armour to make them harder to hit.

Re: A couple of Component questions...
 

I've found that once there are dreads being built that the smallest ship I use is a light cruiser and even then only as part of a combined arms force.