Atmosphere conversion?
 

Hi, can some one remind me what i need to research to get this tech ?

David

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Planet modification, which is under planet utilisation, IIRC.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

do you know what level of planet utilisation i need to get to ?

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

The first 3 levels get you conditions improvement.
The next 3 levels get you value improvement
The next 3 levels after that get you atmosphere converters.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

7 to 9. I highly recommend researching up to lvl 9, as it takes less than a year to research if you've got a rather large Empire devoted to research, and it'll shave a few months off the conversion time nonetheless.

Ooh, this brings back memories..... I once played as a semi-customized version of the Pexlerr, had a rather large empire with over half of my worlds completely crammed with research facilities. In the end, things like Stellar Manip took like 3 turns to complete http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Big problem though, I researched ALL tech levels by the '30s or so http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif so then I converted all my tech centers to Intel centers..... I still have the savegame, never played much further tho..... needless to say, if I start playing that game again I could win by intel alone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif MILLIONS of Intel points WOOT!

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Thanks guys, I have got upto level 5 so far, not far to go now!

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

As I said, if you've got high research point production, don't build the bastards until you've got Lvl III Converters. Unless, of course, tech lvl 8 and 9 would take more than a year to complete.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Start building them when you reach lvl7. Get the next levels while they are still in the queue. Put them on hold with one turn left if you need to. When you reach lvl9, click "Upgrade All" (or something like that) on the main production page. It will upgrade your partially completed converters to the highest level. It works just like you were building the highest level all the time.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Agreed that is the best way to build anything while you're researching for newer versions.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

I still think the best way to undome a planet is to concentrate efforts to capture other-breathing population. Even if you capture one of those suckers, you can breed them and undome all the planets in your empire with their offspring.

You can capture one of the planets, trade, capture a pop transport or a colonizer, use intel, etc.

Don't forget to address their natural trend to unhappiness, though. Troops or one of the happiness facilities is a good way to do that.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

I favor the "Ships in orbit" method of happiness control. Build a few defense and cosntruction bases around the planet and (at least in the stock happiness types) they'll be Jubilant in no time, and the bases contribute to your construciton or defense rather than consuming cargo or facility space. (Of course, I _Also_ design all my races with max maintence reduction, so this may not be as useful to a race who pays more maintence.)

A handful of troops is useful on those captured enemy planets that don't come with spaceyards, though.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Troops require 0 maintenance. You can load 120 or so police troops on every planet for guaranteed jubilance in all but the most dire of situations. I'd still go with 0 maintenance troops in favor of low maintenance ships, myself. If you arm them, your planets become marginally more difficult to capture and you have a ready pool of troops in emergencies as added bonuses.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Why 120? If memory serves, you only need 10 troops to eliminate the turn to turn natural decrease that non-native population will see. In my games I make sure I build 15+ to ensure a small upswing and over time it will be enough. Only for colonies that get isolated by enemy colonies (and their associated ship traffic in system) will I bump the number higher to 30 or so, and that seems to be sufficient.

And don’t forget the trick of building “security troops.” This is a small troop with only a cockpit, but nothing else. This is the cheapest (and fastest) way to keep those folks happy since you can build them almost twice as fast as regular troops, but they won’t do anything if you are invaded.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

This post assumes the default Peaceful happiness type. Neutral is absolutely worthless and police troops have the same benefits with Bloodthirsty.

Note that the "police troops" I use are exactly your "security troops." They are always small, and weapons are optional. Some people like to arm them to get a ready source of troops to handle rebellion events and such, as well as extra defense against invasions. Not that they help much against a large transport filled with shielded large troops, of course.

You can get a max change of 20% (aka 200) up or down per turn. 100 troops is sufficient for getting this 200 (at 2 per troop). The 20 is just for a bit of redundancy. The purpose of police troops is not to make the people happy when all goes well. They are there to keep the people jubilant through the worst of situations. It is disturbingly easy for an unprotected empire to go from jubilance to riots in a short while if a war takes a turn for the worst. The troops can prevent this from happening and provide you with the possibility for recovery.

With 120 troops, you can suffer up to 240 happiness points worth of losses per turn and not have any decrease in happiness. This equates to 240 ships or almost 5 planets in a single turn. You could lose 2 planets and 140 ships and suffer no ill affects to happiness throughout the empire. In most games, I find it highly unusual to be able to lose more than this in a single turn. If you do, you have probably already lost and are just being mopped up by the enemy. But even if you lose more than this in one turn, chances are you won't lose just as much in the next turn, so having enough troops to get 240 percent increase in happiness will bring you right back up to jubilance, with an added window of still being able to lose 1 planet or 40 ships and not matter.

Granted, against the AI, this isn't always necessary, as the AI is not too challenging. It mostly applies to multiplayer games.

No amount of ships can achieve these same riot protection results. Having 20 ships stationed over every planet or 67 in every system (to get 200 happiness increase per turn) is generally a very bad idea, as your offensive forces will be few and far between (or even nonexistent).

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Well I generally find that "other breathers" method very ineffective as it takes a LOT of resources and time to build transports enough to move other breathers to every world that your own pop can't breath on.
I prefer leaving populations where they are and waiting until I have a large stable resource and research base then doing mass atmosphere conversion "blocks" in order to get my populations up.

As far as security troops I usually arm mine, I don't expect them to do much good against the enemy but I expect them to be able to crush rebellions without me needing to call in my "regular" troops, To keep my security forces available I organize them at HQ bases that are designed strictly to hold Security troops for deployment to various trouble spots around my Empire.
Especially since i Modded devnull to include base mounted space yards that produce at the equivalent of an 8 billion population world I usually build my troops at these bases and load rally battle fleets around them so that the battlefleet can pick up it's troops before leaving for the front.
For my "security forces" I do pretty much the same thing, I mobilize a fleet of small fast transports with a few warships to provide escort, then load up my security troops before having my security fleets head to the trouble spots.

You'd be suprised how quickly a squadron of superdreadnoughts escorting a fleet of 1,000 security troops can change the public oppinion in your favor http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Interesting. An Atmosphere Converter costs 15000 M, 15000 O, 15000 R. Assuming no construction bonuses, that takes 8 months to build and 2 years to convert the atmosphere on the planet; total = 2.8 years for an ACIII. If you build a spaceyard first, that takes 5 turns and costs 10000 M before you start building the AC. Although a SY III will save you 3 months build time on the AC, it costed you 5 months to build and another 10K minerals. Total time = 3.0 years with a SYIII and an ACIII. This also costs you 1 facility slot on each planet using this method during the conversion. Note: due to a bug in the game, when you scrap your AC, you don't get the resources back. That's just for 1 planet.

For the cost in resources and time that it costs for doing this on 1 planet, several small transports can be built and deployed. Also, planets can be undomed sooner, thus allowing facility construction to begin sooner. If 1M population is placed on a planet, the next turn there will be 2M - that's a 1000% (per year) reproduction rate for the first turn!!!. This method can be used to quickly multiply alien population. When not ferrying population, these transports can be used to move other things around or simply mothballed until needed again. The downside is that you probably want to get all versions of other-breathers and you probably don't want to be at war with everyone else while you are trying to boost your economy. However, even if you only get 1 species of other-breathers, by quickly undoming your roughly 10-20% of your planets, you can quickly gain an economic edge. The economic edge translates directly into being able to build & maintain more ships. In general, he who has the most ships first, wins. It appears to me that the "resources & time" argument benefits other-breathers over atmosphere conversion.

Research: It also requires researching Planetary Engineering then Planet Utilization to at least level 7 - this is costly. These research points are basically spent on purely defensive techs; i.e. you will still need some offensive tech research to win. This may not be a bad thing in itself, however consider that the research spent on planet capture, ship capture, intel, etc., of other-breathers is both offensive and defensive. This means that, if you can capture enemy ships or planets, you are both strengthening your empire and weakening the enemy.

This is just my view on the economics of each method.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

While we are on the subject of AC, this was posted in the "Update the FAQ" thread. It kinda surprised me. Can anyone confirm this?:

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

I can confirm that it is wrong. Test game, finished atmosphere converter on gas giant inhabited by none breathers on turn 2401.2. On 2404.2, ten turns after the atmosphere conversion should have taken place if it were possible, the planet was still gas/methane.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

500 turns after having built that Atmosphere Converter, the planet was still a gas planet. The only way to change its type would be to destroy the planet and recreate it.

Slick, the standard delay to build an Atmosphere Converter will likely be 5 turns, and not 8: Emergency Building does wonder in such situations. All slots will likely be filled already, or you will build facilities taking a single turn to build, so Emergency Building will not really hurt you (unless you have a spaceyard there and want to build ships while the conversion goes on). Otherwise, I fully agree with your analysis.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Agreed. In order to do an analysis, you need to hold some things constant. I didn't want to throw in Hardy Industrialists, enhanced construction aptitude, pop bonuses, etc.; they all would affect the numbers to a small extent. Actually, 5 turns or 8 turns becomes pretty insignificant on the large scale anyways.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Well Slick as you stated you don't want to be at war with "everyone" but if you think about it I said I only build Atmohpere converters After I have a stable research and resource base which in short means later in game.

Your theory does have one major flaw it is not he who has the most planets wins it's he who has the most combat power and while your busy building small transports early in game I'd be busy building warships during the same time period, yes I'd have an initial resource crunch but i've survived that in every game I've ever played. And while your busy playing ferry man I'd come in with my fleet and troops and either smash or grab your nicely colonized worlds.

Firepower and fighting ability does not mean planet count, you can have a thousand worlds but if you've been busy building non combat ships while someone has been building warships, your going to lose a LOT of those worlds before you can even fight back.
Now take into account that most people are rarely ever at war with only one person/AI at a time and your adding 2 players or more to the numbers against you, and if BOTH of them are busy building combat craft while your building small trannys then it would get ugly for you very fast.

Now the problem there is that you would not know what kind of ships your enemy is building until you actually encounter his fleet or fleets as the case may be, so you may think your 10 frigates are fine until he comes in with 15 or 20 and maybe a troop ship. And by the fact that you actually HAVE other breathers in your Empire I'd assume you have troops?

I must admit I am not an economist player I am a militaristic player I raid other players to get the resources I want, I land troops on a world and if I can't hold it forever and I know it I scrap the facilities load my troops back onto my ships and move on to the next world, either forcing you to destroy or retake your own worlds and then rebuild them from scratch which will cost you more resources and time.

Now if I ran into one of your transport groups I'd be in pirate heaven, I often build light ships early on designed solely to raid colony ships and transports for population and then scrapping value but let's assume I don't have that technology, I'd just engage and destroy your transports and potentially kill billions of your people in the process.
And trust me if I knew for sure you were using the "other breather" tactic I would send at least some lone warships to hunt for you transport fleets, if just to balance out your population.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

I think you're far overestimating the requirements here.

You technically need only a single transport to make the rounds, and it only needs to visit each planet once.
All of the transports that you normally have to ferry units to the front lines can bring 1m breathers along for the ride back.

No interruptions to ship production, at all.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

It doesn't take large numbers of transports to do this. These transports can each undome a planet every turn or two as they move through the empire. One transport can easily take care of a few systems in a short number of turns. I don't consider these few transports to really affect ship production. Also, any cargo-carrying ship can be used to support this effort - carriers, mine layers, etc.

Obtaining the most combat power means that you must have the economy to support it. I believe that I should always be limited by mineral production. If I make more minerals, I should always be able to put them to use at a spaceyard. Being limited by spaceyards, or other resources means to me that I could be more efficient. Like the AI says: "Mineral Planets are the best." Balancing production and construction is vitally important, but the bottom line is that there must be enough resources to support the construction effort for your military. If leveraged properly, the empire with the strongest economy should be the strongest militarily.

edit: much slower than SJ, as usual.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

He's talking small transport aka at most maybe 200 million people now let's take into account that you have to have both the population to drop on planets and the cargo space to hold the population you are transfering, now most systems have a population of well over 200 million!

Heck in my current game, wherein I am moving all alien species off their native worlds to sphereworlds as part of the roleplay, and i have a transport fleet numbering 15 that is having problems evacing the populations of those systems. And 5 of them are just for transporting aliens OFF world, not taking into account the other 10 which are loaded with populations to transfer to these worlds.

The average evac for me of a single system takes about three turns, with 5 totally empty ships ferrying populations from world o sphereworlds and the other ten transporting populations and transferring them.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Who said anything about safely transporting the previous inhabitants to another world? Just dump them out the airlock. One turn per planet is all it takes with just one transport, and can be done at the same time as the dropoff. If you're not concerned about roleplay, there is absolutely no negative effect for doing this besides losing the usually inconsequentially small population bonus to production and construction rates.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

My small transports can carry 450M; that's using a MC, engines, QR and solar sail with the rest of the space taken up by Cargo Bay III's. Occasionally the transports do need to dump excesss population, but this can usually be coordinated easily enough. There's always the option to jettison them to make room, but I usually don't do that.

In a normal game I routinely have transports which carry 3-4 different breathing populations, once I get them. By (D)ropping all population at the destination, each different species will multiply on the planet at the end of the turn, thus ensuring that there is always >1M of each kind on the planet (unless the planet gets filled). Then I load all non-breathers onto the transport, which undomes the planet, give the planet whatever orders desired and order the transport to (D)rop the population at the next planet. Rinse, repeat. Occasionally the transports are redirected to a different planet to offload accumulated species of one kind or another. Works like a champ. One thing I do to make this more efficient is that if I am colonizing a non-breathing planet, I just put 1M pop on the colonizer. This minimizes the excess population at the point of undoming. Another thing I do is keep a transport with all the different species over the planets where I am building colonizers. This way I can load the correct population onto the colonizer before giving it orders to colonize. This creates an undomed colony from the start. Another option is to first send the colonizer to a planet with the correct population then give it the order to colonize the target planet. Kinda the same outcome using that method.

I also use a few transports to keep my largest native-breathing planets from being wasted because they can't make more population once they are full. When they get full, I'll offload some and dump them at outlying native-breathing planets. This keeps my populations all growing at the max rate.

edit: *sigh* if only the Transport Minister would work this way...

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Heh each of my 15 large transports can carry 1.9 BILLION people easily, I added shields and armor to the military version so it can only hold about 1.5 billion

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

First let me say I agree wholeheartedly with Slick. I operate pretty much the same way as he does. I think the most pop transports I've ever had is 5 small and 1 medium. I've never run into a situation even remotely similar to what you describe.

Why do you find it necessary to transport such huge numbers of civilians? You only need enough to place one million on the desired planet. Increasing pop on planets is a laudable goal, but remember, pop bonuses have an upper limit-- 8 billion, I think, in stock, higher in many mods sure, but at some point it's fine to just stand aside and let those breeders multiply.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

I think what he is referring to the RP game, in which (from what I understand) the fleet of transports is being used to move entire planetary populations to the sphereworlds he has built. That would normally take more than a few small transports to pull off http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Uh yeah as stated with that transport fleet it's part of the RP, 15 transports is more then I usually build in any game unless they are loaded with troop units.
I am moving billions of civilians per turn to completely remove specific species from their native star systems and move in my human populations while the aliens are stuck on their own sphereworlds, For example my Phong Sphereworld contains just about every Phong in the universe and soon so will the Xiati sphereworld once it is completed, their former worlds are then given over to the Human populations within my Empire http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif So that takes both a sizeable fleet and a lot of time to do.

Re: Atmosphere conversion?
 

Ahh! Then this would be an exceptional case; I do see your point.