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Newbie Questions

Hello, I've been lurking since I got the game a few weeks ago, but seeing as though nobody has said anything about some questions I've had I finally decided to register...

1) Other than for role-playing purposes is there any point to getting Religious Tech or Emotionless?

The only useful component you get out of Religious tech seems to be the Talisman. That seems a bit costly for 1500 points http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif Other techs get useful facilities and more components.

Why emotionless? (3000 POINTS!!!) I've only had people riot when there's a plague...

2) Any reason to use baseships?

They get the largest weapons mount possible, but get a 40% defense penalty, and are slo~w (even with sails).

3) Is it just me or is getting greater than 80% for organics and radioactives extraction a total waste?

Unless I'm building organics intensive facilities I never run out of these two resources.

4) Are storage colonies necessary?

I've seen people recommend these things, but I can't see the point... If a planet has low resource value it usually gets turned into a research or intel colony. My RTS mentality tells me that if I've got excess resources I should build a fleet and start declaring war...

5) What weapons do people use after phased shields show up?

I've never managed to play a single game long enough (early-mid game is fun, but late-game just becomes tedious) for this to be a problem but just in case...

6) Any point to keeping Ground Combat above 50%?

Unless you're into capturing planets it seems incredibly useless. If it affected your ship-capture rate I may reconsider... Usually I just find blowing things up to be easier http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

If I'm really lazy I just use Intel and Puppet Political Parties...

Well those are about the only questions I can think of for now... Thanks in advance.

Re: Newbie Questions

1. The Talisman IMO is worth the 1500 points for racial tech alone! To NEVER miss!!! You also get many features in facilities: Nature Shrine - increase planet values and conditions, Fate Shrines - decrease bad events, increase happines, etc.

2. Baseships can be devistating with the right combinations of weapons, support ships, fighters, etc. I build my fleets around 2-3 of 'em. Yeah, they may be slower, but they can kick some @$$.

3. I go for monoliths so I really don't worry 'bout anything but minerals except for early game.

4. Storage is ESSENTIAL if you want to build / maintain / support any sizeable fleets in emergency conditions (or for when you build those sphere / ring worlds.

5. After phased shields, I personally go for High Energy weapons (WMG's have a good range and damage with massive mounts - 700 at range 8) and Fighters.

6. I don't use troops at all.

Just my perspective and play style......

Re: Newbie Questions

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Shoujo:
Hello, I've been lurking since I got the game a few weeks ago, but seeing as though nobody has said anything about some questions I've had I finally decided to register...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Welcome to the Boards.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
1) Other than for role-playing purposes is there any point to getting Religious Tech or Emotionless?

The only useful component you get out of Religious tech seems to be the Talisman. That seems a bit costly for 1500 points http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif Other techs get useful facilities and more components.

Why emotionless? (3000 POINTS!!!) I've only had people riot when there's a plague...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
There's plenty of decent shrines for the religious trait. As rdouglass mentioned there's the nature shrine and fate shrines. The nature shrine is much cheaper than climate control and value improvement plants and you only need one per system rather than one on every planet. There's also the death and war shrines which can be useful for combat inside your systems.

Emotionless is pretty expensive, I personally would rather dump points into other things. But your population does get angry from other things like enemy ships in you systems, random events, and anarchy Groups.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
2) Any reason to use baseships?

They get the largest weapons mount possible, but get a 40% defense penalty, and are slo~w (even with sails).
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's pretty easy to turn a baseship into a roving force of destruction or a massive mobile factory for repairing and building ships and units supporting fleets deep behind enemy lines.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
3) Is it just me or is getting greater than 80% for organics and radioactives extraction a total waste?

Unless I'm building organics intensive facilities I never run out of these two resources.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm not sure I understand greater than 80% value is a waste? If you pick out planets with higher organics and radioactives values then you don't need as many farm and refining colonies. I've run out of organics before when I'm doing something like building 30 atmosphere converters simultaneously. Radioactives can be important depending on what weapons you put on your ships.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
4) Are storage colonies necessary?

I've seen people recommend these things, but I can't see the point... If a planet has low resource value it usually gets turned into a research or intel colony. My RTS mentality tells me that if I've got excess resources I should build a fleet and start declaring war...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Stored resources are good for using as gifts,trades, tributes. You also need them to upgrade ships and bases. Excess resourcess are also a nice thing to have if your like me and a have a shipyard on every colony, I find early on its easy to overextend my production if every colony is building something and send myself into negative mineral production.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
5) What weapons do people use after phased shields show up?

I've never managed to play a single game long enough (early-mid game is fun, but late-game just becomes tedious) for this to be a problem but just in case...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Personally after the phased polaron's lose their advanatages I swap back to anti-proton beams. Same weight, lower cost, similar damage, and longer range at the higher levels. Even when I'm using PPBs I usually have graviton hellbores and null space projectors as the "heavy" weapons on my capital ships. Sometimes I'll use quantam torps too since they have decent damage and are direct fire. Some of the improved AIs available for download will research phased shields pretty fast also.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
6) Any point to keeping Ground Combat above 50%?

Unless you're into capturing planets it seems incredibly useless. If it affected your ship-capture rate I may reconsider... Usually I just find blowing things up to be easier http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif

If I'm really lazy I just use Intel and Puppet Political Parties...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Right now if you don't use planetary captures it probably isn't much use to you. However, if Aaron or one of the modders ever gets the AI to start conducting planetary assaults on a regular basis... Plus it could be tough recapturing your own planets if they ever run a PPP on you or do you just intel those rebel colonies?

[This message has been edited by jc173 (edited 22 May 2001).]

Re: Newbie Questions

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>4) Are storage colonies necessary?
I've seen people recommend these things, but I can't see the point... If a planet has low resource value it usually gets turned into a research or intel colony. My RTS mentality tells me that if I've got excess resources I should build a fleet and start declaring war<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I personally never build storage facilities. I always run up my fleets to use at least half my production in maintenance, and then build units.
Mines, troops, fighters cost no maintenance, and I can put all my excess resources into useful stuff.

I abhor storage facilities, and just build more stuff instead http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif More troops are always useful to keep the people happy, and mines can be thrown into orbit real easy.

Re: Newbie Questions

Both. Minimum resistance causes a direct drop in happiness and/or reproduction (not sure which) unless the population is on an optimal world.

It's now a major problem for me since my planets have a 20% production penalty because of their low happiness levels. I also have no natural population growth so my homeworld populations are getting lower and lower... I'm going to have to start trading / stealing population from other empires soon.

Unless you have some way of boosting happiness and reproduction artificially, or you plan to continually steal population, I do _not_ recommend setting happines & env resistance to minimum levels.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

Re: Newbie Questions

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>1) Other than for role-playing purposes is there any point to getting Religious Tech or Emotionless? (...)
Why emotionless? (3000 POINTS!!!) I've only had people riot when there's a plague...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>If you do capture planets, since the captured population takes on most of your attributes, you don't have to garrison the planet to prevent rioting. In any case, production will drop if happiness goes below Indifferent; that never happens with Emotionless. (I think Emotionless gets the same production boost as Happy, but I'm not sure about that.) <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>4) Are storage colonies necessary?

I've seen people recommend these things, but I can't see the point... If a planet has low resource value it usually gets turned into a research or intel colony. My RTS mentality tells me that if I've got excess resources I should build a fleet and start declaring war...
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>In one of my current games, I started off in an isolated cluster with no warp points out to the rest of the galaxy. I hate to "waste" surplus production, so I was actually scrapping resource production facilities to make space for storage facilities until I got Cargo 2 and upgraded everything. I think I ended up with 500K mineral storage, 300K organic, and 400K+ radioactives, all of which are at least 50% full at the moment. When I reach a point where I need more production, I can go the other direction and scrap excess storage.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft

Re: Newbie Questions

I like emotionless--I'm currently playing an emotionless race in a 2000 point PBEM game and am doing fine. I chose it because I don't like to be nagged but it keeps production up, keeps conquered folk from revolting, keeps my options free on wars and treaties (don't have to worry about upsetting the home folks), and means I don't have to research psych etc. early.

I also use troops extensively (although I am at 80%). Captured facilities can be junked if you don't want them but they can be a real time saver. And captured population can be very useful--especially early in the game.

Also, if you don't have ice colonization yet and there is this nice already colonized ice planet, troops allow you to add it to your collection. If you wiped it clean, you couldn't colonize it.

I admit I didn't use emotionless or troops against the AI--why bother? But against humans I think they are worth consideration.

[This message has been edited by LeTharg (edited 22 May 2001).]

Re: Newbie Questions

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>It's now a major problem for me since my planets have a 20% production penalty because of their low happiness levels. I also have no natural population growth so my homeworld populations are getting lower and lower... I'm going to have to start trading / stealing population from other empires soon.
Unless you have some way of boosting happiness and reproduction artificially, or you plan to continually steal population, I do _not_ recommend setting happines & env resistance to minimum levels.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I've started a 2000 point game where I took every one of the five, 1500 point racial tech areas http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif. I've had to set everything else to minimum levels, except for ship construction (100%), ship defence (125%) and mineral production (80%).
Currently, I have no planets with pop growth, but I've got 12 colonies in 4 systems, covering the center and top left corner of a medium sized map.

Basically, I've been trading everything. I sell ships for technology, then upgrade the ships I'm selling http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I've bought organic, crystalline, temporal, and then created kick *** ships to sell to my AI friends for planets, population, tech etc http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Newbie Questions

Hrm. Did they fix Emotionless so that when rioting planets surrender to you, you can actually get them to *stop* rioting?

Yes, for Religious, the Talisman is VERY nice. A heavy beam weapon on a ship normally can have a range of 8, but against an legendary crew with ECM III it might not hit that often -- without a Talisman. And a Starbase with max-mount beam weapons and a Talisman will *always* hit at even the maximum augmented range (something like +5 or so, IIRC). You can then ignore the very-expensive Sensors tech area, getting Hyper-Optics instead. The nature shrine is also good (saves a LOT of facility slots in a decent system), and the time shrine will tide you over until you build the System Robotoid Factories (which give higher bonuses IIRC).

Incidentally, that Talisman probably makes even regular weapons effective against fighter swarms.

In my Last game, I boosted ground combat for role-playing reasons (playing an utterly uber-competitive, selfish, cunning, brutal race without any advanced traits at all -- just bonuses, reducing only trade [arrogance angering off other races]). I never invaded anybody, although at one point I did produce heavily shielded troop transports each carrying ~150 Large Troops (2xShield, 3xGround Cannon, or something like that) just in case I felt the urge.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Newbie Questions

As for giving your race just 80% organics / radioactives extraction... try playing with devnullmod and/or organic tech. The emphasis is shifted away from simple mineral production.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

Re: Newbie Questions

If you are lazy like me you should have some storage in case you lose some resource producing planets or need to rapidly expand your fleet or upgrade you empire, 400-500k is usually more than enough. You can also spend the extra resources on units and ships like sj says and mothball them if you get in a jam. I like having a cushion.
I agree that in the standard game organic and radioactives are generally not a problem, unless you are an organic race or build a lot of facilities like the converter at one time. Even with your race set to 80% you will usually have enough of these.
Some other characteristics that I have found can be reduced are environmental tolerance (80-90%) and happiness (90-95%). There are facilities that can increase happiness and I have yet to find out what effect a low tolerance has. I usually edit these down on the AI and add to some other area.

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 22 May 2001).]

[This message has been edited by Nitram Draw (edited 22 May 2001).]

Re: Newbie Questions

Environmental resistance detrmines how well your species reporduces on planets with unsuitable environmental conditions.

I recently started a game where I sacrificed all my env resistance and happiness for production / combat bonuses and now all my planets are angry with 0% reproduction - and that's with urban pacification centre Is and medical facility Is.

------------------
"Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?"
"Uh, I think so, Brain, but balancing a family and a career ... oooh, it's all too much for me. "

Re: Newbie Questions

Do you think that is because of the reduction in happiness or resistance?

Re: Newbie Questions

First of all thank you for all the replies http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Hitting things hasn't been a problem because I can only play against comps... Which brings me to my first question. How do you people find SEIV opponents??? I looked at the PBEM forum and only saw TWO Posts http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Ground troops development is actually one of the lowest priorities on my list. It's a
convenience but not a necessity. Ships with good tech on the other hand are essential for survival.

jc173: Resource problems can also be solved by stealing 'em from whatever race I'm at war with http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon12.gif I have never seen a computer PPP me... I get back rebel colonies just by demanding them to surrender...

dogscoff: Actually I play an Organics Race mainly to help deal with the minerals shortage problems I usually have early on. Organic Armor and Replicant Centers are nice too along with Electric Ray IIIs on fighters http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

I also heard there was an Honor Harrington shipset in development. Any idea where this is? Is there gonna be a Peeps shipset along with it?

I've heard that people play with a high AI bonus, but does anyone play with limited resources? The reason why I'm considering doing this is because I find myself getting very bored late game (30 years). What are people's experiences (if any) with this? Do you think this'll cause the AI any problems?

Re: Newbie Questions

Here are a couple of resources for finding human opponents:
This is a very cool looking site that manages games. The only problem is that it won't work with 1.35. The new patch should correct that. http://seiv.admiral.com/index.html

There is a PBEM interest group on Yahoo http://Groups.yahoo.com/group/SE4-PBEM

I think you will find playing humans much more interesting than the AI. For example, humans won't surrender to you--they surrender to their ally or your enemy or do whatever they can to make things hard for you.

Re: Newbie Questions

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Hrm. Did they fix Emotionless so that when rioting planets surrender to you, you can actually get them to *stop* rioting?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>I dunno. I've never had a planet surrender to me; all the aliens I've captured were taken by ground invasion.

------------------
Cap'n Q

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft

Re: Newbie Questions

I had rioting enemy surrendered planets in one game. The surrender came after I had blockaded two systems then moved the remaining ships in two fleets (both about 10 dreadnoughts) into the home and an adjacent system. At the surrender every planet was rioting and I just scheduled a build of UPC in each system and moved my fleets. Coincidentally the move resulted in over 20 dreadnoughts in the surrendered home system next turn. I got a message in politics Category that the population of that system had grown happier due to the military protection, and it had improved each planet in that system to angry. So I just consolidated the fleet and did the systems one by one. Before I had reached the Last system it had stopped rioting on its own, about eight turns. So you can try that if you can afford the fleet maintenance...
Definitely build UPC in every system. Another thing that helps is 150 large troops, which is a heck of a lot cheaper.

Re: Newbie Questions

That's good to know. The only time I tried an Emotionless race, it was back far enough that Emotionless meant "emotions never *changed* with time", which caused the problem with surrendered planets. 3000 pts, 'tho. Ouch, that's a lot...

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Newbie Questions

Thank you for the links http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif Hope that next patch comes out soon...

Re: Newbie Questions

I've tried some finite resources games. The AI can have a hard time in long games because you can deplete a planet of resources. Early in the game the way the AI builds colonies actually helps them conserve resources. They don't run the risk of depleting a planet real fast as all of their colonied seem to have a variety of facilities.
It's a lot of fun to play this way against humans. You have to be careful what you build and you must save resources or control your extraction rate until you get a planet improvement facility.

Re: Newbie Questions

The finite resources game are boring. The Ai will not have any ship left by the end game and its just a huge planet-grab by the only human player.

Re: Newbie Questions

I usually don't use the shield skipping weapons. In the beginning I use Missils. Then, since I am usually temporal, I will use Tachyon Canons. For my star bases I will use 10 Heavy Mount Wave motion III's.

Religious is good for improving all your planet's production.

Baseships can give that needed punch when u need it.