Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

I've been reading the forums and strategy guides, but there are a couple of issues I'm still not sure about.

1. Racial traits:
Can't be traded to other races? Or are we just not doing it right?

2. Mines:
I got mine-happy right after I researched the tech, and made nearly all my shipyards build a couple of turns worth of mines. I figured, "Hey, they're not doing anything in the cargo hold, let's launch them and I can have a mine layer come by and pick them up later." I just blew it, right? No way to recover a mine once it's launched into space?

3. Building expensive stuff:
Just researched some planet making and warp closing techs, but 2.4 years to build a ship??!! And this is a minimum-loaded engines and technology science frigate. I know I can research ship yards II and III, (jeez, those are expensive), and can load my key planets full to increase the production rate, but any other tips for building expensive stuff? (No I can't have temporal shipyards.) How about a base with a shipyard facility at the same location? Would they share the load on a single building project?

[Rant] And what the heck is it with these descending-sort forums? They're impossible to read a long thread without doing a stutter-step scroll. Pain in the a** [/Rant]

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-MegaTrain-
Athlon 1.3 GHz running at 1.6 GHz on an iWill KK266

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

Welcome aboard.

1. Racial traits.

Hrm. I suppose you're talking about trading the technologies themselves. If you don't have the prerequisite racial trait(s), if any, you won't be able to get the technology itself -- through trade, theft, or analysis.

The best that you can do is build ships and trade those, but if it has tech you don't understand, you still won't be able to "edit" it by refitting.


2. Nope. No mine recovery once launched. You can try to detonate them, if you're up against the unit-in-space limit.


3. I've had ships take 5 years to build, with SY III and no penalties; Stellar Manipulation is expensive, after all. No, you can't use multiple shipyards to speed up construction on one project. You could emergency build the Last 15 turns (=> 10 turns, but then 10 turns of 25% rate).

Population, racial bonuses, culture bonuses, and shipyard type matter. I don't remember whether happiness does, beyond not rioting; it's important enough already for the resource bonuses that I try to keep everybody at Jubilant.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

I'm sure the more experienced folk around here will correct me if I'm wrong but I'll take a stab at answering your questions.

1- If by Racial Traits you mean Racial Technology like Psycjic Weapons, then as far as I know, no one else can use that technology. (You have to be Psychic in order to use a Psychic weapon, you have to be religious in order to use a religious artifact). Can't Give'em, Can't trade'em, can't steal'em.
If this isn't what you mean, then please explain.

2-You are correct. Once launched there is no way to recover. Even if launched by accident, once you move them from the left to the right, you can't put'em back.

3- I don't believe you can split production between yards on the same Item. If the item you are building can be split among ships, but need to be in the same spot to function (ringworld?)then you can build multiple ships at different locations. The ways you mentioned as well as a happy population and a good Racial Engineering trait will all help you build faster. I believe there is a way to check which of your yards builds at the fastest rate but I can't remember what it is!

Hope that Helps,
RhineStone Cowboy

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

Thanks, guys. Pretty much what I thought. Major, you said that you can't trade the Racial Technology if you don't have the racial trait. I assume you also can't trade the Racial Trait ITSELF, like "Very Religious".

Also: is there a way to change the sort order while reading a thread to show the most recent stuff at the END of the list? I hate doing the stutter-step scroll for long Posts.

[This message has been edited by MegaTrain (edited 02 October 2001).]

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>So is there a way to change the sort order while reading a thread to show the most recent stuff at the END of the list?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

Er, right. No trading racial traits themselves. Even populations you assimilate from other empires will assume your racial traits; e.g. you cannot use population from a Crystalline race to build Crystalline ships or research Crystalline tech unless you're Crystalline yourself. Note, tho', that facilities don't vanish; for instance, if you receive a colony containing buildings that you can't and won't ever be able to build, you still get full benefits from them. Likewise, if you receive a colony that was packed over-full by somebody with Advanced Storage Techniques, the "extra" facilities don't vanish.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Rhinestone Cowboy:
1- If by Racial Traits you mean Racial Technology like Psycjic Weapons, then as far as I know, no one else can use that technology. (You have to be Psychic in order to use a Psychic weapon, you have to be religious in order to use a religious artifact). Can't Give'em, Can't trade'em, can't steal'em.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>While it is true you can't give, trade or steal the racial technology itself, you can give trade and steal ships with racial tech components on them.

If a psychic race builds a ship with allegiance converters, he can give it to me, or trade it to me, or I can maybe capture it with boarding parties or intel, or get it if he surrenders to me. I can then use it just as he would. But I can't build new ones, and I can't repair the racial components if they get damaged. And I can deconstruct and anylyze it, but it won't do me any good, because I can't understand the technology behind it.

Geoschmo

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

you CAN trade ships built with your racial technology. this way, when a fleet becomes obsoleet, instead of refitting it or mothballing it, you could concievably trade it to another empire in exchange for something.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I just blew it, right? No way to recover a mine once it's launched into space?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>On the bright side, these will make for a nasty surprise the first time an enemy tries to attack that world. This planet defense trick generally only works once against a human opponent.

The reverse order Messages can be frustrating when you first encounter it, but you get used to it surprisingly quickly. It has the advantage that you don't have to scroll all the way down the thread to find the first post you haven't read, especially once the thread goes over one page.

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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
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, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

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

Quote:

I just blew it, right? No way to recover a mine once it's launched into space? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>On the bright side, these will make for a nasty surprise the first time an enemy tries to attack that world. This planet defense trick generally only works once against a human opponent.

on the other hand, it forces them to bring minesweepers every time they attack a planet.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

QUOTE:
3. Building expensive stuff:
/QUOTE

This is generally considered an exploit, and in a vs human game it might well be considered cheating, but there's always the retrofit chain.

Basically you build a cheap ship, and then retrofit it bit by bit until you get to your desired design. Each design has to cost less than 150% of the previous design (cost=org+min+rad) .Since retrofitted compnnts are always added to the ship in just one turn, no matter how long they should take to build, you can knock years off your construction time.

Like I say, human opponents might not appreciate you doing this, so use it at your own risk.

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SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M&gt;M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

Hmm... Let's figure this out.

Approx. cost of a current attack vessel: 6400
(buildable in 2 turns at a big shipyard)
Cost of my warp closer ship: 85000

So I'd need to come up with intermediate designs of the same ship size that cost no more than:

(2 turns to build the original ship)
Turn Cost
---- ------
1: (building)
2: 6400
3: 9600 - added 3200
4: 14400 - added 4800
5: 21600 - added 7200
6: 32400 - added 10800
7: 48600 - added 16200
8: 72900 - added 24300
9: 109350 - added 36450

DAMN!!! .9 years instead of 2.9 !!??!! Less if you start with an existing ship of the same size.

I like it. mooohahahahaha... An exponential curve, you could make outrageously expensive ships in a fraction of the time.

So can you upgrade a ship a second time before the just-upgraded components have been repaired? If not that would make it 1.6 years instead of .9. Still not too bad.

Another question: Does it actually COST me that amount (the difference in the design cost) per turn to upgrade it? I assume it would, and that would start eating away at your resource stockpile pretty quickly.

I like it. Is this a verified strategy? Does it work? Is it an "approved" strategy, or are they going to "fix" it?

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-MegaTrain-
Athlon 1.3 GHz running at 1.6 GHz on an iWill KK266

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

it cant be 'fixed' without either lowering the retrofit percentage from 50 to something else, which would probably break retrofitting. I think its fine in a simultanious game where each step takes a full turn, and you still have to pay the higher cost to get it done faster. i hardly ever have the resources to retrofit with anyhow. if you have leftover resources, then your fleet is too small.

the real exploit is in a sequential game where you can do all those steps in one turn, but those are mostly single player and as such you are only cheating yourself.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

Also: can I retrofit a 6000 to a 9000?
Or would the limit be 8999?

(throws my curve off just slightly)

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Does it actually COST me that amount (the difference in the design cost) per turn to upgrade it? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes it would, probably even more since you will be replacing existing components to fit your price curve exactly.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>So can you upgrade a ship a second time before the just-upgraded components have been repaired? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes you can.


[This message has been edited by CW (edited 04 October 2001).]

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by MegaTrain:
&lt;snip&gt;
Another question: Does it actually COST me that amount (the difference in the design cost) per turn to upgrade it? I assume it would, and that would start eating away at your resource stockpile pretty quickly.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It's more complicated than that; looking at settings.txt, you pay 30% of each component REMOVED, plus 120% of each component ADDED.

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L++ GdY $ Fr&gt;Fr++ C++ SdS T-- Sf Tcp? A%% M- Mp! RTH!P Pw Fq--&gt;Fq+ Nd&gt;Nd+++++ Rp++ G+

Re: Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game
 

As of v1.35, and in P&N games, it is 10% the cost of removed components, plus 70% of the price for adding components.