Rookie Mistakes
 

Opened up one of my PBW games the other day, the log pops up like usual and there are about 20 identical Messages saying things were scrapped or construction was stopped because of a lack of resources.

I just failed to check the empire's economy for god knows how many turns. Never considered I didn't have enough funny money.

Couldn't believe it. What a stupid mistake.

The other thing, I think I have done in half of my games, both PBW and single, is to completely forget that there are weapons mounts. I build like 4 or 5 lt. Cruisers before I realize that I didn't add a mount.

Maybe I am in too many games.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Hehe. The dumb thing I always seem to do is leave repeat build in my queues. Had a huge planet once with like 15 space ports built before I realized it. And I had one game where I had 4 or five planets building colony ships, but then I spaced out cause a war opened up in a diferent part of my empire. Totally forgot about the colony ships. Next time I looked at that system I had 15 colony ships built sitting idle and more poping out every turn.

Geoschmo

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

*sigh*
Every so often in an attempt to squeeze every Last kt out of a design I will forget to put engines on my ships or fighters and then wonder why a newly build ship has no supplies. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Oh hell yea! Best was when I forgot to put engines on my drones...I launched them and they more or less instantly exploded from lack of supplies.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

ROFL! You know that might be a cheap and effective way to bluff your opponent though. He warps into your homesystem and the next turn right before he is to hit your planet he sees 200 drones rise from the planets surface. He'd be on his way out of the system before he saw them disintegrate. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Try dropping a load of "riot-control" troops (i.e., small troops with only a troop cockpit, no weapons/shields/armor) onto an enemy planet for an invasion... and watch 100's of troops just get massacred by the militia...

Or forget to keep track of your colonies' happiness - nothing like a sudden message that colony XXX is rioting...

Or retrofit a ship to get new engines, but do the retrofit at a location with no resupply depot...

Or, best of all, attempt to send a message demanding that another empire surrender to yours, and then realize you chose the message to offer YOUR surrender...

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Which reminds me to ask.

Has anyone ever tried to drop troops on a fully loaded sphereworld? How many milita would there be, and is it really possibly to capture one given stock components? How many troops would that take? Might be quicker to build yourself a sphereworld than take one.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

I think the tactic to taking a sphereworld intact would be several fully loaded transports. And hope your troops can survive the ten rounds of combat needed to allow the next transport to drop reinforments. I think as long as the combat doesn't come to a conclusion the militia dont' return to full strength. So if you keep dropping reinforcments you should eventually overwhelme them.

Geoschmo

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

My most frequent silly mistake is giving a ship or fleet new orders without clearing its previous Sentry orders first.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

The one that keeps biting me is the "repeat" order on a build queue, when I change from building all the mines I can to some kind of facilities or ships. I'd really like an option to clear the "repeat" order whenever the first queue item changes.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

I agree about "repeat". It would be better if SE goes through whole order and then cycles back. This way one can program a planet to build mines, fighters, troops, ships, etc. without a need to revisit it almost every other turn !

[ August 29, 2002, 19:18: Message edited by: oleg ]

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

At the start of the game, when I'm not focused, I do either one of two things:

Forget to start researching
Forget to build anything

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif it cost me a game.

On the sphearworld:

Militia: 3200 for 64 billion
Number of troops needed to take sphearworld in one fell swoop: 460 Large Troops equipped with 2 sheild generators and 3-4 ground cannons

Causes an access violation.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Terran, have you tested that recently for access violations. I think some of those got fixed with the latest patch.

You could get 460 troopers on a single large transport with cargo III's I think.

Geo

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Hmm Maybe we should compile a top 10 list of rookie mistakes to help the newbies along:

1 - Sending out a colony ship with no population on board (this has got to be #1 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif )
2 - Forgeting to remove the 'Divide points evenly' on the research screen.
3 - Giving ships or fleets orders without clearing previous orders.
4 - Building mines or satellites and not realizing you need to launch them
5.....

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

... 5. Not using weapon mounts. In my PBW games this is by far the most noticable mistake.

You know, guys, I must play this game way differently than most of you. When i get my turn, I first check the log very carefully, then I go to each system and check every ship/fleet and planet. When I've done all my systems, I then go through each of the screens-- colonies, ships, construction, research, empire, log again (to reply to Messages) and finally diplomacy. Then I worry about what I missed!! It is not unusual for a typical turn to take me 4 hours!

As an example, I am playing in The Quest for Terran Prime, as is Geo. I've seen Geo take less than ten minutes to play a turn in that "little" game. Tonight's turn took me nearly 2 hours.

I savor every turn and to me that is the enjoyment of the game. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif Not that my way is any better, but this gives me max pleasure.

Kim

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

My biggest repeated mistake is playing a 1AM.
(Hmm, posted at 1:41AM) better quit befor I make all of those mistakes.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Here are just SOME of the dumb things I have done:

- built 2 spaceyard ships to go with my defense fleet. When the fleet got on station and things were calm, I decided to mothball a few ships to skimp on resources. Well if you mothball both of your spaceyard ships, you can't unmothball anything without an active spaceyard. Had to build another ship to go over there to rescue the mothballed ships. Actually I have done this more than once which I will never admit to.

- Accidentally launched 100 mines from the planet instead of loading them onto my minelayer. Unrecoverable.

- When I FINALLY got that 2nd colonizing tech, I went hog wild and built countless new colonizers to get all those juicy new plum planets in all my systems without actually figuring out if my economy could handle it. Needless to say after some ships were abandoned, I was glad for the "queue on hold" option.

- Same hog wild story with Monoliths. Those suckers are expensive!

- Too eager to wait for the rest of my fleet (which had minesweepers) and kick some butt with my new battleship (I was at least 2 ship sizes higher than my puny AI neighbor) that I ran right into a minefield 2 turns after commissioning it. Kaboom.

- forgot to put engines on a new design, built 3 simultaneously before I noticed. "Wow, I seem to have come up with a new killer design that looks much more impressive than previous designs."

- desperately needed a resource converter. Barely kept economy under control and was losing a battle on 2 fronts while I researched the tech. Finally got it. Then built a Ultra-Recycler instead - didn't realize it until it was completed and I couldn't figure out how to make the Recycler convert resources. Ouch.

- Very low on supplies and using that colonizer for exploration, I decided to check that next system. If it was empty, I had a nice greenie close to the warp point in the current system. OOPS! next system was a black hole. ***sound of your straw sucking up the Last of your McDonald's chocolate shake*** and it was gonzo.

- [very early on...] I can take that fleet out - no problem. Wow, what is an Allegiance Subverter?

- "your star will explode in 3 years". Well 3 years in game time for me was many hours later and I totally forgot about the warning...

- Then there was the time that a spacial anomoly moved a powerful enemy base into my home system.

Slick

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Some of my biggest mistakes come from using the filters on the turn log, so I'm only displaying the construction log.

Next turn I forget that the filter's on and miss out on all the critical research notices, battles, diplomatic Messages...

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

With very limited playing time I've managed to send a huge Invasion Fleet on a one way do or die mission with several EMPTY transports, the troops still chilling planetside. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif
And in every game I've played I've managed to click the Upgrade Facilities button when I could Least afford it! Grrrr... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ten minutes? I wonder why I was so slow that night? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif I think most of my turns in that game have been, Hmm, ok, still got research going, ok, no new enemy fleets showed up, END TURN! Of course that game is a little wierd being colonize only own planet type and atmosphere. It helps speed things up when you only have 4 planets. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Geoschmo

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I'm impressed; my record for a single turn is a bit over 2 hours; a typical turn is only half an hour.

I usually go through (F10 or autodisplay) Log, (F8) Research, (F9) Empires/Intelligence (if the game has progressed that far), (F11) Empire Status, (F7) Construction, (F6) Ships every turn, plus (F4) Planets, (F5) Colonies, and (F3) Designs as needed.

I have to actively suppress the urge to double- and triple-check things.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">10 minutes for a single turn? Man, that is an eternity! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Posted by Slick,
"I FINALLY got that 2nd colonizing tech, I went hog wild and built countless new colonizers to get all those juicy new plum planets in all my systems "

Or in my case, Got new colonizing tech,
Into "The Creator"
Ships &gt; Copy Colony Rock &gt; Rename &gt; Create &gt; Go "Hog Wild" building colonizers &gt; Send them off with great antisispation &gt; Can't understand why I get the message, "Colonization Not Possible"

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The latest patch? Do you mean V1.78?
Tested it with that and I couldn't overwhelm a sphearworld with one shot with a LT so I created a baseship on 2 engines, 1 QR, Master Comp, and everything else cargo bay 3s.

And, yes, it does create an access error.

As for the transports:

Transport optimized for speed and cargo:
975 small troops
650 medium Troops
487 Large troops

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

TerranC, have you send thta info to MM?

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So of course, I broke that in the next turn I played after I posted. 2+ hours is still my record for multiplayer, but my solo record is now 3 1/4 hours.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

I took over an hour to do a turn on Friday, but I went to lunch during it and left it up on my computer. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">So ya cheated to get the high turn duration, eh? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

And here I was thinking of sleeping overnight with it on my computer! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Usually i only spend like 20 or so mins per turn, but if its the w/e then i can spend up to like an hour actively working, three to four if this is the eve of a big invasion and i have to run combat sims non-stop and then deca-check my orders then check them one more time, finally i say a few prayers and hit the end turn button, cause after all that work you don't want to forget to do one thing and have to do it all over again.

I sure wish you coudl "save in progress" turns or even edit them so to speak so hitting end turn isn't so climatic.

This morning i was just playing around with some fighter wars where i would sick fleets of four or six heavy carriers, a few support ships and the 600+ fighters in Groups of 10 on each other. the tactical combat took like 30 mins easy. Once, for fun i fought the computer 60 ships (67000 kt in ships) vs 80 (him 80) It took forever, but was very fun. (I won, with 10 ships left, only one unscathed)

If i may proceede to digress, how about the ability for space stations to appear over the planet in the simulator instead of seperate or over the WP so i can test WP assaults or planet assaults, i can't stand how i can't sim that stuff.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I dont think that's needed.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I dont think that's needed.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">From my experience, reporting bugs that are not registered as fixed in the history, is a good idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You have my vote! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

[quote]Originally posted by capnq:

Quote:

I have to actively suppress the urge to double- and triple-check things.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The very thing I am struggling with now!

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

then it would become "anti-climatic" a much better result IMHO. But until later i'm off to play a game of CTF, not FPS but at night (PST) in downtown palo alto. It will rock!

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Another recent one:

1) Design a New & Improved weapons platform.

2) Multi-Add the new WP to all your planets. The new design takes 2 turns to build.

3) Next turn, forget to jettison old WPs to make room for the new ones that will be finished next turn.

[ September 02, 2002, 17:31: Message edited by: capnq ]

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

CTF in downtown palo alto? what if you trip over a yuppie or a hipster college student?

seriously though, that sounds rad. do you use paintballs? and do you clear such activities with the police beforehand, and if not then i assume you are of such an age that there are no serious legal consiquences for mischivous behavior?

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

PBW Rookie Mistake.

D/l the new turn, unzip to SEIV savedgames, open launcher, select correct mod, open SE4, select game, select empire, enter password, start turn...

Give ship new orders, change production, change research, design several new ships for retrofit, give other ships new orders, study map, wonder if that guy to the east is planning something...naw, refleet ships, study map some more, get a beer, ponder if you should start researching mine sweepers, finally click on Messages...."WTF, I know I've read this before." (Long sting of curse words)

Actual mistake:
Unzipped game file to wrong SE4 Version.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Since I am a SEIV rookie, for the most part, I am making tons of mistakes. Good to know other people do it too. I think my biggest ones just come from the game being so big, I have trouble tracking what all I can do, so I tend to leave ships lying around in the wrong places, etc.

On the other hand, I just learned the other day from reading the forum that you could put population on the colonizers, in my first 10-15 games I was always making pop transports and having them go along with the colonizers to drop off people, now I feel really stupid.

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

DOH!!!! he says while banging his head repeatably on the monitor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

There are no stupid questions. Just stupid people like me http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif Time for bed, yea thats it, I'm just so tired. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

[ September 10, 2002, 18:49: Message edited by: Wardad ]

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Here's one I'm really good at:

Detach ship from fleet to attack enemy ship. What could go wrong? Target ship is cloaked, detached ship has no sensors, fleet is leaving system. Doh!

Re: Rookie Mistakes
 

Puke
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I go to the esteemed Gunn High Schoo. *snicker* where they don't approve of students getting beers while finishing off PBW turns, sadly. And are raising quite a stink about it. However, the PAPD doesn't care, except when people jump off the roof (like one guy did once) in front of their patrol cars, in that case they get pissed, its tons of fun, right now we're playing at gunn because i dunno,but yeah.