Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Ok, I will start this thread because there have been several times where I suddenly realized something totally obvious that everyone else probably knows and I feel like a real bonehead for not realizing it earlier. I have played SE III for a long time and upgraded to SE4G when Gold was released. If not documented in the FAQ, or if you just have a funny story, post it here.

I just realized 15 minutes ago that you can tell the atmosphere type of a planet by its color. I know that everyone probably knew this, but I just realized it. DOH! No wonder I had been finding so frustrating to move alien population to the right breathing planet.

I don't normally use neutrals, so I didn't pick this one up early either, but about 2 months ago, I suddenly realized that you can immediately tell if a race is a neutral by their "bland" flag. After that ton of bricks hit me, I noticed that the same races always seem to be neutrals. Can anyone confirm that the batch of neutral races are always neutral? or are they sometimes non-neutral?

Of course, in the beginning, made all the rookie mistakes: no engines on a ship, not loading population on a colonizer, mothballing an entire fleet in space (including the spaceyard ship) so it got stranded, etc, etc...

Anyone else care to state the obvious that they didn't notice?

Slick.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Neutrals are in Pictures\RaceNeutral

Non-neutrals are in Pictures\Races

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">DOH!

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm... not always, for example there's a CO2 planet that has so much blue in its green I tend to mistake it for oxygen. The map editor will show you all the pictures under on heading.

Someone made a mod a long time ago that really changed pictures. I remember some airless moons were reddish brown.

[ January 18, 2003, 22:35: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Yeah, but those Carbon planets have vastly different patterns than the Oxygen planets, and it is fairly easy to tell them apart once you've played for a while.

What mod was that? Maybe it could be looted... err... borrowed from... for the Image Mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Another good example of the woes of colorblindness. I just checked this in my current game, and the first two carbon dioxide planets look completly different to me. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Play se4 a lot, and you'll memorize whatever they look like to you, and be able to tell at a glance what the planets are. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

I guess that is my problem...

I haven't played SE4 a lot! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Slick, you are not alone... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Even after not playing for long periods of time. I don't play at school, and when I came home for winter break, I had (almost) no problem. There are two tiny planets that I mix up sometimes, the Carbon Dioxide and Hydrogen tinies that have rings. CO2 is a tan color, and H2 is a reddish-brown. Usually if I give it more than a cursory glance, I can tell, but just scanning through systems, sometimes it fails to register.

But in stock SEIV, I'm pretty sure there's only about 200 planet pictures. Make a large map game, and play it from the afternoon until the wee hours of the morning. You'll know what all the planets are after that http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

I always mix up the two nearly-identical tiny planets with the squigglies all over them - one's hydrogen and one's CO2 I think... then there's the medium CO2 rock planet that looks like a gas giant, and the fact that some CO2 planets are green and some are brown...

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Was a long time ago, maybe the other oldtimers remember.

These old, overwired, memory neurons of mine seem to recal it was a husband and wife team? Or I could be delusional.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Anyone else not notice something obvious in the game for a year or so?

Or maybe you haven't noticed yet... Now I got ya thinking, don't I...

Slick.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

I played a lot of games almost withouth using Waypoints. The amount of mouse-work (I thought it) required made it seem like a waste of effort. Then I accidentaly pushed Ctrl-1 while I had a ship selected and the ship moved to Waypoint 1.

primitive

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Edit--obviously, this post was meant to go elsewhere. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ January 22, 2003, 03:27: Message edited by: Krsqk ]

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Along with Waypoints you can also give the
Move To command then
Sellect a destitnaiton from the planets list.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I did not know that either.

Slick.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

This is what we call a "No-Duh" in NJ... otherwise known as a "DOH!"

Colony ships load different population types, not necessarily from the planet that built them. You have to think of population as cargo. If you have several planets, each with different atmosphere breathing populations, you can use the "Load Cargo" order to pick up the right type for the intended destination on its way.

Sounds pretty obvious, huh?

I remember banging my head against the wall, trying to remember why my new Carbon Dioxide Giant only gave me 5 facilities. My race's breathing type was Carbon Dioxide... there was a green asterisk next to the planet... what gives? Then I remembered the colony ship was built at a planet I had received from an ally (breathing type: oxygen).

Then someone told me about right clicking the population icons in the planet display window.

I take all this for granted now, but it was a bit confusing as a newbie!
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

The only "trick" I know is that you can take advantage of how the sentry order works to set up some automatic actions.. For example, a group of fighters on sentry, with orders: refuel, move here, sentry, and repeat. They'll stand guard until they run low on supplies, resupply, and fly back to their original location, and go back into guard mode until they run low again.

Nothing particularly impressive but I was proud nonetheless. ^.^

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Are you sure that this was not the natural place for the post, and it was only trying to get here?

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

HEY COOl. when setting up a small WP, and choosing a large mount, I noticed the little L on the direct fire weapons. Gee, now I don't have to wonder what kind of mount other WP have when looking at them in tactical combat and hunting the info down. du huh huh huh. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/rolleyes.gif

Not to be surpassed by me not noticing the "weapon mount" button when designing the large WP that I built 20+ of. with regular mount. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif That can't be retrofitted or recycled. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif
lol

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Are you sure that this was not the natural place for the post, and it was only trying to get here?</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Considering the original content dealt with a previously-acquired 60-planet pack for SE4 Classic, I doubt that was the case. However, I am not an expertly-trained text psychologist, and probably am not qualified to make such an assesment.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Krsqk:
It has nothing to do with psychology, but everything to do with metaphysics (of the philisophy kind, not the kind with aging hippies that get stoned all day long http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ).

Couslee:
You can jettison them into space to clear room for better platforms.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

I know I can jettison them. AND, I think it is stupid that anything that is planet based can't be recycled. Period. (have ranted about that before).

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

That is part of the cost of them having no maintenance costs.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

couslee,
I don't think it is about logic. I sussupect it is about game ballence and coading. Most lilley there is a modual of code that applys to all units. This includes what you can do to units on a planet.
I would rather he work on other aspects of the game than changing his nusance.

[ January 27, 2003, 12:22: Message edited by: Gryphin ]

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

Fyron, that is a good point, and well taken.

Ok, this is not game related, but....
I joined at the PBW site, and went to my email to get the password. I went to my inbox and started deleting the sneaky-spam. After the third page of garbage I said to myself, sure is a lot of spam getting through, and nothing from anyone else. Figured maybe the password got delayed, or maybe I entered my email wrong. 2 More pages of crap deleted, and I am really starting to wonder whats up. sixth page, selecting each email all the the way... all crap, hit delete. I get the new screen that the BULK MAIL folder is empty.

I hate dementia and the meds that go with it. But we are all happy in here.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Gryphin, are you all right ? I don't remember you spelling like this ! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...s/confused.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

< The Gryphin Gryns >
Oleg yore write. Good cetch. I found the probblem. There is commputer virus that missells almost everything I post to to the web. Odly it dos not do it in my emale.

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

I made a nice little weapons platform on turn 4 after having two battles already. Can you guess what I called it?
.
.
.
.
"Design Name"
.
D'OH

I think I am going to leave it, so next time I do bone head thing like that I will get an edit "name already in use". http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Holy Atmospheres, Batman!!! aka stating the obvious
 

couslee,
I like that idea. I think I'll create a Platform with "Design Type" X, (which puts it at the bottom of the list where it won't get in the way), and call it "Design Name".
Thanks for the idea. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif