Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

Hello all,

I guess I am a semi-newbie, I am in my third game of SE4, experimenting as I go along. I have never played SE3 but know MOO2. I have the full game, Version 1.35. During the Last few days I got further in research than ever before, and consequently many questions came up that I have not yet been able to solve by experimentation. Also the included manual (htm files) say nothing about these issues... I hope I can draw on your collected wisdom to get some answers ! OK, here goes:

1: Victory Conditions: are these cumulative? In my Last game, (I had assumed that reaching any of the conditions would win the game), my game suddenly terminated because I think I reached the level of required points. I also had "1.0 years of peace" required and am sure that requirement was not met, but still the game stopped. Unfortunately you cannot continue playing after that. Now, in my third game, I have reached the points requirement, but somehow I can continue playing?! Must I now meet ALL the requirements I configured? (80% of tech, 1 year of peace, etc. ?)


2: If cloaking detection sensors are placed on satellites, must the satellites be launched by the planet in order to see cloaked units in that entire system?

3: Ship/ Fleet Training: What's better? Ship training seems better, if you train a fleet then the individual ships loose the experience when you take them out of the fleet. What exactly does ship exp. or fleet exp. give you? up to 20% attack bonus?

4: Mines: What is better to deploy: many small ones or a few big ones?

5: Intelligence: if you have level 3 counterintelligence, why can you still choose levels 1 and 2? This is implemented weirdly. It seems initially to be similar to research, but is very different. You need to have a counterintel project running at all times. If you run level 1, you are still vulnerable to level 2 and 3 attacks, so always use the highest one. You don't "get" anything when you complete the project...it just has to be there. Run your own intel offenses alongside the counterintel. (use "divide points evenly"). And if your current counterintel project succesfully blocks an attack, it suddenly jumps to 1 turn from completeness...why?!

6: There is no class for a Remote Mining ship, so I had to make one myself. But the AI Minister does not know how to deal with it. I typically park the miner on an asteroid field and put him on Sentry duty, so I can forget about him. But he won't go to resupply fuel when necessary...Is there any way to solve this?

7:Why would you ever use torpedoes? How are they different from missiles?

8:How does multiplexing work? Will multiplex 2 let you shoot at a second ship if you kill the first ship and still have unused weapons left? Or is it only good against things like fighters and missiles, which come in Groups?


9 http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/ima...ons/icon10.gifoes anybody ever put Auxiliary Control (secondary bridge) on their ships? Seems pointless to me, even if you have only one bridge and it gets destroyed, your ship will continue to move and fight...

10: When you discover Propulsion 7, you also get the Ripper Beams weapon. It is cheap, but does very little damage and only at a range of 1 or 2. In what cases would you ever need this weapon? It has no special abilities, just does normal damage...
Another component that seems to give very little "bang for the buck" is a shield renewer. Does anybody use those?

11: If you put two Repair Bay III's on a ship, can you repair 16 or still just 8 components per turn?

12: Do phased shields stop normal damage as well, or ONLY damage from phased weapons?

That's all I have so far...

Thank you in advance for any answers !
You can also reach me at phelmich@wxs.nl , maybe for a multiplayer PBW game?

Dragonlord

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

4. The advantage of deploying small mines is that the mine sweeper components sweep a fixed number of mines--small, medium or large. For the same cost, you could deploy twice as many small mines as medium ones, and they would be less likely to be sweeped.

It is possible that large mines have an advantage when attacking the ship. I can't remember if the consensus is that mines attack the ship one at a time or warheads. If it were mines, then someone thought a large mine might penetrate your armor while a small one wouldn't. (I think they said that if the first mine didn't penetrate the armor, then none of them would?) However, I think the Last commentary I read thought each warhead attacked the ship. Hopefully someone wiser than me will post the answer.

5. Intelligence - I don't think anyone has quite figured out intelligence. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif We do know that a level 3 CI project will run longer because it has a higher cost. But other than that... lots of theories. http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

6. I think remote mining is a *huge* waste of resources. You are much better off building a colony ship and colonizing the planet. If you can't colonize it now, you'll eventually be able to colonize it. It has to be a very good planet (probably with moons) to be cost effective for very long.

8. Exactly. Without multiplexing, your ship might have 20 weapons. If the first weapon kills an enemy ship, then other 19 won't fire until the next combat turn. But with the multiplexer, you can fire at multiple ships.

10. Ripper beams lead to the Wave Motion Gun. That's about their only purpose.

Some folks really like the shield recharger components. If you fight pretty even battles in terms of numbers of ships and technology, maybe they are okay. I don't use them since I just play against the computer and always have superior numbers. Maybe in PBEM/PBW they are very effective.

11. Right. You can put as many Repair Bay III's as will fit on a ship, and all of the Repair Bay III's will repair components each turn.

12. Phased shield stop all damage. BTW, at one time there was a bug in the game that disabled the 'phased' effectiveness of phased shields if you also had a normal shield in the mix.

Hope that helps. Have you downloaded any of the shipsets available over in the Mod Forum?

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

[quote]Originally posted by Dragonlord:
Hello all,
Hello. Welcome to the forum.

1: Don't know what's going on there, but Victory conditions do *NOT* carry over from one game to the next. Did you set the "conditions only apply after X turns" on?

2: Yes.

3: 20% Experience (whether gained from training or combat) would give your ships a 20% less-likely-to-be-hit modifier and a 20% more-likly-to-hit-with-direct-fire-weapons modifier. As for fleet xp VS ship xp... not sure.

4: Advantages / disadvantages to both.
many small mines are harder to sweep than a few large ones, but I think their effects can be more easily negated by huge components and armour due to a "feature" in the way the game handles damage. Also, it's probably cheaper to produce 1 large mine than the equivalent damage in small . Oh, and there's also a limit to the number of units you can have in space at any one time, so large mines would be better once that kicks in.

5: It does work, and it has been explained. Does anyone remember the thread which explained it all? Basically counter-intel is confusing but there's good logic in there somewhere. You're right though, once you have CI III there's little point starting a CI I or a CI II

6: I don't use ministers so my way to solve it is to switch the ministers off and micromanage. Not a very helpful response, sorry.

7: Pass.

8: Multiplex 2 lets you divide your fire between two different ships in the same combat turn. You don't necessarily have to destroy the first ship before you can fire on the second. Multiplex 3 lets you fire on 3 ships and so on.


9: There's another current thread about this. Some ppl use it, some don't. The advantage is that although your ship will still be able to fight without a bridge, it's movment will be halved. AuxCon lts you keep full movement.

10: Ripper Beam: Don't know. I think the advantage is the damage compared to the tonnage - 200 ktons of ripper beams will do more damage than 200 tons of (for example) PPBs
Shield regenerators: These are great. Say you have 300 shield points at the start of combat, but no shield regenerators: that's all you get. Once those 300 are gone your ship is shieldless until the next fight. With regenerators, you can go in, lose all 300 shield points in the first combat turn, then back off and a few comabt turns later you'll be back to 300 points, ready to go in and continue fighting. Very handy against boarding parties, which are blocked by any rmaining shield points.

11: I think (not sure) you can repair 16 components but they would have to be on 8 on one ship and 8 on another - any one ship can only be worked on by one repair bay/ ship yard at a time. Someone might correct me on this though.

12: Phased shields stop everything, except things like engine damagers and Wave motion Guns which skip all shields.


------------------
"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: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>11: I think (not sure) you can repair 16 components but they would have to be on 8 on one ship and 8 on another - any one ship can only be worked on by one repair bay/ ship yard at a time. Someone might correct me on this though.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>In that example, you could repair 16 components on one ship, or 1 component on 16 different ships.
The total repair points for the sector are added up and applied to each ship in turn.
The first ship will be determined based on your repair priority, but then work will continue on that ship until it is fully repaired (even if it takes more than one turn).

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>10: When you discover Propulsion 7, you also get the Ripper Beams weapon. It is cheap, but does very little damage and only at a range of 1 or 2. In what cases would you ever need this weapon? It has no special abilities, just does normal damage... Another component that seems to give very little "bang for the buck" is a shield renewer. Does anybody use those?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ripper beams are the most efficient weapons in the game. 200kT of rippers will do more damage than 200kT of any other weapon (shield depleters excepted, but they can't damage a ship). Elite tactics include using a tractor beam to pull ships in, slaughter them with the extreme damage potential of your RBs, then use a repulsor to shove away whatever's left before it can fire back http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Note that the SheildRegenerator 5 is a bug. It should be only 20kT in size (its a copy-paste error from SE3).
But, anyways, if your ship is expected to survive more than 7 battle turns in combat, adding shield regenerators is more effective than extra shields!.

Basically, your PSG V gives 375 hitpoints.
Two shield regenerators (at the same space used) provide 50 hitpoints per turn.
At seven turns, you have regenerated 350 more hitpoints.

So these are excellent for very large ships, or hit-and-run ships, or boarding party ships (which lose their shields when they capture). Also, a race with a very good defense modifier will tend to survive in combat long enough for it to be worthwhile.

With the additional benefit of blocking boarding parties, they are quite useful.

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

Note that the rippers are the most efficient but not necessarily the most effective. It is easy to overlook the rippers though, due to the short range.

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

True, but the tractor beam tactic was created to make them effective. Add in a large shield depleter just before the rippers, and you can eat dreadnaughts for breakfast http://www.shrapnelgames.com/ubb/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

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

12: Phased shields stop everything, except things like engine damagers and Wave motion Guns which skip all shields.

[/b]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Wave motion guns do normal damage. Null-Space Weapons skip shields and armor.

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

Dragonlord,

First and foremost I must say that you have excellent questions. Most of these things perplexed me as well at first (and some still do!) Perhaps the players putting together Strategy guides could use some of this info...

Dogscoff: (#5) I have to say that Intelligence & CI still is unreliable (and NOT explained) in PBEM or Strategic multiplayer games. I have heard no official clarification since we posted questions and sent a potential bug in to Malfador several months ago.

If you go to the thread(s), you will only find debates among members (some quite excellent), but certainly no final word.

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

I guess I should bite my tongue:

Posted with the new patch (6):

8. Fixed - Successful intelligence defense would sometimes result in you having intel defense projects more accomplished then when they started.

I will have to check it out!!

Re: Many (semi) newbie questions...advice requested.
 

All,

First of all, thank you for all the replies. I see I am not alone wondering about some of these things !

OK, about my original 12 questions, I am left with these:

1: Don't know what's going on there, but Victory conditions do *NOT* carry over from one game to the next. Did you set the "conditions only apply after X turns" on?

Yes, I had conditions apply after 5 years. I met one condition in year 9, the game continued, then yesterday I met a second condition (300% score of player2) and then the game finally decided I had won. My original question is still unanswered though...

5: counterintel..maybe this will be better with patch 6.

6: maybe the global resupply minister would help here...hmm must try.

7: Why would you ever use torpedoes? How are they different from missiles?

10: Ripper Beams...am still not really convinced, maybe they get better at levels 3 or 4...but a level 1 or 2 is useless compared to other weapons I had at that stage. (I loved the level 5 phased weapons!)


Now, from many of your comments about tactics and weapons I gathered you use Tactical combat mostly, even in multi player. Bus I heard that only Strategic combat is available in PBEM and PBW ?! Thats a big bummer, because the AI sucks in strategic combat. Often it will kill my fleets when I attack a planet and let the AI handle combat, but if I then reload and manage the attack myself I can capture the planet without a single point of damage to my ships.

One thing I found out: AI cannot handle my PD ships. I have some "Fighterkillers" in my fleet that have 10 PD on them, and the AI will treat them as non-combat (support) ships and run them to the corner of the grid. I had to retrofit them all and put one beam weapon on to make sure the AI would send em to the front lines...

That's all for now...
Dragonlord