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Yet another newbie with questions.

Hello everybody!

Another newbie in the forums. And a Swedish one, so you must excuse my english.

I tried to find answers to my questions by reading in the forums, but after an hour my eyes start to bleed, and all the letters give me a headache, so I thought I'd ask instead.

I've only played the game for 10 hours or so, but I've already got enough questions to fill a soccer arena. But now that I'm trying to write them down, I seem to have forgotten most of them... Well, I remeber some of them, so here goes:

1. Is there any reason to upgrade your ships engines when you advance from, say Ion engine I to Ion engine II? I can't see any benefits at all. They only cost less when built.

2. Is there any way to modify you racial traits when playing? For example increase strength by 1%.

3. I've colonized 40 or so planets, but most of them are, well... crap. I've only got about 10 that are really useful. Should I stop spending resources on colonizing tiny planets and concentrate on the good stuff?

4. Which rescource do you use the most? So far I've almost exclusively used minerals. Does this change later in the game? And a related question is:

5. How much storage is useful? So far my mineralstores are almost always close to depeation, and organics- and radioactivesstores are abundant.

6. Do I have time to research everything. or am I spreading myself too thin if I do that?

7. Are you all playing SEIV Gold? Are there a lot of changes between SEIV and SEIV Gold?

8-∞ I'll get to those later...

Thanks in advance.

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

Well, I'll try to help...

<blockquote>quote:<hr>1. Is there any reason to upgrade your ships engines when you advance from, say Ion engine I to Ion engine II? I can't see any benefits at all. They only cost less when built.
<hr></blockquote>

To my knowledge the is no overriding reason...but it will save you a little in construction and maintance. Every little bit helps.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>2. Is there any way to modify you racial traits when playing? For example increase strength by 1%.
<hr></blockquote>

After a game has started no. When setting up a game you can modify your characteristics. Just chose a player and press edit.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>3. I've colonized 40 or so planets, but most of them are, well... crap. I've only got about 10 that are really useful. Should I stop spending resources on colonizing tiny planets and concentrate on the good stuff?
<hr></blockquote>

I usually try to colonize those good planets first
(ones with my atmosphere and medium size or better), then when I have expanded into contact with other races I will go back and start to settle lesser worlds.

<blockquote>quote:<hr> 4. Which rescource do you use the most? So far I've almost exclusively used minerals. Does this change later in the game? <hr></blockquote>

Usually most empires do use minerals the most, the only exception I've seen is if you heavily use organic technology.

<blockquote>quote:<hr> How much storage is useful? <hr></blockquote>

I usually build more mineral storage then organic or radioactive storage. By about a ratio of 3 to 2. (50% more mineral storage)

<blockquote>quote:<hr>6. Do I have time to research everything. or am I spreading myself too thin if I do that? <hr></blockquote>

Different players research different things...I usually concentrate on infrastructure and a couple of weapon technologys and wait to research other things until there is time or a need for them.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>7. Are you all playing SEIV Gold? Are there a lot of changes between SEIV and SEIV Gold? <hr></blockquote>

I started playing with SEIV and bought Gold later.
Some features have been added to SEIV Gold, most notably the addition of Drones.

I hope this helped. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

Thank you for your help! But now I have a couple of new questions.

1. Can you repair ships while in combat?

2. If I've used the "Resolve combat" order, but change my mind, is there any way to stop the computer from finishing the combat?

3. Can I choose to upgrade the facilities on just a couple of planets instead of on all of them?

4. When I use intelligence, what's the difference between the different levels? And is there any reason why I shouldn't have an intelligence program running all the time?

5. What are the space storms for? Why would you want to make them yourself? To me they are just obstacles.

6. Can you find things on planets when you colonize them? Some of the planets have descriptions like "The final resting place of two ancient races", which makes me think that you might.

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by John Baxter:
Thank you for your help! But now I have a couple of new questions.

1. Can you repair ships while in combat?
You can not repair ships in combat. I think the regen tech for organics may repair but I have never played that race.

2. If I've used the "Resolve combat" order, but change my mind, is there any way to stop the computer from finishing the combat?

No, once you click resolve combat, that all she wrote.

3. Can I choose to upgrade the facilities on just a couple of planets instead of on all of them?

This one I really don't know, I never tryed to just one planet upgrade in the two years.

4. When I use intelligence, what's the difference between the different levels? And is there any reason why I shouldn't have an intelligence program running all the time?

no sure what you are asking here.

5. What are the space storms for? Why would you want to make them yourself? To me they are just obstacles.

you can hide ships in storms.

6. Can you find things on planets when you colonize them? Some of the planets have descriptions like "The final resting place of two ancient races", which makes me think that you might.<hr></blockquote>
The only things you can find on planets is the special techs. the planet descriptions don't mean anything.

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

<blockquote>quote:<hr> 1. Can you repair ships while in combat?
You can not repair ships in combat. I think the regen tech for organics may repair but I have never played that race.
<hr></blockquote>Yes, Organic Armor will repair itself if it hasn't been totally destroyed. Some mods add this ability to other components. <blockquote>quote:<hr> 3. Can I choose to upgrade the facilities on just a couple of planets instead of on all of them? <hr></blockquote>Yes, with a little work. You can hit the Upgrade Facilities button, then go to each planet's build queue and delete or rearrange the Upgrade entries, or put the planet's queue On Hold. When upgrades are available, there will be a button for them on the planet's Construction Queue, as well.

If for some reason you only want to upgrade some of the same kind of facility on one planet, you have to scrap the old facility and build the new one. <blockquote>quote:<hr> 4. When I use intelligence, what's the difference between the different levels? And is there any reason why I shouldn't have an intelligence program running all the time?
<hr></blockquote>The higher levels can accumulate more points, so they take longer to "complete". Completing an intel project erases all the points you've committed to it, so you want to avoid that if possible. Also, there's at least one high level attack that Counterintel 1 can't store enough points to block.

You might occasionally want to put all your intel production into attacks, but in general, keeping Counterintel going is a good idea. <blockquote>quote:<hr> 6. Can you find things on planets when you colonize them? Some of the planets have descriptions like "The final resting place of two ancient races", which makes me think that you might.
<hr></blockquote>A planet with the Ruins icon can give you levels of technology, or a unique tech that can't be researched otherwise. These planets will show on the (F4) Planets/Special list.

[ 20 April 2002: Message edited by: capnq ]

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by John Baxter:
3. Can I choose to upgrade the facilities on just a couple of planets instead of on all of them?<hr></blockquote>

As capnq mentioned, each planet's construction queue has a button for "upgrades" (underneath the buttons for ships, facilities and units). You can the select which class of facility you want to upgrade on that planet. The "upgrade facilities" button that appears on the global construction queues window will, as you've noticed, issue orders to perform all possible upgrades on all planets.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by John Baxter:
5. What are the space storms for? Why would you want to make them yourself? To me they are just obstacles.<hr></blockquote>

And you can make them into obstacles for the enemy. That's pretty much the best purpose for generating your own storms.

<blockquote>quote:<hr>Originally posted by John Baxter:
6. Can you find things on planets when you colonize them? Some of the planets have descriptions like "The final resting place of two ancient races", which makes me think that you might.<hr></blockquote>

Again, as capnq pointed out, you can get technology from planets with the little "ruins" icon; the description will also have a section in boldface that says something like "Advanced technology has been detected on this planet". The "final resting place of two ancient races" means nothing, it's just there for decoration.

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

I have a newbie questions for ya'll.

I am having a hard time keeping up with all the planets and where is what ship. Is there any way to print the quadrant map, and/or extract the planet information to a dbase file?

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

"5. What are the space storms for? Why would you want to make them yourself? To me they are just obstacles."

Some of them are. But others- some dissipate shields. Great to fight in if you don't have shields and your enemy does (also true of black hole systems). Some also HIDE your ships, as long as the enemy doesn't bring a sensor along. Free cloaking!

Phoenix-D

Re: Yet another newbie with questions.

<blockquote>quote:<hr> I am having a hard time keeping up with all the planets and where is what ship. Is there any way to print the quadrant map, and/or extract the planet information to a dbase file? <hr></blockquote>The only way I can think of is to do a screen capture and print that, although it would be more useful if you have a way to edit the image first (mostly to reverse the white text on black background to save ink).

The information in the (F4) Planets, (F5) Colonies, and (F6) Ships windows can be sorted by clicking on the column headings. I use that feature a lot to manage my empires.