Newbie question--please answer
 

Hi
I am really trying to learn game
but even after I read manual there are many questions that I have

1. I attacked a planet with satellite but they do not actually start the war even after I choose strategic war

2. I occupied the colony with enemy's vessel as a result and I tried to colonize it. But computer says that the satellite is already occupied. How could I colonize enemy planet?

3. How can I change the atmospere? I sacrificed one colony on a rock colony but atmosphere is not friendly one to my terran force. As a result, even though I colonized it, there is no population.
How can i make the plante popultated?

Your help will be appreciated
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

Ah, there is a big difference between a satellite and a MOON http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

1) Does your ship have a strategy of "Don't get Hurt", leading it to run away?
Go to the design window, and click the Stats/Strategy toggle button to see.
If you ship has no guns on it, it will also usually run away and hide. (Unless orders are to ram, drop troops, etc)

2) If there is already a colony on the moon, send your colony ship somewhere else and drop Troops (Tanks, jets, etc) on the enemy-held moon. You can get troops by researching Construction, then troops. Build some, load them on a cargo ship, and give it orders to "Capture Planet", then attack.
Alternatively, you can nuke the planet to glass with a warship, and then recolonize the newly-uninhabited world.

3) Atmosphere converters are found in the "Planet Utilization" tech area, at about level 7.
You may need to research "Planetary Engineering" first.
Once that is done, you can build a facility which will change the atmosphere to whatever the population breathes. After 2-3 years of invisible work the facility will be done and the atmosphere will change.

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

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

I'm new too but I try to help. Capital ship missiles can't be targeted to satellites so are your ships equipped with them?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You can change the planet atmosphere by Atmosphere converter facility but it needs lots of researching before you get it. You have to load population to your colony ships, did you so?

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

One minute too late http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif But I think my answer to question 3 might help.

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This sounds like you've made the rookie mistake every single one of us have made. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif That is you colonized a planet with an empty colony ship. Even if you can't breath the atmosphere you can get some population on it. You can build a transport and transport some population to the planet. in future make sure you load people on your colony ship before it moves.

Damn 2 minutes too late.

[ February 06, 2003, 17:30: Message edited by: DavidG ]

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

1. Couple of possibilities: If you have a treaty with a race, your ships/planets can pass or coexist without starting battle.

Also, if your ship doesn't have weapons, it will just run for the corners. Plus, each weapon is specific to what kind of targets it can hit. Missles, for example, only hit Ships or Planets, not Satellites, Fighters, Mines, or Drones.

Remember that "Tactical" means that YOU control the ships, "Strategic" means that the COMPUTER quickly runs through the battle with default ship strategies to see who wins. The strategy assigned to the ship will determine its behavior.

2. To "colonize" an enemy planet, you need to do one of 3 things: "Glass" the planet (kill every existing colonist) and colonize the now-empty planet, Capture the planet with troops (later in the game when you've reasearched troops), or Steal the planet with intelligence (WAY later in the game when you've reasearched "Puppet Political Parties"--Applied Intelligence Level 4)

3. If you populate a non-breathable planet, you should STILL be able to put population there. The colony will be "domed" (a little white dome icon shows next to the planet), which means you can build a FEW facilities and put SOME supplies there, but not as much as you could if it were breathable.

Most likely, you simply forgot to transfer some population to your colony ship before you sent it out exploring. You'll need to build a transport ship (with some Cargo containers--yes, population is considered Cargo) and move some people to the planet. Then you can build stuff.

You can ultimately change the atmosphere type, but my favorite strategy is to either CONQUER a race that can breathe a different atmosphere, or TRADE a colony ship full of people with another empire. Then take these people and put them on your domed colonies.

In my current game, I have almost 300 populated planets, ALL with native-breathing population. With NO atmospheric converters http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Not too late, just giving additional possibilities. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ February 06, 2003, 17:38: Message edited by: MegaTrain ]

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

Thank you so much for many helpful hints.
I will study the game more based on comments that I have from you.

However, one more question. Since for the first three planets, I just built the colony ship and colonize a planet without doing an additional step of loading people to colony ship. Thus I was curious why in the Last case there were no population....Manual talks about building a dome. I am very low on tech development thus reaching 7th level might take some time. How can I build a dome? any prerequisite?

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

Read the FAQ in this thread:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...;f=23;t=005518

It has tons of good info that is not in the manuals. It is about 5 or 6 Posts down the first page.

Slick.

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

I didnt have to worry about population when I colonized planet which is in the same screen as my home planet. Population seems automatically to grow. However the two colonis where i have zero population is a warp point away
Is this the reason?

Re: Newbie question--please answer
 

When the colony ship gets an order to colonize and it is empty, it will pick up population automatically.

You moved the ship first, so when the colonize order occured, the ship wasn't in orbit of a planet, and had no population to pick up.