Re: A complete newbie\'s questions...
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Originally posted by Ragnarok:
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Originally posted by deccan:
1) Does anyone else think that PD is incredibly powerful? I keep wishing that I could make it my main weapon and hit ships with it.
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I do not believe it is too powerful. Just wait until you meet a large (150+) stack of fighters and 100 sats, then you won't mind having powerful PD. 
It is also much less accurate than in the unmodded game, where PD is probably way too effective. Lots of fighters or seekers or drones (or all of three) though, will call for lots of PD, especially in Proportions.
If I ever do a Proportion 3.0, I may make it less accurate against seekers, though. There was no way to make seekers harder to hit in SE4 when I designed the values, so I did what I could and still keep the balance I wanted with other weapons and target types.
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2) Why does everyone seem to think that torpedoes suck? They seem alright to me, stat-wise. (Yes, I know about the reload rate.) Am I missing something else?
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Reload rate is the main downside of torps. Some mods make using torps more benificial however.(I don't know which mods but I know some do)
Proportions is one of the mods that improves the effectiveness of torpedoes. They are good weapons in Proportions, against ships.
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3) How do I keep my fighters from running out of ammo in mid-battle? If I max them out on engines, they run far, far ahead of my main fleet. I can't add supply storage components to them. Use less weapons and more armor on them?
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There are several fighter designs possible, as you've seen. I don't usually see them running out of supplies, but I tend to give them more engines and let them outrun the fleet. I tend to design fighters in two varieties - superiority fighters, which are supposed to intercept enemy fighters, and anti-ship or anti-planet bombers. In any case, I usually try to use the fighters to protect my ships, so I'm content for them to outrun the ships. More armor, sensors, and shields, and larger fighters, will all do the trick you're looking for, I think. Some weapons will also use fewer supplies per turn per kT, although it would make sense to add some supply storage options to fighters.
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4) What the heck are meson bLasters for? They seem to suck to me.
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They sort of do suck.  Not very many people use them except for RP purposes.
I disagree, both in unmodded and in Proportions.
In unmodded, they are pretty easy to research, do almost as much damage/kT/turn as the best weapons, they get more shots than larger weapons, are more cost-efficient than PPBs, their small size makes for more flexibility in ship design, and Last but not least, against the hardest-to-hit opponents, their max range of 6 rather than APB's 8 can actually be an advantage.
In Proportions, they have many of the same advantages. The low research entry level, and the efficient cost are more important in Proportions. Researching them also gives a good fighter weapon and a good anti-fighter PD weapon. They do have an added disadvantage in Proportions, in that there are many types of armor which reduce the amount of damage per hit, which has more of an effect against lighter weapons.
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5) Is it better to put supply components on every ship that needs to travel to attack the enemy (uses up precious space that could go towards weapons and armor) or is it better to build specialized supply tankers (game's "sharing of supplies evenly among all ships in a fleet" seems very inefficient)?
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Either way works. It has been mentioned before that you want at least 1 or 2 supply storage on each warship that you have. But I would suggest having a few supply tankers in your fleets as well to resupply the fleet once the battle is over. Or just go straight for the QR and have unlimited supplies no matter what.
The QR option is much less feasible and attractive in Proportions. Supply issues are much more improtant, as well. There are a number of considerations, but the most basic one is whether it is going to be used as an offensive or frontier ship for operating far from a base or not. If so, then you should probably consider using some efficient engines and supply storage on the ship itself. If instead it is a defensive ship that will always be near a resupply depot, then you can maximize abilities at the expense of range. You could even have zero storage components on a defensive ship, and use an ionic shield generator to protect against engine-destroying weapons.
Tankers are more effective that they might seem in Proportions. Use a hull type with a good combination of size and maintenance reduction, like a destroyer for fast fleets, or a transport for slower fleets. However realize that if you rely on tankers, and the tankers get killed, your fleet may suddenly become stranded.
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6) What makes "Neutral" dispositioned races happy? I find that if I pick "Peaceful" races, I get keep them on "Happy" and "Jubilant" most of the time. However, if I pick "Neutral", they spend most of their time on "Indifferent".
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Never pick Neutral, it is a pain in the arse to keep them happy. Any treaty, war, new alien race, alien ships in your system will make them very unhappy and possibly cause riots ruining your empire. Peaceful is the easiest to keep happy and probably the best happiness type to take at the beginning of a game.
Yeah, more or less. If you want to roleplay a neutral, you want to avoid contact with aliens, and then do something else to keep happiness up (facilities, bunches of "civillian ships" (i.e. unequipped scouts) in orbit, etc).
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7) I find that once an AI declares war on me, I can't seem to end it, even if they are "Brotherly" to me and no one actually engages in combat for ages and ages.
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I believe in the AI_Settings.txt file for that particular AI is a line that makes it not accept any treaties for X amount of turns after the Last battle with you. Just don't fight with them and they will eventually turn around and allie with you once more.
Avoiding systems the AI claims is a big one. Giving them things can help.
The Proportions AI's are all modded and many have increased the time required to arrive at peace. They are different from each other, too. The Xi'Chung will pretty much always want you for lunch.
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