[Jamorobo]

Originally posted by Timstone:
I'm willing to forgive it.
I just hope Tesco gets to play the Drakh that way I can play the Vree. If not, $h!t happens, I'll just play another race. No sweat.

Oh, and could you guys give me a few reasonable setups for beginning planets? I don't know what to bluid on a new colony. And how about ships. What is a "good" setup for a ship (Y% armor, X% engines, Z%weapons, etc...)?

Well on my first colonys (this is for planets that are the same apmospher as u) i allways build a Space yard first, it allows you to build the rests of the facilities much quicker than you would otherwise. Sure the Space yard may take 140 turns with the basic amount of population, but if you sent about 5 transports worth of pop from your main planet it will only take around 24 turns to build, once you have this and with the large amount of pop u will have on the planet, things such as research centers will take about 6 turns each.

I can't stress how much research centers are needed, as getting an early advantage is very good. As weapons not only increase in power and range the higher up the tech levels they go but they also decrease in how much space they take up, which means you will be able to fit more of your big weapons on your ships.

Ship wise for a "good" allround ship i recomend the following (This is what i mainly use for my Earth ships)

Engines: you firstly need good engines as the larger the ship the more thrust it needs. At the start my engines take up alot of room if u want to go fast. Try if possible to get the ship to go atleast 4-5 movement, later on all ships can easly get 8 movement with the use of gravametric engines etc, engines cost space so don't forget to upgrade engines as space for more armour/weapons/point defence can be created by improving the engines.

Combat sensors etc: These are a must have, get all of them you can on your ship as they are your first line of defence and attack as there is no point in having guns if you cannot hit them even if your life depended on it. (It does )

Point defence: early on point defence is not really that useful as no one really has fighters and it's only the odd missile that comes your way. Also you get poor PD until you research Military science. however early to half way though the game your main ships will need at leasts 1 piece of PD maby two if you find you have some extra room as a weapon doesn't quite fit. CrUsers and upwards should have atleast 2 PD.

Armour: Mucho important, i have 8-10 pieces of medium armour of ships of heavy destroyer and below and any higher i use Heavy armour of 8-10 pieces, this may vary if the ship has i little bit more room left that nothing good except armour can go in to.

Weapons: I normally have 2 heavy weapons on a ship supported by as many medium weapons as possible as heavy weapons do alot of damage but usually have a longer reload time, also with some weapons like lasers, heavy ones tend to have a long range so sometimes waste their shots at a long range so the medium weapons are a sort of safty net as they have a shorter distance.

I think my EA battle cruisers (which were set up pritty much like the ones in the show) had two Large Heavy laser\pulse cannons and 4 medium laser cannons, this was however because the weapons were level 8 and had reduced in size by about half from when they were level 1!

Fighters: Do get these in you normal attack ships as they can be deadly in a 1on1 fight and even in large battles, 3 fighterbays on a battle cruiser will allow 18 medium fighters which is dealy against another ship with a normal amount of PD. You may have the problem of having to constantly buy fighters but it's much cheeper than having to buy new ships, They also act as PD against other fighters and missiles. They are just a must, i've simulated two Battle cruisers Vs one BC with fighters on board and the one with fighters one 3/5 times.

I think thats it for the mo. if i've left any areas of a ship out do tell me and i'll give my view.