SE IV Questions

[PerfectBrak]

I recently downloaded the demo for SE IV, never knowing that sequels were created to one of my favorite compute games, SE II!

Since SE IV Gold is only a few months away, I'm going to wait and buy that rather than order SE IV now. But I have a few questions I was wondering if you guys could answer.

1) There are ship designs beyond Light Cruiser right?
2) Is there technology that allows you to open/close warp points or destroy suns like in SE IV?
3) Are the Crystology (sp), Organic Technology, and Temporal Weapons worth the research to get them?

[chewy027]

1) yes ships classes go up to dreadnought
2) yes there are many stellar manipulation opitions including those you mentioned
3)if you choose the ratial trait that allows you to research in these areas then you are definetely going to research them

[MegaTrain]

1) Let's see if I can remember them all:
Escort - 150kt
Frigate - 200kt
Destroyer - 300kt
Light Cruiser - 400kt (can support Large mount weapons)
Cruiser - 500kt
Battle Cruiser - 600kt
Battleship - 800kt (can support Huge mount weapons)
Dreadnought - 1000kt
Base Ship - 1500kt (can support Massive mount weapons)

2) Yep, its called Stellar Manipulation. I think you need Physics level 2 or 3 to be able to research it. I think you get warp opening/closing at levels 3 and 4, and sun destroying weapons at level 5 or 6.

3) Regarding the Organic/Temporal/Crystalline weapons: you can only research them if you've chosen their research tree as a racial characteristic of your empire at the beginning of the game.

With that said, they are some of the most powerful and efficient weapons in the game. Take Organic weapons, for example. With a single research area (a fairly expensive one, I'll grant you), you can discover specialized missles, long-range weapons, and short range weapons, some of which have nice advantages, like a faster reload time for the missles. Another advantage is that your ships become more resource-balanced instead of mineral-heavy, and can be built quicker.
I don't know much about the Crystalline weapons, but I know that some of the advanced Temporal weapons can be pretty deadly.

[Edited Baseship size and spelling errors]

[ 08 December 2001: Message edited by: MegaTrain ]

[Val]

More on #1:

Not only are there designs up to Baseship in the standard game, the NeoShipSize - correct name? - (which will be supported in Gold) Fills out the ship roster with another 13 Ship classes, 2 Fighters, 2 Stations and 2 Troop types. On top of that, you can edit the Vehicle List to include as many different types as you wish.

[capnq]

An incomplete list:

Crystalline has weapons that bypass armor, armor that partially converts incoming damage to extra power to shields, facilities that boost shields, and facilities that reduce maintenance.

Temporal has a weapon that does quadruple damage to shields, facilities that boost happiness, and facilities that boost production.

Organic has seekers that reload faster than CSM, arguably the best fighter weapon, armor that regenerates, and facilities that boost population growth.

Psychic has a weapon that can capture your ships.

Religious has facilities that improve to hit and damage, and eventually a component that makes direct fire weapons hit automatically at any range.

Which is "best" depends on your playing style and what your opponents are using.

[Taqwus]

quote:

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Originally posted by capnq:
An incomplete list:

Crystalline has weapons that bypass armor, armor that partially converts incoming damage to extra power to shields, facilities that boost shields, and facilities that reduce maintenance.
[/QB}

Yup. The recharging ability of that armor, Last I checked (haven't played Crystalline for a while), also *stacks* -- e.g. 5 pieces of Crystalline III = not only 150 pts. each structural resistance, meaning far fewer repairs than with ordinary armor, but also 75 pts from each hit turned into shield points until the armor's gone.

Crystalline also gets facilities that generate free resources from the stars. They're not that impressive (300/300/300 max, equiv. to 300x2.4 = 720 if 600 are converted at 70% effic (RC III) to the third) at first glance, but that's per star (there are trinary systems) and will work even on a lousy planet, and even in a finite-resources game.

[QB]
Temporal has a weapon that does quadruple damage to shields, facilities that boost happiness, and facilities that boost production.


In particular, the Temporal Shipyard has a darn fast construction rate. It also has a pretty good Big Gun (Tachyon Cannon III; 120 pts at ranges 1-7, reload 2 turns, only 50 kt. Compare w/ WMG III, which is 140 pts at range 8, reload 3 turns, 70 kt).


Organic has seekers that reload faster than CSM,
arguably the best fighter weapon, armor that regenerates, and facilities that boost population growth.


And perhaps a minor point except in the more vicious or unlucky games, medical facilities that cure plagues system-wide. The good armor, VERY nice mix of weapons (seekers, reload-1 weapons, an extremely good Big Gun (Enveloping Acid Globule -- 100 @ 1-8, reload 2, space 40 kt, *and* hits every type of target (WMGs and most other Big Guns only hit ships and planets)) make Organic Weapons a very, very good tech. That the population boosters translate into faster production (40M per turn for every planet in a system isn't tiny) also helps. Organic strikes me as unusually powerful for a racial tech.


Psychic has a weapon that can capture your ships.


Which is very handy for accelerating research if you have different priorities than your victims. Psychic player should already be aware (ducks...) that the other players might go for Master Computers even faster than normal once they notice a Psychic race in the game.

They also get some interesting toys like a facility which trains every ship in the system, and one for fleets. As for other weapons, they've got the Biggest Gun (One that does 190 pts at range 8, for 70kt. However, it only fires every 4 turns...).


Religious has facilities that improve to hit and damage, and eventually a component that makes direct fire weapons hit automatically at any range.


Right. Unlike the other ones mentioned above, they don't get additional weapons or armor. It also lends itself to tortoise play more than the others, perhaps; the Nature Shrine *slooowwly* improves your worlds (VIP/CCF on every planet in the system, basically) while the War and Death shrines are useful... if it's your system where the battle is. On the other hand, against a player who's reached (and is making heavy use of) larger, easier to hit stuff like baseships, the Religious Talisman suddenly might not seem so useful (if you're likely to 99% hit anyway, why not go for the 10kt Combat Sensors III instead of the 50kt Talisman?).


Which is "best" depends on your playing style and what your opponents are using.

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Definitely.

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by capnq:

Temporal has a weapon that does quadruple damage to shields, facilities that boost happiness, and facilities that boost production.

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Since I always use temporal, I'd like to add more detail to this:

The temporal happiness facility provides TWICE the bonus of the "standard" facility.

The 4x damage to shields weapon is good, especially since it also does normal damage once the shields are down; and the damage is comparable to other beam weapons. This is also one of the first two temporal weapons you can research; the other is a heavier weapon that skips both shields and armor. The null-space cannon does the same thing, with more damage, but you can get the temporal Version a little earlier. The later weapons (Shield Accelerator & Tachyon Cannon) are also good - the Shield Accelerator is a better Version of the standard shield-damaging weapons, and you don't need to research shields to get it. The Tachyon Cannon, as Taqwus pointed out, has a better damage/size/reload ratio than the Wave Motion Gun; although the WMG has a 30% to-hit bonus, while the TC only has a 10% bonus.

The production-boosting facility is just a temporal spaceyard, which can build twice as fast as the standard spaceyard (well, the Temporal Spaceyard III is twice as fast as the Spaceyard I). There isn't a temporal facility to improve resource production, though.

Temporal also has a facility that provides combat bonuses.

Oh yeah, and a component that can detect cloaked ships (there are many different types of sensors; IIRC, two are racial tech, the temporal & psychic).