Various game questions

Silent Sorrow · #1 June 30th, 2002, 10:29 PM

1. To attack enemy ships in space with multiple friendly ships at the same time, do the friendlies have to be organized into a single fleet? The other day I noticed that when I shift-click individual ships and give them an attack order, they arrive one at a time and are of course picked off.

1(a). If I select two friendly fleets and give them an attack order will only one fleet attack at one time? (I seem to recall this is what happened to me a couple of days ago.) Thus, is the only way to attack with all my ships at one time is to put them all in a single fleet?

2. If I colonize a tiny planet and it allows only one facility, will I still reap the benefits of a research center if I put one there without a space port?

2(a). Is the same true if I put a system computer, etc., on a one-facility planet?

3. What exactly is the relationship between size of planetary population and other things such as production? In MOO2 I could easily see the relationship but here it's unclear. Does getting it up to a particular level vastly decrease production time of new units, etc.?

4. Do mines I lay in space affect my own ships (haven't had a chance to test this yet but I'm curious)?

5. Why does the AI attack me so early in the game? I'm playing with medium settings and I've noticed in the few games I've played that even if I've given another empire a gift when I first meet them, they haul off and declare war a few turns later, no matter what. Often they claim I've been doing this and that, even though I've been having no contact with them and haven't even researched any kind of intelligence apparatus, much less built anything. What gives?

Phoenix-D · #2 June 30th, 2002, 10:38 PM

"1. To attack enemy ships in space with multiple friendly ships at the same time, do the friendlies have to be organized into a single fleet? The other day I noticed that when I shift-click individual ships and give them an attack order, they arrive one at a time and are of course picked off."

Yes, they need to be in a fleet, otherwise you get the trickle-of-death syndrome.

"1(a). If I select two friendly fleets and give them an attack order will only one fleet attack at one time? (I seem to recall this is what happened to me a couple of days ago.) Thus, is the only way to attack with all my ships at one time is to put them all in a single fleet?"

Sometimes you'll get lucky and they will, most of the time it needs to be a single fleet. HOWEVER, if the first fleet fights to a draw, the second fleet will renforce the first and they'll both fight in the second combat.

"2. If I colonize a tiny planet and it allows only one facility, will I still reap the benefits of a research center if I put one there without a space port?"

No. You need to have one space port per system before you'll get *any* points from any facilities in that system.

"2(a). Is the same true if I put a system computer, etc., on a one-facility planet?"

If you put a SYSTEM computer on, you'll get the benifits.. on all the other planets. If you put a regular computer on, you'll gain exactly nil.

"3. What exactly is the relationship between size of planetary population and other things such as production? In MOO2 I could easily see the relationship but here it's unclear. Does getting it up to a particular level vastly decrease production time of new units, etc.?"

More poplulation = more production. There are several plateu levels that I don't remember offhand. Happyness does the same thing, only it's easier to measure- a jublient pop produces more than a happy one, which produces more than indifferent, etc.

"4. Do mines I lay in space affect my own ships (haven't had a chance to test this yet but I'm curious)?"

No.

"5. Why does the AI attack me so early in the game? I'm playing with medium settings and I've noticed in the few games I've played that even if I've given another empire a gift when I first meet them, they haul off and declare war a few turns later, no matter what. Often they claim I've been doing this and that, even though I've been having no contact with them and haven't even researched any kind of intelligence apparatus, much less built anything. What gives?"

Some of them are just xenophobic.

Phoenix-D

Fyron · #3 June 30th, 2002, 10:40 PM

1. I don't know.

2. No. You have to have a spaceport to get any resources/research/intel from a system (unless you have Natural Merchants).

2(a). A system computer only gives you more resources/research/intel if you are making them on a planet in the system. So, building one in a system with no resource/research/intel facilities does nothing. If you have no spaceport, the computer can't do anything, since you are making 0 resource/research/intel.

3. Yes. From Settings.txt in the Data subfolder:
Number Of Population Modifiers := 12
Pop Modifier 1 Population Amount := 99
Pop Modifier 1 Production Modifier Percent := 100
Pop Modifier 1 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 100
Pop Modifier 2 Population Amount := 499
Pop Modifier 2 Production Modifier Percent := 105
Pop Modifier 2 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 105
Pop Modifier 3 Population Amount := 999
Pop Modifier 3 Production Modifier Percent := 110
Pop Modifier 3 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 110
Pop Modifier 4 Population Amount := 1999
Pop Modifier 4 Production Modifier Percent := 120
Pop Modifier 4 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 120
Pop Modifier 5 Population Amount := 2999
Pop Modifier 5 Production Modifier Percent := 130
Pop Modifier 5 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 130
Pop Modifier 6 Population Amount := 3999
Pop Modifier 6 Production Modifier Percent := 140
Pop Modifier 6 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 140
Pop Modifier 7 Population Amount := 4999
Pop Modifier 7 Production Modifier Percent := 150
Pop Modifier 7 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 150
Pop Modifier 8 Population Amount := 5999
Pop Modifier 8 Production Modifier Percent := 160
Pop Modifier 8 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 160
Pop Modifier 9 Population Amount := 6999
Pop Modifier 9 Production Modifier Percent := 170
Pop Modifier 9 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 170
Pop Modifier 10 Population Amount := 7999
Pop Modifier 10 Production Modifier Percent := 180
Pop Modifier 10 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 180
Pop Modifier 11 Population Amount := 9999
Pop Modifier 11 Production Modifier Percent := 190
Pop Modifier 11 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 190
Pop Modifier 12 Population Amount := 2000000
Pop Modifier 12 Production Modifier Percent := 200
Pop Modifier 12 SY Rate Modifier Percent := 200

4. No, and they won't affect the ships of other empires that you have a Non-Aggression or higher treaty with either. They only affect those that you are at war with or have no treaty with.

5. The AI is mean and highly unpredicatble. It tends to not remember what happened even 1 turn ago. I suggest playing human opponents via http://seiv.pbw.cc if at all possible.

Silent Sorrow · #4 June 30th, 2002, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Sometimes you'll get lucky and they will, most of the time it needs to be a single fleet.

So this is a bug when it happens?

Quote:

No. You need to have one space port per system before you'll get *any* points from any facilities in that system.

So tiny planets (1 facility space) are pretty much useless to me unless and until I can expand the number of facilities to at least two, correct? (And excepting the system-wide facilities like system computer.)

Phoenix-D · #5 July 1st, 2002, 01:12 AM

"So tiny planets (1 facility space) are pretty much useless to me unless and until I can expand the number of facilities to at least two, correct?"

No. If you have a spaceport *elsewhere* in the system, the planet can have a mineral miner or other resource facility and still produce.

Even without a spaceport, it's still useful for putting a space yard or reupply depot on.

Phoenix-D

Silent Sorrow · #6 July 1st, 2002, 01:26 AM

Really? I checked the manual and it specifically states that for the production of a planet to accrue to your empire, it must have a spaceport built on it. Which one is it? Because if you're right then I've been wasting my effort all this time in building a space port on each planet in every system. This news would certainly change things.

Quote:

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"So tiny planets (1 facility space) are pretty much useless to me unless and until I can expand the number of facilities to at least two, correct?"

No. If you have a spaceport *elsewhere* in the system, the planet can have a mineral miner or other resource facility and still produce.

Even without a spaceport, it's still useful for putting a space yard or reupply depot on.

Phoenix-D