Newbie questions, bear with me here...

[CtrlAltDel]

Ok, I have a bunch of newbie questions I am too lazy to experiment with. Please will someone just answer them, I don't want any newbie-hating stuff....

1 What governs the amount of pop on a planet?
2 Can it be increased?
3 What governs the amount of facil on a planet?
4 Can that be increased?
5 What happens when a star collapses?
6 What does it mean that the storms are opaque to sensors?

I'll have more later...if anyone who has the time could give me some good beginning strategies I'd be grateful...the manual is sparse in this sense.

[raynor]

There are five sizes of planets: tiny, small, medium, large and huge with corresponding max population for each: 500, 1000, 2000, 4000 and 8000 million and corresponding max facilties: 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25. You only get the max facilities if your colonists breathe the same atmosphere as on the planet. Otherwise, you have a domed colony and only get 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 facilities respectively.

You can convert a domed colony into an un-domed colony and get the full use of the planet if you either replace all the colonists with ones that can breathe that atmosphere or research, build and wait 20-30 turns for a Atmosphere Converter to convert the atmosphere to one that is breathable.

I forget... I believe when a star collapses, everything in the system is destroyed. The star goes away, and all the planets are converted to asteroids.

If you place a ship in a storm, then other ships must have sensors greater than the opacity of the storm in order to see your ship.

[This message has been edited by raynor (edited 31 May 2001).]

[Baal]

1. The size of the planet and whether or not your population can breath it.

2. There is an Advanced trait you can check before you start the game called "Advanced Storage Techniques". If your population can not breath the atmosphere you can convert the atmosphere so that they can. Breathable planets can hold more population.

3. The size of the planet and whether or not your population can breath it.

4. Converting the planet's atmosphere will increase the amount of facilities it has by 5x. Or you can replace the race on that planet with a race that can breath that atmosphere.

5. It explodes and takes everything in the system with it. If a star has a little note on it when you click on its sector that says its unstable no need to worry, that 'trigger' has not been implimented yet. If you get a message at the beginning of your turn that says a star is going to explode in X amount of turns, then pack your transports with your population and run.

6. It means that it gives a level of cloak to what ever is in it ship or base. To see what is in an opague storm if anything you will need to research some sort of detection sensor (tachyon, hyper-optic, temporal, etc.).

EDIT: You can't convert the atmosphere of a None atmosphere planet. You have to blow it up and rebuild it so that it has an atmosphere to work with.

[This message has been edited by Baal (edited 31 May 2001).]

[Taqwus]

1. You mean the maximum population? Two factors: planet size and breathability.

The planet sizes are Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, and Huge. But even on a huge world, you won't be able to hold THAT many people unless they can breathe the atmosphere. Incidentally, this is a great use of population from other races that breathe other atmospheres, which you can get if you capture or are given a colony, colony ship or pop transport. Well, there's also a racial trait that influences it -- Advanced Storage Techniques gives a +20% bonus, IIRC.

2. If the population can't breathe the atmosphere, you can swap it for one that does (if one's available), or you can convert the atmosphere (with high enough tech -- Level 7 Planet Utilization, which comes after Planetary Engineering IIRC).

3. Same two factors. For instance, non-breathable worlds hold 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 facilities according to size (T/S/M/L/H). Multiply by *5* for a breathable world. And Advanced Storage Techniques multiplies 1.2x.

Breathing is very, very important for the facilities. Having more space for facilities arguably matter far more than the population bonuses, which don't scale up as much.

4. Again, swap populations or convert the atmosphere. The 5x increase is worth the effort.

5. If it's like the Nucleonic Thresher Torpedo, it'll destroy everything in the entire system and replace with a nebula, IIRC.

6. Everything in the system is cloaked, basically. You need good Sensor components (and therefore good technology) on-board to be able to detect your rivals' vessels.


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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Aristoi]

Is it certain that you can't convert None atmosphere to something else? I'm pretty sure that a patch or two back I did this on a None world.

Is this a recent change or am I just wrong?

[geoschmo]

quote:

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EDIT: You can't convert the atmosphere of a None atmosphere planet. You have to blow it up and rebuild it so that it has an atmosphere to work with.

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If this is true it is definatly something new. I used to convert non-aptmosphere moons all the time. It's been a while since I have done it in a game so I guess it's possible it has been patched out, although I can't imagine why.

One thing you can't do is convert a Gas giant planet to a none aptmosphere. That is the only restriction I know of.

Geo