A few questions from a newbie

[Alneyan]

I would like some answers for a few questions from your average newbie in various areas. Here are the questions.

1) Do the planetary and the system-wide bonuses for research for instance stack? And if so, is the bonus of 60% (30% and 30%), or of 69%, almost 70% then? (30% of 130%) I know bonuses do NOT stack for other facilities, but I am unsure about research facilities.

2) How efficient is the bonus to population happiness granted by the Fate Shrine compared to the regular facilities? The ability reducing the chances of bad events seems to be working, but is that ability really useful?

3) Can you use drones efficiently? I don't seem to be able to give them proper targets and they are usually wasted, which is rather annoying as they cost a lot. (Compared to other units at least) And a drone destroyed when chasing its target isn't doing much good.

4) Can you know the composition of a satellite group? Even after I send a suicidal scout against them, I only know there is a "Satellite group" without knowing the design(s) used, except of course if these are the first satellites I encounter. (I can view the enemy units design then, but it won't work after a few battles)

5) Lastly, are PDC used as soon as seekers/fighters/drones are detected or during their turn? Let's say cruisers with PDC are attacking a warp point defended by a few fighters, are the fighters shot before they could fire, or do they have a turn before being destroyed?

I didn't find any answer in the Newbie FAQ and searches on the forum weren't successful either. My apologizes nevertheless if it is the 104th time you see these questions.

[primitive]

1: Yes, they do stack. But you add all bonuses before you multiply so its 60 %

2: Fate Shrine 3 has the same Happines modifier as Urban pacification center 3. These do not stack. (check facilities.txt for info on facilities)

3: I can't. But what do I know, I'm just a barbarian

4: ??? If you send your suicidal scout, you can see everything in "Combat replay" in simultanious games and in tactical combat in sequntial. I have never had enemy units disaper from the enemy design window, strange. Later in the game you can develop scanners, should work nicly on sat stacks.

5: Fighters defending a warphole almost always move before they fire their first shot, giving your attacking PDC's a chance to fire first. I think I have tried every setting in the book, but I can't manage to get fighter to fire first and then move.

Hope this help.

[Alneyan]

Originally posted by primitive:
4: ??? If you send your suicidal scout, you can see everything in "Combat replay" in simultanious games and in tactical combat in sequntial. I have never had enemy units disaper from the enemy design window, strange. Later in the game you can develop scanners, should work nicly on sat stacks.

5: Fighters defending a warphole almost always move before they fire their first shot, giving your attacking PDC's a chance to fire first. I think I have tried every setting in the book, but I can't manage to get fighter to fire first and then move.

Hope this help.

Thanks for your answers, they will help a lot.

4) You will laugh but I didn't notice the little Combat Replay option. *Sighs* No wonder I had a lot of problems with combat then. With Combat Replay it works well, I was only using the message in the log which says "Satellite Group 33%" for instance.

5) That's unfortunate, I would be on the defending side rather than on the offensive here. Silly fighters, they want to die as heroes.

[primitive]

It's good to be of assistance. Thats somthing that don't happen too often

There are a lot of buttons and options in SEIV, take your time to try them all.
Now that you found the "Combat replay" and can see how your ships suck in battle, it might be time to start experimenting with the strategies (target priorities).

Even with the annoying "move before you shot" thing, fighters rule the sky for a while in the early game. Then they are pretty useless for a while until you can get large stacks of large fighters with some heavy shielding. Those can be used with devastating results in mixed fleets in the late game.

And while you never actually need drones, there are some special cases when drones can be very usefull

[Alneyan]

I tried the strategy options before knowing the combat replay, in conjunction with the Simulator, but that doesn't prevent me from doing very important mistakes. I sent two missile cruisers against a group of satellites, to only understand why they aren't working after ten attempts.

Fighters seem to be very useful, and they can be very interesting to surprise your opponent, if he didn't know you were using fighters for instance and so wasn't having much PDC.

I am still trying to find an use for Drones, except for ambushes to destroy/damage a few warships when your own fleet is much weaker. But that requires your Drones to target the good ships instead of chasing a transport.

[XenoTheMorph]

Well Talking about Drones I may not be that good with them myself but try using some before entering combat with your ships.

This can only work if you know where the enemy ships are (can see them) but if you pop a drone out of a Drone Carrier, you can use the attack button to send it to attack a specific target (choose correctly i can't seem to cancel orders )

If you want to send more than one drone to a ship at once i think if you do the multi ship select thing the will move together.

Then voila baked enemy ubership