Specific facilities, what do they do?

[serpwidgets]

I have several questions about the functions of some of the facilities and stuff, because they don't seem to be explained too well in the docs. Thanks in advance for any answers.

1- Resource convertor. I haven't seen any way to tell it what/when to convert, so I'm assuming it's automatic. Does this convert, for example, Organics and Rads to Minerals only when you run out of minerals? Or will it convert excess (more than you can store) to other types that you can store? Also, it says "one effective per system." Would you ever need more than one of these in your empire? If so, why?

2- Atmosphere convertor. I've seen mention of this but haven't found it yet. I assume it's way up the "Planet Utilization" tree. Anyway, my race is Hydrogen, but I also have a ton of CO2 breathers, about 60% of my population, and they're out of room... Is it possible to convert to whatever type of atmosphere you want, or will they only convert to your empire's "native" type?

3- Condition Improvement plant. I have yet to see a use for these. My population grows so fast it's usually maxed out within a year or two and I tend to take a 10% racial happy bonus, so I can't see what good a 2% "improvement" would do over a period of 2 years. Is there a place/time in the game where these are really useful?

4- Repair. Is it just my imagination, or is repairing stuff free? I've been sitting a warp point opener on my home system and making a nice spider web of warp points to all my systems and it doesn't seem to cost anything every turn when it's repaired. Not that this is good or bad, but I just wanted to figure out if I should be calculating that into the costs of everything I'm doing every turn.

[Nitram Draw]

Don't know what all of them do but the atmospheric convertr is one of the best facilities you can have. Build one on a planet that does not have your races atmosphere, wait 30 turns and bingo, atmosphere automatically converted, more facilities available etc. Best of all you can scrap it once the atmosphere converts.
Build'em!

[Oggy ben Doggy]

Resource Converter - Does not work automagically. If you click on the planet with the converter, you get a new icon in the upper right. Click it, and you can pick what resources you want to convert to what.

[Suicide Junkie]

1) See Doggy's Post.

2) After X years, the planet will be converted to an atmosphere that the majority of the population can breathe. So, no matter who's on the planet, they get the proper atmosphere. (As long as its not vaccuum breathers on a gas giant - you can't remove the atmosphere of a gas giant )

If you have 60%/40% population, the atmosphere will become whatever the 60% majority breathes. If they breathe different stuff, one of the races will have to leave, or the planet will always be domed.

3) Well, if your planet gets damaged, and the conditions are deadly, you may want to fix them so your people can grow. That's where you use the CI plant.
Also, if you take -50% to environment resist, you still get full reproduction on a "Optimal" world, so you can use the plants to get full reproduction while saving racial points.

4) Repairing stuff is free. Retro and rebuilding lost ships will cost you. Therefore, repair everything.

NOTE: You can repair ships that are mothballed, so if your ship has taken 98% damage (4/105 components), then mothball so you pay no maintenance while the ship gets repaired over the next 1.5 years. You will save the cost of rebuilding a new ship, and not pay a cent while the repairs happen .

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 25 April 2001).]

[This message has been edited by suicide_junkie (edited 25 April 2001).]

[rdouglass]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Oggy ben Doggy:
Resource Converter - Does not work automagically. If you click on the planet with the converter, you get a new icon in the upper right. Click it, and you can pick what resources you want to convert to what.

---

Thank you VERY MUCH! I have asked in another thread, but never really got an answer....so you WOULD only need 1 per empire! Boy is that underpriced! only 6000 points IIRC!

[Suicide Junkie]

Well, you only get 50% of your minerals converted, the rest are wasted during the conVersion process.

Better to trade with an AI one-for-one.

This allows you to get LOTS converted at once or when you need emergency resources, or when the universe is at war with you.