Things in SEIV I never knew about....

[MegaTrain]

Rather than make a new one, I thought I'd revive this old thread.

Things I learned in my Last PBW game (Devnull Mod, but I don't think that matters for any of these):

1 You can open multiple warp points in one sector, even on top of a planet, star, or asteroid (or sphereworld, for that matter)

2 If you put two Space Yard component on a ship, you get a single queue that can build with twice the speed.

3 Replicant Centers (organic) are COOL! A single Level III Replicant Center gives every planet in the system 40M extra pop per turn!! (VERY nice if you populate every planet in the system with native-breathing population!)

4 Religious Talisman is NASTY! 100% hit rate is HUGE. At the end of a 130 turn game, the ships with Talisman could take out my best ships about 3 to 1. (Good thing I had 5x as many ships )

5 Plague Ships are NASTY, too. Especially L5, when I had basically ignored that research area.

6 Never let your Counter Intelligence projects finish!!

7 You can give your ships fairly complex sets of orders, including Stellar Manipulation. Like this:
Move to Fenves Coordinates (3,4)
Open Warp Point
Move to Fenves Coordinates (9,9)

You can EVEN open a warp point, and send an attack fleet through ON THE SAME TURN IN SIMULTANEOUS. You can't give a "Warp" order for a location without a warp point, but if you simply give the fleet a "move to" order to the far-away system, IT WORKS!!

You just give your Warp Opener the orders to open the point, and then give the fleet the orders to "Move to" the far away system. The fleet will move a couple of squares toward an existing warp point to start its (normally) long journey, then it will notice the new warp point, turn around, and go through!!! The only thing you can't determine in advance is where in that other system the warp point will appear.

Unfortunately, I discovered this one AFTER the game was over. Opening a warp point normally gives people a 1 turn warning to muster their troops.

[Atrocities]

I like to turn off the galaxy map grid. It give the big (small map on the lower right hand side) a more space feel.

1. Click the EMPIRE STATUS icon. (Crown)
2. Click on EMPIRE OPTIONS.
3. Scroll down to GALAXY DISPLAY
4. Uncheck Show Grid Lines.

[Ruatha]

Originally posted by MegaTrain:

2 If you put two Space Yard component on a ship, you get a single queue that can build with twice the speed.

7 You can give your ships fairly complex sets of orders, including Stellar Manipulation. Like this:
Move to Fenves Coordinates (3,4)
Open Warp Point
Move to Fenves Coordinates (9,9)

Are these only true in Devnull mod?
I belive in standard game you can't increase build speed by having more than one space yard? right?
Also in standard I'm not sure about opening worm holes, that might work. But the bad thing is that I can't use move to, close worm hole... As it then says, There is no worm hole at this sector if I'm not positioned at a wormhole when I enter the orders.

[dumbluck]

P&N PBW also has the ability to make multiple SY planets.

[Fyron]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
P&N PBW also has the ability to make multiple SY planets.

So does Adamant Mod.

4 Religious Talisman is NASTY! 100% hit rate is HUGE. At the end of a 130 turn game, the ships with Talisman could take out my best ships about 3 to 1. (Good thing I had 5x as many ships )

This is a big part of the reason why the Talisman has always been horribly unbalancing. Nothing should ever give 100% to hit rate.

[ March 15, 2003, 09:23: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[MegaTrain]

Originally posted by Ruatha:

quote:

---

Originally posted by MegaTrain:

2 If you put two Space Yard component on a ship, you get a single queue that can build with twice the speed.

7 You can give your ships fairly complex sets of orders, including Stellar Manipulation. Like this:
Move to Fenves Coordinates (3,4)
Open Warp Point
Move to Fenves Coordinates (9,9)

Are these only true in Devnull mod?
I belive in standard game you can't increase build speed by having more than one space yard? right?
Also in standard I'm not sure about opening worm holes, that might work. But the bad thing is that I can't use move to, close worm hole... As it then says, There is no worm hole at this sector if I'm not positioned at a wormhole when I enter the orders.

---

You're right about the space yards. In the standard game, it tells you "Only 1 component allowed per ship".

Regarding the ship orders for stellar manipulation, it depends on the component.

You can't give orders to CLOSE a warp point unless you are on a warp point (although it doesn't have to be the one you want to close)

You CAN give it the orders to open a warp point, create a planet, or create a star from anywhere, even if you aren't on an asteroid or in a system where you can create a star. Obviously, if by the time it tries to execute the orders, its not on an asteroid, it can't create the planet.

I'm currently testing all the other stellar manipulation components to see which ones allow you to set orders to execute other places.

For example, can you warp into a black hole system and collapse it in the same turn? Does it depend on whether the ship was damaged going through the warp point?

I'll report back here what I find.

[Phoenix-D]

"This is a big part of the reason why the Talisman has always been horribly unbalancing. Nothing should ever give 100% to hit rate."

It can if it was other things backing it up. Like being really frigging expensive. It's already 50kt in size..how about 50kt, 4000/4000/4000 cost?

Phoenix-D

[raynfala]

Sorry if this is old news, but I hadn't realized this before, and I just had an epiphany Last night, and felt I needed to share (and and and and... )!

Let's say you've managed to max out the Applied Research tech. Now let's say you have just colonized a planet with, oh... let's say... 20 facility slots. Now let's say you want the planet to be dedicated to research, so you order up 20 Research III facilities (let's ignore Computer Complexes and such).

Guess what? Assuming that your planetary construction rate is 2000/2000/2000, you're missing out on 100,000 extra research points at a cost of only 15,000 extra minerals.

Why? Research III facilities cost 2500 minerals to build; you'll build one every other turn. In contrast, Research II facilities cost 2000 minerals; you'll build one each and every turn. By building a new research facility each turn instead of every other turn, you'll be accumulating more research points sooner. The extra 100 points of research generated by a level III facility (compared to a level II facility) does not justify the extra turn necessary to build the level III facility directly. You're better off building level II facilities more quickly, and then upgrading afterwards. This is where the extra 15,000kT of minerals come in: an extra 25,000kT to upgrade the 20 facilities (half of the level III facilities' cost), minus the 10,000kT saved by building cheaper facilities up front.

If your empire production can support the extra expenditure, you should go for it!!!

I just verified this on a spreadsheet this morning. Eeek, a spreadsheet!!! Does that mean I'm helping SEIV turn into MOO3?

--Raynfala

[Slick]

Originally posted by raynfala:
Sorry if this is old news, but I hadn't realized this before, and I just had an epiphany Last night, and felt I needed to share (and and and and... )!

Let's say you've managed to max out the Applied Research tech. Now let's say you have just colonized a planet with, oh... let's say... 20 facility slots. Now let's say you want the planet to be dedicated to research, so you order up 20 Research III facilities (let's ignore Computer Complexes and such).

Guess what? Assuming that your planetary construction rate is 2000/2000/2000, you're missing out on 100,000 extra research points at a cost of only 15,000 extra minerals.

Why? Research III facilities cost 2500 minerals to build; you'll build one every other turn. In contrast, Research II facilities cost 2000 minerals; you'll build one each and every turn. By building a new research facility each turn instead of every other turn, you'll be accumulating more research points sooner. The extra 100 points of research generated by a level III facility (compared to a level II facility) does not justify the extra turn necessary to build the level III facility directly. You're better off building level II facilities more quickly, and then upgrading afterwards. This is where the extra 15,000kT of minerals come in: an extra 25,000kT to upgrade the 20 facilities (half of the level III facilities' cost), minus the 10,000kT saved by building cheaper facilities up front.

If your empire production can support the extra expenditure, you should go for it!!!

I just verified this on a spreadsheet this morning. Eeek, a spreadsheet!!! Does that mean I'm helping SEIV turn into MOO3?

--Raynfala

Yup. This applies to all "level II" facilities like Mineral Miners, Intelligence centers, etc.

The most efficient way to build them is level II's (until you can build level III's in 1 turn due to population and happiness bonuses), leaving 2 slots open on larger worlds. After you build your level II's, then look at the build times for the appropriate facility to multiply the planet's output, system output and to upgrade. Do them in order of cheapest first. For research, you would build the Central Computer Complex, then the System Computer complex, then upgrade to level III's in that order. Better yet, build the system computer on another planet in parallel.

Slick.

p.s. I had to do the spreadsheet thing myself a few months ago to prove it to myself as well.

[kalthalior]

"I like to turn off the galaxy map grid. It give the big (small map on the lower right hand side) a more space feel."

I do this as well, and on the system map, I like to do the reverse and turn ON the grid to help me determine for far I can travel.