Newbie questions

[G-top]

I have some newbie type questions and I hope I remember them all!

Will it be possible to setup a game so you can setup a colony on any planet with only one type of colony ship? I rather not keep track of ice planets & rock planets etc.

How does one get all the minerals to the home planet. Is that what a space port does? And you need one only each system? I am a bit confused on that (obviously - grin).

Are there any strategy articles around yet? Like which techs are a must have and so on?

How do the racial points work exactly?

I never played SE3 so this is all new to me. Thanks in advance for any help!!



[This message has been edited by G-top (edited 07 October 2000).]

[Master Belisarius]

>Will it be possible to setup a game so you can setup a colony on any planet with only one type of >colony ship? I rather not keep track of ice planets & rock planets etc.

Nope...


>How does one get all the minerals to the home planet. Is that what a space port does?
>And you need one only each system? I am a bit confused on that (obviously - grin).

You're right. To get the production of any colonized system, you need to have at least ONE space port in every system. But the Robo Miners/Farmers/Rad Extractors, don't need a space port.


>Are there any strategy articles around yet? Like which techs are a must have and so on?

Not yet. Anyway exist some faqs in the malfador website.


>How do the racial points work exactly?

In the setup game phase, you start with a number of racial points. You can spend it in different abilities of your race. The more important are the Advanced Traits, where you can find some cool techs like the Cristalurgy, Organic, etc, that will allow to you, have access to an unique tech tree.

[G-top]

Thanks!!

One more question - is there a way for one ship to resupply another? It seems like there should be. I researched resupply pods etc but I could not figure out how to use them to resupply another ship. Sorry about my ignorance.

[Taqwus]

Universal colony pods
---------------------

You might be able to edit the data files to create a new component. Judging from the 0.56 demo, the full Version will probably let you add a Universal Colony component.

See COMPONENTS.TXT. Apparently, each component can have multiple 'Abilities'. If you created a 'Universal Colony', added a picture for it (or just reused one of the other three ?), and so forth, you should be able to give it all three 'Colonize Planet Foo' abilities. For balance, if it coexists with the old ones it should be expensive, big, and require all three colony techs.

For now, you can use the colonization minister. It doesn't complain about the tedium of bookkeeping. ;-) And it does a survivable job.


Minerals
--------
Right, one space port per system *unless* you choose the appropriate Advanced Trait. Unless you have a space port in a system, or in that trait, neither resources nor intelligence points (nor, probably, research) gets credited towards your Empire-wide accounts. Incidentally, they don't get stored on the home planet -- that is, losing a home planet will not devastate your economy, assuming that you have other planets with good production/population by then. There's no in-game stockpile to raid/capture.


Some racial point pointers
--------------------------
On basic traits --
The marginal cost for a trait increases at certain levels -- for instance, it is cheaper to go from +19% to +20% than it is from +20% to +21%. Also, the costs are currently not related to importance (in the demo) -- e.g. you can almost certainly accept a -50% ground combat penalty if you plan on capturing planets through accepting surrenders, black ops or extortion rather than outright conquest. -50% trade (politics, IIRC) is also useful if you have no intention of signing treaties. A bonus to Organic production is more important if you choose that same Advanced Trait, and so forth.

Advanced traits, hm. Three very strong ones (IMHO) are Crystalline, Organic and Advanced Propulsion. The first gives you very tough, cheap armor, plus an excellent projectile weapon (shard cannons pierce armor, have respectable damage, good range, and fire every turn). A ship with a couple of Crystalline Armor III components, and decent shields, can be quite hard to kill.

The second gives you slightly less tough regenerating armor; a good missile weapon (Seeker Parasites -- fires every two turns rather than every three like Capital Ship Missiles), and decent projectile weapons. Note that for Organic, you research *both* projectile AND missile weapons at once via 'Organic Weapons' instead of having to split your research among two areas. You probably don't need both this and Crystalline, even at max race points (5k in the demo).

The third gives your ships one extra movement point (strategic scale). Note that in the beginning, everybody uses 6 Ion Engine I's on their warships (colony ships/transports can only take 5). This means that most ships move at speed 6 strategic/3 combat, which is the same speed as almost all missiles (certainly all the early ones). +1 means you get 7/4 for the same engine count, which means that you can *outrun* enemy missiles for at least the early part of the game. Missiles early on are normally the most threatening weapons, because their range is much better than the early projectile weapons, armor/shielding is rare, and a few lucky hits and you'll be too slow to dodge missiles or get in cannon range.

It'll be also easier for you to choose your fights and take advantage of differences in weapon range.

Traits to avoid include Time, which strikes me as broken (only two weapons, and their implementation appears to be quite buggy). Religious is probably also a bad choice because a lot of its value might come from shrines which improve planets per turn -- and the demo is only 100 turns.

My typical belligerent race design, on max race points, usually goes something like

- Crystalline (or Organic)
- Advanced Propulsion Systems
- Warlike / Bloodthirsty
- Gas Giants / Methane
- +20% production for all three resources
- +20% population growth
- +20% ship maintenance
- -50% trade (politics, IIRC)
- -50% ground combat
- Remainder of points split arbitrarily
between research, ship attack, and ship
defense.

with the motivation of out[re]producing => outcolonizing => out[re]producing, etc, with generous helpings of nasty warships (low maintenance so you can afford more of 'em) and constant aggression. It is not meant, obviously, to be played with the slightest bit of remorse. Bully others, extort technology / planets / ships from them, and destroy them for their cowardice... ;-)

Early tech foci are propulsion, crystalline/organic tech, and production/research techs.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[G-top]

Few more questions:

If you have a spaceport or have picked the appropriate "merchant characteristic" - allows you to use the materials that one mines. So what do you need storage facilities for? Do they act like a bank for materials until they are used?

[Lerchey]

Right. Storage facilities store resources. Useful if you produce more than you use ... comes in handy for the lean times when you don't.

John

[G-top]

Just want to thank everyone for all the help!

I can not wait till I actually get a manual (yes I did pre-order it awhile ago). But just got around to trying the demo.