Scenario tips & tricks

Taera · #1 February 11th, 2003, 08:56 AM

I have some ideas for scenarios and thought to start a topic for people to share their ways of making scenarios.

Things that come in head:
*Learn to use Sentry ability. On simultaneous can be deadly (you cant dodge it)
*Make 1 research costs for everything and research whatever you need, then put the normal research file
*Modify save games for dates (how do you do that?)
*For a no-research game remove the Research Facility and add research generation to some of the facilities, research whatever needed and remove the ability

Anyone else with useful hints?

Puke · #2 February 11th, 2003, 09:21 AM

ah, this takes me back. so many people used to make good scenarios.. okay, maybe only a couple. Geoschmo made great Voyager and Space 1999 scenarios. Someone else (sorry for forgetting who) made a great Andromeda scenario. Drone Wars was alot of fun.

There were a many good multiplayer scenarios too. One was a no-planet start where everyone started in a single system with just a colony ship. another was my Smash TV game, which has been running (very slowly) now for over a year. We might even have one of the original players left... There have been several more theme based games, and a couple of them involved some of the pregame scenario setup that you describe.

one trick was to log in as each of the players, and play a fixed number of turns. another trick was to give one race super technology through hacked research or ruins, and have them leave abandoned ships to be captured or give high tech items to low tech players. or to hack the facilities file, so players start with better things than they can build on their own. with hacked files, some of the options include overweight ships (causes problems with movement if the ship is ever damaged) or ships or planets with multiple spaceyards.

dogscoff · #3 February 11th, 2003, 05:23 PM

I'm kind of working on an Othaglot & Cane scenario- or maybe it would be better to describe it as a map to accompany the story. It's far too sparse to be good for an actual game.

I've put the map together, and now I want to populate it with all the appropriate populations and facilities in Proportions mod.

The only trouble is, I don't want to include too much data outside of what is already "canon", so I'm leaving all the systems mostly bare for now.

However, when the time comes to add more planets and systems I'm going to have to redo the map, and there will be no way to re-insert it into the existing scenario game. I suppose I could use stellar manip for extra planets, but if I introduce any new systems I'll have to repopulate from scratch.

As a side note, have you ever seen a Max tech Proportions sphereworld homeworld with advanced storage techniques? You get a space port, a resupply depot, a space yard, one radioactives megaplex, one agrarian cultural centre and 235 cultural centres.

The production output is nothing short of obscene.

[ February 11, 2003, 15:25: Message edited by: dogscoff ]

geoschmo · #4 February 11th, 2003, 06:40 PM

If you are setting up a scenario where you want one or a few superior races and others to have no advancment beyond the game start, use the No AI Mod. That way you don't have to play each race's turns every turn just to tell it not to do anything. You can just play the one's you actually want to do something with. Then when start playing the game with stock AI files the computer will start controlling them, or you can assign them as the player position for the scenario.

Geoschmo

Ed Kolis · #5 February 11th, 2003, 08:18 PM

>>Learn to use Sentry ability. On simultaneous you can't dodge it.

What do you mean? I thought Sentry just told a ship to not move (too bad it won't hold position in a black hole system

) but still get skipped over by "next ship"? Or do you mean you take control of an AI's empire and order all its ships to sentry and the AI won't un-sentry them?

Taera · #6 February 12th, 2003, 07:34 AM

Ed - sentry order is a wonder.
What it does:
*When sentry canceled (enemy sighted/supplies running low) it performs the next order.
In simultaneous you can hide ships in systems. once the player enters the system, there is no way he can dodge the alien ship and will surely get attacked. The only problem is that, IIRC, Repeat Orders cancels out after a combat. Too bad.

Basicly you put a ship on sentry and give it orders. once it canceled the ship will perform its orders. like blow-up system or whatsnot(is S.Manip is scheduled as an order in simultaneous?) and besides, its great for remote mining (you only give it orders once... go there, sit sentried being skipped in the next ship list, once supplies run short run towards ressuply depot and then go back... all done once)

Pablo · #7 February 12th, 2003, 04:27 PM

you need to resupply remote miners? In one of my games (DNM) I have a few mining bases and they are out of supplies but it indicates that they mine anyway or I am missing something

geoschmo · #8 February 12th, 2003, 04:38 PM

Taera, I think Eds question which you didn't really answer is whether or not sentry has a use for making scenarios. There is a question whether or not the AI will follow you predefined sentry/whatever orders or if it will simply clear the orders and do what it wants with the ship as soon as you stop controlling it and turn it over to the AI for the scenario. I have been meaning to test that myself and see, but have never got around to it.

Geoschmo

Ed Kolis · #9 February 12th, 2003, 07:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Taera:
Ed - sentry order is a wonder.
What it does:
*When sentry canceled (enemy sighted/supplies running low) it performs the next order.
In simultaneous you can hide ships in systems. once the player enters the system, there is no way he can dodge the alien ship and will surely get attacked. The only problem is that, IIRC, Repeat Orders cancels out after a combat. Too bad.

Basicly you put a ship on sentry and give it orders. once it canceled the ship will perform its orders. like blow-up system or whatsnot(is S.Manip is scheduled as an order in simultaneous?) and besides, its great for remote mining (you only give it orders once... go there, sit sentried being skipped in the next ship list, once supplies run short run towards ressuply depot and then go back... all done once)

Holy crud... you can DO that?!?

And here I was thinking all "sentry" was good for was to "mark" ships that you don't want to move and you know you won't move for a while so you can skip over them in the ships list when you're checking "what ships are lacking orders?" Yes, stellar manipulation is scheduled as an order in simultaneous games... so are scrapping, mothballing, refitting, and analyzing... so you're saying I could put a "trigger" ship on a star and order it to sentry then destroy the star if any enemies warp into the system? (Of course if my enemy finds out then he'll probably send one escort in

) Does this work even when "ships clear orders upon enemy presence" is off? I never play with that on since half the orders you GIVE involve enemies in the system - Go attack him now! Oh wait gotta clear orders, there's an enemy in the system! ships do nothing

Though this probably explains why my remote miner won't keep a sentry order I gave it at an asteroid - it ran out of supply!

Phoenix-D · #10 February 12th, 2003, 10:26 PM

"Though this probably explains why my remote miner won't keep a sentry order I gave it at an asteroid - it ran out of supply!"

Which gives yet another use for the sentry order in scenerios: time bomb. Give a ship a cloaking device and a star killer. When the supplies drop below 1000 (or maybe to 0?) from the use of the cloak, the sentry order will be cleared and the manipulation order will activate.

Phoenix-D