somewhat newbie question flood.

[Slick]

I am trying to get into the nitty-gritty details of this game (gold, v1.78) and I have been doing as much reading as I can find on this board as well as other related links but I still have some unanswered questions. I see that lots of you appear to be gurus and I would appreciate your lending some info. Please restrict answers to unmodded v1.78 since I want to really explore the basic game before going into mods. Thanks in advance.

1) Are “auto” tactical combat and strategic combat identical? Also, how similar to “real” combat is the simulator. What are the differences?

2) Is there any way to detect mines other than with sweepers or running into them?

3) Would there be any good reason to use a non-colonizer hull to build a colonizer?

4) I am building a spreadsheet with lots of specs & info from the data .txt files which is much easier to sort/filter and is printer friendly. Has this already been done? If so, where can I download it? I am more than willing to upload the spreadsheet when it is complete.

5) Are sensor / shield / nebula effects modeled in combat?

6) It seems that the combat simulator can only model ship designs and other things found in your homeworld system. Can it simulate combat in storms, nebulae, etc? What about simulating crew experience, etc?

7) Not trying to be a troll, but is there a buglist posted somewhere? I have reported a couple of bugs to MM, but I would hate to be bothering them by reporting things already known.

8) How is mine damage applied to a fleet? Specifically how are ships (after sweepers, if any, are overwhelmed) chosen to be damaged?

9) Which are the good ministers to use? I seem to only have marginal success with the population transport minister. He seems to get stuck sometimes and he doesn’t do very well at putting the correct breathing races on the right planets.

10) Do cloaked minesweepers automatically uncloak and sweep mines if encountered? I have not been willing to risk a minesweeper to find out.

11) Does long range scanning happen automatically or do you have to click on enemy ships when they get in range to get their design?

12) It appears that repairs (not retrofits) require no resources. Is this true?

13) Is there any real difference between a gift & a tribute? I see that the reactions to happiness can be modded to be different but they appear to be the same in the unmodded game.

14) How does planet conditions affect happiness, reproduction, production, construction, etc.? The “manual” says it does, but I see no reference to it in the .txt files.

15) Do weapon platforms participate in ground combat?

16) Do “mounts” add anything to a tractor or repulsor? It seems not.

17) For single ships, if I create a 1-ship fleet with it, does it get crew experience AND fleet experience? Is this a bug?

Thanks!

[Jmenschenfresser]

1) Not sure about the auto combat, but the sim is identical to strategic, but you have to make sure you mirror every detail in the sim...otherwise results will vary.

2)In the unmodded game. No. Because mines have a lvl 5 cloak and sensors scan at highest for lvl 4.

8) Mine damage is spread out through a fleet, but not equally. However, I have recently been doing tests for a mod that changes mines and the highest variance in one fleet that I have seen is one ship getting almost 50% damage, while another ship goes untouched.

17) Yes, the ship will get both kinds of exp. I don't think this is a bug, just a nuance of the game.

4) Yes, someone has compiled component lists with the numbers and whatnot. Not sure, but I'd look in the mod forums. I used to have someone's spreadsheet of weapon family numbers, but deleted it.

I'll let others jump in on the rest.

[geoschmo]

Didn't try to anser all of them, but...

2) Divining rod? No.

3) More room for engines, cargo, supply storage, weapons...

6) Don't think so, and no.

7) No, send 'em anyway. If he get's tired of getting duplicates maybe he'll put one up somewhere.

8) Random

9) The Minister of "Doing it yourself" is the only one I use anymore.

10) No. Unless you are playing agasint me, then yes they do.

11) You don't have to "activate" the scanner or anything, but you have to click on the ship to see it's design. Unfortunatly it does not save the design unless you actually encounter it in combat.

12) Yes

13) Pretty much. I think you are correct.

15) No

16) I think they increase the base damage, but not the tractor effect.

17) Yes. Depends on who you ask.

[Gryphin]

"3) Would there be any good reason to use a non-colonizer hull to build a colonizer?"

1) Speed. You can go 1 sector faster in a Non Colony ship hull. It is a trade off between a 18%? Increase in speed and the cost of the hull. How much will you save in Maintenance cost by getting there 1 or 2 turns faster. How much will you get back by getting a facility in service 1 or 2 turns sooner.
2) Cargo: You can put more cargo bays in a Light Crusier size hull than a colonizer hull. This way you can carry more Population and if going to the edge of your frontier you could even carry a weapons platform or other unit.
3) Supplies: You can send a Colonizer further. I could see this useful if you have Ancient Race and can spot good planets….

[Suicide Junkie]

Mounts do affect tractor/repulsors.

For tractor beams it is pretty useless, since the effect is limited to the range of your beam.
For repulsor beams, a Massive Base Mount repulsor beam can throw ships all the way to the edge of the combat map.

12) Repairs don't have any explicit costs, but you do have to pay maintenance while the repairs are conducted.
It is possible to repair ships while they are mothballed, but you will lose any experience they have.

[rdouglass]

Originally posted by Gryphin:
....and if going to the edge of your frontier you could even carry a weapons platform or other unit.

Does that work? IOW any cargo is transfered to new colony? I've been playing for quite some time and I just assumed only population worked like that.

There is just so many little details to this game, I'm still learning after 2+ years....

[Baron Munchausen]

1) This is a disputed question. Many people think that strategies they test in the simulator don't work the same in actual combat. Supposedly the 'strategic' combat routiens are the same as the 'automatic' in the tactical mode but again without access to the code we can't be sure.

2) In the unmodded game, no. You can alter mines to be visible with higher level sensors, though.

3) Yeah, the colony ship requires that almost all of its space be taken by the colony module. With a warship hull you can build a faster colonizer, or even an ARMED colonizer than can clear out the inconvenient aliens on the planet before colonizing.

4) Yes, this has been done for many data files. Look in the mods forum and you might find a spreadsheet or text file. Or maybe someone will provide a pointer to a thread in this forum.

5) If they aren't it's a bug. So far as I know shields are reduced and combat sensors degraded in nebulas just like they are supposed to be.

6) Now that apparently doesn't work. I guess it can't work since each storm is unique. How does it decide which storm attributes to use when you select a storm in the simulator?

7) I don't think there is any 'central' bug list but you'll definitely learn of all the bugs by reading here.

8) Some sort of algorithm is used to spread the damage around in pseudo-randomized fashion. We don't have the code so we can't say exactly what it is.

9) Every experienced player that I know of hates all the AI ministers and does everything personally. This is the biggest complaint about the game... the AI sucks!

10) They are supposed to. Some problems have been reported where the AI forgets to uncloak. If you are using your ships in 'manual' mode they do NOT automatically uncloak. You must stop and uncloak before hitting a mine field, or let them run uncloacked in order to be effective.

11) Well, that's 'automatic' when you click and the data is there.

12) Yep. Your standard maintenance costs are considered to pay for repairs, I guess.

13) There seems to be a difference in how the AI percieves them. When in a hostile mood it is more likely to accept a tribute than a gift.

14) We have only been able to verify that conditions affect reproduction rate. The other effects are probably unimplemented.

15) No. They used to, but it was a problem and they were removd from ground combat.

16) Yes, mounts multiply the effect of tractor or repulsor beams by the same proportion as other weapons.

17) Yes, a one-ship fleet gets fleet experience. Granted, it sounds illogical since a ship alon can't be any more effective just by being designated a fleet, but wouldn't it be considered a bug if fleet experience didn't work when you had only one ship?

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Slick:

13) Is there any real difference between a gift & a tribute? I see that the reactions to happiness can be modded to be different but they appear to be the same in the unmodded game.

Thanks!

I've seen an AI accept a tribute when it had refused a gift the turn before. I find it hard to believe the AI got happier with me in the time frame, so the tribute seems to mean something that the gift doesn't.

[Pax]

Originally posted by Slick:
3) Would there be any good reason to use a non-colonizer hull to build a colonizer?

Large Transports can hold 900kT of components, Mediums 600kT. If you want to ship more population with theinitial colony ship, larger hulls might be what you want (say, if you don't want to also MM sending a freighter or two alogn with each colony ship).

Building a colony ship on Light Cruiser hull or the like can fool other races into not trealising it's a coloniser. NFC what the benefit of that might be.

16) Do “mounts” add anything to a tractor or repulsor? It seems not.

Sure they do. Equip a Starbase with a Massive Base Mount repulser beam. It'll throw it's target clear to the edge of the map.

17) For single ships, if I create a 1-ship fleet with it, does it get crew experience AND fleet experience? Is this a bug?

Thanks!

YEs it gets both, and no, it's not a bug. Frankly I think there should be a nominal cost in maintenance for Fleets, as well as for ships, but ... *shrug* ...

[Arkcon]

Originally posted by Pax:
Large Transports can hold 900kT of components, Mediums 600kT. If you want to ship more population with theinitial colony ship, larger hulls might be what you want ...

You have to be careful with colony ships that are too large. If you have too much population, some gets lost in the colonization process. IIRC, the maximum population of the planet's size for a domed colony is all you can drop, even on a breathable planet.