The Ship Class You Use Most

[WhiteHojo]

Sundevil - tried it w/Base added - no luck, still not destroying itself after sweeping the mines.

How exactly do you "use" a minesweeper component? I assumed it would be used by simply entering the sqr w/the mines and sweeping em (&surviving) - but apparently that's not the case.

Got to be something I'm missing...

------------------
Character is best defined as that which you do when you believe nobody is watching.

[Taqwus]

Maybe that field isn't checked except for the Stellar Manipulation items (which go through a specific menu) and components which go through the explicit Use Component button (Emergency foo, for instance). It might just be computing how many mines your fleet can sweep and using the number, w/o checking flags...

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

[SunDevil]

WhiteHojo:

I can't play the game right now, I'm at work and actually have to work, but since the device is part of the unit launch group, maybe you have to hit the launch button. Maybe by doing this it will clear the mines and then destroy that component.

It is just a suggestion. If you find out let me know.

[WhiteHojo]

this is very upsetting - destroying the component was the only thing I could think of to counter balance the MiniSweeper's abilities... oh well, back to the drawing board.

Any further info would be verrrry welcome.

[Nyx]

quote:

---

My question to both of you: Are you using this design to exploit the bug where stellar manip devices do not consume the supplies they are suppose to? They are suppose to use 1000 - 4000 supplies each from the description. I emailed MM about this bug, but have not heard a reply yet.
WhiteHojo, I believe with the right supply storage level a lt. cruiser could work, my design is like yours, but since I've yet to research QR component, I include solar collectors to regain lost supplies. I can not recall if it fits on a lt. cruiser or if I use the next biggest size.

---

Not really. I keep a few of them in a fleet together with a repair-facility-equipped cruiser to repair the consumed components. It also has four solar collector IIIs (or a quantum reactor and/or emergency resupply pods) so the fleet as a whole has more than enough supplies even though they don't get consumed. I just find that this way I get my stellar manipulation much faster than if I try to make a self-sufficient design. Back in SE3, I used to make a big ship with planet bombs, planet makers, and a repair facility all in one. I tried it in Se4 but it took too long to build. Having three diffferent shipyards working at the same time and then combining the ships into a fleet is much faster. I do, out of laziness, sometimes take advantage of the bug with my warp-gate ships. But by that point it doesn't really matter as I have about 4 times the combined power of all AIs and/or my human opponent's permission.

------------------
Compete in the Space Empires IV World Championship at www.twingalaxies.com.

[evader]

I use a lot of transports

I am almost always tranporting something somewhare.

My Defense fleet is small compared to others. But I make up for that with a lot of size(nothing importand on the outer edge) and battle tactis(to be expain in anthor thread sometime)

For colony ships I don't wast time or resources trying to perfect a colony ship.

Gotta go now

Write more later

[Atrocities]

I have noticed as I play through my games that there is one ship class that I use more than others. Any one want to venture a guess as to what it is?

Ok, good guess, Colonizers.

I use them the most. I don't know about you all, but it seems the colonizers are the ships that get used in just about every turn of the game. Kinda odd when you think about it. Here you are trying to conqure the galaxy, and your primary ship is a colonizer. Actually, its ironic. Just a rant courticy of PCP. (No, not the drug. )

------------------
"We've made too many compromises already, too many retreats! They invade our space and we fall back -- they assimilate entire worlds and we fall back! Not again! The line must be drawn here -- this far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they've done!" -- Patric Stewart as Captain Picard
UCP/TCO Ship Yards

[pathfinder]

hehe, prolly same here or escorts.

[Ungor]

In the very early game I tend to use Escorts and pirate my ship construction tech from my first opponent.

After that I tend to go through a phase using LCs for most of my warships, then move on to BCs when I get the tech.

I've never really been too fond of BBs or DNs, since they have less engine capacity, and I try to keep my fleets as fast as possible. For the same reason, I generally don't use transport hulls, the small savings in minerals is more than made up for by the increase in speed. For a small transport you're effectively just spending an extra 150 for that Last engine when you change to a destroyer hull. I also like the extra flexibility, in case I want to fit an extra component or two too many for the 1/2 cargo spaces restriction.

In general I find smaller specialized ships to be more efficient than giant multipurpose ships. I'll typically build a tender to go along with my fleets with a repair bay, solar collectors and scanners. This frees up space on the warships for more weapons and I find it easier to customize a fleet for a particular situation by adding more/less tenders (and point-defense ships for that matter) than to design ships with a particular mission in mind.

While I'm on the subject of hull classes, has anyone else noticed that the Small Transport and Colony Ship hulls are identical - and that Colony components are treated as cargo? Doesn't seem to make a difference which you use in single-player, but it might be useful to use the transport in a multiplayer game to make your colonizers less obvious to you enemies.


Warfare is the greatest affair of state, the basis of life and death, the Way to survival or extinction. It must be thoroughly pondered and analyzed.
-Sun Tzu


Ungor