War points and black holes

Suicide Junkie · #1 March 20th, 2001, 05:14 PM

1) Only Armor can protect you against unexpected and/or natural phenomena. Shields are only raised during battle. Just layer on the armor, and build a repair base on the other side.

2) Unless you control >10% of the galaxy or are partners with everybody, destroying black holes is probably too expensive ($$$, research points & time) for you. Better to just go for a low tech solution (armored repair ship + armored ships) If you are really serious about "fixing" your system, and have 5 years to spare, research Stellar Manip (under astrophysics) way up. IMO, a quick armor & repair then shields & weapons would be better research.

3) Somewhat. Once you know how to solve your BH problem, theres nothing to worry about. If you don't know, you better ask, or spend some time to figure it out.
I like BHs, since they provide a great buffer against powerful enemies, while you're fighting for your life on the other side of your empire.
- Low Tech soln: Armor + repairship
- High Tech soln: Quantum InVersion beam + wormhole creaters.

4) The storms you can create only hide your ships. Natural storms can have many special abilities. With a storm, you can hide planets/ships/bases/stars. Maybe not stars, but maybe.

Kimball · #2 March 20th, 2001, 05:58 PM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:

4) The storms you can create only hide your ships. Natural storms can have many special abilities. With a storm, you can hide planets/ships/bases/stars. Maybe not stars, but maybe.

I was under the impression that all storms are random. At least that is the impression I get reading the components.txt file:

Ability 1 Type := Create Storm
Ability 1 Descr := Will create a random storm of any size.

Suicide Junkie · #3 March 20th, 2001, 06:19 PM

I spent 30 minutes making storms, and none of them were special.

DirectorTsaarx · #4 March 20th, 2001, 08:57 PM

From the v1.30 Settings.txt (these lines appeared sometime between 1.19 and 1.30):

Created Storm Maximum Obscuration Level := 2
Created Storm Maximum Turbulence Damage := 200
Created Storm Maximum Shield Disruption := 5000

So it looks like you should be able to create "special" storms...

Spyder · #5 March 20th, 2001, 10:45 PM

quote:
Originally posted by suicide_junkie:

2) Unless you control >10% of the galaxy or are partners with everybody, destroying black holes is probably too expensive ($$$, research points & time) for you. Better to just go for a low tech solution (armored repair ship + armored ships) If you are really serious about "fixing" your system, and have 5 years to spare, research Stellar Manip (under astrophysics) way up. IMO, a quick armor & repair then shields & weapons would be better research.

Wormhole Manipulators (Stellar Manipulation) is one of the most important things to research quickly, in my opinion. They allow you to make quick pathways around your airspace and they allow you to 'fix' bad wormholes by destroying & recreating them. They also allow you to isolate entrypoints into your airspace....ie, constrict the avenues of approach for your enemies to a few, defensible avenues.

As for Black holes, I deal with them until I own the system(s) on the other side and then destroy them. They are good natural defenses early on in the game. Later, they are a hinderance to traffic.

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Spyder, Chairman of the Arachnid Consortium

Suicide Junkie · #6 March 21st, 2001, 12:04 AM

DT: Maybe it works in V1.3, but I'm sure the AI will really be screwed if it does work.

Imagine a player putting a three-sector deep damaging storms arount the warp point. The AI will just throw ships at it in vain!

quote:
Wormhole Manipulators (Stellar Manipulation) is one of the most important things to research quickly

That would be reasonable against humans, but the AI just can't handle SM, so it really is unfair. I just don't research it until I want Dyson Spheres.
I suppose a three-turn-then-scrap/mothball use SM ship could be useful, but you still have a lot of research to divert.

DirectorTsaarx · #7 March 21st, 2001, 05:26 PM

Speaking of warp points, does anyone else use the "Warp Points occur anywhere in system" setting? I've really grown to like it, even though sometimes I end up with warp points right next to homeworlds (good for moving exploration ships out, bad for defending against AI).