Q&A Session with Aaron Hall. (Offline Edition)

[Timstone]

To alleviate the confusions with time zones, the #se4 web site now has a count down page, which gives you the exact amount of time left until the scheduled chat sessions. It was contributed by Tevlik. You can view it here:

http://se4irc.spaceempires.net/countdown.php

Now this resolved everything!
Thank you Tevlik!
And thank you Fyron!

[David E. Gervais]

Just a quick note, the questions you post here will not be asked during the chat sessions, I will be compiling them into a Q&A (with all the questions and Blank spaces for the answers) I will then send this batch of Questions to Aaron who will answer them at his leisure and return the completed Q&A back to me. I will then post the resulting file here for all to see.

Oh, and remember this is a Q&A not a wish list, so post your 'wishes' in that 'other' thread.

Cheers!

[Alneyan]

Alas, this chart confirms the time I had expected for my own session, and I won't be able to get there (at least, I managed to figure out the time for my zone without being fully confused).

So my questions are as follow:
- Will the construction rates "stack"? That is to say, will any excess carry over to the next item in the list, or will it be "one queue element per turn" as in SEIV? For example, will you need two turns to build two ships costing 2,000 minerals at a 4,000 minerals spaceyard, or a single one?
- Will the dynamics behind Stellar Manipulation be changed with SEV?
- As mentioned before, would it be possible to have a few details about the script system?

Thanks!

[csebal]

While i'll try to be Online and ask this myself, but it is possible i'll not be able to make it, so heres my question:

- Will the game have an option to save smaller, patch like savegame files when generating the new PBW turn? I'm talking about files, the client can use to build the actual savegame file itself, taking the previous turn's one, and applying the changes received to it. (Shameless feature request hidden inside )

[Saber Cherry]

So, what is this SE3 research/intel model that will be used in SEV? How does it differ from SEIV?

[Ragnarok]

It uses %'s in it. You have X amount of research points like in SEIV and you can take X% of that and put into any given tech, then another Y% into another and yet another. You can have it to where you have 1% of you total research points in 100(perhaps more?) different tech areas whereas you are limited to just 12 max areas of research in SEIV and really even less then that unless you turn on devide points evenly.

[Saber Cherry]

The way research points accumulate (e.g., without compound interest) makes it preferable to put all points into a single project. MOO I had a sort of strange system where spreading research around was beneficial, but as long as doubling research allocation halves research time (that is to say, as long as research "flow" and time are perfectly inversely proportional) spreading research is detrimental.

For example:

If you have 4 projects of 1000 RP each, and you get 1000 RP per turn, sharing the research gives you 4 advances on turn 4... but focusing research gives you one advance per turn. The more you spread research, the worse off you'll be...

Was there some hidden advantage to spreading research in SE3, like compound interest or decreasing gains?

[Fyron]

Was there some hidden advantage to spreading research in SE3, like compound interest or decreasing gains?

It is more of a benefit for intelligence... If you make a huge amount of research and can get many tech levels in a turn, there is no limit to 12 tech areas. The same goes for intelligence, for which the limit tends to be reached a lot more easily. Also, you don't have to remove tech areas that you started researching, but changed your mind mid-way, due to no limit of 12 slots in the queue.

[Fyron]

So, what is this SE3 research/intel model that will be used in SEV? How does it differ from SEIV?

You can get the shareware for SE3 from www.malfador.com (under 2 MBs, possibly a lot less) and see exactly how it works.