Gameplay tips & tricks

[CaptainAL]

Thanks for all the posts.

Well, it happened again and I think I know why. I did not elect collision coverage Until recently I did not know about the 1.36M resource conversion limit for each RC III. So I started keeping an eye on that to make sure I did not exceed the limit. What I did not know until now is that resource conversion orders above the 1.36M limit carry over to the next turn. I must not have noticed the lit-up view orders icon when I gave the converter new orders for more conversion. The resource conversion backlog must have been for radioactives, and I guess that I put the radioactive conversion first on my new orders last turn. I figure this because only radioactives converted this turn and not the organics I ordered. So the backlog conversion of rads added to the new order to exceed the 1.2M rads I had in storage; therefore, nothing retrofitted. AAAAHHHHH - The Bug is ME!

LESSON I LEARNED: always clear any left over conversion orders before issuing new ones! OR - keep your eye on the eyeball! Sorry for wasted time guys - I would have noticed this sooner if I read sooner about the 1.36M converting limit. Perhaps these posts are worthwhile though in case someone else also does not see the 1.36M limit noted in the FAQs but does pick it up here.

Oh - and I have often thanked God that repairs do not cost anything. That would really drive me nuts!

Have a happy holiday all and thanks for your help!!!

[Captain Kwok]

I noticed you did a similar thing with your former empire in Stellar Battles after noticing a bunch of retrofits not going through.

[Slick]

I believe the Resource Conversion limit is per converter so you can convert more resources by making facilities on other planets.

[CaptainAL]

Captain Kwok said:
I noticed you did a similar thing with your former empire in Stellar Battles after noticing a bunch of retrofits not going through.

Yes, in every game that I had that many resources to convert I made this mistake. I just assumed it was a bug, but started to wonder when I didn't hear of it happening to anyone else. I don't know why I didn't notice before that there were conversion orders still pending when it happened and they related to resources that had not been converted. But anyway, I now know I no longer must deal with this affliction! [Cap'n Al rolls on floor imitating Gullom, shouting "I'm Free, I'm Free"]

You should be in pretty good shape in that game despite the wasted resources. I was giving some away to the Earth partner periodically - he seemed to be the most loyal ally to the Zappazoids in that game.

[CaptainAL]

Need a bit of help once more. I looked over the FAQ and didn't see this, but if it is there I apologize & just let me know that. Thanks.

Question is regarding firing priority: What does strongest and weakest relate to - is strongest gauged by damage points the ship can sustain or the firepower of the ship? My fleets keep hitting my opponents "decoy" ships first - you know, the ones with 25 Crystal Armor plates and 6 shields. I can't afford another big loss. I had strongest as priority, so maybe that seeks the ship with greatest damage resistance. But I tried weakest in the simulator - same thing happened. I tried it with no strongest/weakest priority, and still the ships targeted the decoy first. Hopefully someone can give me a quick answer to this one, or I might as well give up on the game (and without me the game is essentially over for everyone). Thanks again.

[CaptainAL]

I think the addition of my post above is not obvious to most, since there is no answer and little views. I am going to post it as its own topic. Probably shouldn't be here anyway.

[Alienboy]

I think this is the right place for your post. The simulator can't be trusted but I will add something I noticed. I haven't got to the bottom of this "issue" so I will only say what I have seen so far, in the hope that others may have seen this too!. I have tried different firering priorities and sometimes there seems to be no change even though I have done similar to you,... (changed from strongest to weakest etc) On many occasions I have given up and gone to resume my game. Thats when I noticed that the spaceyard build rates had changed, eg,.. a ship that normally takes 2 turns to build would now be taking 3 turns to build??. Also the amount of resources I had stored had reduced! ... and all I had done was use the simular!??. So I saved and quit. I then re-opened my game and everything was back in order. I then checked the same simulation and this time I did see a difference. So I only do a few simulations at a time and I always re-open to resume my game. Seems to work better?????? I think ! lol

Out of fustration I just made my firering priority Nearest, Nearest, Nearest, Nearest!

[Alienboy]

Oh yeah,... was going to ask if anyone could recommend a good map for up to ten players. The game I am playing has a custom map. I would like to find something big??? Just interested in some feedback really. What your fav map?

[Parasite]

This sounds a lot like the Artifact discovery. It is hooked to the random number geterator. I have heard that the Simulator will rerandomize it. This means you are not stuck with the second planet type. Just run a simulation and then create the planet again from the save.

And Yes, this is cheezy.

[StarShadow]

Just noticed this a few minutes ago, self-destruct when used as a boarding counter-measure, will not always destroy the ship/base. To add a little variety I modded some AIs to use armor instead of shields. Anyway, I sent a boarding ship to try and take a base orbiting a planet I recently 'aquired' and failed to notice it had a self-destruct device. I boarded, it went boom, but didn't 'die', it did however, take 10,000 damage to it's armor.

Fairly conclusive proof that self-destruct does 10,000 damage. So if you *really* want to capture an enemies ship/base, armor your boarding ship so that it has (more than) 10,000kt worth of armoring.