Beginners Guide, HELP!!! (Please Read And Post)

[capnq]

quote:

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Also note that if the colony ship runs out of supplies before reaching the target, it can't plant the colony when it arrives;

Since when? I recall purchasing an out-of-supply EEE colony ship for a captured Battleship as it approached a nice planet in my system.

Certainly under V1.49, and I planted perfectly fine.

It does take one extra turn, since you need 1 MP to land once you've arrived at the planet.

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I distinctly remember a colony ship parking over an empty planet and doing nothing until I noticed the red barrel and sent it back for resupply, but I haven't let the situation occur again; I'll start up a test game and see if I can reproduce it.

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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[This message has been edited by capnq (edited 31 October 2001).]

[Suicide Junkie]

Is it possible that an enemy ship appeared and caused the colony ship to stop? And were the ship's orders cleared?

It could be a difference between simultaneous and sequential.
Perhaps modding a solar supply generation of 1 point into the colony module would help.
Then colony ships would always have two MP when they're "out" of supplies, and always have 1 supply at the beginning of a turn to land with.

[capnq]

quote:

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Is it possible that an enemy ship appeared and caused the colony ship to stop? And were the ship's orders cleared?

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I don't think there was an enemy around, but it was so long ago that I don't recall. I think the orders did clear, because ISTR that I only noticed it was out of supplies while I was trying to figure out why giving it another Colonize order wouldn't "take".

I've started a game to test this, but it hasn't progressed far enough to get any results yet.


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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the
human mind to correlate all of its contents. We live on a placid
island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was
not meant that we should go far. -- HP Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[MikeRMcCartney]

Completely new player here. I'm glad you started this post. Thanks! BTW, sorry if I make comments or suggestions that have already been made. I started playing SE4 one week ago (after downloading the demo about a month ago), and have been rather disappointed in the documentation. I like the idea of an HTML based doc, but the one supplied is not very helpful IMHO. A couple of things I would like to see are: 1) a tech tree, 2)what facilities to build or not to build in the beginning (and why), 3) what to expect from a new race (both friendly and not). Does anyone have a program that lays out the tech levels/facilities/units/ships/etc in a usable manner. I've started an Access database for this, but it will take a while to finish. Thanks for your time, and this is a great forum.

[PsychoTechFreak]

Early game defense: research war/mineheads III, construction and then small mines. Just build the small mines with 2 warhead IIIs, they are deadly enough for the first ships. In the build queue use the "one turn production" instead of 5/10/15... pieces, and hit repeat building. This automatically gives you the number of mines that can be produced in one turn, and you can react on different situations every turn, w/o loosing material. Later on when the AI builds minesweepers: create cheap mines in addition (small hull, one warhead I), these can be produced in a larger amount and they do for a better minesweep to destroy relation. Build transporters with about 5 to 10 minelayers, the rest cargo, they can be used to move population and to mine the WPs at the beginning.

Best weapon against fighters: religious talisman + phased polaron beam V, bLasts 5 to 10 fighters per shot, the fighters shields are bypassed by PPBs.

[Taqwus]

On facility production, here's one important note: While there are three resources, they are not equally important.

Pretty much everybody needs loads of minerals. Organic Manipulation experts need some organics, as well, but most components and facilities aren't too organics-heavy (exceptions include the planetary improvement facilities, and the ship-borne quantum reactors, master computers, and stellar-manipulation foo). Radioactives are also important for most, but not nearly as much as minerals are.

Incidentally, an Organic race has a build-rate advantage if it has more balanced ship designs, because ship build rates are balanced per component. e.g. one costing 20k/5k/5k takes twice as long to build as a 10k/10k/10k given same shipyard, productivity and resources despite same total resources required because the rate is n/n/n, not 3n.

More detail would need to take into account your neighbors, and how much other space you have.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[DirectorTsaarx]

quote:

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Originally posted by MikeRMcCartney:
A couple of things I would like to see are: 1) a tech tree
<snip>
Does anyone have a program that lays out the tech levels/facilities/units/ships/etc in a usable manner. I've started an Access database for this, but it will take a while to finish. Thanks for your time, and this is a great forum.

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First, there's an option at game setup called "Player can see entire Tech Tree". If you're playing with that option turned on, there's a button on the Research screen that will show you the tech tree in a couple different formats. ISTR that you can export that tree as a file, but I've never tried it.

I also think there are a couple of files around this site that have either gathered the tech tree data into Excel files or allow you to view the raw tech & component data files in HTML format.

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