4)
It sounds like you are playing one of the PBW, humans-only Versions.
If you want to play against AIs, then pick a Version without the "PBW" tag.
1)
Yep. Build a supply base, or a ship with solar panels & supply storage. Transport hulls are good for this since supply tanks count towards the cargo requirement.
And, as Fyron said, you can also build supply tankers. Since ships start with full supplies upon construction, it is possible to use them to resupply your fleets. All in all, it is a very expensive way to get supplies, though, and uses up one of your build queues.
2)
They aren't cloaked, per se, but they do have a gravitic cloaking ability built in due to their low masses.
The gravitic sensor are rated on how small a mass they can detect. The level 3 gravitic scanner for example is rated about 250kt. It will thus see a destroyer, but not a frigate.
3)
There are plenty of tips and trick scattered throughout the "A pirate's life for me" thread.
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...3;t=001696;p=1
Some major things you should know about
:
- Normals are the easiest civ type, everything is reasonably close to "normal"
Nomads are next, with maintenance free ships, you can build up big fleets fairly easily.
Pirates are the most different from regular SE4. You will only be able to support a handful of ships, most of which will be the small "civilian" ships. Loot and plunder your way to fame.
- Quasi-Newtonian Propulsion:
Speed is thrust (# engines) divided by mass of the ship.
This means a big ship requires the same percentage of space to be devoted to engines in order to reach the same speed as a small ship.
Overall, this reduces the value of big ships, but they still have dome advantages over small ships, including mounts, and survivability.
(Enough damage to destroy one of two LC's (400kt each) will only deplete the shields on a BB (800kt), for example)
- Resource use:
Resources have a balanced usage in P&N, with increased use of organics for items with any biological basis, and radioactives being used to represent power requirements.
You may need to scrap some mineral miners and switch them to radioactives extractors in the early game.
In the later game, you will likely find your new high tech gadgets require ever more power to run, and radioactives will become slightly more important than minerals.
- Shields and Armor:
armor gets stronger than shields. It is much harder to repair at high levels, but for sheer hitpoints in single combat, it will do very well. Shields, of course, regenerate, and block some special weapons. Find the right balance for the situation.
Also, be sure to use the quality mounts to maximize your return on investment.
Premium quality Plasma Projection Armor V's get 21
! hitpoints per kt IIRC.
Also, consider how much Buckytube Gel armor would be best... it takes up no space, so compare build time and maintenance to the expected increase in survival time.
- Racial Techs:
There are crossover racial techs for all of the 6 major techs.
Each pair of techs will yield a special bonus tech when researched together.
The sixth major racial tech is "Gravitic Manipulation", and provides faster missiles, better engines, and a number of unique weapons such as the planet-based, very powerful, Graviton Flux Cannon.
In addition, there are quite a few minor racial techs, including "tiny race", "advanced automation", "Pack rats", etc. Cheap to purchase, they provide some small bonus effects to all your ships.
Negative-cost traits are also available, if you care to take a penalty in order to have more racial points available to spend. Do not underestimate their effects!
- Weapons have been rebalanced:
APBs are weaker, Torpedoes have to-hit bonuses to make up for lack of damage, Graviton hellbores are armor-skipping weapons.
That sort of thing. Do some comparison shopping, and realize that every weapon should have a niche use where it is better than the other weapons in a particular situation.
- Offensive vs Defensive weapons.
Most pronounced in the PBW Versions, you will find that matter-based ammo-using weapons will quickly suck your supplies dry. They are typically extremely cheap to maintain, however.
Energy weapons use little to no supplies, on the other hand, but cost horrendous amounts of radioactives to power them.
Since supply chains are important to attacking forces, energy weapons will be most useful there, while the defenders can sit near the resupply points and use the cheap and effective matter weapons to great effect.
- Stellar Manipulation:
SM components are vastly more difficult to utilize, as their size has been increased greatly.
An SM barge will be slow and weakly defended, and also extremely expensive. Battlemoons are likely the best platforms for SM components, since they will at least be able to defend themselves...
[ July 13, 2003, 00:58: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]
P&N Supply issue and other questions
Asteroids Champion!
(And in P&N PBW, shields come at level 2 of Physics, not level 1, so they're not as ubiquitous as you might think! 
)
Linear Mode
