Strategy Articles!

Slick · #1 June 5th, 2003, 05:37 PM

I use them on a few designs:

My planet maker Battleship, because I need repair capability any way, it has a huge maintenance cost due to its Matter Gravity Sphere component so I don't want to spend excess turns in transit to asteroid fields. Each turn I use the pod and the on board spaceyard repairs it making it ready for the next turn. Note that you don't need a spaceyard to repair the Matter Gravity Sphere (only a repair bay), but you do need a spaceyard to repair the EPP.

My Ambulance Destroyer (which has a Medical Bay, speedy engines, solar sail and lots of supplies) because I want to get any plagues cured as fast as possible. I don't have a spaceyard on the DD obviously. I build, then mothball usually 3 or 4 of these Ambulances strategically placed in the empire so that I can get it to any plagued planet in a few turns.

Slick.

teal · #2 June 5th, 2003, 05:48 PM

Last time I tried to use a Matter Gravity Sphere nothing would repair it after it was used. A repair bay wouldn't repair it and taking the ship back to a shipyard wouldn't repair it. I was quite confused and decided to give up on the whole making planet idea entirely. Any rampant speculation as to what I was doing wrong...

?

Slick · #3 June 5th, 2003, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by teal:
Last time I tried to use a Matter Gravity Sphere nothing would repair it after it was used. A repair bay wouldn't repair it and taking the ship back to a shipyard wouldn't repair it. I was quite confused and decided to give up on the whole making planet idea entirely. Any rampant speculation as to what I was doing wrong... ?

I sure can't think of what it might be. I have never had such a problem. Try it again and if you can replicate the problem, we can help troubleshoot. If we can't figure it out, you can email the saved game to MM.

Slick.

teal · #4 June 5th, 2003, 06:19 PM

Tested it again by starting up a high tech game and making a planet maker very quickly. No problems. My repair bay III repaired the ship the next turn. No idea what happened that first time...

teal · #5 June 5th, 2003, 06:31 PM

After doing some further testing (and reloading the original saved game). I think that the problem was that I just won the game on the turn that I made the planet (or else well before making the planet I was playing vs. the AI and wanted to mess around some more). Once one player declares victory certain things seem to stop happening...

Fyron · #6 June 5th, 2003, 08:53 PM

Actually, repairs do not stop happening after victory is met. I often start games with no AI to test some things, and building planets is sometimes used in such tests (esp. testing what can be built

).

Pablo · #7 June 6th, 2003, 10:21 AM

teal,
maybe you captured a planet maker ship with a Matter Gravity Sphere component being higher level than you have researched. In this case you cannot (IIRC) repair the component until you research the appropriate tech. level.
This is the only idea I can think of...