Demo user seeks a few pointers

[Suicide Junkie]

The minister names are somewhat self-explanatory.

eg. "resupply" sends your ships home when they're running outta ammo & fuel, etc.

Global ministers will grab any ship that applies to their job, and do stuff with it.
Individual ministers require you to give your ship orders to obey the minister.
(click on a ship and hit 'y' or the face icon, and individual ministers can now play with the ship)

[capnq]

The red icon that marks a planet without a spaceport also is used to mark a ship that is out of supplies; a similar yellow icon means the ship is running low on supplies.

------------------
Cap'n Q

[derb]

I am getting a little disillusioned...

Is it true that in combat there is an "edge of space" and there appears not to be a "disengage" command so if there are two ships with the same speed and one of them is unarmed all the armed ship has to do is to chase it around until it runs into a "corner" and kill it.

Also, it seems that if your planet is unarmed that no matter how large it is a scout with a pea-shooter will be able to wipe it out in a single "strategic" game turn.

I read as well that in multi-player (which I haven't tried yet) you can't replay the combats that occur because they are all "strategic" ones so you can't see why the computer thinks you would have lost a battle.

As for what I need from "Help" it is true that one can more or less see the tech tree through "help" and "research" but there doesn't seem to be a way to search it so you can easily see "what should I be researching so I can get fighters?"

[Nitram Draw]

Yes, the battle map is a limited size and if the computer is controlling the battle your unarmed ships will run to a corner and die most of the time, although I have had a few rare instances where my ship was faster than the enemy and ran in circles until combat ended. It has been suggested to make the battle map larger but I don't think it is high on the list.
Basically any ship with a weapon can take out a planet given enough time. It may take 20 turns for an escort to knock out a homeorld but it can be done.
I think there was a file in the mod section that listed all the techs and the requirements to get them. It was in excel but I don't know if it is still there.
Don't know about the replay feature, as I always play tactical combat.
Hope this helps.

[dogscoff]

Does SEIV come with a tutorial? That's th bst way to learn. If there isn't one perhaps some of us should put on together for newbies, because that would probably be better than explaining the icons one by one.

Perhaps someone could generate a few "safe" AIs for newbies to practise on. If they never got angry and never started wars then a new player could explore nearly the whole tech tree / galaxy / diplomatic system without having to worry about getting glassed or trying to kp up with the right techs.


As for looking at the tech tree to research specific things... I never bothered. I just lookd at what was available and researched that, and learned th tch tree by trial and error. OK, I got wiped out by AIs once or twice, but what th hll - it's only AIs.

------------------
There is an exception to every rule. Including this one.

[derb]

There is a tutorial but it only tackles the very basic stuff. The trouble with researching at random as you go along is that it can take a looong time. Plus of course the demo doesn't have the whole tech tree - it only shows you a selection.

What is the time limit after which the computer declares the combat over?

[This message has been edited by derb (edited 20 April 2001).]

[Nitram Draw]

Combat Lasts for 30 turns. You can adjust this though, I think in the Settings file.