Pirates & Nomads update

[Suicide Junkie]

Sounds good. How big is your empire?

It may be worth sending two or three ships across the galaxy to start up a second base, with fresh aliens to steal from. It'll double your income after all!

Are you making any use of the "Pirate Hoard" facility? You can get a ton of storage out of it, real cheap.

[Will]

It's a test game actually, only one custom AI in a small quadrant

My next game will probably be five custom AIs (I'll go in and tweak the files, + custom racial traits), and 3 or 5 starting planets this time, in a large quadrant. Might even try my hand at writing something for Game Stories (I explain the multiple planets as my pirates coming upon a peaceful researching race, and offering protection in return for construction abilities and technological advances )

At the time the game ended, I had three systems with homeworlds, no "colonies" (I thought I didn't check the boxes for only colonize planet type/atmosphere, but I guess I did). Then I had remote bases mining in four systems (4 SS, 1 BS), and ships mining in two asteroid systems (1 ES, 1 DN). Could have had more but it was only going to be a few turns until all the AI population died from Plague

I had built two Pirate Hoard facilities, never really had enough resources to store in anything more than that

[Suicide Junkie]

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My next game will probably be five custom AIs (I'll go in and tweak the files, + custom racial traits)

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P&N v1.6 will give you the ability to use solar sails without main engines, giving ships with unlimited range early on. You may wany to consider a low-maintenance AI that will use this to create a huge, wide ranging fleet of slower ships (and lots of space for weapons & shields too!)

[brettben]

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Originally posted by suicide_junkie:
P&N v1.6 will give you the ability to use solar sails without main engines, giving ships with unlimited range early on. You may wany to consider a low-maintenance AI that will use this to create a huge, wide ranging fleet of slower ships (and lots of space for weapons & shields too!)

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Great, now someone needs to come out with a space sailing ship shipset! Ive tried to make one, get frustrated really quick.

[Suicide Junkie]

BTW, this addition has just passed final testing. It is in!.

Now, I just gotta make sure the AIs dont use six solar sails instead of engines

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Originally posted by Will:

Then I had remote bases mining in four systems (4 SS, 1 BS), and ships mining in two asteroid systems (1 ES, 1 DN

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Could you give some advice on remote and asteroid mining ? In particular is it really profitable after ship maintenance costs are paid ? I suppose you could mine with satellites but you still have to pay for a ship on station to distribute the resources don't you ? And how fast does the production rate drop due to the loss of value mentioned in the description ?

If the mining is in home space you don't have to defend but wouldn't it be really awkward if any enemy came around ? All that investment down the drain...

If it is profitable I would build a space yard ship, station it at the asteroid and have at least one satellite bay. Build and launch a satellite or more per turn till you hit 100 then move on to the next. Is that how you do it ?

[Will]

Well, keep in mind that I'm using the pirate mod here... and using the Cheap "weapon" mount, which makes all non-weapon components have 1/5th the damage, and I believe 1/2 the cost (not sure on that, but SJ is taking it out, so it doesn't matter much anymore ). Basically, my secret is to use bases. Satellites will only have one out of the group mine the planet (at least I'm pretty sure it's like that), so you don't get as much gain out of it. However, with bases, you get 50% of normal maintanance. With reduced cost, and increased area for production, it can be worthwhile. What I looked for were planets with moons. I checked to see which resource type had the highest total percentage in the sector, and built a base to mine that there. Since there is a "feature" where the value only goes down per ship (which can only be one) instead of per mining component, you will have a base which will produce a slowly decreasing amount of resources for a long time. I believe my "record" production came from the BattleStation, over a planet with moon, total of 270 or so percent minerals. I recieved 25k minerals the turn it was completed, and I believe it cost me 17k to construct and 1300 in maintainance. So it paid for itself in a turn, with slowly decreasing returns.

Remote Mining is *NOT* a viable economic strategy for a normal game. It does, however, make for an interesting handicap game (I almost lost at one point, in my game). It can be useful in games where both colonize only home planet type and colonize only home planet atmosphere are selected, but it would be best to fully develop all colonizable worlds, then focus on supplementing with remote mining. It also makes for a great tool to devalue potential enemy colonies.

As for it being awkward if an enemy came around... all my mining operations occured either with a fighter (read: zero maintainance) escort or with my empire between any hostile forces. Remote mining is risky, slow to return, doesn't return as much as planet-based resources, and the returns you do get decrease over time. The biggest advantage is that no space port or equivalent is required.

SJ, I'll swing by mod forum and pick it up, then run through it when I get home tomorrow. I don't think there should be a problem with 6x solar sails unless it has "engine" attached to it. I'll try to make an AI do it.

[capnq]

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I suppose you could mine with satellites but you still have to pay for a ship on station to distribute the resources don't you ?

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No, the Robominer automatically distributes the resources as it mines them. You don't even have to have a spaceport in the system, so you can robomine those systems with nothing but asteroids in them.

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Cap'n Q

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

[Suicide Junkie]

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Well, keep in mind that I'm using the pirate mod here... and using the Cheap "weapon" mount, which makes all non-weapon components have 1/5th the damage, and I believe 1/2 the cost (not sure on that, but SJ is taking it out, so it doesn't matter much anymore

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Yeah. Cheap mounts screw up the SE4 damage routines, but the way it works now (latest V1.5) is:
Mount : effect
A+: +100% price, +40% HP
A : +50% price, +20% HP
B : normal
C : -20% price, -50% HP

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SJ, I'll swing by mod forum and pick it up, then run through it when I get home tomorrow. I don't think there should be a problem with 6x solar sails unless it has "engine" attached to it. I'll try to make an AI do it.

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There are currently two copies of the Solar Sail.
- Exact normal copy from SE4
- "solo model", which has 1 standard movement, and one less bonus movement than the equivalent normal sail.

Ie. the solo model counts as an engine, in order to get SE4 to recognize that the ship's movement is 3, not zero.

If nessesary for AI purposes, I would be willing to reorder components.txt.
Eg. move solar sails ahead of engines, if the AI picks the Last available component.

I would also want to discourage most AI races from tring to build engineless ships. (but if you want to do it, go ahead )

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With this new solar sail thing, who would like a new "Die-Hard Sailors" racial trait, that would make you give up fancy engines in favour of more powerful sails and sailing techniques? (Ie. Solar Sail V's, and no engines beyond Ion III)

[Nitram Draw]

Does the solar sail use supplies, since it is acting like an engine?
Does it hold supplies? If so, you can give the solar sail the solar panel ability to replinish supplies after combat.