Gameplay tips & tricks

[Roanon]

Hey Slick, you're giving away all my cool tricks! Soon I will not be able to win any game any more!

2) I do not have verified it yet, but I think I have noticed after the Last patch that ships in queues on a planet without shipyards are automatically cleared when the turn is executed.

6) Never could make attack / load troops work reliably. I always use attack, move one sector away, load troops from previous sector. This works always. I do not know why the load order is often ignored otherwise.

10) Too much income, too little spaceyards? Retrofit series are your friend! Roughly doubles your shipyard capacity. Save cost and time by training while retrofitting.

15) Always build at least one resource converter more than needed. Nothing more crippling than a conquered resource converter if it is your only one. One class III converter can only convert a maximum of 1,365,000 resources into 955,500 of a different type per turn. If you try to convert more, the orders will be queued into the next turn.

[Fyron]

Roanon said:
6) Never could make attack / load troops work reliably. I always use attack, move one sector away, load troops from previous sector. This works always. I do not know why the load order is often ignored otherwise.

Huh. I have never had a problem doing this. The only time a problem arises is if I have a ship survive with so much damage that it can't move much if at all, but that just stops the fleet entirely...

[Tanus]

Imperator Fyron said:

Huh. I have never had a problem doing this. The only time a problem arises is if I have a ship survive with so much damage that it can't move much if at all, but that just stops the fleet entirely...

I've also had this problem. If I tell ships to attack, then load troops, very often the ships will just move on without reloading the troops, and thereby glass the next planets. I also attack-move one sector-load troops from previous to make sure that it actually loads my troops

[Fyron]

Does this happen in sectors with multiple planets? I find that if I order the fleet to attack every planet in the sector, then one load troops order, it works fine. I don't think I have ever had a problem with my fleets not picking up the troops on the move. Is the ground combat requiring more than one combat? This isn't very likely in stock SE4, but could be an issue...

[Roanon]

I usually attack multiple planets first, because after the load order it might be that only 1 transport may be loaded with troops, and the fleet be able to capture only single planets. About 90% of the time, the load order didn't work unless preceeded by a sidestep move of one sector which I routinely do now.

[Fyron]

Roanon said:
I usually attack multiple planets first, because after the load order it might be that only 1 transport may be loaded with troops, and the fleet be able to capture only single planets.

Do you send your transports out with full cargo loads? Troops are rarely lost in ground combat in stock SE4, except in the odd situation where some player filled their planet with troops (which I have never seen done myself...). If so, then all transports should be filled back up, as the first transport can't load everything. Of course, if you use a lot of carriers, losing fighters might skew the results... But then, in most situations fighters aren't really worth using in stock SE4.

About 90% of the time, the load order didn't work unless preceeded by a sidestep move of one sector which I routinely do now.

Strange. I have never seen it fail.

[Slick]

I have only seen the order fail very rarely. I usually only use a single Troop Transport in my fleets, though. Could it have to do with multiple transports?

Yeah, Yeah, I know...use more transports. Old dog, new trick...

Slick.

[Fyron]

22) If you disable Condensed View when designing a ship, you can stagger the placement of weapons to control which will fire first and in what order. This can be useful for using Ionic Dispersers, for example. You might want to put first 1 Shield Depleter, then 2 Anti-Proton Beams, then 1 Ionic Disperser, then several more Anti-Proton Beams. The purpose of this is to try to get all of the shields knocked out before the Ionic Disperser fires. If there are shield points remaining, the Ionic Disperser will be unable to do its damage to the engines. The Anti-Proton Beams do not care what they hit, shields or hull. Placing a few of them before the Ionic Disperser helps improve the chances that all of the shield points will be gone before the Ionic Disperser fires. You migh consider placing the Ionic Disperser Last. If you do this, you might create situations in which the Anti-Proton Beam shots get lucky and knock out some engines, thus wasting damage points overall.

23) One hit from a heavy mounted or two shots from large mounted Ionic Dispersers will wipe out all of the engines on any ship. This will eliminate all supply storage on the ship, thus rendering it unable to fire any weapons. All further weapons from the enemy fleet will now ignore your useless hulk and target other ships. So, you should always add a Supply Storage component to all warships (certainly of Light Cruiser size or larger, possibly Destroyers, but those tend to die very quickly anyways so the benefits are reduced). Later when you get Quantum Reactors, the Supply Storage component should be replaced with a Quantum Reactor. This will allow the ship to still have some supplies after all engines are knocked out. So, it is still a threatening target. Enemy warships will continue to fire weapons at it until it is disabled (all weapons destroyed) or utterly destroyed. This, fewer ships of yours can be disabled in a given round with the same amount of enemy firepower. At 20 kT, a Supply Storage component is almost trivial in size (especially once you get Battle Cruisers and larger sized ships), and has the added benefit of increasing the operational range of your fleets by 10-20%, depending on other factors.

Note: A Solar Collector is _not_ a viable replacement for a Supply Storage component! Surely, it provides greater benefits in terms of range, but it will not prevent your ships from being unable to fire at all if they are hit by Ionic Dispersers.

24) Computer Viruses are the bane of Master Computer equipped ships. For larger ships, you might consider adding 1 Bridge, 1 Life Support, and 1 Crew Quarter component in addition to the Master Computer. 1 of each is all you need to maintain full command and control of the ship (ie: no loss of movement). Surely, adding the extra C&C components is more expensive in cost and size than just the Master Computer. However, on larger ship hulls, it will still be cheaper than using no Master Computer at all and relying on normal C&C components. If the Master Computer is knocked out, you still have the required command and control components, so your ship is fully functional. It will still be protected from Allegience Subverters and Mental Flailers, even with a damaged Master Computer. Against Psychic races, you get immunity to Allegience Subverters and immunity to disablement from Computer Viruses. Against normal races, you still get the immunity to disablement from Computer Viruses, and can save a lot of space and resources on large ship hulls.

[Roanon]

Imperator Fyron said:
Troops are rarely lost in ground combat in stock SE4, except in the odd situation where some player filled their planet with troops (which I have never seen done myself...).

Try fighting real opponents . Yes, some of my enemies are so eager to deny me their planets that they build their police troops with weapons. Also, if you have the standard -50 ground combat racial trait, planets with higher population, i.e. nearly every planet when fighting against an organic enemy, will cause heavy losses from the militia. My transports only have about 500kt space, being heavily armored so they are able to advance alone against shipless planets. 2 x 50 troops are worn down to 1 x 50 (or less) troops after very few turns when fighting against an enemy who has the impertinence to make your victory as slow and fruitless as possible - hi Teal, hi Alneyan

If it isn't, the fleet will do nothing further, as it will be unable to load troops. It will _not_ continue on it's merry way, leaving the troops behind on the embattled planet.

Very old and outdated game Version..... Tried this with the latest game Version?

[Slick]

As you all can tell, I finally got a weekend off! Worked 7 weeks straight and the 2nd thing I did on my day off was play SE4

Anyways, all the good ideas here will eventually make it to the FAQ.

There has to be more good ideas out there. What I would really like to see are neat or subtle interface tricks, special strings of ship orders, and the like. Unique planet or system setups that you find useful are also welcome. Any good multiplayer tricks are also good (keep the good ones secret if you want, but throw us a bone!) If you have had a headache with a certain part of the game and later found a workaround, post it here. Chances are good that others haven't found the trick yet.

Slick.