Gameplay tips & tricks

[Suicide Junkie]

Hit the Print screen key on your keyboard. This will "copy" the current image on screen.

Then open any graphic editing program, (MSPaint works just fine) and hit "paste" (CTRL-V).


Note:
The print screen key is typically found right beside the scroll lock and the pause/break key.
Also commonly found in the region near the insert/delete keys.

[Alienboy]

Thanks for that, ya learn something new everyday. [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

Hmmm, wonder what happened to my big explosion???

Anyway, here it is, let me know what you think?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Pretty and good.

[Alienboy]

Does anyone know a little bit about Ship upgrades? On some turns I have done a lot of ship upgrades, sometimes more than 50 ships per turn. I have a problem keeping track of how much resources I need to complete all upgrades successfully. I have a resource converter facility and plenty of resources to work with. I usually find that I need more mineral resources. The problem is I can’t seem to figure out exactly how much of the other resources I need to convert to cover all my upgrades. I always seem to find that some of my upgrades didn’t go through because I have a lack of resources. Is there a way to calculate how much resources I need for bulk ship upgrades without having to write down the cost of every single individual upgrade?? [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/Flag_NewZeland.gif[/img]

[Wolfman77]

Multiplication is the best method I've found. if you select 10 ships that cost 5kT of minerals each, you need 50kT to compleate the upgrade. If I'm not mistaken, all ship need to be from the same class. After selecting them and clicking "retrofit" it should list the costs of each shipto the right of the class name. It would be nice, though, if it totaled them up for you.

[Alienboy]

Wolfman77 said:
Multiplication is the best method I've found. if you select 10 ships that cost 5kT of minerals each, you need 50kT to compleate the upgrade. If I'm not mistaken, all ship need to be from the same class. After selecting them and clicking "retrofit" it should list the costs of each shipto the right of the class name. It would be nice, though, if it totaled them up for you.

Yeah, I agree,.. a total is necessary. I have just upgraded 70 odd ships, mostly different classes. I have tried to calculate things but I am missing something somewhere. I think that you only have the resources you have left from your last turn to work with. You might have 500000 minerals coming in on your current turn but I think that it is not accounted for with your current upgrades?? not sure really.

You also have to account for any resources you gift to other races.

[Wolfman77]

Yes you can only use resources you have in storage. None from production mining or trade are counted. I don't gift too much, but then I only play the AI, most of the time I've already ticked them off enough that I can't change their mood much. When your empire really starts to grow retrofit costs can kill you if you havent kept up on storage. Several mods have added storage to the production facilities. This helps alot, but I've found tiny planets full of starage facilities to be useful as well, since you cant get as good production and build bonuses from them.

[douglas]

The bug is that resources from scrapped facilities, despite showing up immediately when you're playing the turn, vanish without a trace in turn processing.

Resources from scrapped ships come in when the ship is scrapped, which happens when it executes its orders for the turn. When that happens relative to any retrofit orders depends on the speeds of the ships involved and on their ship ID's. Resources from a ship with speed 5 will never be available on the same turn to retrofit a ship with speed 6. If they both move on the same day (eg, same speed or speed 10-13), it depends on ship ID, which I most recently explained in this thread

Note that bases and ships with no engines "move" on day 0, so resources from scrapped bases will always be available to spend on retrofitting mobile ships, while scrapping mobile ships can never pay for retrofitting bases.

Also, there actually is one way to get resources from scrapped facilities in simultaneous play - abandon the planet and answer the prompt about scrapping the facilities with "yes". When the abandon/scrap order is executed (on day 0), you will get the correct amount of resources for scrapping every facility on the colony. Of course, this does completely destroy the colony, so you probably don't want to do it very often.

[Parasite]

I would check the planet with the RCF again. I have had one on on repeat orders to launch sat, mines, or fighters, then when I convert resources, it gets moved up into the repeat as well. Check all the RCF planets, then check them again. If you are getting Out of Resource messages, that is almost certainly it.

A minor possibility is you are getting hit by intellegence attacks to steal or destroy them. Could this be happening? If you have any counterintel up, you should get at least notification of attacks.

The game does not say which one is out, but you mentioned that you keep track of all three. Even Organics can be a problem if you are doing SM ships or Master Computers. Check all the messages, if some high cost ones fail first, later cheaper ones may still convert.

[CaptainAL]

Thanks. You guys know this game inside & out so this answers my question - it isn't a bug. I read something about a scrap resource bug (maybe this thread, I forget) and that may be doing it. I am going to be very careful when cutting it close & not count on any scrap resource gains. There's a lot of good stuff in this thread that has helped me out - thanks to all contributors.