Newbie questions at turn ~50 of a PBW game

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Rhinestone Cowboy:
1- If by Racial Traits you mean Racial Technology like Psycjic Weapons, then as far as I know, no one else can use that technology. (You have to be Psychic in order to use a Psychic weapon, you have to be religious in order to use a religious artifact). Can't Give'em, Can't trade'em, can't steal'em.

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While it is true you can't give, trade or steal the racial technology itself, you can give trade and steal ships with racial tech components on them.

If a psychic race builds a ship with allegiance converters, he can give it to me, or trade it to me, or I can maybe capture it with boarding parties or intel, or get it if he surrenders to me. I can then use it just as he would. But I can't build new ones, and I can't repair the racial components if they get damaged. And I can deconstruct and anylyze it, but it won't do me any good, because I can't understand the technology behind it.

Geoschmo

[Puke]

you CAN trade ships built with your racial technology. this way, when a fleet becomes obsoleet, instead of refitting it or mothballing it, you could concievably trade it to another empire in exchange for something.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[capnq]

quote:

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I just blew it, right? No way to recover a mine once it's launched into space?

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On the bright side, these will make for a nasty surprise the first time an enemy tries to attack that world. This planet defense trick generally only works once against a human opponent.

The reverse order Messages can be frustrating when you first encounter it, but you get used to it surprisingly quickly. It has the advantage that you don't have to scroll all the way down the thread to find the first post you haven't read, especially once the thread goes over one page.

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Cap'n Q
My first mod! Hypermaze quadrant
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, "The Call of Cthulhu"

[Puke]

quote:

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Originally posted by capnq:

I just blew it, right? No way to recover a mine once it's launched into space?

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On the bright side, these will make for a nasty surprise the first time an enemy tries to attack that world. This planet defense trick generally only works once against a human opponent.

on the other hand, it forces them to bring minesweepers every time they attack a planet.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)

[dogscoff]

QUOTE:
3. Building expensive stuff:
/QUOTE

This is generally considered an exploit, and in a vs human game it might well be considered cheating, but there's always the retrofit chain.

Basically you build a cheap ship, and then retrofit it bit by bit until you get to your desired design. Each design has to cost less than 150% of the previous design (cost=org+min+rad) .Since retrofitted compnnts are always added to the ship in just one turn, no matter how long they should take to build, you can knock years off your construction time.

Like I say, human opponents might not appreciate you doing this, so use it at your own risk.

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SE4 Code:
L GdY $ Fr- C- Sd T!+ Sf-- Tcp-- A% M>M+ MpD! RV Pw Fq+ Nd- Rp+ G-
/SE4 Code
Go to my meagre SEIV pages to generate your own code.

[MegaTrain]

Hmm... Let's figure this out.

Approx. cost of a current attack vessel: 6400
(buildable in 2 turns at a big shipyard)
Cost of my warp closer ship: 85000

So I'd need to come up with intermediate designs of the same ship size that cost no more than:

(2 turns to build the original ship)
Turn Cost
---- ------
1: (building)
2: 6400
3: 9600 - added 3200
4: 14400 - added 4800
5: 21600 - added 7200
6: 32400 - added 10800
7: 48600 - added 16200
8: 72900 - added 24300
9: 109350 - added 36450

DAMN!!! .9 years instead of 2.9 !!??!! Less if you start with an existing ship of the same size.

I like it. mooohahahahaha... An exponential curve, you could make outrageously expensive ships in a fraction of the time.

So can you upgrade a ship a second time before the just-upgraded components have been repaired? If not that would make it 1.6 years instead of .9. Still not too bad.

Another question: Does it actually COST me that amount (the difference in the design cost) per turn to upgrade it? I assume it would, and that would start eating away at your resource stockpile pretty quickly.

I like it. Is this a verified strategy? Does it work? Is it an "approved" strategy, or are they going to "fix" it?

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-MegaTrain-
Athlon 1.3 GHz running at 1.6 GHz on an iWill KK266

[Puke]

it cant be 'fixed' without either lowering the retrofit percentage from 50 to something else, which would probably break retrofitting. I think its fine in a simultanious game where each step takes a full turn, and you still have to pay the higher cost to get it done faster. i hardly ever have the resources to retrofit with anyhow. if you have leftover resources, then your fleet is too small.

the real exploit is in a sequential game where you can do all those steps in one turn, but those are mostly single player and as such you are only cheating yourself.

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"...the green, sticky spawn of the stars"
(with apologies to H.P.L.)