A few more Newbie Questions & some Observations..

[Krsqk]

As oleg said, if you destroy a target and still have unfired weapons, you can choose a new target--especially useful against fighter stacks and smaller ships. Point-defense weapons do not count toward the multiplex limit.

When you fired at max range targets, only the weapons capable of firing at that range fired. At medium range, any weapon which was left and could reach the target fired. At short range, all remaining weapons fired. This is why you saw the multiplex effect at different ranges. I have no idea if the AI (strategic combat) will make use of multiplex tracking.

If your projects don't require all the points you are generating, ADD MORE!
All the extras will spillover into the next project.

This is the best advice I can give. If you divide points, any points contributed to a project which exceed the amount needed to complete it provide no benefit. Eg., If you need 15000 points to research Projectile Weapons lvl 3, and you are spending 25000 on the project because of divide evenly, you effectively lose 10000 points. It is better to line up several projects at once to use up the excess, and leave "Repeat Projects" on.

[Taera]

The way it works - when talking about "points" (research and intel) there are two options - "divide the points evenly" and the opposite (this turned off) which then means all the points go to the first project. The leftover goes to the third. etc.
This way managing the ordering of your research project is realy important. Repeat orders just takes from you some work by having to re-add projects again and again. Once a project is completed it moves to the Last place (max 12). You can move it back to the front or place it in a different place by "reorder queve" button.

Some find this way much more effective and efficient. I agree, but the even dividing of points is still useful, especialy when talking about intel.
This way your intel projects will get some points and the counterintel will still have some input.

[capnq]

Multiplex tracking:

In Tactical Combat, you have to manually turn off any weapon that you don't want to fire at a target. Click on the weapons you don't want to fire at the first target; only the weapons with a lit-up background (and a non-zero chance to hit)will fire. Then click the weapons for the second target to turn them back on; repeat as needed.

In Strategic Combat, you can't control the firing; what Multiplex is good for there is that when one weapon destroys a target, any remaining weapons can fire at another. (I'm not sure how often firing and damage priorities are checked; Multiplex might let a ship change targets that way without necessarily destroying it.)

Mounts: depends too much on the situation to give my opinion.

Climate Control: I don't even use that much in solo games, let alone multiplayer; there are usually several other technologies I have more urgent need for.

Research & Intel:

If you don't spend all the points you're producing each turn, the excess is lost. This is especially important on the first turn, when you have the starting resources from the game set-up to spend. Repeat Projects has no effect on this; it just adds completed projects to the end of the queue again.

If you use Divide Points Evenly, excess points beyond what's necessary to complete the project are lost. I'm not personally convinced that you can waste enough points this way to be significant over the course of the game, but I normally micromagage it and turn off DPE when a project is near completion.

[Dogberry]

Thanks ..Taera, Krsqk, Oleg & Capnq. I think that answers my questions in full. "Turn off the rest of the weapons"... did not even think of it..LOL. My guess is that Multiplex is not very useful in strategic combat.. & then only on the larger ships. Your responses on point spillover are going to be very useful .. later when I get into MP. I will have to experiment with this a little.. now that I understand the parameters.

Capnq.. I bet that your SP games are set up to be shorter than mine. I am finding Climate Control useful in growing population .. in my Mega Evil, but I agree, that it will be real secondary in MP.

It's also a good way to spend some of those Organic resource points.

Dog

[ May 27, 2002, 04:00: Message edited by: Dogberry ]

[capnq]

Capnq.. I bet that your SP games are set up to be shorter than mine.

Actually, I think it's more likely that I'm just a weak enough player that the AIs don't give me the luxury of researching many techs without direct military applications.

I've been keeping notes of what I research in each game, for future reference whenever I decide to try my hand at modding an AI. Out of thirteen solo Gold games I've started, I've only researched Planet Utilization in one, which is also the only one I've finished so far, and the deepest I've gotten in the tech tree (105 techs beyond starting levels).