With Ruatha’s permission, I took the opportunity to do some layout changes to the FAQ. I felt that laying out an overall structure would make it easier for people to provide input for new sections. It also showed many areas that could use some help from veterans - just look for the empty sections and start writing. I also put in some of my personal notes, but this has been a great embarrassment to me. For a long time, I have been keeping “good-to-know” notes in a big text file on this game from any source I have read. Since I never dreamed that anyone else would be reading them, I never copied the author’s names, and in the previous Version of the FAQ, I was falsely given credit for other people’s input. As such, I have removed my name from any input and I urge people give proper credit for information contained here if you recognize your or other’s writing. For this I apologize, but I felt that it was better for newbies like myself to include the valuable information even if the author was unknown. I thank the whole community for their great support of this game.
Lastly, I found that good information usually is hard to place in the FAQ because it could go into more than one section. I tried to really keep redundancy to a minimum and put information in the most proper location, but possibly some cross-referencing can be done in a future revision.
Slick
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Table of Contents
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0.0 Introduction
0.1 Other Reading
1.0 Game Startup & Empire Creation
1.1 Racial Traits
1.2 Characteristics & Cultural Modifiers
1.3 Choice of Planet Type and Atmosphere
1.4 AI Difficulty and Bonus
1.5 Game Mechanics
2.0 Designing Ships
2.1 Misc. Components
2.2 Mounts
2.3 Weapons
2.4 Shields
2.5 Armor
2.6 Engines
2.7 Vehicle Control
2.8 Combat Systems
2.9 The Colonizer
2.10 Strategies
2.11 Upgrading
2.12 The Simulator
3.0 Research
3.1 Unique Technology
4.0 Planet Development
4.1 Exploring
4.2 Colonizing
4.3 Facilities
4.4 Construction
4.5 Resource Production
4.6 Remote Mining
4.7 Population
4.8 Planet Defense
4.9 Ring Worlds & Sphere Worlds
5.0 Ships & Bases
5.1 Attack & Defense Ships
5.2 Support Ships
5.3 Ship Management
5.4 Supply and Resupply
5.5 Repairs and Retrofitting
5.6 Fleets
5.7 Training & Experience
5.8 Orders
5.9 Cloaking
5.10 Movement
5.11 Cargo Handling and Launching
5.12 Bases
6.0 Space Combat
6.1 Tactics
6.2 Formations
6.3 Attacking Ships
6.4 Capturing Ships
6.5 Analyzing Ships
6.6 Attacking Planets
6.7 Capturing Plane
6.8 Tactical Combat Specifics
6.9 Simultaneous Combat Specifics
7.0 Ground Combat
8.0 Units
8.1 General
8.2 Fighters
8.3 Troops
8.4 Mines
8.5 Drones
8.6 Weapon Platforms
8.7 Statellites
9.0 Systems & Sectors
9.1 Sight
9.2 Spaceports
9.3 System Facilities
9.4 System Defense
9.5 Stellar Manipulation
10.0 Diplomacy
10.1 Intelligence
10.2 Trade
10.3 Communications
10.4 Anger
10.5 Contact
10.6 Treaties
11.0 Empire Management
11.1 Keeping Track of Things
11.2 Ministers
11.3 Waypoints
11.4 Game Interface
12.0 Happiness
12.1 Riots & Riot Control
13.0 The AI
14.0 Turn Sequencing
15.0 Multiplayer
15.1 PBEM
15.2 PBW
16.0 Mods & Modding
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0.0 Introduction
The Intel Forum can be found at
http://www.shrapnelgames.com
Thanks to the community for the great input to this FAQ and especially Ruatha for taking the initiative in starting this. Let’s try to keep the FAQ current with the latest Version of the game - V1.78 as of now. There is much information here from many people, and although it is probably very accurate, there are probably some small errors in the FAQ. Please look for any inaccuracies and especially things to add.
0.01. Forum Navigation
Forums Posts appear latest post first, so you can easily check up on the newest response to a long thread.(Arcon)
0.02. To read a thread in first-to-Last order, click the "Printer-friendly view of this topic" icon at the bottom of the page.(Arcon, Gryphin, Capnq)
0.1 Other Reading
0.1.1 This is for us newbies, all feel free to add to this FAQ, correct errors, spell check and bump. Change the order if it needs to, long live chaos. Elite players share your knowledge, newbies, add the answers to your questions here when you receive an answer. First, read:Malfador Q&A Section and: Un-Official Space empires IV Strategy and Tactics Page To get info on tech, components, facilities etc use the SE4 Mod utility 1.53 To find anything specific on this page use your browsers search utility (Menu option "Edit" - "Find on this page"). Another GREAT guide can be found here:
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/ubbup...ategyGuide.zip
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1.0 Game Startup & Empire Creation
1.1 Racial Traits
1.1.1 Organic
1.1.2 Crystal
1.1.3 Deeply Religious
1.1.3.1 The Talisman allows every hit to score. SE IV treats stack of units (weapon platform on planet, stack of satellites, stack of fighters) as one "ship". This is why you need only one RT to get the benefit for all units in stack. You may notice that the absolute maximum to-hit that you can get from experience is 99%. The talisman gives you 100%. That tells you these two effects are quite separate, since the experience is applied before the total is capped at 99%, and the talisman applies afterwards. (Jim, Suicide Junkie, Oleg)
1.1.4 Psychic
1.1.5 Temporal
1.2 Characteristics & Cultural Modifiers
1.3 Choice of Planet Type and Atmosphere
1.3.1 Choosing home planet. Chose Rock planet type (more to colonize). Gas planets fewer but larger and take more skill. Ice bad... Ice cold.... fewer Ice planets. Beginners don't choose None Atmosphere type, choose any other atmosphere type. (Wardad)
1.3.2 Choosing an uncommon atmosphere type such as Methane or Carbon Dioxide is a good idea, since you will face less competition for breathable planets.(Suicide Junkie)
1.4 AI Difficulty and Bonus
1.4.1 AI bonuses applies to intelligence, research and resources, exist in 2x, 3x and 5x. (Suicide Junkie)
1.5 Game Mechanics
1.5.1 Victory conditions are “and” not “or”.
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2.0 Designing Ships
2.1 Misc. Components
2.1.1 Cloaking devices use supplies; stealth armor does not.
2.1.2 Spaceyard components and supply storage components have less “structure” than “space”. This means they are comparatively easier to destroy per kt than normal components. (components.txt)
2.2 Mounts
2.2.1 In the unmodded game, no ship mount will add range to the weapons.
2.2.2 Mounts that add range will add as follows: example: say your normal mount weapon does 60 50 40 30 20 10. using the massive weapon platform mount (adds 6 range, 5x damage), the weapon now does 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 250 200 150 100 50 (!) i.e. it takes the range 1 damage, multiplies by 5, then adds this in before the rest of the damage string. this makes those range 8 weapons able to reach out and touch someone at range 14! at 5x damage!!
2.2.3 Use Unit and Ship mounts almost all the time. The Ship mounts increase damage, the Station and weapon platforms increase Damage and Range which give your planet a distinct advantage against ships.
One way to beat mounts are missiles and drones. Missiles have an EXTREME range that are unmatchable by mounted weapons, but get picked off by point defense cannons. Drones are death-on-engines if used carefully as point-defense cannons cannot easily destroy it.
2.2.4 Heavier mounts increase the range and damage of weapons. To use a heavier mount on a design, press the weapon Mounts button on the design screen. The Weapons Report screen also has a Mount button. (Capnq)
2.2.5 Light carriers can use the (H)eavy mount.
2.3 Weapons
2.3.1 You need to add weapons to a ship in the order you want them to fire in combat.
2.3.2 Null space guns are useful against heavily shielded and armored ships.
2.3.3 Warp guns can give your ship extended life in "Dogfights" especially with gunships.
2.3.4 Special Weapons
2.3.4.1 Engine destroying weapons disable ship movement and supply storage. Approach the ships with caution if they have Quantum reactors. (TerranC)
2.3.4.2 Specialty weapons should be used rarely, but is useful.
2.3.4.3 Weapon destroying weapons are useful if you want to disable the ships then destroy them.
2.3.4.4 Computer virus attacks skip armor and shields, destroy Master Computers but do no other damage. CV’s are direct fire weapons. CV 1,2,3 does 20,40,60 damage respectively, MC 1,2,3 has 40/40, 30/30, 20/20 space/structure respectively, therefore it is actually harder to destroy a mc1 than an mc2 or mc3. Since it is a “special” weapon, CV’s don’t do partial damage - it’s all or nothing. therefore a normal mount CV cannot damage a mc1 or mc2; if the CV is on a larger mount which increases its damage > the mc, only then will it work.
2.3.4.5 If a Master Computer is destroyed (and it does not have normal bridge, etc.), the ship CAN then be subverted.
2.3.4.6 Quote from the forums, sorry, did not copy the author: “Level I and II Ionic Dispersers only do 15 damage if not in an upgraded mount. It takes 20 damage to destroy an engine. The damage doesn't seem to accumulate, so if you put level I or II Ionic Dispersers on a destroyer or smaller, they are essentially useless and just taking up space.
Ok, here is the complete scoop on Ionic Dispersers, at least as run from the simulator. There is no carryover of damage from shot to shot, even in the same volley. I set up a group of 5 sats armed only with a single Ionic Disperser II each. Brought a target ship up close and let fly. No matter how many hits, there was no damage done. I switched to Ionic Disperser IVs which do 30 points of damage per hit. In the first volley, there were three hits. That should have caused 90 damage, enough to destroy 4 engines. However, only three engines were destroyed, one per hit. I then switched to Ionic Disperser Vs which do 40 per hit. As expected, each hit destroyed two engines. conclusion: any extra damage not equaling the 20 points to kill the next engine is totally lost, even on the same volley.”
2.4 Shields
2.4.1 Shields are not active against mines.
2.4.2 Don't mix phased and non-phased generating components. If you do, you get non-phased shields. That is, until all the non-phased shield generating components are destroyed; then suddenly, in the middle of battle, your shields will become phased.
2.5 Armor
2.5.1 Defensive bonuses from stealth + scattering armor do stack - a powerful combination.
2.6 Engines
2.6.1 What happens when you mix engine types on the same ship? They all act as if they are the lowest of the installed engines.
2.7 Vehicle Control
2.7.1 You can't design a ship unless it has the requested number of Life Support/Crew Quarters, or a Master Computer.
2.7.2 Ships lose movement if they have ZERO lifesupports or crewquarters remaining.
2.7.3 Ships lose movement if they have no intact bridge or aux con.
2.7.4 Any ship with an intact Master Computer is exempt from rules 2 & 3. One each of B/LS/CQ is enough to fly the ship normally, but you can't save that design unless you have an MC (or are designing a ship larger then 450KT in size).
2.7.5 If you know of or suspect an enemy psychic race, begin transitioning to Master Computers before war breaks out - makes Allegiance Subverters useless.
2.8 Combat Systems
2.8.1 Weapon Types / Classes
2.8.1.1 Seeking. Example: (Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo). Once launched, have a 100% hit probability unless intercepted by point defense, or the target moves beyond the seekers' range.(Stone Mill,Capnq)
2.8.1.2 Direct Fire. Example: (Anti Proton Beams, Normal Torpedoes). Must be fired within range determined by weapon type and mount. Offensive Bonus and Defensive Bonus variables affect the actual chance to hit.(Stone Mill)
2.8.1.3 Point Defense. Example: (Point-Defense Cannons I-V). Automatically fire at seekers, fighters, satellites, and drones when in weapon range.(Stone Mill,Capnq)
2.8.1.4 Armor and Shield Skipping. Example: (Null Space, Weapon Destroyers). Successful hits ignore enemy armor and shield components. Engine/Weapon Destroyers do damage to those components only.(Stone Mill, Kalthior)
2.8.1.5 Armor Skipping Example: (Boarding Parties, Security Stations, Crystalline Shard Cannons).(Stone Mill)
2.8.1.6 Shield Skipping. Example (Phased Polaron Beams). Successful hits ignore normal shield components. Phased Shields absorb Phased Polaron hits (Shields 6+ technology). (Stone Mill)
2.8.3 Point Defense Cannons (PDC)’s get a 70% to-hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.4 Incinerator beams get a 10% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.5 Wave-motion Guns get a 30% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.6 High energy magnifiers get a 30% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.7 Tachyon canons get a 10% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.8 Mental singularity generators get at 20% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.9 PDC’s don’t need multiplex tracking.
2.9 The Colonizer
2.9.1 Since the Colonizer is so integral to the game, it deserves a special section.
2.9.2 Add a cargo pod to the Colony Ship design used to colonize your race's breathable planets. Then when you hit the "Colonize" button to send a ship off to a planet (whether you do it from the planets screen or main screen) extra pop will be loaded to give that colony a kick-start.
2.9.3 I use 3 colony ship designs: CS-LR - long range (has a supply pod on it), CS-SR - short range with cargo pod for breathable (green + planets), CS-SR-nbr - short range, no cargo pod for non-breathable atmosphere planets (red + -- cheaper to build). I use these for storage planets so pop doesn't matter as much.(Elowan)
2.9.4 You can use a non-colonizer hull for a colonizer to make a better colonizer: extra cargo, weapons, speed, etc.
2.10 Strategies
2.10.1 This section is about the setting of ship strategies, not overall game strategies.
2.10.2 Ships do retain original strategies after being retrofitted or captured - you can overcome this by making a 1-ship fleet and giving it new fleet orders.
2.10.3 Ships and units can be assigned default strategies in Designs (F3) under the Stats/Strategy toggle.
These Strategies can (and really should) be customized under Empire Status/Strategies (F11).
2.10.4 If you set a strategy for a ship at the "designs" stage, that strategy is used in strategic combat and if you let the computer control your ships in tactical combat. (Silent Sorrow, Derek)
2.10.5 Fleets are assigned Formations and Strategies with the Change Formation/Strategy (H) order. Fleet strategy takes precedence over ship's strategy, unless/until the ship breaks formation. (capnq)
2.11 Upgrading
2.11.1 Upgrading engines. Taking engine tech to level 2 (or three) just makes the engines cheaper. One level after that, you'll get an engine that gives a bonus movement point. Then two more levels of cheaper, another faster engine, etc. Upgrading engines that doesn't improve performance makes you loose some money overall, but if you keep that ship like that for a while the maintenance savings add up. (Phoenix-D)
2.11.2 Designs that you have marked obsolete will be deleted from your list of ships when all of the following are true:
- There are no surviving ships of that class. This includes ships that have been captured or gifted to an alien race.
- You are not building more of those ships.
- The year is xxxx.9
- You have just pressed the end turn button to take you to year xxxx.0 (Suicide Junkie)
2.12 The Simulator
2.12.1 The Simulator is supposedly equivalent to actual combat with some exceptions. You can’t simulate crew or fleet experience in the combat simulator. You can only simulate planets, storms, etc if they are in your home system.
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3.0 Research
3.0.1 Early research. Opinions differ but most would suggest: More than one project in queue, rotate projects and do not spread points evenly. Larger ships (frigate on first turn, destroyer, light cruiser). Depleted Uranium Cannon (DUC) to level 3. Point Defense (PD) at least level 3, I prefer 4 I might start PD in between destroyer and LC. As you have to study Military Science before PD opens up. (Wardad)
3.0.2 Be sure you really need high levels of Multiplex tracking before you research it - do you really expect your ships to engage 5 enemies every turn?
3.0.3 AI researches Construction, Intelligence, Chemistry and Industry pretty early, you should research other things and trade for those.
3.1 Unique Technology
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4.0 Planet Development
4.1 Exploring
4.1.1 I generally do not waste resources on escorts. I build small transports instead. Arm them with a missile and add 3 SAT launchers, 3 cargo, 1 supply, 5 engines etc... they are good for exploring, transport and SAT laying.
4.2 Colonizing
4.2.1 Set up race to build a colonizer on Home world in 2 turns. This may mean stripping out half the engines and the cargo hold (good for a local colony ship). You have to boost your races construction rate by ? (5 %to 10%?) oops. (Wardad)
4.2.2 Colonize your system fast. The extra research, resource, and shipyards early on are an advantage. Green star planets are your atmosphere type . Red star have different atmosphere and are domed, so the build space is limited.(Wardad)
4.2.3 Put people on your colony ships. The colony module gives the ships some cargo space, use transfer cargo to put people on the ship so that your colony gets some population, otherwise the new colony won't build anything (Saying "Never" on construction time). (Suicide Junkie)
4.2.4 If the colony ship is currently at a planet with population, it will automatically load pop for you if you use the Colonize (C) order, or the Send Colony Ship button under Planets (F4). The latter button will not always work if the colony ship has moved. (capnq)
4.2.5 Colonies with 0 population have the "dome" symbol even if it is a planet with a breathable atmosphere, the symbol disappears when you populate the colony. (Rdouglass, Suicide Junkie)
4.2.6. Domed worlds are 1/5 facilities of non-domed. Domed sphere worlds are 1/2, domed ring worlds are 1/5.
4.2.7 Colony Type. If you manage the colony itself, it makes no difference on what type of colony you choose ( i.e. mining, refining, research etc)(except to remind you) but if a minister manages it, it will build facilities according to what type of colony it is. ( Silent Sorrow, Derek)
4.2.8 Anything in the cargo storage of your colonizer will be deposited in the cargo of the planet when it is colonized i.e. Weapon Platforms, etc. Any colonists or cargo beyond the capacity of the planet will be lost, however.
4.2.9 When colonizing ruin planets you do not need population to get the tech bonus. (Suicide Junkie)
4.2.10 Before colonizing a 'ruin planet' make sure that your research queue is filled. If it is - there's a good chance that you might get some of the queue finished for you from the discovered ruins.(Elowan)
4.3 Facilities
4.3.1 Atmosphere converters can be scrapped after the atmosphere is converted.
4.3.2 It costs 50% (of the cost of the new facility) to upgrade a facility.
4.3.3 Facilities undergoing upgrade still produce. Do not scrap to upgrade!
4.3.4 Solar generators have increased benefits if more stars are present, x1 per star. (Ruatha)
4.3.5 You can’t convert a Gas Giant planet to a “none” atmosphere.
4.4 Construction
4.4.1 Units can be only be put in the construction queue as multiples such as 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 25, up to 200 at a time. (TerranC)
4.4.2 Exception: "One turn's worth" will put however many can be built at the current construction rate; if the unit can't be built in one turn, this still adds 1 to the queue. (capnq)
4.4.3 Emergency Build will increase the rate of your space yard by 1.5 of your normal rate but is then followed by a "slow" Building period that uses only a quarter of your normal rate for every turn Emergency was turned on. Emergency Build only works for 10 turns, and cannot be put on indefinitely.
(TerranC, DirectorTsaarx)
4.4.3.1 Once you turn off “emergency build”, or if you reach the 10 turn limit, the spaceyard will go into slow mode for the number of turns it was in emergency build. It will stay in slow mode until complete and during this time it cannot be shifted back to emergency build.
4.4.4 If you put on an obsolete building queue on a planet construction queue, and click upgrade facilities, the construction queues will be changed to the latest model. Will not work for ships and Units. (TerranC)
4.4.5 Unused construction queue points do not "spill over" to the next item when the current queue item is constructed. Say you're building a ship which costs 2000 Min, 500 Org, and 500 Rad and your Space Yard has 3300,3300,3300 build rating. The unused 1300 of unused mineral building is not used on the next queue item (You do not loose 1300 minerals, but the yard stands idle a fraction of a month).
The only exception to this is if you are building units more than one at a time (i.e., you select something other than "1" or "one turn's worth" when it asks you how many you want to build. (Binford, Dogscoff)
4.4.6 On a construction queue, you can use the Fill Queue button to save Groups of construction orders for repeated use. Put the items you want in the queue, Fill Queue, Add Queue; name the set. Once a set of orders is saved, it can be selected with Fill Queue to add the set to the construction queue. If an item in saved set becomes obsolete, Fill Queue will produce an error message when you select that set, so you have to define a new set whenever you upgrade a design. (Capnq)
4.4.7 Happiness effects construction rates; the happier, the better rate:
Mood Riot Modifier := 0
Mood Angry Modifier := 80
Mood Unhappy Modifier := 90
Mood Indifferent Modifier := 100
Mood Happy Modifier := 110
Mood Jubilant Modifier := 120 (Stone Mill)
4.4.8 Rioting Planets do not construct anything, as the construction queue will display "Never." To resolve Rioting:
4.4.9 Station a fleet in that system. Better yet, park it over a specific planet that you want to improve.
4.4.10 Build troops in the system. Building troops on a planet also increases happiness for that particular planet. Tip: Amount of troops count, not quality, so you can design cheap troops with minimal components.
4.4.11 System happiness facilities, such as the Urban Pacification Center (I, II, II) or special tech facilities/shrines increase happiness. The effects of these facilities seem to be very gradual, requiring several turns.
4.4.12 Winning battles improves population confidence and improves happiness, especially in the system in which the battle occurs.(Stone Mill)
4.4.13 Population effects construction rates; the higher population, the better bonus to production.(Stone Mill)
4.4.14 Space Yards improve production. You are allowed only one space yard per planet. Invest research in better Space Yard Technology (I,II,III) to increase construction rate. Note: (Special Tech) Temporal Space Yards have better rates. Unfortunately, you must first scrap your standard Space Yard in order to build them. (Stone Mill)
4.4.15 You can get ripped off in the “build 1 turn’s worth” since extra build capacity is lost- check out the build times for 1,5,10,etc if you were going to build that many anyway - could be shorter since additional build points are lost, but you won’t get any of your units until the entire build time is complete.
4.4.16 Monolith facilities are very expensive and will take many turns to break even - use wisely. You can do a calculation of the break even (and even factor in the use of a Resource Converter) to see what makes better sense.
4.4.17 One Resource Converter can service your whole empire, or federation, or collective... you get the picture. Build it in a secure location.
4.5 Resource Production
4.5.1 Production bonuses from system facilities do not appear on the listings of individual planets' output, but the extra production is included in the totals on the (F11) Empire Status page.(Capnq)
4.5.2 Good ratio = minerals
rganics:radioactives = 5-10:1:2-3. increase organics if you are organic racial, endgame increase radioactives.
4.5.3 Empires will make make 200 minerals, organcis, and radioactives per turn even if there are no production facilities. (settings.txt)
4.6 Remote Mining
4.6.1 To use Remote Mining you must first design a ship, base, or satellite with remote mining components.(Gandalph)
4.6.2 Remote mining uses supplies and maintenance, for this reason it is best to use bases as they have infinite supplies and reduced maintenance costs. If you use bases, you must build it with a Space Yard ship at the desired location.(Gandalph)
4.6.3 Only one Ship or Base can mine a location at once. Whichever is placed first will mine.
All mining components on a ship or base will produce, and the value of the planet or asteroids will drop exactly 1% per turn no matter how many mining components you have.(Suicide Junkie)
4.6.4 In a stack of satellites, up to three satellites can mine, provided they all have robo-miners working on different resources. Three mineral miner sats will produce the same amount of minerals as one mineral miner sat. A mineral miner sat plus a radioactives miner sat can both work on the same location at the same time, producing the full amount of both resources.(Suicide Junkie)
4.6.5 Remote mining depletes the available resources at the location. It does not happen quickly, but you will see the value of the location drop over time.(Gandalph)
4.6.6 In order to make your mining operations Last longer, use only one type of robo miner per base. If all of your robo miners are Mineral miners, the organics and radioactives value of the planet or asteroids will not decrease. When the minerals are gone, you can retrofit the base to an organics or radioactives miner, and continue production for many years to come.(Suicide Junkie)
4.6.7 It is possible to remotely mine any asteroid or UNCOLONIZED planet. As long as the location has a resource value, it can be mined. Once you place a colony on a planet it can no longer be remotely mined. (Gandalph)
4.7 Population
4.7.1 Population will reproduce based on their reproduction rate (per year) and this rate is affected by their happiness, their environmental resistance and the planet conditions.
4.7.2 Having more population increases a planet’s construction (building) and production (resource generation) rate (see settings.txt). Construction rates of ships & bases is not affected by population.
4.8 Planet Defense
4.8.1 Defense Bases and Satellites always show up on the wrong side of the planet during combat.
4.9 Ring Worlds & Sphere Worlds
4.9.1 To Build a Ring worlds (or Sphere worlds) you need to:
4.9.1.1 Research Stellar Manipulation to level 5 for Ringworlds (level 8 for Sphereworlds) and Base Construction to level 3. (Quikngruvn)
4.9.1.2. build on a star.
4.9.1.3. create a Space yard ship (a ship that contains a shipyard component)
4.9.1.4. take the space yard ship to the star you want to build your world on.
4.9.1.5 start building STARBASES containing the components you need for the Ring/Sphere world.
4.9.1.6 once you have all necessary components, build go to the component activation icon to activate the construct - all the built star bases and components will disappear and you will have a ring/sphere world there instead.
4.9.2 NOTE: to speed construction (it takes awhile) you can construct bases housing more shipyards. (Taz-in-Space)
4.9.3 Ring- and sphereworlds count as both a star, and not a star. They count as not-a-star for purposes of planet building, solar panels, and star destroyers. They count as a star for purposes of building new stars (i.e.: you can't). (Suicide Junkie)
4.9.4 Ringworlds and sphereworlds are made using your default planet type and atmosphere. they are simply extra huge planets and must be colonized before you can use them.
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5.0 Ships & Bases
5.1 Attack & Defense Ships
5.2 Support Ships
5.3 Ship Management
5.3.1 Mothballing is free and stops the ship from needing maintenance costs. Mothballing a ship will reset its experience to 0%. Unothballing costs 20%. (settings.txt)
5.4 Supply and Resupply
5.4.1 To Resupply a ship, pass a planet that has a resupply depot. If you make a full stop to the next turn you get a full resupply, if you just touch and go you will get an almost full resupply (the ship uses supplies during the voyage away from the depot). (Silent Sorrow, Derek, Gandalph, Quikngruvn )
5.4.2 Bases and satellites have unlimited supplies.
5.4.3 Cloaking devices uses supplies. (settings.txt)
5.4.4 Bonus engine movement and the solar sail does cause supplies to be used. To calculate supply usage for ship movement, it's (Total_Movement) * (Total_Engine_Supplies_Used).
5.5 Repairs and Retrofitting
5.5.1 A damaged ship will be repaired if it is in the same sector as a planet with a Space Yard facility, or a ship or base with a Repair Bay or Space Yard component.(capnq)
5.5.2 The order in which repairs are performed is set with (F11) Empire Status/Repair Priorities. Clearing the priorities list will leave only the component types that you have the technology to build; more entries become available when you research the corresponding techs.(capnq)
5.5.3 The game chooses a ship in a sector to repair based on which ship has the highest-priority component broken, and then this ship will be repaired as much as it can. Example: say your repair priority list starts Vehicle Control (top priority), Engines, and Weapons. Say you also have two ships damaged in one sector. The first ship has only its bridge, a shield, and a piece of armor broken. The second ship has everything damaged EXCEPT its bridge, crew quarters, and life support (and does not have an Aux Con). Since the first ship has the a top priority Vehicle Control component damaged (the bridge), while the second ship has no Vehicle Control components damages, the first ship will be repaired as much as possible. Each turn the game re-determines which ship will be repaired (so that a ship that is repaired one turn may not be repaired the next turn). (Quikngruvn)
5.5.4 If a ship is fully repaired, any excess repair ability in a sector will be carried over to other damaged ships in the sector. In this case, the game will pick the next-highest priority ship as above, then repair it as much as it can. This process repeats till either all ships are repaired or the repair facilities/components have repaired as much as they can in a turn.(Quikngruvn)
5.5.5 Multiple repair bays will work on a single ship or base. Three repair bays fit perfectly on a Space Station. If they are Repair Bays 3, that's 24 components repaired per turn right there (with very low maintenance), which can make for speedy retrofits. Multiple repair bays on dedicated repair ships can greatly increase the lifespan of fleets at the front lines.(Quikngruvn)
5.5.6 Ships and bases can be retrofitted to another design at a spaceyard. The Retrofit option appears under Scrap/Analyze/Mothball (hotkey G). The new design must have the same hull size as the old one, and have a combined total cost in resources of no more than 150% of the old design. Designs more than 150% apart can be retrofitted by designing one or more intermediate Versions.(capnq)
5.5.7 Units cannot be retrofitted. (capnq)
5.5.8 A faster, but more expensive, method to build ships is to use a retroseries. First, build a basic Version of the ship, usually taking a single turn. Then retrofit through a series of designs which gradually add components to the ship. Remember, though, that there can only be a 50% difference in total cost. If you are building a stellar manipulation ship (which has a single very expensive component), you can use any combination of components to get the total cost close enough to the amount needed to add the stellar manip. component, at which point the other components can be removed. (Krsqk, Imperator Fyron)
5.5.9 Engines that are retrofit to a different engine type lose all supplies, unless they also have Supply Storage components. Ensure you retrofit engines over a resupply depot.(DirectorTsaarx, Quikngruvn)
5.5.10 If you retrofit (captured, insurrected, or gifted) ships with special racial technology components that your race does not possess, you will lose those components.(DirectorTsaarx)
5.5.11 A space yard ship with a repair bay is an excellent way to refit ships in forward positions.(DirectorTsaarx)
5.5.12 Ships can't be retrofit while in a fleet (it caused problems in 1.49, and is not even possible in Gold). (Quikngruvn)
5.5.13 Ships with a space yard can’t build while cloaked but can repair while cloaked. (icon changes from “space yard” to “repair” while cloaked.
5.5.14 Cloaked ships can’t be retrofitted.
5.5.15 Emergency supply & propulsion pods need a space yard (not repair bay) to repair.
5.5.16 Retrofitting a ship does not affect its crew experience.
5.5.17 Retrofitting cost 120%, 30% for component removal. (settings.txt)
5.5.18 Repairs cost no resources.
5.5.19 Space yard III and Repair Bay III both repair 8 per turn; all planet Space yard facilities only repair 5 per turn. Moral: better to repair in space.
5.5.20 Space yard ships can repair & retrofit while moving, assuming the ship it is repairing/retrofitting can move. Space yard ships cannot build while moving.
5.5.21 You can get ripped off on upgrading ships. Check that you are not upgrading engines of the same type from I to II or III - no benefit except lower maintenance cost, but additional retrofit cost. Master computers, almost the same thing, slight decrease in size is the only benefit, usually not worth the cost. Check every component to see if there is enough of a benefit to make it worth the cost.
5.5.22 If you retrofit a damaged ship, you don’t pay as much - it had to be repaired anyway. also if a ship will take several turns to retrofit/repair, mothballing it will allow you to save on the maintenance costs. Don’t forget that mothballing will reset crew experience to 0%.
5.5.23 You cannot repair technology that you don’t possess (i.e. beyond your current research, special, racial, etc.) from stolen/gifted ships.
5.5.24 You cannot retrofit a ship which is carrying cargo even if the cargo components are not being changed.
5.6 Fleets
5.6.1 Fleet supplies are shared (evenly, regardless of ship size) at the end of each turn. 1 quantum reactor will top off the fleet. ships can still have supply problems in combat if they don’t have QR’s.
5.7 Training & Experience
5.7.1 Cloaked ships will not gain experience while at a planet with a ship and/or fleet training facility. You MUST decloak the ship to benefit from the training. (Gandalph) [ED: from the latest gold patch: Changed - A ship will gain benefits from a training center even if it is cloaked.]
5.7.2 Ships lose fleet experience when they leave fleet.
5.7.3 Experience. 20% Experience (whether gained from training or combat) would give your ships a 20% less-likely-to-be-hit modifier and a 20% more-likely-to-hit-with-direct-fire-weapons modifier.
5.7.4 Every time one of your ships destroys an enemy ship, your ship earns 1% experience. Tonnage doesn’t matter. The easiest way to get experience is to build training facilities. (shyrka, Imperator Fyron, Dumbluck, Arcon).
5.7.5 If two ships contribute to a kill, the one who deals the killing blow gets the experience. (Grypin, Arcon).
5.7.6 No use in training missile ships or using combat sensors - missiles either hit or miss based on range & pd.
5.7.7 Fighters gain fleet experience bonuses (Suicide Junkie)
5.7.8 Racial experience has no meaning, a theory has it that it's a feature that isn't implemented.(Mylon, Taz-in-Space)
5.7.9 Using missiles does not give experience.
5.8 Orders
5.8.1 To change a ship's current orders, use Clear Orders (hotkey Delete) first.(capnq)
5.8.2 Ships must leave fleet to be refit or do specialized functions (use emergency supply, etc.) Actually, you don't have to leave a fleet to build a ship; you just can't access the build screen directly from the fleet. (i.e., when you have the fleet selected on the main screen, the "build queue" icon won't light up). HOWEVER, if you go to the Construction Queues screen, you should be able to find the appropriate spaceyard ship/base in the list and you can add items to the queue from there. I do this for building ringworlds/sphereworlds - not only is it easier on the eyes to have all those ships in a single fleet, if you access the queues from the construction queues screen you can do use multi-add for setting up builds on the plating or cables.(DirectorTsaarx)
5.8.3 Long range scanning. You must manually click on the enemy ship to scan and the design does not show up in your enemy designs list until you actually get into combat with it. I reported this to MM as a bug.
5.8.4 Mothballing a ship resets its crew experience to 0%
5.8.5 Don’t mothball your Last space yard ship in a fleet - you need an active space yard to unmothball.
5.8.6 Scrapped units, ships, and facilities return 30% of resources - this is without any modifiers like a recycling plant. (settings.txt)
5.9 Cloaking
5.9.1 You can launch/recover fighters/mines(not recover)/satellites, transfer cargo, resource mine while cloaked.
5.9.2 You cannot colonize while cloaked.
5.9.3 Ships will decloak when out of supplies
5.9.4 Cloaked ships can get into combat if they encounter ships with right sensors.
5.9.5 You need to have > 0 supplies to cloak, even if using stealth armor which uses no supplies.
5.9.6 Cloaked ships can’t be retrofitted
5.9.7 To see a cloaked (level X) ship, you only need 1 kind of sensor (hyper optic, tachyon, gravitic, temporal, psychic) level X in the system. This sensor can be on any of your ships or sat’s, your ally’s ship’s or sat’s (even the ship/sat that is cloaked!!!). This does not take into account storm/nebula effects.
5.10 Movement
5.10.1 Giving a ship orders to move to place X, then before ship reaches X, giving it orders to move to place Y will NOT cancel move to place X. Instead you will now move to place X and then move to place Y! (Taz-in-Space)
5.10.2 Ships will NOT jump to a forbidden system, nor move through it. You have to make it move manually. (TerranC)
5.10.3 If you play a simultaneous game and you have the option "Clear orders when ship enters a system with enemy presence" in "Empire Options" (Found in the Empire Screen which is under the crown symbol) the ships will stop at the wormhole they entered the system in if there is enemies there. You may loose several move points this way. (Ruatha)
5.11 Cargo Handling and Launching
5.11.1 There are three different cargo handling commands. Transfer Cargo (hotkey T) gives you complete manual control over what goes where. Load Cargo (L) and Drop Cargo (D) will automatically move all that they can of one type of cargo. (CapnQ)
5.11.2 Launchable units (drones, fighters, mines, and satellites) have a parallel set of orders: Launch/Recover Units (U), Launch Units Remotely (I), and Recover Units Remotely (O).(CapnQ)
5.11.3 A ship needs a specific launch component to handle each type of unit, which cannot handle the other types. Planets can launch and recover units without needing any special facilities.(CapnQ)
5.11.4 Drones and mines cannot be recovered once launched.(CapnQ)
5.11.5 You can shift cargo between anything in the same sector with cargo components, even a planet and its moons. Built units will be placed in the cargo components of the building unit. if none/full, they will be placed in any other cargo components in the sector (ships, planets, moons). If all full, you get log message saying unavailable storage.
5.12 Bases
5.12.1 Space Yard Bases
5.12.1.1 Experienced players build 3 space stations with shipyards first, but I think 2 is easier to manage. When you do run short on resources you can mothball these stations for a while. (Wardad)
5.12.2 Defense Bases
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6.0 Space Combat
6.1 Tactics
6.1.1 You cannot retreat from combat, combat ends after 30 combat turns.( Silent Sorrow, Derek)
6.1.2 Be careful you don’t run out of supplies on your Capital Ship Missile ships - each CSM V uses 20 supplies.
6.1.3 Emergency Supply Pods, Emergency Propulsion Pods, Self Destruct Devices, Stellar Manipulation components, Repair Bays, and Space Yards cannot be used in combat.
6.1.4 Tractors are not able to pull in larger ships.
6.1.5 Point Defense Cannons (PDC’s) won’t fire automatically unless you or the target moves and is in range; but they can be fired manually.
6.1.6 Even though PDC’s don’t require multiplex tracking, if you fire them before normal weapons in tactical combat, you lose 1 multiplex “slot” for that turn.
6.1.7 Computer virus attacks skip armor and shields, destroy MC's (which reduces movement to 1), but do no other damage, and does NOT take over control of the ship.
6.1.8 In addition to moving the target ship, as far as damage goes, Tractor, Repulsor, & Wormhole beams will damage shields equal to their damage rating, but nothing else will be damaged, even if shields are down. Mounts will increase the damage to shields.
6.1.9 Energy Dampeners, if they hit, disrupt all target's weapons for the number of turns equal to the "damage". Mounts will increase the "damage" so larger mounts will increase number of turns disrupted. Multiple hits from ED's will add together - example: 2 hits from a normal mount ED-III (damage = 3) on the same turn will disrupt all target's weapons for the next 6 combat turns.
6.1.10 Organic armor will regenerate only in battle, not in strategic mode. If got 1 left, engage immobile target and just sit there to regenerate.
6.1.11 Seekers get a defense modifier of 40% (settings.txt)
6.1.12 Ramming a drone before it rams you will destroy the drone without making the warhead go off.
6.1.13 High probability, but not guaranteed: Bigger internals & smaller armors get hit first.
6.2 Formations
6.2.1 If all ships in a fleet break formation, they go to their individual ship orders. This may be what you want.
6.2.2 You may want to change the default fleet formation to something other than arrowhead since this one is not very good. Wall is much better under most circumstances.
6.3 Attacking Ships
6.3.1 Targeting. In order for a weapon to fire at a particular target (satellites, ships, etc.), that target must be included in the Weapon Details "Targets" list.(Stone Mill)
6.3.2 Engines are the storage for supplies on the ship, therefore "Engine Only" weapons not only hits movement but the weapons too - No engines - No Supplies - Weapons can't fire at all, unless you have undamaged "Supply Component" (Georgig)
6.3.3 Shields Skipping. As is well documented the "Weapon Only" damage type skip all shields and armor and get straight to the component. One might assume that the "Only Boarding Parties" and "Only Security Stations" weapons do the same thing, but they do not. They only skip armor. !! In the post-1.67 patch, Ionic Dispersers, which destroy engines, will not skip shields. (geoschmo, Suicide Junkie, Quikngruvn)
6.3.4 Chance to hit with direct-fire weapons. The chance that a direct-fire weapon will hit its target depends on the following factors:
6.3.4.1 Range: longer range is less chance to hit (-10% per square on the tactical map).
6.3.4.2 Racial bonuses: aggressiveness for the attacker, defensiveness for the target.
6.3.4.3 Cultural bonuses: the Space Combat bonus of both attacker (added) and target (subtracted).
6.3.4.4 Ship and fleet experience: experience of the attacker is added to the chance, experience of the defender is subtracted. Ship and fleet experience are cumulative (if the ship is in a fleet).
6.3.4.5 Inherent weapon to-hit bonuses: for example, the Wave-Motion Gun has a built-in +30% chance to hit.
6.3.4.6 Size of the target: smaller ships (light cruiser and smaller) are harder to hit.
6.3.4.7 Components: Combat sensors on the attacker increase the chance to hit; ECM, stealth armor, and scattering armor on the defender all decrease the chance.
6.3.4.8 Weapon mount: some mounts, such as weapon platform mounts, increase the chance to hit.(Quikngruvn)
6.3.4.9 Caveats
6.3.4.9.1 If the attacking ship has a talisman, every direct-fire shot will hit, if in range.
6.3.4.9.2 Without a talisman, the highest adjusted chance to hit you can have is 99%.
6.3.4.9.3 The lowest adjusted chance to hit you can have is 1%.(Quikngruvn)
6.3.4.9.4 The base to-hit is 100%, and is moddable in settings.txt. However, the closest two ships can get without ramming each other is range 1, so that might make it effectively 90% (Suicide Junkie)
6.3.5 Specialty weapons (eg. weapon damaging) leave no “excess” damage. If it doesn’t destroy weapon, it does nothing.
6.4 Capturing Ships
6.4.1 To capture enemy ships you must first research "Military Science" and "Ship capture".
Add component "Boarding Parties" to your ship design. In battle take down enemy shield then board. Watch out for self destruct mechanisms, they may take out your ship too. (Captain Kwok)
6.4.2 Or use a level 2 intelligence project called "Crew Insurrection" where you plant a spy on the enemy ship and attempt to convince the crew to join your cause. If successful, the ship is yours to do with as you please. (Gandalph)
6.4.3 If you start with the Psychic Trait, you can research an "Allegiance Subverter" which is a weapon that when fired will convert the crew (and thereby the ship) to your side. (Gandalph)
6.4.4 Allegiance converter is nullified by a ship computer, however that can be combated by a computer virus. (Ruatha)
6.4.5 Each crew quarters component counts as 16 defense against Boarding Parties.
6.4.6 Each boarding party is worth 25% guys if used as a defender.
6.4.7 Since shields must be lowered to use Boarding Parties (and they don’t come back up unless you have shield regenerators), armor is a better choice on BP ships. Also consider use of shield depleting weapons on BP Ships.
6.4.8 Self destruct devices will automatically destruct a ship if it has been taken over by boarding, and can be used manually if the ship is under your control. It will not self destruct a ship taken over by other means (crew insurrection, subVersion, etc.)
6.4.9 Boarding Party 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 20, 40, 60, 80, 100 guys respectively. Security Station 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = 60, 100, 140, 180, 220 turrets respectively. Any BP or SS takes up 20kt space.
6.4.10 Make sure boarding ships are the “Boarding Ship” class not attack ship.
6.4.11 A captured ship will have its weapons disrupted for 10 combat turns before they can fire. (settings.txt)
6.5 Analyzing Ships
6.5.1 Once you've captured an enemy ship, you can take it to a space yard and analyze it. You may be able to get new tech like Rock Colony etc, but racial techs like organic and temporal will be a mystery unless you've got those traits. (Captain Kwok)
6.5.2 You can get ripped off when analyzing an enemy ship. Although the analyzer might show “minor” or “moderate”, etc., if the enemy ship has racial techs which you do not possess, you will not get them.
6.6 Attacking Planets
6.6.1 You only need to hit a planet once with a Plague Bomb to give it a plague.
6.6.2 Planets get a offense modifier of 30% and a defense modifier of -200%. (settings.txt)
6.7 Capturing Planets
6.7.1 To build troops that can invade enemy colonies explore "Construction" and "Troops"; the troops needs some weapons also, explore "Small Weapons" and/or "Troop Weapons". (capnq)
6.7.2 Then construct troops as you construct ships, build them and load them on ships. You can now invade other colonies. Even if you do not have "Ice colony" capabilities you can invade such colonies. (Gandalph, Cynapse)
6.7.3 Few planets have shields. The Massive Planetary Shield does not stop troop invasion and doesn't have to be "taken down" before troop landing. (Sinapus)
6.7.4 If the planet has weapon platforms and you successfully invades it, the platforms remains but comes under your control. (TerranC)
6.7.5 If you invade a colony you gain all that has not been destroyed in the battle, facilities and population. The population will be of the race that colonized the planet, if for example you are oxygen breathers and the colony race are methane breathers, you can move the new race to your colonies with methane. This will increase the possible amount of facilities if the new population is the only race on the planet, i.e. all breathe the same atmosphere. (Gandalph)
6.7.6 After conquering a world or race that breathes a different atmosphere that your own, build colony ships so that you can take advantage of worlds with that atmosphere (i.e., if you conquer methane worlds/races, use the population to colonize other methane worlds so that you can build more facilities on those worlds than you could using your own population). (kalthalior)
6.7.7 Transfer population from other atmosphere breathing conquered worlds/races to worlds you have already colonized that have that atmosphere, and pull your own population off to get the same effect as 6.7.6 above with regards to increasing facility slots on worlds. (kalthalior)
6.7.7 After (or hopefully, before invading) research Psychology, then Political Science. This allows you to build Urban Pacification Centers on conquered worlds that improve the captive population's happiness so that they do not riot. (kalthalior)
6.7.8 Satellites or other orbiters will attack a newly captured planet. You need to eliminate them before capture. Weapon Platforms will not attack troops and don’t participate in ground combat.
6.7.9 Captured population (by any means) loses all of its racial attributes and is identical to yours except they retain their atmosphere breathing so can be used to populate your colonies appropriately AND they slowly get unhappy over time so you need to account for that so they don’t riot (riot police, upc, etc.).
6.7.10 A planet will defend itself from troop invasion with militia. The number of militia is a percentage of the population. Militia statistics can be found in settings.txt.
6.7.11 Militia will regroup after a ground combat battle.
6.7.12 Ground combat Lasts 10 turns and is completely automated.
6.7.13 If the ground combat is not completely resolved in 10 turns, it will continue during the next turn and the militia will not regroup.
6.7.14 Regarding ground combat troops in a transport: first in = first out, and first out = front line.
6.7.15 During Ground Combat: defenders get to fire first. defenders get 30% defense bonus above any component modifiers. (settings.txt)
6.7.16 Since troops are CARGO they get destroyed during ship bombardment. So you hardly ever get troops vs. troops combat. It's always troops vs. militia. improvement reported to MM.
6.8.17 Once the troops are down, an unarmed, contested planet is no longer considered hostile. This means that your ships should stop attacking it so they won’t kill your own troops.
6.8 Tactical Combat Specifics
6.8.1 In the weapon picture window there are fire rate indicators (little red bars), these indicate the fire rate of the weapon, i.e.: If the weapon has a fire rate of two, then there will be two bars after the weapon is fired and the weapon itself will be darked out. The next combat turn there will be one bar, the next turn the weapon will be ready to fire again.( Silent Sorrow, Derek, Gandalph)
6.8.2 The topmost bar in combat is a rough gauge of how many of your ship's hitpoints remain.
More red = more hitpoints. Red = armor + internals. Blue = shields
Each bar / block of color represents 50 hitpoints (rounded up). If the number of hitpoints exceeds 1500, a number will appear on the right-hand edge of the bar, indicating hitpoints in 1000's
(Silent Sorrow, Phoenix-D, Suicide Junkie)
6.8.3 In combat you can click on your ship, then right-click on a weapon to see its damage at different ranges, one square on the combat arena is one distance. If you are in range you always have at least 1% chance to hit. (Silent Sorrow, Derek, Phoenix-D).
6.9 Simultaneous Combat Specifics
6.9.1 For strategic combat, I have found that ships that have multiple weapon types and are very flexible are not handled well by the AI. The AI seems to be better at handling single purpose ships. The opposite seems true for tactical combat because, obviously, a human is in control.
6.9.2 Satellite launchers do not work in strategic combat, only during tactical combat and normal movement.
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7.0 Ground Combat
7.1 Weapon Platforms will not attack troops and don’t participate in ground combat.
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8.0 Units
8.1 General
8.1.1 All components on satellites/fighters/mines/drones are inactive when unlaunched.
8.1.2 Units in same sector stack and count as 1 unit. Any component on any in the stack applies to all, except shields (until that unit is killed). i.e. 1 multiplex tracking component on 1 sat in a group makes the whole group able to multiplex track until that component is destroyed.
8.1.3 When a stack of units takes damage, all structure is added up and when enough accumulate to destroy 1 unit, it is killed. no partials.
8.1.4 Units cannot store cargo, not even by modding.
8.2 Fighters
8.2.1 It is reported that fighters will get 1 movement point without engines.
8.2.2 Fighters can move on their own in a system but cannot warp through warp points. Fighters can join fleets, but do not share supplies in fleets. Unlike ships, fighters use 5 supplies per turn when sitting still (settings.txt).
8.3 Troops
8.4 Mines
8.4.1 You can self destruct mines.
8.4.2 There is no way in unmodded game to detect mines without running into them.
8.4.3 Mine Sweeper level-X, sweeps X mines of ANY size per component; keep this in mind when making Medium & Large mines.
8.4.4 Mine damage is applied pseudo-randomly to a fleet.
8.4.5 Do cloaked minesweepers automatically decloak to sweep mines?
8.4.6 If you want to increase the NUMBER of mines to overwhelm enemies (and sweepers), make small mines, with 1 small warhead to quickly build lots. If you want to increase the DAMAGE of mines, use larger mines with more and larger warheads - you will build these slower and use more resources.
8.4.7 If a sector contains your mines and your ship(s), any enemy that moves into the sector engages the mines before your ship(s).
8.4.8 A ship/fleet will not move through a known minefield, even if it has minesweepers, or a restricted system unless it is specifically ordered to do so. this may cause a ship to stop during a long range “move to” order.
8.5 Drones
8.5.1 Small, med, large drones get bonus movement of 1,2,3 respectively. all drones get a 50% defensive bonus for small size.
8.5.2 Anti-planet drones will attack ships, and vice versa, but if the incorrect warhead is on a drone for a given target, there will be no warhead damage. The mass of the warhead is counted when doing ramming damage, though.
8.6 Weapon Platforms
8.6.1 Weapons Platforms must be stored on one of your colonized planets to be able to fire. (Phoenix-D, Jmenschenfresser)
8.6.2 Weapon platforms. Better some than none, don't be a easy target. Try mixing missiles with direct fire weapons, and use the largest weapon mount you can. (Wardad)
8.7 Statellites
8.7.1 To launch satellites from a planet use "launch remotely/satellites" command, then hit repeat orders. Then each turn, the planet will try to launch satellites, even if there aren't any stored in cargo. (dumbluck)
8.7.2 "Repeat orders" for launching satellites from a planet is only possible in simultaneous movement games. (Shyrka,Zaphod-42)
8.7.3 Cloaked satellites with sensors work well for recon.
8.7.4 You can self destruct satellites.
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9.0 Systems & Sectors
9.0.1 “Unstable stars” have no in-game effect other than showing the text when the star is highlighted.
9.0.2 Star type/age/luminosity has no effect on the system.
9.1 Sight
9.1.1 Asteroids do not affect sight.
9.1.2 Local sector storms, system wide storms, & nebulae can reduce your sight. Use them to hide and beware of the enemy within.
9.2 Spaceports
9.3 System Facilities
4.01.01.2. System facility effects stack with planetary facility effects.(Capnq)
9.4 System Defense
9.4.1 Ships are fragile early on. A few satellites for Worm Hole defense can kill or cause them to limp home. It's better than letting them concentrate forces. (Wardad)
9.4.2 Wormhole defense: on the “receiving” end, all units are clumped together at start of combat, therefore build defenses for short range/overwhelming attacks.
9.5 Stellar Manipulation
9.5.1 Creating Planets
9.5.2 Destroying Planets
9.5.3 Creating Stars
9.5.4 Destroying Stars
9.5.5 Creating & Destroying storms, Nebulae, etc.
9.5.6 Opening & Closing Warp Points
9.5.6.1 There is a limit of 10 warp points per system.
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10.0 Diplomacy
10.0.1 Diplomacy: Avoid early wars, treaties are good bonuses. Hit back if attacked. Some AI races have different attitudes, so be cautious about colonizing their systems.
10.1 Intelligence
10.1.2 Of all intelligence projects only puppet political parties has a chance to fail independent of counter intel. Only puppet political parties has a chance to fail independent of counter intel
10.1.3 Stolen tech reports (via intel ops) don’t show up under the race:tech tab. Only what is seen in combat shows under race:tech. Since you don’t officially “know” about stuff until it is listed in race:tech, this makes it impossible to target intelligence ops to get them until after combat. bug reported to MM.
10.1.4 Defensive intelligence gets a 120% bonus. i.e. 100 points of counter intelligence cancels 120 points of intel. (settings.txt)
10.2 Trade
10.2.1 Bonuses: Trade for ships and analyze them, its great for gaining expensive colonizing tech. Just might get some population in the bargain. Trade for population that breaths a different atmosphere. Put them on their planet type, remove your pop from it, and that red star will turn green giving many more build spaces.
10.3 Communications
10.3.1 In the default AI .txt files, there is absolutely no difference between a tribute and a gift regarding chances for accepting/refusing nor happiness modifiers. There may be differences for individual races.
10.4 Anger
10.5 Contact
10.5.1 You need a path between any of your planets and any of another empire’s planets to make contact.
10.5.2 You won’t make “first contact” with a race if encounter them while in your cloaked ship and the other race can’t detect you.
10.5.3 If contact is ever lost with an AI race, when it gets re-established, they won’t remember anything about you.
10.6 Treaties
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11.0 Empire Management
11.1 Keeping Track of Things
11.1.1 You can keep track of system notes (right click galaxy screen, left click on system) to get away from the “clipboard” tracking system, but this may not be detailed enough for large and complex games.
11.1.3 During each turn, you should carefully go through the events log to keep informed of and take action on any new events that occurred during the turn.
11.2 I keep at least 1 mothballed destroyer “ambulance” always retrofitted to be the fastest and longest range with the latest medical bay. If you wait to build one after you get a plague, it takes too long. I build this ship at an early convenient central SY even if I don’t have medical tech yet, and retrofit later.
11.3 You can automate some of your empire by using ministers, having ships repeat their orders, using patrols, and using repeat build commands. Beware that you should periodically check in on these because the AI is not very good at doing things.
11.2 Ministers
11.2.1 Most ministers do a terrible job at managing. One that is not too bad is the population transport minister, although, once you have captured some alien colonists that breathe a different atmosphere, the minister is not smart enough to put them on the correct planets.
11.2.2 Later in the game, the colonization minister is not too bad either, but in the early game colonization is too important to leave to minister control.
11.3 Waypoints
11.3.1 You can set up waypoints to have ships built at spaceyards automatically go to a given location. Define the waypoint under Empire Status, and select the given waypoint at a space yard by “set move to” button.
11.3.2 There is a limit of 10 waypoints.
11.3.4 You cannot chain waypoints together and ships will not automatically resupply along the way to a waypoint
11.4 Game Interface
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12.0 Happiness
12.0.1 Don’t confuse Happiness and Anger. Happiness is a measure of your population’s happiness on planets and it affects resource production and spaceyard construction - if it gets too low it can cause rioting. anger affects an entire empire’s outlook on each other empire and is seen under the “mood” on the diplomacy screen - you only can see how other empires feel towards you. You can only see your anger towards another race if you take control of the other race.
12.0.2 Happiness affects resource production, construction rate, and reproduction (see settings.txt)
12.0.3 Happiness will naturally increase over time, but this effect can be overcome by other negative events.
12.1 Riots & Riot Control
12.2 The following things can increase happiness on a planet: ships in the system, ships in the sector, urban pacification centers, troops on the planet, winning a battle, colonizing a planet, capturing an enemy planet, (sometimes) new treaties, building ships or facilities.
13.3 Since the number of troops matters for happiness, not the strength, someone suggested making small troops with just a cockpit to use for use as “riot police.”
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13.0 The AI
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14.0 Turn Sequencing
14.1 This section is used to describe the order in which thing happen during simultaneous and sequential game turns.
14.2 Stellar manipulation happens before ship movement in simu
Re: Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies
Asteroids Champion!
Linear Mode
