Gameplay tips & tricks

[TurinTurambar]

douglas said:
Ancient Race also allows you to know where every homeworld is from the start, and allows the only certain counter to the previously mentioned trick. The combination of the right size planet and all three values being within 5% of 80/100/120% for bad/average/good starting planets almost never happens by chance, so every such planet is almost guaranteed to be a homeworld.

Grrrr! I HATE that you posted that! It always suprised me how few people have figured that out.

Turin[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon42.gif[/img]

[Slick]

If you increase the maximum number of systems beyond the default (100) in "settings.txt", you will need more names in the system names file. If you don't do this, you can end up with systems that have no name. The game will still run but it will be a pain to distinguish between different blank planets and systems. There are lots of system name files available or you can add your own.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I wrote a program to number all the blank spaces.

[TurinTurambar]

Buh?

In the Borders map?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

If that was directed at me...No, in the systemnames.txt

[TurinTurambar]

Read THIS if you're a newbie just starting out.

[Fyron]

narf poit chez BOOM said:
If that was directed at me...No, in the systemnames.txt

Why not just use one with 10s of thousands of names, such as the one in FQM? Never have the same system names twice!

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Cause...I didn't know you could do that?

[NullAshton]

Mineral planets are the best. That's a really good tip In your racial screen, make sure mineral production is higher than organics and radioactives.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

When you have "Players can see all systems" on at the game setup, do NOT choose Ancient Race as a racial trait

No, but seriously.

In stock SEIV, research troops quickly while still keeping an eye on other research, so your weapon/construction/whatever technology doesn't get too outdated. Once you have strong troops, create a couple of hundred (or thousand, if your economy allows) and load them on cargo bases in orbit/in a specific location like an obscuring storm or nebulae.

Here's something I always do:
Create bases with ONLY cargo storage (as soon as you've met the requirements for B/CQ/LS by placing those or MC) and build one/a few in orbit around your Homeworld. Then, whenever your population gets above a certain level, place a set number of pop on those stations. That way, you can have billions of people in orbital stations, even if you start on a Tiny world. The reson for this is that this way, when you colonize a new planet, you can immediately fill it up to max pop to speed up its growth tremendously while not emptying your HW this way. Also, when an important colony has suffered severe population losses, you can replenish the pop. Or, when an important colony has been depopulated with - what are those things called again? Neutron Bombs? you can immediately repopulate it completely so you get the full income again after just a few turns, instead of suffering perhaps crippling losses to your economy over the course of perhaps several years.

It pays to have decoy drones. They can draw fire away from, say, your heavy fighters. Seekers can also perform this task, and don't need to be produced. Make your drones contain nothing but a computer, engines, and armor, and set their strategy to something like Point Blank.

Do NOT underestimate the power of heavy fighters stored on a planet. I've had multiple occasions when, in strategic combat, my heavy orbital bombers were suddenly destroyed by massive streams of fighters from the surface of the planet.

Also, do NOT underestimate the sheer defensive power of a Large Weapons Platform design containing nothing but shields, regenerators and armor. Place a few of these on your planets and orbital bombers will have a hard time bombing as they're up against heavy regenerating shielding AND armor, while WPs keep pounding away at them from the surface.

It's always handy to have at least one WP on a planet full of long-range weapons like the WMG, while others are packed with heavy short-range weaponry. The WPs with the WMGs (or other heavy long-range weapons) can probably get off at least one shot at an enemy fleet before they can fire on you. If they're unshielded, it's even better - you can cause severe damage to their internal components, perhaps you could even eliminate crucial comps like the command comps, engines, heavy weapons or orbital weapons.