Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies

[Rexxx]

Originally posted by capnq:
They only boost resources, research, and intel production.

There is an Escort design from the Terran Confederation. It costs 3250 kt Minerals, 100 kt Organics and 300 kt Rads. In a game with low AI bonus this ship is built by the AI (empire under computer control) during the first turn, it is fully operational at the beginning of 2400.1.
The homeworld of the Terran Federation (under human control) has a construction rate of 3000 kt per turn, switch the empire to computer control and the number change to 4500 (low AI bonus).

EDIT: Terran Confederation is part of the TDM-Modpack.

Edit 2: Thanks for bringing an end to this "discussion", Mephisto.

[ November 26, 2002, 06:38: Message edited by: Rexxx ]

[Shyrka]

5.7.2.1 Ships lose fleet experience when they leave fleet.

Is this properly defined? Fleet experience is an attribute of the fleets, not of the sips.

BTW, How Fleet exp. is gained? I'm making experiments and i can't figure out how it works. It seems that the higher the individual ships experience, the faster the fleet gets experience. Is this correct?

[Kamog]

Whenever one of the ships in the fleet destroys an enemy ship, the ship gains 1% experience and the fleet also gains 1%.

[capnq]

I think the experience is a function of total hull tonnage destroyed, but I don't know the exact formulas.

[Shyrka]

Originally posted by Kamog:
Whenever one of the ships in the fleet destroys an enemy ship, the ship gains 1% experience and the fleet also gains 1%.

Sorry Kamog, but in my tests this is not correct.

I have a 1 ship fleet with both experiences to zero. Then I send it to attack an unarmed escort. After that, the ship in the fleet has 1% experience, but the fleet experience still is zero.

After several victorious battles, the fleet experience raises to 1%. But it seems to depend of the individual ship experience, and maybe of the number of ships in the fleet. I can't understand it

BTW I'm playing with 1.78 gold.

Edit: This is my post number 100! Wow!

[ November 30, 2002, 12:09: Message edited by: Shyrka ]

[Sniper]

Hi guys
I recently had to restart my system and lost my old Version of SEIV. I reinstalled but now none of my downloaded empires work! The TDM mod is now for gold only and whilst I want SEIV Gold, Living in the UK makes it way too expensive to buy the same game twice!
How can I get new empires onto an old Version of SEIV? Can anyone help me?
Cheers all

[capnq]

How can I get new empires onto an old Version of SEIV?

There's a section of the Mod Archives for "Classic mods (pre-Gold)" {link}. It has the Last pre-Gold Version of TDM (v2.00), plus the pre-Gold Version of my HypermazeLite mod. You should also check out the Old Scenario Archives {link} while they're still there.

You can also "reverse-engineer" Gold shipsets by using the conVersion instructions in my sig, but cutting the listed lines instead of copy & pasting them. You may also need to cut any entries for Drones in the AI's research & construction files; I've never tried converting backwards.

[ December 08, 2002, 04:23: Message edited by: capnq ]

[Slick]

1.5.2 In Simultaneous games, you can't launch units in increments; it is all or nothing.

1.5.3 In Simultaneous games, you will lose your remaining movement points when moving into an
unexplored system. Your ship will also stop and lose movement when encountering an enemy, but this can be changed under Empire Options.

2.3.1 (add) This is most applicable to Strategic Combat. You can manually select weapons to fire in
Tactical Combat.

2.4.1 (add) However, armor is effective against mines.

2.8.9 (add) However, if you fire PDC's before your other weapons, you can lose 1 multiplex tracking "slot". If you have no multiplex tracking component, you may then be unable to fire your main weapons at
another target. This bug does not apply if you fire your PDC's Last.

2.9.5 You don't have to put population on a colonizer in order to colonize a planet. Colonization will still take place, but you won't be able to build anything on the new planet without population. This is useful in sending a colony ship on a suicide mission to get a "ruin" planet in hostile territory. Since the colony won't survive long anyway, you can colonize the planet, get the ruin and not waste any population.

2.11.3 The latest history.txt file regarding the upcoming patch indicates that the relationship of fleet vs. ship strategies has been modified. Reserve this paragraph for future updates on this item.

2.13 Maintenance

2.13.1 Maintenance on your ships is 25% (settings.txt). You can decrease maintenance by increasing the Maintenance Aptitude characteristic or choosing a Cultural modifier that reduces maintenance. There is a hard coded minimum maintenance of 5%.

2.13.2 If unable to pay the maintenance, first any construction queues will not be accomplished. If the deficit is high enough, ships will automatically be scrapped to pay for the shortage. The AI will probably NOT choose wisely in scrapping your ships.

2.13.3 Things to do when maintenance is too high: place construction queues on hold, mothball ships, increase production (more facilities, increase happiness, remote mine, etc), scrap ships as a Last resort.

4.1.2 Play styles differ on how to explore early on. Find what works best for you. Some people use unarmed escorts with an extra supply storage component to maximize range. Others use colonizers and put them on a 1-way trip; colonize or die. Still others send out armed escorts which can quickly kill off a neighboring empire who has not yet set up any defenses.

4.2.11 Opinions differ on the value of colonizing moons. They can add to the overall strength of a sector. Cargo can be transferred readily between a planet and its moons. Colonizing moons keeps the AI or any other empire from colonizing them (a nasty habit). But it does cost you a colonizer, so you should not do it until you have colonized all the major planets in the area unless you have special circumstances.

4.4.3.3 Bug: If you give/trade a planet that has been operating on Emergency Build mode to another empire, its Emergency Build mode is turned off and its time in Emergency Build is cleared. It is considered cheating to use this exploit in multiplayer games.

4.4.8.5 A planet on Emergency Build, while rioting, still accumulates time in Emergency Build mode.

4.8.2 (add) The latest history.txt indicates that auto-launching of anti-planet drones will no longer occur after the next patch. Reserve this paragraph to for future discussion of this item.

5.2.1 Mine Layers

5.2.2 Mine Sweepers

5.2.3 Satellite Layers

5.2.4 Supply ships

5.2.5 Spaceyard & Repair Ships

5.2.6 Transports (Cargo, Troop, etc.)

5.2.6.1 I like to make a few "Dump Trucks" which are large transports with almost all cargo. Sometimes I put some Satellite or Mine layers on them to make them a little more flexible. Keeping one of these with your fleet allows you to carry enormous amounts of junk that you might want to carry around with you like extra population, troops, weapon platforms, replacement fighters, etc. If you have a spaceyard ship with your fleet and your fleet is stationary for at least 1 turn, you can "build 1 turn's worth" of something and the items will be placed in your Dump Truck for future use.

5.2.7 Exploration and Reconnaissance Ships

5.2.8 Stellar Manipulation Ships

5.6.2 If you have a Fleet Training Facility, it is a good idea to generate a few 1-ship fleets at that planet. After the fleet experience is maxxed out, you will have these fleets in stand-by waiting to be filled with ships and off you go.

5.10.5 Under "Empire Options" you can designate "Systems to Avoid". No ship will enter one of these systems unless you order it to go there directly. This means that ships on minister control or if given an order to move multiple systems away, will not go through that system.

6.1.14 A ship can do considerable damage (usually destroying it) to a fighter group by ramming it. Bug?

6.2.3 If the formation leader gets stuck by being surrounded by ships/objects and cannot move, the fleet will break formation.

7.2.9 (add) The positive happiness effect of 10 troops of any type will exactly cancel out the negative happiness of having alien population on a planet.

8.6.3 Weapon platform mounts increase range significantly, as well as the damage and accuracy.

8.7.5 Satellites do not use supplies.

8.7.6 Satellites in a sector will always be clumped together in 1 stack, frequently not positioned well for defense. Exception: at warp points, all friendly & enemy ships/units start combat close together.

9.2.1 Spaceports are required to allow resource (minerals, organics, radioactives, research and intelligence) points to contribute to your empire. Only 1 spaceport per system is required, but you can make more if interested in redundancy so that an attack on the spaceport planet won't necessarily cut off the whole system. The exception to this is the Natural Merchant ability which allows you to not need any spaceports.

9.3.3 With v1.78, you can turn on indicators for many system wide facilities under Empire Options. These show up as letters around a planet. These indicators will NOT show up if the system wide facility is on a moon.

10.0.3 Regarding where the AI will colonize, the AI automatically claims any system it has colonized, as well as every system right next to it. If the AI colonizes a disputed system, then that opens up a host of new disputed systems in your territory, and their expansion is not slowed at all.

10.0.4 There is a penalty associated with responding with a refusal to any offer made by the AI - the other empire increases its anger toward you. There does NOT appear to be any penalty for just not responding at all. Bug?

10.1.5 (add) So it is in your best interest to never let a CI project complete since all the points invested in it get lost.

10.2.2 It is sometimes difficult to find out what another empire has so that you can ask for it in a trade. Look at any enemy designs you have seen in combat to look for ship technologies. Use long range scanners on recon ships to check designs you haven't yet met in combat (these won't be added to the enemy ship design list until you meet it in combat). Use the intelligence projects for Ship Blueprints, Tech Levels and Planet Info to find other techs.

10.3.2 General communications with the AI are useless and in some cases (like Xenophobes) it actually makes them angry.

10.6.1 Some AI have a limit on the highest treaty to which they will agree. Nothing you can do will change this.

10.6.2 All treaties have cumulative effects which include the attributes of lower ones.

10.6.3 All treaties of Trade and higher are considered peace treaties for purposes of the victory condition "Peace for X years".

10.6.4 All treaties of Non-Aggression or higher prevent combat engagements.

10.6.5 Since the Military Alliance allows the ally to use your Resupply Depots, this can have some negative effects. The ally can now move throughout your empire and see what you have and if he is into colonizing in your systems, he can reach further.

10.6.6 Regarding Protectorate and Subjugation, the offering empire will be the dominant empire. So a small, weak empire can dominate a larger one if agreed to. In order to beg for mercy to become the submissive empire, you have to send a request and ask for a treaty of Protectorate/Subjugation in the "Give" section.

11.3.5 Be careful with the "Set Move To" option at a spaceyard when you build colonizers. Usually you don't want to automatically move colonizers.

[ December 19, 2002, 18:56: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Ruatha]

Hi, great to see ya again Slick.
Good work as always.
Will incorporate in the future (Going away on christmas)

[Stone Mill]

Nice work Slick! You da man!