Obscure, unintuitive and unforgiving

[Arkcon]

Yeah, the fact that the sphereworld needs many starbases, built on the star was in the FAQ on Malfador's site long before it ever came up on these forums. You raise a fair point, the info should have been worked into the text descriptions by now.

This next statement may tick you off, but here it is anyway ... Everyone 'round here knows those rules already. It really isn't worth MM's time to redo it. You got a suprise -- that's all. An expensive one, to be sure. But that is part of the fun.

Someone somewhere loaded up his ships with Shields V, then met the Sergetti with the polaron beam battleships. Too bad for them, start a new game.

I suggest that for you as well. Start another game, you now know the tech tree, so it should be easier. Build a sphereworld around your home star, you'll see -- the game can be fun again.

P.S.
Don't try to board ships with a self destruct device that happens to have destroyed engines -- the description is a deliberate lie by alien engineers, your ship will blow up anyway.

P.P.S.
Play SuicideJunkies P&N mod: That way, when you lose all ships, and can't pay maintenance, and the game scraps some satelites in space as punishment, you won't get a silly message explaning it -- you'll get a well thought out message instead.

P.P.P.S.
Ignore everything I've said if you play against humans, it will all profit you nothing.

[Atrocities]

Tip for success in an early game is Research and deploy MINES.

That goes for SP and PBW. Enjoy.

[Ed Kolis]

But don't hang onto mines too long... if your opponent brings out mine sweeper III's (they sweep 3 mines per turn... EACH ), it's time to abandon mines as a viable strategy

edit: or is it really per "use" like in the description? what happens if you have a ship with a single MS III and you run into 2 minefields with 2 mines apiece in different sectors or belonging to different races? Does it sweep all of them or do you take damage from one of the mines in the second field?

[Alneyan]

It is per sector and per component. However, if you are at war with ten Empires, and they have 100 mines each in the same sector, you will trigger the whole stack of mines at once. Unless you have the means to sweep 1,000 mines, you will suffer from *some* damage. *Chuckles*

[Timstone]

bbq:
If you have questions about the game that the manual of the faq don't answer. Just ask us.
Alfterall you were smart enough to post your complaint, but not seek a solution via the internet.
And discovering how a game works is one of the biggest funfactors in a game.

[Ragnarok]

bbq said:
In my most recent game I wanted to explore what it would be like to create new planets from scratch. So I researched all the Stellar Manipulation technologies. Now, I'm sure most of you know that there is very little information in the manual as well as the help file itself. It took me a LONG time to figure out that I need to build 41 starbases, load them with the materials and components before I make it.

bbq, one other thing to note is that you do not need to build 41 bases to make a sphere world. You only need 21. One for the sphereworld generator itself, then 10 for the cables and 10 for the plates. That is 20,000KT of cable components and 20,000KT of plate components.

Then for a ringworld you only need 11 bases. Or just 10,000KT of each component.

But as everyone else as mentioned it is a good idea to read through the FAQ. It is far more detailed then anything in the game.

[Arkcon]

Ragnarok said:

bbq, one other thing to note is that you do not need to build 41 bases to make a sphere world. You only need 21.

And another 20 space station shipyards to build each stellar manipulation starbase.

At least that's how I do it, maybe people send in a dozen or so mobile space yard ships that were building stuff else where previously ... or they have a few stations build several several starbases. but ... for me, 41 bases + one mobile shipyard ... yeah ... seems about right at the end of the day just before the construct button is pressed.

[Ragnarok]

Arkcon said:


And another 20 space station shipyards to build each stellar manipulation starbase.

Ohhh...ok. I got it now. I guess I didn't think about doing it that way. I always just use space yard ships and build my bases from them.

[rdouglass]

That would be 42 - 21 SY's building 21 stations for SW components.

However, echoing what others have said about the complexity of the game, I just have 2 comments:

1. To me, half the fun of a game like this is figuring out how everything works *without* delving in the manual except for the basics.

2. There is not a team of developers, just 1 developer (singular). As Atrocities mentioned, a strategy guide for this game is an incredible indertaking. For me, I'll take repeat playability over a slightly lower-quality manual / guide anyday.

SEIV is still by far the best game for my money I've ever purchased. Period.

</$.02>

[Ed Kolis]

Arkcon said:
And another 20 space station shipyards to build each stellar manipulation starbase.

Really? What I like to do is put the spaceyard components on the plate and cable bases themselves - you can find room if you use Master Computers, which I've inevitably researched by that point in the game. Then I only need one spaceyard ship to get the thing started, and construction proceeds exponentially! (Just remember to build the gravity field generator Last, because it's the most expensive, so you don't want to be paying maintenance on it the whole time! )

edit: I wonder... when it says you need 20,000 kT of the plates and cables in the sector, do that have to be installed on a ship, or can they be installed on units which are launched in the sector? Something I ought to try in a mod is create a 2000 kT fighter size called "Stellar Construction Barge" and/or a 2000 kT satellite size called "Stellar Construction Satellite"; they would have a 99% requirement for cargo bays and no command/control requirement, and I'd give the stellar construction materials a dummy cargo bay ability. Then you could actually carry your building materials with you to the star on a large transport... yeah, I know I could just change the plates and cables to 100kT or something... anyone have any practical reason to do it this way? I think I did but I forgot...