A complete newbie's questions...

[deccan]

Hello,

Just to introduce myself a bit, I'm a complete newbie player, a MOO3 defector. Ordered SEIV Gold Online and received it a couple of weeks ago. This game just rocks by the way.

I've been playing with the Proportions mod (because I just like long, slow games) and I have some questions:

1) Does anyone else think that PD is incredibly powerful? I keep wishing that I could make it my main weapon and hit ships with it.

2) Why does everyone seem to think that torpedoes suck? They seem alright to me, stat-wise. (Yes, I know about the reload rate.) Am I missing something else?

3) How do I keep my fighters from running out of ammo in mid-battle? If I max them out on engines, they run far, far ahead of my main fleet. I can't add supply storage components to them. Use less weapons and more armor on them?

4) What the heck are meson bLasters for? They seem to suck to me.

5) I need some suggestions for ship designs. I notice that the AI doesn't tend to put supply components in combat vessels, but then they tend not to travel very far. Is it better to put supply components on every ship that needs to travel to attack the enemy (uses up precious space that could go towards weapons and armor) or is it better to build specialized supply tankers (game's "sharing of supplies evenly among all ships in a fleet" seems very inefficient)?

6) What makes "Neutral" dispositioned races happy? I find that if I pick "Peaceful" races, I get keep them on "Happy" and "Jubilant" most of the time. However, if I pick "Neutral", they spend most of their time on "Indifferent".

7) I find that once an AI declares war on me, I can't seem to end it, even if they are "Brotherly" to me and no one actually engages in combat for ages and ages.

8) How do tech trades work? The AI keeps giving me tech that I have already.

Sorry, if some of my questions seem silly. I haven't really played all that much yet and I'm nowhere near to completing a game.