Rookie Mistakes

[oleg]

I agree about "repeat". It would be better if SE goes through whole order and then cycles back. This way one can program a planet to build mines, fighters, troops, ships, etc. without a need to revisit it almost every other turn !

[ August 29, 2002, 19:18: Message edited by: oleg ]

[TerranC]

At the start of the game, when I'm not focused, I do either one of two things:

Forget to start researching
Forget to build anything

it cost me a game.

On the sphearworld:

Militia: 3200 for 64 billion
Number of troops needed to take sphearworld in one fell swoop: 460 Large Troops equipped with 2 sheild generators and 3-4 ground cannons

Causes an access violation.

[geoschmo]

Terran, have you tested that recently for access violations. I think some of those got fixed with the latest patch.

You could get 460 troopers on a single large transport with cargo III's I think.

Geo

[DavidG]

Hmm Maybe we should compile a top 10 list of rookie mistakes to help the newbies along:

1 - Sending out a colony ship with no population on board (this has got to be #1 )
2 - Forgeting to remove the 'Divide points evenly' on the research screen.
3 - Giving ships or fleets orders without clearing previous orders.
4 - Building mines or satellites and not realizing you need to launch them
5.....

[Grandpa Kim]

... 5. Not using weapon mounts. In my PBW games this is by far the most noticable mistake.

You know, guys, I must play this game way differently than most of you. When i get my turn, I first check the log very carefully, then I go to each system and check every ship/fleet and planet. When I've done all my systems, I then go through each of the screens-- colonies, ships, construction, research, empire, log again (to reply to Messages) and finally diplomacy. Then I worry about what I missed!! It is not unusual for a typical turn to take me 4 hours!

As an example, I am playing in The Quest for Terran Prime, as is Geo. I've seen Geo take less than ten minutes to play a turn in that "little" game. Tonight's turn took me nearly 2 hours.

I savor every turn and to me that is the enjoyment of the game. Not that my way is any better, but this gives me max pleasure.

Kim

[Gryphin]

My biggest repeated mistake is playing a 1AM.
(Hmm, posted at 1:41AM) better quit befor I make all of those mistakes.

[Slick]

Here are just SOME of the dumb things I have done:

- built 2 spaceyard ships to go with my defense fleet. When the fleet got on station and things were calm, I decided to mothball a few ships to skimp on resources. Well if you mothball both of your spaceyard ships, you can't unmothball anything without an active spaceyard. Had to build another ship to go over there to rescue the mothballed ships. Actually I have done this more than once which I will never admit to.

- Accidentally launched 100 mines from the planet instead of loading them onto my minelayer. Unrecoverable.

- When I FINALLY got that 2nd colonizing tech, I went hog wild and built countless new colonizers to get all those juicy new plum planets in all my systems without actually figuring out if my economy could handle it. Needless to say after some ships were abandoned, I was glad for the "queue on hold" option.

- Same hog wild story with Monoliths. Those suckers are expensive!

- Too eager to wait for the rest of my fleet (which had minesweepers) and kick some butt with my new battleship (I was at least 2 ship sizes higher than my puny AI neighbor) that I ran right into a minefield 2 turns after commissioning it. Kaboom.

- forgot to put engines on a new design, built 3 simultaneously before I noticed. "Wow, I seem to have come up with a new killer design that looks much more impressive than previous designs."

- desperately needed a resource converter. Barely kept economy under control and was losing a battle on 2 fronts while I researched the tech. Finally got it. Then built a Ultra-Recycler instead - didn't realize it until it was completed and I couldn't figure out how to make the Recycler convert resources. Ouch.

- Very low on supplies and using that colonizer for exploration, I decided to check that next system. If it was empty, I had a nice greenie close to the warp point in the current system. OOPS! next system was a black hole. ***sound of your straw sucking up the Last of your McDonald's chocolate shake*** and it was gonzo.

- [very early on...] I can take that fleet out - no problem. Wow, what is an Allegiance Subverter?

- "your star will explode in 3 years". Well 3 years in game time for me was many hours later and I totally forgot about the warning...

- Then there was the time that a spacial anomoly moved a powerful enemy base into my home system.

Slick

[dogscoff]

Some of my biggest mistakes come from using the filters on the turn log, so I'm only displaying the construction log.

Next turn I forget that the filter's on and miss out on all the critical research notices, battles, diplomatic Messages...

[StarJack]

With very limited playing time I've managed to send a huge Invasion Fleet on a one way do or die mission with several EMPTY transports, the troops still chilling planetside.
And in every game I've played I've managed to click the Upgrade Facilities button when I could Least afford it! Grrrr...

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Grandpakim:
As an example, I am playing in The Quest for Terran Prime, as is Geo. I've seen Geo take less than ten minutes to play a turn in that "little" game. Tonight's turn took me nearly 2 hours.

Ten minutes? I wonder why I was so slow that night? I think most of my turns in that game have been, Hmm, ok, still got research going, ok, no new enemy fleets showed up, END TURN! Of course that game is a little wierd being colonize only own planet type and atmosphere. It helps speed things up when you only have 4 planets.

Geoschmo