Updated the FAQ

[douglas]

For ships with emergency propulsion when the days they move on matters:
A ship with N emergency movement points will move on each day it would at its normal speed, and will also move on the first N days that it normally wouldn't after the first normal movement day. Among other things, this means that emergency propulsion on ships with only one normal movement point is useless, as there aren't any days for the emergency moves to be taken on after the first and only normal move on day 30; emergency propulsion also cannot change the day of the first movement in a turn.

[Suicide Junkie]

Near the bottom of the FAQ, there are some... Essays or something.

The parts down there about organic armor are out of date, and talk about how OA stores up regen points (that was patched out) and how it dosen't regenerate back to full after combat (it now does)

[Fyron]

The FAQ could benefit from a table listing the titles of all included charts and their section numbers.

[Parasite]

At times I use troops, both defensively and offensively. I have read in the SEIV FAQ some things.

7.2.14 Regarding ground combat troops in a transport: first in = first out, and first out = front line.
and
7.2.26 It's a well known strategy, but I'll mention it nevertheless: If you want to achieve maximum efficiency in ground combat, it's worth to design 3 types of troops: Defender, Offender and Leader. Defender's design include small shields (or armor) only. Offenders are armed with you favorite weapon (ground cannons or small shield depleters) and nothing else. Leader is equipped with shields plus small combat sensor and small ECM components. Produce them in 3:6:1 proportions (rough numbers). Now, then filling your troop transport, place Defenders first, then Offenders and Last Leaders. Being dropped to a planet, Defender will play a meat shield role, Offenders will stay behind Defenders unharmed and wipe out militia (or hostile troops) and Leaders will provide attack and defense bonus to the whole stack of troops. (Aiken)

I have adopted this wholeheartedly, and have even expanded it somewhat to production of troops on endangered planets, tending to produce mostly shielded first, then fighters, then a limited number of leaders. I have never really tested it out though. I have not gotten to the point of switching between a player and an AI in games yet.

In a few recent games I have found cause to doubt it is true. Specificly in an old game I had troops stored on a planet I was guarding. An enemy attacked and of the enemy troops, only the shielded troops survived. My opponent was an experienced player and believes he loaded the troops correctly as suggested above.

In an ongoing game, I have invaded several planets. I always load the transport and interspace the leaders in the middle of the troops, being sure to at least put one first and one last. It then would not matter if FIFO or FILO were used on exit. In at least two of these battles, the 3 small leader troops I had were destroyed, while only some of the gun toting ones were killed. The leaders were loaded first, middle, and last, yet were all killed. They were fairly weak leaders as I don't have shields yet to use with them. The opposition was also very strong having troops with increased ground combat skills and high population planets. To me, this tends to prove that the troops are not landed in FIFO (or FILO) mode and that something else is going on.

Could a patch have changed this? I have read of the Weapon Platform tests and the difficulty of proving things one way or the other. Could some type of random damage be happening to troops as well? Would this call into question ECM/ECCM effects on unit stacks?

This would change small troop leader designs to have cockpit, ECM, and two shields; and cockpit plus ECCM with shields for maximum protection and surviveability. Shielded troops would be less usefull, while standard troops would stay the same or have protection given to each trooper.

[Grandpa Kim]

Parasite, I've been suspicious of this for some time myself, and for much the same reasons.

[Slaughtermeyer]

The following arguably are contradictory:

2.10.2 Ships do retain original strategies after being retrofitted or captured - you can overcome this by making a 1-ship fleet and giving it new fleet orders.


2.10.6 Captured enemy ships use the ship strategy decided by the original creator of that ship. He may change that ship types strategy at any time and it will affect your ship. To stop this retrofit the ship to a design of your own.

Are we to assume that original strategies are retained for retrofitted ships EXCEPT for captured ships that are retrofitted?

[Fyron]

2.10.2 is partially wrong. 2.10.6 is correct. After a ship is retrofitted, it uses the strategy of the new design. Captured ships use the strategy of their original design, which is entirely under control of the player that built the ship. You can of course assign the ships to fleets that have strategies not set to break formation. As long as the ship remains in formation, it will follow the strategy of the fleet. If it breaks formation for any reason, it will revert to the design strategy, which will be of the original design.

[Glyn]

Addendum to the excellent stellar manipulation information provide by Douglas. This link
Based on simultaneous movement type game.

Create Nebula: (Correction to Douglas’ information on Create Nebula.)
Can only be issued at a star, but no star is necessary when the order is carried out in a remote system. (Just like a Create Black Hole.) Note the star where the order was issued is NOT affected by the creation of a Nebula in a remote system unlike the Create Black Hole were it deletes the star were the order is issued.

Ring-World and remote Creation of Nebula or Black hole:
The remote system use of Create Nebula or Create Black hole is not affected by the presents of a ring-world in the remote system. (I didn’t test with a sphere world.)
A system with a ring-world can be destroyed by creating a nebula or a black hole, by using a ship at a sun in another system to issue the stellar manipulation order after giving it orders to move to the target system.

Ring-World treated like a planet when destroyed by a create nebula:
Interestingly, if a ring-world is destroyed by creating a nebula, the ring-world will be reduced to an asteroid field just like any other planet that can be seen after the nebula cloud is destroyed.

(Not Tested, but...) Stellar manipulation of one sun in a multiple sun system is probably not affected by the present of a ring world or sphere world around the other sun or suns.

[Atrocities]

I don't know if this has been added or not. I looked under 4.12 Improving & Modifying Systems but did not see it.

Question: How do you clear up systems with organic infestation, and or other stellor items?

Answer:

1. Build A star making ship.
2. Build a Black Hole Making ship
3. Build a Black Hole Destroying ship
4. Send the Star Making ship to the system that you want to clear and make a star any where within the system. Then pull the ship out of the system to a safe location in a near bye system.
5. Use the black hole making ship to collaps the newly formed star into a black hole.
The black hole Stellor image will replace, organic infestation, exploded stars, system wide commet, etc.
6. Send in the black hole destroying ship and destroy the balck hole.
Presto the system is now clear. Send in your star maker and make a new star.

[Suicide Junkie]

Fyron prompted me to post this...

Ok, a big fix section:
5.5.2 The order in which repairs are performed is set with (F11) Empire Status/Repair Priorities. Clearing the priorities list will leave only the component types that you have the technology to build; more entries become available when you research the corresponding techs. (capnq)
5.5.3 Ships are repaired in the order they are listed in the fleet transfer screen. (Douglas) "Repair Priorities" only applies to the ship currently being repaired, and does not affect which ship gets repaired first. See also section 5.13 for an explanation of ship ID and how it affects retrofits.
The above is wrong.

Instead:
- Repair priorities can be set in the repair priorities window F11) Empire Status/Repair Priorities. This is not an ordered list, but rather a true/false state. Items on the right side will be prioritized, while items on the left will not be prioritized.

- Any damaged component which falls into a category on the right side of the repair priorities list will get a "priority flag". Any SHIP which contains a damaged component with priority will also have a priority flag.

- Repairs will then be conducted in the following order:
1) Only ships with priority flags are considered. The priority ship with the lowest ID is selected first.
2) If no ships with priority flags are present, then all damaged ships are considered, and the lowest ID is selected first.
3) Components with priority flags are repaired first, in order of placement on the hull.
4) If there are still repair points remaining, then a second pass is made, and the non-priority damaged components are repaired in order of placement on the hull.
5) If there are still repair points remaining, and the ship has been fully repaired, the game selects a new ship as in (1) and starts over.

- If all the priority components on a priority ship are repaired, but there are not enough repair points to completely fix the ship, then that ship will not be a priority ship on the next turn. If there is a second ship with priority components damaged, that second ship will be repaired instead.