FAQ SEIV Gold 030412
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Table of Contents
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0.0 Introduction
0.1 Other Reading
1.0 Game Start-up & Empire Creation
1.1 Racial Traits
1.2 Characteristics & Cultural Modifiers
1.3 Choice of Planet Type and Atmosphere
1.4 AI Difficulty and Bonus
1.5 Game Mechanics
1.6 Game Setup Options
2.0 Designing Ships
2.1 Misc. Components
2.2 Mounts
2.3 Weapons
2.4 Shields
2.5 Armor
2.6 Engines
2.7 Vehicle Control
2.8 Combat Systems
2.9 The Colonizer
2.10 Strategies
2.11 Upgrading
2.12 The Simulator
2.13 Maintenance.
3.0 Research
4.0 Planet Development
4.1 Exploring
4.2 Colonizing
4.3 Facilities
4.4 Construction
4.5 Resource Production
4.6 Remote Mining
4.7 Population
4.8 Planet Defense
4.9 Ring Worlds & Sphere Worlds
5.0 Ships & Bases
5.1 Attack & Defense Ships
5.2 Support Ships
5.3 Ship Management
5.4 Supply and Resupply
5.5 Repairs and Retrofitting
5.6 Fleets
5.7 Training & Experience
5.8 Orders
5.9 Cloaking
5.10 Movement
5.11 Cargo Handling and Launching
5.12 Bases
6.0 Space Combat
6.1 Tactics
6.2 Formations
6.3 Attacking Ships
6.4 Capturing Ships
6.5 Analyzing Ships
6.6 Attacking Planets
6.7 Tactical Combat Specifics
6.8 Simultaneous Combat Specifics
6.9 Planet Blockades
7.0 Ground Combat
7.1 General
7.2 Capturing Planets.
8.0 Units
8.1 General
8.2 Fighters
8.3 Troops
8.4 Mines
8.5 Drones
8.6 Weapon Platforms
8.7 Satellites
9.0 Systems & Sectors
9.1 Sight
9.2 Spaceports
9.3 System Facilities
9.4 System Defense
9.5 Stellar Manipulation
9.6 Storms
10.0 Diplomacy
10.1 Intelligence
10.2 Trade
10.3 Communications
10.4 Anger
10.5 Contact
10.6 Treaties
11.0 Empire Management
11.1 Keeping Track of Things
11.2 Ministers
11.3 Waypoints
11.4 Game Interface
12.0 Happiness
12.1 Riots & Riot Control
13.0 The AI
13.1 Mega Evil Empire
13.2 AI tactics
13.3 Neutral AI Empires
14.0 Turn Sequencing
14.1 Simultaneous
14.2 Sequential
15.0 Multiplayer
15.1 PBEM
15.2 PBW
16.0 Customizing the game (Mods & Shipsets)
16.1 Popular Mods
16.2 Managing mods
16.3 Combining mods
16.4 Installing Mods
16.5 Installing new shipsets.
17 Strategy Articles
17.1 Empire Design **
17.2 Early Economy and Exploration
17.3 Managing Your Economy **
17.4 Get the Most out of Fighters
17.5 Combat Strategies – Early, Mid, and Late Game **
17.6 Rock, Paper, Scissors – (Which weapons and strategies counter others) **
17.7 The Early Kill **
17.8 Partnerships and Trade **
17.9 How to Win in SEIV by Machiavelli XLVII **
17.10 When To Attack **
** under development
18 Reserved for future use
19 Reserved for future use
20 Reserved for future use
21 Reserved for future use
22 Reserved for future use
23 Reserved for future use
24 Reserved for future use
25 Appendices: Figures, Tables, References, etc.
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0.0 Introduction
This FAQ is maintained by editors Ruatha and Slick.
The Intel Forum can be found at
http://www.shrapnelgames.com.
Let’s try to keep the FAQ current with the latest Version of the game - V1.84 as of now. There is much information here from many people, and although it is probably very accurate, there are probably some small errors in the FAQ. Please look for any inaccuracies and especially things to add.
0.01. Forum Navigation
Forums Posts appear latest post first, so you can easily check up on the newest response to a long thread.(Arkcon)
0.02. To read a thread in first-to-Last order, click the "Printer-friendly view of this topic" icon at the bottom of the page. (Arkcon, Gryphin, Capnq)
0.03
To make requests for additions, please take a couple of minutes to format your text, make your spelling and grammar right and look for the most applicable place to add it and then provide a suggested paragraph number. This makes updates much easier. Also please don't go postal with the subparagraphing; it should be VERY rare that you need more than 4 levels i.e. N.N.N.N and I would prefer it be kept to 3 levels where possible. Also, please make entries factual, and based on some testing you have accomplished to minimize heresay and potentially inaccurate info.
0.1 Other Reading
0.1.1 First, read:
Malfador Q&A Section and:
Un-Official Space Empires IV Strategy and Tactics Page..
To get info on tech, components, facilities etc use the
SE4 Mod Utility 1.53.
Another GREAT guide can be found here:
SE4 Dubious Strategy Guide (Zip file)
The
Encyclopedia Malfadorica has articles about everything SE4, and you can write some stuff too!
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1.0 Game Start-up & Empire Creation
1.0.1 See this link
Game Guide for a PDF file on game setup. It includes graphics to it is best not included in this FAQ directly. (Courtesy of Atrocities)
1.0. "Race age" has no in game effect.
1.1 Racial Traits
1.1.1 Organic
1.1.1.1 Organic Components
1.1.1.1.1 Organic Armor:
Self Repairing armor. Once one of the armor components is destroyed, all surviving Armor components will add their regeneration ability each turn until the total collected points are higher than the damaged component's hitpoints. At that point the damaged armor will be repaired, and the process will repeat itself for any other armor damaged in the meantime.
Note: in Versions earlier than 1.80, the ability points begin collecting before the ship takes damage, with no upper limit. (Suicide Junkie)
1.1.1.1.2 Organic Weapons
Organic weapons cost organics and fewer minerals, which effectively makes them cheaper to build and maintain. Seeking Parasites are seekers with a reload of only 2. Small Electric Discharge is one of the best fighter weapons.(CapnQ)
1.1.1.2 Organic Facilities:
1.1.1.2.1 General
Organic technology research will give you facilities that prevent plagues, increase production system-wide, and even add a fixed number of people to all planets in the system, regardless of population size and conditions.(Suicide Junkie)
1.1.2 Crystal
1.1.2.1 Crystalline Components
1.1.2.1.1.1: Crystalline Amour
Crystalline armor requires an operational shield generator on the ship in order to work. Every hit that does non-armor-skipping damage to the hull will cause the shields to be recharged! Only hull damage counts towards this recharge, up to a maximum of the total crystalline armor ability points on your ship.
The end result is a damaged ship, with extra shields to protect against the next attack.(Suicide Junkie)
1.1.2.1.1.2: Effect vs. damage amount.
If the total CA ability amount is roughly equal to or greater than HALF the damage of a single weapon hit, then the Crystalline Effect will reduce damage by 50%.
If the total CA ability amount is less than half the damage from a single weapon impact, then it will act very similar to Emissive Armor, and reduce damage by its ability amount.
If the CA ability is greater than the weapon damage, AND the weapon damage is less than half the hitpoints of a CA component, the damage will be completely negated.(Suicide Junkie)
1.1.2.1.2. Crystalline Weapons
Crystalline weapons cost radioactives. Crystalline Torpedoes (Seeker; Reload 2) and Shard Cannons ignore armor.(Capnq)
1.1.2.2 Crystalline Facilities
1.1.2.2.1 The Crystalline Restructuring Plant reduces maintenance of all your ships in that system. (Quikngruvn)
1.1.2.2.2 The Energy Transmission Lens increases the shield strength of all your ships in the system.(Quikngruvn)
1.1.3 Deeply Religious
1.1.3.1 Religious Components.
1.1.3.1.1 The Talisman allows every hit to score. SE IV treats stack of units (weapon platform on planet, stack of satellites, stack of fighters) as one "ship". This is why you need only one RT to get the benefit for all units in stack. You may notice that the absolute maximum to-hit that you can get from experience is 99%. The talisman gives you 100%. That tells you these two effects are quite separate, since the experience is applied before the total is capped at 99%, and the talisman applies afterwards. (Jim, Suicide Junkie, Oleg)
1.1.3.1 Deeply Religious Facilities:
1.1.3.1.1 General.
Religious technology research will give you facilities that give system wide combat bonuses, system wide damage bonuses, increase resource production system-wide, increase value and conditions system wide, and system wide reduce bad events, sabotage activities and increase happiness. Each of these 5 facilities has 3 levels. (Skulky)
1.1.4 Psychic
1.1.4.1 Psychic Components
1.1.4.1.1 Allegiance Subverter
This weapon causes a ship to be automatically captured without further damage, and is immediately combat ready.(Suicide Junkie)
1.1.4.1.2
The damage amount is the percentage chance that a hit will cause the crew of your target to be subverted. 20 damage = 20% chance. Values above 100%, typically seen when using mounts, are rounded down to 100%. If the shot misses, there is zero chance of subVersion. Self Destruct Devices, boarding parties and security stations have no effect. Ship experience only affects the chance of the shot missing its target.(Suicide Junkie) Shields and Armor provide no defense. (Binford)
1.1.4.1.3
Ships with a master computer can NOT be captured.
In Versions earlier than 1.80, ships with a destroyed master computer CAN be captured.
A computer virus is the most effective method of destroying the computer and allowing a capture.(Suicide Junkie)
1.1.4.2 Psychic Facilities.
1.1.4.2.1 Psychic Ship and Fleet Training Facilities provide training to all ships/fleets in the system, at the same rate and maximum experience as normal training facilities. Thus, you do not have to park your fleet over a particular planet to get training (but could, for example, be trained while defending a warp point).(Quikngruvn)
1.1.5 Temporal
1.1.5.1 Temporal Components.
1.1.5.1.1 Time Distortion Burst
This weapon is moderately weak against armor and internals, doing roughly half the damage of an Anti Proton Beam. However, it also does Quadruple damage to shields.
Since most ships are heavily shielded, this weapon is very effective.(Suicide Junkie)
1.1.5.2 Temporal Facilities.
1.1.5.2.1 Temporal Space Yards produce much more quickly than normal spaceyards. But, you cannot upgrade a normal Space Yard to a Temporal Space Yard-- you have to scrap your Space Yard first.(Quikngruvn)
1.1.5.2.2 The Temporal Vacation Service makes the population in its system happier, and is twice as effective as the Urban Pacification Center. (Quikngruvn)
1.1.6
Q: When you set up a new game, how can you engineer it so that YOU select your opponents you are playing with? When I keep adding existing races...they end up being human controlled!
A(Atrocities): You have to edit them, and turn on the Controlled by AI button.
1.2 Characteristics & Cultural Modifiers
1.2.1 Empire Setup - Happiness Types.
1.2.1.1 Peaceful - Happiness is increased by constructing ships (especially in system), peace treaties, winning battles (especially in system), troops, colonizing. Decreased by losing ships (especially in system) enemy presence in system, losing planets, population killed, wars, amount of time at war. (Peaceful is regarded as the best type to play).
1.2.1.2 Bloodthirsty - Similar to peaceful, but happiness is increased by wars, and decreased by establishing peace treaties.
1.2.1.3 Neutral - Dislike treaties of any kind; except non-intercourse (regarded as the absolute worst type to play).(Stone Mill)
1.2.2 Maintenance Aptitude: Unlike other characteristics Maintenance aptitude gives a benefit different that what appears at first. Increasing Maintenance Aptitude from 100% to 110% give significantly more than a 10% advantage from normal. This will in fact decrease the base maintenance paid on ships from the default of 25% of it's cost by 10% to 15%. (DavidG)
1.2.3 Reproduction Value: The reproduction value works in a similar way to the Maintenance Aptitude. Every percentage point you increase your reproduction increase the planets reproduction by one percentage point. So if you choose 110% reproduction a typical planet could increase its reproduction from 10% to 20%. Thus what seems like a 10% improvement (100% to 110%) is actually a 100% improvement. (DavidG)
1.2.4 Happiness: Every five percentage points you increase your happiness makes 0,1% people happier every turn. For example if you increase happiness 10% it's the same effect if you have one troop on your every planet.(Asmala)
1.2.5 A 5% change in Environmental Resistance equates to a 1% change in Reproduction and Happiness. If you set both ER and Reproduction down, your population may never be able to grow. (Suicide Junkie)
1.3 Choice of Planet Type and Atmosphere
1.3.1 Choosing home planet. Chose Rock planet type (more to colonize). Gas planets fewer but larger and take more skill. Ice bad... Ice cold.... fewer Ice planets. Beginners don't choose None Atmosphere type, choose any other atmosphere type. (Wardad)
1.3.2 Choosing an uncommon atmosphere type such as Methane or Carbon Dioxide is a good idea, since you will face less competition for breathable planets.(Suicide Junkie)
1.3.3 Choose atmosphere of None can be very tempting, since then all those moons out there become breathable. The trade-off is that there are fewer regular planets with no atmosphere, and no gas giant will ever be breathable (since gas giants cannot have no atmosphere, even with an Atmosphere Converter).(Quikngruvn)
1.4 AI Difficulty and Bonus
1.4.1 AI bonuses applies to intelligence, research and resources, exist in x2, x3 and x5. Construction rates: Low x1.5, medium x2, high x3 (Suicide Junkie, Rexxx)
1.4.2 AI Difficulty:
Setting the AI difficulty to Medium or Low causes some of the ministers to be disabled for that empire.
High Difficulty makes the AI use all of its ministers. Setting this below "high" is not recommended. (Suicide Junkie)
1.5 Game Mechanics
1.5.1 Victory conditions are “and” not “or”.
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.
1.5.4 Score is calculated as follows: Every point of minerals, organics, and radioactives, generated counts as one score point. Every point of research and intelligence generated counts as one score point. Each kt of your ships and bases counts as 10 points. Each level of researched techs counts for 200 points. No points for units/pop/colonies/systems. (Ruatha) [editor's note: I *think* mothballed ships don't count to score. Can someone confirm/deny?]
1.6. Game Setup Options
1.6.1 Technology Cost. The technology progression formula used varies for each of the three levels (Low, Medium, and High). Where (LC = Level Cost) and (L = Level);
Low tech cost - LC*L
Mid tech cost - LC*(L²/2)
High tech cost - LC*(L²)(Andres Lescano)
1.6.2 The Technology Progression Formula is useful when trying to calculate the value of tech trades in multi-player games.
1.6.3 Player Settings, Racial Points. In the Game Setup --> Player Settings screen, the Racial Points for New Players setting must match (or exceed) the amount of racial points used to create a player empire file. For example, if you created a empire race using 5000 racial points, you can only use them in a game which has 5000 point setting enabled.
1.6.4 Players. Use the "Add Existing" option to select existing AI or player races for your game. Remember to select Edit and select "Controlled by Computer" for AI races, and "Controlled by Player" for player races! (Stone Mill)
1.6.5 AI Players. If you don't choose an existing player and mark it as "Controlled by Computer" you can select the "Generate random computer controlled empires" option and choose "Number of computer players", Low, Medium or High. (Ruatha)
1.6.6
Q: Can I generate a game where I generate who the computer players are? And if so how?
A(Atrocities):
Yes. After starting SEIV,
a. Select NEW GAME
b. Click on the PLAYER SETTINGS tab.
c. At the bottom of this page choose the Racial Points for New Players. (2000, 3000, or 5000) *I like to play with 5000 Racial Points.*
d. Click on the PLAYERS tab (In this section you can either choose ADD EXSISTING or ADD NEW. The Existing Players are AI opponents that have already been set up and saved for use with new games. Add Player will allow you to set up a race the way you want.) NOTE: Most new Ship sets come with Emp. Files that you can copy from the race directory to the Empires Folder. This will give you access to that race without having to manually set it up.
e. Click on the ADD NEW tab. Under GENERAL DETAILS tab you can choose the race you want. Additionally, you can give it an empire name, empire type, Emperor title, Emperor Name, choose a design name file, (For use with ship design names). NOTE: If your new player is going to be computer controlled, then you will want to select both the Computer Controlled, and Use Race Minister Style option at the bottom of the General Details page.
f. Under the ENVIRONMENT tab you can select the atmosphere for the race, and the home planet type.
g. Under the CULTURE tab you can select the culture for the race. (At the bottom of the page is a button for COMPARE CULTURE MODIFIERS. Click that to compare the advantages and disadvantages for each culture.)
h. Under the CHARACTERISTICS tab you can either increase or decrease values for the player.
i. Under the ADVANCED TRAITS tab you can select advanced traits for the player. (I often choose my advanced traits first then do the Characteristic. Remember, for each of these you use, you will use up Racial Points. You can gain more racial points by decreasing the Characteristics below a 100%, but not a good idea for playing the AI. Good idea for PBW games if it’s your race.)
j. Under the DESCRIPTION tab you can fill in the information about your race, and select Demeour, and Happiness Type.
k. After you have set up the race, click the CREATE EMPIRE button at the bottom of the page.
l. Select the empire you just created from the Players in Game window, and then click Save to File.
m. Click no for save with designs
n. Click NEW EMPIRE, name it, and then click OK. You will have just saved that empire to the Empire Folder and it can now be accessed whenever you want to use it for a game. After you have added your new races, start playing the game. Before you do though, make sure all of your game settings are to your liking. Have fun, and I hope this has helped.
1.6.7 Max neutrals in game setup is hardcoded at 5
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2.0 Designing Ships
2.1 Misc. Components
2.1.1 Cloaking devices use supplies; stealth armor does not.
2.1.2 Spaceyard components and supply storage components have less “structure” than “space”. This means they are comparatively easier to destroy per kt than normal components. (components.txt)
2.2 Mounts
2.2.1 In the unmodded game, no ship mount will add range to the weapons.
2.2.2 Mounts that add range will add as follows: example: say your normal mount weapon does 60 50 40 30 20 10. Using the massive weapon platform mount (adds 6 range, 5x damage), the weapon now does 300 300 300 300 300 300 300 250 200 150 100 50 (!) i.e. it takes the range 1 damage, multiplies by 5, then adds this in before the rest of the damage string. this makes those range 8 weapons able to reach out and touch someone at range 14! at 5x damage!!
2.2.3 There are none in the unmodded game, but mounts that affect accuracy will do so as follows.
The mount modifier adds (or subtracts) from your accuracy after all other modifiers.
That includes the Talisman, so a mount with an accuracy penalty can cause your talisman-armed ships to miss! (Suicide Junkie)
2.2.4 Use Unit and Ship mounts almost all the time. The Ship mounts increase damage, the Station and weapon platforms increase Damage and Range which give your planet a distinct advantage against ships.
One way to beat mounts are missiles and drones. Missiles have an EXTREME range that are unmatchable by mounted weapons, but get picked off by point defense cannons. Drones are death-on-engines if used carefully as point-defense cannons cannot easily destroy it.
2.2.5 Heavier mounts increase the range and damage of weapons. To use a heavier mount on a design, press the weapon Mounts button on the design screen. The Weapons Report screen also has a Mount button. (Capnq)
2.2.6 Light carriers can use the (H)eavy mount.
2.3 Weapons
2.3.1 You need to add weapons to a ship in the order you want them to fire in combat. This is most applicable to Strategic Combat. You can manually select weapons to fire in Tactical Combat.
2.3.1.1 An example of this is to place shield depleters before your main weapons. Another example is to place a tractor beam before some high damage weapon like ripper beams, and then maybe even use a repulsor beam after that.
2.3.2 Null space guns are useful against heavily shielded and armored ships.
2.3.3 Warp guns can give your ship extended life in "Dogfights" especially with gunships.
2.3.4 Special Weapons
2.3.4.1 Engine destroying weapons disable ship movement and supply storage. Approach the ships with caution if they have Quantum reactors. (TerranC)
2.3.4.2 Specialty weapons should be used rarely, but is useful.
2.3.4.3 Weapon destroying weapons are useful if you want to disable the ships then destroy them.
2.3.4.4 Computer virus attacks skip armor and shields, destroy Master Computers but do no other damage. CV’s are direct fire weapons. CV 1,2,3 does 20,40,60 damage respectively, MC 1,2,3 has 40/40, 30/30, 20/20 space/structure respectively, therefore it is actually harder to destroy a mc1 than an mc2 or mc3. Since it is a "special" weapon, CV's don't do partial damage - it's all or nothing. therefore a normal mount CV cannot damage a mc1 or mc2; if the CV is on a larger mount which increases its damage > the mc, only then will it work.
2.3.4.5 If a Master Computer is destroyed (and it does not have normal bridge, etc.), the ship CAN then be subverted. This is no longer true after the v1.84 patch. See sect 1.1.4.1.3
2.3.4.6 Quote from the forums, sorry, did not copy the author: "Level I and II Ionic Dispersers only do 15 damage if not in an upgraded mount. It takes 20 damage to destroy an engine. The damage doesn't seem to accumulate, so if you put level I or II Ionic Dispersers on a destroyer or smaller, they are essentially useless and just taking up space.
Ok, here is the complete scoop on Ionic Dispersers, at least as run from the simulator. There is no carryover of damage from shot to shot, even in the same volley. I set up a group of 5 sats armed only with a single Ionic Disperser II each. Brought a target ship up close and let fly. No matter how many hits, there was no damage done. I switched to Ionic Disperser IVs which do 30 points of damage per hit. In the first volley, there were three hits. That should have caused 90 damage, enough to destroy 4 engines. However, only three engines were destroyed, one per hit. I then switched to Ionic Disperser Vs which do 40 per hit. As expected, each hit destroyed two engines. conclusion: any extra damage not equaling the 20 points to kill the next engine is totally lost, even on the same volley.”
2.4 Shields
2.4.1 Shields don’t protect against mines, damaging warp points or damaging storms, only damage in combat. Armor protects against those things.
2.4.2 Don't mix phased and non-phased generating components. If you do, you get non-phased shields. That is, until all the non-phased shield generating components are destroyed; then suddenly, in the middle of battle, your shields will become phased.
2.4.3 Shields: Shields have several abilities not confered by armor besides a higher space - protection factor. These are, as long as the shields are not destroyed, they will
1) Deny the usage of Boarding Parties vs. this ship
2) Absorb Ionic Disperser attacks vs engines
3) through the use of shield regenerators shields can be restored after being reduced to 0.(stecal)
2.4.4. In addition to blocking phased attacks, phased shields also block attacks from normal weapons. (Stone Mill)
2.5 Armor
2.5.1 Stealth and Scattering armor
2.5.1.1 Defensive bonuses from stealth + scattering armor do stack - a powerful combination.
2.5.2.2 Stealth armor's biggest advantage is its bonus to defense. Its biggest weakness is its reduced strength relative to shields.
2.5.2.3 To decide whether you should install the armor in place of some of your shields, do the following:
1) Take the shield points currently generated by your ship.
2) Estimate the typical hit rate that your enemy has against that ship.
3) Divide your answer from (1) by your answer from (2), then multiply by 100.
This is the average amount of damage the enemy will have to fire at you in order to get a kill (including misses)
4) Find the break-even point:
a) A= [Size of armor] / [ECM bonus of armor]
b) B= [shield points per generator] / [size of generator]
c) C= [hitpoints of armor] / [size of armor]
d) Calculate (B - C) * A
At max tech in unmodded SE4, you will get roughly:
- 1200 for stealth armor.
- 1670 for stealth + scattering armor
- 2125 for scattering armor alone.
5) If the value from (3) is larger than the break-even point calculated in (4), your ship will survive longer in combat if you replace some shields with the given armor.
NOTE: this does not apply if the enemy is using religious talisman, missiles, ramming ships or anything else with a guaranteed 100% chance to hit.
(Suicide Junkie)
2.5.2.4 For figuring out if you should use stealth/scattering armor:
Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
1) Take the shield points currently generated.
2) Estimate the typical hit rate that your enemy has against your ship.
3) Multiply your answers from (1) and (2), then divide by 100.
4) If the answer you get is:
less than 1200 : Do not bother with Stealth or Scattering armor.
from 1200 to 1670 : Add a Stealth armor only.
1670 or higher : Add both Stealth and Scattering armor.
1200 - comes from: 30x(9.375 -3.333)/.15
1670 - comes from (80 x (9.375 - [3.333*30 + 3*50]/80) ) /.3
= 80x (9.375 - 3.125)/.3
Which, again is: Size * (shields/kt - armor/kt)
And then divided by the ECM power to get us up to effective hitpoints.
2.5.3 Organic Armor
2.5.4 Chrystalline Armor
2.5.5 Determining the value of modded armors.
2.5.6 Shields don’t protect against mines, damaging warp points or damaging storms, only in combat. Armor protects against those things.
2.6 Engines
2.6.1 What happens when you mix engine types on the same ship? They all act as if they are the lowest of the installed engines.
2.6.2 You can put an Emergency Propulsion Pod on a base since it can be put on "ships/bases". You can later "Use" it, but there is no way to actually get the base to move using an EPP, so don't bother.
2.7 Vehicle Control
2.7.1 You can't design a ship unless it has the requested number of Life Support/Crew Quarters, or a Master Computer.
2.7.2 Ships lose movement if they have ZERO life supports or crew quarters remaining.
2.7.3 Ships lose movement if they have no intact bridge or aux con.
2.7.4 Any ship with an intact Master Computer is exempt from rules 2 & 3. One each of B/LS/CQ is enough to fly the ship normally, but you can't save that design unless you have an MC (or are designing a ship larger then 450KT in size).
2.7.5 If you know of or suspect an enemy psychic race, begin transitioning to Master Computers before war breaks out - makes Allegiance Subverters useless.
2.8 Combat Systems
2.8.1 Weapon Types / Classes
2.8.1.1 Seeking. Example: (Missiles, Crystalline Torpedo). Once launched, have a 100% hit probability unless intercepted by point defense, or the target moves beyond the seekers' range.(Stone Mill,Capnq)
2.8.1.2 Direct Fire. Example: (Anti Proton Beams, Normal Torpedoes). Must be fired within range determined by weapon type and mount. Offensive Bonus and Defensive Bonus variables affect the actual chance to hit.(Stone Mill)
2.8.1.3 Point Defense. Example: (Point-Defense Cannons I-V). Automatically fire at seekers, fighters, satellites, and drones when in weapon range.(Stone Mill,Capnq)
2.8.1.4 Armor and Shield Skipping. Example: (Null Space, Weapon Destroyers). Successful hits ignore enemy armor and shield components. Engine/Weapon Destroyers do damage to those components only.(Stone Mill, Kalthior)
2.8.1.5 Armor Skipping Example: (Boarding Parties, Security Stations, Crystalline Shard Cannons).(Stone Mill)
2.8.1.6 Shield Skipping. Example (Phased Polaron Beams). Successful hits ignore normal shield components. Phased Shields absorb Phased Polaron hits (Shields 6+ technology). (Stone Mill)
2.8.3 Point Defense Cannons (PDC)’s get a 70% to-hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.4 Incinerator beams get a 10% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.5 Wave-motion Guns get a 30% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.6 High-energy magnifiers get a 30% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.7 Tachyon canons get a 10% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.8 Mental singularity generators get at 20% to hit bonus. (components.txt)
2.8.9 PDC’s don’t need multiplex tracking. 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.
2.8.10 Combat Sensors (I,II,III) greatly increase your ships ability % to-hit. (Stone Mill)
2.8.11 Combat Support -> ECM (I,II,III) greatly increases your ship's defensive bonus. (Stone Mill)
2.9 The Colonizer
2.9.1 Since the Colonizer is so integral to the game, it deserves a special section.
2.9.2 Add a cargo pod to the Colony Ship design used to colonize your race's breathable planets. Then when you hit the "Colonize" button to send a ship off to a planet (whether you do it from the planets screen or main screen) extra pop will be loaded to give that colony a kick-start.
2.9.3 I use 3 colony ship designs: CS-LR - long range (has a supply pod on it), CS-SR - short range with cargo pod for breathable (green + planets), CS-SR-nbr - short range, no cargo pod for non-breathable atmosphere planets (red + -- cheaper to build). I use these for storage planets so pop doesn't matter as much.(Elowan)
2.9.4 You can use a non-colonizer hull for a colonizer to make a better colonizer: extra cargo, weapons, speed, etc.
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.
2.10 Strategies
2.10.1 This section is about the setting of ship strategies, not overall game strategies.
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.
2.10.3 Ships and units can be assigned default strategies in Designs (F3) under the Stats/Strategy toggle.
These Strategies can (and really should) be customized under Empire Status/Strategies (F11).
There you can also make your own strategies and decide which ships should brake formation in fleets with a certain strategy. ([K126]Mephisto)
2.10.4 If you set a strategy for a ship at the "designs" stage, that strategy is used in strategic combat and if you let the computer control your ships in tactical combat. (Silent Sorrow, Derek)
2.10.5 Fleets are assigned Formations and Strategies with the Change Formation/Strategy (H) order. Fleet strategy takes precedence over ship's strategy, unless/until the ship breaks formation. (Capnq)
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. Also when in a fleet the ship will use the fleet strategy first.(Suicide Junkie, Stone Mill)
2.10.7 [paraphrasing] To have a ship perform recon at a planet i.e. attack planet defenses or orbiting ships but not attack the planet and attempt to blockade it, create a new strategy and set it to not target planets, then give your [ship] this new strategy prior to sending to the planet. (Gandalph)
2.11 Upgrading
2.11.1 Upgrading engines. Taking engine tech to level 2 (or three) just makes the engines cheaper. One level after that, you'll get an engine that gives a bonus movement point. Then two more levels of cheaper, another faster engine, etc. Upgrading engines that doesn't improve performance makes you loose some money overall, but if you keep that ship like that for a while the maintenance savings add up. (Phoenix-D)
2.11.2 Designs that you have marked obsolete will be deleted from your list of ships when all of the following are true:
- There are no surviving ships of that class. This includes ships that have been captured or gifted to an alien race.
- You are not building more of those ships.
- The year is xxxx.9
- You have just pressed the end turn button to take you to year xxxx.0 (Suicide Junkie)
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.
2.12 The Simulator
2.12.1 The Simulator is supposedly equivalent to actual combat with some exceptions. You can’t simulate crew or fleet experience in the combat simulator. You can only simulate planets, storms, etc if they are in your home system.
2.12.2 While in the simulator, movement is played for the ships contained in the square selected in the mini-map. Clicking off ships into empty space expedites movement of all ships to the end of the round. (Stone Mill)
2.12.3 Between rounds, you can roll over any ship, unit, (or planet) to view their components and class. (Stone Mill)
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 abandoned to pay for the shortage. The AI will probably NOT choose wisely in abandoning 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.
2.14
Q: How do I build Space / Repair yard ships? I have the medium transport chassis available but it seems when I choose the "Space Yard ship" vehicle type it demands I use 50% of my tonnage in cargo holds. This leaves no component slots or available tonnage for a repair bay or a space yard component. What am I missing?
A(Atrocities):
a. You would need to use a cruiser or larger hull size. The combat vehicles do not require the cargo minimum that transport ships have. You cannot use the transport ships for anything but hauling cargo or colonization. I would use the transport to make a multi habitat type colony ship instead.
b. In the default rules, space yard and repair bay components don't have the "Cargo Storage" ability. To fit them onto a transport hull like that you'll have to go into the components.txt and add the "Cargo Storage" ability (recommend using 0 for the amount) to each space yard and repair bay component. Otherwise, you'll have to use a standard hull big enough to hold them.
c. ...keyword in hull type being 'transport'. In the stock hull type, anything with 'transport' (small, med, large) has the 50% cargo requirement. The easy way 'round it is what Sinapus recommends: add the cargo ability to the component. The stock game wants you to use 'em as transports and not support vessels 'cause of the tonnage available at the lower tech levels (vs. standard hulls).
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3.0 Research
3.0.1 Early research.
Opinions differ but most would suggest: More than one project in queue, rotate projects and do not spread points evenly. Larger ships (frigate on first turn, destroyer, light cruiser). Depleted Uranium Cannon (DUC) to level 3. Point Defense (PD) at least level 3, I prefer 4 I might start PD in between destroyer and LC. As you have to study Military Science before PD opens up. (Wardad)
3.0.2 Be sure you really need high levels of Multiplex tracking before you research it - do you really expect your ships to engage 5 enemies every turn?
3.0.3 AI researches Construction, Intelligence, Chemistry and Industry pretty early, you should research other things and trade for those.
3.1 You can view the entire research tree by starting a high-tech game and selecting the option for “Players can see complete tech tree” under “Game Options”. This will make 2 new buttons available in game on the research window for the trees. They can be exported via this window to text files if you like.
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4.0 Planet Development
4.1 Exploring
4.1.1 I generally do not waste resources on escorts. I build small transports instead. Arm them with a missile and add 3 SAT launchers, 3 cargo, 1 supply, 5 engines etc... they are good for exploring, transport and SAT laying.
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 Colonizing
4.2.1 Set up race to build a colonizer on Home world in 2 turns. This may mean stripping out half the engines and the cargo hold (good for a local colony ship). You have to boost your races construction rate by ? (5 %to 10%?) oops. (Wardad)
4.2.2 Colonize your system fast. The extra research, resource, and shipyards early on are an advantage. Green star planets are your atmosphere type . Red star have different atmosphere and are domed, so the build space is limited.(Wardad)
4.2.3 Put people on your colony ships. The colony module gives the ships some cargo space, use transfer cargo to put people on the ship so that your colony gets some population, otherwise the new colony won't build anything (Saying "Never" on construction time). (Suicide Junkie)
4.2.4 If the colony ship is currently at a planet with population, it will automatically load pop for you if you use the Colonize (C) order, or the Send Colony Ship button under Planets (F4). The latter button will not always work if the colony ship has moved. (capnq)
4.2.5 Colonies with 0 population have the "dome" symbol even if it is a planet with a breathable atmosphere, the symbol disappears when you populate the colony. (Rdouglass, Suicide Junkie)
4.2.6. Domed worlds are 1/5 facilities of non-domed. Domed sphere worlds are 1/2, domed ring worlds are 1/5.
4.2.7 Colony Type. If you manage the colony itself, it makes no difference on what type of colony you choose ( i.e. mining, refining, research etc)(except to remind you) but if a minister manages it, it will build facilities according to what type of colony it is. ( Silent Sorrow, Derek)
4.2.8 Anything in the cargo storage of your colonizer will be deposited in the cargo of the planet when it is colonized i.e. Weapon Platforms, etc. Any colonists or cargo beyond the capacity of the planet will be lost, however.
4.2.9 When colonizing ruin planets you do not need population to get the tech bonus. (Suicide Junkie)
4.2.10 Before colonizing a 'ruin planet' make sure that your research queue is filled. If it is - there's a good chance that you might get some of the queue finished for you from the discovered ruins.(Elowan)
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.
4.2.12 You can colonize the moons by clicking on the main planet. If the main planet has moons, another window will pop up showing all planets & moons in the sector and you can select the one you want.
4.2.13
Q: When you first start a game do you expand like mad or concentrate on your own system and then expand?
A(Atrocities): Expand like mad. Try to move population from your home system to other breathable planets to speed up the rate of expansion. Remember, the faster you expand, the less space for your enemies, and less space for your enemies, the faster you can exterminate them.
4.2.14 You can tell a planet’s atmosphere by the planet’s color, and a little practice.
4.3 Facilities
4.3.1 Atmosphere converters can be scrapped after the atmosphere is converted. Multiple Atmosphere Converters on the planet will speed up the process. (Quikngruvn)
4.3.2 It costs 50% (of the cost of the new facility) to upgrade a facility.
4.3.3 Facilities undergoing upgrade still produce. Do not scrap to upgrade!
4.3.4 Solar generators have increased benefits if more stars are present, x1 per star. (Ruatha)
4.3.5 You can’t convert a Gas Giant planet to a “none” atmosphere. (Quikngruvn)
4.3.6 Climate Control Facilities can be scrapped once the colony's conditions are Optimal. Multiple CCF's will speed the process. (Quikngruvn)
4.3.7 Value Improvement Plants can be scrapped once all resources are at the maximum level, which is 250%. Multiple VIP's will speed the process. You will only see improvements on turns that end in xxxx.0.
4.3.8 Beware: If you have a planet on "Repeat Orders" and it has a Resource Converter, and you are playing a simultaneous game, when you give the order to convert resources, it will go into the "Repeat" queue and will be executed every turn until the order is cancelled.
4.3.9 When a facility has "only one per system/planet effective", it refers to the ability of the facility, not to that specific facility. Eg: A System Robotoid Factory III and a System Mineral Scanner III do not stack, because they use the same ability (to affect minerals production). (Imperator Fyron)
4.4 Construction
4.4.1 Units can be only be put in the construction queue as multiples such as 1, 5, 10, 20, 25, up to 200 at a time. (TerranC)
4.4.2 Exception: "One turn's worth" will put however many can be built at the current construction rate; if the unit can't be built in one turn, this still adds 1 to the queue. (capnq)
4.4.3 Emergency Build will increase the rate of your space yard by 1.5 of your normal rate but is then followed by a "slow" Building period that uses only a quarter of your normal rate for every turn Emergency was turned on. Emergency Build only works for 10 turns, and cannot be put on indefinitely.
(TerranC, DirectorTsaarx)
4.4.3.1 Once you turn off “emergency build”, or if you reach the 10 turn limit, the spaceyard will go into slow mode (25% of normal construction rate) for the number of turns it was in emergency build. It will stay in slow mode until complete and during this time it cannot be shifted back to emergency build.
4.4.3.2 If a colony that is in Emergency Build mode starts rioting (meaning no production at all), those turns still count toward the recovery time in slow-build mode. Example: a colony has been emergency building for four turns. It then falls into rioting for two turns with no production, then stops rioting and emergency builds for two more turns before emergency build is turned off. The colony will be in slow-build mode for eight turns.
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. This bug is fixed with the v1.84 patch.
4.4.4 If you put on an obsolete building queue on a planet construction queue, and click upgrade facilities, the construction queues will be changed to the latest model. Will not work for ships and Units. (TerranC)
4.4.5 Unused construction queue points do not "spill over" to the next item when the current queue item is constructed. Say you're building a ship which costs 2000 Min, 500 Org, and 500 Rad and your Space Yard has 3300,3300,3300 build rating. The unused 1300 of unused mineral building is not used on the next queue item (You do not loose 1300 minerals, but the yard stands idle a fraction of a month).
The only exception to this is if you are building units more than one at a time (i.e., you select something other than "1" or "one turn's worth" when it asks you how many you want to build. (Binford, Dogscoff)
4.4.5.1 The calculation of how much the planet or spaceyard will build when set to “One Turn’s Worth” is made at the time that the order is placed in the queue. If the capacity of the shipyard changes for better or worse, the number ordered will not change. Examples of how this can happen: 1) you order 1 turn’s worth of mines THEN place your spaceyard on emergency build. The number built would be 1 turn’s worth at regular rate, 2) you place a spaceyard facility III in the build queue THEN place an order for 1 turn’s worth of mines. The number built would be at the rate for no-spaceyard, 3) You order 1 turn’s worth of mines THEN your planet’s happiness goes down. In this case you might not even be able to build the amount in the queue in 1 turn because your planet’s construction rate dropped due to population number drop (If you've picked up people in a transsport or colony ship).
4.4.6 On a construction queue, you can use the Fill Queue button to save Groups of construction orders for repeated use. Put the items you want in the queue, Fill Queue, Add Queue; name the set. Once a set of orders is saved, it can be selected with Fill Queue to add the set to the construction queue. If an item in saved set becomes obsolete, Fill Queue will produce an error message when you select that set, so you have to define a new set whenever you upgrade a design. (Capnq)
4.4.7 Rioting Planets do not construct anything, as the construction queue will display "Never." To resolve Rioting:
4.4.7.1 Station a fleet in that system. Better yet, park it over a specific planet that you want to improve.
4.4.7.2 Build troops in the system. Building troops on a planet also increases happiness for that particular planet. Tip: Amount of troops count, not quality, so you can design cheap troops with minimal components.
4.4.7.3 System happiness facilities, such as the Urban Pacification Centre (I, II, II) or special tech facilities/shrines increase happiness. The effects of these facilities seem to be very gradual, requiring several turns.
4.4.7.4 Winning battles improves population confidence and improves happiness, especially in the system in which the battle occurs.(Stone Mill)
4.4.7.5 A planet on Emergency Build, while rioting, still accumulates time in Emergency Build mode.
4.4.8 Population effects construction rates; the higher population, the better bonus to production.(Stone Mill)
4.4.8.1 The table for the increase in resource (min, org, rad, research, intel) production and construction rate with respect to population amount and happiness is as follows:
code:
Pop.(M) Prod% SY % (or Construction Rate if no SY)
1 - 99 100 100
100 - 499 105 105
500 - 999 110 110
1000 - 1999 120 120
2000 - 2999 130 130
3000 - 3999 140 140
4000 - 4999 150 150
5000 - 5999 160 160
6000 - 6999 170 170
7000 - 7999 180 180
8000 - 9999 190 190
10000 - 2000000 200 200
Riot 0 0
Angry 80 100
Unhappy 90 100
Indifferent 100 100
Happy 110 100
Jubilant 120 100
4.4.9 Space Yards improve production. You are allowed only one space yard per planet. Invest research in better Space Yard Technology (I,II,III) to increase construction rate. Note: (Special Tech) Temporal Space Yards have better rates. Unfortunately, you must first scrap your standard Space Yard in order to build them. (Stone Mill)
4.4.10 You can get ripped off in the “build 1 turn’s worth” since extra build capacity is lost- check out the build times for 1,5,10,etc if you were going to build that many anyway - could be shorter since additional build points are lost, but you won’t get any of your units until the entire build time is complete.
4.4.11 Monolith facilities are very expensive and will take many turns to break even - use wisely. You can do a calculation of the break even (and even factor in the use of a Resource Converter) to see what makes better sense.
4.4.12 One Resource Converter can service your whole empire, or federation, or collective... you get the picture. Build it in a secure location.
4.4.13 Q&A on saved construction queues (Atrocities, capnq)
Q: Is there a way to Save a Queue and then Load it for another Planet?
A: a. Open either the Planet Queue (Recommended) or the Construction Que.
b. If you opened the Construction Queue, then select the desired Planet.
c. Fill the Planets Queue with whatever you desire.
d. Then Click on the FILL QUEUE button fourth up from the bottom of the menu to the right.
e. Click ADD
f. Name your new Queue and save it. (Good idea to include Facility number, i.e. 18 Storage, Or 20 Battle Ship, etc)
g. Click Cancel to exit.
h. Next time you open the Planet Queue of a new planet, Click on FILL QUE and choose the Queue (you named them) that you desire.
i.. Presto Your Planet Queue is full.
Q: Is the list saved globally to be able to be used in any/all games or is it just for the current game?
A: Current game only. [Edit] Correction: Geoschmo reports that (F2) Game Menu/Save Empire saves the queues as well.
Q: Is the list static or dynamic regarding upgrades? i.e. Do I have to make another list when I research another facility upgrade or is the queue updated automatically?
A: Static, at least for ships and units; I'm not sure about facilities. Upgraded ships/units need a new saved queue.
Q: Can I add ships or is it limited to facilities?
A: If you can build it, it can go in a saved queue.
Q: If possible, what happens if an obsolete ship is called?
A: If the ship or unit is still shown on (F3) Designs when you turn off "Hide Obsolete", it will be inserted normally; if the obsolete design has already been purged, you get an error message: "We don't have the design for ."
Q: Is there error checking if I try to build too many facilities?
A: Yes. You will be given an error that your queue has exceeded the amount of available space. You just have to click OK a bunch of times to remove items.
4.4.14 The way that resources are used during construction is as follows. Assume that the construction rate on a planet with a Spaceyard I is 2000 Min., 2000 Org., 2000 Rad.; and you are building a ship costing 6500 Min, 200 Org, 2000 Rad. The construction queue will use the max resources it can per turn until the item is built or it has reached the required amount of the given resource. So, on the first turn the planet will use 2000 Min, 200 Org, 2000 Rad. On the 2nd and 3rd turns it will use 2000 Min, 0 Org, 0 Rad. On the 4th turn it will use 500 Min, 0 Org, 0 Rad and the ship will be completed. Since most things require much more Minerals than any other resource, the Organic and Radioactives usage only happens in the beginning of a construction while the limiting resource usually is Minerals. Note that if you had redesigned this ship to only have 6000 Min instead of 6500 Minerals, it would have been completed 1 turn sooner. Keep construction rates in mind when designing ships & units so that you build efficiently. You can view the maximum build rate (and sort by it) by selecting “Rate” under the construction queue. You can see current usage (and sort by it) by selecting “Usage” under the construction queue. Usage will always be equal to or less than the Rate.
4.5 Resource Production
4.5.1 Production bonuses from system facilities do not appear on the listings of individual planets' output, but the extra production is included in the totals on the (F11) Empire Status page.(Capnq)
4.5.2 Good ratio = minerals
rganics:radioactives = 5-10:1:2-3. increase organics if you are organic racial, endgame increase radioactives.
4.5.3 Empires will make 200 minerals, organics, and radioactives per turn even if there are no production facilities. (settings.txt)
4.5.4 Things to do when your resource production is getting too low: build a Resource Converter, place construction queues on hold, mothball ships, increase production (more facilities, increase happiness, remote mine, etc), scrap ships as a Last resort.
4.5.5 Things to do when your resource production is getting too high and you are wasting resources: build units (no maintenance), build supply storage, build more ships, build more spaceyards to build more ships, give gifts/tributes to benefit your diplomatic situation, unmothball ships, take spaceyard queue’s off “hold”.
4.6 Remote Mining
4.6.1 To use Remote Mining you must first design a ship, base, or satellite with remote mining components.(Gandalph)
4.6.2 Remote mining uses supplies and maintenance, for this reason it is best to use bases as they have infinite supplies and reduced maintenance costs. If you use bases, you must build it with a Space Yard ship at the desired location.(Gandalph)
4.6.3 Only one Ship or Base can mine a location at once. Whichever is placed first will mine.
All mining components on a ship or base will produce, and the value of the planet or asteroids will drop exactly 1% per turn no matter how many mining components you have.(Suicide Junkie)
4.6.4 In a stack of satellites, up to three satellites can mine, provided they all have robo-miners working on different resources. Three mineral miner sats will produce the same amount of minerals as one mineral miner sat. A mineral miner sat plus a radioactives miner sat can both work on the same location at the same time, producing the full amount of both resources.(Suicide Junkie)
4.6.5 Remote mining depletes the available resources at the location. It does not happen quickly, but you will see the value of the location drop over time.(Gandalph)
4.6.6 In order to make your mining operations Last longer, use only one type of robo miner per base. If all of your robo miners are Mineral miners, the organics and radioactives value of the planet or asteroids will not decrease. When the minerals are gone, you can retrofit the base to an organics or radioactives miner, and continue production for many years to come.(Suicide Junkie)
4.6.7 It is possible to remotely mine any asteroid or UNCOLONIZED planet. As long as the location has a resource value, it can be mined. Once you place a colony on a planet it can no longer be remotely mined. (Gandalph)
4.6.8 Income generated from remote mining is not shared with your trade partners. So if you were a race that got a lot of it's income from remote mining your allies would be potentially getting less benefit from the treaty than you, even if you both had equal economies.
4.6.9 Racial characteristics have no effect on remote mining. (Geoschmo)
4.7 Population
4.7.1 Population will reproduce based on their reproduction rate (per year) and this rate is affected by their happiness, their environmental resistance and the planet conditions.
4.7.2 Having more population increases a planet’s construction (building) and production (resource generation) rate (see settings.txt). Construction rates of ships & bases is not affected by population.
4.7.3 Population will not reproduce when in cargo on a ship or base. They only reproduce when on a planet.
4.7.4 If there is any positive population growth on a planet, you get a minimum of 1M of each race on a planet each turn.
4.8 Planet Defense
4.8.1 Bases and Satellite Groups are placed around the planet randomly. This means that there's only about a 3 in 8 chance that they will be closer to the attackers than the planet itself. (Capnq)
4.8.2 In combat, a planet will launch any fighters and drones it has in storage when attacked. Fighters will be recovered, but drones will not. A planet will not launch satellites or mines while in combat. (Quikngruvn)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.
4.8.3 Early defense options: Build units (mines, fighters, satellites) and use the planet "Launch Units Remotely" button to deploy them from your cargo. Mines are a strong and popular option because they destroy anything your enemy can throw at you- and require your enemy to build minesweepers. Fighters are great, but will eventually be countered by point defense. Weapons Platforms are excellent for early defense, and will frag any early ship or small group of ships because of the benefits of Large Mount. Eventually, weapons platforms will be overwhelmed by enemy fleets, so your best defense against fleets will be fleets of your own.(Stone Mill)
4.8.4 By design, strong ships or fleets will always be able to overcome a strong planet defense. If it were the other way around, ultimately defenses would get too strong and empires would not be able to expand or take over other empires and the game would be at a stalemate.
4.9 Ring Worlds & Sphere Worlds
4.9.1 To Build a Ring worlds (or Sphere worlds) you need to:
4.9.1.1 Research Stellar Manipulation to level 5 for Ringworlds (level 8 for Sphereworlds) and Base Construction to level 3. (Quikngruvn)
4.9.1.2. build on a star.
4.9.1.3. create a Space yard ship (a ship that contains a shipyard component)
4.9.1.4. take the space yard ship to the star you want to build your world on.
4.9.1.5 start building STARBASES containing the components you need for the Ring/Sphere world.
4.9.1.6 once you have all necessary components, build go to the component activation icon to activate the construct - all the built star bases and components will disappear and you will have a ring/sphere world there instead.
4.9.2 NOTE: to speed construction (it takes awhile) you can construct bases housing more shipyards. (Taz-in-Space)
4.9.3 Ring- and sphereworlds count as both a star, and not a star. They count as not-a-star for purposes of planet building, solar panels, and star destroyers. They count as a star for purposes of building new stars (i.e.: you can't). (Suicide Junkie)
4.9.4 Ringworlds and sphereworlds are made using your default planet type and atmosphere. they are simply extra huge planets and must be colonized before you can use them.
4.9.5 To build a Ringworld you need 5 bases full with cables and 5 bases full with plating, and one placement base, ie 11 bases.
For a Sphereworld that is 10 plating bases and 10 cable bases and 1 placement base, i e 21 bases.
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5.0 Ships & Bases
5.1 Attack & Defense Ships
5.1.1. These designations only matter to the AI. Defense ships will stay in the AIs claimed territory. Attack ships will go anywhere.(Capnq)
5.2 Support Ships
Some useful types of support ships are: "tankers" with lots of supply storage and supply generation components, "tenders" with Repair Bays or Space Yard components, and "point-defense ships" with lots of Point - Defense Cannons and at least one other weapon. "Hospital ships" with Medical Bays are used to stop plagues.(Capnq)
5.2.1 Mine Layers
5.2.2 Mine Sweepers
5.2.3 Satellite Layers
5.2.4 Supply ships
5.2.4.1 You can build supply ships to help extend your fleet’s range. These ships will have supply storage, emergency resupply pod, and/or a quantum reactor. A precaution on using an emergency resupply pod is that the ship must be temporarily removed from the fleet to use the pod and when the pod is used, the supplies are immediately transferred to the ship that used the pod. Since the supply ship is not in the fleet at this time and the transfer of supplies to other ships in the fleet occurs at the end of the turn, any supply from the pod which is more than the supply ship can hold is lost. Make sure you build your supply ships to be able to receive the entire contents of a pod to make your fleet more efficient.
5.2.5 Spaceyard & Repair Ships
5.2.5.1 Having a spaceyard ship as part of your fleet will allow you to do many good things. You can retrofit your fleet while out in space. You can repair damage; a ship with repair bays can repair more damaged components per 
Re: Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies
Linear Mode
