Obscure, unintuitive and unforgiving

[boran_blok]

I have two strategies to build sphereworlds:
1: when I have plenty of resources I make 8 spaceyard ships
and have em construct like this:
1->3: 3xcables
4:1xCables + 1xplating
5->7: 3xplating
8: generator

the generator always takes 3 times as long as the cables and plating, so this always works out.

when I havent got much resources I place 21 spaceyard ships and have 10 build plating and 10 cables and one generator, but I stop every plating and cables construction at 0.1yr from completion. (or use a slower spaceyard than the max for those so that it comes about equal in timing with the generator)

[spoon]

bbq said:
So what's the problem? Well, I really dislike part of the mechanics of the game, its lack of documentation and the unforgiving nature of the interface itself.

Preach it, my brother. SEIV, despite its many splendors, can cause just as many headaches. I've been playing for years, and I still mess up on interface issues. Just wait til you lose a 100 ship fleet because you forgot to click Break Formation in some menu buried in the bowels of the Strategies tab...

I feel like an enabler in a co-dependant relationship. SEIV beats the crap out of me, but I still love her. Always will.

[Suicide Junkie]

Ed Kolis said:

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! )

Why not mothball the stuff until you've done all the retrofits and repaired all the new components? You'd need some serious resource storage in your empire, but then you wouldn't pay for any maintenance during the build operation.

[bbq]

By the way, thanks for everyone's input.

One thing that I still don't quite understand is *why* anyone would spend the time and resources to build a sphere world. If you have that much surplus, I'd assume you are either winning the game or are almost done. New planets are easily captured or created from asteriods, so why bother create it?

[spoon]

bbq said:One thing that I still don't quite understand is *why* anyone would spend the time and resources to build a sphere world.

I think it is one of those "becuase it's there" things. Some mods make them more feasible...

[Alneyan]

Imperial ego! Don't you want your own Sphereworld in your homesystem?

Ringworlds are a more realistic option, since they only require Stellar Manipulation V (against VIII for Sphereworlds), and they are cheaper to build. Their main use is to counter Star Destroyers, when these eventually become available. You cannot destroy a Ringworld, and saving your systems by building Ringworlds on important stars can be considered.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Well, for someone like me, I like to turtle and slowly expand. That means it might be turn 150 before I have real conflict and my war machine might only start grinding in turn 175-250.

[Roanon]

In NGC5, I have just completed my 16th Ringworld... they will probably never pay back what was invested in them because the number of enemies is decreasing fast, but it was still fun to build them... doing it just because it is possible

[Kamog]

I like to build sphereworlds, too. It gives me such a sense of accomplishment, to reach the technological and economic capability to do so. Especially those trinary star triple sphereworlds! I never build ring worlds because I want to wait until I've researched sphere worlds and get double the facility spaces. But I have never completely filled up a sphere world because it just takes too long...

[Roanon]

Problem, in a game vs. humans, it will end some turn, and it might be too late for sphereworlds. NGC5 has just reached turn 100 and its the first vote for game end now.
Against AI, where you can just continue to show off, sphereworlds are nicer than ringworlds, sure