Things in SEIV I never knew about....

[DirectorTsaarx]

(Note: both quotes edited to conserve space)

Originally posted by Slick:

quote:

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Originally posted by raynfala:
Research III facilities cost 2500 minerals to build; you'll build one every other turn. In contrast, Research II facilities cost 2000 minerals; you'll build one each and every turn. By building a new research facility each turn instead of every other turn, you'll be accumulating more research points sooner. The extra 100 points of research generated by a level III facility (compared to a level II facility) does not justify the extra turn necessary to build the level III facility directly. You're better off building level II facilities more quickly, and then upgrading afterwards. This is where the extra 15,000kT of minerals come in: an extra 25,000kT to upgrade the 20 facilities (half of the level III facilities' cost), minus the 10,000kT saved by building cheaper facilities up front.

I just verified this on a spreadsheet this morning. Eeek, a spreadsheet!!! Does that mean I'm helping SEIV turn into MOO3?

--Raynfala

Yup. This applies to all "level II" facilities like Mineral Miners, Intelligence centers, etc.

p.s. I had to do the spreadsheet thing myself a few months ago to prove it to myself as well.

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Don't feel bad about this; back in December 2000/January 2001 there was a whole thread dedicated to figuring out the required formula, and whether there was a break-even point where it was better to accept the 2-turn build times of level 3 facilities vs. building level 2 facilities and upgrading later. It was a bit more complicated when comparing mineral miner facility builds, because then the upgrade cost reduced the benefit of the extra production. But it turned out as Slick mentioned - no matter how many facilities are involved, it's better to spend 1 turn building a level 2 facility and upgrade later than to spend 2 turns building a level 3 facility.

Too bad that thread is lost to the sands of old servers...

[Slick]

Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:

Too bad that thread is lost to the sands of old servers...

Here's the thread that I think you are talking about:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin...=007178#000000

Had a hard time finding the thread, but I knew it was one I started. I never did come back to post my results, but they are here.

By the way, the unfortunate thing about this fact is that once you have level III of any facility, (min, org, rad, research, intel), you best not be upgrading all your facilities with the construction queue. This will update the level II's in the queues to III's, and this is NOT what you want.

Slick.

[ March 20, 2003, 01:24: Message edited by: Slick ]

[Atrocities]

Things I did not know about SEIV.

1. That it was so horribly addictive
2. That I would become so involved with it as to make 25 ship sets.
3. That the community would be the way that it is.
4. That is would be well supported
5. That it would still be my Top played game after two years.
6. That the game would be so enjoyable to learn and talk about.
7. That the game would be easily modible.
8. That there would be so many mods for the game.
9. That it would kick MOO3's arse.
10. That it continuely draws new players who can not believe that such a game has existed for over two years.

These things were welcome surprises.

[DirectorTsaarx]

Originally posted by Slick:

quote:

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Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:

Too bad that thread is lost to the sands of old servers...

Here's the thread that I think you are talking about:

(Link deleted because it's causing serious formatting problems)

Had a hard time finding the thread, but I knew it was one I started. I never did come back to post my results, but they are here.

By the way, the unfortunate thing about this fact is that once you have level III of any facility, (min, org, rad, research, intel), you best not be upgrading all your facilities with the construction queue. This will update the level II's in the queues to III's, and this is NOT what you want.

Slick.

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Well, actually, here is the thread I was referring to:

LINK to thread discussing upgrading vs. straight build

It took me a while to figure out which thread I wanted because the original thread was a different topic...

[ March 20, 2003, 15:52: Message edited by: DirectorTsaarx ]

[Ward]

Customize your strategies as soon as possible and add them to "..._AI_strategies.txt" so that you don't have to make them each time you start a new game. They can be significantly improved.

Although crew's experience doesn't affect missiles to-hit chances(always 100%) it affects it's to-defend chances so it's a good idea to train them.

Ships not armed with direct-fire weapon(there are exeptions such as PD's) do not gain experience from battles.

[ March 25, 2003, 12:47: Message edited by: Ward ]

[Gryphin]

When building something it applys the maximum quantity of Min / Org / Rad that it can each turn. Thus on the 2nd and 3rd turn of construction of a smaller ship it will not require Rads or Orgs.
This is signifigant if it looks like you will run out of Rads the next turn.

[Krsqk]

If a ship has no weapons with higher damage than the emissive rating of the enemy ships, it will not attack. Just found that out while working on some modding.

[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by Ward:
Ships not armed with direct-fire weapon do not gain experience from battles.

Agree, except for the "Ramming Ships".
Yea, the ramming ships will gain experience when destroy other ships using their hulls...

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
"This is a big part of the reason why the Talisman has always been horribly unbalancing. Nothing should ever give 100% to hit rate."

It can if it was other things backing it up. Like being really frigging expensive. It's already 50kt in size..how about 50kt, 4000/4000/4000 cost?

Phoenix-D

It should still not be 100% guaranteed to hit. There should always be a chance of failure.

Originally posted by Gryphin:
When building something it applys the maximum quantity of Min / Org / Rad that it can each turn. Thus on the 2nd and 3rd turn of construction of a smaller ship it will not require Rads or Orgs.
This is signifigant if it looks like you will run out of Rads the next turn.

This is why you stack the build orders so that only some SYs are using orgs and rads on a turn.

Originally posted by Master Belisarius:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ward:
Ships not armed with direct-fire weapon do not gain experience from battles.

Agree, except for the "Ramming Ships".
Yea, the ramming ships will gain experience when destroy other ships using their hulls...

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The reason that missile ships do not gain experience is that the ships themselves do not do any damage or cause any deaths. The missile units are what do the damage when they hit the enemy ships. The game technically assigns an experience point to the missile (or it would if units could gain experience) for the kill. This is the same as carriers not gaining experience for the kills made by the fighters they launch. Ramming ships can gain experience because it is the ship itself that does the damage.

[ March 27, 2003, 18:59: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Slynky]

OK, another dumb question

Am I to understand there is a way to put ships (for example) in a queue and have leftover "construction points" from the first ship in the queue to pass to the second ship? Example: Ship 1 takes 2 turns to build but on the second turn, the construction queue is really only adding on the Last (for instance) 20% of the ship. If there is another ship of the same size in the queue, will the remaining 80% construction points be applied on turn 2 to the second ship in the queue. So that after 3 full turns, you have 2 completed ships?