Silly, evil trick?

[Taqwus]

Can one examine a ship's design before accepting it as a gift? If not, one might be able to...

1. Prepare a space yard ship and a minelayer. The minelayer should be well-loaded.

2. Move them to some out-of-the-way location.

3. Drop mines.

4. Build a really, really expensive ship. Without engines or minesweeping devices. Stellar Manipulation components should be good for driving up the cost. Note that you can build this, with engines, elsewhere and move it; it'll be faster building, but you'll have to pay maintenance while it's in transit if you do this.

5. Give it to some unsuspecting rival.

After 4 turns or so, it'll start costing your rival more than it cost you in the first place thanks to the high maintenance cost. And it'll keep costing, until that minefield is finally swept so that the ship can be repaired, analyzed or destroyed. Since it'll probably mean war ;-), you might have a cloaked fleet lurking about for once the field looks about to be depleted...


ObSillyQuestion:

If a Rock/None race builds an Atmosphere Modifier on a Gas Giant planet, what happens? It probably shouldn't be a Gas/None...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Cryptotec88]

You evil, evil man!

[Lupusman]

Where the heck did you come up with that?

About the other question concerning None/Gas though. I tried, and you can't start a game with that combo.

[Hydraa]

I tried a test of your question and the atomsophere did not convert to none on a gas giant. I did however look at the data files and there are data set up for ring worlds and sphereworlds to be gas giant/none. Just no planets are.

Perhaps MM should put a warning in for a atomsphere converter on a gas giant that is trying to convert it to none.

I did not know so I tested to see if the plants converted to the atomsphere of the race on the planet and it did. I had a oxy race conquered a hydrogen race and put them on a methane planet and converted the atomsphere. It converted it to Hydrogen, not oxygen.

I don't know what it would convert into if you had mixed races on the planet

[Seawolf]

The trick is called a white elephant. First created in China. Ruler gave someone an elephant as a gift. Can't refuse it but the cost of feeding it make him go broke.

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Seawolf on the prowl

[Baron Munchausen]

This is another reason to restore the "required engines" restriction to ships in SE4. In SE3 you could not have done this. Of course, even if the engine requirement were restored you could always be standing by with engine-destroying weapons. The turn after you give it to them, sail in and bLast it so it's stranded and the situation is the same. Hmm....

[Tomgs]

I still think the most evil trick is to make a treaty, mine their homeworld(s) and other refuling spots then break the treaty. You will bring an empire to its knees very fast this way without destroying their planets. Of course this makes the game so easy I only did it once.

[Hydraa]

Of course this could be remedied by just gifting the ship back to the giver.

[Jubala]

Won't work as the giver will know what it is and not accept the gift.

[turanasaurus]

How about passing the elephant on to another unsuspecting empire?

[This message has been edited by turanasaurus (edited 18 December 2000).]