Newbie building sphere/ringworld question

FriendJosh · #1 May 3rd, 2001, 04:41 PM

Sorry to bother, but i was wondering if i could get a quick question answered:

How do you make dyson spheres? I can make the material, but I dont have a ship big enough to hold the elements. The elements only fit on a base.

Coal · #2 May 3rd, 2001, 04:53 PM

You use construction ships to build bases equiped with the material and components in the same sector as the star. You should build lots of contruction ships because it takes a long time to build the stations, and more ships means faster production of the bases.

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Rules? What Rules?

[This message has been edited by Maverick (edited 03 May 2001).]

FriendJosh · #3 May 3rd, 2001, 05:34 PM

thanks for the info!

Q · #4 May 3rd, 2001, 06:04 PM

The most economic way is to use one or several space yard ships to construct first space yard bases in the sector of the star. I use spacestations with just the space yard and no further unnecessary components. 11 bases for a ring world; 21 for a sphereworld. Bases have lower maintenance costs than ships! As soon as possible you choose one space yard to start with the construction of the ringword/sphereworld placement generator. This component takes twice the construction time than the planetary gravity plating and the hyper density cables. Once the remaining construction time of the placement generator is equal to the construction time of the platings and cables you start to construct simultaneously 5 each of the platings and cables for the ringworld and 10 each for the sphereworld.
This gives you the complete construction of all needed components at the same time, which is essential. Otherwise your empire might go bankrupt due to the astronomic maintenance cost of the constructed but not yet used bases with the components for the sphere-/ringworld!
And Last but not least have a rock colony ship and population transport ready for the new ringword/sphereworld!

[This message has been edited by Q (edited 03 May 2001).]

Taqwus · #5 May 3rd, 2001, 06:19 PM

The impatient, profligate types among us can also use the refit trick to build the bases in just a couple o' turns... it'll cost you an arm and several legs, but you can do it. ISTR that it came up when Dracus was discussing how he built vast numbers of 'em for the TwinGalaxies tourney.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Oggy ben Doggy · #6 May 3rd, 2001, 06:27 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Taqwus:
The impatient, profligate types among us can also use the refit trick to build the bases in just a couple o' turns... it'll cost you an arm and several legs, but you can do it. ISTR that it came up when Dracus was discussing how he built vast numbers of 'em for the TwinGalaxies tourney.

How's that work? Make a bunch of bases and retrofit them to be ringworld component bases?

I thought that if there was to high of a cost differnec, you couldn't retrofit one ship into another?

Taqwus · #7 May 3rd, 2001, 07:22 PM

There are two details you need to know about refits...

a) The cost limit is based on the cost of the current design, not the original.

b) You don't need to repair a component before you can refit it.

This means that if you have a series of designs of the same hull type where each iteration increases the cost of each resource by no more than 50% (by default; moddable), you can do perform ALL the refits from the start to the end in one turn (as long as you can afford them).

IOW, you can build a cheap starbase in X turns; refit it to a sphereworld base in 1 turn; and then repair it in another turn. You end up paying for it all up front, which could be nasty; I don't know how the cost compares with the maintenance required for the normal multi-year way, which would in any event vary with race.

I've never bothered to work out the design chain, but it can and has been done before. I sometimes refit-chain 600kt+ warships, bringing up older designs (especially captured AI ships) to expensive, new designs, and that rarely takes more than one or two intermediate designs.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Q · #8 May 3rd, 2001, 07:50 PM

The refit trick is a little bit on the cheating side, wouldn't you agree?

Taqwus · #9 May 3rd, 2001, 08:34 PM

When used to construct expensive things very quickly, it does seem quite munchkin. OTOH, it might not be that bad, ethically, if it's FAR more expensive, but I've not crunched the numbers...

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

serpwidgets · #10 May 4th, 2001, 01:57 AM

quote:
you can build a cheap starbase in X turns; refit it to a sphereworld base in 1 turn; and then repair it in another turn.

Not in a simultaneous game. You can only refit/mothball/unmothball ONE ship per turn at any given location, and that stuff takes place when the turn is run by the host, you can't do it "realtime" during your turn. IOW if you have 3 shipyard bases at your homeworld, you can STILL only mothball ONE ship per turn at that location.

Simultaneous really bites for that, among several other things, like launching fighters/satellites, transferring cargo...