I Need A Huge Explanation From One of You Veterans...

[EmperorKosh]

As of this post I just got MOO3 last night. It reminded me of Pax Imperia: Eminent Domain. Pax Imperia was pretty sweet so I figured this game must be too. Personally, I feel as though I've been cheated out of $52. :weird: On the box it said MOO3 has real time combat, but when I was trying to destroy a defenseless lil Evon world, (a world that should've been mine in the first place but my friggen colony ship couldn't get there fast enough) I saw no combat whatsoever, and I couldn't direct any of it. I got to check a few boxes on a checklist and that was about it. I won the battle though. Also, a couple of other questions...

First Question: Did I do something wrong before the combat? Maybe that's why I couldn't see any of the battle taking place or command any of it for that matter.

Second Question: Why the hell does it take so long to make ships and get planetary upgrades, etc? It took me probably 30 turns just to make the six spaceships to destroy that one Evon planet. Those six ships came from my homeworld and I can't believe how long it took to make them.

Third Question: Maybe it's my stupid planetary viceroy/AI, but perhaps one of the reasons it takes me so long to build my ships is because I noticed that after I hit the turn button and go see the amount of turns left to build a ship, it shifts my budget for construction around. Is there any way I can make that stop? :confused:

Even though I enjoy real time games quite a bit more than turn-based games I enjoyed Alpha Centauri quite a bit and I think I'll end up enjoing MOO3. I just gotta figure out how the heck to do stuff... So anyways, do any of you people have ways to solve my problems above? I'll also appreciate any walkthroughs on how to do things. (On how to build up a planet, how to kill people, how design spaceships, how to allocate my empire budget, etc.) Thanks. :)

[Dagda]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
First Question: Did I do something wrong before the combat? Maybe that's why I couldn't see any of the battle taking place or command any of it for that matter.

Sounds like you "ceded control" with the options you selected. Dun do that if you want to command the combat. :)

If you cede control, the AI runs the combat on both sides, and gives you the outcome.

Second Question: Why the hell does it take so long to make ships and get planetary upgrades, etc? It took me probably 30 turns just to make the six spaceships to destroy that one Evon planet. Those six ships came from my homeworld and I can't believe how long it took to make them.

You need more industry DEAs to boost your manufacturing output. Ships are big and expensive, and you'll need some very focused industrial systems to crank them out quickly. In the early game, this is tough to do, so you should consider smaller hull sizes and limiting builds only to the ships you really need.

Third Question: Maybe it's my stupid planetary viceroy/AI, but perhaps one of the reasons it takes me so long to build my ships is because I noticed that after I hit the turn button and go see the amount of turns left to build a ship, it shifts my budget for construction around. Is there any way I can make that stop?

Yes and no. The Viceroy is trying to make your empire/planets work to best effect in many, many areas. So he might be juggling getting more DEAs going (to improve employment & get more from the planet) to funding research to constructing your ship. So there's going to be some variation in how long things take, though that will help just about as frequently as it hurts.

If you want to crank out military more quickly, go to the Empire screen and set your military policy to one that permits the Viceroy to spend more on military pursuits. Just be aware that other areas of your economy may slow down as a result (which you might not want early in the game, but probably won't care about later).

Even though I enjoy real time games quite a bit more than turn-based games I enjoyed Alpha Centauri quite a bit and I think I'll end up enjoing MOO3. I just gotta figure out how the heck to do stuff... So anyways, do any of you people have ways to solve my problems above? I'll also appreciate any walkthroughs on how to do things. (On how to build up a planet, how to kill people, how design spaceships, how to allocate my empire budget, etc.) Thanks. :)

There are many, many excellent posts on strategy here. MOO3 is different from most of the games that I've seen because it actually is strategic in nature. Most games (particularly the RTS ones) are at best operational in nature and normally tactical. MOO3 is different because you can literally ignore the minutaea and allow the AI to handle it for you if you set up your DPs, policies, etc. properly.

The biggest problem I've had is the manual (too sparse) and Encyclopeia (same). Grab a good GE mod and install it so you can find the information you need. Some even have good strategy tips.

[Kali Magdalene]

Originally posted by Dagda
Originally posted by EmperorKosh
First Question: Did I do something wrong before the combat? Maybe that's why I couldn't see any of the battle taking place or command any of it for that matter.

Sounds like you "ceded control" with the options you selected. Dun do that if you want to command the combat. :)

If you cede control, the AI runs the combat on both sides, and gives you the outcome.


Or, and this happens all the time, if there's no way for the opposition to fight back, you just win - there's no combat.

If there's no way for you to fight back, you just lose.

Other circumstances can occur that result in no combat even when you choose direct control. If you choose to defend planet, and the opponent chooses to "blockade" there may not be combat, for example.

[BoydofZINJ]

As for building... a good opening strategy is to make your original planet a manuafacture planet with a decent dose of mines and food production to make sure you do not starve.

Another thing which is important is race (or customizing a race)

The standard meklar or klackon or cynthroid race is great for pumping out ships...

However, Klackons have a severe research problem.

Customizing Meklars is pretty much the "best" race to start off with and generally considered one of the better races.

Just with many strategy games... just blindly clicking end turn will rarely yield the best results...

[Kohr-Ah]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh


Third Question: Maybe it's my stupid planetary viceroy/AI, but perhaps one of the reasons it takes me so long to build my ships is because I noticed that after I hit the turn button and go see the amount of turns left to build a ship, it shifts my budget for construction around. Is there any way I can make that stop? :confused:

[/B]

You can turn off the planetary Viceroy also. This will let you control how much you spend and what you build. Just make sure to turn it back on eventually otherwise your planet won't build anything.

[RobNelson]

I'll also appreciate any walkthroughs on how to do things. (On how to build up a planet, how to kill people, how design spaceships, how to allocate my empire budget, etc.)

I wrote a How-to guide, it's quite organic, so if you need something that's not in it, let me know (just post a reply in the thread - it'll send me an e-mail). The thread is in my sig.

Also, Chaos Avatar's Beginner's Guide (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=266528) was very helpful to me.

Also, Alexfrog (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=267518&highlight=dev+plans) posted this thread. Also, this thread (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=271212&highlight=dev+plans) explains dev plans, extremely useful info here.

Hope that helps.

[EmperorKosh]

Kool. Thanks for the help. I can't believe this post got like 200+ views in just a couple of hours! :eek: That's pretty cool though, all the more help for me! LoL !I got another question though, about at what turn in the game is it not considered the beginning anymore? When I was playing with the Humans yesterday I was probably on turn 47...ish.... Also, you guys have said that it's going to be hard to make ships in the beginning of the game, and I've realized that makes sense, but how am I supposed to get more worlds then? Do a blast through a 30 turns focusing on my homeworld and the world that the colony ship you have at the beginning makes? Then crank out colony ships? :)

[EmperorKosh]

Oh yeah and sorry if I seemed like an @§§ last night. I was just a little P.O.ed that I couldn't get my race to do things my way. lol .You know there's one more thing that would make this game majorly better. That would be if you could see your race develop on the planet. (Get a planetary surface view or something like that). You can see a planet's surface though I imagine when you've got ground combat... :cool:

[Wendeigo]

"imagine" is as close as you get

[Kali Magdalene]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Oh yeah and sorry if I seemed like an @§§ last night. I was just a little P.O.ed that I couldn't get my race to do things my way. lol .You know there's one more thing that would make this game majorly better. That would be if you could see your race develop on the planet. (Get a planetary surface view or something like that). You can see a planet's surface though I imagine when you've got ground combat... :cool:

Ah, you want annoying in the combat screen, how about:

Invading an enemy system with 146 combat ships in 9 armadas and 20 troop transports in 10 detachments.

One of your allies has 30-odd ships in 10 task forces in that system.

You get to the combat screen, and the task forces that you get for the combat are your ally's.

So, you retreat them so you can attack *next* turn (sigh).

The next turn, the combat screen comes up, and now you get all 10 transport detachments going in for the kill. Er? I've never had the computer make me use transport TFs over combat TFs when attacking before.

I would like a means to choose which task forces go into battle in the combat scheduler. I do not like the way it selects them now.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by Kali Magdalene
Ah, you want annoying in the combat screen, how about:

Invading an enemy system with 146 combat ships in 9 armadas and 20 troop transports in 10 detachments.

One of your allies has 30-odd ships in 10 task forces in that system.

You get to the combat screen, and the task forces that you get for the combat are your ally's.

So, you retreat them so you can attack *next* turn (sigh).

The next turn, the combat screen comes up, and now you get all 10 transport detachments going in for the kill. Er? I've never had the computer make me use transport TFs over combat TFs when attacking before.

I would like a means to choose which task forces go into battle in the combat scheduler. I do not like the way it selects them now.


Yeah I'd imagine that would have to suck. Put that in the bugs section of this forum or whatever and maybe Quicksilver or Infogames will make a patch to make our lives a little easier. :cool:

[RobNelson]

@EmperorKosh: Turn 47 is still early in the game (think about it, civ turn 47 you're still in the abcient age, etc). A senate victory can be won (or lost) by about 150, but I was ticked off that it still felt like the early to early mid game. So now I turn it off.

Anyways, what I do first is set up my dev plans. based on the link I posted, I do nothing "special" or different. Then I look in system. If there are many good planets (green2 or better) I use my original transport in the home system and set the military build queue to build system colony ships. Don't forget to set your military budget (limited war is good to start, IMHO). Unless you play bugs, set migration on new planets until the pop is 3-5. The new colony should be up and running in 30-50 turns, depending if you run short of minerals. If there's no good planets in system, but there is a rich planet, I sometimes go for it.

Well, don't know if that's what you're looking for, but I hope it helps.

[EmperorKosh]

Yeah that kinda helped me Rob. Thanks. That's kinda leading to my next question. First, I took some of the advice people gave me in this topic about using the Meklar, Cynoid, Klackon, etc. (Since they excel at building stuff) I decided today to start an empire with the Klackon and they make heck of a lot of manufacturing points; just as the people said. But, one question I have about them is today in one of my games with them there were planetary miners in my sitrep who were pissed off saying that they weren't being paid enough, etc., and that slowed down my mineral production. Is there anyway to make those miners stop whining and fix the damage? Also, I was wondering what kind of planets you'd go for, because today in one of my games with the Klackon I had an awesome home system, but tons of the planets in the next systems were either poor in minerals with extreme gravity or they were totally undesireable and had a toxic/hostile fertility rate. What planets should you go for? Should you go for any planet that has a rich mineral rating? Also, the instruction manual said that you can't bioharvest on red rated planets until the appropriate technology is developed. Is that technology you need "Hydroponics"? Because I've gotten "Hydroponics" researched several times in my games today and if that's what I need to colonize a low desireable, but mineral-rich planets, I'm wondering if I should go for them. Another thing I've noticed is that the low desireable/extreme gravity planets are usually giants with 12 regions on them.


I hope the above wasn't too confusing to read, but just in case here is a summary of my questions:

1) How do I fix problems that disgruntled miners have caused for my mineral production?

2) Should you go colonize planets that may be red'n'ugly but have a lot of mineral wealth?

3) Is "Hydroponics" the technology you need to start bioharvesting on hostile/toxic fertility planets?


Thanks peoples for the help so far. Hopefully the other 400+ people who have viewed this topic have learned a thing or two as well. Please continue to help, thanks. :up:

[EmperorKosh]

Another thing I like about the Klackon is that since their traditions are "the greater society is more important than the individual," I'm able to tax the hell out of them. :p lol :D

[Da_Blade]

1) Unrest is moslty caused by piracy or taxes (mostly). Piracy can be solved by building system fleets, high taxes can be dealt with, well who'd guessed, lowering taxes ;) If you go to the planet summary, clock the demographics tab then click the unrest tab. You'll see whats causing unrest on the planet.

2) Early in game stay off red worlds, avoid yellow, and be carefull with gravity too. A red gravity classification will give your workers a 50% production penalty, so they're not too well either ;) In early game i usually use a colony policy of "if its green i flag it for colonization". As soon as a colony ship is built, the AI will send it to what it thinks is the best planet, i am usually happy with that.

3) Bioharvesting on hostile planets doesn't come untill late game. Then your farms can grow eatable fungii, which can basically grow anywhere. Hydroponic farms is an improvement your viceroys will built themselves. They can be built on any planet/any region, and they dont require a DEA slot nor pop to run. They produce a half food each.

Have fun exploring further ;)
Be sure to read some of the stickied threads in this forum, they contain a lot of information, mostly very usefull... If there's any questions, never hesistate to ask.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by RobNelson
A senate victory can be won (or lost) by about 150, but I was ticked off that it still felt like the early to early mid game. So now I turn it off.

While this is sometimes the case, it isn't necessarily true. This tends to happen in mid-sized games the most, though it will occasionally happen in small- or large-sized games.

There are a couple of schools of thought on this:

In large games there are more votes floating around, a LOT more votes, which can potentially mean more votes for you, or more votes for an opponent. In these games the NOs can get out-grown very quickly by a senate coalition, but you can usually control that through careful attacks and senate-politics. (i.e. once enough votes are floating around it becomes relatively easy to pass embargos, bills condemning or praising, and declare war, all of which, while they seem to have a minimal-effect on extra-senate diplomacy usually work to confound the Senate out of electing a president. Yeah its a pain, but that's the story of politics. I like to view it as a challenge that adds to the game).

Meanwhile, in small-sized galaxies with fewer players it can take a LONG time to build up enough votes, even with a large coalition, to overpower the NOs.

Granted there are exceptions, I just like to point out that keeping the Senate victory in IS a viable option, if you play your cards right. Of course, if you don't like playing politics, DEFINITELY turn it off.

[mentarman]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
<snip>there were planetary miners in my sitrep who were pissed off saying that they weren't being paid enough, etc., and that slowed down my mineral production. Is there anyway to make those miners stop whining and fix the damage?<snip>

This is just a random event. There's nothing you're doing right or wrong. The game just throws randomness at you sometimes. Sometimes it is a gain in science, sometimes a loss in food production, sometimes striking miners who slow production, sometimes it's entertainers who lower unrest, or a dozen other things. Usually the effects aren't that severe and don't last that long, so don't worry about it too much from a gameplay standpoint and just think of it as extra "flavor" or "experience." When you're setting up a new game, there's a box to set the chances of random events. If you don't like these things messin' up your game, set it for less frequent.
Hope that helps a little.

[EmperorKosh]

Okay, glad to hear on how to handle that miner situation... there's a way to decrease the amount of random events though I think... Also, do most of you guys use the AI to colonize worlds for you? Or do you do it yourself? Also, can you still make a fair amount of manufacturing points, research points, etc., to make a mineral-poor world worth colonizing?

Basically what I'd like to do is have several worlds that can pump out ships reeeeeal fast... lol :D

[Craig P.]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Also, can you still make a fair amount of manufacturing points, research points, etc., to make a mineral-poor world worth colonizing?Absolutely. You've just got to worry about the viceroy building too many mining DEAs - sometimes s/he's not too strong on the concept of not needing (or wanting) that here. (Caveat - I might not be setting the right dev plans, and the viceroy might just be trying to generate some income to run the factories.)

[Da_Blade]

I use the AI autocolonize feature. Just don't blindly depend on it, that's all. Always check up on it, and change fleets accordingly if yer not agreeing. I dont turn it on though untill i got some reasonable planets of different species, like magnates, that build colony ships. Because the main pro of the autocolonize AI is that it'll send ships to planets that appear red to you, but are in fact green planets for that race under your control.

As for mineral poor planets, the more complex economy throws the old notion of "poor is worthless, rich is great" out of the door. Your viceroy will still make a reasonable planet out of it, and if its fertile farming can fuel the industry on the planet, as long as the minerals come from another place. And once your tech advances, you wont even notice difference between mineral poor and rich planets much.

[EmperorKosh]

Rock on, sounds kool. I'm assuming that the point of AU's is basically to provide maintanence on your fleets and other things... Oh yeah, exactly what does "AU" stand for? Also, another question, is the way you build ships faster calculated by how many production points you have on a planet the ship is to be built on?

I figured it was the manufacturing points that calculated how fast you can build ships. Also, are your spare production points, research points, bioharvesting points, etc., all sold off for extra AU's?

[Da_Blade]

Eveything thats built, from ships to DEA's and improvements, requires PPs (production points). A small amount of PPs are generated by population, by far the most amount of PPs come from industry though. PPs are created by chanelling money through Industry. So if you put one AU in an industry point it creates 1 PP and some extra money. The more money you put into industry the less effective it gets, though still giving you extra PPs...

[RobNelson]

Oh yeah, exactly what does "AU" stand for? Also, another question, is the way you build ships faster calculated by how many production points you have on a planet the ship is to be built on?


AU, I believe, is Antaran Unit, though it's really kind of a joke (au is the chemical symbol for gold).
And now for the educated guess/inference part. Ship building is based on industry and money available (yea, production is, too), though military grants (I think) may boost this on the better worlds. Or it may simply pay for existing ships. Or neither. Anyways, to get ships fastest, you may want to set funding to Total War (Holy War may prevent you from building those industry DEAs fast enough).

I don't think anyone answered yet, so I will.
Is "Hydroponics" the technology you need to start bioharvesting on hostile/toxic fertility planets?


No, though that (when built) can provide 0.5 food each (one can be placed in each region without taking up space for another DEA). To farm in those red/yellow planets, you need terraforming tech. Economics 101 (at the top of this forum) has some more detail on this (if you can wade through to find Tom's posts).

[robertr4836]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh

Third Question: Maybe it's my stupid planetary viceroy/AI, but perhaps one of the reasons it takes me so long to build my ships is because I noticed that after I hit the turn button and go see the amount of turns left to build a ship, it shifts my budget for construction around. Is there any way I can make that stop? :confused:



Two things I didn't see mentioned:
1.) If you just crank up the military production slider and throw everything into the red then the AI will definitely change your budget since he doesn't want to go bankrupt. If you move the military slider up and the others down and keep everything in the green to yellow range he will be happy to keep things the way you set them (IMHO).
2.) You can often get a ship produced more quickly by letting the AI develop your planet first (IE all the mining & industry everyone brought up).

Also, colonize any green and yellow worlds in your home system ASAP (I usually make one colony TF then one system colony first thing if applicable). Having all the "good" planets colonized in a single system can make an industrial powerhouse.

PS Grab a magnate civ from a red world as soon as you find one -- they will start to colonize the red worlds you did not.

[RobNelson]

Having all the "good" planets colonized in a single system can make an industrial powerhouse.

Absolutely agree with this 100%. Put the system seat of gov on the planet specializing in industry (or research, if that's your bag) and watch the fun (system taxes go to SSoG, but aren't as yet reported). Though I tend to lay off the yellows until my food production is rediculously high (currently playing as psilons, poor bioharvest HURTS) or I get Tform techs.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Eveything thats built, from ships to DEA's and improvements, requires PPs (production points). A small amount of PPs are generated by population, by far the most amount of PPs come from industry though. PPs are created by chanelling money through Industry. So if you put one AU in an industry point it creates 1 PP and some extra money. The more money you put into industry the less effective it gets, though still giving you extra PPs...


You can get Production Points from research, etc., though can't you? I see in the planetary infrustructure menu that different DEA's make different amounts of Production Points. So far, I've noticed that Research and Industry makes the most Production Points. (I'm reading the menu correctly right? Meaning, when it says: Industry: 162 PP :That means that the Industry DEA will produce 162 Production Points, correct?)

[EmperorKosh]

I thought of another thing to ask as well. How exactly do you jack up research progression when you're a race that's basically mentally retarded? (I'm the Klackon. Hard-@§§ industrialists, lousy covert opers, and really, really bad researchers). :rolleyes: I'm assuming the main thing to do is go colonize some worlds and make several research DEA's and put your funding into them via the planetary economics menu.

Oh yeah and one more thing, what exactly is the Test Tube commodity for? (I think it's mentioned in Economics 101 so I'm going to go check there as well).

[BoydofZINJ]

test tubes is how much research you have going...

You can custumize the Klackons to be great researchers, by the way (but it is expensive).

Yes, making several planets into research planets... does wonders.

When I start a new game... the first few planets I colonize I tend to make them into manufacture/mine planets... after that... Most or all my other planets are hardcore research planets...

Please note, early on... I have a few planets with mostly mines... since I almost always need ore/mineral in the beginning.

Once I get into Plasma and Lightning field weapons... then I switch a few of my planets into manufacture planets -or- the new planets I get that are "suitable" I make into manugacture planets.

Remember on thing, one thing that you will need on any good planet which you want to turn into a great manufacturing/ship building planet is infrastructures AND money. The planets I know will turn into large/great industrial planets I will always place atleast 1 MINE DEA there and lower the tax so that the ending bank is greater than the starting bank.

[EmperorKosh]

Sounds like a pretty good strategy boydof. Thanks. :up:

[Da_Blade]

@Emperorkrash: PPs are made partly by pop (fixed amount) and by money spend in industry. Tech advancements enhance the industry capacity of you planet. If you have a planet with 200 Industry, spending 200 AU in the military queue (not building any DEA's or improvements) will yield 200 PPs. Spending 400 AU on it will yield 300 PPs, Spending 600 AU on it will yield 350 PPs. etc. Not sure about the exact numbers here, but it's just to illustrate the idea.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
@Emperorkrash:


It's EmperorKosh. LoL. :rolleyes:

[EmperorKosh]

I thought of another thing to ask about. How do you combine two taskforces together? Also, how do you add ships to a taskforce? I'm building up some defensive ships in my **** system and I got two Hawk defenses that I made on my second world and I need those to be in a taskforce with the other three default Hawk Defense that the game starts you out with.


How do you do this?

[Craig P.]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
I thought of another thing to ask about. How do you combine two taskforces together? Also, how do you add ships to a taskforce? I'm building up some defensive ships in my **** system and I got two Hawk defenses that I made on my second world and I need those to be in a taskforce with the other three default Hawk Defense that the game starts you out with.


How do you do this? Answers: You don't, you don't (with the exception below), it happens automagically (all the system ships get combined into a single task force in combat).

[SamuraiZombie]

A good way to increase research for the low-research races is to conquer other races that are good at research. This won't increase your creativity (and allow you to research more techs) but you'll acquire tech levels much faster. Specifically, Psilons spring to mind, but any race with Good or Superior research ability works. In my current game, I'm using a modified Imsaeis, and my research is only average. I had the luck to stumble upon a small, weak Psilon empire, and now they're filling up the scientist caste in my empire. Every Psilon world I have gets a single Industry DEA, a Government DEA, a Recreation DEA (if the planet is larger than size 5), and the rest is all Research DEAs. The development plan for those planets is set to a custom plan that goes: Research (primary), Research (secondary), Research (tertiary). My scientific advancement has leapt forward.

EDIT: Oh yes, the Test Tubes translate into actual Research Points the same way Industry translates into Production Points. You spend money towards R&D on the Planetary Economy screen and the more Test Tubes you have (and the more money), the more Research Points you get. The Test Tubes by themselves do nothing without money; think of them as scientists and engineers who need funding to actually produce results.

"The MegaDoomer, GIR! The most powerful stealth robot in the Irken Military. Engineered by conquered Vort scientists, actually. They're filthy." -Invader Zim

[EmperorKosh]

I know that system ships are all a part of the same taskforce but how do I combine two taskforces of starships together? (I have two planets working on starships so I can get one huge taskforce at a quicker pace than having just one planet work on the taskforce. So that's why I want to know how to combine two taskforces together.)

[EmperorKosh]

Oh yes and how do you increase the Production Points for a particular planet via the economics window? Do you put funding into Normal Economic Development? I know it's obviously not going to be terraforming. I also know it won't be research either because that boosts the amount of research points you get.


Another thing that has come to my mind is overpopulation... my homeworld is nearing the point of maximum capacity. How do I combat overpopulation. My homeworld has a safe amount of people in it so far, but I'd like to ask about overpopulation now so I don't crap myself later.


And yet another question... how do you combat unemployment? I haven't had any problems with this yet, but as with my question above I'd like to know more about the situation before I have to deal with it.


Also, I'd like to thank all of you people for helping me out with this game. I'm really enjoying this game now. I think some other people are learning things because with the amount of topic views this topic has gotten... well ya know what I'm getting at... :D

[EmperorKosh]

Okay this is kind of startling... it's been several hours since I posted my two above replies. What's scary is I haven't had a response and normally I get a response within several hours.


Could someone please answer the 4-5 questions I have above?

[BoydofZINJ]

okay...

how to increase production points...

the best way to make a planet into a greeat manufacturing planet is to give it several industrial DEAs.

It will also need money to generate an income. I find that if you lower the spending so that the ending bank is greater than the starting bank will guarentee an increase income. Once you get 100K+ then your good to go.

As for the economic sliders. They improve a poor planet. Grants, just like in real life, are for the needy. Most of the time, they will go to planets you do not want them to be placed. They do help, alot! if you can generate a huge tax rate and encourage a saving environment... many planets can become industrial giants.

I personally, never give any planet 100% industrial points. I will always have atleast 1 military DEA, 1 goverment DEA, and 1 recreational DEA... plus 1 research DEA. After that you can place ALL industrial DEAs... however, I would recommend atleast 2 mine and/or 1 mine and 1 bio DEA to help generate food, mineral, and income.

Overall, you need a planet which is self suficient, can generate a healthy surplus, have low to no revolts on the planet, a planet which has 100K+ AUs Having many industrial DEAs will help allot!

For these reasons planets that are rich (regardless of bio levels) and planets with many regions are PRIME considerations for manufacturing planets.

I would also tweak your developing plans for this planet (these planets) as

(early game when minerals/ore is a problem)
Primary: Infrastructure
Secondary: Mine
Trinary: Manufacuture


(mid to late game when mineral/ore is NOT a problem)
Primary: Manufacuture
Secondary: Infrastructure
Trinary: Trade

(very late)
Primary: Manufacuture
Secondary: Military (still experimenting on this one)
Trinary: Trade

By setting some of these to the player defined options... and remembering which player defined one it is... this is a good way to increase AU, increase manufacture, and hopefully make you a good manufacture planet.

On the flip side, if you designate all "RICH" planets as manufacturing giants... then you can do this as well. I prefer rich planets over poor or average ones because it is easier to get ore from rich planets and thus a greater chance to generate more AU and thus increasing production as a whole.

[Da_Blade]

Honestly, skip the infrastructure plans. I tried a few games without now, they are worthless. Reason is, if you got manufacture/mine/farm on top of plan, it'll build all infrastructures and planet improvements anyways, because they enhance that plan. I'd rather save a slot for Trade, which i find far more important, since industry is nothing without the AUs to spend it on.

[RobNelson]

I know that system ships are all a part of the same taskforce but how do I combine two taskforces of starships together? (I have two planets working on starships so I can get one huge taskforce at a quicker pace than having just one planet work on the taskforce. So that's why I want to know how to combine two taskforces together.)


You can't. Not directly, though if you REALLY need them combined, disband both, and when the ships are back in the reserve, build a new TF. You don't really want to, though, unless and until the pd bug is fixed (missiles only target a single TF, so if you have 2, you're guaranteed one will survive the first volley).

Also, I agree (mostly) with BoydofZINJ. I set Dev plan for large to Manufatcure/Trade/ and then tertiary is either morale, or whichever of the 3 morale DEAs that I get the most benefit from (depends on gov, vague descriptions are in game and enough to go by - ie, poor military reflects poor military DEA morale relief). The trade improvements drive the production quite well.

Normal Economic Development builds DEAs and improvements (and infrastructure such as sanitaion, etc). Terraforming builds Sunlight redirection, etc. Contrary to popular belief, this does not require constant money once you've started. I assume the "T-form upkeep" comes in the form of building upkeep, but I could be wrong.

Don't stress too much about overpopulation. There are techs that combat it, and if it's too crowded the pop will just emigrate to someplace less crowded. No prob.

As for unemployment, if you read the descriptions for each DEA and building, many pop points will (eventually) be required to run a planet. You'll be low much more often than high. If it's too bad at a particular planet, and all DEA slots are filled, you may remove a low pop DEA and replace it with a higher pop DEA that you wanted. Otherwise, leave it alone until the next building is available.

[EmperorKosh]

Aighty thanks for the help, but what is this about a missile bug? I'm a little confused... :bulb: Also, do you guys have any idea of when the patch will be coming out?

[EmperorKosh]

I thought of another thing to ask about. How do you "assimilate" other alien empires? I've heard people saying that "assimilating" the Psilon helps them get a lot more research done. I'm imagining that say if you were Humans and you "assimilated" the Klackon or a race similar to them then you'd be able to build a lot faster and you'd be able to get a lot more out of your mines and industry.


When "assimilating" an alien empire do the effects appear throughout your whole empire? Or do the effects happen only on a single conquered planet of that other race?


LoL and if I haven't asked yet how do you assimilate another empire? It sounds quite useful, plus if I could assimilate those pesky Humans then maybe I'd do better in espionage. ;)

[Da_Blade]

"Assimulation" is just another term for conquering :p

If you conquer enemy planets with you ground troops, you will conquer their pop too, once the unrests have been beaten down ;), that pop will gladly work for you. Their racial traits are still there, they apply to their planet only though! As do your racial traits only apply to the planets inhabited by your own pop. Dunno what the rule is with mixed planets though, i'd guess they'd use them percentage-wise :)

[robertr4836]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
(I have two planets working on starships so I can get one huge taskforce at a quicker pace than having just one planet work on the taskforce

When you create a starship on one planet it is available for deployment on any other planet that has a mobilization center. All ships created go into a single reserve force regardless of where they are created. You do not have to "combine" TF's or create a bunch of ships on one planet to make a large TF.

If you know you made the ships but you don't see them in the reserves, remember that the AI will automatically create a TF configuraqtion when you click the Create Task Force button...look at the ships already in the TF on the left side of the screen.

PS The missile "bug" regards point defense not firing on incoming missiles. Missiles will target pickets and escorts first so I do not agree with not building large TF's -- just make sure you include some pickets (Recon Ships) and escorts (Point Defense work OK).

[Craig P.]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Another thing that has come to my mind is overpopulation... my homeworld is nearing the point of maximum capacity. How do I combat overpopulation. My homeworld has a safe amount of people in it so far, but I'd like to ask about overpopulation now so I don't crap myself later.You can deal with overpopulation on your own by colonizing other planets. If you don't do this, your people will do it for you by migrating on their own to planets they find appealing. Before too long, you'll suddenly have a new colony.

In both cases, overpopulation is kept somewhat in check by your people migrating away from the planet that is becoming overpopulated. This happens automatically, and aside from providing destinations, there's not really anything you can do to control it.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by robertr4836
When you create a starship on one planet it is available for deployment on any other planet that has a mobilization center. All ships created go into a single reserve force regardless of where they are created. You do not have to "combine" TF's or create a bunch of ships on one planet to make a large TF.

If you know you made the ships but you don't see them in the reserves, remember that the AI will automatically create a TF configuraqtion when you click the Create Task Force button...look at the ships already in the TF on the left side of the screen.

PS The missile "bug" regards point defense not firing on incoming missiles. Missiles will target pickets and escorts first so I do not agree with not building large TF's -- just make sure you include some pickets (Recon Ships) and escorts (Point Defense work OK).




Well hot damn that's convenient! I was wondering exactly WTF the mobilization structure was for! Now I can manufacture hard-core ships at my homeworld and I can transport them into a taskforce onto my frontier! Kool. :up:


Also, I was wondering something. About how long (in hours and minutes) does it take for you guys to get to say... 100 turns?

[RobNelson]

It depends a lot on whether or not I'm in the Senate, and how many other empires are also in the Senate. I just took a break from a Senate game, 1 hour or so into it, turn 86, I think. Senate takes longer because of Senate business (rember to second bills and then vote on them) and since you start with contact, the diplomacy starts early, which can take some time (answering requests to improve trade agreements every third turn... ok, that's an exageration).

[EmperorKosh]

Oh okay. I was wondering because today with my Klackons... I somehow re-established diplomatic contact with the Human empire. For now we're at a cease fire, but the stupid Silicoid empire wants war with me now. (Freaking bastards). When you're at war do you crank through the turns to get your ships completed or what?


Also, what's the amount of Production Points that your main manufacture planets have? (I want to know because I'm eagerly awaiting warship production. Also, I need some of my frontier worlds to haul ass with the mobilization centers, so is there a way I can make them do that faster?


Another question I thought about is what's the smallest world you guys bother to colonize? I've found some worlds that are quite nice but they're pretty small. (Size 2's and 3's.)


Y una pregunta mas. (And one more question). How do you guys form your war taskforces? I have problems making armadas because for some reason I can't drag some of the ships I have into the "Picket" part of the formation. (Could I get some help on forming fleets bigger than "Flotillas"?). Thanks.

[BoydofZINJ]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
? I have problems making armadas because for some reason I can't drag some of the ships I have into the "Picket" part of the formation. (Could I get some help on forming fleets bigger than "Flotillas"?). Thanks.

Only ships that have the mission "recon" are able to be placed in picket...

think of this as RECON vessels only. You must build atleast 2 RECON mission vessels. Just because they are recon ships does not mean they can NOT carry fighters, missiles, or beam weapons!

[EmperorKosh]

Ohh, okiedokie. So I have to make a recon ship design..... And as usual I'm always thinking up something else to ask about. It's possible to have say two Flotillas in the same taskforce is it not?

[RobNelson]

It's possible to have say two Flotillas in the same taskforce is it not?

I'm not sure I understand. Flotilla is a size of task force (TF), so a single TF can only be one flotilla. However, that doesn't stop you from making 2 flotilla sized TFs and using them together.

Back to earlier questions.
When you're at war do you crank through the turns to get your ships completed or what?

I usually have a few ships in reserve, so when there's war, I can create 2-3 TFs (depending on how deep into the game, squadron to wave). But, no, I don't crank through the turns (any more than usual), because the empire still needs to be run.

Another question I thought about is what's the smallest world you guys bother to colonize? I've found some worlds that are quite nice but they're pretty small. (Size 2's and 3's.)


I've been playing as Nommo (gave up those @$#^$# psilons who can't farm to feed themselves... you'd think they had big farming machines...) so I don't bother with small worlds unless they have a magnate (Alkari like small worlds). If you're cybernetik, though, those worlds will probably look mighty nice to you. So, like everything else, it depends. :D That's why I like this game so much, there isn't "one correct way to play" like in soooooooo many other games (been playing for like 25 years or so, since my dad first brought home "Pong", so I know what I mean by that, but it may be nebulous if you haven't run into that kind of thing yet). Didn't mean to rant there, sorry.

As for my production planets, well, I'm not a "number jockey", but typically, 400-500 industry points is good early-mid game (I usually celebrate the first time industry gets over 200), which can turn into quite a few Production Points (depending on funding and the whim of the viceroy - OK, it's not a whim, trust his judgement).

As for picket ships, I find it odd that so many people ask this question. Several threads have been made to ask that question, and it's page 128 of the manual. Oh, well.

[BoydofZINJ]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Ohh, okiedokie. So I have to make a recon ship design..... And as usual I'm always thinking up something else to ask about. It's possible to have say two Flotillas in the same taskforce is it not?

You can not directly combine two different fleets. However, if you disband both Task Forces... then you can use the ships to build another task force (several turns later).

[EmperorKosh]

Oh okay, I wasn't sure bout that though because I was in a Human occupied sector and I had two Flotillas there that fought against a Human planet. They fought in the same battle screen so I dunno... anyway.


Now I need help with ground force creation. I've realized now that if I truly want to rid a planet of it's inhabitants then I gotta go down there with marines. I can't just bomb the hell out of the people because every turn they seem to have rebuilt.


Now, about how many marines can you pack into a troop ship? Also, should I put a troop ship that's packed with marines into a taskforce with other ships of mine that are running around killing planets?

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by RobNelson
As for picket ships, I find it odd that so many people ask this question. Several threads have been made to ask that question, and it's page 128 of the manual. Oh, well.


LoL. Dude, I've given up on the manual because I've tried looking up so much stuff in there but the manual doesn't cover it; neither does that stupid in-game encyclopedia. That's why I've got you MOO3 gurus here to help me out! :D

[DoubleSkulls]

Each troop pod carries 4 units.

Keep the troop ships in their own task force as it gets disbanded once the troops land. Use other TFs to protect it.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by DoubleSkulls
Each troop pod carries 4 units.

Keep the troop ships in their own task force as it gets disbanded once the troops land. Use other TFs to protect it.




Well that's irritating :mad: ... I'm currently building Marines x5 on one of my frontier worlds... now I'm gonna have an extra one left over huh..? Oh well, if I build x5 marines four times then I'll have enough extras to fill another transport. Also, do your troop ships get automatically filled up when you go to "Ground Taskforce Creation"?

[EmperorKosh]

As usual I thought of something else. I found out that I currently have at least enough technology to make a Yellow 2 planet go to a Green 2 planet. Is there any way though that I can modify the gravity of a planet? Because there are some hugely rich gas giants and even though they're in the red if I terraform them then I just found some nice new manufacturing worlds.


So anyway is there a way to change a planet's gravity?

[1stFoundation]

There are a couple of gravity terraforming techs, "mass synthesizer" is one of them, IIRC.

[EmperorKosh]

Aight I want to kill people now. I'm at war as usual with the friggen Humans and also the stupid Silicoids. What makes me real freaking mad is, is that I can't seem to assemble a darn ground force into a troop ship. My 'TroopS-Mk2' is my latest troop ship version. It is a corvette size ship. I have plenty of stuff I could put into this thing but for some reason when I have selected the ground forces that I want to go into my troop ship, it won't let me put the troop ship into a taskforce. Do you guys know why this is? :mad: I'm really irritated and I'm out for revenge against the Humans because they attacked two of my colony ships; one that got away, the other got blown out of space. Hee hee I'm feeling a little better since I got two Flotillas there to blow away their ships. Plus they kept assaulting one of my smaller planets with a scout so I took care of that too. Now I've got another three Flotillas heading for Human occupied systems. WAKE UP CALL !!!!!

[sirrogue2]

Just like ships, when you build ground troops, they go into a pool (the ground force reserves). You build your ground forces there, putting together your main fighting troops (in your case, Marines) with support units (Magazines, Command Centers, Hackers, Psy-Ops, etc.). Don't skimp on the support troops either... they can make or break a ground formation.

After you get the troops set up, the AI will set up a transport TF for you with the appropriate number of transports. (If you build a ground force from the specific planet instead of from a mobilization center, they will become garrison troops and won't need transports - this is how you put more troops on your planets so they won't depend on just a small militia.)

Quick note - troop pods hold 4 units. That does not mean you can have only one troop pod per ship (hint, hint). However, if you're early in the game, there is almost no point to building transport Cruisers/Battleships. A transport Frigate can handle 2 troop pods (8 units, or about 2 divisions) easily once you research better engines. Sure, it will be defenseless and slower than molasses on a cold day... but it's cheap and works just fine in the late game.

Also, you should NEVER send transport TF's into a contested system (that is, one that can defend itself if attacked). Keep them back a turn or two, let your attack TF's wipe out the system/planetary defenses, then let your troops arrive for the ground invasion.

[robertr4836]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
I've realized now that if I truly want to rid a planet of it's inhabitants then I gotta go down there with marines. I can't just bomb the hell out of the people because every turn they seem to have rebuilt.


They don't really rebuild that fast. Whatever you knocked them down to in one turn becomes their 100% mark the next turn. In the beginning it can take a long time to glass a planet because your weapons kill a percentage of the pop and dev -- not a constant number of people and buildings. When you are big enough to have 10 Armada size TF's you can usually glass a huge planet in one turn.

The advantage in invading is that you can get a fully productive world (don't bombard if you are going to invade -- those are (or soon will be) YOUR buildings and people that you are destroying!).

When you single click on a star in the galaxy map with a mobilization center you get two choices create task force and create ground force. This is the place to create an invasion fleet (like sirrogue2 said).

[EmperorKosh]

Ohh okay.... now I know why the AI said that I didn't have enough transports.... I had only one transport and the actual ground troops consisted of four marines and a magazine.


I'm just wondering do command centers, magazines, and psy-ops have attack power?

[RobNelson]

Not directly, but each has beneficial "support" roles. Magazines help out if your army gets blockaded (in longer than one turn combats, there's a possibilty that the other empire will kick your fleet out -ie destroy it - which would cut off your Ground Force (GF) from getting supplies which decreases their effectiveness), psy-ops and hackers damage the other guy's effectiveness (I don't know by how much) while Command centers cut down the effect from psy-ops and hackers. Commandos work against all other support units (I think, that's still a mystery).

Anyways, how much do they help, you ask? Got me. I haven't seen anybody post anything, either, so if anyone knows, they're keeping it to themselves. :p

By the way, I've got a how-to build ground forces in my how-to guide (it includes building defensive GFs). Just click on the link in my sig and check it out if you still have questions.

[EmperorKosh]

Aighty, thanks for clarifying exactly what magazines, psy-ops, hackers, commandos, etc., do. Now, for my next question involving ground combat; how many marines do you need to drop on an enemy planet to take it over? (Assume this planet has no marines or infantry of it's own, etc.)

[RobNelson]

There's always resistance (militia). I tend to make corps sized GF's (I make a light cruiser hulled transport which has 4 pods - 1 ship holds a corps of trained or smaller), but early game I do make a few division sized GFs, though I always drop 2-4 on a planet to ensure victory. Also, keep in mind what it says in the descriptions. 1 marine is worth 3 infantry. 1 mobile is, I think, 5 infantry - that doesn't sound right, but you get my drift. Use the best troop types you've researched as much as possible. I do let the support troops come along, since my GFs are built for General Purpose (I don't build them for a single specific target, but rather for a war). Also, I have had the computer send Ground Forces against me... Once. <End Joe Piscapoe voice from "Jonny Dangerously"> Seriously, it can happen. Will it happen? Probably not (unless you're using some AI mods). Still, I don't like starting those bad habits. In other words, it's a good idea to defend those planets on your frontier with corps/army sized Ground Forces.

[Da_Blade]

I do not know how ground combat is exactly calculated, but i do have some info for you:

First off, all support forces have fighting power too, though it's sufficiently lower then combat troops. Their main roles is enhancing the effectiveness of the combat troops.

Magazines: as said, prevent your troops from being cut off from supply's.
Psy-Ops: Enhance the chance of enemy troops being routed. Morale is a factor in gorund combat, and i think quite a big one.
Commando's: Add to the attack strength of the ground troops
Hackers: Add to attack strength and evasion (due to disabling enemy weapons i guess)
Command Centre: Negates the effect of all enemy support units except magainzes.

On the units: Marines and Infantry get an evasion and fortification bonus, which help in defence particularly. Infantry gets most. Also they get a "vertical envelopment" bonus, dunno what this is used for... Maybe they're more effective in Zero-G fighting environment?

Also different tactics give different bonusses, and have different chances of success, based on the enemy's tactic. It looks like it's set up to be quite complicated, the ground combat, with vertical envelopment, routing and rallying, shooting, evasion, hits, etc. Also environment and Battleground have huge impact on the performance of an army. But like everything in the game, it doesn't show in the GUI :(

[EmperorKosh]

OK. Thanks fore clearifying that ground combat stuff for me. I'm gonna go kill some Humans and Silicoids now. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Aight nevermind what I said about killing some Humans and Silicoids in my last post. I have sent about 4 Flotillas and 1 Pack at a frontier Human world. The Human world has 1 missile base, 1 beam base, and 1 fighter base. Everything I've sent in there has gotten raped. It is driving me insane does anyone know why this is? My ships were slightly obsolete, but they've been doing a fine job of taking out other enemy ships. I just keep having problems with enemy missiles and their energy weapons. I've now re-done all of my ship designs so they're up-to-date now with state of the art weaponry, etc. But I'm worried that they're gonna get blown up too. Do you guys have any suggestions?

[BoydofZINJ]

what tech does the enemy have? How are you getting killed?

Are you being killed by missiles? By fighters? By long range ships?

What size ships are you using?

Can you see the enemy? Do they spot you instantly?

(If they can see and attack you but you can not spot and attack them... they have allot of ecm and you dont have enough eccm... or conversely you have a mixture of ecma nd eccm... stick with one or the other and have about 3+ per ship... if you want ecm then have 3+ ecm per ship... if you want eccm have 3+ per ship)

Are you using missiles? Fighters? What type of beam weapons do you use?

your fotillas... how are they set up? How many defensive PD ships do you have? Do you have PD beam weapons tech? Do you have any "Escort" ships?

Escort ships help defend the task force against enemy fighters and missiles... if the enemy is using lots of fighters and/or missiles use a few escort ships to help protect your fleets.

PD ships (if you have PD tech) help allot...

SR ships and LR ships make wonderful escort ships as well...

(SR ships are best used when you dont have the PD tech and have standard or light weapon mounts)

I always use advance tech 1+ fighter PER SHIP! There is a PD bug... this will eliminate it for the most part...

IF (missiles) ships are overbalanced as is... and can normally destroy a larger or more advance fleet... (use smaller missiles and think of it as quanitity vs quality) For the most part if you have quantity (a large number of missiles) you can overwhelm most "enemy" defenses.

[BoydofZINJ]

almost forgot... armor...

what armor are you using... "core" mission ships should get the heaviest best armor around (makes them more expensive but protects them more)

The PD and defense "escort" shpis should get medium armor...

the recon vessels get either medium or light armor...

What shields do you have?

I have yet to know a reason NOT to use LARGE shields... I always use the best shield class I have and LARGE shields... except on original early tech vessels.

Autobuild... do you use it?

If so.. stop right there! Click it... to get a gernal ide on what your ship should look like... remove a few weapons... or lower the speed to 2000 and add a large shield generator... add the "correct" armor... and add 1+ fighter per ship

Why do I use a speed of 2000? Easy... the faster you go... the more space an engine takes... the slower you go.. the more weapons you can mount on. It is best to have some speed... so you need some speed... and 2000 is generally the best of both worlds... not too fast and not too slow... and if you have high tech speed ships and lower it to 2000 you will gain allot of room to add even more weapons! if you lower it to 1500 or under... you can be in serious trouble at times.

[RobNelson]

Against planetary bases, missiles and/or fighters work best, just make sure you have enough to get through the defenses.

[EmperorKosh]

Aight here's a layout of what's going on:


Being Destroyed By;
Missiles
Beam Weapons
Fighters (Fighters aren't main problem).

Number of Fleets Destroyed:
Four Flotillas
One Pack

Sizes of Ships Used Approximately (My Ships):

Three Destroyers (LR)
Many Corvettes (LR and SR)
Many Cutters (LR and SR along with a few IF)
Possibly a few Frigates (?)


I think I might know what the problem is. When I tell that stupid computer to auto-build my friggen ship designs, the stupid things don't put in any ECM's except some ECCM's in my recon ships. So, with the new information provided, do you guys have any idea what's going on?

[Da_Blade]

I always auto-build with the stealth-option ticked. This will put ECM on in early game, later on it'll put cloaking devices on. That being said, here's my "how to kill enemy planetary defenses in early game". PLanetary defenses are a ***** in low-tech environment. Later in game you'll laugh at the sight of planetary defenses, but early in game they actually still pose a threat, i just wished they would stay one throughout the game...

Design a big carrier ship, well-armored, well-shielded (best you got avaible), and put it full of interceptor fighters. For the remaining space, put in point-defense missiles. These missiles will be shot at the planet, but do little damage. They will however attract the first planetary beam attack, which will save a few fighters. And be sure to put one/two ECM's or even a cloaking device if you have the tech already. Then design a ship, frigate or one hull size lower, as much ECM's/cloaking device as the carrier (else the carrier's stealth tech is of no use) and put in light mount beam weapons (point defense beams are useless), not highest tech, but still a reasonable beam. Don't put in mass drivers or some other mass weapons, since they have horrible acuracy.

Build a few of these ships, put them in squadron's (1 or 2 carriers, and 2 point defense ships) and attack with a few squadrons. More TFs is better then bigger TFs in early game, as you are not able to fully stop missile volley's yet.

OK, then the last tip: when in the combat screen, select all fleets, and tell them to attack the planet. This will launch their fighters and missiles. Then press 'h' to make them halt. This will make sure your PD crafts have a chance to shoot those incoming missiles down.

Why fighters over missiles? In early-to-mid-game fighters are stronger then missiles. The missiles get shot down easily, and dont cause lots of damage. Swarming fighters helps much better against planetary defenses. Also fighters are more easy because they pick a new target after the first is destroyed.

[EmperorKosh]

K, thanks for the advice there, blade. I'm going to use stealth option now for whenever I build ships. One thing that irritates me though... now I'm going to have to go back into my game and totally redesign all my ships again to put ECM's on them. Plus I have to cancel all the batches of my newest model of ships. Oh well. Anyway, I'll be sure to post back on this whole topic later, but my parents don't lemme use the computer during weekdays (which is total BS), so I won't be able to post until this upcoming weekend. Thanks for your help peoples! Cya then. :)

[BoydofZINJ]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Aight here's a layout of what's going on:


Being Destroyed By;
Missiles
Beam Weapons
Fighters (Fighters aren't main problem).

Number of Fleets Destroyed:
Four Flotillas
One Pack

Sizes of Ships Used Approximately (My Ships):

Three Destroyers (LR)
Many Corvettes (LR and SR)
Many Cutters (LR and SR along with a few IF)
Possibly a few Frigates (?)




My basic design of fleets is this...

My "core" mission ships (LR, IF, and CV groups) get the biggest hull size i can

My defense "escort" mission ships (PD, SR, and LR groups) get the 2nd biggest hull size i can

My recon vessels get my 3rd largest ship class i can build.

I use LR as both a mission type and a escort ship... it is not uncommon to have a few BIG BOYS (my biggest ships) in the escort duty. Imagine when you get titans for the first time.. and your the only one in the galaxy with them and you have 3 titans and 3 superDNs as a PD and LR defense/escort.

They shoot down stuff!

As blade mentioned... 1 Armada is better than 4 fotillas. For the most part.

[sirrogue2]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Aight here's a layout of what's going on:


Being Destroyed By;
Missiles
Beam Weapons
Fighters (Fighters aren't main problem).

Number of Fleets Destroyed:
Four Flotillas
One Pack

Sizes of Ships Used Approximately (My Ships):

Three Destroyers (LR)
Many Corvettes (LR and SR)
Many Cutters (LR and SR along with a few IF)
Possibly a few Frigates (?)


I think I might know what the problem is. When I tell that stupid computer to auto-build my friggen ship designs, the stupid things don't put in any ECM's except some ECCM's in my recon ships. So, with the new information provided, do you guys have any idea what's going on?

The simple version of my answer can be said in four words: Missiles and detection capability. It may not be particularly easy to load up on them in the early parts of the game, but missiles are your best friend offensively throughout the entire game... even against New Orion and Guardian ships. And if you can see your opponent before they can, you can launch your missiles earlier and with deadly effect.

One thing I noticed... you said you used the auto-builder. :down: 'Nuff said. I always design my own ships. No matter what their size or eventual purpose (except transports and colony ships), I always include the following items:


Best and heaviest armor
Best shield generator (size depends upon size of ship)
Two or more racks of 5 rockets that use the best available warheads (any missiles with a larger chassis takes up too much space and is serious overkill)
LIGHT beam weapons, as many as you can get (good multi-purpose weapons against missiles, fighters, or other ships)
Detection equipment (Focus Detection Arrays and the like)


In the current game I'm playing (now around turn 350-ish), all of my TF's consist of 7 LR attack battle cruisers equipped with top-of-the-line weapons. The main battery on these ships is 10 improved spinal mount weapons (gotta love those long range weapons!). I chose battle cruisers because I thought they represented the best combination of available space and expense in manufacturing. Now, I will admit that I skimped a bit on system drives to make sure I can do all of this, but I found that the trade off of more firepower for less speed was well worth it.

What I end up with is pretty much the same every time:
1) Friendly TF's go into hunting mode. If I'm watching the battle, they immediately launch a flight of missiles each. If not, I just tell all of them to halt and wait for targets.
2) If the first volley of missiles don't destroy all of the targets, I close with the remaining targets. (In watch mode, the TF's usually just wait where they are.)
3) Rinse and repeat with more missiles. :D In the event a target closes to beam range (or if I run out of missiles! :eek: ) , overwhelming amounts of firepower usually eradicate the target very quickly.

I've taken these ships to Orion and have had limited success (those NO system ships are tough little buggers), but I've had no problem with any other race I've encountered so far. With 10 of these flotillas, I can turn nearly any planet into a glass desert within one turn. I just started a lengthy campaign against the Ithkul, and I haven't even bothered with troop ships. I move in, decimate the system defenders, sterilize the planet, rinse and repeat. Once the system is finished, I leave behind a TF to patrol and wait for colony ships. ;)

Your mileage may vary, but this design philosophy has worked well for me so far.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by RobNelson
I do let the support troops come along, since my GFs are built for General Purpose

Since support troops don't count as "combat troops" you should always include them in GF. (i.e. you can only put 10 marines/mobiles/armors/etc. in a corps regardless of support, but, you can have up to 13 total units. Either way, it's still all fitting in 4 troop pods, so include them and be happy)

I don't know exactly what they add, however, they do have combat statistics display on the combat screen, so I assume they have some fighting capacity. Why leave extra fighters at home, when you can bring them along using no extra transports, and without reducing the overall effectiveness of the GF by removing combat units?

[RobNelson]

Exactly, Strifeguard, the point I was trying to convey is that I ensure I have support units, but that I don't take all day to figure out which ones (in other words, I don't prioritize commandos over hackers, etc., I just let the autobuilder build them up).

Of course, my beta post wasn't nearly as effective, owing to a lack of feedback. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Woah... I still don't see how you guys are able to get so many HUGE ships in a whole bunch of TF's. (I'm online because parents aren't home. Ha ha, they can't watch me ALL the time!) Anyways your planets must be huge production centers. What do you guys do? Get terraforming technology and then go to a bunch of gas giants and start pumping out industry for more manufacturing points?


Also, do ECM's help in detecting the enemy? Or is that the ECCM's? I'm starting to become nervous because I just re-designed all my friggen ships to all have ECM's in them so they don't get raped by enemy targeting systems, but I don't have any ECCM's in them. What makes things worse is I think that the Silicoids have developed cloaking technology. :weird: I noticed that because one of my taskforces that's guarding a frontier system of mine fought against a single Silicoid missile ship and I couldn't see the damn thing until it came in too close. (Once it got too close my ships chewed it up and spit it out.)


So anyway, what should I do to detect enemy ships? What would be the fastest fix possible? And the most effective? I already got a bunch of hard-core manufacturing worlds pumping out warships x5 and x10.

[RobNelson]

ECCM and sensor tech is for "detecting the enemy". How does it work? Not entirely sure. Does it affect how far away you can see it, how often you hit it, or both?

Visage addresses these issues here (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=279930) .

[EmperorKosh]

K, I'm worried about ECCM's now... don't really have any of those. I might have one ECCM on my recon design of ship... but I'm not too sure... good lord I hope I don't have to freaking remake all those ship designs again! I got at least one ECM on every ship though now...



I was wondering something. About how many turns does it take for you guys to make one "Destroyer" class ship at various spots in the game? It seems for me like it's taking forever to make ships. I'm trying to pump out a ton of them right now because I'm hellbent on crushing the Human Empire and the Silicoid Empire. :mad:

[RobNelson]

ECCMs and sensors supposedly work on a fleet-wide basis, so if you only have them in the picket ring (recon), that should be enough. I make extensive use of the ship design auto-build function, and I don't have much of a problem (of course, I haven't done any MP).

[EmperorKosh]

Okay thank you RobNelson. :up:


Hey, when do you guys go after colonizing the red gas giants? Do you guys ever colonize them? Are they worth something once you get terraforming technology? I think they are, even if you can't make food on them (I think the manual says you can after you get the appropriate technology) those planets would still be great for being mining and manufacturing powerhouses. Do you guys agree?

[RobNelson]

If you like those gas giants, find a colony of Darloks or Rhea. They just LOVE those gas giants. So do the gas bags (OK, so they don't like ALL gas giants, they gotta be within a certain temp and pressure). Also, it depends how far red they are. If you can't even see the white dot, it'll never be good, even with all T-form techs. If it's kind of close, I'll try it. Just don't try it until you have way too much food. You'll need it. (They can't make bioharvest DEAs, the techs are biomorphic fungi which gives +1 food - yippee).

[Da_Blade]

Actually, in late game you can colonize any world and terraform it into submission. This is a costly event though and usually the planet doesn't get usefull untill around the time you'll win the game...

[EmperorKosh]

LoL @ Da_Blade's comment.

[EmperorKosh]

I think I'm going to have to give up my Klackon Empire... (the one game where I've been doing quite well so far). :cry:


I was playing last night and all of a freaking sudden the whole damn senate decided to declare war on me for some retarded reason. The only people who supported me and were against declaring war on me were the Nommo. (They're such nice little jellyfish ;) ) Anyway, I can't fight a freaking 4-front war, plus I can't fight 7 alien civilizations at the same time. Worse of all... I'M STILL HAVING PROBLEMS WITH COMBAT STUFF! (Space Combat) I tried attacking another Human world with 1 missile base, fighter base, and beam base, and I attacked it with three freaking armadas! Somehow my indirect fire TF got there first.... but anyway that thing got slaughtered and same with my other two TF's that arrived at the same time.

Does anyone have any good strategies for opening up a can of woop-ass on enemy planets?

[Da_Blade]

Most people forget about the two almost most important factors in space combat: Stealth and recon.

Recon doesn't just mean you can see what's going on on most of the combat field, it also means your troops will get an advantegous position before commencing combat.

Your units get deployed at the edge of your TF's scanning range. Good stealth and recon combined means you'll be deployed quite far away from the planet/enemy ships, still cloaked (you can see whether your fleet is visible or not, by the scrambled look on them when they're not visible for the enemy). This means you'll be able to bring lots of IF and fighter hell to the enemy planet/fleet before your location is known to them. By the time your big beams start firing all the little advantage they might have had is gone (mainly the planetary missile bases).

Recon and stealth are the key to succesfull combat, imho.

[EmperorKosh]

The stealth abilities statment you made Da_Blade I concur with. It totally makes sense. But those ships of mine that got destroyed were all new models, with at least ONE of my high-level ECM's inside, plus I sent a least two recon ships that had one ECM and one ECCM inside it. So I still have no clue why my TF's got raped...

[RobNelson]

If even 1 ship doesn't have ECM/Cloak, you'll be detected. Use the stealth box. Then build stealth TFs. That'll keep non-stealth ships out of it. Of course, that may not be what happened. Military DEAs have sensors and sensor upgrades. If they have many, they may see right through your stealth.

[EmperorKosh]

It's mainly the enemy's damn missile and beam weapons I'm having problems with. For some reason they got this hellishly strong beam weapon that has a greater range than my current beam weapons so once I DO get in close enough to blow the **** out of them with my beam weapons they're there with their super beam thingy and they wipe out my ships. (These are the Humans we're talking about also, not the New Orions).


Also, is there a way to make my ships unload their whole payload of missiles?

[RobNelson]

Change tactics. Humans have very poor spy defense (representative gov and liberty). Exploit it. Send in all your spies, leaving your own empire unprotected, with regards to spies. Use scientific and maybe you'll get that shiny ray gun. Use military and you just might move some of his ships to the reserve (I think it may take out defense bases, but I'm not sure). Econ will destroy freighters and random buildings. Diplomacy spies strike at gov DEA buildings. Political to take out their leaders.

And the best to use against humans: Social. Send in 3-4 social spies and watch as his fleet is disbanded, his buildings are scrapped and his planets revolt.

Unless you modified your bugs, they're bad at spying. So use quantity over quality. Humans have a low oppressometer, so you should be able to infilitrate fairly easily. Good Luck.

[Da_Blade]

Use cloaking devices over ECM. Imo, ECM is quite useless. ECM V, costing 480 AU and 90 space gives the same bonus as the first cloaking device, costing 30 AU and 15 space. Would this bonus be TF-wide it would be a bit better, but still a single cloaking device on each ship would work much better then ECM's.

Then, one ECCM is hardly what i call recon either. Recon is having picket ships one or two sizes smaller then the main core ships filled with ECCM's. This means two or three ECCM's per recon ship. The little space that's left can be used for a small light mount defence beam.

I always start way out of reach of the planetary missile bases. I always start the battle cloaked. And with my main preference for Carrier armada's this is a deadly combo. The planetary missile base usually spends its missiles on my fighter hordes instead of my precious TF and those fighters just cut through planetary defenses such as bases and orbitals. I always bring in one LR TF to deal with the ever approaching system defense TF, and any incoming missiles and fighters also get dealt with by them. A planet with 12 orbitals, a good defending fleet and system defense fleet, are cake for me, no losses. Providing i have the ever needed tech advantage. Else i might actually have some losses, but never a complete loss. So far. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Da_Blade, what size of ship do you use as recon ships? I use I think it was either corvette or cutter size... I used auto-build and the CPU gave them nothing but ECM's, ECCM's, and it had no weapons. That can't be good, can it?


RobNelson what are you talking about? The Humans have awesome spy defense! Their race characteristics set them to "Cunning: Dangerous". Plus the natural Klackon race (no customization) has really, really ****ty spies. (I was them, but DAMN THEY GOT SUCH GOOD MINING, MANUFACTURING, AND BIOHARVESTING ABILITIES!)


What ships do you guys use most of the time in all of your battles? Do you guys use all IF's, LR's, SR's, Carriers, or what? Or do you guys take a good mix of all of them?


What do your planet killer fleets (ones to take out defenses) consist of? And what size ship do you guys use as reconnaissance?

[EmperorKosh]

Aighty I got another question. I've started to play another game only this time I'm the Cynoid (they got the great manufacturing and mining abilities that I so desire! Plus they're hell of a lot better researchers than the Klackon. :up:)


Well I've found some pretty crappy planets so I'm kinda irritated. All of the planets that are mineral rich are in the Reds for the most part. Also, I've found some pretty undesirable terrain for a lot of planets. Can you terraform planets to make them more fertile?


Also, I found that I had a splinter colony in my home system and it is a Green 1. Also, it has average mineral wealth but for some freaking reason production there seems horribly slow. There is some hilly yet fertile terrain and it's making like 1-2 food units, and in the mountainous areas it's making about 3-4 mineral units. Why the hell is this?! This is driving me nuts! I'm a planet monger and I want all these hard-ass planets!

[EmperorKosh]

That planet also has very, very low unrest so I know it's not that.

[RobNelson]

Also, I found that I had a splinter colony in my home system and it is a Green 1. Also, it has average mineral wealth but for some freaking reason production there seems horribly slow. There is some hilly yet fertile terrain and it's making like 1-2 food units, and in the mountainous areas it's making about 3-4 mineral units. Why the hell is this?! This is driving me nuts! I'm a planet monger and I want all these hard-ass planets!

How high is the population? If those DEAs are understaffed, production suffers. Also, what's the gravity like?

As for human spy defense, yes, humans have good spy numbers, but there's debate as to whether the quality of spies affects their defense. The important factors seem to be number of spies and oppressometer (the humans can't tolerate high oppmeter). And, yes, bug spies suck a**.

What ships do you guys use most of the time in all of your battles? Do you guys use all IF's, LR's, SR's, Carriers, or what? Or do you guys take a good mix of all of them?


It depends on what tech I've got. This is less important when I play Nommo (original Creativity) than when I play as bugs. Anyways, early game I tend to go with LR and SR ships and fleets. Once I get Cruisers I design 1 Cruiser IF and one Cruiser CV. Once I get Battleships I switch over to largely IF and CV with one or two LR and SR ships to be escorts. PD ship escorts can also be useful once PD is fixed. I usually make recon ships 2-3 sizes smaller than my escorts, but that's just me.

Auto-build won't put weapons on recon, but you can add them yourself after you hit auto-build. Also, you can go to the specials tab and locate the cloaking device and add it manually. Then, if it's too big, you can either remove equipment or make the ship larger, as needed, to make it fit (simply changing the ship size won't toss your design).

[Da_Blade]

1) For recon ships i usually have one hull size lower then my core ships. My core ships in turn are usually two (or so) sizes lower then my maximum hull size, since i can more easily produce nice amounts of them, giving me greater flexibility with my fleets. The reason it puts ECM's on there is probably only because you have stealth check box on, and you dont have any cloaking technology yet. Pre-cloaking device i usually don't make stealth ships since the ECM stealth ability is pretty shibby. Anyways, since the ECCM technology goes up more or less at same speed as hull sizes i am usually able to fit two or three of the latest ECCM's on one ship. For the space left on them, i fit some light mount beam weapons, for point-defense.

2) Fleet composition. I usually like carriers best, with one LR TF to keep any fleets at distance and to shoot down/attract any missiles/fighters. I also escort the carriers with some PD ships usually. I rarely use missiles actually, except when i go after enemy's (guardian/NO usually) with higher tech then me, since the fighters wont come through the shields/armor then.

3)That planet that's producing very little is probably short of population to run the DEA's effectively. If you look at the planet screen you will see a "Employment effeciency" or something, below the RP/PP/IP listings. If that's below 100% it's producing far worse then what it could produce. Otherwise the workers might be working under wrong gravity conditions (50% for red and 25% penalty for yellow gravity). Obviously a combination of low pop and bad gravity is very bad for the planet's production. :p Also, farms on less fertile plains usually do better then farms on fertile hills. For exact calculation, check out Tom Hughes' "Economics 101" thread.

That's it, hope it helped :D

Edit: Instaposted by Rob, good example of different preferences to play the game, but we both achieve the goals nonetheless (i presume :D)

[EmperorKosh]

Aighty thanks man, but what about my terraforming questions?


Also, do you end up getting a lot of systems with really crappy planets in your games?

[RobNelson]

Posted by TomHughes
If a region is regionally terraformed one level (one ecological infrastructure building added improving the ecosystem density of that region one level) its fertility will also improve one level (again, except some toxic regions).

This tells me that you can t-form regions. I think this means things like soil enrichment and bioorganic monitoring, though, as I haven't seen the actual labels change.

I could be wrong though. You may want to wade through the garbage to get to TomHughes posts in Economics 101 stickied in this thread, his posts are quite informative.

[EmperorKosh]

Okay thank you for the help Da_Blade. That last message I have there under your last message was probably sent at about the same time you posted your reply. (I'm not stupid enough to ask the same question like that twice when someone's answered it).


I still wonder though, do you guys end up playing a lot of games where you've got some really crappy systems with really crappy planets?

[EmperorKosh]

Okay after reviewing your guys' posts I went back into my Cynoid Empire and found out what the problem is. I must have some severely undermotivated workers or something but a ton of my planets have really bad DEA Employment rate, and they have a bad productivity percentage.


How do I fix this ??? I'm frantically looking through the manual to see wtf is going on, but I can't find anything. Please respond!

[RobNelson]

Yeah, Da_Blade, that's what is so cool about this game, there's so many ways to play and enjoy it. Even Civ and Alpha Centauri were pretty much played the same way by everyone.

How do I fix this ??? I'm frantically looking through the manual to see wtf is going on, but I can't find anything. Please respond!

Curse at the screen and bang my desk. :D I haven't found a direct way to change that.

I still wonder though, do you guys end up playing a lot of games where you've got some really crappy systems with really crappy planets?

Explore further. In one game as psilons (don't those $%#%^& any more) I had no habitable planets nearby and I was in the outer arm of the galaxy (only 1 jump outwards... I was literally the last system out) so jumps were like 5-10 turns to go anywhere. After 100 turns and I still had only my home system, I did what anyone would do. I started over. :D

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by RobNelson
This tells me that you can t-form regions. I think this means things like soil enrichment and bioorganic monitoring, though, as I haven't seen the actual labels change.

I could be wrong though. You may want to wade through the garbage to get to TomHughes posts in Economics 101 stickied in this thread, his posts are quite informative.

I'm pretty sure he means the ecological region buildings:

Residential Metroplex
Mass Vertical Urbanization
Biosphere Housing Management
Biospheric Urbanization Module

According to TechTables.txt these each increase max pop in a region. The two latter change another max pop value as the first two, so dunno what's up with that.



@EmperorKosh: Pop shortage on a planet can most easily be solved by migration. If your pop grows slowly, either stop colonizing too fast or "Aquie some new pop". The latter meaning the assimulation of magnates or other players :D

I am actually coming to the conclusion that in MoO3 the golden rule of "expand as much and as fast as you can in the beginning" doesn't apply. If you slowly expand you expand in quality much better.

[Da_Blade]

OK, need to correct myself there, was talking nonsense. A further search on ecological turned up the following regional improvements that do a EcoSystm+=1:

Bioorganic Monitoring Station
Regional Weather Controller
Moisture Regulators
Bioregeneration Enhancers

So these are the regional "terraforming" utils.

[RobNelson]

Thanks, Da_Blade, that makes sense.

@Emperor Kosh (We are all Kosh :) ) Going from bugs to cybernetiks will be tough (just hit me that that's what you did). Bugs have a very fast growth rate, so you probably never saw undermanned worlds. Use the migration button until you have 5-10 pop points there (on size six world, probably 4-6 on the worlds available to cybers). Cybernetiks will grow slowly (I think only geodic is slower) and favor those tiny size 2, 3, and 4 size worlds. Getting magnates will be almost necessary. Also, if you're having a lot of problems, play with other races, as each one really does work differently. If playing cybers "correctly" isn't fun or intuitive, explore icthy (Nommo and Trilarian), or Ethereans (Gas bags like BIG worlds). Yes, there are down sides to everything, I don't think there are any "uber" races in this game, so if something doesn't work or isn't fun, try something else.

Maybe not the answer you're looking for, but maybe answer that you need, it is .

[Da_Blade]

I tested a no-migration but slow expanding today with psilons. This is what i did.

- I didn't build any colony ships unless i had a clear purpose in mind, a specific planet.
- I waited for my last settled colony untill it was of a reasonable size untill establishing a new one.
- I didn't use migration preferences for any planets but the first 3 colonized.
- I didn't expand any further then 2 jumps away from the rest of my empire.

And some other things. Works like a charm. I build a much stronger empire. First of all the people started migrating all by themselves to where in the empire they were most needed. So wether it was a DEA on my home planet that was understaffed or the brand new industry dea at that new colony, people came to work there. Because i kept my colony's closely knitted i had a much easier time defending colony's (the after-patch AI is quite a bit more aggressive, had a hard time there) and migration was always possible throughout the empire due to no enemy outposts/colony's in between. Resource shortage was much better handled! I found that at the one food shortage i had people weren't moving to new colony's, so instead they stayed home, were in the end they'd end up working on the farms, creating more food. And even though i didn't have as much planets as my enemy's, i soon noticed i was a much stronger foe, partly because i spend time building war ships instead of colony ships, and partly because i quite simply had a much bigger production going.

[RobNelson]

Cool, that may be the strategy for cybers and rocks (and, of course, humanoids). Since the patch, I'm back to Nommo. I've been spreading slower than normal, but nowhere near as slow as you just described, to good effect. Extensive use of migration.

I really like that different strats work.

[Da_Blade]

Well playing it a bit further i must say i have expanded a bit too slow, even though i am still by far the largest in the universe, i miss my usual complete supremacy, but that's maybe just because i'm not used to the Psilons. Shoulda stuck to a race i know to make a good comparison, dumb blade. But i have come to the important conclusion that fast expansion is not necessarily a good thing anymore! Thumbs :up: for QS, i always disliked the fact the winner was the one expanding the fastest, in next to any '4X' game.

Expansion is a tactical decision now, too fast is bad, too slow is bad...

[Zyrr Blaster]

This is very excellent news, indeed.

A true strategy game.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by RobNelson
Thanks, Da_Blade, that makes sense.

@Emperor Kosh (We are all Kosh :) ) Going from bugs to cybernetiks will be tough (just hit me that that's what you did). Bugs have a very fast growth rate, so you probably never saw undermanned worlds. Use the migration button until you have 5-10 pop points there


Yeah thanks. I kinda figured that out myself because I really wanted to play MOO3 but I couldn't get responses to this topic fast enough. (It ain't your guys' fault you're busy people. But thank you for always taking time to look at this topic and answer my questions :D ). Yeah but I went into my "Planets" menu and clicked on the order tab and all of a sudden things started to make a little bit of sense. "Gee, I wonder what migration button does? 'CLICK'" LoL. I found out that worked quite nicely. I only have one world (Cetus III) that isn't at 100% DEA efficiency or max employment. It's getting closer though.


I haven't been on for the past two days and I still got some more posts to look at on here but you are right Rob, the "Insecta" races do reproduce really freaking fast. Now I know why I had like 160% DEA output or whatever when I was the Klackon. Heh heh. I must admit their production bonuses were very nice. :cool: But I find the Cynoids easy to play with. Now that I've gotten through one major game I know a bit better on how to do things. Plus in my game with the Cynoid, I have downsized the amount of other alien civilizations in my galaxy. (Six other than me). Plus, I've learned how to expand faster, which is QUITE nice to know. :up:

[EmperorKosh]

In reference to one of your posts Rob, what is a magnate? (I've had this game for a couple of weeks now and I'm still stupid. LMAO). Also, I've heard you guys refering to the patch like it's out now. So is it out now? Where on the site can I get it? (As usual I'm sneaking on the CPU again to check my posts and sadly enough I don't have enough time to fully figure out what's going on until this Friday but I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG! :D )

[Da_Blade]

For now there's only a data patch out, but it fixes some problems at least, it's linked in the Official Patch info thread (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=277756), near the bottom. The Code patch is what is really gonna fix things though, so don't get too excited :)

So, Kosh, you got round to dev plans yet? :D

[RobNelson]

Magnates are those non-playable races. You may have received a message in your sitrep that "A colony of Darloks has been found on <planet>". Lore_Weavers race guide stickied in this forum lists them all and their planet preference (somewhat - he doesn't have inside info on this). You only get that notice if you're the first one to the system (basically, splinter colonies and magnates are the same special, depending on how good the planet is for you and them, to be refined in the code pacth), so if you want a complete list of all the unowned magnate worlds you've seen, a good way is in the planets screen, sort by population and click the uncontrolled box. This is also a good way to keep track of the migration worlds. This won't (currently) tell you which magnate is there (unless you already landed a colony/outpost there), but you will see magnate special on the right side of the screen. Those worlds typically start out with 5-6 pop points plus the one you use to get control, so already it's worth it. Plus, they like different worlds than you, so they will "back fill" your empire, auto-migrating to those worlds that they like.

Magnates are the reason for those questions about how far to explore, as auto-migration is a little over powered (until the code patch). You may find outposts halfway across the map if you're not careful; on the other hand, once it's a colony, build a mob center there and you're set. It all comes down to play style, I guess.

Good Luck. (And don't let the parental units catch you when you aren't supposed to be here, they may take away all CPU privelidges - PUs can be cruel. :D )

[EmperorKosh]

LoL at RoNelson's PU comment. I know bout the risks, but my dad doesn't really mind if I'm on here. It's more my mom. But don't worry, I'll be 'aight'. :rolleyes: Oh yeah I remember what magnates are now. Thanks for the reminder. I'm going to go check out that data patch, see what it's supposed to fix. Then I'll be back this weekend with plenty more questions.


Yeah I've gotten into development plans, Blade. I've been into them for quite a fair while, even with my old Klackon empire. Those plans are VERY useful as I have found out. Heh heh. I happen to think that I have a pretty dang good system of plans for my empires. My plans keep an even balance in basically everything yet at the same time they go toward my specialized ideals for my empire. :up:

[Da_Blade]

Cool, nice to hear. Seems you graduated from newbee course quite a while ago then. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
Cool, nice to hear. Seems you graduated from newbee course quite a while ago then. :D


Yaeee! I'm a MOO3 hard-*** now. LoL :cool: :up: But I still have problems with the combat. However, with my Cynoid empire I am building up quite nicely and I'll be sure to test my new strategies for killing enemies as soon as I find a race to beat up on. Heh heh heh..... hah hah ha....... muahahhahahaHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAA!!!!!








(Da_Blade) - ... :eek:

[EmperorKosh]

Okay, now my latest crisis is with the Cynoids. Even though their rating in the mining area is "superior", I have had some HUGE problems mining planets with these guys. They always seem to fall behind, and it's really pissing me off. I just deleted that one game I was playing with the Cynoid because I was about 130 units behind in mineral production. I thought I was making a comeback for a while because I had discovered automated mines but then somehow, my freaking empire gained a lot more demand for minerals. (I've kinda regretted starting over because I had a nice spot out on one of the arms where practically noone could bother me. Plus I found out later that there were some pretty nice planets.)


Anyway, I try using Development Plans to fix my mining problems but they haven't done anything yet. I have one last idea for a combination of development plans that might fix my problem but do any of you guys have suggestions? Also, do any of you guys who play as the Cynoids frequently have any problems with mining?

[RobNelson]

One thing to remember; cynoids and meklars eat 1/2 food and 1/2 minerals, so if you expand too fast, you'll have a massive mineral shortage. That's part of the reason I have trouble with cybers, I over build industry, starving my population. :sour:

Anyways, I recently played as Meklar (I swap races every now and then, to see if I'm adaptable :D ) and did fairly well using specialized regional zoning and placing mine as primary in the all planets dev plan. I also had mine/mine/mine in mineral rich, and min as secondary in new, secondary, and green ring. I never fell short. The downside is that cybers like those size 1-5 planets, so that really limits what you can do, once you've built all those mines.

As cybers, make sure you get all of the mining techs. You have above average spies but poor diplomacy, so it looks like you've gotta steal those techs. Deep Extraction Mining should show up by tech level 7 or 8, if it isn't visible from the start. If you're in the senate, look to see if it's in anybodies tech tree (except NOs, I've yet to steal anything from them :( ). If not, then you have some choices. Stay small so that you can be sure you can handle your needs, or expand like mad hoping you'll meet up with someone who's got the mining tech. Not good choices, I admit, but they both have a chance of success (above 50-50).

If your minerals are too low, consider scrapping an indusrty or two (or many, if you're 130 minerals in the hole - ouch!).

Oddly enough, my first cyber game I played this also happened. I was also playing bugs (tachidi) before trying cyber. Maybe you just need to slow down and get the "feel" for those cybers?

[EmperorKosh]

Yeah I dunno, maybe I should go back to the "Insecta" races. But I really enjoyed the Cynoids' research ability. (It's way the hell better than the Klackons'). I also like their espionage ability. I am always satisfied to see in my SitRep that I've got a couple of spies who are raising hell in an enemy empire.


LoL, plus I noticed that after my first game with the Klackons, I like to expand. I'm a freaking expansion ***** now. :D Also, what do you guys use to expand most of the time? Do you guys use Colony Ships or Outpost Ships?


And considering my personal traits, which race do you think would suit me best? (Not the freaking Ithkul. :p :down: ).


Oh yeah another thing, I didn't know that the Cynoids "eat" minerals. That's wierd... their information said that they're still biological, and not fully mechanical like the Meklar. That's probably why I've been having so many mineral problems... now I know why that one world was starving even though I had 56/118 bioharvesting units...


Another thing, do you guys have any combat strategies for like... preparing for a battle? What happens to me is that I'll be merrily expanding my happy little empire and then some ******** race will declare war on me and I won't have any ships to start killing them right away. Do you guys have any strategies to prevent this?

[RobNelson]

I can tell it's the weekend, I'm conversing with Kosh. :D
Ahh, you seek understanding. LOL <Always liked B5>

I like the Nommo, They have Superior Research and Original Creativity, plus high diplomacy and bioharvest. In exchange, Loyalty : Freedom and a universally poor gound troops. And maybe others, don't have it all memorized. Ethereans are also good, although with thier low cunning, they're spies are worthless (offensively; as far as I can tell, the stats don't matter on defense). The plus side for both of these is that they like BIG worlds, ethereans like the largest, and Nommo (and Trilarians, I suppose, don't play them, though) are close behind.

As for prepping for those pesky wars, you've got choices. Either keep a low profile until someone declares war, then pump up the military spending and crank out the ships, or take a middle of the line approach and stay at limited war and keep a fleet in reserve until you need it. I've been doing some testing (nowhere near as complete as the testing by Da_Blade, visage, Alexfrog and others) where I'm finding out that a low Mil budget may be the way to go. Colonies develop MUCH faster, and then the system defense ships build quickly, which comes out to about the same amount of time. The difference being how well developed the colony is at that time. So, your choice. :D

[Ron_Lugge]

Oh yeah another thing, I didn't know that the Cynoids "eat" minerals. That's wierd... their information said that they're still biological, and not fully mechanical like the Meklar. That's probably why I've been having so many mineral problems... now I know why that one world was starving even though I had 56/118 bioharvesting units...

They only eat HALF minerals, not only... Because they are still cyborgs. No clue why the Meklar eat food, though.

Also, try declaring war BEFOREanyone else can.

And if you run into someone who automaticly doesn't like you (harvesters, for example) just friken start building ships. Also if anyone is making war-like moves towards you for some reason.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by Ron_Lugge
If you run into someone who automaticly doesn't like you (harvesters, for example) just friken start building ships.



LoL I like that phrase and idea. :) :up:

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by Ron_Lugge
If you run into someone who automaticly doesn't like you (harvesters, for example) just friken start building ships.


LoL I like that phrase and idea. :) :up:


Also, I think I have found my ideal alien civilization. Currently, I'm playing these jacked up Imsaeis species. Heh heh. Their bioharvesting is average, mineral production and manufacturing power are good, their spies are quick, they are adaptive (to research), etc. I wrote down the mods I made for them on a sticky paper so I'll post them here. Lemme know if you guys like this jacked up race.


(Gasbags are kool). :cool:


Imsaeis
- Citizenship -20
- Biodiversity -10
- Cunning +20
- Enviornmental -20
- Research +40
- Manufacturing +30
- Bioharvesting -40


If you peoples choose to test these guys out, lemme know what you think.

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
SNIP!

Just a suggestion, but why don't you try telling us what your picks ARE, instead of how you're shifting them? Not ALL of us play as gasbags ;)

I prefer a custom Meklar:

Bioharvest poor
Mining Excelent
Manufacture Excelent
research Poor
Trade Poor
Enviromental Good
Diplo Poor
Toughness Poor
Reflexis Poor
Accuracy Poor
Government Collective
Cunning Superior
Creativity Poor
Natural Mechanics (or whatever that misc pick is called)

You would not BELIEVE how strong they are production wise - heck, I could turn out an entire assault force and take out not one but TWO enemy homeworlds before they got colony ships off (literally - don't know what happened to their starting ships, but I destroyed both of those empires before they could colonize; one Evon one Silicoid).

Of course, starting one jump away from them helped. And three star lanes, one to each of them and the other a guardian, gave me GOOD reason to strike. And they allowed me to 'back-fill' everything I conqured VERY nicely. Gave me a MASSIVE power base for a 3-system polity; I conquered the galaxy with them... of course, against the AI thats not saying much...


BTW - if you ever get late enough games, try a combo of Damper field (always stick with small generators; the larger ones are a waste with Damper fields) and Ultra Heavy Adamatium Armor. The combination it... unbeatable.

[EmperorKosh]

Sup "dawgs". (Needed a new opening phrase). I think I found the solution to my combat problems. I noticed when I used the auto-build feature in the ship design, I saw that the CPU gave me ****ty-ass weapon mounts. I would have like, three hard-ass weapons that were point mounted, and maybe one decent weapon on standard mount.


Now that I don't really use that thing anymore, I've jacked up my ships and their weapon ranges. :)


I'm going to go on a killing spree, I cut the AU cost of my ships in half, and I had even more firepower on them, plus I just developed cloaking technology. :D :up:

[Ron_Lugge]

Please note that the auto-design isn't that bad; its just not going to always be optimal. Often, it makes mistakes, like not bothering with certain mods... (It will add the minituarization ones, but not autofire :rolleyes: )

I often use auto-design to give me a starting point, then take it from there.

[Dagda]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Sup "dawgs". (Needed a new opening phrase). I think I found the solution to my combat problems. I noticed when I used the auto-build feature in the ship design, I saw that the CPU gave me ****ty-ass weapon mounts. I would have like, three hard-ass weapons that were point mounted, and maybe one decent weapon on standard mount.

I've found that Auto-build works well for Recon, LR, SR, & PD, but that I want to tweak just about anything else. The auto-build will select Spinals or Improved Spinals for DF weapons, and load as many as it can onto the ship. It'll then add the best PD weapon you have to fill out the remaining space on the ship. I'll occasionally remove 1-3 of the big guns to replace them with smaller mounts of a weapon with different range/damage parameters so that as I close I've got coverage and higher cycle rates, but that's actually relatively rare.

I normally remove PD missiles and replace them with DF PD weapons when they show up.

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by Dagda
I've found that Auto-build works well for Recon, LR, SR, & PD, but that I want to tweak just about anything else. The auto-build will select Spinals or Improved Spinals for DF weapons, and load as many as it can onto the ship. It'll then add the best PD weapon you have to fill out the remaining space on the ship. I'll occasionally remove 1-3 of the big guns to replace them with smaller mounts of a weapon with different range/damage parameters so that as I close I've got coverage and higher cycle rates, but that's actually relatively rare.

I normally remove PD missiles and replace them with DF PD weapons when they show up.

Don't go with PD mounts untill post code patch - they are currently broken. You should use the 'light' mount instead. Also, spinals aren't always the best weapon - often, I prefer heavy or ultra heavy mounts in their place for the vastly superior fire rate.

[EmperorKosh]

Nah I really don't like that Auto-Build much anymore. It would make perhaps one decent weapon that is on a standard mount and that's it. That doesn't make for a very effective ship. (At least with my experiences).


What happened this past weekend if I haven't mentioned it already I developed cloaking technology for my ships. I totally retrofitted my ships, took out those darn ECM's and replaced them with my cloaking device. And I mean hot damn! That cloaking device takes up such little space compared to those friggen ECM's!


With those ECM's out and cloaking devices in, I've been able to jack up my ships' firepower. I looked and saw how the Auto-Build feature had been designing my ships and I was really ticked off. That was the problem with my fighting, when you Auto-Build small ships, it gives them a lot of defensive weapons (which is kinda kool when you got a small pack of them firing a crapload of PD weapons at incoming fire) but that is why my ships have been getting slaughtered by the boatload. They don't have any truly hard-core offensive weapons.


With the cloaking devices in place in all my ships except my Cutter size recon ship (It has a Quark Cannon and an ECCM II instead of cloak) I have been able to cut the AU cost of producing my ships literally in half! It's awesome, I got a destroyer size ship that costs like only 926 AU's to make. (Even though the production point requirement is like 1800... :rolleyes: )


Plus my new ship designs have some BEASTLY weapons and weapon mounts on them. I have I think a frigate size ship with lemme see... a Continuous Hellfire Cannon Heavy Mount as basically the only weapon on the frigate, but the frigate is so cheap to make, etc., and for the firepower and range I get, it's awesome. I'm starting to think though that at since I don't have a cloaking device in my recon ships, I'm going to need to move up the size of my recon ships to accomodate at least 2 ECCM's and a cloakin device, along with several PD weapons since my other ships don't really have any anymore.


ECM's and ECCM's work fleet-wide right?

[EmperorKosh]

As for your suggestion bout stating my race picks Ron, I'll look that up this weekend and post it later. :cool:

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
As for your suggestion bout stating my race picks Ron, I'll look that up this weekend and post it later. :cool:

Huh? <hurriedly rereads last few posts> Oh, that! Sorry, caught me off guard.

Thanks...

BTW - the '986 AU cost but 1800 PP cost' sounds like HFOG. Check the 'victory' screen - your HFOG is probably somewhere around 1.9

There are a few ways to deal with HFOG - the most common one is to change your government once, then change it back the next turn. Causes mucho nasty unrest, but if you drop the taxes a little and give it a few turns, everything goes back to normal (up the taxes!) and the people haven't (normally) revolted against you.

[EmperorKosh]

Yeah speaking of unrest and revolting, in my game with the Imsaeis (as of today) I'm having unrest come out of my ass for gosh sake! I lowered taxes a bit, didn't work. I found out it was somewhat due to a leader effect, so I dismissed the leader, gave me a small effect. Last thing is Piracy. How the hell do I permanently get rid of piracy?! I got two frigates patrolling this especially rebellious system and the piracy thing is still under the demographics as a cause of unrest. Do I not have enough ships there? Does the piracy ever go away?


I need help fast, I'm paying a lot of money to my people to stop their *****ing but this is costing me. I'm currently at war as well and I can't afford the production drops. I know it's not the war that's making my people mad, my fellow Imsaeis want to rip off the Cynoids' heads and stick it up their asses as much as I do, so I know it's not that... any help guys? (Also, teach me how to make pirate destroying fleets/detachments/wtfe.)

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
I need help fast, I'm paying a lot of money to my people to stop their *****ing but this is costing me. I'm currently at war as well and I can't afford the production drops. I know it's not the war that's making my people mad, my fellow Imsaeis want to rip off the Cynoids' heads and stick it up their asses as much as I do, so I know it's not that... any help guys? (Also, teach me how to make pirate destroying fleets/detachments/wtfe.)

Pirates... OK, here's the low-down, as *I* understand it.

You get 1 point of piracy per populated region (note: this is not points of unrest). Thus, a planet with 12 regions could generate 1 to 12 points of piracy. A ship counters as many points of piracy as it has hull sizes (ie, a lancer counters 1, a cutter 2, a frigate 4, etc). If the end result of <# Populated Regions> - <# of ship hull sizes> is greater than 0, you get unrest.

Note that you have to keep those ships there to counter piracy; can't be avoided. Its one reason to keep a system ship even if its a little obsolete.

[Da_Blade]

2 frigates kinda compares to 10 police cars for the whole of New York :bulb:

I usually have 2 system fleet design, both generic, carrying missiles or fighters and LR and PD beams. One frigate and one Cruiser or Battle Cruiser. Then i just let the AI build, never have any piracy problems. The ships are cheap as hell anyways, maintenance aint much either...

[Ron_Lugge]

Oh, I nearly forgot! I've heard that orbitals also counter piracy; and a second theory is that rather than hull sizes countering piracy its weapons count.

Also, planetary shields are fairly effective at dealing with piracy.

[Da_Blade]

To be exact Ron_Lugge:

Each planetary defense base is effective at countering one point, and each hull point of system ship/orbital is effective. After code patch some other stuff will play a role too... Don't make me dig up the post QSI Programming did about this :)

[Da_Blade]

OK, you made me look it up after all ;)

posted here (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=288258&highlight=Piracy)

Originally Posted by QSI Programming
Here is the current calculation (subject to change, since I notice something missing):

The piracy factor is the system security needs minus the system security present. Any mPiracy modifiers are applied (there do not appear to be any at present). If this value is greater than zero (except on the first turn), it is multiplied by the piracy factor from the unrest spreadsheet (so you can mod it out to 0, if you really want) and applied to each of your planets in the system.

The system security needs is the number of regions (not counting outposts) belonging to your empire in the system. This value was supposed to include some factor for spaceports, but it doesn't. If that was not an intentional change, it may come back, now that you have made me notice it.

System security is cumulative hull size of your system ships (apparently including system colony ships), your starships (not including transports and colony ships), orbitals, bases (1 space each) and 1/10 of any planetary shield strength

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
To be exact Ron_Lugge:

Each planetary defense base is effective at countering one point, and each hull point of system ship/orbital is effective. After code patch some other stuff will play a role too... Don't make me dig up the post QSI Programming did about this :)

Er, re-read what QSI said.

System security is cumulative hull size of your system ships...your starships...orbitals...

Thats what I said, only better stated... and with more details that *I* didn't know.

Now, to go read the thread you so kindly pointed out!

[RobNelson]

AH HA!!!!

That explains why planetary shields don't work up to expectations!

It's 1/10th of the shield strength is added to system defense, NOT that shields reduce piracy by 1/10th. That makes much more sense, too. Thanks, Da_Blade, for looking that up for us. :D

And thanks, Ron, for inspiring him to do so. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Okay thanks for the help on Piracy. I guess I'm just going to have to keep those two ships in Mu Cygni until I get the system ships up... Anyway, now for my second dilema.


I've installed the data patch and it does seemed to have helped some. But, I still have planets that build a freaking bunch of those damned ground troop transports. This is pissing me off too, because the planets that end up doing that have huge production capacity. I'd rather have them start building my latest battleship model. Does anyone know some way to keep my freaking planets from making those stupid troop ships?

[Craig P.]

Option a: Wait for the code patch.
Option b: Obsolete the troop ships once you have a large enough reserve of them.

[Da_Blade]

My stategy on troop ships: design one, put 5, 10 or 20, depending on what you need, in the build queue of some planets, obsolete design same turn. That way i never have too many ships. And i i am one short, i simply put another x5 in the build queue of my top industry and see them roll off the next turn. Too bad that demand for a transport got delayed one turn.

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by Da_Blade
My stategy on troop ships: design one, put 5, 10 or 20, depending on what you need, in the build queue of some planets, obsolete design same turn. That way i never have too many ships. And i i am one short, i simply put another x5 in the build queue of my top industry and see them roll off the next turn. Too bad that demand for a transport got delayed one turn.

Interesting - you use smaller transports, I take it? I usually use the largest hull size I can grab. 9 times out of 10, its one army to one ship. If the game were better about it, it could be as much as 2 or 3 armies to one ship, I think.

[Da_Blade]

No, i use corps size ships (and use corps size army's) till i have enough of a ground force pool to regularly use army's. Then i design army-size hulls. I do not use the biggest avaible, i use the smallest possible to house 10 pods. I never arm my transports, just cloak and ecm them.

[RobNelson]

@EmperorKosh: How are those customized gas bags working out?

[EmperorKosh]

@RobNelson. My gasbags are freakin pimp man! They are da bomb. (Literally, as the enemy Cynoid empire will tell you.) :D Anyways, I can't believe I didn't think about that solution before about deleting the transport design! That's actually a great idea. Comes in handy considering I go two turns without checking each of my like... 45 planets' build queues and I gain another 20 of those damned transports... Now, thanks to you guys, my planets will actually make something useful. :cool: :up:


I'll look up the stats for my Imsaeis civilization later and post it. Right now I'm having too much fun blowing the snot out of the Cynoids. You know what's irritating? I had a defensive alliance with the Silicoid Empire but they wouldn't fullfill their obligation so I broke the alliance. Now we don't even have a freaking non-aggression pact and that's getting annoying. They won't accept one. I want to colonize some stuff in their territory too... great... now I'm gonna have a war on two fronts! (They have no idea but they're in deep **** now.)


Does anyone know why the Silicoids are diplomatic ********s?

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh

Does anyone know why the Silicoids are diplomatic ********s?

Because it's hard for them to communicate with a species that doesn't continually break off and dump their arms? :D

[RobNelson]

LOL. :D

Let's see, how do you find common ground with a rock....

Throw it at a cynoid? :D

<ping> <owch - you dented my case>
"ouch, you scratched my rock"

[EmperorKosh]

LMAO! Hilarity! Yeah I guess I shouldn't expect rocks to have that big of a brain... lol. Yeah in the current game that I'm playing now though, I've gotten tired of taking over enemy worlds so now I'm just blowing them out of the sky. (Not destroying the whole planet so that there's a blank hole in space, just bombarding the crap out of it.) Besides, I can just send my own colony ships over to the worlds and boom, problem solved. Then I don't have unrest or anything like that.


Anywho, I've finally declared war in the Silicoids for destroying a couple of my colony ships. They made me quite angry. It's a bad idea to make someone angry when they have a lot higher technology than yours and when they have about 270+ top-of-the-line reserve warships. Heh heh.


Johnny: Look mommy! The sky is falling!
Mommy: ... Johnny...... you really are stupid.....


(Yeah that was a real knee-slapper wasn't it?) :rolleyes:

[RobNelson]

LOL, I was imagining Marvin the Martian saying, "You make me very angry." I guess you went out and got your Iridium PU38 Explosive Space Modulator. :D

By the way, 'm still playing as stock Nommo (usually, sometimes I look for a change and play as someone else). They're still doing what I need to do how I like doing it. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Aight sorry I've been lazy and I haven't fullfilled my promise yet guys. I still got to get those civilization statistics up here. I swear to you all I'll have it done sometime before 1:00 AM CST. Right now I'm trying to play a game of Outpost 2 online. It's kinda tough though, there are some really lazy people on. LoLz.


Another question, can you guys get the same leader twice?

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Another question, can you guys get the same leader twice?

Its happened once or twice...

[EmperorKosh]

Aight Ron, thanks. Okay now to all you fine peoples out there I'm fullfilling my promise.


The Most Pimp Race of the Year Award Goes Too...!


Custom Imsaeis;

Bioharvesting: Average
Mining: Good
Manufacturing: Good
Research: Good
Trade: Average
Environmental: Good
Accuracy: Poor
Reflexes: Poor
Toughness: Poor
Diplomacy: Superior
Gov't Type: Absolutist
Orion Senate Member: Random
Citizenship: Duty
Starting Mineral Richness: Abundant
Starting Biodiversity: Similar
Cunning: Quick
Creativity: Adaptive
Special Attributes: None


I'd like to thank Ron_Lugge to inspire me with the idea to record my customized alien race stats in the above form. Now, all you people who don't play as the Imsaeis can have a blast jacking up the race of your choice with these stats!

[Ron_Lugge]

Interesting - a diplo strong, semi-manufacture race.

I'm considering something kinda similar for tonight's game...

If you wan't, I'll let you know how it comes out/what the picks were.

[EmperorKosh]

Kool. Lemme and all our other fellow viewers get a look at those picks when you're done Ron.


Hey guys, I was wondering something, if an alien race accepts an unconditional surrender, can you declare war on them or anything like that again? I went around demanding unconditional surrender from all of my enemies and the Silicoid Empire used their brains for once and agreed to my unconditional surrender. That kind of bites... I was sending about 14-20 taskforces into their territory from all angles and now I can't re-declare war on them or anyting like that. I was gonna crush them too. Then later on it said relations were worsening. I don't like that at all either. (I think that gives me a good reason to go kill them).


Also, I've had my first encounter with the Ithkul. Man... they're some scary guys. Not to mention they're probably the only race that can actually challenge me militarily. The Ithkul's military power rank in my current game is like 81, and that compared to everyone else's dinky 12-18 military power ranks, it appears that the Ithkul could pose quite a threat to me. So I want to clean out the Silicoids, or have them become allies worth having. (Meaning they fullfill their obligation when it comes to helping me defend myself).


Either way, I want to crush the Ithkul ASAP. I've almost defeated the Cynoids, they have a few puny worlds holding out that I'm trying to take over. (Gasbag ground forces don't like small worlds. :rolleyes: ).


Any suggestions/answers to my Q's? (Questions for those of you that don't know. LoL :) )

[RobNelson]

Check out your Econ screen. I think you agreed to pay off the silicoids (offering surrenders makes you pay them . Other than that, there is a period of time after a surrender that neither side can declare war on the other. Diplo screen should say "Enforced Peace".

[Dagda]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Hey guys, I was wondering something, if an alien race accepts an unconditional surrender, can you declare war on them or anything like that again?

There's a period of enforced peace after a surrender. Check the foreign matrix and you'll see an orange line between the nations involved.

I went around demanding unconditional surrender from all of my enemies and the Silicoid Empire used their brains for once and agreed to my unconditional surrender.

Errrrr. You can't demand a surrender. You just surrendered to them. As Rob pointed out, go to your Finances screen and you'll see an amount under "War Reparations." You're paying them for having had the temerity to fight them.

That kind of bites... I was sending about 14-20 taskforces into their territory from all angles and now I can't re-declare war on them or anyting like that.

The peace period ends (amazingly enough, on the same turn the payments do). Then you can go beat 'em up again. I can't recall how long, but it's not bad.

[EmperorKosh]

WHAT?^#!@?!^#$?!^#?!^$#^!?$#?^!$#?!$#^?!^$#!?^$#!?^$#!^?$#?^$!#?!^$#?!^$#$!^#?$#$&?&!$#%?@?*??^%?^%?(^%#??^@?@^%?@^(%?(@^%?@(^%?(@^%?^@(%



YOU MEAN I'M PAYING THEM FOR SURRENDURING?^$#?^$#!

Those little mother FRACKERS%!#@ I'm gonna rip off their heads! Grr.... I thought that meant you were asking for them to surrender! That's it! I'm going to get my other 300 ships out of reserves and dispatch them all into their terrtory. THEY'RE GONNA DIE! I WAS DEMANDING FOR THEIR SURRENDER! I DIDN'T MEAN TO SURRENDER!

I shall show no mercy! I'm going to bomb their planets into nothing!!! I'm not going to waste my time capturing them! Ehh... guess my war with the Ithkul is going to have to wait. Now I'm gonna have to get all of my taskforces back to where they were... grrr that really makes me mad. Oh well, thank you guys for at least explaining what happened so I won't make the mistake of surrenduring to my enemy when I'm crushing them.

(!Roar!) Hey do you guys know how long that peace period thing lasts?!

[Ron_Lugge]

(!Roar!) Hey do you guys know how long that peace period thing lasts?!

Untill you 'learn your lesson!'

[EmperorKosh]

Okay now Ron Luggey.... how bout a real answer in terms of turns? :rolleyes:

[haniblecter]

I was insanely curious how this thread got so big. I now know why.

[Da_Blade]

Hehehe, this is the EmperorKosh private help thread (tm) :D

Only accesible for questions by EmperorKosh, and answers by anyone else ;)

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Okay now Ron Luggey.... how bout a real answer in terms of turns? :rolleyes:

Sure. I'll give you that:

X Turns

What? You want more? Well, go BUG somebody ELSE 'cause *I* don't know!

BTW - Luggey? EAT ELECTRIC DEATH!

http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=010425
http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=010427

Guess that taught YOU a thing or three!

[A. Bester]

Mind if I butt in with a q? Of course you don't :p

Autocolonisation seems to not work any longer in my 1/3 of huge 3-arm galaxy empire (cynoid). I have the ships, the AI just isn't sending any out. That's to bad, because the AI seems to know what races are in what colony ship and use them on appropriate planets, something I don't know. I have lot's of empty planets and systems within my borders (with nearby mob-centers), after purging a spiral-arm of Ithkul (and I made sure to kill every last one of them)

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by A. Bester
Mind if I butt in with a q? Of course you don't :p

Autocolonisation seems to not work any longer in my 1/3 of huge 3-arm galaxy empire (cynoid). I have the ships, the AI just isn't sending any out. That's to bad, because the AI seems to know what races are in what colony ship and use them on appropriate planets, something I don't know. I have lot's of empty planets and systems within my borders (with nearby mob-centers), after purging a spiral-arm of Ithkul (and I made sure to kill every last one of them)

Must.... Killl... bas, er, bester... (B5 fan; always wanted to shoot that monster - and as you may have noticed, I have a pet nick-name for him)

As a workaround, I'd suggest scrapping all curent colony ships, obsolete all of them, design a new one (for the improved engines).

Take that new design, and using the "similar enviroment" and "Display for" tab, find planets for each race and micro (eg, click insectoid, click similar planets, select a couple of colony ships, obsolete them. Then, click "send colony ship" on all uncontrolled planets with a similar enviroment in your border. Repeat for each race - but remember to leave time for each "batch" to be FULLY complete before moving on - wouldn't want to send a humanoid planet an etherian colony!)

[A. Bester]

Bester isn't that bad, just misunderstood :D

Anyway, I didn't quite understand you explanation:

-scrap, obsolete, design new. Understood
-find similar planets for a specifi race Understood
-select a couple of colony ships, obsolete them This is were I fell off. Should I obsolete my newly built design? And select colony ships from where?

[Daveybaby]

I think he means: build a couple of them, by manually inserting them into a build queue on a planet with the race you want colonise with making up the majority of the population, then obsolete the ship design on the same turn - so that the AI wont build a load for you all over the place with different races in.

In fact, the best thing to do (although it *is* a bit tedious) is have one colony ship design for each of the races in your empire. The design will always be the same - only the names will be different. e.g. dar colony, rhea colony, cyn colony etc.

Keep all of the designs obsoleted until you want to colonise with a specific race. Then un-obsolete, pop a few into the build queue, re-obsolete. Or just build a wodge of all of the different colony ships in one go, and keep them in the reserve till you need em.

[Daveybaby]

BTW, someone should sticky this thread... as its effectively becoming a pretty comprehensive FAQ :D

Glad to see someone new to the series who is actually enjoying the game though.

[Ron_Lugge]

Hm.... I think I'll have a chat with Xentax about that...

edit:

I'm going to go create a new thread, deliniate a few rules (EG no why can't I refit questions/arguements) and post a link here.

With any luck, Xen'll sticky THAT.

edit:

http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=294674

New thread up.

[A. Bester]

Originally posted by Daveybaby
I think he means: build a couple of them, by manually inserting them into a build queue on a planet with the race you want colonise with making up the majority of the population, then obsolete the ship design on the same turn - so that the AI wont build a load for you all over the place with different races in.



Ah, now I get it. But it's a bit tedious, and doesn't explain why autocolonization doesn't work, unless it's a really freaky coincidence where none of my reserve colony ships match any of the dozens of empty planets (of all different sizes).

[Da_Blade]

It might very well be possible all those colony ships in your reserve are from your main race. It generally won't send out colony ship to non-rich non-green/yellow1 worlds.

[EmperorKosh]

Originally posted by A. Bester
Mind if I butt in with a q? Of course you don't :p

Autocolonisation seems to not work any longer in my 1/3 of huge 3-arm galaxy empire (cynoid). I have the ships, the AI just isn't sending any out. That's to bad, because the AI seems to know what races are in what colony ship and use them on appropriate planets, something I don't know. I have lot's of empty planets and systems within my borders (with nearby mob-centers), after purging a spiral-arm of Ithkul (and I made sure to kill every last one of them)



Lmao... my own private Q&A thread. I find that funny. But anyway, on to this quote. Autocolonization? I'm starting to hate that thing, I have a bunch of nice planets in my territory that I've set colonization orders to but the stupid AI sends say maybe five or so colony ships to one planet on the rim of my territory. Does anyone know why the colonization AI is so stupid? This is really irritating me because my Imsaeis empire is huge and I don't have time to look through every system that I've passed through to see if the worlds I've wanted have been colonized.


Also, as for my Silicoid surrender problem, I've fixed that. (WINK WINK) :D (Prepare to die... [Silicoids])

[Da_Blade]

Nothing like enforcing a real peace eh Kosh? As for the autocolonization, as far as i've seen it it tends to prefer the following things:

1. A system you do not have a colony in yet, and that has no non-treatied enemy civs colony's/outposts in it yet.
2. Rich/very rich worlds
3. Green worlds.

A combination of these three is used to send colony ships. So if you have a green world in a system you already control and a mineral rich yellow world in a system you do not control it will prefer the latter. Now, mineral richness seems to be something the col AI concerns himself with only in the beginning of the game, but i haven't been able to verify that yet.

Just realized you might also be talking about the AI's habit to send 5000 colony ships to a planet you marked to colonize. Well there is a easy "fix" for it. Just scroll your sitrep down (or mod it, like i have :)) and watch for the "Colony Task Force has been formed and dispatched to BlaBla II" message. When you see it, click on the hyperlink and you will be taken to the planet. You then click the "send colony" button again, to remove the colony order. The ships send will still colonize the world, and no new ones will be send again :D

[Satanic_Hamster]

Originally posted by Ron_Lugge
They only eat HALF minerals, not only... Because they are still cyborgs. No clue why the Meklar eat food, though.

Also, try declaring war BEFOREanyone else can.

And if you run into someone who automaticly doesn't like you (harvesters, for example) just friken start building ships. Also if anyone is making war-like moves towards you for some reason.

Heh.

Turn 400 for me right now.

And I've been engaged in combat with the Harvesters since turn 16.

Maybe a dozen of their colonies are still alive, but they all have my ships in orbit bombarding them.

Their home systems are ten systems with one entrance. Not sure if it's worth going in. While it would be satisfying, I don't think it will be worth it.

[EmperorKosh]

I was wondering for all of you veterans out there... what's the usual ship chassis (size) that you guys use in the mid-term of the game? I'm at turn 210 in my Imsaeis game and my average size ship is a firgate. They're pretty nice though. I got about 622 ships in reserve and then I have another 500 or so that are out in the fields.

Also, about how often do you guys upgrade your ships?

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
I was wondering for all of you veterans out there... what's the usual ship chassis (size) that you guys use in the mid-term of the game? I'm at turn 210 in my Imsaeis game and my average size ship is a firgate. They're pretty nice though. I got about 622 ships in reserve and then I have another 500 or so that are out in the fields.

Also, about how often do you guys upgrade your ships?

A) Please take this to the (now stickied!) newbs Q&A thread.

B) I tend to redesign regurally, and use ship sizes either at the maximum, or close to it. For system ships I normaly limit myself to frigates, however. Note that I play a production race.

[RobNelson]

I usually set up a range of ship sizes, 1 or two designs (IF/CV) at the largest size, some LR and SR 2 sizes down, recon 2 more sizes down. Haven't been building PD lately, but they would be the size between LR/SR and recon (4th largest size). Oh, almost forgot, that's for starships. For system ships, I don't use recon (they'd get built to the exclusion of all else on newer planets), but I keep a corvette designed as a beam ship, then follow pretty much the same as for starships except 1 design smaller (more space inside).

I redesign at new starship engines (for starships) or system engines (for system defense). I also consider redesign at new shield tech and if I get a particularly powerful weapon (depends on game and tech tree).

[Daveybaby]

By turn 200 i'm usually churning out battleships and dreadnaughts at the very least. I pretty much always go for the largest hulls available for my core starships.

For the early game i tend to prefer a single starship design... mimicing the style of my system ships, i.e. a mixture of long range weapons, missiles and fighters. This is because, frankly, i dont have enough production to produce specialised task forces. Once i get into the late game i will diversify my designs into the following types:

1 x Carrier
1 x IF
1 x LR attack

2 x Escorts, one pure PD, one SR attack, for carrier/IF defence.
1 x recon, maxed out with sensors, ecm, eccm.

I redesign starships whenever i get a stardrive tech. Sometimes i will also redesign a particular class if there's a new weapon tech or something that i desparately need to turn the tide of battle, but this is rare. I tend to keep the previous iteration of ships around... but scrap any that are older than that.

I rarely redesign system ships... maybe half as often as i do starships. They dont have to be state-of-the-art as they arent really there for serious combat.

[EmperorKosh]

Aightios thanks for the advice. What I've been doing lately is making designs of SR, LR, IF, CV, Rec. (The Recon designs have been the same for a long time). My biggest ship size is probably a battleship even though I have dreadnought technology. Most of my IF's are frigates. My CV's are ligh cruisers/cruisers. I have LR available in several chassis (sizes). I have LR Frigates, Cruisers, Battleships, and Destroyers. Perhaps the reason I have some 800+ total ships is because the bulk of my fleets use small size ships. (Frigates). How many ships do you guys usually have in reserves? I have about 622 the last time I checked my reserves. Plus, I already know I have at least 400 out in the field... so actually nevermind the 800+ comment, I have 1000+ total ships.

All of these ships have really impressive firepower when they're put together. So, is having quantity over quality better than quality over quantity?

How bout you guys go experiment with that. Heck... come to think of it in my case I could declare war on everyone in the entire galaxy and then maybe that would get all of my ships out of the reserves.

[EmperorKosh]

I guess no one is going to experiment with that.

[EmperorKosh]

Oh yes and I was wondering... How come I can't send my ground troops down to a planet when the planet is defenseless and it has a capture-able population? In the Syrma system of my game as the Imsaeis there are about four Ithkul worlds there and there are two Psilon worlds there and that's it. There is a New Orion fleet there as well. (Probably the Great Crimson Fleet). But I'm angry because I've had transports there ready to take over the very rich worlds of that system but for some stupid reason the CPU won't let me.

Any solutions?

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
Oh yes and I was wondering... How come I can't send my ground troops down to a planet when the planet is defenseless and it has a capture-able population? In the Syrma system of my game as the Imsaeis there are about four Ithkul worlds there and there are two Psilon worlds there and that's it. There is a New Orion fleet there as well. (Probably the Great Crimson Fleet). But I'm angry because I've had transports there ready to take over the very rich worlds of that system but for some stupid reason the CPU won't let me.

Any solutions?

Try reducing the number of combat TFs so that one of the transport TFs can make it in - only TFs that were in battle can take place in the bombardment/ground battle

[Dagda]

Originally posted by EmperorKosh
All of these ships have really impressive firepower when they're put together. So, is having quantity over quality better than quality over quantity?

Depends on relative tech levels. If you're a bit behind, then the smaller vessels will get you a larger fleet and (likely) greater damage in your first shots. If you're a bit ahead, the larger vessels have greater survivability and begin to become more cost effective over the long term since you don't need to replace them as often. If your tech lead is huge, then the big ships really pay off as you take almost no losses and cream your opponents. Oh, and if you're really behind on tech, the small ships are better because you can feel like you're doing some fighting even as your opponent wipes up the map with you. :)

[RobNelson]

In the Syrma system of my game as the Imsaeis there are about four Ithkul worlds there and there are two Psilon worlds there and that's it.

I hope you're not too friendly with the Psilons, because the answer is that there's a (well documented) bug concerning the invasion in a multi empire system where you have to attack (and control combat) a psilon system as well (this goes for any multi empire system). It will only give you 1 option to invade, so hopefully it's the one you want to invade. This should be fixed in the patch.

[EmperorKosh]

I have plenty of transports ready to invade. That's not the issue Rob but thank you just the same for alerting me to this bug. Oh and don't worry I actually hate the Psilons because despite the fact that they're supposed to be smart, they're really not if they have only 7 worlds and a military strength of 1 and they want to challenge me to war when I have about 75 worlds and a military strength of 1100+. Lmao! :rolleyes:

Also Dagda, thank you for your observations on ship combat. I think I'm going to end up using larger ships since I own about 75 worlds and I have about 10 of them that are hard-core production worlds.

And Ron, I'll try your idea of reducing the amount of taskforces in the system. (I'll screw that Great Crimson Fleet over first. Heh heh :cool: ) But I'm not sure that's the problem because in the actual RT-Combat screen I see that my ground attack taskforces are there but for some reason I still don't have the option to bombard the planets.

[EmperorKosh]

Ahh yes... back to my good old personal help thread. LoL. I was wondering exactly what the patch fixed. I know that there have been a lot of things added and a lot of things fixed, but there was something inpeticular that I was wondering about ...........


And I just forgot it.... oh yeah! Did it ever fix that annoying bug conflicting with ground troop transport production? I remember stockpiling sooo many of the damned things because I had too many planets and I guess they must've just felt like being stupid and producing junk that my empire didn't need.... anyway, does the patch fix this bugg?

[RobNelson]

Many changes.

Official QSI Patch Thread (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=4084474#post4084474)

It will still make troop transports, but not as many (it's closer to what you'll actually need). Also, PD seems to be working quite well (for me anyways, some have complained that it's even worse than before, but it worked great for me!) Those fine tuning adjustments are almost there. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Alrighty thanks Rob. One thing I did notice is that it doesn't seem to change that colony ship bugg. I can make a bunch of colony ships but the stupid CPU will send them all to the same system even if there is only one planet there that I have told it to colonize. Doesn't make sense considering I have a bunch of other planets with colonization orders and the CPU doesn't follow them.

[RobNelson]

Yeah, I still mark them, then as colony ships get built, I unmark the planet that it's going to. The fact that we consider this annoying is proof that the devs have taken away much of the micromanagement. I still rememnber Ascendency, where each individual building had to be placed, then when the new one was available, each of the 30-50 factories had to be scrapped and the new one built, one at a time. :p

Now, if only they can add some feedback to diplomacy...

[Beamup]

Originally posted by RobNelson
The fact that we consider this annoying is proof that the devs have taken away much of the micromanagement.

Good point - having to click on the sitrep link and remove the colony command is small potatoes compared to having to do the whole process yourself.

Still, it would be even better if the computer were smarter about it...

[RobNelson]

Can't disagree with you on that. :D

[EmperorKosh]

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been really busy... I still got today and tomorrow's tennis tryouts and my feet are blistered up big-time. Plus school starts for me in a week (OH GOD NOOOOO!)

LoL RobNelson you have Ascendency?????? I GOT THAT GAME TOO! It was okay. I never really played it too much. The graphics are kinda crappy and the alien races in that game look like demons from hell. :bulb:

Anyway I haven't played too much on my CPU either because I'm still ticked that The Sims hasn't been working for me and plus I just got a PS2 about a week ago and I got Vice City so I've been glued to that for a while. I'm gonna come home from tennis tryouts today though and continue my latest MOO3 game today though. Also thank you for the advice.

Is QSI ever going to develop a patch to fix that friggen colony ship bug thing?

[RobNelson]

Actually, though I haven't been looking too closely, others have been posting that the colony ship thing is mostly fixed (I think it sends 1 ship too many - so a red will send 5 ships of the default design while a green will send 2).

As for Ascendency, yes had. Liked that the Aliens didn't look like men in rubber suits. Liked the Artwork. Kinda liked the ship design. Hated actually trying to do anything.

You got a PS2 just to play Vice City? You know it's out for the PC now, right? (Yeah, I know, I was just kidding :D ).

You should probably take a break from vid games so that they don't mess with your swing. :D Good luck on you tryouts.

[madmac]

1)Their are a number of ideas listed in this forum concerning the P.V. the best is to set you DEA development to banlances and the define a set of development plans. This page has a number of useful suggestions. Please keep in mind the vic roy actual does know what he is doing.
2) Colonization Early on before turn 100 it is advisable to build very few colony ships unless you have a rich green planet with something else going for it. Other wise build Outpost ships (much cheaper) send them to large planets(reguardless of classification). You can even use this method in your home system with system outpost ships (you design use a very slow sytem speed so you can fit it in the smallest possible hull size) Keep track of them once an outpost is established go to the planet screen set it view unowned planets and set migration (in about ten turn you have a colony for very like expience).
3) War is expensive so unless you have a hostile neighbor view the first few turns as building to surpress piracy and getting as may systems as you can convertably
controll (over extention can get you into troble)
4) Colonies any mag civ planets as quickly as you can.
5) Look to expand not just bassed on the type of planet but the systems where you can establish a choke point and seal of a section of territory for your self.

[EmperorKosh]

Speaking of choking off a point of the galaxy for yourself in my current game with my custom Imsaeis I must've forgot to adjust the difficulty level because I'm boxed in by a race of freaking Klackon and Evon. I'm not at war with them. (YET) but if it weren't for those freaking Klackon I'd have a whole arm of the galaxy to myself! DANG WORMHOLES!

I've found out madmac that ever since I got the code patch the colony ships build a heck of a lot faster. Your outpost ship idea would definately be the most efficient way to go in the pre-patched game. I think the patch cheapened the hull sizes. It did say that didn't it? Anyway I find that rather nice because now I don't have to wait till turn 50 in order to build a single colony ship in four turns.

[RobNelson]

Is it time for dessert? Chocolate covered Klackons, anyone? :D

I've certainly found the AI much more likely to try to pen me in post patch. You may still be able to take a planet or two before they start to care...

[madmac]

I guess I was not clear. You should build Outpost ships for yellow and red planets and colonize in this manor. You will find that these tend to be large planets which as your tech develops become a strong industrial base permitting you to truely build a enough ships to wag war. Colony ships are for the green planets (especial since red or yellow planets give only outpost) you will find post patch you can typically build 5 outpost ships for every colony ship. I takes a bit of planning but the turns still go by quickly. In my current game as a humain on the hard setting by turn 200 I controlled over 50 systems and had colonies or outpost on ever planet in 20 more systems. This with only finding 6 or so system with habital planets. (At least my back door is or shoud I say was cover by a guaridian but that is a story for another time) And by turn 300 when the war headed up against the "cyborgs" I had the ablity to produce 180 dreadnought class fleets every few turns. (They started it and with the help of the siliciods, my more friendly neighbor, and some parisites eating on his other flank, I'll finish it!) Any way its is proving to be a game filled with plenty of blood, guts and planets bombed back to the stone-age or before. And losts of High level stratagy.

[EmperorKosh]

Oh okay. Thanks for the information madmac. I think I'll try that strategy in my next game with my custom Imsaeis. I could also start it now though... I have found rich worlds in the yellow and red.... I think I'll try it! Thanks! :up:

[Awsric Armitage]

Bump to the front page. A long read but the variety of information is worth the read.

BUMP.

[EmperorKosh]

Hi Awsric Armitage. I'm glad to see that there are people other than myself who find this gigantic topic's information useful. I started this thing a long time ago when I was a newbie to MOO3. It's been quite a while since I've played MOO3 though or any other of my computer games because I can't play any of my games online anymore for some reason. I think that my computer is just getting flakey... I'm planning on getting a new one this spring.

Anyways, glad to see that you found this topic useful. I think I'm going to play some MOO3 this weekend. :)

[Tarhalindur]

Beep Boop Beep Beep Bip Boop BUMP.

Most of this thread seems to date from before the patches, but it might help nonetheless.

Ascendancy is my other SSG. :)

[Colt374]

There's actually useful info in this thread? Could you tell us what about exactly, since the thread title doesn't explain anything?
After all, I don't think many people can handle reading 7 pages on the off chance it may be applicable to them, without a hint on what the thread is about.

Colt.

[Da_Blade]

IIRC This thread is full on information. Totally unstructered though, as it is mostly Emperor's thread asking question after question that popped up to him during gameplay; some of us more veteran type people asnwered them.

So there is a lot of question a lot of people have that are being answered here. I don't know what the latest patch is atm, but most of this is between first and second patch IIRC

[Ron_Lugge]

Yeah, this thread was chock-full of info. IIRC, it was what made me make my "newbs: ask gameplay questsions, get answers" thread.

As far as beeing helpful, IIRC most of it was stuff for newbs. I'd hate to have to dig back through it though.