Newbs: Ask gameplay questions, get answers

[benneyb]

Strifeguard, a lot of good info there, thanks.

Do you think relations with the trading target have much of an impact? That is, is the same trade more likely to be accepted by a race with positive relations than one with negative relations?

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by benneyb
Do you think relations with the trading target have much of an impact? That is, is the same trade more likely to be accepted by a race with positive relations than one with negative relations?

I definitely think that good relations with a potential trading partner increase the likelyhood of trades being accepted.

Now, this is coming only from gameplay experience. I wish I had some kind of hard numbers to back this up (something like, if baserelations are above +150, then 30% of trades will be accepted, etc.) but unfortunately I don't.

Typically, I try to make 2-3 allies who don't directly neighbor me. Then, by acting as a broker between the 3 or 4 of us, I can guarantee that we all (especially me) come out ahead.

I do recall one specific instance where the Evon absolutely refused to trade with me at all. That is, until we signed a full alliance. 10-15 turns later, he was accepting the exact same trades he had turned down before. To me this suggests that diplomatic relations do have some positive effect on the chance of AIs accepting trades. Of course, it could have easily been a lot of other things too. (I may have forgotten what I exactly offered before, a war may have made a tech more dire for him, perhaps he just found out a tech I had offered him was missing from his tree, etc.)

[shmily_dana]

So what are the recommended beginner settings?

I've only played once (per-patch). I tend to like to expand and research. Then pick on some of the weakling opponents and try to be nice to every one else (till it is their turn...)

Race:
Galaxy Size:
Number of Opponents:
etc

thanks

[Zhaneel]

If you want a senate or research win I would recommend a relatively large galaxy (I like cluster myself) with 5-7 opponents. On Easy.

Race is up to you: Nommo are okay, Psilions are hard due to their reduced growth rate. Humans/Evons might be good due to their diplomatic bonus.

Zhaneel

[shmily_dana]

Conquest would be my first choice.

Although I tend to avoid war unless I am sure I have a numerical and/or technological advantage.

(btw: I've like your faq...)

[Zhaneel]

I'm looking at the hard stats pre-patch, and this is what I think would be a good way to do it.

Human/Evon modded to have high research and decent ground troops (forgoing spies, trade and some diplo) to get the research effective bonus.

Imsaesis/Eolidi again modded to have high research and decent ground troops. They don't have the research bonus but they have a higher max oppresometer and more initial positive ratings with other races. Also the big worlds for industry giants is nice.

Klakkon/Tachidi modded for high research so that you can fast expand due to their higher growth rate.

Zhaneel

PS: Thanks for the compliment.

[sirromdivad]

Hi,

Just got MOO3, have been playing around and have stumbled upon something which I'm unclear about.

Every game that I've started (all on easy, variety of races) I seem to be in dire financial peril. For example, in the one I just started my empire is losing 87 AU per turn, and when I look at my homeworld is says that I have an income of 343 AU but expenses amounting to 4150AU !!! Most of those are maintenance costs.

If I hit "Turn" then in the SitRep for the next turn it says that I've lost some buildings on my homeworld due to lack of maintenance fees. And it will continue to do this for a couple of turns until i've lost most of the DEAs I started with.

Is this a bug or a feature? It's happened on every game I've started. None of the Beginner's advice threads I've read have mentioned such dire economic circumstances, so I'm suspicious.

I'm patched to 1.2 on a Mac running OS 10.2.6

Thanks in advance,
sirromdivad

[The Big Joke]

You are trying to spend to much money
Dont spend 100% on every planet. Its when you do things like that that you will end up loosing to much money.

[eugenemcardle]

iirc, buildings and DEA's start to go if you don't have enough cash to pay maintainance costs

[sirromdivad]

Thanks for the quick response!

Now, just to make sure I'm being clear, I haven;t actually done a single thing yet in the game when I find myself in this predicament. So are you saying that the game starts me out in a massive deficit?

Also, nothing that I've tried seems to pull me out of it before I lose the majority of DEAs I start out with on my homeworld -- this includes lessening planetary taxes, lessening imperial/system taxes, increasing planetary grants, etc.

Am I supposed to start out with 5 or 6 DEAs on my homeworld?

Sorry if I didn;t make myself clear initially.

--sirromdivad

[Rapunzel]

I have never seen a thing like that happen before. Not in 1.0, 1.1 nor in 1.2 ig MoO3.
Are you playing a strange race?

[sirromdivad]

Originally posted by Rapunzel
I have never seen a thing like that happen before. Not in 1.0, 1.1 nor in 1.2 ig MoO3.
Are you playing a strange race?

Nope, well I don't think so -- Evon, Human, Trillarian, Meklar, all the same. Seems that the initial maintanence cost is always 4150 AU.

I guess I'll try reinstalling.

--sirromdivad

[sirromdivad]

Yeah, ok that fixed it. Don't know WHY that was, but doing a clean install cleared it all up. Thanks anyway!

-sirromdivad

[coupdup]

Can someone tell me why I receive a diplomatic message from an ally saying <<Fulfill Alliance Obligation:ENEMY NAME>> and the message at the bottom of the screen says something about a trade agreement or research agreement? This happens almost every time!

Okay, and can someone explain the difference between the different missions in the SHIPYARD? What exactly would be the purpose of Point Defense and Indirect Fire?


Thanks!

[Da_Blade]

Originally posted by coupdup
Can someone tell me why I receive a diplomatic message from an ally saying <<Fulfill Alliance Obligation:ENEMY NAME>> and the message at the bottom of the screen says something about a trade agreement or research agreement? This happens almost every time!

There is currently a bug in the dipolmacy texts. the header is the real proposal, the text is wrong.

Okay, and can someone explain the difference between the different missions in the SHIPYARD? What exactly would be the purpose of Point Defense and Indirect Fire?


Poiint defense ships have the purpose of just that: they can only go into the escort ring of task forces, and they serve to defend against incomng thread such as missiles and fighters. Indirect fire ships are ships that use missiles as their main weapon. They are needed as mission ships in the indirect fire mission task forces.

[coupdup]

Which is better to have: A larger Rack Count or More Missles per Rack?

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by coupdup
Which is better to have: A larger Rack Count or More Missles per Rack?

As a general rule, somewhere in between.

Sometimes you need to have large numbers of missiles in the air at one time, to help saturate PD, and at others you just need to be able to target more than one TF's worth of ships...

I generally use about 2-3 shot launchers, and call that enough.

[zanzibar]

I prefer 5-10 shot launchers of the best PD missile tech I know :)

[Ron_Lugge]

Originally posted by zanzibar
I prefer 5-10 shot launchers of the best PD missile tech I know :)

Ah, but I generally use the bigger, badder, nasty sizes.

[FLLonewulf]

Post-code patch, how does one reduce the HFOG? I'm in turn 135 of a Cynoid game with a HFOG of 1.8 (62 Planets, 1433 pop). All other races have no more than 1.4 and thats not even the the comp player with the next most number of planets and pop. Its starting to put a noticable damper on my expansion and military aspirations :sour:

[Ron_Lugge]

Post patch HFOG has lost its gradual upward increase. Now, the ONLY WAY to reduce it is to get a HFOG reduction tech, or lose parts of your empire (since its now based on empire size instead of gradually increasing).

[mahabret_wang]

I love the code patch! Now I'm starting to spend entirely TOO
much time playing this game....

But there are still a few things I haven't figured out yet....

I always cede control on combats, 'cause I've never been
good at real-time stuff. When you get to the first combat
screen (where you choose whether to cede/watch/control)
the "strength" of the forces is listed. What is this number?
I've seen it go down with no ship movement out of the system
or combat occurring, and go up under the same circumstances.
I've also lost combats when my "strength" number was anywhere
from the same to 10x what the enemies number was.
(Doesn't seem to work the other way around, tho!)

My second question is in regards to planetary spending.
Again, I use the planetary Viceroys and only put things in
the military queues. Occasionally, I'll get the message that
things are being disbanded due to lack of maintenance
being paid. Is there any way of getting advance warning
of this happening without drilling down into the planetary
queues for each planet every turn?

(BTW, the only mod I'm using is the Encyclopedia mod)

Thanks!

[mahabret_wang]

oops, forgot - one more question

How can I scrap ships? I've got a ton of
the small transports that you start off with
in my reserves, and I've built some much
better ones, and I want to get rid of the
older/smaller transports. Can I do this?

[zanzibar]

Yes, you can... click on sipyards, then click on fleets... highlight the ship you wanna scrap... and bingo, there you go!! The hard-to-find scrap button! :)

[FLLonewulf]

Ok, I took over a planet from the Skraa Empire, and part of the population was Ithkul :p. Is there a way to get rid of these nasty buggers from my empire (commit genoocide, yes I know its an ugly concept, but hey, they're Ithkul) before they start migrating and eat everybody else? And those Skraa are going to die for consorting with the Ithkul, I did kinda like them too...Oh well, such is the price of being Supreme Galaxy Ruler.

[zanzibar]

The only way to kill an ithkul planet:

1) gift it to your enemy

2) Bomb it to glass

3) re-colonize it

4) wash, rinse, and repeat until all planets with an ithkul population are gone from your empire.

[Ron_Lugge]

Mahabret - please stop manually endstopping your lines. You may not notice it, but it looks really funky when you do so, like this:

oops, forgot -
one more question

How can I scrap ships?
I've got a ton
of the small
transports that you
start off with in my
reserves, and I've
built some much
better ones, and I
want to get rid of the
older/smaller
transports. Can I do
this?

[FLLonewulf]

Thanks. I was afaid of that :rolleyes: ...and it was such a nice planet too (lots of good ole bad tempered Skraa) except for those few points if Ithkul pop. I guess all non 100%-Skraa planets in this game will have to be treated just like Harvester worlds...polished off to a nice shiny glassy finish :D .

[Clueless]

I've got several worlds going into unrest, and one of the recommendations is to build more Recreation DEA's.

So I select Recreation in the dropdown menu, and it says to pick a region. However, no matter what region I highlight, the button to build the DEA gets grayed out.

What am I missing here?

:confused:

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Clueless
So I select Recreation in the dropdown menu, and it says to pick a region. However, no matter what region I highlight, the button to build the DEA gets grayed out.
Each region can only hold 2 DEAs and a Spaceport. So, if you already have 2 DEAs in the regions you're selecting, you'll have to replace one with a recreation DEA.

To do this, click on the DEA you want to replace (not the region, but the DEA itself) select "Recreation" from the drop-down menu, and then click the button that reads "Change DEA". It will automatically tear-out the old DEA and install the Recreation DEA.

Note: You must have some money going into Normal Economic Development in order for the new DEA to be built. Also, be sure that you've downloaded the Code-Patch, pre-patch this process worked differently.

Now, if you don't want to replace DEAs, instead try lowering taxes locally, opening up the finance screen and increasing spending on "Unrest Reduction", also try dropping the oppressometer by 1 notch while things cool-off.

If you click on the Demographics tab (Planet View) you can see the exact causes of unrest. This should help you to deal with the problem locally.

[zanzibar]

Also, do not forget that on yellow 2, red 1, and red 2 planets that you cannot plant bioharvest DEAs until an appropriate tech is researched. And even with that tech, you can't plant bioharvest on red 2's...

[FLLonewulf]

How do I get Roy to leave my research spending slider alone? I know there are lines in tables that effect how long it takes for Roy to adjust spending levels, but don't want to mess with that too much, it does a descent job on military and planet building and planet econ and terraforming, but always leaves research on 1 or 2 percent. I don't want to turn off planetary AI with over 175 planets :eek:

I'm a production/research hound and like to be at least 4-6 levels ahead in tech, esp in tech slow down and Roy is just not keeping up. I've tried research heavy Dev plans, but those just seem to go a bit heavy on the research DEAs and improvement buildings. Do I need to go extra heavy on the research DEAs to boost RPs to keep spending green? Is military-political economy policy supposed to effect research spending, or just military spending? It seems it has to be on Total or Holy War to produce large ships, otherwise its tons of ground troops and troop ships for them to go absolutely nowhere, so thats usually where I'm at. Any tips to keep research at 5-10% on a planetary level and imperial additional research spending at 15-20%?

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by FLLonewulf
How do I get Roy to leave my research spending slider alone?If you're REALLY determined to make him stop touching it, disable the econ AI. The downside is that then he will no longer touch any of the sliders and you'll have to take on more and more planetary development on your own. This is also not a good idea because Roy has info. you don't, and is the one who issues Regional Build Que orders, so in the long run your planet will suffer from a disabled econ AI.

Originally posted by FLLonewulf
I'm a production/research hound and like to be at least 4-6 levels ahead in tech, esp in tech slow down and Roy is just not keeping up. I've tried research heavy Dev plans, but those just seem to go a bit heavy on the research DEAs and improvement buildings. Do I need to go extra heavy on the research DEAs to boost RPs to keep spending green?Yes. If you don't have research DEAs (or have only a few), but you want very high research, the only alternative is to overdrive the research DEAs that you already have. Since overdriving means spending beyond green, the only solution to "keep spending green" is to put up more research DEAs.

Originally posted by FLLonewulf
Is military-political economy policy supposed to effect research spending, or just military spending? It seems it has to be on Total or Holy War to produce large ships, otherwise its tons of ground troops and troop ships for them to go absolutely nowhere, so thats usually where I'm at. Any tips to keep research at 5-10% on a planetary level and imperial additional research spending at 15-20%?
Okay, many of us really don't have a problem getting Roy to build very large ships on "Limited War" or even "Peace through Strength". The fact that you need to set your economy on "Total War" or "Holy War" in order to produce large ships suggests to me that you might be trying to force your planets to produce ships slightly larger than they might really be up to, or that your empire might not be "living-up-to-it's-potential" in terms of industry. Since the economy in Moo3 is so inter-related, solving a couple of these problems will probably put a whole new persepective on research. However, I'd need some more info.

If you don't mind answering:
What's the highest number of industrial points andy of your planets is producing? (Not production points, but industrial points)
What are the sizes of the ships you've currently designed?
What's the average number of industrial points (again, not production points) on your "ship-producing" worlds?
What race are you playing?
What's your current tech level? (or at what tech level to you feel Roy stops building the ships you need?)

[FLLonewulf]

Your right, I REALLY don't want to turn off the Econ AI.

Current state of affairs on hard difficulty 2 arm lrg spiral w/8 comp opponents (6 left):
top 4 planets in IND are 6200-5800 in IND pts, average on ship building worlds is about 2400 (half making ships, half making troops/transports unless in lock production mode), battleship is the current design for all mission types (I have Dreadnought available) (all ships have same AU value in design screen otherwise Roy goes nuts with the cheaper ships...I do NOT need 150 recon ships and no CVs or IFs...), playing custom Cynoid +s to research, creativity, natural engineers, and fantastic traders, -s to all ground combat stats, limited war footing while at war with Tachidi and Sillyciods. Senate leader (victory condition is off), 427 reserve ships (only 50 being 4 pod transports) 1200 ships deployed (I'm between design phases, moving new fleets to front lines and will scrap old ships ASAP), 875K economy (only 50K bank reserve) minimal surplus deficit spending-330K additional research, 330K militarty grants, 185K plantary grants...

[mahabret_wang]

*sigh* Can this game be successfully played WITHOUT controlling the combat?

I'm playing on easy, and unless my opponents send a single ship or task force, I seem to always get my butt kicked, even if I have more ships of the same or a different type. I'd think that a carrier armada could take out a short-range squadron, but nooooo. Now granted, it doesn't usually destroy my ships, but it's annoying as heck to send ten armadas against one or two flotillas or a pack and watch them turn around and run.

(And I didn't hit ENTER except to separate paragraphs, so hopefully it will format right this time! Sorry 'bout last time!)

[Paul5343]

I always use "Watch" and can win often, also on Easy. I don't think a pure carrier armada on its own is very strong. Try more of a mix of taskforces / ship designs. Missiles as a part of the group can be a strong element.

[mahabret_wang]

errrr... missiles?

I should explain that I usually auto-build ships, too....

[eugenemcardle]

Originally posted by mahabret_****
*sigh* Can this game be successfully played WITHOUT controlling the combat?

......I'd think that a carrier armada could take out a short-range squadron, but nooooo. Now granted, it doesn't usually destroy my ships, but it's annoying as heck to send ten armadas against one or two flotillas or a pack and watch them turn around and run.....

(

Look at you task force creation strategies; try using something other than carriers, i.e long range attack and others

[FLLonewulf]

Mahabret-

Do you also use the auto-build task force?

Personally I mix the same number of IF ships with carriers (CVs) and screen them with an equal number of PD ships and throw in the required Recons (or edit taskforce.txt to remove the recon requirement). I also send along an escort TF (usually 1 group size smaller) of LR ships with its own PD screen. That way the LR TF charges in and takes the brunt of the enemy counterfire and defense while the CV/IF TF stands off and pummels the defenses.

[skykop]

Does the placement of the DEA's on your planets matters, besides putting mines on mountains or placements like that, in reference to where your population on the planet is located at? Example: you have a population of Darloks on a mountain (fertilty -2) but decide to place a recreational DEA on a empty nearby plain (fertilty -2) will the DEA still work or should I have place it on the area with the population?

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by skykop
Does the placement of the DEA's on your planets matters, besides putting mines on mountains or placements like that, in reference to where your population on the planet is located at?
Your people will happily "commute to work" so you don't need to place DEAs where people are living.

There's 1 key exception here. Racial bonuses are based upon what regions the race is living in. Thus, if you have a Human/Psilon planet, putting Research DEAs in regions where Humans are living will make you miss out on the Psilon's research bonus. On the other hand, putting bioharvest DEAs in human inhabited regions will bypass the Psilon's bioharvesting penalty.

If you have mixed worlds, check out the distribution of the population, and try and take advantage of it if at all possible. Believe me, the difference between putting an Industry DEA on a region inhabited by Cynoids and a region inhabited by Humans can be HUGE.

[skykop]

Gracias, now back to the game, tally ho :up: :D

[bbailey496]

Originally posted by Ron_Lugge
Also, feel free to ignore certain basic pieces of netiquete. Newbs are NOT required to wade through all the posts here to see if something has been answered before they ask it; they just have to check the last couple posts and make certain it isn't being discussed. This is because this is supposed to be an easy resource, not a textbook, and I know I find wading through large threads trying at the best of times...
Thanks Ron for setting this up. My first reaction when I found this thread was "Geez, ten pages to wade throught before I get to ask a question." I sure am glad I read the first post! (I almost didn't bother.)

Lucky for me, I didn't buy this game until the 1.2.5 patch was out. Lucky for Atari I didn't know about all the grief before dropping down my money!

Anyway, I am at 130 turns in my first (easy) game (as human) using default settings. Mostly I have tried to learn by doing and going with the macro-manager approach. At this point I am paying hardly any attention to construction and technology and just letting the Roys do their work. I am doing okay, but I have some questions.

1) About how many turns will the game take? I am guessing that the predictable end is that some other race gets elected Senate President?

2) About how powerful a force do I need to take out a guardian? I can build BC and have a couple TL 13 & 14 weapons, am I ready?

3) Do Political Spies on Internal Security status help protect leaders? I have lost four so far despite having the Oppressometer at 4 (5 or above is considered high for your empire).

I know there are a lot of UI complaints, but I will ask these next few anyway.

4) Not every screen has a close button, but all seem to respond to Esc. Is there a quick way (i.e., singly keystroke) to get to the galaxy map screen from just about anywhere?

5) The only MBQs that I feel obligated to mess with are on my home system. Is there a quick way to get there? From galaxy screen I use h then double-click then click on planet then click on MBQ. Make changes, then Esc three times to get back to galaxy. Not too bad, but I would love to be able to set a direct short cut.

6) The other thing I seem to be constantly fighting with is when SitRep references a planet. Nine out of ten times I really want to go to the star or galaxy map (centered on the system) but the SitRep hyperlink is directly to the planet -- and in this context I haven't been able to find a way to jump from this screen to the system screen nor the galaxy screen. Am I missing something? Why is the planet screen that SitRep invokes so different than what you get when "drilling down" to a planet? SitRep links to systems work fine for me.

7) I haven't quite achieved mastery of the Planets tab yet. (I hope the answer to my 6 doesn't lie there.) Currently I waste quite a bit of time using the Planets tab to locate a newish or distant planet but then having to return to the galaxy screen (and scrolling) to take any action. Is there a way to jump to a particular planet's star (either galaxy or system view) from the Planets screen?

8) Can anyone recommend a strategy guide that is not as lame as the manual (or Prima's first edition)?

Thanks for all your help.

[Wainamoinen]

Originally posted by bbailey496
1) About how many turns will the game take? I am guessing that the predictable end is that some other race gets elected Senate President?

Senate Victory is the quickest win. Maybe 150-200 turns. A fast reproduction race (Insectoid, Saurian), or Etherians with their big planets are the ones you have to usually stop. Easier to get if you're a happy, friendly, popular Human or Nommo.

Originally posted by bbailey496
2) About how powerful a force do I need to take out a guardian? I can build BC and have a couple TL 13 & 14 weapons, am I ready?
Touch and go. You can do it with lots of IF, if you have enough, and if you have the right missile tech.

Originally posted by bbailey496
3) Do Political Spies on Internal Security status help protect leaders? I have lost four so far despite having the Oppressometer at 4 (5 or above is considered high for your empire).
Any spies on Int Sec are looking for ALL enemy agents, area of expertise is not important. If you have a spy problem, the usual advice is to try clearing them out with a temporary oppressometer boost - so in your case, maybe try a different government that allows higher oppresometer levels without unrest. Humans will always be vulnerable to spies to some extent, it's one of their weaknesses.

Originally posted by bbailey496
I know there are a lot of UI complaints, but I will ask these next few anyway.

4) Not every screen has a close button, but all seem to respond to Esc. Is there a quick way (i.e., singly keystroke) to get to the galaxy map screen from just about anywhere?
press "g". Will take you to the galaxy map.

Originally posted by bbailey496
5) The only MBQs that I feel obligated to mess with are on my home system. Is there a quick way to get there? From galaxy screen I use h then double-click then click on planet then click on MBQ. Make changes, then Esc three times to get back to galaxy. Not too bad, but I would love to be able to set a direct short cut.
Planets tab. Show build queues, click on the ">>" to take you directly to the build queue of the planet in question. Handy when setting all your high-industry worlds to churning out the death-spewing machines.

Originally posted by bbailey496
6) The other thing I seem to be constantly fighting with is when SitRep references a planet. Nine out of ten times I really want to go to the star or galaxy map (centered on the system) but the SitRep hyperlink is directly to the planet -- and in this context I haven't been able to find a way to jump from this screen to the system screen nor the galaxy screen. Am I missing something? Why is the planet screen that SitRep invokes so different than what you get when "drilling down" to a planet? SitRep links to systems work fine for me.
Can't help there, sorry. Just have to remember the planet, then go to the galaxy view and drill down to it.

Originally posted by bbailey496
7) I haven't quite achieved mastery of the Planets tab yet. (I hope the answer to my 6 doesn't lie there.) Currently I waste quite a bit of time using the Planets tab to locate a newish or distant planet but then having to return to the galaxy screen (and scrolling) to take any action. Is there a way to jump to a particular planet's star (either galaxy or system view) from the Planets screen?
No. Though I'm mildly confused as to where you'd want to do this. Planets tab leads to planets.

If you're having difficulty manipulating stuff, you may have too many instances of planet information open, I find this hobbles what you can do in the second example of planet information.

Originally posted by bbailey496
8) Can anyone recommend a strategy guide that is not as lame as the manual (or Prima's first edition)?
Ooh, where to start?

Try Loreweaver's (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=261632) as a start. There are many others in greater detail, some on other sites.

Have fun.

[eugenemcardle]

Re 7)..from Planet screen, select Location. That brings up a mini galaxy map showing position of selected planetary system. Double click the planet and it takes you to the system (I think) on the main galaxy map.

Also, 'h'hgoes dirctly to Homeworld, and 'c' goes to last open planet screen iirc.

[Zhaneel]

8) Can anyone recommend a strategy guide that is not as lame as the manual (or Prima's first edition)?

Thanks for all your help.

Oooh... me! Link below, not specific to 2.5, but has some good info.

Zhaneel

[bbailey496]

Originally posted by Wainamoinen
Senate Victory is the quickest win. Maybe 150-200 turns. A fast reproduction race (Insectoid, Saurian), or Etherians with their big planets are the ones you have to usually stop. Easier to get if you're a happy, friendly, popular Human or Nommo.
Yeah, but I can't even get on the Senate (let alone become president). From reading other threads, it seems to me that ignoring the Senate lead newbs to defeat.
Touch and go. You can do it with lots of IF, if you have enough, and if you have the right missile tech.
What is lots of IF at TL 10? About how many Battle Cruisers with Armor Piercing Anionic Energy Warheads? Do I need PD or Intercept Fighters for defense (or just suck it up)?

Press "g". Will take you to the galaxy map.

:up: Sweet! Another important but undocumented keystroke. Between that, running MoO3 in a window (option-w, on the Mac), and learning (from this forum) that saves only reflect the status of things at the very beginning of the turn, I have resolved about half of my issues with the UI.

Planets tab. Show build queues, click on the ">>" to take you directly to the build queue of the planet in question. Handy when setting all your high-industry worlds to churning out the death-spewing machines.

Yeah, I am still not quite groking the Planets tab. I want a way to bookmark favorite filters/sorts settings. I am getting too much information, or not what I am looking for. But then I am a newb.

Can't help there, sorry. Just have to remember the planet, then go to the galaxy view and drill down to it.

No. Though I'm mildly confused as to where you'd want to do this. Planets tab leads to planets.

That's my issue -- and why I want the planet views to be consistent (i.e., always have a link to the parent star system -- and sister planets).

Typically what happens is that SitRep reports news on some remote planet. To take action, I want to see the planet in context of the neighbor planets and stars. The SitRep link won't do this for me, so I have to remember the arbitrary name (harder for me than you might think -- at this point they might as well be entirely random strings), go to planets and change the last setting I used to show all planets listed alphabetically, click the Location tap, memorize the arbitrary approximate place in the blob of color (again, harder for me than you might think), g :up: and then h (to get to known location) and then arbitrary scrolling. :p Whew! After that much work, I usually have to bring up SitRep again to try and remember why I wanted to look at this system! (Lucky for me the galaxy view doesn't reset.)

If you're having difficulty manipulating stuff, you may have too many instances of planet information open, I find this hobbles what you can do in the second example of planet information.

I have had second copies of planet information layer on top of each other, but that's not the issue. The problem is that some planet screens (those brought up by SitRep and the Planets tab) lack the back links to the star and other planets in the system. The view should be same as what drilling down get you.

Ooh, where to start?

Try Loreweaver's (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=261632) as a start. There are many others in greater detail, some on other sites.

Have fun.

I should have been more specific. I am looking for an off-line print resource. I am more than willing to pay money.

Don't get me wrong, the player support for MoO3 is just amazing. This discussion board is real game saver, and QSI sponsors it and is a frequent contributor. But things have to be in kept in perspective. Discussion boards and fan sites are not mentioned on the box or in the manual. They are way down the list, after (not necessarily in this order) in-game help, user manual, publisher web site, official strategy guides. If the store I bought the game from had an open box policy, I would have returned the game before doing the work to find this board. I have yet to have the in-game encyclopedia return a hit on keyword search. The Master Notes are okay but it is a massive oversight that there are not tutorials or scaled-down scenarios included.

Okay, a few more questions.

9) I like that f cycles between fleets. Is there a way to cycle only between fleets without orders?

10) Can I combine single ships to form a new taskforce acts as one unit?

11) I have seen the term "glassing" used (as in "glass the planet). I assume this means killing the population. Does it refer to a specific weapon or in-game history? I have not come across this term in my sci fi reading.

12) Is there anywhere in the game that sound is really important? The chattering from aliens is cool, and I like the background music, but aside from mood am I missing anything by playing with the sound turned off?

[Zhaneel]

Originally posted by bbailey496

What is lots of IF at TL 10? About how many Battle Cruisers with Armor Piercing Anionic Energy Warheads? Do I need PD or Intercept Fighters for defense (or just suck it up)?

No. You need at least Merticulite Warheads, or Rockets with the one in between Merticulite and Anionic Energy (Heculeran, I think) to get past the shield.

Unless I guess if you had 7 of your 10 as Full IF forces who fired in sequence, you MIGHT be able to get enough shield damage done with quick missles following, but I doubt it. Mathematically, you need Merticultie to get past the shielding, so AP doesn't matter.


Yeah, I am still not quite groking the Planets tab. I want a way to bookmark favorite filters/sorts settings. I am getting too much information, or not what I am looking for. But then I am a newb.

The Planets tab will automatically pull up your last search and filters (not counting a restart of a save game).

While I agree that you should be able to get from the Planets tab easily to the system view or the sister planets (other than by sorting by Star name) I see why QS did it they way they did. The Planets tab is to easy see a group of planets. If you want to see all the planets in a system, find the system and play there. It makes sense to me.

If you want, you can rename the systems in a way that makes sense to you. Perhaps just by listing an abrev. of the neighbors on the end.

I should have been more specific. I am looking for an off-line print resource. I am more than willing to pay money.

There is an "official" guide. It sucks. It was out of date when the game hit the shelves. QS/Atari have been thinking about releasing a new one using the information that the boards have generated.

In today's gaming world, the fan base supports the games better than most publishers.

You can get the guide, but you'll be wasting your money.


10) Can I combine single ships to form a new taskforce acts as one unit?

No. You must disband any previously exsiting taskforces (even 1 ship) to have it show up in reserves after being in the delay box for 5-10 turns before it can incorporated into a new one.


11) I have seen the term "glassing" used (as in "glass the planet). I assume this means killing the population. Does it refer to a specific weapon or in-game history? I have not come across this term in my sci fi reading.

It refers to bombing. No specific weapon. General idea: You expend so much energy that every thing turns to sand, and the sand to glass when at high temps.


12) Is there anywhere in the game that sound is really important? The chattering from aliens is cool, and I like the background music, but aside from mood am I missing anything by playing with the sound turned off?

Not that I am aware. I usually have WinAmp in the background and turn the background music off.

Zhaneel

[bbailey496]

Another important but undocumented keystroke.
My bad: 'g, G' Returns to the galaxy map

Right there in the the MoO3 Hotkeys list. My apologies for missing that. I've read that screen over at least a dozen times.

[Wainamoinen]

Senate Victory: Turn it off if it's ending your games too early. I do.
Alternatively, play with it on but keep a careful eye out for any Senate member race that looks like it's getting too powerful (you can check who's a Senate member even if you aren't yourself, in Victory tab or (less certainly) by checking other race's relations matrix in diplomacy and seeing who has contacts (particularly with the NOs) that can't be explained by proximity of systems). If you're worried about them, attack them, or (better) get others to attack them. The latter will also make it less likely they can gain the votes necessary for a Senate victory.

Guardian assault with low (10) tech: Don't do it. :p
IF you built a massive number of 2 shot missile boats, with staggered launches from different TFs, a LR TF to soak up damage, a CV TF to launch fighters to receive Guardian PD, and were lucky, then maybe. At this tech though, I'd regard building this many ships (which you'd likely lose loads of) as a near-criminal waste of resources that could be better assigned to colony building.
Plus I like Guardians at this stage. They seal off areas of the map I can off-road to, and colonise without stress.

For the rest, pretty much what Zhaneel said. I'd add:

9) You can sort your fleets in the "Fleet" tab in the Shipyards screen. Maybe this would help.

11) Glass is produced by heating sand until it melts, then supercooling so that it retains liquid structure in solid state (glass will flow slowly downards over many years). Volcanic glass occurs naturally. Using the term in MOO - you've applied so much heat the rocks of the planetary surface have flowed, then cooled, leaving a glassy surface, and the atmosphere and any surface water have incidentally boiled away into space.

Basically, everyone's dead.

Gets used for when you kill all inhabitants, though really it should be when you make the target planet an uninhabitable billiard ball. Unless your race likes living on smooth glassy spheres.

I like the term. I don't like Ithkul. They get glassed. And not in a "pissed-up in the boozer" sense.

[TheGreyWanderer]

Originally posted by Wainamoinen
Senate Victory: Turn it off if it's ending your games too early. I do.
Another alternative: leave it on & don't worry about it. If you get the vidio that shows your destroyed empire & tells you you lost the senate presidency, then just study the information presented about the other races (it will tell you if any of them have "x"s), pick the quit option on that page, on the main menu pick load game, go down the list to the auto-saved games & pick the one with the highest turn number - that turn is the one that would have come up if you hadn't lost -> you will see who won the senate in the sitrep. Then you can just play on as if nothing happened.

More on "glassing" - during the early above ground atomic bomb tests they actually did find that the heat of the blast turned small quantities of sand into glass; I remember seeing pictures in a book when I was a kid. I suspect that observation is actually the origin of the concept (science fact rather than science fiction); though the actual word "glassing" may be an invention of the MOO-ers.

[Xephar]

Whats the difference between Colonies and outposts?

[Zhaneel]

Colonies have over 1000 population (Bombarded populations are a special exception). Outposts have less than 1000 population.

Colony ships carry at least 1 colony pod. Each colony pop will have enough population to have 1000 survive on a green planet, 500 on a yellow and 250 on a red.

Outpost ships have at least 1 outpost pod. I believe each outpost pod is 50 population regardless of quality, but I may be wrong.

Outposts can also be formed by your population migrating on their own to nearby good planets.

Zhaneel

[Actuarian]

Originally posted by Xephar
Whats the difference between Colonies and outposts?

You can't build anything on an outpost, but you can set migration on for the outpost to speed up its population growth. When it gets to 1000, then you can start managing the colony.

You can also colonize your own outposts to speed up growth.

You can also colonize an outpost of another empire. The first empire to get to 1000 population gets control of all the population (both empires) on that planet.

You can't attack an outpost, and your outposts can't be attacked.

[zanzibar]

Don't forget... colonies started with an outpost ship get a free military DEA!!

[NickPalmerMP]

Great hread, thanks to all the helpful posters.

I'm not really a newbie (I was even a playtester) but it's only recently that I got into MP and found I needed to know things that I could coast over in SP. Specifically:

In player-controlled combat, my carriers don't seem to launch fighters in defense. Unlike many posters, I find my PD fires away happily, but the fighters just sit there until I ask them to attack a ship or a world. How do I trigger defensive anti-fighter fighters?

I think I've seen this somewhere, but...?

Nick

[FLLonewulf]

After I take over a planet, the AI will not build in established DEAs DEA enhancements that my empire has that the former owner did not, e.g. my Ithkul have automated mines and the Nommo empire did not, I took over a planet from the Nommo and 20 turns later, still no automated mines in any pre-existing mining DEAs. Do I need to completely strip the planet of DEAs and let it redevelope acording to my plan? Further, does this "bug" apply only to existing techs when the planet is conquered and once the planet is part of my empire, they can build all newly discovered enhancements or is the planet 'stuck' in the tech tree of the original colonizing empire/race? Similarly, if I conquer a planet with a tech enhancement that I do not have, does that enhancement stop working or go away (I know the tech isn't added to my tech tree-only a chance of gaining 1 tech during successful ground invasion)? Anyone have any thoughts or theories or empirical data?

[triller]

Originally posted by FLLonewulf
After I take over a planet, the AI will not build in established DEAs DEA enhancements that my empire has that the former owner did not, e.g. my Ithkul have automated mines and the Nommo empire did not, I took over a planet from the Nommo and 20 turns later, still no automated mines in any pre-existing mining DEAs. Do I need to completely strip the planet of DEAs and let it redevelope acording to my plan?

Having INFRASTRUCTURE in your DevPlans should get those enhancements rolling for you. Roy might have other ideas early after conquest. Wish the RBQ was visible.

[FLLonewulf]

Having INFRASTRUCTURE in your DevPlans should get those enhancements rolling for you. Roy might have other ideas early after conquest. Wish the RBQ was visible.

I have Infrastructure as primary in ALL PLANETS and seconday in SECONDARY, so its well covered. The only enhancements that effects though, is the sanitation, power, transportation, and one other infrastrucure tech, which all give a bonus to base numbers, before any other tech bonuses are applied, ie farm efficiency would go from say a base 4 to a base 6 with all infrastrucures, then the 50, 100, and 200% bonuses would be applied for such techs as soil rejuvenators. Placing MINES in a Dev Plan would encourage Roy to build mine enhancements such as automated mines or mining robots, and the same would apply for FARM, MANUFACTURE, RESEARCH, GOVERNMENT, etc. What I'm not clear on is wheter or not Roy will build enhancements in an existing DEA when a planet is conquered, if the original owner did not have the tech. Otherwise I'd have to micro out each DEA and replace it so it gets fully developed with my tech, and on a size 12 world, thats 24 turns of microing just that one planet because the AI only takes out 1 DEA/turn.

By the way, my NEWLY CONQUERED Dev Plan is GOVERNMENT, TERRAFORMING, PALETARY DEFENSE.

You can follow the RBQ, just open up the planetay infrastructure, and right above region 1 is what is in the RBQ. However, you have no direct control over this, which is kinda frustrating when Roy is building hydroponic farms instead of nanofactories or there are DEAs still "planned" with population to run the planned DEA and all its upgrades. (Yeah yeah, I know Roy is trying to provide the food needs of THIS planet, but for crying out loud, I've got a 15K food surplus throughout the empire...)

[Zhaneel]

What you actually need is mining. Deep Extration Mining is a MINING improvement. So unless it is your Dev Plans it won't build. And even then, depending on supply and demand as well as your regional setting (Balanced, Natural, Specialize) it may or may not build those even still. Weird.

Zhaneel

[Actuarian]

Originally posted by FLLonewulf
After I take over a planet, the AI will not build in established DEAs DEA enhancements that my empire has that the former owner did not, e.g. my Ithkul have automated mines and the Nommo empire did not, I took over a planet from the Nommo and 20 turns later, still no automated mines in any pre-existing mining DEAs. Do I need to completely strip the planet of DEAs and let it redevelope acording to my plan? Further, does this "bug" apply only to existing techs when the planet is conquered and once the planet is part of my empire, they can build all newly discovered enhancements or is the planet 'stuck' in the tech tree of the original colonizing empire/race? Similarly, if I conquer a planet with a tech enhancement that I do not have, does that enhancement stop working or go away (I know the tech isn't added to my tech tree-only a chance of gaining 1 tech during successful ground invasion)? Anyone have any thoughts or theories or empirical data?

Is it building anything there? If so, what?

Based on what sort of regional zoning policy you have (natural, balanced, specialized) and the needs/shortages of the empire and/or planet, the viceroy may have other ideas as to what improvements need to be built.

This thread by Zodicus (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=306415) is a great general read on this topic. It describes the interrelationship of the regional zoning policy, development plans, the viceroy's DEA placement, and the infrastructure improvements that 'roy chooses. Check it out before you try messing with dev plans.

AFAIK, the AI will never change a DEA; that's something you have to do yourself if you feel the need.

[FLLonewulf]

Based on what sort of regional zoning policy you have (natural, balanced, specialized) and the needs/shortages of the empire and/or planet, the viceroy may have other ideas as to what improvements need to be built.

I leave regional zoning on natural. AI starts building region enhancements (bio diverity improvers, population extenders, etc.) but on a world with a mineral shortage, will not build mining DEA enhancements or industy DEA enhancements (which kinda makes sense since more ind=more minerals used and there is already a planetary shortage) but empire wide, I currently have a 70K mineral surplus and a 15K food surplus, with 500K production and 800K research. So the mine and farm inprovements are no real big deal, but I would like all those conquered industry DEAs to put up all those nice industy output booster enhancements (especially on those cybernetic worlds) to help crank out those IF Titans in 1 turn. Its not a 'problem' that is causing dificulty, but would like to know what is going on to better manage things and get those conquered worlds into the production cycle ASAP.

Did read post by Zod a day or so ago, and its good stuff

[Zerranik]

Game seems like lots of fun, I am about to go in for my second game (my first game didn't quite get finished... but thats beside the point. :p).

I have a few questions though.

1) Ok, so some damn spy just wrecked my empire seat. Im really super mad atm. How do I build a new one? :)

2)How do I trade commodities between my planets. Let's say I have a very rich planet, and I bioeng the crap out of it. I want this to be the "Breadbasket" of my empire. How do I get the goods to the poor guys living on rocks and... rocks on my mining planets? (and vice versa).. I tend to play as humans (I picked them for my first game).

3) What happens when I get into a trade agreement with another empire. Do I need to send trade ships or what (I dont get this whole trade thing can you tell?)

That's it pretty much. I have a lot to learn but I am very interested.... And sorry I did not read this whole thread, I stopped midway into page two. :-/ So sorry if you have answered these questions, or they are so incredibly dumb you injured yourself laughing. My deepest sympathies to your family and friends if said injuries are severe as well....

That's it, thanks in advance. :)

[Zhaneel]

Welcome to the boards and glad you found your way here.

1) To rebuild your empire seat, head to any planet (most likely your previous seat) with a system seat and/or Government DEA and manually place on in the Planetary Build Queue. To get to that:
a) Get to planet screen of the desired planet
b) expand the economics tab (far left, lower area)
c) expand the Planetary Build Queue (second of the two queues in the center of your new tab)
d) Select Imperial Seat from the list. NOTE: If System Seat is also an option, you must build a SYSTEM seat and then the IMPERIAL seat. Make sure they are loaded into the queue.
e) Wait for it to build. You can speed up the process by dedicating more money to that queue by adjusting the sliders.

To keep spies out, up your oppressometer (In the Empire Tab at the bottom of your galaxy screen) to the max. Also, train spies (Dipolmatic and Economic are cheap and fast) to stay on defense.

2) You don't have to do anything. Surplus are automatically traded to all planets, provided there is no blockade or enemy system in the way. Surplus is deployed by distance, so if you have a shortage, those farthest away from the giving planet will suffer the most.

3) You don't have to do anything. Trade is automatically generated. Same with a research agreement. If you chose a Non-Agression Pact, then the opposing player can enter your space without generating a battle and can settle planets in the same system as you. Flip side being you can explore his space freely and settle on the planets in his systems.

Zhaneel

[zanzibar]

Actually, with NA treaty you still can't settle planets in other systems of your opponents if your opponent has a ship in the system...

[FLLonewulf]

1) Ok, so some damn spy just wrecked my empire seat. Im really super mad atm. How do I build a new one?

You can go in and manually set up a new Imperial Seat of Government (as stated in a previous post), or you can just let the AI build a new one, which it will start immediately. It will usually do so on your 'best' planet with a system seat of govt in place. Note that an Imperial Seat takes 6 turns to build. You can also demolish your Imperial Seat if you wish (say your seat is in a system obout to be overrun by an enemy) and manually rebuild it in a more secure location. The Imperial Seat does provide minor unrest and productivity boosts to the planet, system, and to a lesser degree nearby systems. These boosts become more noticeable when gov't DEA building are built, ie monuments (although the AI on its own has difficulty building such improvements--try searching the MOD board for fixes for this problem).

2)&3) These are handled automatically by the game, no need to micromange them (thank goodness).

[RobNelson]

These boosts become more noticeable when gov't DEA building are built, ie monuments (although the AI on its own has difficulty building such improvements--try searching the MOD board for fixes for this problem).


I have found that with the 1.25 patch, the AI likes to build these.

[plan9]

Is there a method of seeing what ranges are in the space battle screen, like a grid? Tried what I thought was the answer to this with G keystroke - can't see a grid.

Be happy with a "this discussed here" answer.

World Preferences:

Referring to Magnate preferences discussed elsewhere, assuming that a higher number for temperature, pressure means hotter, more pressure respectively?


Picket ring:

If you put PD ships here with the recon mission type, do they provide another layer of missile, fighter defense?

[RobNelson]

Grid in space combat: There is one, but it's dark (on my monitor, anyways). Try adjusting your gamma correction (don't know enough to help more than that, maybe someone else can).

Worlds: That's what I assumed.

Picket: Yes, and many people advocate loading up your pickets with PD (ie light mount beams).

[plan9]

Thanks, have to try the gamma correction, usually don't have problems like that with my machine.

[Ron_Lugge]

The general consensus on the board appears to be that, since ECCM/sensors appear to be broken, you should have one weapon with the longest possible range on your recon ships, and the rest should be filled with whatever you prefer for PD.

The longest ranged weapon is because, at the moment, we believe detection to be based of off the maximum range of your DF fire weapons - your ability to "see" your enemy is determined by whatever the longest ranged weapon is.

[plan9]

Further to the gamma correction to see range grid:

Used my brightness controls, and no luck, when couldn't find a gamma correction adjustment in the options screen - am I missing something?

How do other people have a sense of what ranges are in the space battle screen?


And, oh for a pause button . . .

[RobNelson]

The only reason I know anything about a gamma correction is because some other games have it in their options, I just make due with a nearly invisible grid. There should be some way...

EDIT: I found it on mine, using Win XP and a TNT2 Model 64, yours may be different, but this may give you a head start.

1) Right click on the desktop and select properties to bring up the display properties.

2) Select the "settings" tab.

3) In the lower right there is a button labeled advanced. Click on it.

4) A new window pops up, with several tabs along the top. On mine, one of them is labeled "TNT2 Model 64", on your machine there should be a tab labeled with you display device. Click on it.

5) This opens a side panel with several options, one being color correction. Click on it.

6) This changes the main panel to the color correction screen. On the right rand side are controls for brightness, contrast, and gamma correction. This is where you can change gamma correction.

7) Click on apply.

You may have to try several different settings before you get what you want.

As stated earlier in the thread, each computer is different. If you don't use XP, or have the same hardware as me, then these steps won't be exact, but you should be able to use them as a springboard to find how to change yours.

Hope that helps. :D

[plan9]

Didn't think of that: the Display props, thanks Rob.

[plan9]

Going to risk bugging you Rob one more time.

In the read me it says toggle for grid on/off is [G] I read this as capital G keystroke - this seems to do nothing.

Found my settings and fiddled, but didn't seem to help.

Am curious how you gamma'd yours - turn it way up or way down - would think you'd have to turn everything way up - brightness, contrast, and gamma.

Also does graphic low,medium, high have any bearing?

[RobNelson]

I actually have my gamma at default, the grid (which is on by default in my game) is hard to see, but vivsible - not enough of a problem for me to do anything about it. I only knew about gamma correction because some games - like Morrowind - have it in their options screen.

I don't know if graphics level has any bearing, maybe soemone else can clue us in?

I don't want to crush your hopes or anything, but I haven't found the grid to be all that helpful anyways. Once in combat, you can't tell what weapons are on what ships in which TFs, so unless you have a very good memory or are doing some controlled experiments (see visage's thread), I don't know if it's worth all the trouble you're putting into it (though I will help out as much as I can and let you decide :D ).

[plan9]

Rob:

Thanks for the patience. Finally got it to work by turning up the green channel brightness, just a hair - playing MOO3 now will be a little like watching the Matrix from now on :) . Like you say its pretty dark.

Did a search and found Visage had figured out how big each grid was a while back:

http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=4023289&highlight=grid#post4023289

If each is 4000 Gm then with my LR stuff (Tech 10-20) should be getting pretty good short range accuracy at 2 grids away - will use that as a guide for standoff range, and see how it works.

[pedxing]

do let us know if the grid turns out to actually be useful for anything. i usually turn it off, as it is plenty bright for me (i'm on a LCD screen) and offends my senses with its... well, its... well, square... uh, gridness.

hexes.

they should be hexes. yeah.

at least the grid stays off when you turn it off, unlike the TF pentagons and the health bars. they just come right back each time. they're nice to turn off when watching big battles. too much visual clutter.

[RobNelson]

I'd always been curious as to why the grid is square but the TFs are surrounded by hexes... It's a design element I never would have considered. Maybe program team 1 did the grid and team 2 did the hexes...

[DeckPrism]

Aren't the TFs surrounded by slightly irregular pentegons? I though that was to indicate the direction the TF was headed.

[plan9]

Am glad to have the grid, have some Idea on distance to maintain, how to engage. Seems like from a poll thread on this, there must be quite a variation on how this displays for people.

Example of use: Accuracy starts to drop at 60% of max. range, so using the 2 grid method - 8000 Range Units - then with 17K range stuff (spinal mount NB, PC, HB), you'd be rule-of-thumb about 50% range, or at short range. Am I wrong here?
This leaving aside the opaque discussion on how ECM, ect. works.

Agree with the "irregular polygon" helps to see which direction the taskforce is going, not a conflict with the grid.

Have come to conclusion, if I can see the grid faintly, its helpful enough, but also if it were real bright it'd be a pain.


Is anybody else wishing for a pause button, too?

[pedxing]

Originally posted by DeckPrism
Aren't the TFs surrounded by slightly irregular pentegons? I though that was to indicate the direction the TF was headed. exactly. petagons, with one point showing the direction that the TF is heading.

but the "grid" should be hexes, i still say... although, that might clash even more with the petagons than the grid already does.

[Sandman2012]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but the forums are quite large, and this thread alone is twelve pages.

I usually focus on one or two types of ships for TFs, and of course designing Recon and Point Defense ships so I can fulfill the armada requirement.

Right now the only ship designs I have that aren't obselete (excepting Troop and Colony) are Long Range, Point Defense and Recon (all battleship class). I'm at war and have my economy set at holy war. After a number of turns I have 103 Recon, 76 Point Defense and only 3 Long Range Attack. Why are my VRs building so many Recon and PD and not enough of what I need to form attack armadas? Is there a way to stop this trend because micromanaging production in a large empire will get very tedious?

[DeckPrism]

Sandman2012, your vice roy(VR) builds ships it can afford. There is a great thread about this stikied at the top of the strategy forum (one level up from here) titled something about "big boys". Typicaly you design a warship a hull size or 2 below what you could build, and your VR will handel things fine. Many people also take to obsoleting their recon, PD, and troop ship designs once they have enough. If the VR doesn't have the aformentioned cheap ships to build, it will build the warships you want.

[Sandman2012]

Thanks for the quick response. I'll check out that thread. :)

[Ron_Lugge]

Sandman - just a quickie rule for you:

The VR will always do what he thinks best for the planet; other than empire level conditions that effect his planet (such as starvation and mineral shortages) he will ignore the rest of the empire.

Thus, each planet will tend to produce to its max... yet, if there are very few planets capable of building your big boys, they will still build the cheaper craft in "appropriate" proportions.

[Troas]

I'm playing single-player with the 1.2.5 patch and I'm trying to fill out the gaps in my tech tree. Since diplomacy hasn't been working for this - even lopsided tech swaps are rejected by the AI players - I'm also trying the espionage option.

I've played two games about 100 turns each with Evons and Humans and I can't seem to get my spies to work offensively. Whenever I insert a spy "successfully" either that turn or the next turn the spy is captured/killed, even spies with both cloak and dagger in the 7-10 range. Should I be sending out spies in groups instead of singly?

I've looked at the strategy guides and I understand that humanoids tend to have a problem ridding themselves of enemy spies. With that in mind I try to keep at least 6 defensive spies at all times, but if I ever let the Oppressometer below 7 I get deluged with attacks. Even in the 7-8 range it takes them awhile to nab enemy agents, but going higher invites massive unrest.

So what am I doing wrong? In my current game on turn 90 I have tech parity with everyone but the New Orions - they are at 14 and the rest of the galaxy is at 10-11. So I don't have to "catch up" I just want to get my hands on the plans for Soil Enrichment, Securities board, Astro University, etc. that I didn't have in my own tree.

[DeckPrism]

@Troas: When it comes to tech Trades, I find that having an alliance of some sort, for which you will have needed good relations, is important. After I get a defensive alliance or full alliance I can get them to accept near even tech trades; before I can't get them to accept even lopsided tech trades. Just my observation.

I also find it easier to spy on races with low opresometers. It also seems easier if I can hit them early with a highly rated spy before they get the spy techs and excess spys to close the gap.

[Troas]

Thanks, I was able to successfully spy on the Eloandi I encountered a few turns later, and then on the Sakkra's after a few techs. I still have no success with the Ikthul and New Orions.

Speaking of Ikthul, around turn 120 I ran across what was a very sweet looking system - two magnate races (Elerians and Gnolam) neither of which I'd encountered before. Only one catch - there were Ikthul outposts on the planets. I was wary of winding up infected if I won the colonizing race, and I'd had success starving out non-magnate outposts before, so I decided to blockade the system and and wait 'em out. So I kept a fleet there continously for 60 turns - nailing Ikthul colony ships every few turns and the occasional enemy probing force. Then around turn 190 they turn into harvester colonies!

So my questions are - 1) should I be concerned about getting an infested magnate if I win an outpost/migration race with the Ikthul? 2) What went wrong with my starvation strategy? Do I also need to blockade and all neighboring systems?

I managed to get NA, econ, rec, andn open border trade with the sakkra, but no dice on alliance. Once they did offer to trade 2 for one for a tech they really wanted, but they never took me up on any I suggested. Oh well, at least my spies seem to work against now that I have about a 5 tech level (26-21) advantage over them. I managed to get decomp centers and pollution processors (which did wonders for my cash flow). Astro university still evades me, but its only a matter of time before I get that one too...

Edit: I answered my first question by loading an old saved game and colonizing the gnolam planet. Demographics showed 0.6 units Ikthul, which I assume would eventually eat the entire planet and start spreading.

[RobNelson]

OK, a few quick answers.

1) Ithkul can only spread to planets that have an open region. So your core planets should be more or less safe, though new colonies would be in jeopardy of becoming ithkul cafeterias.

2) A good strategy, but not effective against Ithkul. Since they can turn fleshy populations into tasty snacks, it's really hard to starve them out (and I think may actually speed up consumption of magnates). Ithkul can not eat brey eytes (the incorporeal magnate race) at all, and turn silicoids and cybers into minerals, so starvation should work with those races.

3) Spying against the New Orions is really, really hard. They have many anti-espionage techs. The ithkul have a really high o-meter tolerance, and so can be equally difficult to spy on.

Defensive Ithkul spy,"Hey! That's not Bob on that human! Get the intruder!"

[Sandman2012]

On a similar note, I have a planet in my Nommo empire that has unrest: "Eaten by Harvesters." I'm guessing that there's nothing I can do but wait 'til Ithkul are 100% of the pop.

And on another planet I have unrest: "No Harvester Food." Just can't win with these guys.

How does one address these types of unrest?

[Zyphyr]

Long story short : You don't.

Any world that has harvesters will have one of the two types of Unrest.... either the harvesters are upset that that they don't have people to eat or the people being eaten are upset about being IthkulSnacks(tm).

All you can do is lower taxes and/or build unrest reducing DEAs.

[Troas]

After a few turns of sanding the magnate colonies (I only had one armada there, the big guns were required elsewhere so glassing the planets is a slow process) I noticed that the gnolam colony now showed 100% Gnolam. So I made a save game and tried landing troops and lo it seems I wiped the bugs out! After I reduced the population to about 1/3 of its original value I must have glassed the lightly populated ikthul areas - there were several zones on the planet that were unpopulated. I was unable to land a colony ship originally on the planet due to lack of an open region.

So here's one possible solution if you catch the harvester infestation early - strip any planetary defenses and gift the planet to the harvesters while maintaining one or two taskforces plus an army in the system. Bombard the planet until it shows 100% pure (insert original planet's race here) then invade. You will probably lose all the infrastructure, but in my game that wasn't an issue - the magnate colony didn't have any.

[Troas]

I'm up to turn 220 now, and I've built/conquered enough planets that I have been forced to severely curb my micro-managing tendancies. Two problems have come up:

1) "Lost in the crowd" The sitrep tells me a planet is in unrest. I click on the planet, and see that piracy is the cause. The military tab shows a lack of a system fleet, so I exit back out to the galactic view to move one of my old TFs (now designated as anti-pirate roamers) to the system. But I'm on a large map, and for some of these colonies that were auto-colonized via migration I don't remember where the system is. If I actually had a fleet in system I can use the shipyard/system fleets to find the star, but is there a way to find it when you don't have a system fleet yet?

2) "Rebel without a cause" I no longer check on all of my unrest level 1 planets, but I do check on all unrest level 2/3 and fix them. However, I've noticed a few unrest level 2 planets every turn with 0.0 unrest. I think these are worlds whose unrest causes I fixed on prior turns, but they stay level 2 unrest. Is there anything I can do to nudge these planets back to work? I currently keep a full infantry corps or a light army on every world I "personally" visit.

edit: I figured out the answer to #1 - use the "location" tab on the planets window.

[Woodcarver]

Originally posted by DeckPrism
Typicaly you design a warship a hull size or 2 below what you could build, and your VR will handel things fine. Many people also take to obsoleting their recon, PD, and troop ship designs once they have enough. If the VR doesn't have the aformentioned cheap ships to build, it will build the warships you want.

One extension to this that I find useful: I try to calibrate the relative cost of my "heavy" capital ships so that they're roughly the same -- otherwise you can run into the same problem where e.g., the VR builds 24 carriers (generally cheaper, at particular tech levels) to ever 6 cruisers and 3 bombers (the most expensive, generally) at ever level. Adding a few fighters (remembering that you can lower the system velocity under the "engines" menu in order to make space) or taking a missile rack off a bomber will equalize the prices and therefore equalize the VR's willingness to build each ship.

There's still a problem with overproduction of Recon and Escort ships, which I solve in a couple of ways:

1) I design Rec and Esc close in size class (generally, just 1 below) to my capital ships.
2) I put weapons, large shield generators and heavy armor on them, largely to make them more expensive.
3) I give them an expensive gun or two.

Still, there's overproduction, because they're just cheaper.

So

4) I also design a short-range attack vessel of the same size class -- ends up being just a bit more expensive than the Escorts/Recons -- so that at least some of my "el cheapo" viceroys build ships with some teeth.
5) Recon Armada! Usually half Escort/half Recon. Nothing like a few extra TFs to sponge up missiles and take critical systems above the command limit of 10 TFs, so that even if the good ships get creamed in a surprise attack, there are still ships left in the system and the enemy can't bombard. Heck, with decent armor and point defense I find these TFs lasting through whole battles and doing a great job of absorbing missiles meant for my capital ships and worlds.

Hope that's a useful contribution to the discussion.

[Sandman2012]

I also came up with another tactic for ship building. I design a Long Range ship at my largest hull size. I make the same ship and designate it Recon. I obselete all other ships. The VRs build almost exactly the same amount of each type 'cause they're exactly the same price. Since LR TFs only need Mission ships and Recon, I buld LR TFs with 9 LR and 9 Recon. They kick ass.

[pedxing]

i design several a series ships of the same mission, just of different sizes.

the range of sizes is lower for recon and pd... frigates to crusiers

the range is higher for long range and short... light cruisers to battleships. maybe sometines short range destroyers.

the range is extended for carriers and indirect fire. frigates to battleships.

i check my shipyards a lot, and sort my reserves by number of ships, so when i see an abundance of particular deigns, i know it's time to build an armada of that type.

in the case of pd and recon when they start to build up, i don't build armadas, i obsolete the design. usually, it is the smallest one in the series. there is usually one a size or two higher, and the VR will start building those in fewer numbers.

and if i start to notice that the largest ships in newly formed armadas are in the picket and recon ring, i obsolete the smallest design in the main mission series, LR, SF, IF, or Carrier.

i never got into clearing obsolete designs from queues... i just let them trickle out. if it takes that long to clear old stuff out, that world isn't the one i want working on new stuff either.

when i get new shields or drives, i obsolete all designs in all series, and start from scratch. sometimes i will put off the redesign of one particular series, if there is new tech coming up in a few turns... missles, fighter weapons, hard beams, etc.

i don't bother upgrading anything when new weapons techs come out. i just get whatever is the latest and greatest at the time the new shield or drive comes.

also, the ranges of sizes change as the game progresses. i'll use smaller ships in the very early game, and stop making anything smaller than a frigate (except for system ships) as my industry base gets more unstoppable.

the size of the largest designs usually stays one or two steps below the largest design my engineers can produce... although sometimes i like to make a special large-scale design, and personlly ensure that a few of them are built at the largest shipyards.

if i find that i am running low on a particular mission, say PD or Recon or Carrier or IF, i will add a design that is one or two steps smaller than the current smallest design in that series.

then go around to those same big shipyards and have them do a few single builds, and a few x5 builds to boot. single builds first, to address the immediate need. x5 builds next, to make sure the problem doesn't happen again for a while.

i don't sail, but it feels to me like adjusting the trim on sails, tacking back and forth against the wind. then for short periods, no adjustment is required, and i put up the spinnaker of neglect and run with the wind, making armadas as fast as they come.

[Bonobo62]

Why do I keep getting my ass handed to me in ship combat? I go in with a strength of 20 against his strength of 2, and nine times out of ten, I get stomped like a narc at a biker rally. Do I need to read up on Task Force composition? Could I be going in with a more varied force?

[Ron_Lugge]

Best guess is your going in with 20 SR lancers vs 2 LC carriers or something similar.

Otherwise, we need more info.

[Bonobo62]

Well, that could be part of my problem - is the strength simply the number of ships? I was taking it as an overall measure of the fleet's ability.

Usually I'm sending in flotillas of long-range light cruisers (I'm not yet into ship design, so I do a lot of auto-design). I watched a couple of combats and I think I'm getting trashed by fighters - I get a swarm of gnats around my ships and they all start going boom. If I'm assaulting a planet, they throw big whitish-purple chunky things at me and I go boom.

Edited to add:
Is there any place where I can find a decent guide to ship design and/or task force composition? My strategy in MOO2 was to just fit my largest hull with the best of everything, half beam and half missile, and just use brute force. MOO3 is forcing me to be more versatile and subtle. I like it, but I'm not used to it.

[pedxing]

auto design is fine for starting out... it's what the AI uses.

you can do a lot better with hand tweaking, but i don't bother to do much, myself, other than drop system speed for Carriers and Indirect Fire, and improve their weapons... more of what the already have, and a few light mount beam weapons.

oh, and i take off one or two eccms off from Recon ships and add some light mount weapons. unarmed ships are a bad idea.

make sure you have a bunch of Short Range and Point Defense ships in all your task forces, to swat the gnats.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by pedxing
make sure you have a bunch of Short Range and Point Defense ships in all your task forces, to swat the gnats.
Just a follow-up.

Autodesign will try and outfit all your ships with light-mount or PD LFGs as your primary method of anti-fighter/missile weaponry. It's a good idea to take out some of these and replace them with longer-range weaponry. While LFGs work well at protecting whatever TF they're in, they lack the range to provide cover fire for "the fleet at large".

Usually a couple of phasers thrown in here and there can provide fleet-wide cover.

[pedxing]

Originally posted by pedxing
but i don't bother to do much, myself, other than drop system speed for Carriers and Indirect Fire, and improve their weapons... more of what the already have, and a few light mount beam weapons.and i should note that dropping system speed to 1 or maybe to 1% of maximum isn't sporting, against the AI.

i usually just snip off the last 0 and go for 10%. some people have proposed mods that make it 30% of maximum by default.

sure, i mostly do it so that i can load in more weapons, but i also do it to keep the Carrier and IF forces away from the planet i'm invading, and it's missile/figher bases. the faster LR and SR groups are free to rush in as cannon-fodder and to distract enemy forces from what my fighters are doing to their planet.

to make up for the abuse of the system i feel that dropping system speed still is, i equip all designs (other than system ships and orbitals) with cloaking tech, as soon as it becomes available.

[Bonobo62]

Wow, I'm going to have to try some of those. I decided to fight fire with fire, and started cranking out Carrier Light Cruisers. I put them in armadas with SR Destroyers, and it makes for a nice combo. :D

Now the Raas are my best friends, and are holding off the Evon while I finish taking over the Silicoids.

A couple more things:

I have a fleet at a system, and I've taken over every planet but one. But for some reason, I can't attack that last planet. I don't even get the option. I can't bomb it, I can't invade it, but it's still owned by the Silicoids. What's going on there?

A similar problem is when I can bomb a planet, but can't invade it. I have fully loaded troop ships in my fleet, but I only get to drop bombs on the planet - I never get the option to unload troops. Why is that?

[Woodcarver]

Originally posted by Bonobo62
I have a fleet at a system, and I've taken over every planet but one. But for some reason, I can't attack that last planet. I don't even get the option. I can't bomb it, I can't invade it, but it's still owned by the Silicoids. What's going on there?

Did your war end when you weren't watching?

A similar problem is when I can bomb a planet, but can't invade it. I have fully loaded troop ships in my fleet, but I only get to drop bombs on the planet - I never get the option to unload troops. Why is that?[/QUOTE]

This is the command limit in action: When you have more than 10 TFs in a system, the machine chooses which ones will engage the enemy. If more than 9 of your TFs are non-transport, then often the transports which are present won't make it into the 10 which engage. So when it comes time to invade, you don't get the option to use your troops.

I find that there's a big random component to this: Sometimes with 10 TFs bristling with weaponry (and no troops) and 2 or 3 transport TFs, I find that a transport gets worked into the command-limited 10 that engage in battle. Subsequently, I find _either_ that all of the troops in the system can engage on the ground, _or_ that only the troops in the transport involved in the battle can be deployed. Maybe I'm missing something...

Anyway, I hope this is helpful all the same.

[DeckPrism]

Originally posted by Bonobo62
I have a fleet at a system, and I've taken over every planet but one. But for some reason, I can't attack that last planet. I don't even get the option. I can't bomb it, I can't invade it, but it's still owned by the Silicoids. What's going on there?

Has the population droped below 1000? If so it is now an outpost and can't be attacked unless you are continuing an attack against it from the previous turn before it dropped below 1k. The solution: wait for it to either become a colony again by growing above 1k or to starve to oblivion.

[pedxing]

if it has reverted to an Outpost, the name will now be lowercased.

you'll have to wait for it to become a colony, before you can invade.

if all your other ships need to leave for action elsewhere, you can park a single transport with a division of infantry in it, and just walk in when it ripens.

[Bonobo62]

Thanks - that was it. All the planets I had that problem with were lowercased. We're back to turning the Silicoids into pretty crystal jewelry for the little Tachidi grubs.

[rdean]

Before I ask my question let me first say 'thank you' to all who have taken the time to post your insights, tips, and answers here and in other threads. It has gone a long way to reducing the 'learning cliff' and making the game much more enjoyable. :D I bought the game a few weeks ago and once I realized that the manual was better suited to light bed-time reading (it does have a nice backstory) than to learning the game I spent a lot of time lurking here and reading up on how things work. I think I have a pretty good hand on dev plans, zoning, and the like. In this current game I am quite pleasee with how Roy has developed my planets.

The situation:
Easy game, 5 computer opponents, huge spiral galaxy. I am playing a gasbag (Im). Turn 207, Average TL 27.
I have several races in my empire... a number of magnate civs and the evon empire, which I had for breakfast about 50 turns ago. It's time for my midmorning snack so I am currently munching on the meklars. (That is a lot of work though... it takes a lot of effort to crack through the metal and get to the pulpy bits underneath...) ;) Tax policy is balanced, limited warfare, and the imperial/system tax rates are both at 2%, so most of the money stays 'on-planet'. Government is set to constitutional monarchy.

The zoning policy is set to natural, and dev plans are in use. The All Planets plan is set to manufacture, research, terraform. I have a second player defined plan that is also active on all planets and it is set to trade, planet defense, infrastructure. These two plans are active on all planets and the third plan is the set according to what the planet is suited for: x, military, governemt; where x is set to mine for mineral rich planets or farm for biodiverse planets, for example. When I colonize or conquer a planet, I usually queue 2 or 3 cheap system ships to take care of the piracy plague and, if needed in the system a mob center. Then I walk away from the planet and let Roy take over. I do not usually zone the DEAs manually. I let Roy do it and he does a pretty good job of it for the most part. Every 15 turns or so I will go through the lower half of my planets screen (I sort according to industry output) and assign the dev plans once the 'new' or 'newly conquere' status has expired.

I have about 130 worlds currently and I do not micromanage them, except for the top 30 or so industry worlds. On those worlds I micro the MBQ to make sure that I am getting the appropriate mix of military forces. the other worlds I let Roy control and build whatever he thinks appropriate. Since my big industry worlds are producing the forces I think I need, what the rest of the worlds produce is just so much 'icing on the cake.' (Sorry, I know the post is long, but since I have no idea where the problem might lie I want to give you enough information to provide an answer. We are coming to the question... I promise...) :)

Ok... the question. I was going throught the planet list assigning dev plans to some worlds I had brought under my flag a few turns ago when I noticed that a number of my 'middle worlds' were not producing anything in the MBQ. It was completely empty. These are worlds with a pop anywhere from 10 to 30, and the appropriate amount of industry. It looks like they built the 2 or 2 initial system ships, and then the planetary defense bases, and then nothing else. Ok... I do not expect them to be building my top of the line ships, but they could at least build the shipyards. They have not even done that. They do not even build ground troops. Nothing. Zilch.
And I do not relish the idea of going to each of my newer planets and having to add 'basic systems module and his brothers' manually to every new planet. Has anyone seen this behavior before? Can anyone tell me if I need to have a specific item in my dev plans to kick start the mbq?

TIA.
Robert

[Zyphyr]

Ok... the question. I was going throught the planet list assigning dev plans to some worlds I had brought under my flag a few turns ago when I noticed that a number of my 'middle worlds' were not producing anything in the MBQ. It was completely empty. These are worlds with a pop anywhere from 10 to 30, and the appropriate amount of industry. It looks like they built the 2 or 2 initial system ships, and then the planetary defense bases, and then nothing else. Ok... I do not expect them to be building my top of the line ships, but they could at least build the shipyards. They have not even done that. They do not even build ground troops. Nothing. Zilch.
And I do not relish the idea of going to each of my newer planets and having to add 'basic systems module and his brothers' manually to every new planet. Has anyone seen this behavior before? Can anyone tell me if I need to have a specific item in my dev plans to kick start the mbq?

I would expect them to at least be building ground troops, but it is pretty easy to explain why they aren't building up to make your warships :

Your warships are to expensive for the 'Roy to want to build them there.

I am betting that your current ships are pretty big (Battleship or larger), and as such are pretty spendy.

The 'Roy won't queue up anything (other that a few 'critical' items like a mob center and the planetary defense bases) that is going to take more than ~8 turns to build (not 100% certain on the actual length).

When he decides that it is time to build a warship, he looks at the designs that have acceptable build times and then choses a design. Only then does he compare the size of the ship to the shipyard capacity. If the ship is within capacity he queues it up. If it isn't, he queues up shipyard improvements to get it up to that capacity.

At no other time will he chose to build shipyard improvements.

So, unless those worlds have the capacity to build your current ships in a fairly short time, 'Roy will never queue them or your shipyard improvements.

I don't, however, know why he isn't using them to make ground troops. Unless you have somehow managed to reach the number of troops it thinks your empire needs - something I have never managed to do.

[Troas]

Looking at the description of Sanitation Infrasctrure, Transportation Infrastructure, etc, it says "Increases Regional Infrasctructure points by X.XX". So what is the effect of increasing Regional Infrastructure points? I'm curious what these effect these improvements have once build in a region.

[Ron_Lugge]

Ouch! Thats a hard one - because its not entirely clear. I think the consensus is (or was) that infrastructure increases the effectiveness of all DEAs by a persentage equal to the infrastructure (eg you start a 1.00, and then each tech increases it, so at 2.00 infrastructure all DEAs in that region are twice as productive)

[chaeros]

Hi, noob here, just starting to get into the game. I keep getting the tech, cloaking device, and try putting it on certain ships, but i don't seem to get it to work, is there some way to do it?

[pedxing]

Originally posted by chaeros
Hi, noob here, just starting to get into the game. I keep getting the tech, cloaking device, and try putting it on certain ships, but i don't seem to get it to work, is there some way to do it? depends what you mean by "work".

do you mean, "get it to be added to ship designs" or "actually have some effect in combat"?

if you mean "actually have some effect in combat", what effect do you expect it to have? there is definitely no visible effect.

and if the effect didn't do anything visible to the ships, how would you be able to tell if it is working or not?

you would have to run many combats with ships that differ only in having cloak or not, and see if the cloaked ships did better in combat, perhaps.

some people here have done such experiments, and claim to see no effect.

many people here conclude that cloaking doesn't work at all.

that said, i add cloaking to many of my ship designs anyway.

to do that (in case your question was "get it to be added to ship designs"), click the Stealth checkbox in the ship design screen.

the checkbox is a littly flaky... you need to uncheck and recheck it for each new design you want to do, if you do many designs in a row.

[RobNelson]

It's also been suggested that detection of a task force depends on the "most visible" ship in the task force, so if you have a task force with some cloaked ships and some not cloaked, you won't see any benefit.

Maybe.

[pedxing]

Originally posted by RobNelson
It's also been suggested that detection of a task force depends on the "most visible" ship in the task force, so if you have a task force with some cloaked ships and some not cloaked, you won't see any benefit.

Maybe. exactly. so once i have cloaking, i put it on all new starships.

i figure that for a while the old ships that get included will blow the cover of the newer ships, but eventually new TFs will be all cloaked ships.

i don't bother to put it on system ships or orbitals, since older system ships remain in service much longer, and orbitals will usually be attacked by fighters who attack from so close in that the cloaking probably does no good at all (if it does any to begin with).

mostly i use cloak where i do to keep my designs from being too much better than the AI's, since the AI (i assume) installs cloaking when it gets the tech.

i figure i already get enough of an edge from dropping (not too far, thank you) system speed of CV, IF, transport, colony, and outpost ships.

[Patton1942]

Originally posted by pedxing
depends what you mean by "work".

do you mean, "get it to be added to ship designs" or "actually have some effect in combat"?

if you mean "actually have some effect in combat", what effect do you expect it to have? there is definitely no visible effect.

and if the effect didn't do anything visible to the ships, how would you be able to tell if it is working or not?

you would have to run many combats with ships that differ only in having cloak or not, and see if the cloaked ships did better in combat, perhaps.

some people here have done such experiments, and claim to see no effect.

many people here conclude that cloaking doesn't work at all.

that said, i add cloaking to many of my ship designs anyway.

to do that (in case your question was "get it to be added to ship designs"), click the Stealth checkbox in the ship design screen.

the checkbox is a littly flaky... you need to uncheck and recheck it for each new design you want to do, if you do many designs in a row.

One thing. As you continue to play, you will notice that at times, your ships will become heavily pixilated and will flicker (for lack of a better word). When it happens, you will know it (be zoomed in early game, by the time you get big ships like Titans and Leviathans, you will be able to tell from a much greater zoom).

Anyway, when your ship is flickering, it means the enemy can't see you. This should help you tell if your stealthy designs are working or not. ;)

[Longspur]

Hi all,

Wow ! I started at the top of this thread and read every entry. Just terrific stuff here, although much of it goes far, far beyond what I think of as "beginner."

If, or when, I acquire MoO3 again -- my first one crashed when the CDs -- yeah, both of them -- went bad -- think it would be valuable to read through all this again. And make notes.

So, here's a real beginner question: What makes a scout ship a scout ship ? Or, a recon ship ?

Here's what led to the question. At the beginning of a game I would go to the ship panel and delete/obsolete the troop ship, eagle and hawk defense, leaving only colony, system colony, outpost and scout ships. That way I didn't have to clean troop ships out of the build que and so forth. Trying to settle aggressively, I built only colony ships and outposts. Two starting scouts aren't enough, so I'd slip a scout into the mix.

Then it occured to me, why build a scout at all ? I'd just use an outpost ship as a scout. Sometimes it could serve its original purpose, dropping onto a magnate civilization or something.

Then sometimes a brand new colony panics because a strange ship enters the system. You know, they go into unrest, pack their suitcases and start shipping out, and begin to starve. So, you go there to find out what all the commotion is about and find an unarmed scout from another empire hanging around. Sometimes a tiny ship with a tiny weapon comes in handy, and then it too becomes a scout.

With so few ship models, it is very quick to update all of them when new engines become available.

Later, when your task forces become armadas, you need recon ships to fulfill the armada requirements. Mine were really point defense ships.

It's not like there are special scout scanners or something.

I'm sure there must be something critical I'm missing here, but why is a scout ship a scout ?

Well, I've got a ton of real beginner questions like that, and I'm sure some of them would make you decide when I read through this thread, I didn't read closedly enough. Anyway, thanks for any help, and, mostly, thanks for this thread. -- Longspur

[DeckPrism]

@Longspur: As you say, any ship can perform in a scouting role. Some peole put big guns on, some people make a bunch of very tiny ships, and some like you use outpost ships. I don't like loosing a colony ship in the beginning by accidentaly bumping into a Guardian, so my colony ships always go somewhere I've already explored.

[Patton1942]

Nothing makes a scout any different from any other ship except what armament you choose to put on it. It will use the same behavior modle as LR warships in combat. My scouts are usually small, with mass drivers on them. Basically, I use SR warhips as scouts, and recon ships I build like PD warships with a few of the longest range beam weapon I have with the heaviest mount I have for detection.

I don't ever use colony ships as scouts except during the first 5 or so turns of the game, and then only if I have more than 2 starlanes to explore. Colony ships are too valuable early game to waste.

[Longspur]

Thanks, DeckPrism and Patton1942. One tiny part of the thicket cleared.

Now this: "Colony ships are too valuable early game to waste." -- Patton1942.

I never used Colony ships for scouting; however frequently used outpost ships before I designed a "scout." But, if in my home system there is a good planet, I'd often dump that first colony ship on it the very first turn. I figured that, say it takes a scout 4 turns to reach the closest star, and there is a really good planet there so you set it for colony, then it takes your colony ship 4 turns to get there, and maybe one turn hanging' around for some reason, that's nine turns. Nine turns for my home system colony to get started. If I used a system colony, I'd have to break the chain in my building que which starts colony/colony/colony, with maybe an outpost thrown in for a scout. Depending on Star Lanes. (I use short and few.)

Am I missing something here ?

Also, when the AI sends out a colony ship and then builds another before the first arrives, it sends the second to the same place. You get a message like, "Hey boss, we were told to settle this place and it's already been settled." I just figured they were out there, well on the way to someplace, hunt 'em up, change the orders, and send them on to the next planet marked to colonize. There's probably a better way to handle this, right ? Again, thanks. -- Longspur

[RobNelson]

I think many people agree with you about using the initial colony ship for a planet in the home system. I use it in the home system if there is a green1 or green2 planet, otherwise I send it off to the nearest star.

One thing you can do here is to watch your sitrep for colony groups that are created, then unmark that planet. DOn't worry, the group created will still go there, but no others will.

One thing, have you installed the patch? It's supposed to limit that behavior.

[pedxing]

if you do use your outpost ships as scouts, one useful thing is to beef them up a little with standard shields and maybe a light direct fire weapon or some missiles.

just a little something to keep them from getting blown up by AI Scouts.

interestingly, the Scout ship at the start of the game is armed, but all recon autodesigns after that are unarmed. i like to add some light mount direct fire to all my recon. you know for that little extra bit of PD action...

also, unless the are magnates or a rich sweet spot in my home system, i save my colony ship until i've explored 3 to 5 systems, or found a magnate. if no magnate in a reasonable time, then i just take the best of what i've found so far.

[Longspur]

RobNelson, you are right. I was playing without the patch. The colony thing sounds like a real plus.

I have again purchased the game, downloaded and installed the patch, and this morning I'll be launching my first game. And I expect I'll be back with lots more dumb questions. At least they won't be patch obsolete.

pedxing, the idea of putting a small gun on an outpost ship never even occurred to me.

We shall see. I'm all excited. -- Longspur

[jp42655]

Great forums! I am a relative noob to MOO3. I will say I find the game very entertaining and fun. I like the macromanagement idea a great deal. On that subject...

Dev plans...does the viceroy have default ones? I have not made any, assuming the game came with defaults. If so, how can I see what the plan he is using consists of. I have been in the screen to make them and thought I would be able to see what he is currently working from but have not figured out howto do that just yet.

I did get the dev plan tutorial, printed today at work ;) but have not read it all yet.... I just know some of my woes are linked to dev plan problems.

If helpful in discussion, I am running the patched version and playing as Cynoids.

John

[pedxing]

nope, there is no way to view the "default devplans" that the viceroy uses if you don't enter any.

it would indeed be nice to have a "what in blazes are you thinking?" button, to get the viceroy to explain why it makes the choices that it does. all we can really do instead is see what the effects of various devplans are on the behavior, and try to infer motive using the mishmash of oral history and received developer wisdom floating around here.

the devplan guide is a good start. understanding how the planets get their classifications is a HUGE boost to your devplan making powers.

for a very simple-to-implement-yet-powerful devplan strategy, Strifeguard's looks pretty promising... you might want to print that one out too!

[jp42655]

Great! Thanks, I will look for that guide also. As for the "what the heck were you thinking...." wouldn't it be cool if you could take your wayward viceroys out someplace and teach them a good lesson?

The game is a blast though! I am very thankful I am not really in government in RL.

John

[pedxing]

supposedly, providing "feedback" to planetary leaders was part of the original design... but then again, at that point they were all supposed to have their own personalities, motivations, and goals.

the alpha screenshots on MOO3 Gaurdian (http://www.moo3.at/gallery/categories.php?cat_id=6) are pretty interesting... a mix of "awwww, i can't believe that got cut! i want that feature so bad!" and "whew, good thing they put the bong down! that's crazy..."

anyway, i like Cynoids too. especially with "Natural Engineer" as a custom pick. do you play stock, or do you customize?

[jp42655]

I am playing "stock" right now. I wanted to get used to the game a little before I tried race design. I got fairly lucky in this game I think. I have three leaders, each of which gives a bonus to "spy cloaking". My espionage missions have been going well.

My current problem is colonizing. I think it may be in part due to my war footing being to high. I just came out of a scrape with a neighbor and have not switched back from "total war". I am assuming that is why my roy's are not building colony ships to go to the worlds I've tagged. I have one TF stationed to keep my neighbors away from a very, very nice system.

I also have found a guardian. I will go after him later...not strong enough now for sure.

The part that sucks is I forgot to turn off the darned senate elections as a victory condition. I have managed to stay alive through three elections so far. I don't care for that victory condition so I must remember to turn that sucker off in the future!

Question on ship design: I have been waiting until I have a few decent upgrades before I start major fleet overhauls. The techs come so fast sometimes. Is this reasonable, as opposed to upgrading with every change?

Oh, I should also mention that I downloaded the encyclopedia mod. That is great! I have found it very useful indeed!

John

[Edit] Pedxing: I found Strifeguard's dev plan guide. Thanks for the tips! I will be reading about dev plans and get my empire on track or...well, ol' Roy better do what I say... :)

[DeckPrism]

Originally posted by jp42655
The part that sucks is I forgot to turn off the darned senate elections as a victory condition. I have managed to stay alive through three elections so far. I don't care for that victory condition so I must remember to turn that sucker off in the future!

Question on ship design: I have been waiting until I have a few decent upgrades before I start major fleet overhauls. The techs come so fast sometimes. Is this reasonable, as opposed to upgrading with every change?

Fast tech: Are you playing with the latest patch? It slows down tech somewhat. There are other mods that slow it down even more if you want.

Senate victory: Some people find it a challenge to target the races who have the potential to win the presidency and maintain a power block of your own. So, look at who has the big population and take them down a peg or two if you want to survive the next election.

[jp42655]

I assume I am playing with the latest patch. I downloaded and installed 1.2.5. I got no error messages so I guess it is ok.

As for the techs, they may not be coming as fast as the original. I just recently got the game and installed the patch straightaway so I have nothing to compare to. I guess by fast I mean faster than in other games I have played.

As for the senate, I just want to learn the game without the distraction of losing based on that right now.

[pedxing]

on tech speed, that's where i think you might want to try customizing your race before modding overall tech speed. it's a less intrusive change, working with a feature in the stock game before going all funny-car.

i'm a big fan of cranking Creativity down to Imitative, which reduces the number of techs in your tech tree. you still advance through the levels just as fast, but you get fewer techs at each level.

actually, i use the points from turning Creativity down to fund turning my Research up to Superior. so the levels come faster, getting me more interesting techs sooner, even though i get fewer techs overall, and get new ones less often.

so i get the "lower frequency of new stuff" benifits of a tech slowdown, while still being able to get cool high level techs without playing an 800 turn game.

plus, the potential for unfortunate gaps in tech (like never getting shield ii or iii and finally getting iv, or missing some key teraforming or pollution control techs and having to steal or trade for them) leads to plot twists and puzzles to solve.

yeah, i know, i go off on this idea from time to time. that's because i still think it is good, after each game i finish with it.

in any case, i don't bother doing full fleet redesigns unless i get new shield or drive tech. don't even bother for system drives, just star drives. maybe if i get a new missile or fighter weapon, but only if it has been a while since the last shield/drive upgrade, and there isn't another shield/drive tech that's about to come.

[jp42655]

I agree with you about the tech modding. I have only installed the game patch. The mods I have are a font pack (helped a lot) and I got the diplomacy mod (to fix the messages so it said). Oh, I also got the updated encyclopedia mod (which, like a dummy, I forget to read/check at times). I was trying to stay away from the ones that changed gameplay for the time being.

I plan on finishing the game I am in, as a learning tool, and then trying to customize a race as you suggested.

Question on taxes: Am I right in assuming system taxes stay in the system coffers and empire taxes are for me to spread about as I see fit (like planetary grants and such)? Which coffers do ships come from?

Question on colonizing: When I am in the planets screen and I am picking a planet to colonize, if I tag it for a colony and have no colony ship at the time, will Roy add one to the queues?

Thanks,
John

[DeckPrism]

Originally posted by jp42655
Question on taxes: Am I right in assuming system taxes stay in the system coffers and empire taxes are for me to spread about as I see fit (like planetary grants and such)? Which coffers do ships come from?

Question on colonizing: When I am in the planets screen and I am picking a planet to colonize, if I tag it for a colony and have no colony ship at the time, will Roy add one to the queues?

Planetary grants, and military grants, and even system taxes eventualy make their way to one or more planets and add to their available money. Ships then come from whatever a particular planet has available (money).

I suppose there are some circumstances where either you have no population pressure or have the wrong MPE setting compared to the relative cost of other ships compared to colony ships that might make Roy not queue up some colony ships for awhile, but I think typicaly he does. Besides, fro the planets tab if you view your planets sorted by industry and looking at their build queues you can fairly quickly scroll through what your top producers are producing and confirm things to your satisfaction or in a couple of clicks change things.

[beable]

How do you stop the CD from spinning all the time? I tried turning music off, and I tried copying the "Music" folder to the hard disk, but it still seems to keep on spinning.

With games lasting what seems like hundreds of hours, I sure would like to give the CD drive a rest. Should I just copy all of "Disk 2" to the hard drive? Well I pretty much did already, seeing as how all "Disk 2" has on it is "InstallFiles" and "Music".

[pedxing]

that's the copy protection at work. can't play without the disk in, and they can't tell if you have the disk in if they don't spin it.

[jp42655]

My cd spins every now and then. In other games it is a signal a cut scene is coming or such but not here. What do you mean "all the time". Mine goes for a long time and then will spin for a bit, quit for a while and do it again later. No big deal.

I think it is as pedxing has said...unless yours actually spins all the while it is in....

[zanzibar]

You probably copied the music folder to the wrong location. Read the readme file that comes with the game. Once the music is copied to the correct location, your CD will only spin when the game first starts.

[beable]

Originally posted by zanzibar
You probably copied the music folder to the wrong location. Read the readme file that comes with the game. Once the music is copied to the correct location, your CD will only spin when the game first starts.

Ahh that seems to be the problem. The readme file says to copy it to \Master of Orion 3\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets, and I copied it to \Master of Orion 3. So hopefully once I fix that, the CD drive can have a rest!
Oh no wait, I just checked, and the Music is in both places. I must have already copied it before. So I copied it twice, once to the correct place and once to the wrong place.

And when I say "all the time", I mean ALL THE TIME!! It never stops! From when the game starts up until it stops, the CD is spinning.

[pedxing]

oh, yeah, that doesn't sound right... but as i recall, the readme was either confusing or wrong. folks around here eventually figured it out, though.

looking on my machine, i see the music at:

Master of Orion 3\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets\Common\Music

and in that directory there is:
antarans
UI
Saurian
Insectoid
Ichthytosian
Humanoid
Harvesters
Geodic
Etheran
Cybernetic
Creditsis this where everybody else has these directories? seems to work for me ok...

[beable]

Originally posted by pedxing
looking on my machine, i see the music at:

Master of Orion 3\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets\Common\Music

is this where everybody else has these directories? seems to work for me ok... [/B]

Ok, I'll move it to Master of Orion 3\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets\Common\Music

instead of

Master of Orion 3\GameDataSets\Classic_01\GameAssets\Music

Hopefully THAT will fix it!

[crisis]

Hello,
I recently acquired a magnate civilization, and hoped that this would allow me to colonize new planets that are desirable to my new race, thus making planets more usable. Once a planet has been colonized, the desirabilty rings can be read on a tab in the lower right hand corner, but this is after colonization. I was wondering if there is any way to view this desirabilty ring for my new race before I colonize.
I've read the updated encyclopedia and some threads and know that the ratings depend upon temperature and density, but is there a way to view these values so I know what planets to colonize? I realize that the magnate civ's race will begin to populate and establish its own colonize's on its own, but i was looking for a more pro-active approach.
Thanks for any help.

[zanzibar]

Click the planets tab... view by race <insert your magnate race here> This shows you all known planets that they like!! :)

[beable]

Cluster galaxies:
I'm sure I read somewhere about "cluster galaxies", but I can't see where you can select this type of galaxy. All I can find is various spiral galaxies, the "Eye" galaxy, and the "Chaos" galaxy. Where are the cluster galaxies?


Tech slowdown:
I heard that the 1.2.5. patch slowed down the fast technology advances of the original game, and that the MegaMod modification slows it down even more. Well I played a game as Raas, and I think I got over 300 turns, and tech was quite slow. This took maybe 40 hours to play that long on a huge galaxy. Then the Antarans decided to attack me, and they sent a fleet to my homeworld and destroyed everything. So I started a new game because I had nothing I could stop them with.

So I started a Psilon game. Then I realised that tech slowdown would also make this game incredibly long, because I'd like to be able to finish a game in a few days (at the most) instead of a month or something. So I am trying to remove the tech slowdown. If I go to the moo3/GameDataSets/Classic_01/GameData/Common/Spreadsheets directory and delete or rename TechTables.txt, will that remove the tech slowdown? Will it have any other bad effects? As I see it, if tech speeds up again, it just means that I will have to design a few new ships every now and then.

Ship Redesign:

What's the most efficient way of redesigning ships? It seems to take a long time to deal with, but it has to be done because there is no viceroy for this, and old tech ships will be easily destroyed. I already worked out that Point Defence class ships suck. You can end up with hundreds of them, but they can't be put into a taskforce by themselves. So now I make Recon class ships with point defence weapons on them, after removing most of the ECCM modules. It's a lot of clicking.

It seems like the way to reduce the ship design workload is to not design very many classes of ships (probably just design LR, IF, Carrier, Recon, Colony and transport), and also not design many sizes of ships. But I'd still have to design about 15 types of ships for each major weapon, armour, drive, or shield upgrade (with orbitals, system, and starships). Is there any easy way to do it?

Also, is there any point in making a Planet Destroyer Orbital ship??? What about a system ship transport? And can you put a colony module and an outpost module on the same ship?

What is a good design for Orbitals? Mine seem to get minced up quite quickly when attacked, even though they should be tougher than system ships or starships. How can I get the viceroy to build lots of tough orbitals? Or is this a stupid idea?

[crisis]

lol, thanks zanzibar, im not quite sure how i missed that

[DeckPrism]

@ beable :
Sounds like you have a custom galaxy mod installed. Remove it or reinstall the game.

Some people just design a few types of recon ships and then make recon TFs. Otherwise come up with some method to when you redesign. I tend to redesign when I get a new warp drive, but I also wait for the cluster of new drive, armor, shields, and weapons techs and then upgrade the fleet. Unless of course I really need that latest gadget now.

I see no point to making a PLD orbital. System troop ships might work if you only have one planet in a multi planet system, but I don't see how you could ever load troops on them AND they would be a total waste once you owned the system not to mention the masive amount of time they might /ought to spend in the delay box. Why waste space and risk getting an outpost INSTEAD OF a colony?

Orbitals: either beef them up with PD, or make them carrier and IF and enjoy the large first wave they launch (consider them expendable). Roy builds what he can afford.

[MMFWMC]

I'm sure this has already been covered, but I can't find it. I'm sick of taking ten turns for a whole lot of my ships - up to 200 in some cases - to kill a planet. Sometimes they'll wipe out a huge planet in one go, and then the next time they just knock out a percentage of a smaller planet. I can't see what has changed. Is it some kind of shielding by the target planet?

Is there some trick that I'm not seeing, like not using carriers?
I know I could invade, but quite frankly I already have enough planets, and the hassle required to get a new transport from base every time is just too much. I know there are ways around each of my objections - eg send out lots of transports at once. - but what I really want is to be able to raze the planet and sow salt in the ashes.

Also, how do I build a 'planet destroyer' ship? Unless there is something unexpectedly lethal about a ship full of empty space this would seem to be a waste of time.

If I have more that 180 ships in the system do they all take part in orbital bombardment?

PS If it hadn't been for this site I would have given up on this game from frustration. Between econ 101 and the other threads I have read I'm really enjoying the game.

[JosEPh]

"...If I have more that 180 ships in the system do they all take part in orbital bombardment?..."

No only the ships that survived the combat. Only 10 Tfs allowed to attack a turn. There has been some discussion on TF composition and bombardment. Concensus leans toward LR as best, and CV TF worst. A good mix seems to work for me.


"...I'm sick of taking ten turns for a whole lot of my ships - up to 200 in some cases - to kill a planet. Sometimes they'll wipe out a huge planet in one go, and then the next time they just knock out a percentage of a smaller planet. I can't see what has changed. Is it some kind of shielding by the target planet?..."

This could depend upon several things: Tf Composition and Tech Improvements of Race/planet being bombed, i.e. Structural Shielding etc.. Was it a high pop planet with lots of Improvements or a newly colonised one with basic deas? What tech lvl weapons do your TF have on them? All these considerations affect the outcome of bombardment.

Glad you like the Game and Welcome to the Forum!
JosEPh


:up: :)

[jp42655]

PS If it hadn't been for this site I would have given up on this game from frustration. Between econ 101 and the other threads I have read I'm really enjoying the game.

I agree with you. It is this forum and the threads you mentioned, among others, that actually encouraged me to get out and buy the game. I also enjoy it even though I am still learning much of what you talked about.

Don't let those that hate the game get to you. There are quite a few negative postings about. I just skip over them....

John

[The Wagster]

Originally posted by MMFWMC
Also, how do I build a 'planet destroyer' ship? Unless there is something unexpectedly lethal about a ship full of empty space this would seem to be a waste of time.


As far as I'm aware to have a planet destroyer ship you need the Stellar Convertor" technology. This weapon will destroy planets in one shot but you won't get it until about tech level 45-50 and by that time your normal taskforces will be able to glass planets just as quick anyway, hopefully:) It has such a slow refire rate it is useless in space combat, it'll destroy one ship ever 10 minutes or something. Here's a taster of the weapon...

http://projectzero.mysitespace.com/stuff/Overkill.gif

Hppy MoOing

[jp42655]

Boy, oh, boy would that thing come in handy at times.... :D

[MMFWMC]

Originally posted by JosEPh
Was it a high pop planet with lots of Improvements or a newly colonised one with basic deas? What tech lvl weapons do your TF have on them? All these considerations affect the outcome of bombardment.
:up: :)

I have about level 30 - 35 tech at this stage.

The strange thing is that I don't have any trouble wiping out the first hunk of a planets population, it's just the cleaning up that is frustrating. I realise that the system works on percentatges - and that if you wipe out 80% of the population then there will be a diminishing return each time. What gets me is that sometimes the cleanup is quick, and sometimes it seems to take forever.

My opponent doesn't have structural shielding, and even if he did, wouldn't it protect the first part of the population as well as the remnants?

Also an important lesson I have leared - don't play with any victory condition other than sole survivor. Im sure experienced players already know this, and I think I've seen it elsewhere, but you don't really appreciate it until you're at tech level 35 and you find all of the Antaran X's when what you really want to do is keep developing techs to see what will happen. Even if you remove the other victory conditions you can still quit after you achieve one of them. This game needs something like the Civ option to keep playing after you win with anything less than total victory.

:cry:Wag2003: I'd almost managed to forget about the rugby world cup, now you've gone and opened that wound all over again. The southern hemisphere only let You win it because we felt sorry for you. NZ will rise again!

[Ron_Lugge]

All hail the might of the wonderful stellar convertor pistol!!!!!

Now, where was I...

Oh, yeah. Planetary bombardment is calculated in two ways: You will kill X number of people, or Y percentage of people, whichever is greater, where X and Y is determined by the overall firepower of your fleet. So, a small planet is real easy to deal with; a large one isn't.

[The Wagster]

Originally posted by MMFWMC
:cry:Wag2003: I'd almost managed to forget about the rugby world cup, now you've gone and opened that wound all over again. The southern hemisphere only let You win it because we felt sorry for you. NZ will rise again!

:haha::haha:

What do you do if you see an All Black drowning?

Nothing, you could get him to the surface but he'd still choke:p

The All Blacks played some fantastic rugby, Rokokoko (sp?) is amazing and Spencer had some fantastic skills but sometimes you've just got to grind out those results, and that's what England did.

I've got tickets to England vs the NZ Baabaa's on the 20th Dec, yeah baby:D

Err, about that planetary bombardment thingy....yeah, what Ron said:D

[Ron_Lugge]

Err, about that planetary bombardment thingy....yeah, what Ron said:D [/B]

Well, at least there was *some* On Topic in your post.

:mad:60:mad:second:mad:limit:mad:

[MMFWMC]

Originally posted by Ron_Lugge

Planetary bombardment is calculated in two ways: You will kill X number of people, or Y percentage of people, whichever is greater, where X and Y is determined by the overall firepower of your fleet. So, a small planet is real easy to deal with; a large one isn't.

That's what I would have expected, but it isn't what I've found. I hit a planet with 40 population and killed all but two points. It took three more turns to kill the final two points, which shouldn't be the case, unless the X is partly determined by population density. Either way, I tend to find both types of planets about equally difficult, since it is the last couple of points that challenge me.

This could all be due to the make-up of my task forces however. I used to go exclusively for IF and carrier fleets (with interceptors), but I saw someone pointed out that IF and Carriers (particularly interceptors) aren't very effective at planetary bombardment. I was just getting into the use of LR and SR TF's when I won by accident. Now I have to start again. Oh well, the sacrifices we must make.

Also, it's Rokocoko, but the 'c' is pronounced 'th'.

[The Big Joke]

Eh, IF is what is best for planetary bombardment. LR, Carrier, SR and the other ones are not nerly as good.

But when it comes to fighting, i recomend a balanced force. Have a mix of LR, IF and carriers. (SR is not needed).

[pedxing]

i like SRs, since they seem to have an easier time swatting down incoming fighters and missiles than LR do.

i use SR ships like PD in my IF and Carrier task forces, and include SR forces in my fleets that act as mobile PD: moving to the front of the battle, drawing fire from the first wave of gnats, then (if they survive) intercepeting incoming enemy SR and LR groups.

when i design IF and Carrier armadas, i hit auto and then remove mission ships down to like 6 or 8, then stock up on PD and SR (and maybe some LR) until the group is back up to full size. this (and the high rate of loss of those brave SR groups) means i need i to produce lots of SR ships... but it keeps the IF/Carrier groups alive much longer, and provides a nasty surprise for any AI ships that try to close with them.

[stochasticde]

In tables of planet specials, many of the nasty ones list an AU cost and terraform cost to remove (all the terraform costs I have seen are 1). I think pollution has a cost of 900 to 4000AU. Removing hostile animals and such are less expensive.

Is a particular terraform tech or other tech needed? I always have my terraform bar blocked and cannot spend money on it, even once I discover sunlight redirection.

[RobNelson]

Do you have the latest patch? There was a problem (I think they fixed it) where if you got a T-form tech other than by research (traded, stole, found by special) then it didn't work right.

Otherwise, I have sometimes noticed that the t-form process is pretty quick, and if you missed it by a turn, it might be done (you'll see 2 X's on the environment display on the right - one where the environment was, and one where it is).

Hope that's it.

[stochasticde]

Thanks, but now I realize I was not clear enough with my question. I have the patch 1.2.5, and terraforming works fine for the regular stuff--green 2 to green 1, etc. But I have planets with nasty specials like pollution or hostile gases, and I don't know how to remove them. I used StormHawk's Encyclopedia 4.3 mod, and it lists AU costs to remove these specials.

Scenario: I have a green 2 planet with the pollution special. Initially, the terraform slider is blocked ("x" before it, with no change to production points when I move the slider). This is true despite having the pollution special, so I cannot yet get rid of it or its effects. Then I discover Sunlight Redirection, and I see that the "x" is removed so now I can terraform. I pump production points into it, and a turn or two later the planet becomes Green 1. However, the pollution remains, and the terraform slider is again blocked. Question: how/when can I remove the pollution special and stop its effect of greatly restricting population growth?

[RobNelson]

As I understand it, the pollution or hostile whatever are cleared up, it just doesn't remove the label from the region.

But I could be wrong.

[djinndw]

HI,

Has anyone compiled a good list of the magnates desired living spaces? Since MOO3 doesn't let you know what any race in your empire likes, except for the starting race, when it comes to colonizing new worlds, I'm finding it hard deciding who to use to colonize new places, and which ones are best for which races.

Even near endgame with about all of the possible tech, I've had some worlds not performing right, due to the race on it vs. the grav. and type of world.


Also...

Late game I've tried to retool some Big former red planets (now nicely green) from mining planets to industry planets... But, when I do the 'change' DEA on the ones I want switched, wait a few turns (in some cases the rest of the game) and nothing happens....

Is this just a bug, or is there some fansy magic voodoo that you have to do... Most planets comply with my changes, but some just don't like me...

[RobNelson]

Hi.

First, There was a beginner's guide by Grand Potato, but I think it was purged due to no new posts. Anyways, on the planet lists screnn, you can filter by T-form ring and change view from "dominant" to the species in question. (patch 1.2.5 needed for magantes to show up in the list). That's the best I can come up with, maybe someone else has a list?

Second, sometimes a planet gets "stuck" producing a DEA. The fix is to delete the stuck DEA (The completion time is listed as -1). Or, maybe there isn't enough money on planet to do as you request. Or, maybe the VR is busy building DEA improvements (VR prefers improvements to new DEAs). Those are the reasons that I can think of, if they don't work, maybe someone else can post some ideas.

Hope that helps.

[djinndw]

ok, thanks...

The first is a good thought, though you have to have a colony there to find out first... and I'd rather not be guessing who likes it best first...

second... it's usually on planets that've been around for awhile.. so they have lots of money, and the DEA I want to change is already in place... I've tried just telling it to delete the thing, but even that doesn't work...

[RobNelson]

Actually, you don't have to have a colony there first.

From the galaxy map, there is a tab at the bottom of the screen labeled planets (next to the diplo tab, I think). At the bottom left of that screen, you can sort planets you have, or planets you don't have, or both. Or only systems where no empire is, etc.

You can modify the list to show habitability of planets you don't have for any species, even magnates.

On the second, I'm stumped. Are the planets actually building anything?

A lack of funds can come from many things, a high maintenance cost (Rapid Rot and the hostile gasses/mineral/animals come to mind), a high military budget, high unrest (which requires lowering taxes to compensate).

Check to see if they are spending money on Normal Economic development. Also check each region to make sure there isn't a "glitch", a DEA still being built or a region with 3DEAs, or anything else that looks odd.

Hopefully someone will come by with more suggestions.

[djinndw]

all right, thanks. Didn't know that you could do that.

the second.. lots of money, no 3rd DEA (though I've seen that pre-patch), spending alot on normal development... also spending on military as well...

hmm...

[pedxing]

here (http://mithyk.com/stationprime/race_magnate.htm) is a good reference.

has Temp, Pressure, Grav preferences for all the magnates, as well as a good go at pictures for each.

[djinndw]

thanks pedxing.

That actually helps some on other questions I had as well.

Now here's a question: if, for some reason, you loose all of starting race, does the race(s) you're left with override the starting races settings? like for oppresometer and such. (Ie, does it change to show the *new* races preference, rather than your races?)

I'm thinking of taking over the Antarans, then giving the rest of empire away/oppressing them soooo much that they leave... then reconquering the rest of the Galaxy....

Just for some interesting twists to the game...

[RobNelson]

As far as I know, each race always uses its own preferences. Mine with your best mining races, farm with your best farming races, etc.

So, yes. If you become a 1 race empire with a race other than your own, all stats should be for that race. But since it's helishly hard to remove a race from a world once it's there, good luck. Gift to enemy, glass repeat. Should be all Antaran sometime around turn 3,000,000. :D

By the way, the picture of "you" will always be your starting race. Military units and spies of magnates always look like you. MUs and spies of other playable races look like that race.

[Pragmatic]

I seem to recall that oppresometer settings are based on government, not race. So I think you can safely ignore the race o-meter settings.

[RobNelson]

I remember that there was a lot of discussion, though can't recall if a consenus was met. I trust Pragmatic's memory better than mine, though. :D

[djinndw]

ok, that seems plausible...

though not the turn 3,000,000.. only playing on a small cluster, so I spread quickly. :D

on another note... did they put empire-empire migration back in? I think I saw some ppl complaining on other posts that they had taken it out for MOO3... For some odd reason, I colonized 4 planets in a system that I had just cleaned out of Ithuk, and did all the set migration stuff to keep them single raced (3 diff races got colonized onto individual planets)... and next thing I know, a few turns later, I've got these Trillians squatting on a few of my new planets... :sour: I've not taken over any planets that have them, so the only place that they could've come from was another empire one jump away... which also has some Ithuk hanging around... thought I had glassed all of those as well...

speaking of which, I think they got the 'glass this, but take that' rules backwards for the computer plyrs... I've seen many a computer plyr with infestations of Ithuk. But when they go to take one of my planets, or another non-Ithuk empire, they glass first, colonize later...:cry:

Makes it really hard for me to exterminate the Ithuk if everyone seems to want to keep them alive....

[CrowScape]

Going with djinndw's first series of questions; how can I tell what races are in what colony ships so I can match pop with planet, or does the game do this automatically? If it's done automatically, does it matter where the colony ship was built or is the population type only determined when the planet is first colonized? I'm kinda confused by the references I'm seeing on this board to 'colony ships filled with X species' and would like to know how this works so I can get the most use out of my planets.

[djinndw]

CrowScape:

actually that's a good question, and so far I haven't liked the answer:

what I've found out so far... when you put the colony fleet together yourself, ... as you're doing it, each colony ship shows the race on it....

after that it becomes, a colony ship is a colony ship... and best not forget which on is which, bc the computer won't tell you until after you colonize a planet.

[CrowScape]

Well that would be why I've never come across it; I never put the fleet together myself. Man, you really don't have any choice but to micromanage. Thanks for the info.

Edit: I suggest that when you create your colony TF that you name it after the race it contains, that way you can keep track of them out in the field.

Edit2: Heh, I seem to have changed my post at the same time RobNelson made his ^_^

[RobNelson]

@CrowScape: Yes, djinndw is correct. The one note if you do this is that you can name your fleets as you build them (ex, Nommo Colony 1).

@ djinndw:

True empire-empire migration is out. My thoughts on how you ended up with Trilarians on your planets is as follows. Colonization of yellow or red worlds may take some time (unless you use multiple colony ships). During that time, the other empires see an "unclaimed" world, and try to colonize it through ships and/or migration. Also, population can try to migrate even if there is no pre-existing population, and sometimes by the time your colony ship gets there, there is already a small foreign population on that planet. They can then migrate throughout your empire.

If that's not clear, let me know and I'll re-word it.

[djinndw]

Originally posted by RobNelson
[B@ djinndw:

True empire-empire migration is out. My thoughts on how you ended up with Trilarians on your planets is as follows. Colonization of yellow or red worlds may take some time (unless you use multiple colony ships). During that time, the other empires see an "unclaimed" world, and try to colonize it through ships and/or migration. Also, population can try to migrate even if there is no pre-existing population, and sometimes by the time your colony ship gets there, there is already a small foreign population on that planet. They can then migrate throughout your empire.

If that's not clear, let me know and I'll re-word it. [/B]

ok thanks,

this was post colonization... green worlds for each race of mine, I colonized with 8 ships each... the races hadn't spead across all of the regions, and the planet had remained 100% for those races for 2 turns before the trillians showed up...

and I had fleets overhead to stop any unwanted colonization...

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by RobNelson
True empire-empire migration is out.
No it's not.

Inter-empire migration CAN happen.

Originally posted by QSI Programming
It turns out that ALL planets in candidate systems are considered for migration, even if they belong in another empire.

Found about half-way down page 3 of the "Migration and Magnates: How they work" thead.

Also noted in the "edit" on page one of the same thread. (Link (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=278574&perpage=30&pagenumber=1))

[pedxing]

ok, so it looks like inter-empire migration can happen, but only in a shared system.

reprhase: migration is stopped by other-empire systems, unless there is also a source-empire outpost or colony... and then all planets in the system are game, no matter which empire might own them.

so, say, your neighborhood Ithkul has an outpost in your system, then migrant Ithkul can arrive on the other worlds of your system as well. and you can't bomb the outpost.

looks like a blockade with prevent migartion completely, though. so just station a ship there, and that should keep the riff-raff out.

[djinndw]

thanks Strifeguard,

So basically, with that in play, we shouldn't be colonizing any planets close to the Ithuk, or they might come and visit?

Unless of course, you're playing an Ithuk, then do the opposite... mmm.. food coming to me, instead of me going to the food...


oh well... my fleet's been wandering around glassing every planet I run across that has an infestation, so the problem should correct itself shortly.:D

Just have to get these 'friends' of mine to stop trying to colonize the systems as I clean them out... I do all the work, and they think they get to colonize the place...:confused:

[djinndw]

Originally posted by pedxing
ok, so it looks like inter-empire migration can happen, but only in a shared system.

reprhase: migration is stopped by other-empire systems, unless there is also a source-empire outpost or colony... and then all planets in the system are game, no matter which empire might own them.

looks like a blockade with prevent migartion completely, though. so just station a ship there, and that should keep the riff-raff out.

this is totally empire-empire, system-sytem migration... I had the system blockaded the whole time, and I was the only one in the system.

[RobNelson]

OK, I stand corrected. Never say that I don't acknowledge when I'm wrong. :D

Still, what could've happened in your case was that you got the Trilarians in your empire via another, less closely watched system, and then it was migration within your own empire that sprouted them at that particular planet.

[djinndw]

Originally posted by RobNelson

Still, what could've happened in your case was that you got the Trilarians in your empire via another, less closely watched system, and then it was migration within your own empire that sprouted them at that particular planet.

nope again... this is still early game, >100 turns, on a small cluster, so I only have a few places, and most of the rest of my places are far away from the Trillians... All of those planets were carefully watched...

No back-door enterprises here...

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by RobNelson
OK, I stand corrected.
Don't feel bad, the guys at QSI also "stood corrected" on this one.

Besides, it's always refreshing to see posters help out those with questions.

@djinndw:
The Ithkul will really only "come to visit" in 2 cases:
1) You and the Ithkul share planets in the same system
or
2) The Ithkul living in the "Ithkul Empire" want out so badly that they'll jump head-first into one of your systems.

In either case, while it happens, it's rarer than it sounds. To put it very simply, the Ithkul have roughly the same chance of landing on one of your nearby colonies as your citizens do of forming an outpost on their own. While both cases happen (and both can be "encouraged" through social engineering) there won't exactly be a flood.

Of course, once Ithkul get into 2 or 3 of your worlds...well, that's a different matter.

[djinndw]

Actually, I think that last bit about the Ithuk points to why I've got some Trillian squatters...

The nice Trillian Empire that they came from was mixed up with an Ithuk empire, and a few of their planets were infested...

So they probably jumped ship, bc their own empire wasn't helping them any...

Of Course, now I don't have to worry about any raiding Ithuk... After I cleansed the 2 Ithuk Empires that were close to me, I helped out the nice, friendly Trillian Empire by glassing all of his planets that were infested. :D

Lucky for him that he had 1 planet that wasn't infested...

[Pragmatic]

How do you find if a planet has Ithkul, and not some other minority race?

For instance, some of those planets that got glassed might have had Raas or Rhea minority populations...

[djinndw]

Originally posted by Pragmatic
How do you find if a planet has Ithkul, and not some other minority race?

For instance, some of those planets that got glassed might have had Raas or Rhea minority populations...

uhmmm... I guessed. :D

I used intuitive thought per se... Ithuk were in the same system, with the Trillians, along with being in the next system... and planets were being swapped on a regular basis btwn them...
which brings up my thought that the programmers got the 'glass this, fight for that' backwards... haven't seen any ground combat btwn non-Ithuk races...

That, and two of the three planets had Ithuk as the major race by the time I decided to cleanse them, the other on had the Trillians below 60%, so they weren't far behind...

edit: to actually answer your question, I have no clue how to check another empires minority pop. on a planet

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by djinndw
edit: to actually answer your question, I have no clue how to check another empires minority pop. on a planet

Save the game, enter multiplayer mode, choose the other empire, and you can check out how they're doing.

Or, for a harder way, fire up Bhruic's SaveGame Editor v0.51, which lets you edit (planet-wise):
Gravity, Temperature, Atmospheric Pressure, Mineral Richness, Biodiversity

And region-wise:
Terrain, Fertility, Race (standard or one of the in-game custom races), Population

Galaxy-wise:
Adding/removing starlanes and wormholes, Flatten Galaxy.

You can even edit ship designs, and (for the brief times it works, which is rare) edit the players.

Still a bunch of stuff that didn't get put in, but the closest thing to the savegame editors made for MOO2...

[djinndw]

ahhh.. I see.

though, I don't usually feel the need to go in and check on/change how the computers doing... though, maybe fixing their planets to have their DEA choice make some sense.... might actually get a real fight out of them.

[Pragmatic]

Originally posted by djinndw
ahhh.. I see.

though, I don't usually feel the need to go in and check on/change how the computers doing... though, maybe fixing their planets to have their DEA choice make some sense.... might actually get a real fight out of them.

Heh... And you get to come back and see what the heck the computer did to your empire. :)

I'd expect that you'll come back to find at least a dozen (probably closer to 40) new ship designs...

[djinndw]

Ok, on a slightly different topic...

Fighter pods... what exactly do they do?

I've narrowed the possible choices to doubling the damage, or getting another shot/reload time...

Anyone know for sure? The computer doesn't update the damage listing when you check the box.. the only thing it does is add space taken...

Just trying to decide which way to choose the upgrade... Either jump to the next individual dmg size, or add a pod...

[DeckPrism]

According to the second post in visages space combat mechanics thread http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=290129
they just give you a multifire of 2.

[djinndw]

Ok, thanks DeckPrism. That was somewhat useful.
Though, it brought up the question of did they fix Pd for the 1.2.5 patch? I saw a lot of tables/comments/etc... but I don't think I saw that...

And I think I solved my own question about migration... I found out that if you accidentally :up: land enough colony ships onto the planet, so that the total pop landed is greater than the pop that the planet can handle... they fill all regions. :D

[The Bloody Baro]

Hello all, I've been reading much of this article. And its helped alot. But my one big thing is what customizing options should I choose? I tend to play as a humanoid species. But what specifics should I choose?

Thank you for your time,

TBB

EDIT: I have the 1.2.5 patch.

[The Wagster]

Originally posted by The Bloody Baro
Hello all, I've been reading much of this article. And its helped alot. But my one big thing is what customizing options should I choose? I tend to play as a humanoid species. But what specifics should I choose?

Thank you for your time,

TBB

EDIT: I have the 1.2.5 patch.

I don't do much race customising myself but this thread should help you out;)

Complete Race Customization data, info on built in racial abilities (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=266847)

[jp42655]

I've started playing MOO3 again after playing GalCiv for a while. I needed a break and decided to go back to MOO3. I started a game last night as the Raas and lost due to senate victory. Question on that: can you vote for yourself? There were 2 listed me and one other. I accidentally selected theirs (can't change your mind? I tried to change before I submitted) d'oh :rolleyes:

I have 1.2.5 installed and I installed the mega mod. Should I try without the mod first?

Auto-colonization? Good or bad? I was playing with it on last night. I kind of enjoyed the whole macro-management idea of it all. If I do play with auto-colonize on does the "send colony ship" button play a factor in the AI decisions?

Should I try the first game without trying to make a devplan or should I make some (I have the guides from the forum) and see how it goes?

Thanks for any help/advice.

[The Wagster]

Originally posted by jp42655
I've started playing MOO3 again after playing GalCiv for a while. I needed a break and decided to go back to MOO3. I started a game last night as the Raas and lost due to senate victory. Question on that: can you vote for yourself? There were 2 listed me and one other. I accidentally selected theirs (can't change your mind? I tried to change before I submitted) d'oh :rolleyes:

You can vote for yourself but you can't change vote once you've click on one of the options. You can load the autosave of that turn and vote for yourself (that would be the penultimate autosave):) Or you can load the last autosave and continue playing as if the senete victory condition was off.

I have 1.2.5 installed and I installed the mega mod. Should I try without the mod first?

It would be interesting so you could see what it's like. The most noticeable thing Megamod does is increase your fleet sizes dramatically. Armada sizes are 256 in Megamod compared to 18 in normal MoO. It also has quite a dramatic tech slow down and improves the diplomacy, spying and balances the weapons. It's worth a go without any gameplay mods (keep the graphic ones in there) but I prefer it with Megamod or Invader mod or one of the others.

Auto-colonization? Good or bad? I was playing with it on last night. I kind of enjoyed the whole macro-management idea of it all. If I do play with auto-colonize on does the "send colony ship" button play a factor in the AI decisions?

I don't use auto colonisation so I wouldn't know about the send colony command. The AI won't take any magnate race colony ships into consideration when sending out the ships so you may get 2 red colonies that would have been green if the colony ships had been swapped:rolleyes:

Should I try the first game without trying to make a devplan or should I make some (I have the guides from the forum) and see how it goes?

Thanks for any help/advice.

The way I did/do DEV plans is to first create a plan for All Planets that is something like Industry>Research>Mine/Trade/farm etc. and play with that for a while. Soon you'll find a mineral shortage is crippling your industry, and maybe food shortage is coming as well so you can put in a Dev plan for mineral rich planets of Mine>Mine (leaving Tertiary free) and High Biodiversity planets of Farm>Farm. After a while you'll start to find you don't have enough industry or research so you'll need to add more plans and by looking through your planets you'll be able to see the classification of the planets you'd want to build factories, research labs, mines etc on and will be able to make the dev plans appropriately.

Basically you're better off learning dev plans yourself so you'll understand them better and can create your own rather than just copying someone elses, that way you can change them confidently when you try new races or something unexpected happens;)

Happy MoOing:cool:

[The Wagster]

Originally posted by Albaron
AFAIK the send colony bottom plays a roll.

That's just crying out for a Uranus joke...:haha:

[Albaron]

should I respond ... or not ... yes ... no ... yes ... no ... yes ... no ...

[Rockstone]

[b]

Short range ships get very powerfull later in the game, when you have weapons that do massive damage but lack the range of some of the weaker beam weapons.
I dont think so.

[ort111]

Hi,

Apolgies if these have all been asked lots of times before....


1. Food. Is there an ordered list anywhere of the diferent fertility ratings....aluvial, barren etc...

2. Magnate races. Where is the list of the diferent magnet races and descriptions? I thought there was one in the manual - but today I can't seem to find anything.

3. Finances. I am concerned about the state of my finances in my current game. The green icon at the top of the galaxy screen reads 50K AU -20k. Is this a bad sign? How do I make money?

4. Is it possible to terraform any planet to a 'Paradise'. Some seem to get to green and then stop.

Thanks in Advance

[RobNelson]

1 Try out Economics 101 (http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=273336) , it should help.

2. Not really, though there may be one in the strategy forum.

3. The green icon at the top is the total amount available to spend this turn (Empire Level), and includes all Imperial Income. To get a better feel for what's actually going on, check out the Finance screen. Keep in mind that there are different levels of finance; planet - all planetary taxes stay on the planet to build things, pay maintenance, T-form; system - goes to the system seat of government and then acts much like planetary; Imperial - goes to Imperial treasury and is used for fleet maintenance, grants to planets, spies. I probably forgot something. If you're loosing Imperial money like mad, check out your various grants to planets (unrest, military funding, research) these help out planets at a penalty for beauracracy.

4. Most of the T-form techs state that they'll improve a planet up to sweet spot, so technically they won't go any higher than that. Though I usually start to see paradise planets once I have 2 or 3 techs.

[Lennier]

Originally posted by RobNelson
4. Most of the T-form techs state that they'll improve a planet up to sweet spot, so technically they won't go any higher than that. Though I usually start to see paradise planets once I have 2 or 3 techs. One of the terraform techs (a pretty high level one) says it will improve a planet up to paradise. Until you get that one, you won't be able to terraform to paradise (but every once in a while, you'll find a lucky planet that is already at paradise.) Each terraform tech lets you terraform one ring. So after completing the first terraform tech, you can change a yellow-1 world to a green-2, but no further. After getting the second terriform tech, you can terraform the previously yellow-1 world to green-1, and after the third T-form tech, to sweet spot. You won't be able to go to paradise until you get the high-level T-form tech that lets you terriform to sweet spot.

[pedxing]

Originally posted by ort111
2. Magnate races. Where is the list of the diferent magnet races and descriptions? I thought there was one in the manual - but today I can't seem to find anything.yep. look here (http://www.mithyk.com/stationprime/race_magnate.htm).

[ort111]

RobNelson, Lennier, Pedxing

Brilliant! Thanks.

[Rockstone]

Sorry if this has been asked before but what do you get out of killing a gardain?

[Strifeguard]

Well, you get a few things from killing a guardian:

1) Pride (if you defeat it early)

2) Passage through that system from then on

3) Usually the guardian is protecting a couple of pretty good planets

4) Statistically, one of the 5 guardians is guarding an Antaran X, which you get if you defeat the correct one. I say statistically because each guardian has a 20% chance, and there are 5, so statistically you should be able to gain an X this way every game. However, in some games the "dice rolls" will result in no Xs being found. If at any point a guardian is defeated and a race gains an X from it, all other guardians are automatically set to have a 0% chance of yielding an X, so 2 or more X's can never be found by killing guardians.

The Antaran X is really the biggest benefit, seeing as you can usually kill several guardians *before* many of your eXpeditions yield dignificant findings.

(And don't be too sorry, we were all newbs once...)

[Eric-The-red]

Guys great post and Q&A's , Im taking this all in. And strifeguard peeps tell me to steer clear of the Humans till i get a better grip on the game , but if I only want to play human I'll never know the difference so I guess it would be a moot point , I never did like playing alien races, but I probably will at some point just for kicks ;) Later all PEACE !

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Eric-The-red
And strifeguard peeps tell me to steer clear of the Humans till i get a better grip on the game , but if I only want to play human I'll never know the difference so I guess it would be a moot point
There's no question that the humans are a "rough ride" in Moo3.

To this day, I'm hesitant to use them in MP, but they've become what I "do", and I'm happy with them.

If you're up for the challenge, go for it (though it can be VERY frustrating while learning to play. I used Evon during some of my early games, so don't feel bad about experimenting ;) )

[Patton1942]

Evon are a good starting race. They're decent at most things, have lots of points so you can mod them into a slightly more specialized race, and they use the humanoid ships. (which are my favorite. followed by scilicoid and then cybernetik.)

The ton of points they can yeild is what makes them good, evon are a flexable race, able to be adopted to many playstyles. But not a very diplomatic race. since diplomacy is so screwy, that really doesn't bother me too much.

[ort111]

Hi,

Planet Screen Question: Surplus Food/Minerals.

My understanding is ... if the amount of food or minerals produced on a planet is in green then this indicates that the surplus produced by this planet is exported to other planets.

I have several planets that produce a lot more then they require. The produced figure is in white. Does this mean that their surplus is not needed or does that planet need a building to allow the export of the surplus?

Thanks

[Lennier]

I forget which is which, but one means exported within the system, the other exported outside the sytem. I think the latter makes more money. The Economics 101 thread IIRC state which one is which.

[RobNelson]

Actually, if the number is in white, that means that the planets surplus food/minerals are not needed anywhere, since you have an empire-wide surplus.

[ort111]

Sorry.... should have replied sooner.

Thanks for the advice Lennier&RobNelson. For some reason phone line needs to be semi-permenantly attched to ear of teenage daughter.

[Yokuz116]

Why can't I unload a ground force onto an enemy planet? How am I supposed to conquer it if I can't deploy troops?

[Lennier]

To invade an enemy planet:

1) At a nearby system with a mobilization center (or your home system if you haven't built one yet), click the create ground force button (I'm not sure of the exact name; it's the one above the create task force button); select the size, type, and experience of your ground force and the units to go in it (or click "autobuild), click "create" (or OK, I don't remember whcih it's called), create the task force of transports and other ships to transport to transport the ground force. Create (if necessary) other task forces to kill the enemy space forces.

2) Hit the "b" key (I'm not kidding) to show your new task forces on the galaxy map. (If you don't like the boarders view, hit the "b" key again.) Select your task force(s), then click on the system you want to invade.

3) When your forces arrive in the enemy system, you will be brought to the space combat screen. Click the "Assault Planet" radio button. If you then click the show system button at the bottom of the screen, you can select which planet to assault (otherwise the computer chooses for you.) You can choose either to cede control (computer does calculations to determine winner and casualties), watch (you see what's going on in the battle, but the computer controls your ships), or control combat. Click the button to resolve the combat and win the battle and have transport TFs still alive.

4) At the planetary bombardment phase, click the "control combat" radio button and then click the button to resolve the combat. Click either the "unload all troops" or "unload troops" button (the second will land 1/4 of your transport TFs, rounded up, for each click). Then click the OK button (or whatever it's called.) (N.B.: If you chose "cede control," the computer will land any transport TFs you have orl if you don't have any transport TFs, bombard the planet.)

5) You should then get the ground combat screen.

I hope this helps.

[Yokuz116]

Sometimes (well, about half of the time), it doesn't give me an option to deploy ground forces. I know I have troops and transports in the system and I can't find out why I can't deploy them. I have a similar problem with establishing colonies. When I try to establish a colony in a system with a friendly player it won't let me.

[Strifeguard]

Originally posted by Yokuz116
Sometimes (well, about half of the time), it doesn't give me an option to deploy ground forces. I know I have troops and transports in the system and I can't find out why I can't deploy them. I have a similar problem with establishing colonies. When I try to establish a colony in a system with a friendly player it won't let me.

If you have more than 10 TFs in a system, the computer will select (seemingly at random) 10 of the TFs to participate in combat. You can only land troops if one of the TFs used in combat contained troops, and even then you can only land as many troops as were in the TFs that participated in combat.

For this reason, most players will purposefully have transports arrive 1-2 turns behind their battle groups, giving them time to ensure that there will be a maximum of 10 TFs in the system when the transports arrive, which guarantees that they will be allowed to land troops.

As for colonies, unless you have an alliance, you cannot colonize planets that are within systems being patrolled by friendly empires, as it is assumed that whoever got the ships there first is executing a "friendly" blockade. Once you are allied, you will still be unable to colonize if you and your ally are trying to colonize in the same system on the same turn. If you give the "friendly" empire a few turns to move their ships (assuming they aren't system ships) you should be able to come back and colonize.

[MaxKnight]

Hello all.

I don't know if this has ever been asked, but does anybody know what the correct response tone is to each different race is for the maximum relations benefit? I've found a partial list, but not a whole one...

Partial Emphasis List:

Sakkra: Demand
Eoladi: Reason
Human: Reason
Grendarl: Reason
Trilarian: Reason
Tachidi: Declare
Imsaes: Declare
Evon: Beg
Klackon: Argue
Cynoin: State
Silicoid: State
Raas: Reason

I know the list isn't complete, and I don't even know if any of them are correct or not...

Also, are these corrospondent to when you answer someone at the diplomacy screen? Those response emphases are different than those of sending requests.

[Lennier]

Assuming you mean "partial" and not "impartial," I think that list has been compiled from the POS Strategy Guide. There are the same number of answer-tones as send-tones. Although they are called different things, the rankings are the same. I.e., Humans preferred to for messages sent to them is "reason;" and "reason" is the third on the list. The preferred tone for responses is then "polite," which is the third on the list.

There has been debate as to exactly how much effect the tone has on diplomatic offers. Some have claimed that if you only use one tone with an AI empire, it becomes ineffective. So I tend to go +/- 1 level when makeing offers/sending responses.

You should probably check out the Making Diplomacy Make Sense: Fish Friends, Lizard Lovers, and Humanoid Haters (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=331031) thread for lots details about diplomacy.

[MaxKnight]

Thank you for the information. This has been a real help.

Another question I just thought up. At what interval should I redesign my fleets? I tend to design a LR Light Cruiser right off the bat (my Decoy). I'm just wondering if there is a certain technology that would be a good time to redesign those ships necessary to protect my colonies, and do my explolring. I'm thinking about the second researchable technologies for System Engines and Warp Engines (Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Sub Light Drives, I think).

Also, what is the most effective weapon early on to put into early game Warships? I don't think Laser Beams and Mass Drivers will work for more than the first so many turns...

[The Wagster]

Hmmm, tough question.

It all depends on how highly you rate the new tech and how badly your current ships are doing. If you current designs are winning then there's no real urgency to design new ships unless you get a real big advantage from the new tech.

The techs I look out for when redesigning ships are bigger hull sizes, weapon miniturization (you can fit 20% more weapons on), shield and armor techs, new warp engines, system engines, new killer direct fire weapons and new missile mounts. However, I won't redesign ships when I get each new tech, I'll wait until I've got a few before I do that.

I always redesign ships soon after new warp technology becomes available but often wait up to 5-6 turns for another good tech that's nearing completion.

[MaxKnight]

On my latest Cynoid game, I've expanded reletively quickly, but started outside of the Senate, on the right Galactic Arm. I found one other Race reletively early (Tachidi). I'm friends with them, but unfortunately, my other neighbor is Evon. I'm not at war, but we still trade blows. I just had the need for Fleet Redesignation, due to the fact that my best ships in the Armadas that I was sending Evon's way only had Lasers and Mass Drivers... I've since redesigned everything with Hydrogen Fuel Cells and Sub Light Engines. I've also upgraded weapons on my Light Cruiser and Cruiser types (Decoy and Variable, respectively). Unfortunately, I still cannot penetrate Evon defenses... I'm now just stalling while my three Task Forces go after X's...

Which is more powerful, spreading out specialized ships in a task force, or having many of the same variable ship type (with balanced weapon types; all have Beams, Missles, and Fighters)? I've designed both, a system ship lancer for defense of planets (IF), as well as the aforementioned Light Cruiser Decoy. But the Cruiser Variable is just that, a variable weapon ship. Will this ship be more powerful overall than using several different designed types?

[The Wagster]

Specialised ships are more effective but mid to late game I start to use mixed ships as I like 10 TFs advancing in a line towards the enemy's ships:)

The specialised ships are more effective because you can reduce the system speeds of missile and carrier ships to increase the space for weapons. The auto-build makes IF and CV ships slightly slower than SR (and LR?) automatically but by dropping the speed to 1000, 500 or lower you can fit an awesome amount of firepower in your ships;)

What do you mean by "Decoy" ships?

[MaxKnight]

Decoy is the name I give to my LR Light Cruiser Ship. The whole point is that it's not a decoy, that's where some of the power is.

I think I'll have to start making IF and CV Starships...

Starship Design:

Try for Light Cruisers right off the bat, or design them all as Destroyers, so that more different colonies can build them? Will space be that much of a concern? Should I continue making an all-in-one type ship at Cruiser? Cruiser specs on my current game include about 4 Rail Guns (Standard Mount), 2-3 Anionic Warhead 5x Missle Racks (Point-Defense Mount, Missle Armor), 1 Interceptor Chasis (Autofire Laser and Fighter Armor), 1 of the other type of Fighter (Autofire Laser and Fighter Armor).

I design this All-In-One as a LR Cruiser to begin with, so that is its mission. Does that sound like a mistake?

[Lennier]

Your design doesn't seem like such a bad one. I think most people who design multi-purpose ships designate them as LR ships. You may want to check out the Designing the multi-purpose ship (http://www.ina-community.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=359251) thread for a discussion about (surprise, surprise) multi-purpose ship design.

[mpenni]

Hello everyone. I have a question that has come up from a recent game. I am playing humans and had discovered a Sakkra empire not too far from my starting position. I was lucky to get my fleets to them before they had spread out too far from their home system. I can be pretty sure I am at their home system by pressing B on the galaxy map, it is the only one with a flag over it. To be extra certain, I captured all of the planets in the only other system the Sakkra were in.
Now, with my main war fleet in their home system, (comprised of three planets, only one hospitable enough to be a candidate for the imperial seat), I have destroyed all of their ships and defense installations and have begun to bomb this "candidate" fairly heavily. All buildings are destroyed, population is 15% of what it was before I got there. I am pretty sure I got the Imperial seat. My problem is that there are still Sakkra ships being built and mobilized in the system and sent out to the neighboring one, (which I have blockaded as well and I shoot down anything that enters).
Assuming that I had judged incorectly which of the three planets had the Imperial seat, I proceeded to bomb the other two back into the stoneage. There is nothing left on any of the planets in this, the only system the Sakkra occupy and we are still early in the game, neither one of us has developed the Mobilization Center tech. His ships should only be able to mobilize in the system with the Imperial Seat, but there is no Imperial Seat anywhere! How can he still be bringing ships into play? Am I missing something?
Now that my frustrations have been aired, my question concerns what happens to your, (or the computer empire's), ability to mobilize ships when you do not have any mob centers anywhere, (cannot even build because you lack the tech) and you lose your Imperial Seat. Logically, (I know, I should not try to be logical with this game, but hey, what else can I do?), you should not be able to bring any ships up from your reserve until you rebuild the Imperial seat. Am I incorrect in my reasoning?
If it helps any, the flag symbol above the Sakkra system that I see on the galactic map when I press B looks a little different than the one above my own home system. The one above my system has a vertical line below the flag for my empire with two dots on either side. The one above the Sakkra system just has the vertical line, no dots. I have no idea what this may mean. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.system just has the vertical line, no dots. I have no idea what this may mean. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

[Hyperjoe]

They probably moved the Imperial seat. The flag with no dots is just a mobilization center.

That or they have no Imp seat, but that flag just shows they can still mobilize forces there. I think in their last/ homeworld system, they may be able to mobilize until all their planets are taken. Don't quote me on that

[pedxing]

sounds right... it would be a bummer to be down to one system and have no way to mobilize defenders!

imnsho, right thing to do is invade them, rather than bombing them. if you take the planet with minimum damage to infrastructure and population, you don't have to build it back up from scratch.

also, it gives you something to do with all those troops and transports the AI has been building, eh? unless you took them all out of the queues? i used to do that, but now i only prune the queue on homeworld in the early game, and let all my little planets slowly make me an army that will be there for me when i suddenly realize i want it.

but in general, yeah, i do bomb the biggest pop planet in the system, once, 1/4 strength (not unload all), to disrupt the Mob and prevent further ships showing up. interesting to know that that doesn't work against the homeworld!

[jackostanley]

What is the criteria for AI to start building Mobilization center?

[DeckPrism]

Well first you have to have researched the mobilization center technology. After that, Roy can build them. Fortunately, everyone is required to have that tech in their tree. I suspect that most people manualy queue a Mob center on new planets.

[Lennier]

And once you have the technology, Roy will put a high priority in queing up Mob Centers.

[pedxing]

also, they must be built at the System Seat, or the first planet in a the system that was settled, if there is no System Seat yet.

there are some weird corner cases that come up, llike if a System Seat has a Mob Center, and the System Seat is destroyed (say, by spies) and rebuilt on a different planet, i'm not sure what happens to the Mob Center... or what if that Mob Center was just then being built, and was completed on the turn the spy struck, or on the same turn as the new System Seat got built elsewhere?

i've seen weird things on some occasions, so i'm not sure what to believe.

but the general rule is pretty simple: first planet settled, or System Seat, usually happens to be both.

[Lennier]

It gets really annoying when the AI decides that the first planet settled (on which you've built your forward Mob Center) isn't the one to build the system seat. System seat gets built and POOF; no more mob center. (Three turns minimum to build at system seat.) :sour:

[djinndw]

I concur...

it is quite annoying when you get that first MOB in, then expect it to stay there... since you probably really need it for forward placement of fleets/ground troop ships...

as soon as the system gov is placed on another planet by the roy, poof... MOB gone...

if you're slowly taking over an entire system, with ground combat, and the roy decides that new planets are better for system seats, poof... there it goes again...

[jackostanley]

Tnx guys for the help. I'm not manually fiddling with build queus at all, so I'm eager to know what are the factors to get my roy to build them.
1. Get the tech -> mob. center
2. Get a new planet
3. Get System seat built
4. Mob. center is built

Can my roy build mob. center before the system seat? Or will it go the "right" path, and build system seat first then the mob. center?

[Lennier]

Roy can (ad does) que up Mob Centers before there's a system seat. System seat is a level-0 tech, so your first systems will typically have a system seat built by the time you get the Mob Center tech.

System seats can only be built on a planet with a government DEA. Typically, if the first planet you conquer in a system has a surviving government DEA, Roy will que a system seat up right away, and you don't have to worry about vanishing Mob Centers.

[jackostanley]

Okey dokey! Tnx for the clarification. Now let me rule the galaxy for gd..

[Lennier]

I just read your post above mine and then mine again, and realized I hadn't answered your last question.

Originally posted by jackostanley
Can my roy build mob. center before the system seat? Or will it go the "right" path, and build system seat first then the mob. center?
I generally micro the MBQ, but I can que up a Mob Center on the first planet in a system before there's a SSG, and IIRC seeing Roy do it as well. (I usually then put the Mob Center in the build order I want.)

[pedxing]

i try to micro only on the first turn the colony starts up, when there's unrest, and when i need particular ships built.

on planets where Mob Centers can't be built, i usually go for:

Fighter Base
Planetary Shield
system missle frigate

to nip piracy (and the associated unrest) in the bud.

unless it is a border world, then i prefer:

Fighter Base
Missile Base
Planetary Shield

if i don't have Planetary Shield, i do:

Fighter Base
system missle frigate
Missile Base

on secondary, while the Frontier gets:

Fighter Base
Missile Base
system missile frigate

once Mob Centers come on line, i do them either first or second, depending on how badly i need them, and how much danger the system is in, relative to my fleet strength.

if the starships can hold the line, the Fighter Base can wait!

since i do a variation of the same thing on almost all worlds, it gets to be pretty automatic. the interface has some good features, and some irriataing quirks...

for example, you can drag and drop items to move them around in the build queue. this makes it easier to rearrange whatever 'Roy puts in there, to get it close to what i want.

but here's the quirk: the feature doesn't work if you get to the planet from a SitRep link, say like becasue of unrest. no dragging, no dropping, sorry. gotta get to the system either through the galaxy map or the planets tab!

so what i do is visit the planet by the sitrep link, hit 'g' to get out to the galaxy and 'c' to go back to the last colony visited, and then i rearrange. irritating, but "rearranging" by deleting and re-adding and not being able to put things in front of a half-finished project (and instead having to cancel it!) it more irritating than two keystrokes.

[jackostanley]

What factors guide my roys to build ground forces? I'm in a situation where I got tons of star ships, but ground forces are rare...:cry:

[The Wagster]

Roy likes to build troops if he can't afford ships, but even when he does build them he doesn't build the x5 or x10 troops, just singles. If you put the troops in the que yourself you can use the x5 and x10 multiplier, so build troops much faster. After 150 - 200 turns it can take 1 or 2 turns to build a x10. You can also build (train?) these troops on a planet populated by a more warrior like race, with better troop stats such as Rhea and Bulrathi (if you have them).

[jackostanley]

Hmm ok tnx for the answer.
I havent manually altered the building queues at all and I was hoping that I don't have to, but it seems I gotta override some of my roys for a while...:rolleyes:

[The Wagster]

If you just find one reasonable industry world (not the best, leave them to build ships) and que up 2 sets of X10 troops (the best you got) + 1 x10 support unit and lock the que then you're sorted, and you don't lose much overall production for ships.

[pedxing]

or go to your top 5 or 10 worlds, slide a x10 troops into the front slot of each of thier queues, in front of whatever they're currently producing.

boom! instant army, then the planets get back to whatever they were doing before.

[eastwind]

A few basic questions:

1. Is it possible using this forum (everybody's free BBS seems to be a little different) to unroll a whole thread into one looong page so you can search the whole thing at once with the browser's search function?
(yes I know there's a BBS search function, I want to quickly scan through *this* thread for anything having "transports" in it)

2. I put together a 2-ship task force, took it out to a system and wanted to break it up. I clicked on something (disband task force I think), and both ships disappeared forever. I don't think I scrapped them, what's up with that?

3. I put together a 2-ship task force of a destroyer and a colony ship, got out to a system, and told the task force to colonize a planet. Both ships disappeared forever, what's up with that?

4. Is there a mod or some kind of a fix to the UI that will just please let me see a list of all my ships and where they're at?

5. If I have a colony ship at home and make a task force out of it but then click on some planet and say "send colony ship", it doesn't go. It seems it will only send a colony ship if it can make the task force itself. Why?

6. I have a nice magnate colony that is beginning to be able to put out marines. Is it really the best way to build the transport at home and the marines on the remote colony but have them muster at home so they just load up where the ship is? Do you put the transport in a task force before you try to load it up or not?

7. Do I want to build more than one of those beam base thingies or is it a once-only thing like imperial seat.

8. I'm playing Cyloids, 50/50 foot/mineral eaters. I think I'm running an empire-wide mineral deficit but a food surplus. Are my people adjusting their diet or what?

9. I read how I can obsolete ship designs to get the AI not to build them, is there a way to do that with infantry? I've got two magnate races, my cyloid race was adjusted to max-suck at ground combat and I just dont want any cyloid ground troops period, but I dont mind the AI building magnate marines. I've looked at the development plans but that doesn't seem to quite cut it, you can only list 3 things you want, and can't list any dont-wants (which would actually be more useful I think).

Well, if I dont stop at 9 I'll hit 99....

Thanks in advance for any answers.

[Lennier]

Originally posted by eastwind
A few basic questions:

1. Is it possible using this forum (everybody's free BBS seems to be a little different) to unroll a whole thread into one looong page so you can search the whole thing at once with the browser's search function?
(yes I know there's a BBS search function, I want to quickly scan through *this* thread for anything having "transports" in it)In your userCP, under options, you have the option of seeing up to 40 posts per thread. You could pm a mod to see if they can up the limit. Yes, I know the BBS search function isn't very good, but that's the best we can do.

2. I put together a 2-ship task force, took it out to a system and wanted to break it up. I clicked on something (disband task force I think), and both ships disappeared forever. I don't think I scrapped them, what's up with that?The ships did not "dissapear forever." They were sent to the "delay box." After about 5-10 turns, they will be returned to the reserves. The turn after you hit the "disband tasforce button," you will get a "green" message in your SITREP saying how long the ships will be in the delay box.

3. I put together a 2-ship task force of a destroyer and a colony ship, got out to a system, and told the task force to colonize a planet. Both ships disappeared forever, what's up with that?The colony ship dissapeared forever. (The new colonisits are using its parts to establish the colony.) The destroyer has been sent to the delay box as in 2.

4. Is there a mod or some kind of a fix to the UI that will just please let me see a list of all my ships and where they're at?In the shipyards screen, under the fllet tab (I may have the names of the screen and tab mixed up), you will get a listing of every task force, every system with system ships, the reserves, and the delay box. The TFs state where they are. Clicking on one of the boxes (on the left of the screen) will display (on the right of the screen) a list of the ships in the TF/box/reserves/system.

5. If I have a colony ship at home and make a task force out of it but then click on some planet and say "send colony ship", it doesn't go. It seems it will only send a colony ship if it can make the task force itself. Why?The AI isn't very bright. You should manually send the colony TF to the sytem you want to establish a colony in. Once there, go to the system screen and select the planet you want the colony TF to colonize. Click on the "forces" tab. Select the colony TF in the "my forces" window. Click on the "create colony" button. Next turn, you will have a colony there. (Unless non-friendly forces are in the system.) For system colony ships, you can skip the step about sending the colony TF to the system.

N.B.: If ships from an empire you have less than a military alliance relationship with are in the system, your colony ship won't land.

6. I have a nice magnate colony that is beginning to be able to put out marines. Is it really the best way to build the transport at home and the marines on the remote colony but have them muster at home so they just load up where the ship is? Do you put the transport in a task force before you try to load it up or not?All your ground forces and all your starships (not system ships or orbitals) are placed in your reserves when they are built. To create a ground-invasion force, select a system with a mobilization center (or imperial seat of government), and click the "create ground force" (or transport, I forget which; whichever button is not "create task force"). You will then be brought to the create ground force screen. Create a valid formation and click OK. You will be then brought to the create task force screen to build a "transport" TF. You will need one transport pod per four ground units in the ground formation. Choose the ships you want tin the transport TF (or accept the AI's picks) and click "OK." Hit the "b" key to make the transport show up on the galaxy screen. (If you don't like the boarders on, hit the "b" key again to turn them off.) Send the transport TF to the enemy system you want to invade.

It doesn't matter which planet the ground forces and transport ships are built at.

7. Do I want to build more than one of those beam base thingies or is it a once-only thing like imperial seat.Despite documentation to the contrary, you can only build one beam base (and one missile base, and one space super fighter base) per planet. You can have one system seat of government per system. You can have one imperial seat of government per empire. There are a number of other things you can have one per planet of; they can be built through the planetary build que. The bases are built through the military build que.

8. I'm playing Cyloids, 50/50 foot/mineral eaters. I think I'm running an empire-wide mineral deficit but a food surplus. Are my people adjusting their diet or what?When a planet get between 50-100% of the food resources (for Cynoids, that's food + minerals required), the population growth is slowed. With less than 50%, citizens starve and you get negative growth. In either case, you will get some unrest. For some reason, Roy gives industry priority ofmineral and bioharvest outputs over population needs. :sour:

9. I read how I can obsolete ship designs to get the AI not to build them, is there a way to do that with infantry? I've got two magnate races, my cyloid race was adjusted to max-suck at ground combat and I just dont want any cyloid ground troops period, but I dont mind the AI building magnate marines. I've looked at the development plans but that doesn't seem to quite cut it, you can only list 3 things you want, and can't list any dont-wants (which would actually be more useful I think).No. You can't even scrap ground forces in the reservers for AU like you can ships. :cry:

Well, if I dont stop at 9 I'll hit 99....

Thanks in advance for any answers. You're welcome.

[eastwind]

Wow, answers to everything from one person! Thanks very much Lennier! Everything is clear to me except for two follow-on questions:

1. So what I want to do is build an escorted colonization task force out of a colony ship and a destroyer escort. I want to send it out to the system my scout found. The scout will have moved on and won't be there anymore. I want to colonize the planet, and have the destroyer remain on station for system security. This is intended to prevent another race from stealing my colony (in case its not 1000 yet), slagging my defenseless colonists or colonizing any of the other worlds in the system. Is there an easy way to do this? It looks like following your answer to number 5 will send the destroyer back home, which is no good. Is the only way to send the ships individually (separate detachments)?

I guess once I can build the larger hulls I'll be building colony ships with 2 and maybe 4 colony pods so I get straight to colony status on yellow and maybe red worlds, but I'm not that far along yet, and I still want to have system security in my brand new systems until they can build up their own.

2. So I understand I can build exactly one beam base per planet. Should I? Are the benefits per planet, per system or per civilization? If not per planet, do they stack?

Thanks again for all your help. I'd read that the UI in this game was not good, I knew that before I plunked down my ten bucks :-) I'm coming to the conclusion that its not so much that its bad as that its complicated and slightly obscure, and the reviewer didn't take the time to learn it. So I have hope that if I keep learning I'll be able to play the game reasonably in a couple more nights.

[pedxing]

Originally posted by eastwind
1. ... Is the only way to send the ships individually (separate detachments)?yes. but it's not that bad, once you get used to it. and actually it is nice some times to have the escort arrive a few turns before the colony ship, to shoo away potential troublemakers!
2. So I understand I can build exactly one beam base per planet. Should I? Are the benefits per planet, per system or per civilization? If not per planet, do they stack?the only thing a beam base will do is when your planet gets attacked it will be able to do some (usually ineffective) PD fire at the incoming swarms of enemy missiles and fighters.

fighter bases and missile bases are much more usefull, build them first. then add on a beam base for style. they all function in effectivly the same way as making your planet act like a giant immobile carrier, missile, and beam ship.

all three are only useful during combat at that one planet. just like orbitals.

system ships are the only thing that apply to system-wide defence.