The Tau Ceti aliens had a colony on a planet and also seemed to improve tech do Precursors do this? What are the differences between and NPR and Precursors?

Precursors don't have populations and don't improve tech. They are robot-controlled ships that guard ruins and occasionally systems without ruins. NPRs are empires similar to your own. They will explore, found new colonies, bulid new ships and advance their technology.

Steve

In terms of fiction, it depends exactly what you want to achieve with the AAR. If you are seeking to educate, to lay out your choices and make mistakes like your first one then keep the fiction down somewhat.

You tried a little in your first AAR - 'Kate Wallace sitting at a desk...', that was  a nice short piece that set the mood for the rest of the post. I would recommend that you continue with something similar, although using a different font or colour would help distinguish it.

Not blowing my trumpet, but I've started to throw in a little scene in the start of my AAR to give a feel to the main body of the post. I was inspired by the little headers in Frank Herbert's Dune - quotes from the Orange-Catholic Bible or Letters from the Princess Irulan. It adds a little flavour before I detail my mistakes and current situation and goals.

It's funny that you are going to concentrate initially on mining and resources. I feel your pain there in my current game. The limited starting resources become a real wall if you are not prepared for them.

When you get to combat, go slow. It's about the only part of the game I am yet to experience and there is a real lack of detailed information for the newbie there (me).

The Tau Ceti aliens had a colony on a planet and also seemed to improve tech do Precursors do this? What are the differences between and NPR and Precursors?

It's all over the Tau Ceti aliens proved too much and my early mistakes came back to bite me. I learnt lot's and hope I helped others get there head around this fantastic game. Going to upgrade to the latest version and try another game. No AAR this time though I want to hone my skills and improve then I will put something else together.

Thanks for reading and also for all the help over the last month and a bit.

In my ongoing battles with the Tau Ceti aliens I have very little knowledge of there weapon systems or ship specs. Is there anywhere this info is stored? I have checked the intelligence screen and all I know is the estimated speed and tonnage.

In combat I get missile info and details of there sensor ranges but after combat this is not stored.

Also I sometimes find in combat that the enemy contacts disappear from the system map then when I increment time they reappear is there a reason for this.?

Going to stick with the AAR can anyone tell me how to load missiles on a ship so I can transport them to the frontline.

Have you made a Class and given it the flag of Colier?

I generally take a Cruiser hull, remove the launchers and fire control and maybe a layer of armor or two and then cram in as many magazines as possible. Set the default missile loadout as you would for a fighting vessel. When you are giving the ship orders you will extra options to 'reload' a fleet. If the Colier and the ship(s) it is going to reload have the same missile loadout then it will transfer then over.

You can also manually transfer missiles on the Ship List screen (cant remember correct name or shortcut).

Arrived back from my hols and now can't decide if I should continue this AAR or start a new one with the lessons I've learned using the latest version. The Tau Ceti aliens are much too tough for my current tech and also the organisation of my empire leaves alot to be desired.

In my last game before my hols I did almost hold my own against the Tau Ceti but the whole missile salvo thing confuses me. Can anyone explain how it works and and strategies for using missiles both AMM and ASM in battles.

Thanks also please let me know if you have thoughts on my decision to conclude the AAR.

Ok, regarding missile salvos:
A single salvo is the number of missiles fired from a number of missile launchers, which are all assigned to a single missile-fire-control
Then there is, what I like to call volley. This is the total amount of missiles, a fleet can launch at the enemy.

There are pros and cons to the size of salvos:
If your enemy has a lot of AMM-launchers, but very few AMM-Missile-Fire-Controls, lots of small salvos are your friend, as he probably won´t have time enough to launch against all of your salvos.

Example:
Your missile-cruiser mounts 8 launchers and 4 MFCs. Your fleet has 3 cruisers.
This means, you can lauch a total of 12 salvos of 2 missiles each --> volley size: 24.
If your enemy can launch a total of 20 AMMs per 10 seconds, but only has 2 MFCs for them, he can only engage two of your salvos per 10 sec.
If your salvos have to face his AMMs for, say 40 seconds, this means he can only engage 8 of your salvos, the other 4 will go in without being targeted by AMMs.
In addition, while the enemy is targeting salvo 7 and 8, your next volley may allready be inside his AMM envelope, thus even more salvos will go in unengaged in your second voley.

The drawback of this tactic is, of course, you need a lot of Missile-Fire-Controls yourself, which means space, that could be used for more launchers, if you used larger-but-less salvos.

In the example above, removing two of the MFCs could enable you to put two additonal launchers on your cruisers, giving you 6 salvos of 5 missiles each --> volley size: 30

I don´t think there is much debate about voley-size. The bigger the better (up to a point, where wastage/overkill sets in)


Re. continuing or starting new:
I´d say continue. Your AAR was/is about what mistakes to avoid and making those mistakes and showing their consequences is probably the best way of doing this.
Oh, and fighting against impossible odds can be fun

One thing I'm noticing, you're units have very different speeds. It's generally a good idea to keep your fleet speeds uniform. Escorts can use little extra speed to race ahead of the main body for extended interception of enemy missiles but that's generally it.

Scouts, fighters and gunboats should all be as fast as you can make them and operate independent of the fleet. Supply ships, jump tenders and other support units can be slower if they're not intended to keep up with the main fleet.

--Mav