Post by: Paul M on April 20, 2009, 03:26:21 AM
1. Damage Control Technology. Since my ships seem to have damage control capacity without it; is it worth developing, and what does it actually allow?
2. Terraforming:
--what effect is there of adding water to the atmosphere? Especially to a world with 0% hydrosphere. Does this reduce the colonization cost?
--what is anti-green house gas for?
3. I built two ship types both 1500 Tonne, 1 engine, life support, bridge, and engineering space. One design had 2 colony bays and was classed as a freighter, the other had 2 cargo bays and was classed as a non-combattent. Any idea why this is?
4. What does the armour value x-y mean in terms of damage absorption capacity.
5. I see a value for max spare parts usable in a repair but my ships seem to be able to exceed this. What is the meaning of that value?
6. Do microwave attacks work against missiles?
7. What exactly do financial centre's do? Obviously they are increasing your wealth but how exactly? Can they be moved from planet to planet?
8. What are spaceports for and how do you use them?
9 What is civillian cargo facility for? Can it be built on one world and moved to another?
Thanks. Likely more will show up with time but these are the ones that I have now.
Post by: Hawkeye on April 20, 2009, 05:27:00 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
I have encountered a few things that I am far from clear on:
1. Damage Control Technology. Since my ships seem to have damage control capacity without it; is it worth developing, and what does it actually allow?
2. Terraforming:
--what effect is there of adding water to the atmosphere? Especially to a world with 0% hydrosphere. Does this reduce the colonization cost?
--what is anti-green house gas for?
3. I built two ship types both 1500 Tonne, 1 engine, life support, bridge, and engineering space. One design had 2 colony bays and was classed as a freighter, the other had 2 cargo bays and was classed as a non-combattent. Any idea why this is?
4. What does the armour value x-y mean in terms of damage absorption capacity.
5. I see a value for max spare parts usable in a repair but my ships seem to be able to exceed this. What is the meaning of that value?
6. Do microwave attacks work against missiles?
7. What exactly do financial centre's do? Obviously they are increasing your wealth but how exactly? Can they be moved from planet to planet?
8. What are spaceports for and how do you use them?
9 What is civillian cargo facility for? Can it be built on one world and moved to another?
Thanks. Likely more will show up with time but these are the ones that I have now.
1. I´m not sure myself
2. AFIK, you can´t add water. If there is ice on the planet, it will melt, once the temperatur rises above 0°
Greenhouse gas raises temperatur, Anti-Greenhouse gas lowers temperature
3. You might need a cargo handling system to qualify for a freighter
4. Armor 3-35 means: 3 rows of armor with a length of 35 each. This means, there are 35 "spots" your ship can be hit and it is protected by 3 layers of armor. A laser dealing 4 points of damage will penetrate all 3 layers and deal the remaining point of damage to the systems of the ships. Missile warheads deal "splash" damage, hitting several "spots" simultaneously. Each weapon uses a different damage template (if you know the old Renegade Legions games from FASA, you know what I mean)
Basicly, lasers deal all damage to a single spot like
Code: [Select]
X
X
X 4 points of laser damage
X
Missiles deal damage something like:
Code: [Select]
X X X X X
X X X 9 points of missile damage
X
5. This is not the max usable, but the amount, the biggest and most complex part of your ship will require to be fixed. It is highly recomended to have at least as much spare parts on board (more is allways better)
6. Never tried, so I don´t know
7. They act like additional population. The formula, I don´t know
8. You need at least two spaceport in two different systems. Over time, a spaceport collects trading points, which allow you to establish a trade-route (the economy screen will tell you when enough points will be collected). Once this point is reached, you establish a trade-route, which will generate additional income.
9. It allows for ships classed as frighters to perform a "Freighter Maintenance Check". This fills the spare parts for free AND gives you a free overhaul, i.e. resets the maintenance clock to 0.
Post by: Cassaralla on April 20, 2009, 06:33:35 AM
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 20, 2009, 09:11:08 AM
2.) The anti-greenhouse gas is for lowering the temprature of a planet. If your race is comfortable at 1-20C and the planet is at 50C then adding anti-greenhouse gases will lower the temprature of the planet to what you need it to be. I often end up turning on the SM mode changing the atmosphere untill I find what is required and then reseting the atmosphere to what it was originally and turning off SM mode. This lets me know what settings I need without a lot of guess work going on.
3.) For a freighter to do much of anything it will need 5 cargo bays. This is because all of the installations exept for infrastructure that you will want to move require 5 cargo bays in a single ship to load.
4.)The damage that weapons due is not quite that simple. Lasers do cause more than 1 line of damage wide, but they penetrate better than missiles and torpedos which cause a standard crater. I don't remember the other weapons damage pattern but they are similiar.
6.) No microwave weapons do not work on missiles
7.) A finance center produces as much wealth as 1million people would produce.
8.) Spaceports are for setting up trade routes between two different planets in different systems. They are a way to gain extra wealth. They are also going away in the next version as Steve is replacing them with a more elaborate civilian shipping network.
9.) A civilian cargo facility allows you to have your cargo and colony type ships do a maintence check on the task force order screen. Each time you do so the time on the clock between overhauls is reset to zero. This is a mechanic to make it easier to run your shipping without having to take ships and put them into an actual overhaul on occasion.
Brian
Post by: Paul M on April 20, 2009, 10:14:14 AM
The cargo requirements for installations was never stated anywhere hense my confusion on the topic. Looks like I may have to consider a few redesigns of the freighter fleet and will sell off the older ones to the civies. I may build my second gen colony ships with internal cargo bays for loading up infrastructure. I know 50,000 cargo capity = 20 infrastructure or 1 cargo bay = 2 infrastructure.
Still unsure exactly what the effect of the addition of water is though. Will it change the hydrosphere % of the planet over time? Is it a greenhouse gas (it is in real life)? And yes it is one of the options on in the menu.
I'm not sure I see the point in the anti-green house gas though, it seems to me to be better to just remove the greenhouse gases rather than putting the anti-green house gas in there. At least I am assuming you can remove gas from a planet's atmosphere.
What happens if you take a world which is unsuited to colonization and start adding atmosphere to it? I have a couple of Terrestial worlds in the homesystem which are currently unsuited to colonization but when I get my terraformers up and running will have that option.
The suggestion of modifying the atmosphere and playing about in SM mode is a good one, I'll have a glance at that and see what I get for results.
Post by: Hawkeye on April 20, 2009, 11:44:40 AM
1) There might not be any greenhouse gases, but the planet is still too hot
2) You need a minimum atmospheric pressure to make a planet habitable (defined during race creation) so if you remove too much gas, you might go below that threshhold and ruin a planet.
If this happens after initial colonistation (say, you colonize a cost 2 planet, get the atmosphere up to your minimum. It is now a cost 0.5 planet due to heat. You now remove CO2 in order to lower the temperature and continue to ship in colos, because the colonisation cost is going down all the time when BANG! Preassure too low, new cost 2.0, infrastructure needs skyrocket, people die in droves, the population is rampaging through your colony, tearing down buildings, chaos in the streets; you get the picture
)Terraforming unsuitable planets takes a long (a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG) time and is probably not worth it (there are usually easier terraforming targets in your home- or in neighbouring systems).
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 20, 2009, 12:24:00 PM
Quote from: "Hawkeye"
With removing greenhouse gases to lower the temperatur you might run into two problems.
2) You need a minimum atmospheric pressure to make a planet habitable (defined during race creation) so if you remove too much gas, you might go below that threshhold and ruin a planet.
If this happens after initial colonistation (say, you colonize a cost 2 planet, get the atmosphere up to your minimum. It is now a cost 0.5 planet due to heat. You now remove CO2 in order to lower the temperature and continue to ship in colos, because the colonisation cost is going down all the time when BANG! Preassure too low, new cost 2.0, infrastructure needs skyrocket, people die in droves, the population is rampaging through your colony, tearing down buildings, chaos in the streets; you get the picture
Wrong way around. There is a maximum pressure that a race can handle. In the system display screen (f9) upper right corner it shows the races tolerance. To have a zero cost world the temprature needs to be within the range listed, the O2 or Methane level needs to be inside the range listed, and the total pressure needs to be below the max pressure that is listed. This info is also on the Race detail screen. There is one other thing to keep in mind with O2 levels. If the O2 is more than 30% of the total atmosphere then it is considered to be a hostile gas (colony cost 2). I am not sure if the same is true of methane, but my guess would be that it is.
Brian
Post by: Hawkeye on April 20, 2009, 01:52:33 PM
Quote from: "Brian"
Wrong way around. There is a maximum pressure that a race can handle. In the system display screen (f9) upper right corner it shows the races tolerance. To have a zero cost world the temprature needs to be within the range listed, the O2 or Methane level needs to be inside the range listed, and the total pressure needs to be below the max pressure that is listed. This info is also on the Race detail screen. There is one other thing to keep in mind with O2 levels. If the O2 is more than 30% of the total atmosphere then it is considered to be a hostile gas (colony cost 2). I am not sure if the same is true of methane, but my guess would be that it is.
Brian
Your both, right and wrong :)
Post by: Father Tim on April 20, 2009, 02:28:42 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
6. Do microwave attacks work against missiles?
Yes, but not in the way you're thinking of. Microwave weapons destroy specific electronic systems (mainly sensors), so if the missile has on-board sensors and if those sensors are the only ones guiding the missiles then destroying them will leavethe missiles unable to attack.
Ninety-nine-point-a-lot percent of the time the firing ship will still have you lit up, and it won't help. You may occasionally dodge a fire-and-forget missile beig used in that capacity by an enemy not wishing to use their ship-mounted active sensors (perhaps they're hiding from you?)
Post by: Paul M on April 21, 2009, 01:41:40 AM
What do logistics, operations, and ground unit (force?) training do? The last one seems self explainatory except that I've never seen a crew rating for my ground forces.
On the anti-greenhouse gas. The point I guess for me is that in most cases the green house gas effect is largely due to the presence of a large quantity of the stuff in the atmosphere, so you need to remove it to replace with O2 and such anyway in all likelyhood. I just can't see it happening that you can use the anti-green house gas without reducing the temperature multiplier for colonization and at the same time uping the pressure mulitiplier. Though if your problem is too thin an atmosphere in the first place then I can see what you mean I've just not really run into such a situation. This may be because my current race need 0.103 atm O2 and likes 0.52 atm total with a max of 1.04 atm so I don't have lots of spielraum.
My first exploration gave me a 4 star system and the outer binary has 3 ?2 colonization sites plus a few others less welcoming one of which has ruins. Not to mention resourses all over the place...it's the motherload. Except for the curse long travel times from the jump point to the insystem jump point to the binary (well for nuclear thermal engine freighters anyway). It's going to take some planning to colonize this place.
Post by: Father Tim on April 21, 2009, 03:43:37 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
Okay a question regarding leader abilities:
What do logistics, operations, and ground unit (force?) training do? The last one seems self explainatory except that I've never seen a crew rating for my ground forces.
Logistics: reduces load/unload times (and when Steve gets around to programming it, refuel & rearm times) of ships (in the case of captains) or task forces (in the case of staff officers) under the officers command.
Operations: reduces the time delay between issuing an order and that order being caried out by the ships/task force under the officer's command (Note: the 'task force training' fleet order does the same thing, is capped at 100%, and stacks). The ideal is get response time down under 5 seconds, so that upon issuing an order to the fleet, that order is carried out the next 'impulse'.
GFTR: Chance to grant increase in the Morale of a random ground unit (including the HQ) in the same PDC as an HQ unit commanded by the officer. Morale is a straight multiplier applied to the Attack & Defense ratings of the unit.
Quote from: "Paul M"
On the anti-greenhouse gas . . . I just can't see it happening that you can use the anti-green house gas without reducing the temperature multiplier for colonization and at the same time upping the pressure mulitiplier.
Every race is different, thus there are a multitude of tools in the toolbox. If your homeworld is relatively low-temperature and high pressure (which is quite common for methane breathers) there's a huge call for AGG.
Quote from: "Paul M"
My first exploration gave me a 4 star system and the outer binary has 3 ?2 colonization sites plus a few others less welcoming one of which has ruins. Not to mention resourses all over the place...it's the motherload. Except for the curse long travel times from the jump point to the insystem jump point to the binary (well for nuclear thermal engine freighters anyway). It's going to take some planning to colonize this place.
Some muli-star systems are just uncolonizable due to distance, and you have to live with it. There are hyperdrive multipliers available that can be researched and built into engines, which will reduce the travel times between components, and if you're lucky super-jovians in orbit of each component will have LaGrange points that allow jumping back and forth.
Post by: Paul M on April 22, 2009, 02:23:22 AM
I am still curious if adding water is useful and if it is a greenhouse gas or not in game.
On the motherload system I have some very nice LPs. There is 4 stars. Orbiting the central star is a singleton and then furhter out a binary pair. The ruines and colony worlds are one of the binary pair. The first singleton has a LP, the system with ruins has 2 LPs and the other binary has a a LP. So the real travel time is from the entry jump point to the the singleton's LP once there then the whole situation is very quick. It is just something that will take a bit of planning and preparation to set up. I'm refitting my colony ships currently (they needed bigger tanks) and will redesign my heavy haulers now that I know they need only 5 cargo bays. I have to get a mining//construction//fuel production up and running relatively quickly so it can become a "local" economy. There are resources all over the place so this place will over time be huge...but it will also take time to get set up and going. My homeworld is currently involved in doing some long term necessary projects (naval academy, shipyards, research bases, finance centres) so it's going to take a while yet. But on the other hand this is much more fun then an uncomplicated system.
And thank you for the information on the staff skills. That explain the "waiting for acknowledgement" things I've seen from time to time.
Post by: Paul M on April 24, 2009, 01:52:08 AM
Does the level of your academy affect the number of officers in each rank you can have? Do all the naval academies have to be on the same planet? Or if I build up to level 4 on the homeworld and then a couple out in the colonial boonies will they all add up?
Post by: Father Tim on April 24, 2009, 07:34:25 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
What happens when a colony has a leader that is lower rank then the requirments?
Nothing, you just can't (re)assign a lower-ranked governor than the minimum requirement. If the colony grows faster than the promotions roll in, she keeps her job - but she can't get it back if you take it away.
Quote from: "Paul M"
Does the level of your academy affect the number of officers in each rank you can have? Do all the naval academies have to be on the same planet? Or if I build up to level 4 on the homeworld and then a couple out in the colonial boonies will they all add up?
Yes and no. If the numbr of officers at rank X is more than three times the number at the next higher rank, one gets promoted*. So having an overall larger officer corps does allow more high-ranking officers.
All naval acdemies everywhere in your empire add together to produce one big officer corps. The only difference between six level 1 academies and one level 6 is that the former will produce 6 officers every (year/5) time increments, whereas the latter will produce 1 officer every (year/30) time increments.
*Keeping in mind that no officer will be automatically promoted within one year of a previous promotion. So if you retire/lose multiple high-ranking officers you might be stuck with a hole for a while until there is an eligible candidate to fill it.
Post by: Paul M on April 27, 2009, 04:22:34 AM
I'm not sure about the rank requirements being correct as one colony took a very high level officer mainly due to being a x16 world and having a ton of infrastructure (99% provided by the civillian firms). Possibly this needs to be looked at and infrastructure not factored into the equation or with a high discount.
Thanks again for the helpful answers.
I have just run into a precurser colony I think...lost one survey ship...and I'm likely to loose another one as it tries to figure out why the first one is overdue. My "destroyers" and "destroyer escorts" I doubt will be able to engage these guys. I am still trying to sort out what the gibberish on the active sensor report means S-is the strenght? R-is the resolution? and then the range is the approximate range? Anyway it was a search sensor with 100m range which is damned good. Strenght 15 warheads on the missiles as well. My DSSV went down in a few hits.
Post by: Paul M on April 28, 2009, 05:18:23 AM
What effects on sensors do Nebula have?
Shields are inoperable and missiles can't be used if I understand things correctly. Are there other weapon effects? Can I use orbital bombs?
Only meson beams can fire through atmospheres? Do Microwaves work through atmosphere?
How do maintenance facilities work in terms of overhaul? Do you need to have the required minerals on the planet itself? Also can freighters do regular overhauls if they are at a planet without a civilian frieghter facility? For that matter are there minerals required to produce maintenance supplies?
I have infact discovered a precurser "colony site." The relief ships split up with one remaining on the jump point and the other proceeding insystem. This time the captain halted when he detected the active sensor systems (the fact there was a ship missing indicating the chance of hostiles was high). Then he proceeded to collect 4040 points towards active sensors 16. So when he gets back I'm planning on an ELINT ship to stooge around there collecting sensor data, since that was a years worth of research in a few weeks. I can also use one of them to scan a jump gate as I have so far found 3 or 4 including one complete link.
I currently have at least one survey group with 6 years on their maintence clocks...they are on the way back for maintenance and some R&R. The nebula really slowed down survey time.
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 28, 2009, 05:23:12 AM
Brian
Post by: Paul M on April 28, 2009, 05:47:30 AM
Post by: SteveAlt on April 29, 2009, 09:19:38 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
Thank you...hmmm...I use torpedo's (currently thermal with 60K range) and 15 cm plasma carronades. They are strength 6 nebula that I found (except 1 that is weaker). So the range is 10K. Fire control is 80K max but is now only slightly longer than 10K. Ugly. The second gen torpedos will have a range of 16K... Oh boy that is ugly.I may have been influenced by Wrath of Khan
Steve
Post by: Laurence on April 29, 2009, 02:30:45 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
I may have been influenced by Wrath of Khan :D
Post by: Paul M on April 30, 2009, 01:21:11 AM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Quote from: "Paul M"Thank you...hmmm...I use torpedo's (currently thermal with 60K range) and 15 cm plasma carronades. They are strength 6 nebula that I found (except 1 that is weaker). So the range is 10K. Fire control is 80K max but is now only slightly longer than 10K. Ugly. The second gen torpedos will have a range of 16K... Oh boy that is ugly.I may have been influenced by Wrath of Khan
Steve
One nebula I found is strength 9!! The astounding thing was finding a group of 5 systems with strength 6 nebula as I explored outwards from the first one I found. That really slowed down expansion. Having the only x0 world deep in that nebula cluster meant designing a jump ship colonizer. I've also started the process to getting my first two Pathfinder ELINT ships, one of which is going back to the system with the precursers to get grav sensor 21 and then 28 data from them. The other will go scan the jump gate, though I'm not alltogether sure how that works. Park the ship on the jump point and turn sensors on?
Slowly building up my tech research capacity (18 with 2 more in the queue) but sheesh things take time.
Post by: Starkiller on April 30, 2009, 09:22:56 AM
Sol at the farthest point. While I've run into Precursors 5 times, and still have to destroy 3 groups, I have yet to see a nebula. That may happen soon, as
I've found a warp nexus even bigger than Tau Ceti. Got the colonization gears going as I always colonize warp nexi with planetary bodies. Possession is
nine tenths etc.
Eric
Post by: Brian Neumann on April 30, 2009, 03:03:21 PM
Brian
Post by: SteveAlt on May 02, 2009, 07:43:36 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
One nebula I found is strength 9!! The astounding thing was finding a group of 5 systems with strength 6 nebula as I explored outwards from the first one I found. That really slowed down expansion. Having the only x0 world deep in that nebula cluster meant designing a jump ship colonizer.When you explore out of a jump point in a nebula system, there is a good chance you will find another similar nebula system. This is to simulate that nebulae are very large phenomena and will likely cover several systems.
Quote
I've also started the process to getting my first two Pathfinder ELINT ships, one of which is going back to the system with the precursers to get grav sensor 21 and then 28 data from them. The other will go scan the jump gate, though I'm not alltogether sure how that works. Park the ship on the jump point and turn sensors on?Yes, that's exactly what you need to do.
Quote
Slowly building up my tech research capacity (18 with 2 more in the queue) but sheesh things take time.Yes, this isn't really a game for those needing instant gratification
Steve
Post by: Paul M on May 04, 2009, 04:38:40 AM
As far as instant gratifaction goes I'm 47 or so years into the game, and have about 10 years of research in the queue at the moment even with 20 facilities and a +30% govenor. I'm starting to hurt for duranium in my stockpile even though I have sources of it all over the place its just a question of building up sufficient mines when I can afford to build not many automated mines per year (primary homeworld duranium production is 2400 per year at the moment). My problem is that on my one easy to reach colony world the deposit is huge but with a low availability, so in both cases I have to use automatic mines on a nearby rock and mass drive it to them. I may have to take a breather for 5 to 10 years and just slowly build up my colony facilities.
I have found a use for anti-greenhouse gas, filler with N2 for some atmospheres to keep the temperature down to comfortable. The Draak like so low a pressure though that its likely I'll have to accept that some worlds will just require domes regardless. What is crazy is that the civillians have been dumping infrastucture and colonists on my one x16 colony site and far less on the x4 colony site where terraforming is far closer to actually doing something (adding greenhouse gas currently and then I'll start removing H2...the H2 is currently about 80% of the atmosphere at 0.4 atm). But its been a big achievement that both of them are just barely breathable in terms of 02. I have to play with the atmosphere of the other colony worlds some, one needs more atmosphere in total and more 02 the other just needs some greenhouse gas to bring the temperature up, but its a heck of a trip to that colony and my terraformers aren't fast enough to give them a long time on station.
Some questions further:
Is there some way to mothball ships?
Also why do PDCs cost maintenance on my homeworld and no maintenance elsewhere?
For maintenance costs in terms of minearals do they have to be present on the planet itself? What happens if you don't have one or more of them?
Post by: SteveAlt on May 04, 2009, 04:30:23 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
Is there some way to mothball ships?No, not at the moment. There used to be but I removed it. I am sure I had a good reason at the time but I can't remember what it was
Quote
Also why do PDCs cost maintenance on my homeworld and no maintenance elsewhere?PDCs shouldn't cost maintenance anywhere. What makes you think the one on your homeworld is being maintained?
Quote
For maintenance costs in terms of minearals do they have to be present on the planet itself? What happens if you don't have one or more of them?Yes, you need the minerals. If they are not there, you will get a warning event and the maintenance clocks will advance for any ships in orbit.
Steve
Post by: sloanjh on May 04, 2009, 09:22:02 PM
Quote from: "SteveAlt"
Quote from: "Paul M"Is there some way to mothball ships?No, not at the moment. There used to be but I removed it. I am sure I had a good reason at the time but I can't remember what it was :-) (at the bottom of the mining tab on the F2 screen). I noticed that two "Defender 1B" PDC are showing up, but none of my other PDC. The only thing that I can think of that makes these special is that they were the first PDC that I built (as opposed to having as part of the start as pre-TNT tech), and so have gone through a refit (from 1 --> 1b). Let me know if you want me to dig for more info on what makes these special.QuoteAnd after a while the ships will blow upQuoteFor maintenance costs in terms of minearals do they have to be present on the planet itself? What happens if you don't have one or more of them?Yes, you need the minerals. If they are not there, you will get a warning event and the maintenance clocks will advance for any ships in orbit.
John
Post by: Erik L on May 04, 2009, 09:41:01 PM
Quote from: "sloanjh"
And after a while the ships will blow up
John
Maybe instead of blowing up, ships that become unusable via maintenance neglect enter a "derelict" state. Costly to bring out of (1/2+ cost of ship) and time-consuming.
Post by: Father Tim on May 05, 2009, 03:19:08 AM
Quote from: "Erik Luken"
Quote from: "sloanjh"And after a while the ships will blow up
John
Maybe instead of blowing up, ships that become unusable via maintenance neglect enter a "derelict" state. Costly to bring out of (1/2+ cost of ship) and time-consuming.
A random system will fail. If that system happens to be a power plant or engine (or another system with a listed explosion chance) it might blow up, doing a significant amount of additional damage. So yes, they enter a 'derelict' state (or rather, they will once they run out of on-board maintenance supplies to repair the damaged system(s)) that costs (in terms of maintenance supply points) to repair. And igoring the problem, relying on regular shipments of 'spares & supplies' to handle any breakdowns runs the risk of catatrophic failure.
Post by: Paul M on May 05, 2009, 03:59:23 AM
The maintenance issue is a fairly serious one for the Draak...it is about 26 billion km from the homeworld to my x0 colony and part of that is through two strength 6 nebula systems (though in the first "transit" system the two jump points are close together) so the round trip for my heavy lifters is almost 2 years. I build dedicated colony ships with extra armour who don't slow down much when they hit the nebula and they take 1.5 years and I have rarely had one of them not need repairs to its jump engine after that. But there is just a long slow slog between the entrance jump point to the quadnary system and the jump point to the nebula that takes almost a year to do (well for ships moving at 705 km/s and even those doing 923 km/s aren't a bunch quicker). The heavy lifters have 25 maintenance spares only but luckily they can resupply at the tankers stationed at the jump points but on the return trip keeping them at full speed is a matter of luck. Over all the effect is to slow down transport of facilities to that planet.
The annoying thing about the quadnary system is it is a mineral treasure house but it is also a long way to get anywhere (even with the inter-system jump points).
Thanks for the information on the maintenance modules that helps a lot in the planning.
Post by: Paul M on May 09, 2009, 03:35:21 AM
Does this mean there are pre-cursers there only? Or do I have to go in as SM and make the NPR? I would have no idea which world in the systems is their homeworld or anything about them mind you so I am somewhat confused.
As a suggestion differentiate the SM message between NPR and precursers, if it is not much work.
Any help on this one appreciated as I am baffled by what is going on.
Post by: Hawkeye on May 09, 2009, 04:51:37 AM
With computer controled races ON, you will never get any alien race in the race list/view race page, as you are not supposed to play/tweak them anyway.
Hm, on second thought, you might, if you create the race manually.
NPRs and Precursers may establish listening posts on asteroids/moons, so looking only at habitable planets is not enough. A cheat that worked in my game (unintentional, I haste to ad
) is to turn ON "Show Exclusion Zones" on the system map, which will then show the exclustion zone with the planet/moon/asteroid with the alien base in the center.With computer controled races OFF, aurora will start the "create race" routine (just like when you created your own race at games start) whenever you enter a system with a NPR.
With computer controled races ON, you will never have to create a race, aurora will do all the work.
Post by: Paul M on May 09, 2009, 11:04:10 AM
When you enter a new system with an NPR and NPRs are not set to be computer controlled does Aurora make up a new race?
I would guess so since otherwise as the SM I would not know where to place it or what its values are even.
Color me confused over this topic.
Post by: sloanjh on May 09, 2009, 11:27:48 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
I am playing in SM mode during a probe so that I will see what it going on in the advent I have to step in as SM, I have precursers turned on but NPRs are not computer controlled. So does the fact that in the SM list of races there is no additional race means this is just more precursers? I am very uclear how this works with regards to NPRs when you want to be able to control them at the moment.
When you enter a new system with an NPR and NPRs are not set to be computer controlled does Aurora make up a new race?
I would guess so since otherwise as the SM I would not know where to place it or what its values are even.
Color me confused over this topic.
Open the F9 screen for the system in question, and look for populations, e.g. "alian race, 238 million". If you see one, and don't see a new NPR, then you need do race generation, just like you did when you set up your player race. In other words, the way that it used to work is that Aurora would put the NPR population on the planet, but you'd have to do race creation. It sounds like this may still be the case for computer-control of NPR OFF.
John
Post by: Paul M on May 11, 2009, 05:05:31 AM
Assuming* this is the case then there were no alien populations and this was just more pesky precursers.
I had a precurser vrs DSSV slaughter in a lvl 6 nebula. I didn't see the precurser till it was at 24,000 km then 25cm/V5 rail gun rounds started impacting for 5 damage. I have to think on this a bit since in principle I'm almost at the point where I could send in my Daggers and fight back (since the daggers may be faster due to their thicker armour belts). But the precursers likely fire every 5 s. All told things are slowly happening, I'm still in the build up of my duranium surplus phase but my efforts are starting to yield small surpluses I can send a freighter for out stystem. It just sort of means a lot of my homeworld industry lies idle due to a lack of duranium (I have a 1000 point min I try to keep). It is still often faster to pick up the duranium, cart it home, build facilities and ship them back to the colony then to let the colony build the facility. But at least there seems to be a light at the end of the duranium flow tunnel.
The nebula keeps getting bigger...currently it's 6 system in extent and I'm not finished exploring all Jump points (well the system with the precursers is going to need to be liberated first). Just none of this is very inspiring to be writing it up. Most exciting thing other then yet again having a DSSV killed by precursers is when one of my Beasts of Burden II's after a 2.5 year journey (and about two months from home) blew up.
Just got the next level of interior armour and am working on composite armour...my leader is a +30% research (Defences) so I am getting a bunch of them done (interior armour 2, comp. armour, 35% signature and damage control).
*assume means "makes an ass out of you and me" but I think we are safe as F9 strikes me as the system details.
Post by: Paul M on May 14, 2009, 03:57:32 AM
1. What does it do and does it need spares to do it? It is clear that it fixes stuff but I'm not sure about the mechanics mainly.
2. Is it worth putting it on a PDC and if you do do you need to add in spares?
Is there any way to select which type of armour you want to use, other than the best stuff you have? I looked but didn't see anything other than the button at the bottom and that gives you the best you have.
When building facilities, for example a fabrication factory, you have cost: 120 and duranium: 120. Is my thinking that cost is in Aurora Monetary Units (AMUs) and that the build time is 120 given by the sum of the minerals? So if I have build capacity of 2400 per year it would take 1/20 of a year (3 5-day periods) to complete?
Can you use mixed shields on a ship?
Just as a side note: a 1000 kg missile moving at 12,000 km/s has the kinetic energy equivelent of 170 kTon of HE, or is about the equivelent of 11 Hiroshima scale nuclear weapons. For the most part detonation of the weapons warhead is not required in planetary attacks, so less radiation but the dust would still be an issue.
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 14, 2009, 04:09:38 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
Two (actually four) questions on damage control:It repairs systems on the ship, except for armour, and it requires double the number of spares that would be needed to fix a maintenance failure. The percentage chance of repair is equal to:
1. What does it do and does it need spares to do it? It is clear that it fixes stuff but I'm not sure about the mechanics mainly.
((Length of Increment / System Cost) * Damage Control Rating)/10
Examples:
If you needed to repair an engine that costs 30, the increment was 60 seconds and the damage control rating was 1, the chance would be: ((60/30)*1)/10 = 0.2%
If you needed to repair a sensor that costs 50, the increment was 300 seconds and the damage control rating was 2, the chance would be: ((300/50)*2)/10 = 1.2%
If the damage control rating was 10 in both cases, the chances would be 20% and 12%. So the major effect of the damage control rating is the speed at which systems can be repaired. Each engineering system adds one the damage control rating. Each damage control system adds 10 to the rating, improved damage control adds 20, etc.. A high damage control rating is useful for a warship because it allows repairs to be made fairly quickly.
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2. Is it worth putting it on a PDC and if you do do you need to add in spares?Yes and yes.
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Is there any way to select which type of armour you want to use, other than the best stuff you have? I looked but didn't see anything other than the button at the bottom and that gives you the best you have.No, at the moment you can only choose the best armour.
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When building facilities, for example a fabrication factory, you have cost: 120 and duranium: 120. Is my thinking that cost is in Aurora Monetary Units (AMUs) and that the build time is 120 given by the sum of the minerals? So if I have build capacity of 2400 per year it would take 1/20 of a year (3 5-day periods) to complete?Cost is in Wealth and the build time is based on the cost. While installations usually have mineral cost = wealth cost so it makes no difference, with refits the cost may be higher than the amount of minerals required. If you have a build capacity of 2400 per year then each 5 day increment will provide 5/360 (days in Aurora year) x 2400 = 33.33, so it will take 4 increments to build a 120 cost factory.
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Can you use mixed shields on a ship?No, just one shield type. This is avoid design and gameplay headaches where different shield types have different recharge rates.
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Just as a side note: a 1000 kg missile moving at 12,000 km/s has the kinetic energy equivelent of 170 kTon of HE, or is about the equivelent of 11 Hiroshima scale nuclear weapons. For the most part detonation of the weapons warhead is not required in planetary attacks, so less radiation but the dust would still be an issue.The radiation effects of bombardment are as much for gameplay reasons as anything else. I wanted to avoid the Starfire situation of wiping out the population with a saturation bombardment on Monday then shipping in your own colonists to the still perfectly habitable world on Tuesday.
Steve
Post by: Paul M on May 16, 2009, 02:41:37 AM
The cost probably then goes on to explain why it kept taking longer to refit the DEs then the DDs.
As for GFFP, yes its worth avoiding. It was rude to put it mildly.
Post by: ShadoCat on May 17, 2009, 07:35:43 AM
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Quote from: "Paul M"As for GFFP, yes its worth avoiding. It was rude to put it mildly.
You'll just have to go with Dan's modified GFFP using ground forces.
Or terraformers. I bet they can't build infrastructure quicker than the Imperial Terraforming Corps can remove oxygen from their atmosphere!
Kurt
Post by: Paul M on May 17, 2009, 01:09:42 PM
I have a xeno team on a ship but when I give it an order to drop off the team it won't. Does there have to be a colony present to drop off the team or what?
Post by: Erik L on May 17, 2009, 02:29:02 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
I have a xeno team on a ship but when I give it an order to drop off the team it won't. Does there have to be a colony present to drop off the team or what?
Yep
Post by: Paul M on May 18, 2009, 03:25:29 AM
On use terraformers aggressively the best plan is to add something deadly (SO2 for example) since even a small fraction makes the world x2. I'm impressed with my Draakfroming so far 2 of the 3 worlds have breathable atmospheres (if only just) and one of them is probably inside of 10-15 years from going x0...it is more complex as I have to add N2 to thicken the atmosphere, add anti-greenhouse to keep the temperature comfortable (actually cool it off since it is a bit warm but still in the range of comfort), and then add O2 to get breathability. I am not sure what would happen if I dumped in the O2 first as it would go over 30% and so I'd rather avoid upping the colonization cost. The other one is getting its 80% H2 atmosphere switched out to 40% greenhouse gas, 35% N2 and 5% H20. The last one well it has 9.9 atm of CO2, 0.16 atm S02 and 0.062 atm 02 (added)...the plan is to remove the S02 (its down from 0.19) then to start working on getting rid of the CO2...but this is likely decades or centuries of work. Surface temperature is 450 C or so...and the civilian's keep dumping people and infrasrtructure there.
Post by: James Patten on May 18, 2009, 06:18:40 AM
Post by: Paul M on May 18, 2009, 08:35:44 AM
Post by: Paul M on May 27, 2009, 03:09:04 AM
My questions is regards to frieghters/civillians. Can you overhaul freighters without a civillian freighter facility? I'm planning on establishing a maintance base as part of the expansion plans but do I need to build a freighter maintenance facility there or can I just use the standard maintance facility and the overhaul command for freighters? Also do I need maintence facilities to maintain freighters or a civillian freighter facility?
Do the civillians build civillian spaceports on different worlds or just on the homeworld? If so what do you need to trigger this?
I've almost got sufficient data from scanning for jump gate construction 180...but it has taken quite some time...probably close to a couple of years of scanning a gate.
Post by: Brian Neumann on May 27, 2009, 05:35:16 AM
Brian
Post by: Paul M on May 27, 2009, 05:55:31 AM
My ships are pretty well covered for engineering spaces but that long trip really tests them and I make sure they resupply from the tankers on the way (my tankers are well equiped with spares and function as jump tenders). Hopefully when the Draak military deploys ion engines the upgrade to nuclear pulse civillian drives will cut the travel times down signficiantly making that colony a lot more easily reached.
Post by: Erik L on May 27, 2009, 11:23:08 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
Back to the maintenance issues...and a big thank you for the "designate colony" information that is working just fine. The team is busy demothballing the alien artifacts...no colony seems to make the progress slower though.
My questions is regards to frieghters/civillians. Can you overhaul freighters without a civillian freighter facility? I'm planning on establishing a maintance base as part of the expansion plans but do I need to build a freighter maintenance facility there or can I just use the standard maintance facility and the overhaul command for freighters? Also do I need maintence facilities to maintain freighters or a civillian freighter facility?
Do the civillians build civillian spaceports on different worlds or just on the homeworld? If so what do you need to trigger this?
I've almost got sufficient data from scanning for jump gate construction 180...but it has taken quite some time...probably close to a couple of years of scanning a gate.
Not sure on the freighters, but my gut says you need the freighter facility.
Civilians build on any world with more than... 100m? There's a population breakpoint, but I don't recall what it is.
Post by: Kurt on May 27, 2009, 11:38:28 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
Back to the maintenance issues...and a big thank you for the "designate colony" information that is working just fine. The team is busy demothballing the alien artifacts...no colony seems to make the progress slower though.
My questions is regards to frieghters/civillians. Can you overhaul freighters without a civillian freighter facility? I'm planning on establishing a maintance base as part of the expansion plans but do I need to build a freighter maintenance facility there or can I just use the standard maintance facility and the overhaul command for freighters? Also do I need maintence facilities to maintain freighters or a civillian freighter facility?
Yes, you can overhaul freighters, as long as you have maintenance facilities on the planet in question. However, there is usually no reason to do this, as the "Freighter Maintenance Check" order allows what is effectively an overhaul to happen instantaneously as long as there is a freight facility present. IIRC, in the absence of a freighter facility, a freighter will act like a regular ship in regards to maintenance faciltiies. In other words, they won't accumulate time on their clocks if in orbit over a world with maintenance facilities, and can be overhauled normally. It makes much more sense to have a freighter facility available, though, if you are going to be doing a lot of this.
Quote from: "Paul M"
Do the civillians build civillian spaceports on different worlds or just on the homeworld? If so what do you need to trigger this?
I've almost got sufficient data from scanning for jump gate construction 180...but it has taken quite some time...probably close to a couple of years of scanning a gate.
AFAIK, civilians will build spaceports on any world, but as the construction rate is tied to population levels, it will take a long time on low pop worlds.
I think my answers above were right, but Steve might be the only one that knows the answers for sure.
Kurt
Post by: Paul M on May 28, 2009, 03:51:40 AM
An odd event just occured, out of the blue I got a sensor contact of 3 wrecks, I sent a ship out to them (with active sensors) and after getting a message the ship arrived at the wreck the wreck conacts vanished. I had not lost ships or anything, so it looked a lot like a random event. Just plain odd anyway.
Post by: sloanjh on May 28, 2009, 08:44:47 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
An odd event just occured, out of the blue I got a sensor contact of 3 wrecks, I sent a ship out to them (with active sensors) and after getting a message the ship arrived at the wreck the wreck conacts vanished. I had not lost ships or anything, so it looked a lot like a random event. Just plain odd anyway.
In another thread, Steve mentioned that wreck detection is broken - IIRC there's a flag that is set at a system level that has Aurora only do sensor checks in systems with more than one race. Wrecks aren't considered another "race". I don't remember if the behavior you described means that there's NPR/Precursor/Civilians in the system, or if the flag gets set when you transit in then is cleared at the next major update.
John
Post by: Paul M on May 28, 2009, 09:02:33 AM
I'm not sure if there is civillians currently in the system, but I have a 2 colonies, and 4 task task groups in the system (a defence picket, a PDC group, a Draak-former group, and a tanker).
Post by: welchbloke on May 28, 2009, 12:36:59 PM
Quote from: "Paul M"
I read that bit about wrecks vanishing...what was very odd was that the wrecks showed up out of nowhere. They were bigger than my ships. And I had no report of combat in say the last month. I'm not missing ships and so I'm frankly baffled why there is...or was wrecks there in the first place. It sort of looking like a random event...assuming such a thing is possible.Are you running 4.0b? If so there could have been combat in the systme between NPRs and/or precursors.
I'm not sure if there is civillians currently in the system, but I have a 2 colonies, and 4 task task groups in the system (a defence picket, a PDC group, a Draak-former group, and a tanker).
Post by: Steve Walmsley on May 28, 2009, 12:52:50 PM
Steve
Post by: Paul M on May 29, 2009, 02:43:43 AM
A question on interpreting the sensor data. I see S#### R#### Velocity Range from sensor contacts but what I am not clear on is what is the S and R?
Post by: sloanjh on May 29, 2009, 06:46:38 AM
Quote from: "Paul M"
A question on interpreting the sensor data. I see S#### R#### Velocity Range from sensor contacts but what I am not clear on is what is the S and R?
Strength and Resolution. IIRC, MaxDetectionRange in Mkm = Strength * (Resolution/100)*Min(1, (TargetHS/Resolution)^2) for a target of size TargetHS hull spaces.
John