My Questions of Perplexity

[Iamwinterborn (OP)]

Loving the game, though a successfully expanding empire is still something that is "luck" to me rather than skill.   I've read the tutorials, still have questions.   Which is to be expected. . .   

Here's a couple of my questions:

1.   Although I've been using the "Player Race" government in the starts like the guides I've read reccomend, I'd like to RP  with a different government for a newbie AAR.   Is the changes limited to just the starting factory/lab numbers?

2.   Where do scientists come from? Where do Civ Admins come from?  I get that naval officers will be influenced by the Academy, but are the scientists/civvies influenced by it as well?



Now, assuming a Trans-Newtonian Sol start, could someone give me an idea of what I should build at first?  What should I dedicate my 120000 RP to?   (Yes, I am aware that this is probably a question with a million answers.   Every time I see a detailed answer though, it furthers my understanding. )  Currently, my plans are usually like this:  20% dedicated to building 1000 infrastructure.  20% dedicated to building 500 Construction Factories.   20% to Research Labs.   20% to an additional 100 CF, and 20% to around 10 Financial Centres.   Once I get a bit going, the 100CF/10FC completes and I dedicate that to some automated mines.

Also, sometimes when I start I get just two scientists, other times I have started with 4-5.   Now I did notice that the two were both able to control plenty of labs, I just wasn't able to have multiple researches going in different fields taking advantage of different bonuses. 

My research is usually like the following: I concentrate in C/P, going for 1 Civilian economy boost, then increasing production, mining and research, usually not more than 2 levels deep though.   Then I go over to power and get Nuclear Pulse engines, jump point theory, and go back to CP for the 180 day jump gate mod.   Get grav sensors.   Then grab some defenses/missile tech.   With 20k left, I'll go in, design some tech in the create a ship section.   PS:  It took me. . .  forever. . .  to figure out how to build missiles.   First I couldn't figure out how to design them.   Kept figuring I was missing a tech to do that before noticing that innocuous "missile" button that started mocking me every time I looked at it. . .  Then I forgot that I would need to set a research team to discover said tech I made. . .   Gosh darn game being all nice and complex.   Too bad about the UI.   

Once I finally get all that settled, I'll usually have the following designs:

(Civvie) Daniel Jackson -  Jump Gate Creator - 8x Civvie Engines, 2x Fuel, an ofc the 180 day jump gate creator + the rest of the basics .   (PS. . .  do two of these stack? Make it 90 days?  I've never tried figuring it didn't. )
(Mil) Newton - a Grav point surveyor.   4x Grav sensor thingy, enough engines it goes around 2-4k (depending on what size and how many, and fuel to last at least a year.   Then some engineering space to keep it under 20%.
(Mil) Rocky - Geological surveyoy, basically a copy of the Newton but with geological sensors instead of grav point.
(Civvie) Pelican - Cargo ship - Just 50000 cargo space, and engines, and fuel for a year.   I usually keep it under 68k size, so the amount of engines depends on that.
(Civvie) Bringer - Colony Ship - 20k colonists.   Engines.  Fuel for a year.   Etc.   Not ambitious.


I'll use the Fast OB to make a DJ, then a couple of newtons, a couple of Rockys, a couple of Pelicans, and one bringer.


The basic plan has always been to take the cargo ships, start moving infrastructure onto Mars, then a couple of loads of colonists.   Then bring over some mines.   (Like. . .  4-10).   Usually the Shipping Lines will end up having a cargo ship and colonist ship after a bit, and then start doing this on their own.

The Newtons go off and discover jump points, then the DJ jumps into system and builds a return gate, while I take  Newton 002 and Rocky 002 and dedicate them to the new system.   Repeat for a couple of the Jump Points in Sol.

If I find a nice colonizable (I consider <=8x to be worth colonizing, but look for 2x or less. . .  but I acknowledge I really have no clue when to expand or not  ) planet (especially with good minerals), I'll start moving infrastructure there and some colonists.   After getting some colonists down, I'll usually move like 10 factories and mines over, start building more there on their own.


But. . .  I really don't have a clue what I'm doing.   If I start fleshing out my shipyards, pretty soon I'll be losing money.   Research, production, it all adds up.   I finally figured out how to set planetary governors (I felt just a little too proud of myself for that accomplishment), but even having a 20% wealth guy on earth doesn't always help.   Ofc, some of my early test games I manged to get decent colonies in like 3 sectors with a decently balanced budget so I just have no clue what I am doing.   

Anyone got any tips? Or maybe a detailed AAR that explains in detail what they are doing and why they are doing stuff?  I like to read, and can't always be on my "main" PC, so AARs I can read on my laptop are very good.

Thanks,

Iamwinterborn

[Hawkeye]

1. I am not aware that government type changes the amount of labs/factories and so on. The only option to changing that is conventional start/trans-newton start.
What the race-government _does_ change is to give bonus/mali to several racial stats.
Open the "View Race Details" window (CTRL+F2)
In the "Government Modifiers" section (lower half, left side) there are stats for Xenophobia, Determination, Trading, Diplomacy, Expansionism and Militancy. Each type of government provides a bonus or malus to those stats, which are then applied to the random numbers rolled for your race (right side, center)

Xenophobia - malus to your relations to other races, applied each year.
Determination - how hard it is, to make a population of yours to surrender and, I belive, also influences how much garrison the enemy needs to keep your conquered population suppresed.
Tading - Influences the income from trade, I belive
Diplomacy - Bonus to your relations to other races, applied each year (yes counteracts xenophobia)
Expansionism - How fast the race explores and expands (irrelevant for a player race, as you deside those things)
Militancy - How strong a military the race wants/supports (irrelevant for a player race) Note: I am not sure, there isn´t something else where militancy is counted. If anybody knows, let me know too

2. All officers (yes, scientists and administrater count as officers for this) are "crated" in the military academy. Which kind of officer is "created" is random with a preferance towards naval officers.

3. Research priorities totaly depend on what race you are playing. Personally, I play the curious explorer and don´t bother with weapons until there is a reason to. If, once in a while, I go the WH40k route "purge the Xenos!" I invest heavily in weapons/warships and go alien-hunting.
What I almost allways do is, keeping 10% of my industry building factories and mines and at least 20% building labs. The remaining 60% build whatever is needed at the moment, automines are something I build very regularly. I also like to have quite a few shipyards, to reduce retooling (If I field, say a CG, CA, CE, JC, then I will aim to have 4 dedicated yards) This also allows for a fast emergency buildup of the fleet
I also keep my top CP-researcher researching "Expand civillian economy" and "Research Rate" all the time.
Money _will_ become scarce, especially with a trans-newton start, so keep researching the economy. Financial Centers might help, but you´d need a whole lot of them, to do you much good (each one generates as much cash as 1 mio colonists would do).

After settling Mars and usually Titan, I am looking for minerals. Look what mineral is going to run out within the next 10 to 20 years, look for planets/moons in other systems, that can provide that mineral. Start looking _NOW_, don´t wait until you have to shut down production because you don´t have any left!
If the mineral goldmine(s) is/are colonizable, so much the better, prepare infrastucture and mines, if not, build automines.

Subsidise the civies, so they build more ships while you have a lot of money, the tax, they will pay might help you later, when cash gets scarce.
Only buy the minerals from civilian mining colonies, where there are a lot of different minerals. You pay PER MINE, no matter how much minerals they recover.
On a moon with 10.000.000 tons of Duranium (1), a single civ-mining-complex recovers 100 tons (basic tech) of minerals.
On a moon with Duranium, Neutronium, Vendarite, Sorium and Uranium at 0.5, the complex recovers 250 tons.
You pay for both the same!

The "sometimes 2 scientists, sometimes 4 to 5" thing:
Thats how the dice fall. Sometimes you luck out, sometimes you don´t. A great thing (IMO) to do is to modify your research priorities towards what you get. If I get a energy weapons genius, but no misisle scientist, my fleet will be mostely beam-armed. If it´s the other way around, it´s all missiles and railguns.
Also remember: Each scientist can research everything. It´s just that he is not receiving the 4x bonus if not working at his specialty.

[sloanjh]

(Civvie) Daniel Jackson -  Jump Gate Creator - 8x Civvie Engines, 2x Fuel, an ofc the 180 day jump gate creator + the rest of the basics .   (PS. . .  do two of these stack? Make it 90 days?  I've never tried figuring it didn't. )

Great name!

No they don't stack.

John

[Thiosk]

With my initial RP, I took some serious engine tech, and dumped some points into research rate.  With a fledgling empire, research rate is pretty pricey. 

[James Patten]

Regarding research: Speed is Life.  The faster you go the easier it is to expand and survive.  Research engine tech as much as you dare.

[Iamwinterborn (OP)]

1.    I am not aware that government type changes the amount of labs/factories and so on.    The only option to changing that is conventional start/trans-newton start.   
What the race-government _does_ change is to give bonus/mali to several racial stats.   

Okay, interesting.     Yes actually changing gov type does change the "default" starting labs/shipyards, I noticed that when I put down Pax Utopia or Militant Dictatorship and noticed my starting 20 labs went down to like 8, so I figured there might be some stuff hidden further in.   .   .     I'll have to experiment and see what they give myself, thanks.     

2.    All officers (yes, scientists and administrater count as officers for this) are "crated" in the military academy.    Which kind of officer is "created" is random with a preferance towards naval officers.   

Okay, got it.     Hmmm.   

3.    Research priorities totaly depend on what race you are playing.    Personally, I play the curious explorer and don´t bother with weapons until there is a reason to.    If, once in a while, I go the WH40k route "purge the Xenos!" I invest heavily in weapons/warships and go alien-hunting.   
What I almost allways do is, keeping 10% of my industry building factories and mines and at least 20% building labs.    The remaining 60% build whatever is needed at the moment, automines are something I build very regularly.    I also like to have quite a few shipyards, to reduce retooling (If I field, say a CG, CA, CE, JC, then I will aim to have 4 dedicated yards) This also allows for a fast emergency buildup of the fleet
I also keep my top CP-researcher researching "Expand civillian economy" and "Research Rate" all the time.   
Money _will_ become scarce, especially with a trans-newton start, so keep researching the economy.    Financial Centers might help, but you´d need a whole lot of them, to do you much good (each one generates as much cash as 1 mio colonists would do).   

Heh, I always used to devote 20-40k of my starting RP into weapons/shields because  the AARs I have read involves running into an Alien race and running around with their head cut off screaming the sky is falling, pull back to Earth and prepare for the the final battle!

Thinking back, I believe the first couple of times I devoted more RP into the civilian Economy - probably why I ended up with profits those first games even though I had no idea what I was doing.   


Hmmm.   .   .    Financial Centers seem a bit weak?  Are they WAD in regards to how useful they are?

After settling Mars and usually Titan, I am looking for minerals.    Look what mineral is going to run out within the next 10 to 20 years, look for planets/moons in other systems, that can provide that mineral.    Start looking _NOW_, don´t wait until you have to shut down production because you don´t have any left!
If the mineral goldmine(s) is/are colonizable, so much the better, prepare infrastucture and mines, if not, build automines.   

I've been getting better at this!     Of course, now I just have to learn how to get the ore to my different planets.     Probably not that hard, it's just all the micromanagement might cause me to keel over.   .   .     I'm thinking a freighter with an order to "Pick Up Ore at planet X, drop off Ore Planet Y" and set to "cycle" would do?  If I have the "fuel less than 30% -> refuel" option checked, will once it gets low on fuel will it go off to the nearest planet with fuel, refuel, then continue with the cycle?  Or will that break the cycle, making me need to include the fueling somewhere in the standard orders?  (Say I want minerals from Titan to go to mars:  Load Duranthium Titan, Drop Off Duranthium Mars, Refuel Earth" - cycle.     Something like that?)  Of course, there's "Mass Drivers" which I am reading up on.     The wiki article makes them seem both super easy, and also dangerous.    *shudders at the idea of tons of ore fired from a mass driver smashing into populated areas*

But my question would still stand firm for planets in two different star systems.   

Subsidise the civies, so they build more ships while you have a lot of money, the tax, they will pay might help you later, when cash gets scarce.   
Only buy the minerals from civilian mining colonies, where there are a lot of different minerals.    You pay PER MINE, no matter how much minerals they recover.   
On a moon with 10.   000.   000 tons of Duranium (1), a single civ-mining-complex recovers 100 tons (basic tech) of minerals.   
On a moon with Duranium, Neutronium, Vendarite, Sorium and Uranium at 0.   5, the complex recovers 250 tons.   
You pay for both the same!

Thanks for the tip!  That is indeed good to know.     

The "sometimes 2 scientists, sometimes 4 to 5" thing:
Thats how the dice fall.    Sometimes you luck out, sometimes you don´t.    A great thing (IMO) to do is to modify your research priorities towards what you get.    If I get a energy weapons genius, but no misisle scientist, my fleet will be mostely beam-armed.    If it´s the other way around, it´s all missiles and railguns.   
Also remember: Each scientist can research everything.    It´s just that he is not receiving the 4x bonus if not working at his specialty.   

Yeah, I know they can research everything - Its why I did not immediately quit.      But it sorta felt awkward to me.     I think I will always restart from now on (at least until I consider myself "not a noob") if I have less than 4 scientists and 3 different areas of expertise.     Just feels like I am losing out on a lot of the fun early on.   




Sloan:  Thanks.    =)

Thiosk/James Patten:  That's a bit my motto too!  I am glad my "strategy" has turned out to be decent.    Research + Speed is often my creed in new games.    I'm a Cybran Minmatar Scientific Scout.   

[Iamwinterborn (OP)]

Another question: Cloaking.

I've not really done/experienced combat yet so I do not quite get sensors and the like yet, but I am learning.   Once you have all the necessary cloaking techs, how does cloaking work?

I mean, are we talking "Thou must uncloak to fire, but one can use it to get in range", or are we talking "*explosion* Sir! It must be the Ninjas! *dies*".   And is EVE style, is there luck involved, or is it a math formula that as long as X sensors are not good enough, your Y ship will never be found.

Some of my unknowledgeness (what? It's a word.   It's just in a different language.   Buffyspeak.   I swear.    ) is simply based off a lack of getting how sensors work.  Is there a good forum post or anything somewhere that details how this works?  I don't mean just math.   My brain can do math, it just often can't apply it to stuff.

[Erik L]

Regarding Mass Drivers and multiple systems.

One thing you can do is set a "collection colony" near your JP. Have mass drivers from the mining colonies in system fire to the collection colony. Then have freighters pick up minerals and transit.

In the same system, use mass drivers. You can't take the last one away without triggering a warning from the game, so it's harder to earn your "Bombardment" achievement now.

Regarding cloaks.

Cloaks reduce the signature of the ship. Effectively making it look smaller (and harder to hit). I don't think they make it invisible (a la Star Trek).

[Thiosk]

I am fascinated by cloaks, but you sacrifice a LOT for that.  I've put enormous research points into it to bring it down to where a sub 1800 ton craft  can be 85% cloaked-- my 1500 ton ship should appear about the size of a very small fighter, 225 tons.  The nightshade is in my ship design file-- its a nasty little thing that can get close and fling six toothy little size-4 missiles in your face.

The larger cruiser-sized cloaks take up an ENORMOUS amount of space- putting cloaks on all your ships is really similar to putting jump drives on every ship.  Once you design the device, they take a ton of RP just to make available, too.

However, I'm considering building a new line of cloaked beam cruisers.  A *big* fire control (high range and tracking speed) will give it some PD and range, and then something like two quad laser turrets to just dig in and pop ships while skipping the majority of the missile gauntlet.  The problem is, I can get either speed and cloak, or teeth and cloak... I haven't been able to get all three in any of my designs yet.

To note the effectiveness of high-tech cloaks, see this post:
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php/topic,2772.msg27272.html#msg27272

[Brian Neumann]

Cloak only works against active sensors.  The basic way that sensors work is that they have a built in resolution that is set when it is designed.  Anything of that many hull spaces or larger can be detected out to the full range of the sensor.  The actual range of the sensor is to take the reasearched sensor tech and multiply it by the resolution.  A resolution of 40 will see size 40 targets at twice the distance of a res 20 would see targets that were size 20 or larger.  If the resolution is greater than the target then there is a somewhat complicated formula, but the rule of thumb is that your range will be reduced by the square of the difference in the resolutions.  So in this case a res 40 sensor trying to pick up a size 20 ship (gunboat size) would only pick it up at 1/4 the normal range.  This is half of where it would be picked up by the res 20 sensor.  The way that cloak works is to shrink you effective size for sensor detection.  A simple example is a 100hs (hull size) ship (5000 tons) with a 85% effective cloak would have the apparent sensor size of 15hs.  As most sensors for detecting warships are going to be set for a much larger sensor target, as well as most anti-ship missile fire controls (same mechanism as sensor to determine range modifier) you will be able to get much closer in to your target.  You are still detectable by sensors, especially ones that are designed for detecting small targets.  The small  target sensors on the other hand do not have the range of a sensor designed to spot ships.  Will you get to beam range without being seen?  Probably not, but you might get through 3/4 of the missile range before they pick you up.  Is it worth the tonnage penalty is a personal question you will need to answer, and it will vary based on the comparative tech levels and your style of playing.

Brian

[Iamwinterborn (OP)]

Interesting.


On another note, I have fallen even more in love with this game.

I found aliens one jump out from my homeworld, and after some failed diplomatic attempts, I decided to just go ahead and get intel on them as they seemed to confine themselves to the inner planets.   As my all sensors frigate with a speed of 2100 got closer, the thermal hits blossomed onto 4, and one charged at me at 4k!  Consigning myself to the loss of the frigate, I told him to activate sensors on the charging one, followed by the ones still orbiting the planet.

The icons merged, and I had to open the events to see what happens.   (I've seen on some AARs the events layered on the system map, how do you do that?)  The ship was massive!  I mean. . .  100,000!  I thought for sure I'd just ruined my game, that I had run across some horrible death star of doom! And then. . .  The ship started doing RAMMING attacks.   I mean. . .  whut? This game has ramming attacks OH MY GOD.   My ship managed to dodge around 20 of them before it finally got hit.   But the rammer died as well, so now there's a 100000 ton wreck out there with mine. . .

[ardem]

Ramming attacks are normally done by an alien vessel without weapons or alien vessel out of ammo.

[Zed 6]

I usually save the database just in case things go horribly wrong so I can replay it if necessary to find out and learn from mistakes. i also use Steve's game as a sort of reference: general ship designs, missile designs, (designing missiles/fire controls; which was hard for me to understand at first), Fleet and troop hierarchy and all kind of other items. The forums are full of info, tho it may be buried and might just be an off the cuff one liner in some topic concerning something else. Example, I'm sure others know, but I didn't realize until recently you could use Spacemaster On and a checkbox in Task Groups/misc tab to pick out the next unexplored star system name (real stars game) as I was getting tired of all the Gleise ### etc systems.

As far as scientists, I look at it as I got what I got and need to use them as best I can. It's not a game ender if I don't get the right scientist at first. Eventually I will.

Quick question for anyone. Is there any way to tell when an overhaul of a ship will be done?

[Beersatron]

I usually save the database just in case things go horribly wrong so I can replay it if necessary to find out and learn from mistakes. i also use Steve's game as a sort of reference: general ship designs, missile designs, (designing missiles/fire controls; which was hard for me to understand at first), Fleet and troop hierarchy and all kind of other items. The forums are full of info, tho it may be buried and might just be an off the cuff one liner in some topic concerning something else. Example, I'm sure others know, but I didn't realize until recently you could use Spacemaster On and a checkbox in Task Groups/misc tab to pick out the next unexplored star system name (real stars game) as I was getting tired of all the Gleise ### etc systems.

As far as scientists, I look at it as I got what I got and need to use them as best I can. It's not a game ender if I don't get the right scientist at first. Eventually I will.

Quick question for anyone. Is there any way to tell when an overhaul of a ship will be done?

I think that overhaul reduces the clock on the ship by 4 times the increment used.

So, say you had a ship that had a clock of 12months, then it would be overhauled in 3 months.

The reference I found was from 2009 though, so it might be outdated.

[Iamwinterborn (OP)]

I usually save the database just in case things go horribly wrong so I can replay it if necessary to find out and learn from mistakes.  i also use Steve's game as a sort of reference: general ship designs, missile designs, (designing missiles/fire controls; which was hard for me to understand at first), Fleet and troop hierarchy and all kind of other items.

Steve's game?