Questions

[Paul M (OP)]

Some nebula questions since I've found about 6 so far, including in one my only x0 colony site.

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.

[Brian Neumann]

A Nebula makes missiles and shields non functional.  It also reduces sensor and fire control ranges.  Take the sensor range and divide by the nebula strength to get the actual range of sensors.  With fire control divide the chance to hit by the strength of the nebula.  A strong nebula means that your energy weapons will be much longer ranged than the fire control.  Think of machineguns at 10 paces effect.  When I have played games with races starting in a nebula the prefered weapon is 10cm mesons firing every 5 seconds.  They are really brutal.  Otherwise the largest weapon with a 5 or 10 second cycle time.  I will usually try to make sure that whatever the range is, the weapon is doing maximum damage to the end of the fire control range.  

Brian

[Paul M (OP)]

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.

[SteveAlt]

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

[Laurence]

I may have been influenced by Wrath of Khan

[Paul M (OP)]

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.

[Starkiller]

Really? Nebulas? Guess I'm lucky then, I'm three transits out from Tau Ceti, which is a major warp nexus, in all directions. About 7 or 8 transits out from
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

[Brian Neumann]

Strength 9 is a pain, but you should have seen what a strength 20 nebula does to your movement and detection radius.  The only way to tell if there is anything in the system is to be practically on top of it.  Unfortunately for me there was a fairly low tech NPR there.  It chewed my ship up as it used railguns and I had to get into range of their massed fire before I could even try to hit them.  It was really ugly to say the least.  What made it worse was their ships were functionally faster than mine because of thier heavier armor.  I had built mine to deal with a strength 6 nebula and that was it.

Brian

[SteveAlt]

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.

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.

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

[Paul M (OP)]

I can confirm the code for making bigger nebula works well.  I have found so far one large nebula cluster and I'm not sure how big it will be in the end and two seperate nebula systems I've not yet surveyed.  I was a bit concerned the tech gain by scanning wasn't working but finally I started getting data on the gate.

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?

[SteveAlt]

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

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?

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

[sloanjh]

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.

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.

And after a while the ships will blow up

John

[Erik L]

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.

[Father Tim]

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.

[Paul M (OP)]

Yes I think the PDCs are being maintanined (only on my homeworld mind you) because they are in the list of maintenance costs.  My pre-TNT missile bases are not being maintained but my TNT tech bases are costing me maintenance.  But again only on my homeworld, the PDCs on my colony are not showing up in its maintance cost window at all.  Also it seems almost random which TNT tech PDC will be there they seem to flow in and out of needing or not needing maintenance.  But the skywatch, balista, bastion, redoubt II and onager II bases are on the list of ships being maintained.

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.