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Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 12/27/2011 4:22:31 PM

onomastikon

Posts: 193
Joined: 11/29/2011
Status: offline

Hello all,

just got myself DW and the two expansions for x-mas. So far, liking what I see. I am, however, in distress, so far unable to finish a game, a bit overwhelmed. Can you help please?

I have set EVERYTHING on fully automated. Nevertheless, I've got a few questions, mostly arising from my attempts to DO anything. I'll try to keep it short.

1. How can I change the fleet leader to a different ship?
2. Even if everything is automated, can't I take control of a couple of ships? I try to do that, and they continuously go after targets by themselves if I leave them alone for 5 seconds. How can I disable automation of individiual ships / fleets but keep everything else automatic?
3. Design 1: Yes, I REALIZE that every design needs a NAME. Yet when I try to edit a design, no matter how I got there (copy as new, add new, edit, etc.), I see NO WAY to enter a ship name!! Ouch that frustrates me.
4. Design 2: I'm not too keen on the default designs, even though I understand most of the components very little. For example, I'd rather there be dedicated troop carriers rather than waste space on default destroyers with 1 troop carrier component. Also, am displeased with the way that the AI scripted designs are sub-maximum (e.g. I have a 276 maximum capacity, but the destroyers they build are 201 size). So I edited a couple to include larger ones, wanted my fleet leader on it -- but I the AI doesnt like the ones I design myself, I have to build them manually. And they get obsoleted quickly (by ones I dont like). Is there something I can do?
5. Design 3: I don't understand a lot about these components. Why do some ships have 2 reactors, although I can see when I remove one that there is still "excess energy output" (whatever that is good for)? Is there some tricks I am not understanding? Tips somewhere?
6. I just research torpedos, which seem to have a longer range than my default beams. Fine. Built em, designed a ship, made one, sent it out to fight pirates. But I dont see the torpedos being used. My blindness or am I not understanding something again?
7. I'd like to make a super-well-defended ship to put my admiral in -- but it seems I can only stick him on a fleet, not a ship itself, is that right? Is he automatically in the most defended one? I'd like to have that ship hang back a bit, to keep him safe -- can I even do that?
8. I am playing the Ackdarians, who have default colonization of Ocean planets. Yet I can (and must) research Ocean colonization to move up the tech tree...? And what about Continental and Marshy planets -- how do I know if I can colonize these by default if I can research them?
9. How can I assign a "patrol" mission? I have never seen "patrol" in the popup menu for any military ship. (I get "goto" and "stop" and "move here".)
10. What is culture good for?
11. Can I basically ignore my "stock" of various resources and just hope my automation / private sector works it out, and just try to get the most of whatever I can get my hands on?
12. What good are troops? I mean, I know the theory, I read the manual and played the tutorial, but I have not seen a need for them yet. I have troop recruitment on "automated", but I'd like to recruit less (big $$ sink). So far, I have not seen a need for them, and would like to cut down, but on the other hand, I have this General sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Do you use troops for anything?
13. How can I see what the production capacity is like? It seems like my Spaceport at the homework can make like 4 ships at once (!!). Why is that? Is there ever production slowdowns? So far, I dont have enough money to produce more or faster, so I cannot imagine why I should ever build another spaceport....
14. There seems to be nothing to build on planets / moons / colonies. Am I missing something?

Thanks much people!

< Message edited by onomastikon -- 12/27/2011 4:24:17 PM >

Post #: 1

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 12/27/2011 7:28:20 PM

DasTactic

Posts: 1083
Joined: 10/10/2005
Status: offline

Welcome onomastikon :)

I'll try to answer your questions as best I can:

I have set EVERYTHING on fully automated. Nevertheless, I've got a few questions, mostly arising from my attempts to DO anything. I'll try to keep it short.
Having everything on auto is actually not the easiest set-up. I'll try to explain why in the following answers but basically any decision you make will be overridden.

1. How can I change the fleet leader to a different ship?
Select the ship in the fleet you want to be the leader. Ctrl Right Click anywhere and select 'Make fleet leader' (or whatever it says - can't remember the specifics).

2. Even if everything is automated, can't I take control of a couple of ships? I try to do that, and they continuously go after targets by themselves if I leave them alone for 5 seconds. How can I disable automation of individiual ships / fleets but keep everything else automatic?
Disable fleet automation. You really want to keep control of your fleets. If you have auto fleets they will keep overriding your orders. For individual ships make sure the Auto setting is off for each ship (the little blue circular arrow). This should turn off when you give a ship or fleet a command. You can re-automate ships by clicking the 'A' key with the ship selected. Also, ships and fleets have stances that need to be changed. Eg. A fleet with Sector stance will run around anywhere in the sector. I usually keep mine on Target or System. Also make sure you are using the latest patches for the game. This is much better in the latest patches.

3. Design 1: Yes, I REALIZE that every design needs a NAME. Yet when I try to edit a design, no matter how I got there (copy as new, add new, edit, etc.), I see NO WAY to enter a ship name!! Ouch that frustrates me.
Designs are for ship designs - not ship names. To change a design name you can only do this when you start a new design. Once it is saved then it is too late. To change ship names I think you do this with the individual ship - but I've never bothered to do this.

4. Design 2: I'm not too keen on the default designs, even though I understand most of the components very little. For example, I'd rather there be dedicated troop carriers rather than waste space on default destroyers with 1 troop carrier component. Also, am displeased with the way that the AI scripted designs are sub-maximum (e.g. I have a 276 maximum capacity, but the destroyers they build are 201 size). So I edited a couple to include larger ones, wanted my fleet leader on it -- but I the AI doesnt like the ones I design myself, I have to build them manually. And they get obsoleted quickly (by ones I dont like). Is there something I can do?
Turn off ship design automation. I think this will be looked at in the next batch of patches but unfortunately if you have automatic ship design turned on as soon as you save one of your designs the AI will add a new one of theirs which basically gives theirs precedence.

5. Design 3: I don't understand a lot about these components. Why do some ships have 2 reactors, although I can see when I remove one that there is still "excess energy output" (whatever that is good for)? Is there some tricks I am not understanding? Tips somewhere?
In the War Room forum read the excellent post on Energy requirements. Basically you need reactors to power your engines and to recharge your weapons. Not enough power and your ships go slow and can't recharge weapons. You really want to make sure you have enough excess energy coming from reactors to cover all your weapons. Also most single reactor ships only travel at half speed because of power shortages - even the default ships.

6. I just research torpedos, which seem to have a longer range than my default beams. Fine. Built em, designed a ship, made one, sent it out to fight pirates. But I dont see the torpedos being used. My blindness or am I not understanding something again?
Sounds like you don't have enough power to charge them. See answer 5.

7. I'd like to make a super-well-defended ship to put my admiral in -- but it seems I can only stick him on a fleet, not a ship itself, is that right? Is he automatically in the most defended one? I'd like to have that ship hang back a bit, to keep him safe -- can I even do that?
Admirals are allocated to the fleet lead ship I think. If you change the lead ship make sure you re-allocate the admiral to the same fleet again for him to change ships.

8. I am playing the Ackdarians, who have default colonization of Ocean planets. Yet I can (and must) research Ocean colonization to move up the tech tree...? And what about Continental and Marshy planets -- how do I know if I can colonize these by default if I can research them?
You have default colonisation for your home planet but still need to research that item to unlock other techs behind it. If there is nothing behind it you want or need don't bother researching it.

9. How can I assign a "patrol" mission? I have never seen "patrol" in the popup menu for any military ship. (I get "goto" and "stop" and "move here".)
Select the ship/fleet and ctrl right-click what you want to patrol and then select 'Patrol XXX'. Usually patrol is the default stance. Unlike some other games Patrol doesn't mean allocating a series of way-points. Patrol is to protect a specific item. With System stance set it will still attack enemies anywhere in the same system though.

10. What is culture good for?
Culture basically is how developed your planet can get and the happiness and taxes that come from the planet. You want high culture.

11. Can I basically ignore my "stock" of various resources and just hope my automation / private sector works it out, and just try to get the most of whatever I can get my hands on?
It will eventually work itself out but I usually check this quite often to make sure planets have supplies of important resources such as Caslon fuel and Steel for contruction.

12. What good are troops? I mean, I know the theory, I read the manual and played the tutorial, but I have not seen a need for them yet. I have troop recruitment on "automated", but I'd like to recruit less (big $$ sink). So far, I have not seen a need for them, and would like to cut down, but on the other hand, I have this General sitting around twiddling his thumbs. Do you use troops for anything?
Troops are critical to stave off invasions and to invade planet. I can never have enough troops. Generals have various bonuses such as extra recruitment. They may be doing nothing - but doing it very well. :)

13. How can I see what the production capacity is like? It seems like my Spaceport at the homework can make like 4 ships at once (!!). Why is that? Is there ever production slowdowns? So far, I dont have enough money to produce more or faster, so I cannot imagine why I should ever build another spaceport....
Depends on the number of construction yards on your base design.

14. There seems to be nothing to build on planets / moons / colonies. Am I missing something?
Colony facilities need to be researched. There aren't a lot so don't worry that you don't have a range of things to build right away. Later you can build wonders and faclitites such as robotic troops etc.

Have fun with the game. :)

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 2

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 12/27/2011 8:49:30 PM

onomastikon

Posts: 193
Joined: 11/29/2011
Status: offline

Thanks so much Das123! Your name sounds familiar. Stardock/Elemental and/or Dominions?

I DO like the game. Great music, lots of nice touches! Even my newbie eye can see lots of room for improvement (only 1 portrait per race?!?), but I like the atmosphere, and that counts for a lot.

I believe I have the latest patch, I believe it is 1706. The one advertised for on the Matrix Legends page.

Would you allow me a couple of follow-up questions?

- I do not seem to be seeing stances and how to change them. I'll have to have a closer look. Is there a setting / button / hotkey for stances somewhere?
- I thought I understood "development", which is basically (population x luxury items), not, as my intuition would suggest, some form of technological or cultural advancement. Are you saying that "Culture" is an additional representation of this? Sorry, I am not understanding it. Nothing about it in the Galactopedia, sadly.
- And nothing about "Quality" of a planet, either. I realize more is better, and the manual says that <50 is bad, but I don't know what that *means*. Does more quality = more taxes, more happiness, more resources, or less corruption? Or what?
- I'll check out that thread you mentioned. Sadly, no mention of components in the galactopedia either. Vector thrusters, med bays? I suppose those are nice...
- I have not felt the need to invade planets yet, and have not been on the receiving side yet, so I will just wait with my troops.
- I'll try your advice with turning off ship design -- but that means I have to design all those freighters and miners and whatnot too, right? Or else the private sector won't get any?!? I have no idea what they need, but I suppose I could give it a whirl. I wish we could say: ship design automation ON for private, OFF for state.
- Do you people build more than one Space Port frequently then? I suppose I mean: Those mining ships and mining bases, do they transport the stuff they mine by themselves? No, they need freighters, right? And I need to design them so the private sector uses them, I suppose they make a profit off of them. Where do they bring the stuff they transport TO?
- Is there a way I can see the fuel level of a fleet at a glance? Where can you refuel? (Only at spaceports? At any miners? At colonies?)

thanks tons!

(in reply to DasTactic)

Post #: 3

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 12/27/2011 9:55:11 PM

DasTactic

Posts: 1083
Joined: 10/10/2005
Status: offline

Thanks so much Das123! Your name sounds familiar. Stardock/Elemental and/or Dominions?
Both actually :)

- I do not seem to be seeing stances and how to change them. I'll have to have a closer look. Is there a setting / button / hotkey for stances somewhere?
There are a couple of buttons in the dialog at the lower left of the screen - or you can select the ship/fleet and ctrl right-click and set the stances there. I may have the word 'stance' incorrect but basically there should be a setting for Target, Near-by, System, and Sector to designate how far the ships will track away from your orders. Once you work this out it really helps reduce the micromanagement so it is a good thing. :)

- I thought I understood "development", which is basically (population x luxury items), not, as my intuition would suggest, some form of technological or cultural advancement. Are you saying that "Culture" is an additional representation of this? Sorry, I am not understanding it. Nothing about it in the Galactopedia, sadly.
From my understanding Culture pretty much means Development. I just treat it as an abstract number to designate a lot of things at planet level.

- And nothing about "Quality" of a planet, either. I realize more is better, and the manual says that <50 is bad, but I don't know what that *means*. Does more quality = more taxes, more happiness, more resources, or less corruption? Or what?
Quality affects the number of people you can have on a planet. Less than 50% and you need to prop up the $$$. Over 50% and it runs at a profit. I usually only settle on planets under 50% if it controls an important area of space - such as giving me control over one of the special resource planets.

- I'll check out that thread you mentioned. Sadly, no mention of components in the galactopedia either. Vector thrusters, med bays? I suppose those are nice...
They are there. You can access the entries from the design screen when you click on each component. The best bet when designing ships is to look at the change in graphs as you add or remove items. See what happens to your speed when ships become too heavy etc and how quickly you can turn as you add thrust vectors.

- I have not felt the need to invade planets yet, and have not been on the receiving side yet, so I will just wait with my troops.
To invade a strong planet you really want about a 3 to 1 ratio of strength (not just troop numbers as some races have powerful troops and others have weak troops).

- I'll try your advice with turning off ship design -- but that means I have to design all those freighters and miners and whatnot too, right? Or else the private sector won't get any?!? I have no idea what they need, but I suppose I could give it a whirl. I wish we could say: ship design automation ON for private, OFF for state.
All the default ship types stay there. You can also at any time select all the ships and do a global upgrade which replaces old tech with new tech. I agree though that it would be good to have more control over specific classes you want to control. Personally I would only want to design my own mining bases and military ships above Destroyer size. All the rest I would prefer to be on auto. Hopefully the coming patches will allow this.

- Do you people build more than one Space Port frequently then? I suppose I mean: Those mining ships and mining bases, do they transport the stuff they mine by themselves? No, they need freighters, right? And I need to design them so the private sector uses them, I suppose they make a profit off of them. Where do they bring the stuff they transport TO?
The beauty of DW is that the civilian sector basically just looks after itself. It builds new freighters as required - based on the infrastructure you build. I leave mining construction on auto but will designate steel and caslon sources to be specifically built alond with some of the rarer resources such as chromium etc.
EDIT: It is a good idea to have a small space port in each system you control and then to retrofit to larger sizes as the population increases. I usually end up with a few large spaceports, a handful of medium spaceports, and a heap of small spaceports. Start though by building the small spaceports and then retrofitting as it is easier to construct the small ones first so they can protect themselves.

- Is there a way I can see the fuel level of a fleet at a glance? Where can you refuel? (Only at spaceports? At any miners? At colonies?)
When you select a fleet each ship has a green bar next to it in the summary window. This is the fuel level.

< Message edited by Das123 -- 12/27/2011 9:59:45 PM >

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 4

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 12/28/2011 2:31:58 AM

the1sean

Posts: 854
Joined: 5/11/2010
From: Texas, USA
Status: offline

Hey onomastikon, welcome to the community! Glad you are enjoying the game. Das123 is doing an awesome job answering your questions, so I am just going to say hi and suggest that a big thing to help with resource shortages is to set up plenty of trade treaties. That way you tap into the supplies of the galactic market when you have severe shortages of stuff. Also, they next patch is planned to overhaul ship design and the automation thereof.

Nedrear has some really "beginner guides" listed in this post.

_____________________________

Check out my GAMEPLAY REDUX MOD (ROTS)

(in reply to DasTactic)

Post #: 5

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 12/28/2011 4:45:57 AM

Gelatinous Cube

Posts: 696
Joined: 10/26/2011
Status: offline

Also, 1707 is the latest Beta patch, and is worth picking up.

_____________________________

Can Poland Into Space?

(in reply to the1sean)

Post #: 6

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/3/2012 3:44:20 PM

onomastikon

Posts: 193
Joined: 11/29/2011
Status: offline

People, thanks so much! Great stuff here, and so friendly. I am sorting through those guides you linked to as well, all good, all helpful. Thank you, thank you!

I'm going to risk asking a bunch of smallerish questions that are not really related to the "big" ones talked about in the guides. These are mostly follow-up questions to all the help I've been getting here so far.

First off, still using 1.706, am scared of beta. Also not sure how well saved games and version changes mix. I am computer inept.

- In general, I think I am an experienced strategy gamer, although 95% of that so far has been TBS, this is basically my first RTS (even if it is a bit different than most of those). Most of the time, I find it difficult to find a game that fits my needs, because I usually have to crank up difficulty settings so high so that I am not bored in the end-game, but not too high so that I am not crushed during the very early game. (Normally, my experience as a learning human is usually enough to outpace most complex TBS AIs in the midgame, then the endgame is yawn-yawn mopup without a feeling of closure.) DW seems to have so many settings options that I feel I can start to tweak next game. So far, I have played on a small map with everything else default, except that I chose 6 random AIs as opponents. Still in that game, still learning. Just wondering if you have any suggestions for a more "builder" type of a person (I'm not a warmonger) -- would, on a medium map, less dense colony options work well for me? Or less opponents? Or more, but less aggressive?

- Resources:
a) I am terribly daunted by the Expansion Planner. Still. I do not believe I am stupid, but I just can't seem to get a grip on it. What exactly should I be looking for there? I get a huge list of tons of resources and some prices, and I can sort those to see what is the most expensive, but I do not understand how I should use that tool to figure out what to do next -- I need big $$ to build construction ships to send off to mine to those locations (right??) and then those ships wont necessarily be escorted (right?)...
b) What exactly is "reserved" for? For whom exactly? I see that on some planets, I have xxx under "reserved", but none under amount! What does that mean?
c) There's a "luxury extractor" component: do I need that to get luxury items from colonies, or only on non-habitable objects?
d) what does the % next to the resource icon in the planet selelction mean exactly? Like this: %85 steel icon -- do I extract steel at 85% of my default extraction rate?
e) You tell me that it is good for growth and happiness when my colonies have access to 10 or more luxuries. What does "have access to" mean exactly? It's not like Civ, is it, where just having 1 unit of it somewhere in your empire is enough -- does it actually need to be present in the "cargo" of my colony? In what amount? Or does it need to be near? Is it transported automatically from the source or sources of this in my empire to the colonies that need it?
f) Is there a short and easy way to see "how much" of certain resources "I need"? I am putting that in quotes, because of course "need" is going to be a flexible term; I'm just not sure if I am missing an easy input/output overview tool somewhere
g) Do I need to stockpile certain resources so that the ones I really need for my state-run projects are not gobbled up by my private citizens to build freighters or get traded away (however that works, see "Trade" below)? Can I "manually" reserve them, in other words, so that my private sector does not abscond with them?

- Trade
a) I do not have any "free trade" agreements with anyone, although at least one empire likes me. But I seem to have some measure of "trade" income (with the empire that likes me). I can see that on the diplomacy screen, it is something like: "We enjoy a small amount of trade (+1)". H�h?
b) The manual says that there are some independent nations out there you can "trade with". How? How can I see how much I can / should be making from trade? Is this automatic, and private sector, or do I need to do something?
c) I see there are some ship components such as Finance modules, or maybe they are called Trade modules. Where are these supposed to go? I see that the ones that I can build give a "5% trade income bonus" -- nice. But to what? The kind of trade I get "automatically" (like in question a, above) or from Free Trade agreements (of which I have none)?

- Fuel
a) I seem to have to wait forever to refuel. Is there a way of making that go faster?
b) Where exactly can I refuel? Only at space ports? Or any star base? Or any colony? What do I need to have in order to refuel?
c) Do you normally put like 4-5 fuel canisters in each ship?

- Design and Building
a) Why do Space Ports have research, medical, and recreational facilities by default? Maybe I am not understanding their role. Is a spaceport a multi-functional building? I know they can be used to build and to research, and have some defenses -- but in designing them, are you supposed to tweak in more research? I thought research labs were for that....
b) Can all bases refuel ships? (Research, mining, etc.)? Can I build purely refueling stations?
c) When I purchase ships via the advisor, how do I know where they will be built? The advisor seems to assign almost all of my construction to my homeworld, where I have a tremendous queue. Am I doing something wrong?
d) I can see in the Construction summary part of the design screen or the summary in the Tech Screens some basics about some items I can build or could possibly build if I research them first. For example, I can see that countermeasures will give me "+10% effectiveness". But I can't see anywhere what that means: +10% what? Similarly, I can see that there are Recreational components and Medical components, that each give me some +% bonuses, but I am not sure how much is enough, or where and how many of these things I need to put into my ships. What exactly do med and rec components do?
e) When can and should I build tourist bases? I mean, when is some heavenly body scenic "enough" to warrent a base?
f) What actually is the difference between small, medium and large space ports? I mean, obviously, besides their size and the amount of weapons and shields they can hold: Why make bigger ones? I think I am not understanding how these "work" yet.
g) If I understand the guide to "energy" correctly you linked to above, then energy collectors only work when a ship is stationary. Hence, the default AI design, which includes 1 set of energy collectors to ALL military ships, is a bit silly, right?

THANKS TONS

(in reply to Gelatinous Cube)

Post #: 7

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/3/2012 6:21:05 PM

J HG T

Posts: 1093
Joined: 5/14/2010
From: Kiadia Prime
Status: offline

I'll try to answer to some of those questions. Hope these help.

b) What exactly is "reserved" for? For whom exactly? I see that on some planets, I have xxx under "reserved", but none under amount! What does that mean?
Generally it means reserved for use. for example, when you order ships from a shipyard it reserves certain amount of resources to build those ships. Resources or goods are also reserved for trade.
If there's nothing under amount it means that resources have been ordered from somewhere and transports should deliver them sooner or later. Flags show if another empire is reserving goods for trade.

c) There's a "luxury extractor" component: do I need that to get luxury items from colonies, or only on non-habitable objects?
Colonies extract luxuries automatically, so you'll only need to put luxury extractors on mining stations.

d) what does the % next to the resource icon in the planet selelction mean exactly? Like this: %85 steel icon -- do I extract steel at 85% of my default extraction rate?
The % means the speed from maximum possible mining rate your extractors are cabable of

e) You tell me that it is good for growth and happiness when my colonies have access to 10 or more luxuries. What does "have access to" mean exactly? It's not like Civ, is it, where just having 1 unit of it somewhere in your empire is enough -- does it actually need to be present in the "cargo" of my colony? In what amount? Or does it need to be near? Is it transported automatically from the source or sources of this in my empire to the colonies that need it?
Luxuries are distributed automatically over colonies by transports. As long as there's goods in the "cargo bay", the colony receives bonuses. The colonies spend the luxuries over time.

- Trade
a) I do not have any "free trade" agreements with anyone, although at least one empire likes me. But I seem to have some measure of "trade" income (with the empire that likes me). I can see that on the diplomacy screen, it is something like: "We enjoy a small amount of trade (+1)". H�h?
Empires always have some amount of trade regardless of their diplomatic relationships. FTA and MDP give signifigant bonuses to trade incomes for both empires

b) The manual says that there are some independent nations out there you can "trade with". How? How can I see how much I can / should be making from trade? Is this automatic, and private sector, or do I need to do something?
The independents trade with you automatically. You trade with 'em when you find the independent planet. It works automatically.
Still, independents are prime colonization choises so you'll rarely have much trade with them after early game.

c) I see there are some ship components such as Finance modules, or maybe they are called Trade modules. Where are these supposed to go? I see that the ones that I can build give a "5% trade income bonus" -- nice. But to what? The kind of trade I get "automatically" (like in question a, above) or from Free Trade agreements (of which I have none)?
Bonus applies to all trade incomes coming through the spaceport with the finance module. Thus, they are next to useless on other bases than starports.

- Fuel
a) I seem to have to wait forever to refuel. Is there a way of making that go faster?
Best way to have fuel available is to build good amount of gas mining stations right from the start of a game. To keep your fleets properly supplied, researching the resupply ship is highly recommended. One or two per a fleet should work just nice.

b) Where exactly can I refuel? Only at space ports? Or any star base? Or any colony? What do I need to have in order to refuel?
Caslon or Hydrogen in storage depending on your ships. Ships can refuel anywhere with those in store but spaceports, planets and gas mining stations are given the highest priority.

c) Do you normally put like 4-5 fuel canisters in each ship?
Depends. Early games my military ships have 300-500 fuel depending on distances. Late game it's 500-1000.

- Design and Building
a) Why do Space Ports have research, medical, and recreational facilities by default? Maybe I am not understanding their role. Is a spaceport a multi-functional building? I know they can be used to build and to research, and have some defenses -- but in designing them, are you supposed to tweak in more research? I thought research labs were for that....
Medical restores your troops faster after battles and, if memory serves, gives bonus to happiness and maybe to population growth. Recreationall gives bonus to happiness and development(?). I don't remember the bonuses excatly but it's definetly beneficial to have them on your spaceports. Space ports usually have enough research modules if you build couple of research stations too at research bonus locations

b) Can all bases refuel ships? (Research, mining, etc.)? Can I build purely refueling stations?
In theory, yes. As long as the base has fuel in store. Right click and refuel

c) When I purchase ships via the advisor, how do I know where they will be built? The advisor seems to assign almost all of my construction to my homeworld, where I have a tremendous queue. Am I doing something wrong?
I'm quite sure orders are assigned to places with available resources and most contruction yards. Early game it's usually the homeworld.

e) When can and should I build tourist bases? I mean, when is some heavenly body scenic "enough" to warrent a base?
As long as the location has scenic bonuses it's usually worth building tourist base there. Tourists flock in masses to tourist bases even with small scenic bonuses and net you loads of income in the long run.

g) If I understand the guide to "energy" correctly you linked to above, then energy collectors only work when a ship is stationary. Hence, the default AI design, which includes 1 set of energy collectors to ALL military ships, is a bit silly, right?
In way, yes. But, when you upgrade energy collectors, even one energy collector is enough for most of the ships. There's going to some adjustments to designs in the coming patch from what has been talked around here.

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Post #: 8

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/3/2012 8:01:56 PM

Evrett

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Gotta nominate this thread for a place in the list of guides threads...there are some pretty useful answers and well asked questions there.

Regarding starting resources - You "need" at least one source of Caslon, polymer, steel and carbor fibre. Without at least one source your stock will run out quick and contruction will bottleneck. . Use the galactic priority list in the expansion planner to find a planet with these resources and settle it or send a mining ship there ASAP. Carbon Fibre and Polymer are found on swampy worlds for the most part so if you are a race that starts on that type you have a leg up. Steel is mostly on barren worlds and Caslon is in gas giants. If things dont seem to be building, especially bases, it%s usually because you have a resource bottleneck and the freighters are waiting to be loaded with what you need. Researching mining and cargo tech helps get things moving faster. Juggling new construction with resource management and acquisition is prob the hardest thing to get right in this game.

Regarding troops - its temping and often much quicker to nuke a planet to dust in orbit but keep an eye on the quality %...You can damage the environment so much its becomes unlivable.

Tourist sites, like good reasearch sites, will have a +x% bonus number written on the planet/star/whatever picture thing. Those are the best places to build tourist and research bases. I always load my bases, regardless of type, with 1-2 of each research lab just for kicks.

Having 1 energy collector per ship prevents ships from using up fuel while sitting still (which they do alot of on defense duty) and allows the weapons to keep firing on a ship that is out of fuel. Nothing more annoying than being surprised attacked in some backwater system only to find your defenders are all out of fuel and thus cant fire their weapons. The only reason not to put one energy collector per ship is very early on when you need to conserve resources.

Regarding where ships are being built - dont be afraid to go to the base construction screen and look over the list of ships being built at your bases. If you dont like whats up and coming scrab those ships and order new ones. Another bottleneck I run into is where the private sector will order 2343242342 freighters built at once, which ends up reserving all the resources and preventing the construction of more needed bases, mines and military ships..its a double edged sword though since you need some frieghters to take the components/resources out to the bases under construction.

Regarding stances, there is a great guide to stances on the forums here. I usually put a fleet of 3-5 frigates per system in a defensive stance guarding every system+nearby. Just make the blue circles overlap everything that is important. Attack stance is mostly up to the computer. You set it and it decides what to attack within a certain area radiating out form the fleets home system. I like to put ~2 fleets of 3-5 destroyers/frigates on attack stance and let them harass a nearby enemy. For anything more than boarder harassment you really need to manage it yourself.

I believe researching colonization tech, regardless of your native world, grants you pop growth and development speed bonus for that type of world. It should say on the tool tip for that tech.

Regarding energy - Its important not to have more static energy usage than energy collected and not to have more weapon power usage than excess power. More weapon power usage than excess will start eating fuel and storage reserves..you could go for a burst damage ship that has so many weapons it burns the whole fuel tank in one shot..but then you have to micromange that ship back for refueling.....very very slowly. �

ship engine wise I aim for 5-9 thrust and 18-20 vector. Keep in mind that there is sometimes a limit to effective thrust so have 2532432 thrusters might not get you more than 4 speed on larger ships.

< Message edited by Evrett -- 1/3/2012 8:09:41 PM >

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Post #: 9

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/4/2012 1:29:40 AM

feelotraveller

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Some answers to bits not already covered.

Aggressiveness is the largest determinant of peaceful/warlike games. Normal is pretty peaceful. Larger maps with more colonisable worlds and less opponents give more room to expand before clashing with other empires. This will tend to delay warlike activities but they will be more massive once they do happen. Also make sure you choose a race which is a non-warmonger and a non warlike form of government.

Use the expansion planner to keep an eye on the stock/demand ratio for strategic resouces. They start priced at 0.8 but if they move higher there is a definite galactic undersupply. Prices/maintenance for ships and bases rise with the cost of resources used in their construction. Sometimes you can't effect the galactic situation (particularly early on) but you can definitely look to your own demands. Those independents and empires with access to your locations will come to trade for what they need. Sometimes you need to allow for their demands as well... Use the luxury category to choose which luxuries to develop once you have trade going. Try to develop at least one source of each strategic resource early on. You will want lots of fuel (Caslon then Hydrogen) and Steel.

Put a trade module (only one is needed) on all your mining stations as well as any starbase which will engage in trade. Independents and other empires will purchase straight from these at times and you need them to get money for your empire from the deals.

Refueling can be speeded up with more docks by allowing more ships to dock simultaneously. Each dock allows a ship to be loaded. There are techs which speed up the rate of cargo tranfer through docks.

You only need one medical and one recreational component per colony location. Don't bother with them on ships or on non-colony bases other than when required by the design. Later techs give you more effecitve versions.

There is no game mechanic difference between small, medium and large spaceports.

Personally I find energy collectors on ships (other than constructors and miners) not to be worth it. (I guess I like giving refueling orders...) However many people swear by them.

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 10

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/4/2012 4:14:41 AM

Evrett

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I would add that the empire nagivation strip on the left side of the screen has a section for planets with bonus' to tourism or research. I always seem to forget to use it heh. Thats a good idea with the trade mod on mining stations...I'll try that.

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Post #: 11

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/5/2012 2:32:42 PM

onomastikon

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This is invaluable help, thank you so much people, for your time and effort. I hope this is helping other people too (as I have hungrily read other people's newbie's questions beforehand as well, with much profit).

- So I need to be more careful in taking a hand in designing. I see that the default designs the AI made contain Trade modules on mining bases. Why is that? Should I do that too?
- The AI's Mining ships and bases don't have huge numbers of mining modules, but they do have >1. Is mining capped at a certain number?
- I was mistaken by the sound of "torpedoes", thinking that they were a bit like long-ranged missiles. Saw their range IS longer than my Maxor. Now that I succeeded in finding the galactopedia entry for them, I see they are a kind of beam. And that "missiles" have a much longer range. Is there a downside to missiles? Can they be attacked by point defense or countermeasures better?
- Am I understanding this correctly? Spaceports are special kinds of bases that can ONLY be built at planets. Right? (I tried right-clicking on a constructor, but couldn't get it to build a spaceport in open space.) So that makes a "starbase" just an undefined base, but one that could be identical to a space port in every functional sense except I would assign to it a different role.... what am I not understanding?
- I think I am not understanding the "attack target" of fleet postures. I click it, but do not see what I am supposed to click on afterwards, it is not an individual target...?

- This is a bit of a longer comment with a follow-up question: Yesterday, I had to stop my second game after I realized: Without understanding why, at first, I had maneuvered myself into an economic deadlock with no way out. I think this is because of two interesting features of DW I am not familiar with in other 4x games. (Caveat: I am primarily a TBS player.) Feature 1: You can only purchase state ships for queuing to build if you have the cash they need immediately on hand and if you do not, you are unable to purchase that ship (normal 4x feature, nothing new here), but apparently you do NOT need to have the required subsidiary resources on hand, that is, you MUST have the required cash but you do NOT need the required steel (interesting, novel feature). Instead, the ship is "purchased" and put into the queue, but will not be built until the resources required for it are in stock at the local depot where the spaceyard is. Feature 2: The private sector purchases its ships in a similar manner, but uses state (e.g. YOUR) resources, and you have no control over their purchasing strategy. What happens? I can only try to reconstruct. For a long time, everything is groovy, I had 1 colony forever, then 2, then 3, then I think I colonized 4 planets around the same time. A couple of years later, still unworried, I have a lovely cash flow, everything SEEMS fine, until a neighbor declares war on me (nasty bug). Then, to my chagrin, I realize that the military ships I had ordered were still unbuilt. Heh? FOR YEARS I had been "purchasing" ships, but nothing has been built, because I HAD NO STEEL. I must have had no damn steel for years, there is a construction queue of 128 ships on my home spaceport, and the other spaceports were apparently not getting built because I HAD NO STEEL. And the mining bases and mining ships to mine the steel and the freighters to bring me the steel were not being built because I HAD NO STEEL. And I didn't understand that, for years.
I think I know how I might try to do "things" better next time -- and there has to be a next time, because I see no way out of this predicament in this game, gotta quit here.
I wonder if two things might "help" in general however, keeping these 2 interesting features as an integral, if very idiosyncratic, part of DW.
*Question 1: Am I mistaken or blind? I can see cash on hand, cash income, and cash expenditures, I can see resources on hand BUT NOT RESOURCE INCOME or RESOURCE EXPENDITURES. Am I missing the tool that lets me plan better to avoid the situation above? I realize that "resource expenditure flow" is probably hard to calculate on a per-year basis, but resource income shouldnt be that hard. Is this already there and I can't see it?
* Question 2: Could it be possible to add some kind of advisor which pops up in 3 situations: "You are running a bit low on /resource/", "You are running quite low on /resource/", and "You are running dangerously low on /resource/!", which the vets could toggle off but idiots like me need on?
* Question 3: Do we have somewhere in the Empire Settings or could it be possible to have it somewhere: Some sort of slider or setting which lets construction yards prioritize what gets built? Such as: "default" (first come first serve it seems?), "State priority" (would bump say 1 State ship in between previously queued private orders, never overriding currently building items, on a 1-1 zip method, e.g. if 10 private orders were queued, and you purchased 10 state ships, they would get built 1-private-then 1 state - then 1 private - then 1 state etc.) and "State maximum priority" (yours always get bumped in). Perhaps there would need to be some "cost" for the latter 2 options, e.g. you would need to "pay" your private citizens some form of compensation for screwing them over.

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Post #: 12

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/6/2012 3:47:47 AM

Evrett

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putting trade mods on mining stations lets freighters dock and do business there.absolutely worth it
downside to missiles is they have low dmg and use rare resources to make..torpedoes early on can have ver similar rangers to missles and double or triple the dmg.
If you set your fleet to attack then all you need to do is automate it and it will choose targets for itself

If the private sector orders 23423443 freighters build or whatever and has reserved all your resources go to your contruction labs and scrap all those ships. The private sector will reorder them but by them your military ships will be much closer to the top of the queue

< Message edited by Evrett -- 1/6/2012 3:48:24 AM >

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Post #: 13

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/6/2012 4:26:52 AM

mikeCK

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Ok, well no sense starting a new thread so I will piggy back on this one. I have two intel agents sitting at my Homeworld. Their default mission seems to be counter-intel. I want to send one on a mission against a newly discovered race. But when I go to the character screen and select the agent, I am unable to select a mission or location from the drop down boxes....they are both greyed out. Do I need to research something?

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Post #: 14

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/6/2012 8:18:40 AM

feelotraveller

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MikeCK - I suspect you have to cancel the current mission for your spy first. If you have encountered another empire there should at least be the steal galaxy map mission...

onomastikon - resource extraction is capped at 10 for most things and 40 for gases. You see the number for this on the design screen and in the tech screen (your mining engines upgrade with tech...).

There are two things you can do about the civilian glut. Turn off their ability to order by obsoleting all civilian designs (I'm not sure what happens with design on auto, maybe the computer quickly replaces the designs?). Or just bear with it and bump your state ships up the queue as you desire. I generally go for the second option apart from very early game or in particularly tight resource situations.

You are right about spaceports. Starbases can be built anywhere and are a catch all for any non-categorised base you may want to build. I'm not sure I understand what you are not understanding...

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Post #: 15

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/6/2012 10:25:23 AM

onomastikon

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Thanks so much friendly people!

I have to start a new game, and notice that DW "takes over" all the settings from the previous game. For good or bad, I had checked the box "automatically generate opponents" in opponents screen, and had the number at 6; I was playing on a small map. For my next game, I'd like to try medium; I set it to medium (8x8), but DW has the number of opponents remembered to 6. I cannot remember what the default is. I'd like to scale the number of opponents to the size of the galaxy; I'd like it not to be too crowded (I'm kind of a "builder" and anyhow want to get my feet wet before being caged in and wiped out by neighbors), but also not totally empty. For a "medium" galaxy map, any good suggestions on a number of opponents? Thank youi.

@feelotraveller: The context is refuelling. I still do not understand the order "refuel". In this game, other than in most of the other 4x games I am familiar with, fuel seems to be a much more critical constraint, even than in Space Empires, in the last incarnation of which ships in a fleet would automatically share fuel, so you could simply just stick a tanker in a fleet and relax. But unless I am mistaken, what I have seen in DW so far says that ships cannot refuel from each other and can never transfer cargo unless through a docking station. From what I gather, military (or other state ships but mainly I am talking about my military) ships won't refuel automatically, so I need to say "go and refuel at the nearest available station". So far, I am still unsure what that means. I know that ships can and do refuel at space ports. But these, unless I am again mistaken, can only be built on colonies. I can, however, make other kinds of bases, such as defense bases and research bases -- and star bases. But I don't understand entirely:
1) what exactly needs to be on those to allow a ship to refuel there
2) if the command "refuel at nearest" will include non-spaceport bases I try to design in order to allow refuelling somewhere besides a colony, or if it only considers space ports
and I suppose also
3) if that would even make sense. I know you can research "refuelling ships", but it still takes a long time till I can build ships of that size; I can design em but not build em. I suppose it would make the most sense on a base or ship whose main purpose it is to mine caslon (or another kind of fuel). I could turn that into a refueller with no problem. But can I create a base to act as a refuelling depot -- functionally? I mean: I would need to purchase some state-owned freighters, set them on manual, and tell them to make sure that base is always stocked up nicely with fuel. (But I'm not sure if that's even possible.)

< Message edited by onomastikon -- 1/6/2012 10:31:45 AM >

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Post #: 16

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/6/2012 12:38:44 PM

Deggial

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Maybe I'm not the most competent person to answer your question, as I am still new to the game, too.

But as far as I know, many "locations" are capable to refuel ships: spaceports, space stations, mining stations, resupply ships.

What is needed are: docking bays for spaceships to land at and cargo storrage to store the fuel until it is needed.

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Post #: 17

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/6/2012 2:55:24 PM

feelotraveller

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Deggial

But as far as I know, many "locations" are capable to refuel ships: spaceports, space stations, mining stations, resupply ships.

What is needed are: docking bays for spaceships to land at and cargo storrage to store the fuel until it is needed.

Precisely.

To paraphrase-

Generally your refueling stations will be gas mining stations (or starbases if you inherit them...) at gas giants or gas clouds and colonies/spaceports.

Resupply ships are usually used to support military operations - so that fleets can refuel near/in enemy territory during a war.

Other possibilities exist, but they are... um... possibilities.

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Post #: 18

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/6/2012 10:36:36 PM

onomastikon

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OK excellent, thanks, think I am starting to understand now!

3 last things bugging me:

1. Next game, colonizing more slowly. Building small SPs on new planets. On some, the production progress is 0%, even though my empire has the resources. Is production 0 if only 1 resource is missing at the LOCAL point of building? (E.g. needs to be transported there by a private frigate?)

2. I had to turn Design automation off after a while, because my updated mining stations (the default AI ones have no weapons and only ONE mining engine! Why only 1??!) were always being nerfed ... and since automation was off, I started going through all that stuff and upgrading... and I saw that all the freighters have by default only 1 reactor! Their speeds were thus halved! Am I mistaked or does the AI make really suboptimal choices?

3. I was keeping a closer eye on resources this next game, and had the Expansion Planner open quite a bit, keeping a close eye on the "your demand" and "your stock" tabs. I am pretty sure I am not understanding something, or there is a bug. At one point, I had quite a number of ships in queue, and surely enough, that was the time that my gold demand was higher than my stock. But looking closely, it said that my demand for carbon fibre, iridium, and a bunch of other stuff I need for ships was ZERO. But how can that be? Does "demand" mean something else that I am not getting?

thanks so much!!

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Post #: 19

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/7/2012 1:02:21 PM

onomastikon

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Addendum, just got my first popup warning message I have ever seen of this kind: "Warning: You have just exhausted all supplies of Lead at your colony Esseus ... Make sure you obtain another source of Lead in your Empire soon!"
What's confusing me about this message warning is:
- I immediately open up my Expansion Planner and it tells me I have 11 sources of lead.
- My Expansion Planner tells me my Demand of lead is 0. I still REALLY do not understand that, since apparently I really need it there. My stock is listed at 37k, and galaxy demand at 1k.
- What I am supposed to do in reaction to this message (besides find even more sources of lead).

I cannot see a way to purchase state-owned transportation devices. I mean, I wouldn't mind getting some and bringing the lead there myself under my own costs, but I don't see how. Am I missing sometihng?

thank you very much in advance

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 20

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/7/2012 1:42:20 PM

J HG T

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From: Kiadia Prime
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That's a random event that can occur to any race from what I know. Your empire either finds new resources or exhausts some resource on (seemingly) random planet in your empire. New resources appear on type of planets they are normally found, so Faradian spice will not randomly pop on ocean planet and so on.

You seem to have fairly good stock of lead so I wouldn't worry. From what I've understood, the demand shows a number when some planet(s) don't have the resource and are waiting for a delivery. If all of your planets have loads of lead in store, there's no really demand for it.
That's how I've understood it.

And no, you are not missing anything; Transports, passenger ships and mining ships are always controlled by private section of your empire, and will do their best to keep the goods moving to where they are needed. Also, new planets take some times to get supplied, especially if they are far away from your other developed planets.

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Post #: 21

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/7/2012 1:53:00 PM

feelotraveller

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You need the resources locally. Freighters can take some time to get them there. If production is 0% you are missing at least several resources. Depending on its components spaceports take about 10 different resources to construct but they are used in combinations so having 1 or even several present does not guarantee components being manufactured. Check out the resources needed for the manufacture of each component on the design details screen. Also look at what components are used by your spaceport design (you can get a summary of the resources required by clicking 'construction summary', or something like that, there as well).

In 1.7.0.7 the computer designs all have 2 mining components. Expect more changes to come in the next update... But a balance is needed here. If the computer always had optimal designs (but see following) it would a) take away much of the race flavours and b) probably make the game less fun. After all not too many players would be keen to fire up a game where they were likely to get beaten. And before someone says it, yes there are some of us who like a challenge... But hopefully we will get more tools on the design level for this soon.

Also what is optimal depends upon the situation - a factor that it is very hard (apparently

) to program a computer for. There will be times when a budget mining station is better, times when it needs weapons, times when it should not be built at all, etc. Now think about warship designs...

My understanding of demand is that it is an unmet need for a resource at a locality. So even if you have oodles of steel if one new colony has none and needs some (say to build a spaceport) then you have a demand. On the other hand if you have that resource present in sufficient quantity then there is no demand as long as amount is greater than reserved. Are you seeing something other than this?

I think the popup is just a generic one. If you have plenty of lead spread around your empire don't worry about it. Just be glad it wasn't Loros Fruit that disappeared.

Seriously, the message is there to warn you that a developed resource has disappeared. It may not be important, it might be critical. Better than finding out several years down the track that mysteriously that colony does not produce that much needed (or not) resource any longer.

No you are not missing anything. You are not intended to be able to tranport resources via state owned devices and hence are forced to rely on the private (and independent) sector.

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 22

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/7/2012 6:35:32 PM

onomastikon

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Hey thanks so much, that is priceless!
NOW I think I understand "demand". (I mistakenly thought it meant: "how much I need or am using" before.) Thank you.

I have designed all my mining bases to always have 3 mining extractors: that's still a bit below the maximum, but I cannot imagine a situation when I would rather have fewer. Why?
I also don't see why the AI handicaps its faster / more flexible ship designs with less than 1 reactor. Yes, it's cheaper to build -- but a freighter then has about 50% effectiveness!

Those energy, weapons and high tech "plants" -- those are not listed under components in the galactopedia. I only see them on AI spaceport builds. Apparently, they don't research, that's what "labs" are for. What do they do that spaceyards don't?

Do you know what the default number of opponent AIs are set to be in a medium (8x8) map?
Is there also a way to see in-game what your game setup was?

thanks so much!

(in reply to feelotraveller)

Post #: 23

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/7/2012 7:33:35 PM

feelotraveller

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The real limiitation on most resources is freighter transport. You can mine it, but can it get picked up? Even with 2 engines resources generally slowly build up at my mining bases. Once the cargo bays are full mining will halt. There are advantages (as well as disadvantages) to having more mines even though they each extract more slowly. Also once you research better mining techs your baees with extra engiines become moneysuckers. You can't refit them.

I agree slower hyperspeeds for freighters are not good. However with advances in technology (reactors in this case) their speeds will rise, perhaps still not to the maximum in the case of the starting designs if you also get upgraded Gerax drives. I think you overestimate the influence of hyperdrives - freighters spend a decent portion of their time using thrusters, particularly in the early game and sit idle some of the time too. So maybe 70-80% efficiency is more accurate. That said I always have my freighters travelling at max hyperspeed.

The plants are what manufacture components which are then put together in construction yards.

From memory in a 10x10 game the default number of opponents is 11. The same ratio of empires to area would be achieved in an 8x8 by 7 computer players. But it depends on the game you want to play.

I don't know of any way to see what your setup was/is ingame. But if you have not started any other DW games (or reinstalled/installed a patch) the settings you used will be remembered by the program. Select start new game to see these (you can then cancel out of the process).

Hope that helps.

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 24

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/7/2012 9:59:26 PM

onomastikon

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That helps tremendously! Thank you very much for your time and patience, and to the other wise people here as well. Maybe other newbs will be reading this and learn stuff too.

Sorry to continue to bombard the community with questions, but I think I am soon over the largest of the humps.... Still:

1. Current game, the max military ship size I can build is 480. (Component Prefab = 400, Ackdarian = +20). In the first game I played, I researched "Accelerated Construction", which allows the building of Resupply Ships ("when construction size allows"). Sure enough, I couldn't build those. In this game, however, I have Accel Const, but before I can research huge ship sizes, I am surprised to see my advisor suggest I build a Resupply Ship. I agree and build a couple. Sure enough, they are in construction, I can see them in the F11 list (still orange), and their size is 822. Is this a bug or am I not understanding again?

2. Especially now that I am designing manually, I am confused as to how I can make 2 designs of the same role/subrole active simultaneously. Example: I uncovered some ruins which gives me a "Death Ray". Nice. I'd like to have a Defense Base which uses that, and 1 which doesn't. I've tried "Copy as New", to add one (and some reactors to fire it), but then it supercedes my normal Defense Base without death rays; I can't make those anymore. Likewise, I'd like to follow your advice and make some miners with fewer mining engines; I'd also like to make some Capitals with Hyperdeny, but not all, and when I get the tech only 1 per fleet with Fleet Countermeasures, or some cruisers with fighter bays, but not all, etc... So: How can I keep my "alternative" designs from knocking the other (but not obsolete!) ones out from my designs list? What am I doing wrong?

3. I've seen a number of people give the advice: Make small space ports ubiquitously, then upgrade a couple to Medium, occasionally to Large as needed and if affordable. I can't figure out how to do that. I have some small Space Ports, and I can retrofit them to newer versions of small ones, but how do I change their design to medium or large?

4. I'm just researching Fusion now. I have lots of Hydrogen stockpiled, never really used it. Does it make sense to switch ALL engines to fusion, or only some?

Thank you very much in advance!

< Message edited by onomastikon -- 1/7/2012 10:02:06 PM >

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Post #: 25

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/8/2012 8:11:18 AM

J HG T

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From: Kiadia Prime
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No problems answering. That's what experienced players should do in my opinion; Help beginners (or nOObs if you want to get a little raucous�

) to get into the game. Still, I think learning games completely by yourself is sometimes extremely interesting and fun.
*Remembers learning DW, SC2 and SR2 completely from scratch* Good times...

Anyways...
1. You do know that resupply ships are build on planets like construction ships, not on spaceports. This is a common mistake about resupply ships. So, click on planets like you would do when building construction ships on a specific planet. Or, use the build order menu. It should have resupply ships listed there.
Resupply ships don't also follow the normal size limitations for military ships. I don't remember the excact numbers but they start around size 900 and gain around 200 max size with every size upgrade.
BTW, learn using resupply ships. They can be a huge benefit for your main fleets as the fleets don't have to return on your planets for refuelling.
Also, when loaded with torpedoes/missile, fighter bays and fleet booster modules, they make for excellent fire support and command ships in ay point of a game.

2. This is known problem. Current workaround is to go to design screen and set it to show ALL designs and manually design, build and upgrade the subrole ships. Yeah, it's quite tedious as I do it too in some extent.
The next patch may have some changes to this from what I've heard. We'll see...

3. To clarify, where do you do the upgrading? You should be able to retrofit small spaceports to medium when manually right-clicking on them, selecting retrofit and then picking medium spaceport design. If memory serves, you can't do this on the ship screen where it's more handy to mass refit bases and ships.

4. If you are switching from fission to fusion, I'd say go for it and change all possible engines. You get the benefits of future upgrades for fusion reactors too, so there really isn't anything to lose.
Future question might be if you are satisfied with fusion reactors, or do you want to go all the to the Hyperfusion reactors? I usually go for Quantum reactors and use them even very late game, spending research capacity on other things. Well, when I'm not playing with Quamenos, that is. Their NovaCore reactors are totally awesome.

< Message edited by J HG T -- 1/8/2012 8:45:15 AM >

_____________________________

Nothing is impossible, not if you can imagine it!
"And they hurled themselves into the void of space with no fear."

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 26

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/8/2012 2:01:06 PM

BTJ

Posts: 47
Joined: 1/6/2012
Status: offline

Thanks to Das123, J HG T, feelotraveller, Evrett, GC and others, this thread has become a fantastic newbie guide!

Thank you very much!

And of course also thanks to onomastikon for asking the right questions!

onomastikon, did you watch the video AARs of Das123? They are very well done and I found a lot of answers to questions there (even to some I had not yet thought of...

).

Best regards,

Buford

(in reply to J HG T)

Post #: 27

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/11/2012 7:17:09 PM

onomastikon

Posts: 193
Joined: 11/29/2011
Status: offline

Thank you all!

I found Das123's AARs and am trying to watch them before the bandwidth restriction makes them invisible again!
I agree that it is a lot of fun trying to find things out by yourself -- believe me, there is a LOT that I have NOT asked and (attempted to) find out by myself. Finally killed my first Silvermist! However, I do kind of like asking questions, I suppose that's just the kind of person I am, and anyway, this is an SP game, so I enjoy the bit of interaction with you people here through Q&A. I'm trying to restrict my questions to things that are frustrating to me, where I think I am missing something that would give me more enjoyment (more than trying to figure some bizarre workaround out would).
The link in Nedrear's signature is really helpful, there is some great helpful stuff there, even if I don't understand all of that. I posted a question specifically about fleets in GC's thread there, won't repeat that here, but otherwise:

I think I am still not understanding a couple of fundamental things that I should:

- Design 1: When I hit "upgrade" with ships selected (ideally, all), sometimes the upgrade gets confused. Like specifically when I have a tech which is "further" in the tech tree than another, but not as good (e.g. often the case with race-specific techs), my "worse" component gets thrown into the ship and my "better" one often removed. I can spot that and manually redo everything, but I was wondering if there is a way to avoid this (besides never clicking "upgrade", which is what I am doing now).
- Design 2: I'm not sure I understand the warnings right. Most things stack. But not hyperdrives; if I put in 2, I get a warning that only 1 is necessary. But am I right in guessing that targetting computers and countermeasures don't? I don't get a warning there. Am I wrong and do they stack and it's just the warning that is off? I can't figure it out. What about 2 different types of things that seem similar, for example the AI keeps wanting to add "damage control" components to my ships, but I traded for that Ikkun race-specific repair robot thingy; I had guessed that this latter thingy is simply better than damage control and replaces it, but the AI wants both in. Is the AI being silly? And finally: Do fleet countermeasures / targeting stack on top of individual ones? (That is: if ALL of my individual ships in a fleet have individ countermeasures / targetting help, will the fleet countermeasures / targeters in a battleship be redundant?)
- I really like that list on the left-hand side of the screen which shows all potential colonies, enemies, etc, especially since a mouse-over pings the location on the big map. But I can't seem to figure out how to interact with it aside from the default buttons in the selection panel, which I often DONT want. Most painful example: Big list of potential colonies or mining locations, grossly huge by midgame. Silly me has tagged X% of them already with "queue colonizer / miner". But sadly, because of backlog, I don't seem to have control over or even knowledge about which and when: sometimes, I wait DECADES for a miner or a colonizer to finally make it through the queue / get built, and by that time I get the message: Can't colonize there / mine there (because of course by then it's already taken). So often when I get that message, I have a little colonizer waiting there to be used; or I see a location and I think: Get a mine there NOW, I need that NOW (big shortage), and I DONT want to hit "queue a construction ship" because I have no clue if that will take 1 month or 1 decade to get done. So: I have the location in the list on the far left, can see it's yellow ping on the map, and I scroll through some constructors in the selection screen, and can see where they are on the minimap, and I usually try to get a nice match where one is not on the other side of the galaxy: But for the life of me I CANNOT find a way to get the colonizer or the constructor to interact with the thing in the list. I have the ship selected, but neither clicking on the item in the list, right-clicking it, or control-right-clicking it gets the colonizer / constructor to go to it and do its thing.

What am I doing wrong?
- Ship management: I want to merge 2 fleets into one, can't figure out how. Is there a way for me to disband a fleet and have it join another? So far, I can't even see a way to disband a fleet, I have clicked each ship and said "leave fleet 1", then reclicked them and said "join fleet 2". But I am sure that is not what the devs intended.

THANK YOU!!

< Message edited by onomastikon -- 1/11/2012 7:19:21 PM >

(in reply to BTJ)

Post #: 28

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/11/2012 8:29:12 PM

Theluin

Posts: 189
Joined: 5/13/2011
From: Europe, Terra
Status: offline

- Design 1: When I hit "upgrade" with ships selected (ideally, all), sometimes the upgrade gets confused. Like specifically when I have a tech which is "further" in the tech tree than another, but not as good.

AFAIK there isn't any workaround for that. Hopefully it will be addressed in the next patch which is said to focus on ship design. You can either do what you're doing now or manually go through the designs and switch the components.

I'm not sure I understand the warnings right. Most things stack. But not hyperdrives; if I put in 2, I get a warning that only 1 is necessary.

Hyperdrives actually stack to some extent. Your ship will use the highest hyperspeed and the shortest warm-up time of the hyperdrives equiped. However it will also use the highest energy consumption.

But am I right in guessing that targetting computers and countermeasures don't?

You are correct

What about 2 different types of things that seem similar

The AI does tend to replace the race-cpecific components with inferior ones. As I said beore it might be addressed in a future patch.

Do fleet countermeasures / targeting stack on top of individual ones?

From my understanding they do stack but I'm not completely sure.

In answer to that really long question about the left-side lists

You have to zoom in on the planet/gas cloud/etc with the constructor selected and right-click on the object and so on. (I'm pretty sure you know how to queue a mission for a constructor

)

Ship management

Open the ships and bases screen. Go to the military ships tab and sort them by fleet. Using shift + arrows select the ships you want to move from one fleet to another and than just select the fleet you want to assign them to from the drop-down menu.

Hope that helps

(And also that you can understand what I've written)

(in reply to onomastikon)

Post #: 29

RE: Newbie: Short questions, thank you - 1/12/2012 11:25:06 AM

onomastikon

Posts: 193
Joined: 11/29/2011
Status: offline

Thanks much, that all helps!

This is real short: A couple of times I have gotten the message that I discovered a great project, such as the "World Annihilator" -- I'm pretty sure I know what that is for, but unlike the free ships or techs I sometimes stumble across, this message tells me I need to "complete the project" -- but how? I don't own the base, I can't seem to take it over with military ships or exploration ships, what am I supposed to do?

(in reply to Theluin)

Post #: 30