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World-flipping, and 3 other questions - 12/15/2002 4:12:47 AM

Grotius

Posts: 5798
Joined: 10/18/2002
From: The Imperial Palace.
Status: offline

I'm enjoying SUDG very much, but I have some newbie questions:

1. In my first game, on beginner level, I made a successful Federation with another player and inherited his homeworld and freighter routes. Much later in the game, during a war with my one remaining opponent, the inherited homeworld abruptly "flipped" to the side of my opponent. (I got a message saying it had rebelled or revolted against me.) The one starship orbiting that homeworld also "flipped" to the other side. I'd been watching for unrest and hadn't seen any -- I mean, it was 0%. Was this a sudden spike of unrest? A spy mission? How do I guard against it in the future?

2. Grr, I raided a bunch of systems, sent them into unrest, and they eventually emerged unowned. But I couldn't order any of my worlds to send freighters to them, and other players gobbled 'em up! Should I just switch freighter construction to manual?

3. Speaking of which, anyone have recommendations on how much automation to use?

4. Last question: Can colonies be the "hub" of trade routes? If not, the only way to create new hubs is by conquering (or federating with) opponents' homeworlds, right?

Thanks!

Post #: 1

- 12/15/2002 5:58:34 AM

startrekdork

Posts: 41
Joined: 11/2/2002
Status: offline

well let me try and answer some of those questions. i mean if you were playing on a higher difficulty level i think the enemy a.i. might have been paying money to cause unrest in your federation and the more money they spend and the longer eventually you will lose a system so you have to pay your own money to counter act that. i think it does it on easier levels but usually i leap forward with technoligcal advances quickly, give them to alien races to make them friendly with me, even my enemy sometimes. the one thing i make sure not to do is give out weapons.

the one other thing it might be (i hope it was this) is a random event. andrew just put in the new random event system and so far ive seen no new random events so in my opinion, you got screwed over, randomly.

:eek:

i always leave freighter construction on manual because i dont have time to babysit the freighter construction. as for your not being able to build freight routes, its pretty complicated on how you have to do that. you select your main world, then you go to the map, you select an unconquered system, you go to the build thing and flip through until it says build freighter route. now for reasons they might not build, you dont have enough money, all the build slots are filled up, or i think this is a possiblity, the system is too far away or you already reached your maximum freighter route for your homeworld and cant have more, but im not sure because even ive had problems like this where i cant build a freighter so i assumed it was the last two even though it doesnt mention them as being problems in the manual. usuall what it is for me, i somehow declicked the system from the map so i have to click it again.

for automation, usually i have most of the hard stuff on automation. building next age laborties freight routes, and i let the computer pick it ships systems and handle combat on its own.

my strategy is i have all my ships at my main homeworld and if something bad is going down i order my biggest baddest ship to the system to deal with it. if i have a jump gate this makes the most sense because all your ships can stay on your homeworld and upgrade continunously, cause late in the game the difference bewteen multiphasic shielding and singlephasic shielding is crucial.

colonies can be hubs for trade routes. say i had a trade route for every system in the whole universe and i was on the left side of the screen, then i built a colony on the far right of the screen, all of the freighter routes instantly reroute to the nearest system of yours. im not sure what the requirements are for a colony world to have routes go to it, if they need a certain number of people or a shipyard but im pretty sure its just a colony world and then all ships will reroute there.

my other suggestions, always use sheilds, research the laser route first, convursion beams i think are the most powerful late era weapons, if you start with missiles than itll take forever for you to explore and attack because your ships will always have to return to your homeworld to reload. other things to remember, call your ships back from exploring when there are like five new components they need upgraded instead of one, and if youve explored the whole galaxy then pull your ships back to your homeworld to wait for war and continually upgrade them and make them more powerful.

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Post #: 2

- 12/15/2002 7:04:02 AM

NefariousKoel

Posts: 2930
Joined: 7/23/2002
From: Murderous Missouri Scum
Status: offline

Grotius.. I could be wrong on a couple of these, but here's what I've noticed.

1) That looks like a random event. If you got a message of revolt and BAM! just like that out of left field.... it has to be a random event. I'm not sure, but I don't think if the enemy is causing unrest in your system it would rebel that fast.

2) After flipping an enemy system or one of yours to neutral... you will have to wait for the unrest in the system to end. What has worked for me is sending one of my ships on patrol in that system after it comes out of unrest. Since I let the computer run my freighters, they popped right up after a short amount of time.

3) Automation is an individual preference. Personally, I like control over my combats as there are strategies depending on your weapons loadout. I've noticed the computer making bad turns and sideslips - a human can always do better at maneuvering. Just remember to keep your point defense weapons ready if you're going up against a ship with missiles, standoffs, or torpedoes.

I automate freighters. I really enjoy the way freighters are set up in SUDG, but micro-managing them can be a bore and the computer does just fine with it.

I didn't on my last game, but I should probably automate my spys too.

4) Sure - new colonies can be a hub for freighters. As startrekdork said - once the new colony is up and running, if you explore a system and it is closer to the colonly than your homeworld - it will default there.

EDIT: and another thing startrekdork I like the Plasmas for their wide firing arcs and high power. They suck down power and have limited ammo, but no biggie cause you can take em down faster.

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Post #: 3

- 12/15/2002 9:20:04 AM

Grotius

Posts: 5798
Joined: 10/18/2002
From: The Imperial Palace.
Status: offline

Thanks for the replies! After I posted, I remembered that I had set random events "on." Well, that was one horrible random event! I lost half the galaxy on one random event. Do you guys play with random events?

I did use lasers this time, by the way; I might try bolt weapons next time. Are those OK?

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Post #: 4

- 12/15/2002 11:26:54 AM

startrekdork

Posts: 41
Joined: 11/2/2002
Status: offline

well um we just installed the new patch and ive been using random events and ive got nothing. i mean nothing. no random events. i wonder what theyre like............

as for weapons. well, its really a live and learn thing. i played through a lot of games and got my butt kicked, i dont think ive ever used bolts. ive used missiles, standoffs, lasers, and guns but i havent gotten to bolts left so youll have to tell me how those work. or ill play a game using them. in general youll want to focus on one weapon group, then a second one and pick up lots of stuff for the second one because later in the game shields adapt to one of your weapon types. for example say i had lasers the first hit would damage there shields, but the next one they wouldnt damage as much because theyed be used to the attack, but if i also had missiles, id be able to mix there shields up. but on the downside missiles and bolts have to reload while lasers reqcuire energy but missiles and bolts dont recquire energy. so as you can see, its all a big balancing game.

for example, one game i was using beam weapons. i didnt the stupid tactic of researching missiles at the same time and researching a whole bunch of different weapons families, while the computer focused on guns alone. so here i am fighting a war against them, me with my old out of date missiles and lasers and them with their phasor gun shooting their weapons out like machine gun streams of death at my freighters. so here i go to defend my freighters with my like fusion lasers or something fly up there they take one shot and blew up my brand new frigate! of course they have a cruiser which is bigger than my ship. now im freaking out. i have a pretty big empire spread out with a federation so i go and i send my spies out to try and steal military secrets and boom what do we get? their blue lasers of death.

i quickly call back all my ships, upgrade all of them with this new technology light years ahead of my weapons. this is when i first started playing, i still didnt understand how everything worked. i sent my ships to attack one of their freighters routes and i blow it up and im like whoo hoo! i open the screen up and realize they have soooooo many routes id never be able to destroy them all. so i think well ill mount an attack on one of their outlying bases. i assemble the fleet, which i felt was a pretty big sized one, re arm it fix it up with my new singularity shields and blue cannons of death send them out to attack the nearest planet and then it hits me, my ships all arrive and they have their own fleet in orbit. it was like freaking return of the jedi. all of my ships engage their fleet. turns out it wasnt some colony world, it was one of the enemies main homeworlds for their federation. all my ships are franticly flying around using our new friends the blue cannons. so we let lose with these things and we take at one ship some small scout ship but then i keep pressing the attack and their ships are taking out more of my ships and theyre launching blue blasts of death...................and standoffs which are coming from their homeworld which is heavily shielded. heavily shielded by what you say? multiphasic shielding. i look all of their ships have multiphasic shielding. all i have are the blue cannons so theyll adapt to those and theyll be near useless. while on the other hand, my enemy is using two types of weapons so my shielding will continually try to adapt to which one its getting hit with.

i realize all of this as the battle rages on, i order all of my ships to pull off on the attack and here i am in desperation ordering them to turn around and leave. so all my ships begin pulling out they have to spin a 180 degrees around and recharge their drives all while being fired upon and me in my infinite wisdom figured it would be a good idea to have all of my cannons to face forward! so as my ships begin to pull out, only two escape! out of like ten ships! im still not sure how many ships were just disabled left for my enemy to capture luckily i pulled the two ships out and got them back for repairs. but at that point. i knew in my heart the game was over. thats the big picture. it was one empire with two alien races combined, there were four others and then me with my two races. but i knew, it was just a matter of time before the other races came and tore me apart like vulchers tear apart a carcass. that was probably my second game. but just about every other game after that. i kicked some serious *@%.

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Post #: 5

- 12/16/2002 12:12:00 AM

Andrew Ewanchyna

Posts: 229
Joined: 8/24/2001
Status: offline

Looks to me like Grotius found a random event. Pretty much the worst one he could find too. Random events are designed to help balance the game. The more you are winning, the more likely you are to get a bad random event. The more you are losing, the more likely you are to get a good random event. If you're in the middle of the pack, then you may hardly ever see a random event. Random events don't appear very frequently, either. Something I may want to tune a bit. I'm sure you'll provide some feedback on this.

Grotius, you have to keep your eye on the star map as the stars will come out of turmoil, more or less randomly. When you see one come out of turmoil, pause the game and take it. It's every man (or alien) for himself.

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Post #: 6

- 12/18/2002 3:55:27 AM

Grotius

Posts: 5798
Joined: 10/18/2002
From: The Imperial Palace.
Status: offline

Andrew: Thanks for your reply. It's nice to be able to chat directly with the developer! Yes, I'm quite certain now that it was a random event, and it was a whopper. I went from a slam-dunk win to a very tough battle. I still haven't finished that game; I got anxious to start a new game in a bigger galaxy. Interestingly, the new galaxy had a different shape. I hope there are yet more 'shapes' in store for me; I like that variety.

Thanks also for the advice on grabbing those newly-opened systems. I guess I run the game too fast, because I look away for an instant, and poof, the system is (1) out of turmoil, and (2) into the hands of an opponent. I often run the game at 10x; maybe I should slow down to 5x or 1x when trying to pick up a new freighter route.

In my current game, no random events, and I am indeed in the middle of the pack. This time I was sloppy about diplomacy, and I'm paying the price.

startrekdork: << it was like freaking return of the jedi. >> I laughed out loud at this story! Good stuff. And I learned a lot from your post. I had no idea that the enemy could adjust to one weapon type. Time for combined-arms, I guess. Also, by the end of the game I end up researching all the weapons techs anyway. Incidentally, do you fight on "manual" combat? I've started doing so, and in general I have good success, but on occasion I don't...

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Post #: 7

- 12/18/2002 3:58:00 AM

Grotius

Posts: 5798
Joined: 10/18/2002
From: The Imperial Palace.
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Hey Andrew, if you're still reading this thread, can I ask a question I posted elsewhere on the board: how do I "subvert" my enemies? Is it the button on the Diplomacy screen that says "pacify [so and so's] unrest"? I don't want to *pacify* them; I want to encourage that unrest! Is that the right button to use?

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Post #: 8

- 12/18/2002 4:10:37 AM

Andrew Ewanchyna

Posts: 229
Joined: 8/24/2001
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Okay Grotius, the pacify/encourage unrest user interface isn't one of my best designs :o but here's how it works. Select the "Pacify " button and it should change to "Encourage ". You may need to select it twice, you'll see why. After it says "Encourage" you can adjust the amount by clicking the "Change Amount" button to its right.

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Post #: 9

- 12/18/2002 7:52:49 AM

startrekdork

Posts: 41
Joined: 11/2/2002
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um grotious thats just one of my many stories. by the end of the game i usually research everything also, not just the weapons, but everything, and heres the deal. you cant technically research everything. im not sure how it works but someone else noticed in another post and so did i that at the end of the game it tells you how much youve researched and if youve researched everything you usually get a screen that says you researched 86 percent of the tech tree. because i think you cant get the last super uber weapons for each weapon family you just get the antimatter age ones. i think.

as for combat, i almost always have the computer do it for me. one of these games ill probably do it on my own, but sometimes i feel its just on extra thing to do thatll take me away from the command of my mighty federation. i mean really captain kirk didnt stop and ask starfleet command to hold his hand while he fought the klingons. although i do enjoy the concept of commanding the ships i dont like to do it for one thing, commanding ten ships versus ten other ships in orbit over a world???? thats so long and so tedious.

believe me there are many times when things seem to slow down to like a slug.
once i had sent i think it was one ship to defend one of my homeworlds and next thing you know the whole enemy fleet arrived and i was in a panic and had to scramble all my other ships throughout the galaxy to quickly regroup and make it to that homeworld, because that battle there was a decisive one. i knew if i took out this fleet and kept the homeworld and my fleet intact id win because the enemy would be hit so hard by such a backlashing to its fleet. right?

i didnt win the battle. another ****ty command decision by me. all my ships quickly flew to there jump gates and you know what happened? they all arrived one at a time and were thoroughly crushed before i finally called back all the ships. i had ten ships reduced to three.

isnt that how it always is with me?

unlike my other game though i kicked ***. i put on the production line nothing but destroyers armed with the latest technology. i plopped out five of them and then three cruisers and retook the system and ended up winning the game.

the ai in this game is so smart. my ally was battling with two enemies who were both attacking his main homeworld so all of a sudden my allies asks me to form a federation and i didnt want to have to control his huge fleet and his empire but i figured what the hell. so we formed together and bam. i have to defend his homeworld. i quickly send all my ships in to defend him and im like that lousy son of a bitch just wanted me to defend him and thats why he asked for the federation! twice the ai has done that to me. once they were attackign a world and being attacked and the ai asked me to form a federation and i joined with them. i tell ya these games are like star trek and babylon five and star wars, except now your the one writing the history and making the intergalactic choices and changing the lifes of millions! muahahahaha. we need a death star beam in this game.

andrew is it possible for you to add new technlogies or components into the game? i mean..........do you think you might release an expansion pack for sudg or a utility that lets us edit the tech? its just a thought.......:D

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Post #: 10

- 12/18/2002 9:40:20 AM

Grotius

Posts: 5798
Joined: 10/18/2002
From: The Imperial Palace.
Status: offline

Andrew, thanks for clarifying the unrest thing. I'll check it out again. And rest assured that I like the interface.

You also did a really good job with the AI. I haven't had a cakewalk yet! (Well, there was that one game with the random event from hell, but that's the exception that proves the rule: the game strove for balance. Of course, I wasn't that thrilled about it at the time .) Maybe the AI benefits from the refreshing design of the game, in which we manage relatively few ships and worlds. It's doubtless easier for the AI to manage fewer assets, and in any case the design decision is great fun for us humans: each ship has its own character, its own set of combat moves, even its own artifact abilities. And I sure don't miss micromanaging dozens of worlds. That kind of game certainly can be great -- e.g., MOO -- but a change of pace is very welcome.

startrekdork, thanks for your latest post. I learn something from every one of your posts! Oh, and I forgot to respond to your question about bolt weapons. Try 'em, you'll like 'em. They pack a nice punch. Their range isn't all that long, but the enemy dies quick, so who cares. As for turn-based combat, I do like it so long as it comes in small doses. I turn it off for huge planetary assaults and the like. It *is* a good way to learn about the strengths and weaknesses of various weapons and defenses. Not to mention the importance of combat moves.

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Post #: 11

- 12/24/2002 10:30:50 PM

IonCannon

Posts: 12
Joined: 5/26/2002
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Hi Andrew,

I've got just one question about the unrest user setup; I thought that you only have access to that part of the game if you're playing any difficulty level other than easy.

Am I right or was I dreaming when I read the manual on this part of the game? :D

Thanks in advance for your input

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Post #: 12

- 12/24/2002 11:44:30 PM

Andrew Ewanchyna

Posts: 229
Joined: 8/24/2001
Status: offline

Not quite. The AI players will only use unrest to destabilize their opponents if the skill level is above easy. You, on the other hand, can use it in any of the skill levels.

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Post #: 13