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A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 8:45:13 AM

MoloMowChow

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Joined: 6/5/2013
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I've managed to pour in enough time into this game to win a default settings Shadow game, albeit on easy difficulty. There are some things I'd like to ask.

When looking at the list of potential mining areas in the left sidebar, it eventually become a huge list of over 1000 entries. I used to try to manually build mining stations by browsing the list and selecting build on any areas that are within my influence, since when I left it to auto once I found some of my constructors going all the way to the other side of the Galaxy to build stuff. But it eventually gets crazy, browsing the huge list and manually clicking to build on everything, and apparently if I ever run out of materials I get spammed by dozens of construction halted messages on all in-progress mining stations.
What I'm asking is, it it worthwhile to build mining stations on everything you can? I know that there some places that can be considered unworthy to bother exploiting, like planets with one resource, but are there any technical game-play detriments to building mining stations on everything you can?

Next questions about abandoned ships. It seems that sometimes I can board abandoned ships and other times I cannot. At the start of one of my pre-warp games, there were 2 different abandoned ships in my home system, one I could board immediately and another that would not react no matter how close I got. Is there a hidden requirement to take abandoned ships?

A question about developing new colonies. It seems that building small space ports and developing a new colony from there is significantly slower then when I started developing my home planet in the beginning of shadow era. It might just be my imagination, but is there a reason space ports in new colonies take such a long time to build stuff? Is it tied to population?

A question about the end of a game. It seems that once I achieve Game Victory I can still continue my game. I remember hearing that setting victory conditions give the AI more goals and as a result, makes them more active. Do the AI still consider the victory conditions once the victories achieved?

A question about pirates. It appears that even if I manage to blow up the ship that warps in to raid a planet (before or after launching pods), I may still get a message about how my planet has been raided. Are the resources returned if the ship is destroyed or is it immediately transferred to the pirates.

I'll probably have more questions later but that's all I can think of for now. I still have a lot to learn since my first victory was actually pretty lackluster with the default settings, and as a result I haven't done as much other than expand and develop. The AIs had just finally started colonizing but I triggered victory with my enormous economy (350k income and 1.6 million in my pocket).

Post #: 1

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 9:07:45 AM

FerretStyle

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I can't answer all of your questions, but as far as mining locations go I tend to arrange the list by distance, then build several mining stations for each of the important resources like steel, polymer, silicon, caslon, etc. I also pick the highest percentage for each resource if possible.

Doing this I seldom run short on resources and the list of potential resource locations is actually empty the majority of the time.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 2

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 9:50:10 AM

Osito

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Joined: 5/9/2013
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quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow

A question about developing new colonies. It seems that building small space ports and developing a new colony from there is significantly slower then when I started developing my home planet in the beginning of shadow era. It might just be my imagination, but is there a reason space ports in new colonies take such a long time to build stuff? Is it tied to population?

In my experience this is because the colonies do not have the resources at the planet to build the base. It takes a long time, as they have to be shipped over by your private sector. For this reason, it can help to build a smaller base at new colonies, although it will still take time to get the resources there. As far as I'm aware, the population itself doesn't affect the build rate; no doubt, someone will come along and correct me, if I'm wrong!

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 3

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 10:17:42 AM

Bingeling

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Construction speed of colonies do depend on population. At least up to a limit. But the main reason builds on fresh colonies take ages and a half is lack of resources. You should get a warning if it lacks resources, you should see it on the colony if stalled due to lack of resources, and as long as the number of unbuilt components on the spaceport is updating, it is for sure not stalled right now...

As for the rest...

Mining: No, you should not build a mine on everything that moves. Look at your stores, sources, and unfulfilled demand in the expansion planner. Pay some attention to messages about shortages. If there are repeats, check stores of those resources in the expansion planner. If the shortage is on a major colony, pay very much attention to it. Fuel is where you want the most sources. Otherwise, look at the construction summaries of a spaceport and for instance destroyer, and a spaceport. You will see which resources are more in demand, and which you only need a small supply of.

In the expansion planner, the "resources by empire priority" should give an indication of what the AI thinks is most needed just now. Since the AI manages this all by itself if automated, it could be worth listening to.

Abandoned ships: Some abandoned ships are damaged, and must be repaired by a construction ship to gain control. This is true for one of the two ships in your home system, and you should be able to see which ones are damaged, and which are OK.

AI and Victory Conditions: Apart from the "difficulty scales as the player nears victory" option, the AI should not care about victory conditions. The races are configured to play according to their victory conditions, but they should not care at all about the "end of the game", or hunt the victory specifically.

Raid loot: I believe the raid loot is simply sent back through the hyper efficient pirate mail system. It is so efficient that it works almost instantly. How would a few escorts bring home thousands of resources, anyways?

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 4

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 10:25:24 AM

Osito

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Construction speed of colonies do depend on population. At least up to a limit.

Interesting ... I don't suppose you know what that limit is, do you? I guess I could test it with the editor. Might give it a shot, if you don't know the answer.

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 5

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 10:29:00 AM

Bingeling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Osito

quote:

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

Construction speed of colonies do depend on population. At least up to a limit.

Interesting ... I don't suppose you know what that limit is, do you? I guess I could test it with the editor. Might give it a shot, if you don't know the answer.

No, I don't have a source, and I am not quite sure. I figure a number like 1000M or 3000M could be a limit, though.

(in reply to Osito)

Post #: 6

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 10:37:46 AM

jesuswhywhy

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I have a silly question, that i think ive asked before.

Does victory conditions change the way the AI plays?
and
Does having Ai's with different governments lead to greater chances of a more unpredictable game? Or should i make map size and resources really sparse?

and lol ive played ds for around 300hrs.....

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 7

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 10:42:13 AM

MoloMowChow

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Thanks. I did a bit of reading up and things make more sense. So apparently mining stations don't actually mine luxury resources, which require a different station, or did I read wrong? Cause if that's the case I need to start being more wary of that. That might explain why all my mining stations were constantly out of resources if half of them weren't actually mining strategic resources,whoops.

About changing governments. I've discovered Way of Ancient/Darkness a couple of times. It says the penalties for changing governments is lowered development times, and colonies "may" rebel. The later part is clear enough, but i can't seem to find details for stalled "development times". Do they means things like construction or growth?

I think the next step for me is to use the ship designer. What I've noticed from the auto ship designs and refitting is that there's just generally 1 design for each ship/base type. It seems things like that construction window and automated retrofit for 1 design as well. What do I have to account for if I have say, multiple different cruiser designs? What would retrofit do if I try to retrofit a cruiser with a couple different cruiser designs? If I queue some cruisers to be built, which one would the AI choose?

I've also heard horror stores about how auto retrofitting can do things like retrofit all of you hundreds of mining stations at once killing your storage reserves, or swap out your reactors for bases to reactors that are actually less advanced then the ones you had preciously. So that seems to be an incentive for me to start manually doing things.

< Message edited by MoloMowChow -- 6/5/2013 10:43:54 AM >

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 8

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 11:03:54 AM

Bingeling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow

Thanks. I did a bit of reading up and things make more sense. So apparently mining stations don't actually mine luxury resources, which require a different station, or did I read wrong? Cause if that's the case I need to start being more wary of that. That might explain why all my mining stations were constantly out of resources if half of them weren't actually mining strategic resources,whoops.

There are different extraction components for solid stuff, gases, and luxuries. The AI designs have luxury extractors on both types of mines. So there is no need to pay attention to this as long as you run AI designs, or make your own the same.

quote:

About changing governments. I've discovered Way of Ancient/Darkness a couple of times. It says the penalties for changing governments is lowered development times, and colonies "may" rebel. The later part is clear enough, but i can't seem to find details for stalled "development times". Do they means things like construction or growth?

I assume the population is unhappy and get a temporary negative happiness modifier. Consider it a small penalty that will last a while, then be gone.

quote:

I think the next step for me is to use the ship designer. What I've noticed from the auto ship designs and refitting is that there's just generally 1 design for each ship/base type. It seems things like that construction window and automated retrofit for 1 design as well. What do I have to account for if I have say, multiple different cruiser designs? What would retrofit do if I try to retrofit a cruiser with a couple different cruiser designs? If I queue some cruisers to be built, which one would the AI choose?

A default retrofit or a default "cruiser" build, will always use the latest, non-obsolete, cruiser design.

If you have multiple cruiser designs, you should set the auto-retrofit off in the design to avoid accident. On retrofit you need to take particular care in retrofitting cruisers to the correct designs.

I would say that running multiple cruiser designs would be more annoying than useful.

quote:

I've also heard horror stores about how auto retrofitting can do things like retrofit all of you hundreds of mining stations at once killing your storage reserves, or swap out your reactors for bases to reactors that are actually less advanced then the ones you had preciously. So that seems to be an incentive for me to start manually doing things.

You need to separate between design updates and retrofits.

Retrofitting is upgrading a ship or base to a new design. Then you have updating of designs, which may use the "automatically upgrade design" feature which could have odd results like you mention.

But updating a design does not trigger a retrofit, designing and retrofitting are separate actions. The AI may be set to "prompt for retrofit", though.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 9

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 3:20:46 PM

turtlefang

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re Building Mining Stations. No don't build mining stations on everything. The only place I might consider building mining stations on everything is in your home system during the pre-warp phase. After that, you need to prioritize your resources. You will need, for a moderate size empire, between 6 to 12 steel mines, 3-4 carbon fiber sources, 2-3 polymer sources and one of everything else except Calson (and later Hydrogen). After that, triple up on the strategic resources so you have at least three sources of each.

That should keep you moving most of the time.

Calson - I just make it a policy to build a gas mine on everyone I can. This generates more than enough fuel and, as importantly, denies it as a pirate base. Later on, if, or when, I switch my military fleet to Hydrogen, I try to do the same thing to Hydrogen planets (actually start before I switch to make sure I have enough fuel).

I try to pick mining locations that have at least 120 to 130% when you total all the resources up (again, except the home system when I will mine down to 25% if that is the only source). The only exception is early in the game if I can only find a single source of a strategic resource I don't have - then I will mine it to at least get something flowing in the pipeline.

Mining stations. I redesign my mining stations in the early game to have 4 mining extractors OR 4 gas extractors AND 2 Lux extractors (mainly because I am lazy and don't micro manage most of constructors). This allows me to have two designs - one for mines and one for gas - that will also gather LUX.

Once I get the first mining tech, I reduce the mining/gas stations to 3 mining extractors or 3 gas extractors. When I get the second mining tech, I reduce the mining/gas stations to 2 extractors.

The only exception if I find a source of one of the rare lux like LOROS FRUIT. Then I will build a mining station with 4 LUX extractors on it to get the most out of the source.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 10

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 6:36:28 PM

Plant

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Joined: 4/23/2013
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quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow
A question about pirates. It appears that even if I manage to blow up the ship that warps in to raid a planet (before or after launching pods), I may still get a message about how my planet has been raided. Are the resources returned if the ship is destroyed or is it immediately transferred to the pirates.

Raiding success is based on the success of the raider troops on your planet, like a mini invasion.
Resources raided are immediately transfered to the pirate bases.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow
Thanks. I did a bit of reading up and things make more sense. So apparently mining stations don't actually mine luxury resources, which require a different station, or did I read wrong? Cause if that's the case I need to start being more wary of that. That might explain why all my mining stations were constantly out of resources if half of them weren't actually mining strategic resources,whoops.

All AI designed mining stations and gas mining stations come with luxury resource extractors.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow
About changing governments. I've discovered Way of Ancient/Darkness a couple of times. It says the penalties for changing governments is lowered development times, and colonies "may" rebel. The later part is clear enough, but i can't seem to find details for stalled "development times". Do they means things like construction or growth?

Where does it say that? I guess it would be the development level as under "Colony Growth" in the Galctopedia, but be warned, the bit about the 500 million population level may not be correct.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow
I think the next step for me is to use the ship designer. What I've noticed from the auto ship designs and refitting is that there's just generally 1 design for each ship/base type. It seems things like that construction window and automated retrofit for 1 design as well. What do I have to account for if I have say, multiple different cruiser designs? What would retrofit do if I try to retrofit a cruiser with a couple different cruiser designs? If I queue some cruisers to be built, which one would the AI choose?

It would choose the latest design. So you will have to be careful to retrofit your specific designs to the specific design you want. I did this personally, by designing the new design, then selected to retrofit the ships with the appropriate design, then designed the next design and so forth.

I recommend that if you do try to have multiple ship designs for a type, that you turn off ship design automation for that ship type.

quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow
I've also heard horror stores about how auto retrofitting can do things like retrofit all of you hundreds of mining stations at once killing your storage reserves, or swap out your reactors for bases to reactors that are actually less advanced then the ones you had preciously. So that seems to be an incentive for me to start manually doing things.

Yes it's horrible. It also can cost an excessive amount of money to retrofit everything. I turned off prompt for retrofit when new tech become available.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 11

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 6:39:41 PM

invaderzim

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quote:

I try to pick mining locations that have at least 120 to 130% when you total all the resources up (again, except the home system when I will mine down to 25% if that is the only source). The only exception is early in the game if I can only find a single source of a strategic resource I don't have - then I will mine it to at least get something flowing in the pipeline.

Do higher resource percentage mine faster or do they simply last longer?

quote:

Mining stations. I redesign my mining stations in the early game to have 4 mining extractors OR 4 gas extractors AND 2 Lux extractors (mainly because I am lazy and don't micro manage most of constructors). This allows me to have two designs - one for mines and one for gas - that will also gather LUX.

Have you tried adding more than 4 mining extractors and luxury extractors? Mining is very slow compared to gas extraction (I think it is 3 per day compared to 20 per day for gas). If your goal is to make profit as a smuggler, more extractors could mean more money. For regular empires, this might be less of an issue.

< Message edited by invaderzim -- 6/5/2013 6:41:08 PM >

(in reply to turtlefang)

Post #: 12

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/5/2013 7:02:57 PM

Plant

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Do percentage affect mining out? I think they only affect mining rate and that mining out is random.
I think someone did a test a long time ago and found out that you don't need more than a certain amount of extractors. I could be mistaken though.

(in reply to invaderzim)

Post #: 13

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/6/2013 3:20:51 AM

turtlefang

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Re resources running out. Resources only run out on a random basis. You will get a notice that says XXX resource depleted at XXX source. To the best of my limited knowledge, there is nothing you can do to prevent this and it is totally random.

New resources, BTW, can also appear and you will get the same type of message except that it will tell you a new resource has been found at so and so location.

Re percentages. Higher percentages increase the speed of extraction but I haven't been able to determine the exact rates. I just know from doing some work in the editior that resources with less than about a total of 85% don't generate enough resources to pay for the maintaince cost much less make back a profit for the initial investment. Somewhere between 85 and 120% you breakeven; over 120% you will nearly always break even over the long haul.

Now, part of this depends on trade value of the resources. And part of it depends on the location of the mine so it is a rough rule of thumb not an absolute. But you can go broke built too many mining stations at low resource points.

Regarding optimal extractors on mining stations. Yes, there are optimal number of extractors per mining stations IF the mining rates haven't changed in the new expansion (I haven't tested it with the new expansion).

Mining Stations. 4 extractors are the optimal. More that that and you don't get much, if any of a return. Technically, if I remember the numbers correctly, it is about 3.7. This goes down when you research the mining techs - at the first mining tech, 3 extractors is the optimal, after the second mining tech, 2 extractors. Doesn't really seem to matter if you add cargo bays or make other changes. Based on the 19 day economic cycle, only so many cargo ships will arrive. I haven't made any higher number of extractors produce more results.

Gas stations. 4 extractors are the optimal. Although this is a little less clear cut as gas extractors work faster than mining extractors. Technically, the optimal number is 3.33 - so you can really go with 3 and not lose much. Early in the game, I usually go with 4 as resources tend to be short and I prefer to overproduce at that time. And then reduce the number by 1 for each mining tech research. You could go with 3 and save some cash. It's resource allocation choice here. You just have to make a decision which way you want to go on this one.

Lux extractors. The optimal is 4 and doesn't seem to get better with the mining techs. In this case, it is actually 4.33.

I usually start a Mining Station with 4 Mining Extractors and extractor 2 Lux extractors. Gas Stations have 4 Gas Extractors and 2 Lux extractors. This isn't optimal but I am too lazy to micromanage my constructors. As I research the mining techs, I reduce the extractors.

The exception is the super Lux. If and when I find those, I create a special mining station with 5 Lux extractors and whatever else I need - I want to get as much of this produced in the shortest period of time and these are so few that micromanging them isn't that hard.

Optimally (which I don't do as it is too much trouble), you should really have four different mining stations depending on the resources where the station is built:

- Mining station 4 mining extractors
- Mining station for locations with Lux 4 mining extractors and 4 Lux extractors
- Gas station with eith 3 or 4 extractors (see above)
- Gas station with 3 or 4 gas extractors with 4 lux extractors for lux locations

As I said, I'm too lazy to do it that way.

(in reply to invaderzim)

Post #: 14

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/6/2013 11:32:19 AM

Starfry

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MoloMowChow
A question about pirates. It appears that even if I manage to blow up the ship that warps in to raid a planet (before or after launching pods), I may still get a message about how my planet has been raided. Are the resources returned if the ship is destroyed or is it immediately transferred to the pirates.

Pirates can build a hidden Pirate base on your planet which all the loot is smuggled out upon whatever means they get.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 15

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/6/2013 2:24:47 PM

Plant

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Hidden Priate Bases has nothing to do with getting raided. In fact they help prevent raids.

(in reply to Starfry)

Post #: 16

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/6/2013 9:37:00 PM

Starfry

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It was a rhetorical explanation to how tons of loot gets off the planet after the ships are destroyed.

(in reply to Plant)

Post #: 17

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/6/2013 11:17:27 PM

invaderzim

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Hmm, I wonder if you could build a huge mining ship with lots of cargo bays and 4 extractors. If you made it a resupply ship then you could order it around and tell it to grab what you need. It would require more micro, but it might be worthwhile if you need resources in a hurry and don't want to wait around for smugglers or freighters to do the job.

Edit: This actually works! Which is good because I had shortages of krypton despite the fact that the gas mining planet next to my homeworld had 8000 krypton sitting on it that no freighters would deliver. Not even the ones that were just completed and refueled at said gas miner.

< Message edited by invaderzim -- 6/6/2013 11:59:44 PM >

(in reply to Starfry)

Post #: 18

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/7/2013 8:13:02 AM

MoloMowChow

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Thanks for the precise replies to my previous questions. I have a couple more.

After continuing my game for some hours, my ships started refitting themselves into some designs that I didn't know about, nor were my latest designs. I at first thought they didn't exist, but then I browsed the designer after selecting "Show all designs" and saw these obsolete designs my ships were retrofitting to. I figured it's because I set my manual designs retrofitting to manual only, but this problem only started recently. So I set my customized designs to retrofit automatically.

But now whenever I try to fleet retrofit they keep retrofitting to the previous obsolete custom design I made. I don't like the idea of having to manually click the retrofit button on each ship to ensure they redesign. What's with the odd behavior?

Another weird problem I have is with resupply ships. I built one for the first time and deployed it in a remote system my fleet were holding in, on top of a (caslon) gas giant. I then tried to get my fleet to refuel at the deployed ship, but only 1 ever did, and the rest kept flying toward and away from it, wasting more fuel. Am I using resupply incorrectly? I'm sure I'm using caslon fuel.

Another question, how do I manually assault a Hidden Pirate Base facility?

(in reply to invaderzim)

Post #: 19

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/7/2013 8:47:48 AM

DeadlyShoe

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open the colony and go to the facilities tab. selecting the pirate base will enable an 'assault' button.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 20

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/7/2013 11:23:19 AM

Starfry

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Check the quality of the caslon gas your extracting from the gas giant. IF it is low, the resuplly ship needs time to fill the tanks and the wierd behaviour is the ships going to refual only to see that there is not enough to go around.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 21

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/7/2013 3:39:10 PM

turtlefang

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Also check the number of docking bays on the resupply ship. If it has too few, the excess ships will "exit, stage left" to the nearest fuel source if ordered to refuel.

Mining ships, and resupply ships, exact gas at 1/2 the rate of a gas mining station, so it takes them a lot longer to fill up. The advantage is that you can refill them at different places but on a big ship, it takes a long time. So a resupply ship is usually good to resupply a big fleet about once, then it takes a long time to refill. So if you are relying on one mining ship, you can end up with an offense that literally grinds to a halt way out of range of a refueling station and the resupply ship takes forever to refuel (take if from the guy who has made this mistake a couple of times).

(in reply to Starfry)

Post #: 22

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/7/2013 4:03:33 PM

Bingeling

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quote:

ORIGINAL: turtlefang

Also check the number of docking bays on the resupply ship. If it has too few, the excess ships will "exit, stage left" to the nearest fuel source if ordered to refuel.

Since when? I have never noticed a fleet heading off to different fuel sources. If there is not enough fuel, ships and new fleets (and ships) getting refuel orders may head off to far away sources, though. If you tell a giant fleet to refuel at a gas mine, they will happily wait in line.

With multiple fleets in the area, the excessive reservations of refueling ships/fleets may give issues. Until they have refueled they will reserve their full fuel capacity, even if they only miss 10% fuel. This could leave some ships out of fuel even if there was enough fuel for them all. That happens if one of the first ships to arrive was among the last ships to reserve their fuel.

The large reservations also means it may make sense to manually order another fleet to refuel there (by clicking the resupply ship) if another fleet is already incoming on refuel order, and the fleet in questions wants to head off for a remote fuel source. Unless the fleets are very low on fuel, there is likely to be enough fuel for both.

Resupply ships are lovely, and mine always got fuel. Probably because I fill them before they travel to their locations during war. And because I deploy more than one if I have lots of fleets in the area.

(in reply to turtlefang)

Post #: 23

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/8/2013 4:42:24 AM

turtlefang

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Bingleling -

Ships wait at a mining station or spaceport for refueling. But for some reason, they will leave a resupply ship and I have had fleets split when told to refuel at a resupply ship. The number of ships that leave seem to be tied to the number of docking bays at the resupply ships.

Not sure why this happens but I have observed it several times.

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 24

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/8/2013 4:45:07 AM

MoloMowChow

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Cool, I as a result of learning how resupply ships work I learned how to use the Ships & Bases browser better.

Still having the Fleet Retrofit problem and having to command them to retrofit manually via the Ships & Bases browser though, unfortunately. It seems in general my retrofitting via fleet commands aren't going for the latest designs but old obsolete designs from 1 or 2 iterations back, even the AI automatically managed ones.

Something I noticed about the Colonies screen is that there are various policies for the colony populations. I feel the urge to play like "Glorious Human Master race, Exterminatus all the Xenos." What are the details on what each policy does? Exterminate seems self explanatory but what about the others like enslave or resettle? Do they move to other colonies in your empire or move to other AI empires? What are the pros and cons?

For some reason almost all of my researcher characters spawn as Foreign spies or get the Foreign spy trait later on. I also got hit with economic crisis twice. I am ahead in probably both research and economy so could that have something to do with it or is it just a coincidence.

It seems getting rid of pirates for good is a bit more annoying then I thought. I usually steal their territory/galaxy maps then wipe out their bases. But it seems that somehow they manage to set up a base soon after somewhere else and continue their assaults. I assume it's because they somehow have a construction ship alive but it seems every pirate I try to eradicate has spare resources everywhere. Do I just have to tough it out and keep stealing territory maps?

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 25

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/8/2013 4:59:27 AM

invaderzim

Posts: 211
Joined: 6/3/2013
Status: offline

quote:

Mining ships, and resupply ships, exact gas at 1/2 the rate of a gas mining station, so it takes them a lot longer to fill up. The advantage is that you can refill them at different places but on a big ship, it takes a long time. So a resupply ship is usually good to resupply a big fleet about once, then it takes a long time to refill. So if you are relying on one mining ship, you can end up with an offense that literally grinds to a halt way out of range of a refueling station and the resupply ship takes forever to refuel (take if from the guy who has made this mistake a couple of times).

Do resupply ships extract at 1/2 the speed of gas mining stations even if they have the same number of extractors? Also how many cargo bays do you like to have on them?

I tried cutting the cargo bays down 1 thinking gas mining stations would use the planet for storage, but this didn't work and they just filled up at 650 and stopped working.

But then I went back to the AI standard of 20 cargo bays (13,000 capacity) and they filled up to around 11,000 hydrogen, 6,000 argon, 6,000 caslon and 5,000 helium using 4 extractors and they just keep mining. The game started in 2250, so it's been 7 months. The only problem now is getting the materials to a star port since the AI only transports it at about 600 units per trip.

Attachment (1)

< Message edited by invaderzim -- 6/8/2013 5:02:23 AM >

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 26

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/8/2013 5:09:59 AM

FerretStyle

Posts: 157
Joined: 3/30/2010
Status: offline

quote:

Still having the Fleet Retrofit problem and having to command them to retrofit manually via the Ships & Bases browser though, unfortunately. It seems in general my retrofitting via fleet commands aren't going for the latest designs but old obsolete designs from 1 or 2 iterations back, even the AI automatically managed ones.

The AI never deletes old designs. I'd strongly suggest pruning your design screen yourself (set it to show all designs) and delete every obsolete design and anything that's been updated that's not currently in use. It's work, but that screen is important and it's nice to not have it cluttered when you do need it.

quote:

Something I noticed about the Colonies screen is that there are various policies for the colony populations. I feel the urge to play like "Glorious Human Master race, Exterminatus all the Xenos." What are the details on what each policy does? Exterminate seems self explanatory but what about the others like enslave or resettle? Do they move to other colonies in your empire or move to other AI empires? What are the pros and cons?

This is explained thoroughly in the galactopedia, but to summarize:
Resettle: transports them off of the colony to any that will accept them, prioritizing penal colonies.
Enslave: turns that colony into a penal colony, sets growth of those races to zero and gives a boost to money earned.
Exterminate: kills off those races.

Enslave and exterminate will piss off any AI that belong to their respective race.

quote:

For some reason almost all of my researcher characters spawn as Foreign spies or get the Foreign spy trait later on. I also got hit with economic crisis twice. I am ahead in probably both research and economy so could that have something to do with it or is it just a coincidence.

I've never seen that trait. What does it do?

quote:

It seems getting rid of pirates for good is a bit more annoying then I thought. I usually steal their territory/galaxy maps then wipe out their bases. But it seems that somehow they manage to set up a base soon after somewhere else and continue their assaults. I assume it's because they somehow have a construction ship alive but it seems every pirate I try to eradicate has spare resources everywhere. Do I just have to tough it out and keep stealing territory maps?

Maps don't show you pirate ship locations, not even galaxy maps. If you destroy a pirate faction's bases their ships will sometimes just idle around, possibly even in deep space making them hard to find.

I've got a game with about 15 pirate factions that have no bases, no leaders and no ships that I've been able to find. I'm researching the best long-range scanners in an attempt to locate them with a network of monitoring stations.

(in reply to MoloMowChow)

Post #: 27

RE: A lot of Beginner Player Questions - 6/8/2013 5:23:57 AM

MoloMowChow

Posts: 22
Joined: 6/5/2013
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: FerretStyle

quote:

For some reason almost all of my researcher characters spawn as Foreign spies or get the Foreign spy trait later on. I also got hit with economic crisis twice. I am ahead in probably both research and economy so could that have something to do with it or is it just a coincidence.

I've never seen that trait. What does it do?

It makes any other faction's steal research attempts on you gain a massive success rate, according to its description.

Not sure how high a rate though, no other faction was brave enough to launch research intelligence missions on me before I learned how to dismiss characters and promptly fired them all.

Also, I did try deleting all the obsolete designs. The problem is that once it reaches the current obsolete design it's using, I can'ty delete it cause it's currently used by the ships. Whenever they retrofit they don't change to the latest design but stay on their current design.

< Message edited by MoloMowChow -- 6/8/2013 5:27:02 AM >

(in reply to FerretStyle)

Post #: 28