Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (Full Version)

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Macclan5 -> Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/4/2019 6:10:38 PM)

Hi folks

Recently purchased and playing.

After a couple of mis-starts I am well on my way. Much like many rookies.

Disclaimer: I am the OCD type that read the manual - played all the tutorials - read the tutorial threads in depth [8D]

I wish to thank the community for the excellent organization of information in these forums.

This is truly an undiscovered gem of a game. I happened onto through Matrix - War in the Pacific AE. I have not been this excited to 'play for hours' since Sid Meyers Civilization came out probably 25 years ago. The ambition behind this game is exciting and tremendous.


Two Unresolved Rookie Questions:

I fully realize the answer is relative to stage of game / difficulty etc. However....

1) Do you fire "personality" ?

The newbie guide from Timotheus seems to infer yes fire them - the ultimate guide to winning says no - stash them away. I cannot resolve the differences (or at least in two different guides I was reading if not those specifically)

In the situation I am / was playing with a Fleet Admiral for example that acquired the trait drunkard and had many negative aspects. I re-assigned him back to a small inactive type fleet - but would it have simply been better to fire him outright and hope the next spawned Admiral had overall characteristics ? Similarly with a "Leader" (Democracy). They do change randomly and periodically but I was saddled with one with a hefty (-10) in Colony Income at a point in time it was inconvenient to say the least.

So 'generally' fire them or not ?

2) Do you 'lab up' your Space Ports or maximize the scientists into dedicated research labs on home world?

Again the newbie OCD guide from Timotheus suggests 5 labs each per space port 'starting' out. Other threads and guides say 'no labs' in space ports - it waters down research.

Or is the Newbie start up thread merely a one off for a pre-warp society ?? Future spaceports with few or no labs - because you will have had time / resources to build dedicated Research Labs on your homeworld by the time you have a couple / few mutually supporting colony / systems ?




Aeson -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/4/2019 9:56:03 PM)

quote:

1) Do you fire "personality" ?

The newbie guide from Timotheus seems to infer yes fire them - the ultimate guide to winning says no - stash them away. I cannot resolve the differences (or at least in two different guides I was reading if not those specifically)

In the situation I am / was playing with a Fleet Admiral for example that acquired the trait drunkard and had many negative aspects. I re-assigned him back to a small inactive type fleet - but would it have simply been better to fire him outright and hope the next spawned Admiral had overall characteristics ? Similarly with a "Leader" (Democracy). They do change randomly and periodically but I was saddled with one with a hefty (-10) in Colony Income at a point in time it was inconvenient to say the least.

So 'generally' fire them or not ?

I personally don't usually manage my characters, except to get rid of anyone with the Demoralizing trait (or at least shove them somewhere out of the way, if they're otherwise valuable enough to be worth keeping - not much reason to care if Ambassador Kennedy is such a downer to be around that he literally makes you worse at what you do when he's out of the country). That said, if you're looking to play 'optimally,' then yes, if you have a character whose skills and traits are on the balance negative for any useful service which they could perform, you should get rid of them. It isn't necessary, but it is optimal.

quote:

2) Do you 'lab up' your Space Ports or maximize the scientists into dedicated research labs on home world?

Again the newbie OCD guide from Timotheus suggests 5 labs each per space port 'starting' out. Other threads and guides say 'no labs' in space ports - it waters down research.

I don't know that I'd describe putting labs on your space ports as 'watering down' your research - you can concentrate your research into a specific field as heavily by putting all your labs on your spaceports as by putting all your labs on research stations, and it's also probably easier to change the balance of labs in your empire if they're mostly on spaceports than if they're mostly on research stations - if I recall correctly, [Field] Research Stations have to have at least one [Field] Lab and cannot be retrofitted to [Other Field] Research Stations, whereas with spaceports you can have as many or as few labs of each type as you like, as long as you're willing to foot the bill to retrofit the space ports to change the balance of the labs. The problem with putting research labs onto space ports is much more that you'll almost certainly end up with more labs than you need, if you have fifteen labs on every medium space port and a medium spaceport over one in every three or four colonies, and also that it can be somewhat expensive to change the balance of your research allocation by retrofitting space ports.

I will add that I personally don't see much point in specifically focusing research into one or two areas of the tech tree much beyond the point where founding an interstellar empire really stars to be practical. Early on, you want to focus research into the Energy and Construction branch for Energy Collectors I, Corvidian Shields I, Fission Reactors I, Warp Bubble Generators, and Gerax Hyperdrives I, and probably also the first upgrades of your Life Support and Hab Modules and the first couple upgrades to your Construction Yards, and maybe also pick up Proton Thrusters I and Thrust Vectors I - but unless you're playing with very high research costs or get lucky on the spawn location of the hyperdrive ruin, you'll probably have three or four of the basic techs done by the time you're able to start working on Warp Bubble Generators, and once you have Gerax Hyperdrives you're getting to the stage of the game where you probably want to at least think about getting Colonization out of the High Tech branch and may be facing enough pressure from pirates where continuing to dawdle around with Pulse Blasters and Seeker Missiles while slowly developing armor plate and some troop/boarding techs becomes somewhat unappealing. "Watering down" your research by having five of each lab on every medium or large space port isn't something you should feel the need to worry about by the time having more than one or two medium or large space ports is actually practical.



bubb_tubbs -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/5/2019 3:00:14 PM)

I'll preface this by saying I usually play with expensive or very expensive research and I min/max as much as possible.

1) yes, I'll absolutely fire suboptimal characters - especially leaders with really bad skills. My goal is to get everything moving as quickly as possible towards warp travel and max homeworld population, so I'd rather have no leader than one with counterproductive modifiers. Demoralizing is ok if it's on a ship captain, but nobody else; ambassadors return when war is declared, so if you don't pay attention they can sit at the capitol for months until you send them somewhere else; intelligence agents return too often so I send D agents on suicide missions (bonus if they succeed).

2) it's way easier to build a dedicated lab in the home orbit and use it to alter research focus with retrofits than it is multiple stations. Later, I'll just have three large installations at the three largest bonus locations I can reasonably defend, so that I have the best possible buffs in energy, hitech and weapons. There's also a chance to generate a new scientist each time you build a research base, so if you play races that don't get many scientists (I usually do) that's something to consider. As far as the start goes, I usually build a barebones Large Spaceport with nothing but the requirements and 3 docking bays/construction yards. When it's done, I queue 3 scouts and start construction on my Energy station with enough labs to achieve 10%/70%/20% in weapons/energy/hightech, keeping in mind the bonus to research potential you get from constructing the spaceport. After that's finished, I retrofit the station to 8 docking bays, 6 construction yards, and that does me until I'm close to completing precursors (takes close to 8 years on very expensive).

Edit: oops, replied to wrong person. Sorry, Aeson!



Aeson -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/6/2019 7:47:33 AM)

quote:

Edit: oops, replied to wrong person. Sorry, Aeson!

There's no need to apologize; I'm pretty sure that the "Post Reply" button at the bottom of the page automatically makes the reply to the last person to post in the thread as of the time that you hit it anyways.

quote:

Later, I'll just have three large installations at the three largest bonus locations I can reasonably defend, so that I have the best possible buffs in energy, hitech and weapons.

Note that when you have N scientist characters in the same location, their skill bonuses in a field stack as sum([scientist_n_bonus]/n, n=1:N) with the bonuses ordered from highest to lowest in the field. If your scientists have reasonably large bonuses in two or three fields rather than a large bonus in one field and at most small bonuses in the other two, or possibly if you have many scientists with moderate bonuses across all fields, it is possible that it will be better, or at least little worse, to stack all of your scientists in one location than to spread them out across the best research locations.

quote:

it's way easier to build a dedicated lab in the home orbit and use it to alter research focus with retrofits than it is multiple stations.

Still doesn't need to be a [Field] Research Station; the home space port will do just as well. Retrofitting bills you for alterations, not for the total cost of building the station from scratch, there's not really any good reason to have a big space port anywhere but the homeworld in the early stages of the game so there's not really any reason to worry about retrofitting multiple stations in order to rebalance research priorities (again, not that I really see much reason to do so once you're at the stage of the game where having an interstellar empire really becomes practical), and building the home space port with labs or retrofitting them in after the basic space port skeleton is completed is slightly faster and probably slightly cheaper than building a separate research station.* Also somewhat safer, since the space port, as your homeworld's primary orbital installation, is probably larger, better armed, and better protected than any research station(s) you might build at the homeworld or elsewhere, especially if you don't manually place the research station on top of the spaceport and instead allow the game to place it in a somewhat more exposed position slightly away from the homeworld.

*There are several components of which you only need one per station, and there are some additional efficiencies possible when using one station for everything rather than separate dedicated stations - for example, if your home space port design already has 30 shield generators and 50 armor plates, you probably don't need to add another 15 shield generators and 20 armor plates to protect the lab space if you add labs to the home space port, but if you build a separate large research station to house all your scientists over the homeworld you should probably invest in reasonably formidable defenses on the station even though proximity to the homeworld's other orbital installations will provide some degree of protection.

quote:

There's also a chance to generate a new scientist each time you build a research base, so if you play races that don't get many scientists (I usually do) that's something to consider.

There is, but I don't believe that the game cares whether you built a one-lab skeleton facility or a 30-lab research campus when it comes to the chances of triggering that event, and if you're going to build a bunch of research stations or allow your construction ships to build some whenever and wherever the game thinks it's a good idea, well, the skeleton facility is a lot cheaper.



bubb_tubbs -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/6/2019 9:32:21 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Aeson

quote:

Edit: oops, replied to wrong person. Sorry, Aeson!

There's no need to apologize; I'm pretty sure that the "Post Reply" button at the bottom of the page automatically makes the reply to the last person to post in the thread as of the time that you hit it anyways.

quote:

Later, I'll just have three large installations at the three largest bonus locations I can reasonably defend, so that I have the best possible buffs in energy, hitech and weapons.

Note that when you have N scientist characters in the same location, their skill bonuses in a field stack as sum([scientist_n_bonus]/n, n=1:N) with the bonuses ordered from highest to lowest in the field. If your scientists have reasonably large bonuses in two or three fields rather than a large bonus in one field and at most small bonuses in the other two, or possibly if you have many scientists with moderate bonuses across all fields, it is possible that it will be better, or at least little worse, to stack all of your scientists in one location than to spread them out across the best research locations.

quote:

it's way easier to build a dedicated lab in the home orbit and use it to alter research focus with retrofits than it is multiple stations.

Still doesn't need to be a [Field] Research Station; the home space port will do just as well. Retrofitting bills you for alterations, not for the total cost of building the station from scratch, there's not really any good reason to have a big space port anywhere but the homeworld in the early stages of the game so there's not really any reason to worry about retrofitting multiple stations in order to rebalance research priorities (again, not that I really see much reason to do so once you're at the stage of the game where having an interstellar empire really becomes practical), and building the home space port with labs or retrofitting them in after the basic space port skeleton is completed is slightly faster and probably slightly cheaper than building a separate research station.* Also somewhat safer, since the space port, as your homeworld's primary orbital installation, is probably larger, better armed, and better protected than any research station(s) you might build at the homeworld or elsewhere, especially if you don't manually place the research station on top of the spaceport and instead allow the game to place it in a somewhat more exposed position slightly away from the homeworld.

*There are several components of which you only need one per station, and there are some additional efficiencies possible when using one station for everything rather than separate dedicated stations - for example, if your home space port design already has 30 shield generators and 50 armor plates, you probably don't need to add another 15 shield generators and 20 armor plates to protect the lab space if you add labs to the home space port, but if you build a separate large research station to house all your scientists over the homeworld you should probably invest in reasonably formidable defenses on the station even though proximity to the homeworld's other orbital installations will provide some degree of protection.

I was under the impression (from reading the research screen breakdown during the game) that it took the largest single scientist + location bonus to each field and applied that modifier. For example, if I have a station with 30% energy, 10% energy and 5% energy scientists, and the location grants 20%, I would have a 50% bonus (30 + 20) to energy research generated from the labs at that station.

Am I mistaken? It has been a little while since I've had more than 2 scientists in a playthrough so it's possible I read incorrectly.

I can see the appeal of putting the labs on the spaceport rather than just under the umbrella of its protection, but my port generally doesn't have any weapons or armor for the first 20-something years (very expensive research, 0% taxes til max population) unless it's my intent to go to war. I just pay every pirate I find before they attack, when possible, so the fees are generally cheaper than the maintenance would be to arm my installations adequately. However, if a pirate does change their mind suddenly, the AI will attack the port but ignore the research platform unless it's armed (and fires on a ship). Overall, at least for me, the dedicated station is safer for any precious scientist I might have, and by the time an armed spaceport becomes a reality, the station has generally moved elsewhere.

I'm not saying it's a bad option, just that I've tried both methods and, for me at least, I find I prefer dedicated stations rather than spaceport labs. However, I might try a start in my next playthrough where I lab up the spaceport rather than build the orbital research facility, since it might be very slightly cheaper/faster to retrofit the station after queueing the 3 initial exploration vessels than it is to pay for the second command center and other components - and I do so love trying to squeeze every last modicum of efficiency from starts in this game! Food for thought, at any rate.



Aeson -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/6/2019 11:32:02 AM)

quote:

I was under the impression (from reading the research screen breakdown during the game) that it took the largest single scientist + location bonus to each field and applied that modifier. For example, if I have a station with 30% energy, 10% energy and 5% energy scientists, and the location grants 20%, I would have a 50% bonus (30 + 20) to energy research generated from the labs at that station.

Am I mistaken? It has been a little while since I've had more than 2 scientists in a playthrough so it's possible I read incorrectly.

You would have a bonus of 20 (location) + 30 (best scientist in field at location) + 20/2 (second-best scientist in field at location) + 5/3 (third-best scientist in field at location) = 62.5%, probably displayed as 63% since I think the game uses standard rounding when displaying the percentile bonuses, unless you had a better location + character bonus coming from somewhere else.

For example, I have a Quameno game where I have five scientist characters - Osu Zabros with 21%/58%/29%, Qarg Roxilli with -/35%/21%, Jaka Tannax with 21%/26%/-, Kaz Pushka with 13%/-/22%, and Buzdi Boshak with 15%/-/16% in Weapons / Energy and Construction / High Tech research. With all of them stacked at the home space port (so no or 0% location bonuses), I have a 40% location + scientist bonus to Weapons research, an 84% location + scientist bonus to Energy and Construction, and a 51% bonus to High Tech research. 21 + 21/2 + 15/3 + 13/4 = 39.75 ~= 40, 58 + 35/2 + 26/3 = 84.167 ~= 84, and 29 + 22/2 + 21/3 + 16/4 = 51.

Now, if I divided them up so that each went to a dedicated station for the field in which they would have the largest effective bonus, I'd have Jaka Tannax on Weapons (21%), Osu Zabros and Qarg Roxilli on Energy and Construction (75.5%), and Kaz Puksha and Buzdi Boshak on High Tech (30%). In order for splitting them up thusly and sending them out to dedicated stations to be better than stacking them at the home space port, I need bonus locations of 20% Weapons, 10% Energy, and 22% High Tech, which is reasonably feasible ... but most of these guys have fairly low skill levels when all is said and done.

This example should also illustrate why stacking your scientists can be a fairly good thing - taking only Osu Zabros's bonuses away, I'd lose 7 points of research bonus in Weapons (40% -> 33%), 36 points of research bonus in Energy and Construction (84% -> 48%), and 13 points of research bonus in High Tech (51% -> 38%). Osu Zabros's High Tech and especially Weapons bonuses are not that good, though they're also far from bad, and yet Osu Zabros is still worth about as much as a lower-middling-quality research location to my character bonus in the appropriate field. Another way to see that stacking the scientists can be better is to look at the combined High Tech bonus of Qarg Roxilli and Osu Zabros - 39.5%. Kaz Puksha and Buzdi Boshak only manage 30% on their own, so I'd need them at an 11% High Tech location before it makes any kind of sense to split them off to grab a High Tech location bonus rather than stacking them with Jaka Tannax for an extra 12 points of Weapons bonus - and if I'm more interested in 11 points of High Tech bonus than in 12 points of Weapons bonus, then grabbing anything less than a 22% High Tech location with them rather than stacking them with Osu Zabros and Qarg Roxilli is very questionable in anything but a "don't put all your eggs in one basket" sense.

[image]local://upfiles/46000/788E7213E4CC47CCA3E4DC5CD46A70BD.gif[/image]



bubb_tubbs -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/6/2019 2:51:59 PM)

Interesting! I had no idea the other bonuses also stacked with diminishing returns. The depth of this game!

Forgive me if I ask another again and further hijack this thread, but is there a coded racial maximum for scientists? I mean, is there a hard number each race can reach before no more will appear, even with structured research facility? (name escapes me)

Thanks again



Aeson -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/6/2019 10:17:21 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: bubb_tubbs

Interesting! I had no idea the other bonuses also stacked with diminishing returns. The depth of this game!

Forgive me if I ask another again and further hijack this thread, but is there a coded racial maximum for scientists? I mean, is there a hard number each race can reach before no more will appear, even with structured research facility? (name escapes me)

Thanks again

From here:
quote:


However each empire has a limit to the number of characters (based on empire size) and each character role (scientist, intelligence agent, etc) also has a limit. This character limit is roughly 6-7 for an empire with a single colony of 10 billion population at development level of 100. This scales up as your empire grows, although not in a straight line - as your empire grows the maximum character increase slows. When you have 20 or more characters, you will not get any random character appearance, instead only through events (e.g. new admiral from successful battle).

The limits for each character role are modified by your empire's dominant race (e.g. Quamenos can have more scientists). In the race files see specifically the settings CharacterRandomAppearanceChanceXXXXX for each character role.


Best information I know of on the subject, and beyond that I don't know enough to say.



bubb_tubbs -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/7/2019 1:57:27 AM)

That's perfect. I can look through the actual race file and find the chances.

I want to crunch some numbers based on Maynard and likelihood a scientist will appear.



Shark7 -> RE: Great Community Support - Fantastic Game (1/12/2019 6:14:06 PM)

My 2 cents:

When it comes to characters, as a general rule I will only fire those with the demoralizing trait since they drag everyone down with them. A demoralizing scientist I may keep if I can banish them to a lonely life on some black hole research station that no one else is ever going to.

If it is skills that can be grown affected by the negative trait, then I don't worry about it. They will eventually get better as they level up. The end result in that case is that their effective max skill is simply lower than a non-affected character.

Conversely, a character with positive attributes towards a particular skill can grow beyond the max level. (I currently have 1 spy with like 130 skill in espionage due to favorable traits. Almost guarantees success on those type missions.)



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