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Just a couple of questions... - 2/12/2011 11:02:35 PM

RaffleSnaffle

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Joined: 2/12/2011
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Hey guys :)
I am a new player and have been reading the forums for awhile now and just now registered cuz I had a couple of questions that arose from playing last night.
I had my main fleet set up and I would construct reinforcements for said fleet, but I didn't see a rally. Can you rally shipyards?
Also, how do you know how much money you are getting from trading with any one empire? Is there an information screen I am missing for that?
Btw I was on the fence about actually buying this game for a long time, but I am really glad I have because it's really amazing and blew my expectations of what I thought it was going to be out of the water! Still learning it and i have a long ways to go, but I can see myself playing this game for a long time. The combat reminds of the Escape Velocity series. anyways I will quit rambling.

Thanks!

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/12/2011 11:16:48 PM

Bingeling

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Welcome, of course the game is fun, even if it has some minor issues. The time you spend before they may annoy you are gigantic.

To my knowledge you can see trade volume on the diplomacy screen. It is the number at each nation's power bar. The word is how much they like you (this is for your empire selected, which is default).

Cautious 5k

Would mean they are cautious with you, and you share 5k of trade. If you click their nation you can see what your people thinks of them on your bar. I am not sure if this number is trade income to your coffers, or trade that improves the civilian economy (which you can tax).

I am sorry, but I can't understand your question about "rally shipyards", but I can come with some random answer related to strengthening a fleet.

If you want to add new ships to a fleet, you can start building them and then go to the ship list and locate the new ships there. Ships under construction have different colors, and if you filter military ships and sort by system they are usually quite easy to find as a group. You can set their fleet from a pulldown in the ship list.

You may not want to have them added until they are built (I have seen fun effects where half done ships sail off if the fleet they belong to get an order to move). You may then want to add the ships under construction to a temporary fleet (new fleet) and set the fleet's home colony to the one where the shipyard is. That way the ships will start in a fleet under your control, and not go away on automatic missions. The ships in a fleet will go to the fleet's lead ship as they are completed (and will do that, always, unless told otherwise), and if the lead ship is done with construction/refit it will go to the fleet's home colony.

Good luck on your games, I hope you will enjoy them as I do mine.

(in reply to RaffleSnaffle)

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/12/2011 11:34:30 PM

RaffleSnaffle

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ahh ok well as I understand it then there is no direct rally point for shipyards and the only way to really "rally" ships to a specific location would be to have ships under construction join a pre existing fleet or temp. fleet? I had no idea you could set a home system for a fleet. Very useful thanks!

Thanks for answering the trade question also

Atuuk's soldiers suuuuuuuuck btw. Last night I was trying to capture a lizard dude's homeworld and I had at least 3x's the amount of troops he did and I STILL did not capture it. :(
Also multi player and LAN support for this game would be the bomb.

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Post #: 3

RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 6:34:53 AM

Bingeling

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Ah, rally point like that. Sorry for being daft. The home colony or location of the fleet's lead ship, yes.

If you want to be sneaky, you could pick one ship, a lowly escort, for instance, as the rally point. You make this the lead ship in a new fleet by doing a right click option, or having it as the only ship or first ship to be added to the fleet. You move this ship to your super secret location rally location in the middle of nowhere, and wait. New ships built which belong to the fleet move to their escort leader. In the tips-thread on this forum, you can see a tip to use a cruiser as the rally points for your transports.

I would keep an eye on the first new ships to see that they bothered to grab fuel before they leave, if you try to have them go away when they are new. You may be out for a slow move if the station runs out of fuel while they are built, for instance.

Notice another thing with this behavior. Your fleet is in a hurry to get going, but one ship is out of fuel (they ran their refueling point dry). Giving the fleet an order will give the order to all ships. But fleet ships that are "done" will go to their leader. So order the fleet on their way, and select the low fuel ship (you see the fuel level as the green bar in the fleet box when selected), and give them individual refuel orders. They will refuel and follow. This is also useful even if you don't move, as you may not want to give the fleet another refuel order and clog the poor gas mine with 30 ships doing yet another docking to top up. One play style of mine makes this relevant. I leave empty troop transports on auto outside fleets to gather their troops from... somewhere. Every now and then I filter my troop transports, and add the full ones to a new fleet (say hi to Invasion 2, 3, 4, north, whatever). I ask this fleet to move to my wanted location. But the ships are all over the place, and may not have enough fuel to reach that location. So After telling them to typically refuel at my given point, I give the stragglers single orders to refuel first.

And yes, the Atuuk does not have the best commandos in the world. I am playing with them just now. You can see their strength in the troop list (or when viewing the troops on a location/ship). I think "standard" strength is about 10k, while the Atuuk are 5750 or something when recruited. So if you typically want 2-1 when attacking, the Atuuk is 4-1. Also, troops that win combat gets stronger. So it may be a good idea to watch who are your crack troops, and not pick which 10 transports will attack their home world quite at random. In my current AAR on trying to let the crazed Atuuk AI do diplomacy for me, I now have one lowly atuuk troop that has passed 20k strength, and several are closing in on that level.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 7:06:19 AM

Data

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Hi RaffleSnaflle and welcome to the communitu
Bingeling has indeed outlined the only way to implement a sort of waypoint functionality but if you check the wishlist you'll see that it's already requested as a new feature for a later patch by more than one of us.
So we should have it at some point.

Have fun with the game.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 7:17:41 AM

RaffleSnaffle

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Ah thank you!

I have actually been reading you AAR and it's very good! Humorous too with how the AI does things and how you talk about it. Atuuk take the prize when it comes to stupidity witch I find funny how they even got to space travel in the first place. But anyways, they could potentially in the future make the ships a little bit smarter for refueling ect. and actually attacking threats in the system when the ship isn;t on auto and is just sitting there.

Also I have found that even when there is a nearby colony and I right click the transport to re-stock it's troop level, if it's in a enemy's system it doesn't like to carry out that order most of the time. The quick select button or whatever you want to call in on the bottom to quickly give this command also only works half the time for me even when the transport is in the same system I have fresh troops in.

Minor qualms, but would be really nice to see them addressed at some point :) Would be nice to remove the option to snag constructor ships when you are drag clicking for military ships too.

Anyway thanks for helping me out! I'm off to go read more of your AAR!

Oh one last thing. Just out of curiosity what has been your favorite/best race so far?

(in reply to Bingeling)

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 7:34:16 AM

Data

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mine the gizurean, the highest pop growth rate.....something that really helped in MOO2 but not that crucial here.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 7:54:21 AM

RaffleSnaffle

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Thanks Data! I look forward to discussing all things DW with you all. :)

Ahhh. I don't have any one favorite race so far. Still playing around with the game, but have already had some pretty lengthy games.

Are the story mode's worth playing with on? And are the dev's here usually really good about updating their product and repsonding/noting feedback?

I'm sorry I am so random with what I ask and that I keep asking questions.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 8:16:08 AM

Data

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quote:

I'm sorry I am so random with what I ask and that I keep asking questions

that's how we like it, check our own posts back in the day....not much difference

yes, both Elliot and Matrix offer great support and updates regularly - more so considering that Elliot is almost a one man company atm

and yes also, the story mode brings more goodies....but I'll not spoil the fun of discovering them

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 8:21:23 AM

RaffleSnaffle

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Haha ok thanks.

Alright cuz I have been just playing sandbox galaxies for now. Next game I start up I'm doin some story mode, tho I have about two other games going on right now too cuz I can't seem to stick with one and only one lol.

Having both the storyline's on at the same time better? Or worse?

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 8:29:44 AM

Data

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Better....they complement each other nicely

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 8:34:11 AM

RaffleSnaffle

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Sweet I shall try it all out.

Data, have you done an AAR?

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 9:00:46 AM

Data

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nope, too lazy for that

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 11:18:44 AM

Bingeling

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I can recommend some sort of AAR, it makes you think through things a bit more, and register that they happen. It is a bit of extra work though, but that is minimized if you write proper sentences as you go.

For instance, paying a bit attention makes me amazed at the AI research department. They researched hyperDeny, but don't have Hyper Deny on any ship designs, even not the capital ship that it is far from being able to build.

It starts to research better armor, but don't put armor on the ships (it did wait a long time, though). I don't think I would notice that on full auto without the AAR, the "research completed" would just fly by.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 11:25:56 AM

Data

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we have the history in the messages.....it's interesting to see how the AI implements what it researches

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 11:55:12 AM

Bingeling

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I may or may not be a freak when it comes to details, but I do not sit down and read through the message log after a game :-)

I removed all but the first "power" priority settings on the research to leave it up to its own ends. It seems to be quite "breadth first", that is going for all first levels early, but it also has a tendency to research one specialty component (one new laser type), and then its improvement. But it seems like design uses results from research (takes the best possible, I guess), but that research does not take hints from designs (but they may be done by humans, so that may be a good decision too).

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 5:06:25 PM

elanaahova

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R-S welcome to the forums, and the game.

BTW, not sure if it was you, or someone else who commented that they invaded the lizard homeward with twice the number of troops that were defending, and got wiped, anyway. This is because the combat strength of troops is based on, 1) species,and 2) surviving combat = +experience. Lizzy troops start fairly strong. The squirrel species have lame troops.

I wish, 1) there was a way to add air support to ground battles. In Star empires, one could place fighters on the landing craft, and they would help in the battle. Also, i think bases, in orbit should give some support to the defender, and the side with 'undesputed' control of space around the planet should get a positive modifier in ground combat.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 7:18:52 PM

Bingeling

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I agree that space ports and defensive bases should help out ground troops more. Maybe troops should take longer to land, so their transports are more exposed.

Half of me says that a troop landing party should be shot to pieces by the space port's arms, while the other half says they would simply land on the other side of the planet...

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 8:00:54 PM

RaffleSnaffle

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elanaahova - yes that was me. It was kind of frustrating to be honest heh. Atuuk need more than wooden spears if they want to take someone's homeworld.

Bingeling - yeah having the troop carriers take more time to unload their troops is an awesome idea! Also, if you have your troop carriers or any ship that can carry troops on auto, do they normally stock up on their own?

I find when my empire gets large there are space mining stations and miners and soo much all over the place it's hard to keep up! I am amazed bingeling by your AAR that you can keep up with everything that is going on. I need to pause the game a bit more and take time to digest the situation of things I guess. Cuz it can get quite frantic.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 8:05:05 PM

Data

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you'll get used to it in time and start to concentrate on the more strategic aspects depending on the context at each important moment in the game

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 9:32:03 PM

RaffleSnaffle

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yeah I will just have to play more and more. I have learned the most from just playing the game and learning through trial and error what works and what really doesn't.

thanks for all your guys' help! This forum is definitely one of the more friendly/helpful forums I have ever seen.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 9:32:14 PM

Mofouler

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I think a spaceport should add to the defense of a colony in some way. They should probaly each some with their own garrison or in some way increase the defensive power of the troops already on the colony.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 9:47:57 PM

Bingeling

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It can be a lot of fun to take your time. Follow a freighter around and see what they are up to. Or watch your passenger ship arrive at your resource base with tourists, stand outside to think a bit (to be booked for a new trip), travel to the colony of another nation, pick up their tourists and go to another resort base...

Find one of the three very rares, lock on to its location to watch the traffic. Mouse over or click the arriving ships to see their contents. I built a space port on one right away, and the first transports were all delivering building materials and leaving empty. Then came a legion of empty freighters to collect zentiba fluid (or was it korabbian spice?) and aim towards my capital and other large colonies. A trade line arrived straight from my capital to this system, even if there were multiple space ports in between, including my largest and riches colony.

Also. At the later stages of the AAR I was a bit quicker "killed a few targets that appeared", but I was quite detailed at the start. Because at the start less stuff goes on. But of course, I did not tell about locking on the colony ship and following its travel, and to zoom in and watch it crawl to the planet. Not everything is described, because not all the player does is an event.

Troop transports alone and on auto do focus on collecting their troops, but they do attack enemy if they present themselves. That is why I drop transports from fleet when they have attacked and put them on auto. I add them to flees once they are full. Asking the fleet to reload would not work very well, they would go to the few nearest colonies and grab a few and come back with lots of free space. That is my experience. I think I also have noticed that telling a fleet to load at a colony is less effective than telling single ships to do so. The annoying thing is to find the full ones among many, but the full ones has the order "none" and are in a system, while the ones still filling up have other orders or are in deep space (not that a ship on auto is ever in deep space with order "none").

During peace time, it is abut placing fleets around that cover my areas, and then let the time pass. I am typically "always" on 2X or pause, and wait for attack messages. In very early game I may be more in 4x, and in very rare circumstances I see combat on normal speed. When attack messages come, I click the message in the log on top, which will jump to the attacked unit, and I then zoom in a bit. Next up is finding the closest fleet and tell it to attack the aggressor or to patrol the attacked base. Alternatively I have lots of automated frigates and stuff, and press z to select the closest (there is also a button for that down left). Or I zoom out a bit and look for triangles, or simply drag a square in the area around hoping to find some.

If you play you will find your style and automation level. And notice that for a long stretches you can put max speed and go for a snack if you want. Especially once the galaxy is well settled and pirates become few and far between. Unless you let the AI do diplomacy which I think will put you "always in war".

That be said. In my AAR I had one instance of a mystery attack on the Kiadian which I never understood. That took my reputation from slightly positive to quite a bit negative. Much later I attacked the Wekkarus under peace, because I did not know war had ended. That put my reputation very, very low. And having low reputation makes the others attack you more easily. But the Atuuk created their own wars, it was only late in the game that other declared war on me

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 9:49:00 PM

RaffleSnaffle

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Mo - it would be interesting if you could, like you said garrison troops on the spaceport or defensive platform so in order to take them you would have to land transports on them to duke it out. Of course you could just blow it all out of the sky too. Even the idea of landing troops on space bases would be interesting in of in itself. Because you could like capture mining bases or things like that with troops? To turn them over to your empires control?

Idk just a thought. Of course this game has soo much future potential there are a lot of cool things that could be implemented into it.

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/13/2011 9:58:14 PM

RaffleSnaffle

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ahh thanks for all the info Bing!

I think from now one I will just have a separate fleet for all of my transports like your "Invasion Fleet" in your Atuuk AAR.

Very good idea I had not thought of yet lol. Yeah I like controlling troop recruitment and ship construction. Things like taxes are a 50/50, but the more I play the less the AI gets to control things. I havn't messed with agents and leave them on manual anyways because the AI will get my rep. in trouble if I let it do what it wants in that realm. Treaties and wars are all on manual for me also.

If you have construction on manual will construction ships still continue to build mining bases, research stations, and resorts on their own?

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/14/2011 7:08:28 AM

Data

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no, you'll have to order them
In practice I leave a couple of constructors for my personal use and the rest on auto

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RE: Just a couple of questions... - 2/14/2011 8:10:57 AM

Bingeling

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I would not want the transports in my combat fleet, they may be killed. My transports are wimpy.

I think there is a nice post in the tips and tricks thread there about having a cruiser as the transport fleet leader. That would make the transports head back to base (leader) once they have dropped their load, and you won't have to drop them from fleet and put them on auto on the attack.

I make sure to kill off space ports because I think that it is most logical and in most cases probably make things harder. I have not tried this since returning after the expansion, but you could at least be very cheesy and send your invasion fleet in and land while defenses are up. The space port and defensive bases become yours once you win the ground combat, and proceeds to shoot up the ships of your enemy returning home.

For instance... In the AAR the Dhayut capital had 38 ships in the build queue. I am pretty sure those would be built if I could take the space port intact (and would only need enough shield on the transports to survive its aoe to do that, which I may or may not have had).

If those 38 were military ships, I could proceed to retire them for tech (if they knew anything I did not), or maybe get hold of some better ships than I could build my own. I would of course also get the materials stored on the space port, keep the happiness bonus it gives to the colony, and have a juggernaut protecting my new colony. Not that it took long to build my own large space port once the AI discovered that we had money.

For constructors it works OK to use "queue the closest constructor to build XXX here" for my needs (fuel...). For the truly special needs (rare resources), I grab constructors from whatever they do and force them to start on the important stuff.

(in reply to RaffleSnaffle)

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