Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Hey, I fell from the stars and crash-landed onto this weird Space Conquest forum-planet. So anyway, apart from being a star child, I'm thinking of indulging myself into this newly crashed-upon planet of space conquest. (Wow, mouthfull)

Anywho, so I was playing the demo and I was totally overwhelmed with the amount of micromanaging. (I do know about the minister feature)

Theres so much I can't begin to even ask questions.

I would like any type of responce, just say something. I'll ask the questions later.

Well, see yeh

--Argitoth, the strange Star Child. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ December 02, 2003, 04:22: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

I do have one question which will almost completely decide if I buy it or not.

-How many players can play on one TCP/IP?
-What are other options for multiplayer games?
-How do multiplayer games work?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

You'll find multiplayer in this game to be horribly painful to get working. And if you do get it working, playing the game is slow in multiplayer.

But if you do manage to get it working, it can be very fun.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Never have played TCP/IP myself so can't answer that one. Most likely the limit would be 20 though. It is everywhere else in the game.

Most people play using PBW.

http://www.pbw.cc

It works great. I have played many games using it. It can take awhile to play through a whole game but it is much easier to get schedules etc to fit so that it works for everyone.

Hrmm... How do mulitplayer games work. Not sure quite what you mean... but for PBW it would work something like this.


Each player downloads/is e-mailed/ one of a few other options their turn file. Each person plays the game on their machine ends their turn and the game creates a .plr file. You send that via whatever method you are using to the host server. Once all players get their turns in or the time limit for that game is reached or whatever other setting for kicking a turn off is reached the PBW server processes the turns and sends out the next turn files to everyone and updates the page and allows for downloading the turn file from their as well. Rinse and Repeat.

As for the actual game. PBW only supports simultanious turn games so each player basicaly issues the orders during their turn.

Tell ship A to move here
Tell ship B to attack ship X
etc

instead of seeing the ships move they accept the orders and when the turn gets executed everyones ships execute their orders in a stepped format of 30 cycles (every turn is 1/10 of a game year or 1 game month, 30 game days in a game month). Ships with more movement points will move first and more often. IE: If you had a ship that had 30 movement it would move once every game day however if you had a ship with 15 movement it would move once every other gameday.

If you so desired during your turn you could playback the movement log and see the ships move if you wanted. You get combat logs and can't directly fight combat. Instead you use the strategies and set them up. This feature is very important for PBW.

Hope that answers some of your questions and gives you a general overview.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I didnt have any problems at all - once I worked out what I was doing.
tcpip is a little confusing to do. but PBW is great.
if your playing by pbw however you need to play similtanios mode (which I think is better anyway)

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

PBW is horribly slow and can take days just to get started.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Or it can not. In TCP games you spend a lot of time waiting for other players to finish their turns anyway. PBW games, you don't exactly have that, and games can go just as fast as TCP assuming everyone stays at their computer and plays.

OTOH, PBW games quite easily can stretch over months, or more. But when you have 20 players involved, that's understandable, and the logistics of getting them all in one place for a TCP game would be..difficult to say the least.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

in TCP/IP is there an autohost option? e.g. when all players have ended a turn, the turn is generated and the players can then take their next turns.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">SpaceCon 2004! Space Empire fans from around the glob unite for the worlds largest lan party in world history. Hosted by Malfador, Shrapnel, and many many more.

I vote Portland OR.

[ December 02, 2003, 06:08: Message edited by: Atrocities ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">That is only true for TCP/IP, and only you do not know how to forward ports on a firewall. PBEM, which is how most MP games are played, is rather painless. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">SE4 is not pretending to be a RTS game where each game is over with in hours, you know. You can very easily get face paced PBW games; just get a group of players willing to sit down all at one time to play them. They even go faster than TCP/IP (much faster in some cases) when you start getting more than 2 or 3 players in a game. This is because TCP/IP only sends the game files to one player at a time. PBEM/PBW allows the game files to be sent to all players at once, and the host only has to do a single upload, rather than one to every player. Check out the PBW Real-time Client if you want even faster retrieval of turns.

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">No. The turn only processes when the host hits the execute next turn button. This has both its advantages and its disadvantages.

[ December 02, 2003, 06:56: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Arrr!! Now I want to buy it. I have enough money and everything, but... I'm scared! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif


Can you tell me how battles work? (in Web-games)

[ December 02, 2003, 08:13: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

seiv is alot of micromanaging. avoid it by playing on a SMALL MAP! do not use the ministers they are stupid.
get the game it is FUN http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
edit: spelling

[ December 02, 2003, 16:17: Message edited by: parabolize ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">In the demo you have the option of both tactical and strategical battles. In PBW/PBEM games you only have the strategical option.
You send your turn with your ships orders - you wait - you receive the next turn - you watch the replay - you kick the wall in frustration asking yourself why you didn�t tell your ships to �. instead http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Playing PBW takes commitment and time. A small 1 on 1 game like in the King of the Hill league can be done in a week with the right opponent (and maybe take 5 - 10 hours of actual playing time), a large 10+ player game can go on for a year or more.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

In the game, I couldn't figure out how to setup battle orders for strategic combat.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

For fighting only, you can click on a button when initiating the combat. As general setting, and for simulatneous turns, you can only set this option when setting up the game (Mechanics - Turn Style)

[ December 02, 2003, 18:56: Message edited by: Roanon ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

In the designs menu, click the stats/strategy to switch from component view to stats. The default ship strategy can be changed by clicking the down arrow beside the current strategy.

When you have a fleet selected, you can change the Strategy and Formation of it by Clicking the strategy order icon (looks like a chess pawn)

To create custom strategies, click the crown for the Empire Status window, and choose strategies on the right.
Click Add, give it a name, and then set the movement, firing, damage/overkill amount, launching patterns and formation breaking pattern.
This new strategy will now be an option for your ships and fleets.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

I had a fleet, half planetary destroyers things and half ship destroyers. The planetary destroyers kind of ran away since they could not attack ships and the ship destroyers attacked the planet and not the ships.

So, by setting up the strategies, will I be able to avoid getting a fleet killed like this?

I then tried combining technologies into one light cruiser. Half their weapons were for destroying ships, the other half were planetary weapons. Turn 100 came before I could test it out.

Can someone tell me if it is possible to make these types of ships effective? (By having ships fire certain weapons at certain targets.)

[ December 02, 2003, 20:34: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Put then into seperate fleets and give then seperate strategies I guess might work.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

What about if there are planetary weapons and ship weapons on the same ship, could you make them fire at different targets?

And even if I did put them in different fleets, would the battle be with both fleets at the same time?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

First of all, planetary weapons is kinda useless. The ship destroying weapons does an excellent job against planets too.

You can not select different targets for different weapons. The ship will move toward its highest priority goal (which cand be planets) and if its in range, fire what it got. If the selected target is not in range, it will fire at whatever else is in range (and the weapon can hit).

If both fleets arrive at the same day both will take part in the action.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

There are mods that make the planetary weapons quite useful. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Moddability is the strongest aspect of SE4 IMO.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Alright, the only thing left stopping me from buy the game: How allied can one person become?

I know you can give whole solar systems away. Can you let your allie pickup cargo from your planet?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Unless the game options are set to disallow trading, you can give ships and units and resources to other players.

They can automatically resupply at your planets if you give them a certain treaty level or higher.

Literally picking up items off your planet, not per se. To transfer units, you need to trade them a ship or planet that holds the units. I've sometimes build a ship or base which is just a simple container to give an ally some units, but I haven't had occasion to do that often.

PvK

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

How do reaserch alliances work? And what happenes if you give away a technology? Does it disappear causing you to have to re-reaserch it?

[ December 02, 2003, 22:23: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Research treaties and all other treaties that share something with the ally work by slowly building up to a max percentage. The default is 20%. It looks at what you are producing takes 20% of that and gives that to the ally. However you still get those points as well. Basically it creates research for those involved in them without taking anything away.

If you give or trade research the other person gets it and you still have it as well. Like copying a file. You copy it give the copy to your friend and they can use it and copy it as well if they want but you still keep your original.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

so what is the disadvantage of just giving technologies to each other and not having a reaserch alliance?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

There is none. A research "alliance" just means you are "trading" research points. Of course, you can not have a "research alliance", you have to have a Trade and Research Alliance, Military Alliance or Partnership. Trading technologies like you mentioned is often done, though some consider it a gamey tactic and it periodically gets Banned from MP PBW games.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

can you disable the ability to trade technologies?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Yep. Have you tried the Demo yet? It's game setup screen has all the options for what you can disable and such. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Is there a way to have a ship which re-fuels other ships?

I haven't figured out a way to do that. Maybe you can't reaserch the technology in the demo.

And if this is possible, can you trade a refueling ship to an allie, let him refuel, then trade back?

[ December 02, 2003, 23:01: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

I have come to realize there are way to many mods out. Way to many. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

You have to have at least one ship in your fleet with a Quantium Reactor.

You research that by researching Resupply.

Otherwise you have to build a huge supply filled ship and send it out to the fleet and join it with the fleet and keep doing this, sending a new supply ship and sending the old one back.

Best way is to build resupply bases on a near by moon.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

bla

[ December 02, 2003, 23:09: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">uhh, how do you transfer the fuel in the fuel-filled ship to other ships?

[ December 02, 2003, 23:11: Message edited by: Argitoth ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

If ships are in a fleet, supply levels will be redistributed at the beginning of the turn amongst all ships in the fleet so that they have equal levels of supplies (up to their individual max supply capacity, of course). This requires no special technology. Unfortunately, you can not choose how many supplies each ship gets, but it works well for 99% of the situations you will encounter. Just include some ships with a few Supply Storage and a bunch of Solar Collectors to have them generate supplies to distribute each turn (Solar Collectors generate some supplies for each star in the system each turn).

The Quantum Reactor cheats. It does not generate any supplies, it makes the ship have infinite supplies. So, one ship in a fleet with a QR will make all ships in that fleet have full supplies (up to their individual supply capacities) at the beginning of each turn.

[ December 02, 2003, 23:19: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Is Quantum Reactor a mod? Can you disable that?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

No it is not a mod. It is a standard game component.

If you fire up the demo, you will see that a lot of stuff can be disabled at game startup...

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Is there not an 'issue' where Fighters do not get resupplied by resupply bases on moons?

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. I don't know why he said moons were the "best" places to build a resupply depot.

The fleet method works fine to share supplies. And yes you can gift a tanker to an ally to help them resupply and then they can give it back - I've done that on several occasions.

PvK

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

You also get no little R over the planet to indicate a depot in a sector when it is on a moon instead of the planet... most annoying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ December 03, 2003, 00:04: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Ya, what he said.

And yes, many of use feel that the QR is a cheat and opt to not use it.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Yes. I don't know why he said moons were the "best" places to build a resupply depot.

The fleet method works fine to share supplies. And yes you can gift a tanker to an ally to help them resupply and then they can give it back - I've done that on several occasions.

PvK </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Hum, I didn't say they were the best, I said that was the best way. IE you could use any planet you want, but having a supply base near your fleet is the best way to resupply them. Of course you could do what Fyron said, but that did not occure to me until after I posted and by the time I got back here Fyron had already posted it.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think you missed the point... I was just saying that it cheats the supply issue and makes tracking supplies irrelevant. I like QR myself, and stick them on all warships. Infinite operational range is great! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

The quantum reactor, like the universal colony module available in some mods, is a great micro-management reliever. Once your empire reaches a certain level, its just a royal pain in the butt to redirect your fleets to a resupply depot. The QR eliminates this tedious task.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

And criminy!! Buy the game already! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

If we haven't convinced you by now, we will inform all the spammers not to bother with you! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I think you missed the point... I was just saying that it cheats the supply issue and makes tracking supplies irrelevant. I like QR myself, and stick them on all warships. Infinite operational range is great! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Naw I don't think I missed the point, but your are right in one regard, cheat was the wrong word for it.

And yes, buy the game and tell all of your friends to buy it as well. The more who buy it the better chance we will have a sequal.

(All of you regulars keep quite about the above statement!)

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

Yep, buy it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

If you're interested enough to ask all these questions, then I have no doubt you'll enjoy the game.

PvK

[ December 03, 2003, 02:47: Message edited by: PvK ]

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

i ordered it... TODAY...

sooo ill be getting it like in 5 years or so.

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Nah. Probably less than a week. I bought mine a couple months ago and it took only three days to arrive by USPS Priority Mail.

SpaceBadger

Re: Should I buy it? Help me understand
 

if your interested in playing PBW I may have an opening in a (suposedly) newbe game comming up in a few weeks.