Slick

[Slick]

First, I would like to say how great game SE4 Gold is. I was looking around the internet for a new game to play and I stumbled upon SE3. Downloaded the demo, played it, loved it. Downloaded the 4 Gold demo, played it, really loved it and decided when I hit that dreaded 100th turn that I must own this game NOW! I notice that you guys treat newbies like me really well here, the board has good maturity and sense of community and most importantly you give great answers to help people. I am hooked! Here’s my first batch of questions; tried looking thru the board but couldn’t find answers to these:


How do I retrofit units like weapons platforms, satellites, etc.? They seem to just go into cargo and I can’t access them to upgrade/retrofit.

Is there text file with a complete listing of all research, intel, facil, components, weapons, etc.? The help is somewhat good but I would like 1 reference which gives all stats for everything. I did download a really good tech tree document.

How does mine sweeping work? I build minesweepers but they get blown up in the minefields when I send them into the field.

How do I capture ships if I have a big ship with multiple boarding parties? What I really want to do is only send over SOME boarding parties and save the remainder to capture other ships. Is this an “all or nothing” deal?

It seems that you always want to keep stored counter-intel points and never complete a counter intel project; and that points are deducted from this “bank” when enemies try to perform intel projects against me. Is this right? . Are points stored in counter-intel 2 worse than counter-intel 3?

How do waypoints work? Can I chain them together? How do I move a ship on a really long trip and have it automatically resupply along the way?

Which are the good ministers to use? Which are the bad ones? I currently only use the population transport minister with only small transports.

How do I upgrade 1 facility at a time or 1 planet at a time? If I hit “upgrade facilities” it upgrades ALL my facilities everywhere and depletes my stored resources.

Is there a way to retreat in combat? or is the only way to survive to try to Last the 30 turns?

What do the various planetary bombs do? I normally bomb out enemy planets from a distance with missiles and then colonize it when it is totally dead. I really want to use the planetary bombs but I don’t want to make the planet “worse” in value.

What does it mean to “glass a planet”?

In one game, I got a message saying a star in one of my systems was going to explode in 3 years. It did and I lost the game because of it. How do I stop a star from exploding? Likewise, I have has warp points disappear. How do I stop these events before they happen?

In one game, I built a repair ship with 2 repair bays. Couldn’t figure out if this would repair 2 ships at a time, 1 ship at 2x repair rate or if it was just unnecessary. Help.

I have come up with some non-combat ships to use: scout ship - lots of engine and supply pods, no weapons, long range; supply ship - lots of supply, no weapons; repair ship - lots of repair, no weapons. Are these good ideas?

How do mounts work?


That’s all for now. Thanks in advance for the help!

Slick

[chewy027]

have you checked out the newbie guide yet? Answere to lots of questions can be found there

[Val]

Retrofitting WP & Sats (or any Unit):
Can't do it, they only thing you can do is shuffle them around to other planets or scrap/jettison them.

Text File with complete list:
You could always look in the Data Folder and check the Components.txt, TechArea.txt, IntelProjects.txt and Facily.txt files to see everything there is.

Minesweepers:
Put them on a ship and enter a minefield, it happens automatically. Each sweeper component can only handle so many mines, you will want to put multiple sweepers on a ship to sweep any decent sized field.

Capture Ships:
First off, you need to have a boarding component on your ship (looks like a little gold marine with a red shield). Then you will have to get right next to the ship you want to capture. Then click the "Order" button on the right side of the screen and choose "Capture Ship". This is an "all or nothing" deal, so each ship is only good for one boarding action.

Waypoints:
I've always just clicked on each step of a trip for my ships. So I tell them to go through system A & B then to stop at a planet in C to refuel.

Facility Upgrade:
I think all you had to do was click on upgrades in the individual planetary screens.

Retreat:
Not an option soldier!

Planetary Bombs:
Different Bombs do different things. Read their descriptions to see what they affect. Some harm the planetary conditions, some kill the population, others just do massive damage to the planet.

Star Exploding:
I don't believe there is anyway to stop a star from exploding. Would be a nice feature to build a tech that could stop it. When you get that message start abandoning the system and before the star goes scrap everything still there for some extra $$.

Repair Bays:
I believe that just allows more components to be repaired in a turn, so it would be quicker.

Other Ship Ideas:
Always good not to limit yourself to Attack/Defense ships alone. I would say that if you find them useful then they are (and most likely others may find them useful as well). Supply ships are great for fleets, repair ships are good as well and your scout ships will give you an edge over someone who is exploring with slower vessels. Read some of the other threads for even more ideas!

Mounts:
Choose a mount type and then you will notice that all components (well, the ones the mount effets) in the list now have a letter in the upper left corner. Mounts generally increase/decrease weapon damage, cost, maint, etc.

Hope this helped .

[Suicide Junkie]

Some additional stuff:

retrofitting units:
You can't retrofit units, just jettison and build new ones.
That is considered the price you pay for not having to pay maintenance on them each turn.

Minesweepers:
Multiple sweepers on a hull, and multiple sweeperships in a fleet all stack. Five minesweeper V components can clear the first 25 mines that you hit in each sector. The rest of the mines bLast your ships.

Capture ships:
The marine with red shield is actually the security station (boarding defense)
Multiple boarding parties can only help you overcome more defenders. It is an all-or nothing deal.
The best strategy is probably to use lots of small hulls like destroyers to carry the marines, and let your bigger ships smash the shields on the enemies independantly.

Facility upgrades:
You can upgrade the facilities on a single planet as Val said, but the only way to upgrade one facility at a time is to scrap and rebuild.

Star exploding:
The only way to stabilize a star that is about to detonate is to build a ringworld or sphereworld around it.
By the time you get the warning, it is probably too late to start a project that big.

Repair bays:
The total number of repair ability points is all that matters. All the points are applied to one ship, then the next.
So, one repair bay can fix eight minimally damaged ships at once, or ten can work on one massive wreck of a ship at once. Or anything in between.

[Val]

Oh, the red guys are the defenders! No wonder I was having so much trouble boarding

I didn't know the sphere/ringworld would stablize a star. Makes me wonder... could you mod a really small ring/sphere world-like component that would actually have no space (or room for only 1 facilty at most) that could be built at an unstable star?

[geoschmo]

quote:

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Originally posted by Val:
Oh, the red guys are the defenders! No wonder I was having so much trouble boarding

I didn't know the sphere/ringworld would stablize a star. Makes me wonder... could you mod a really small ring/sphere world-like component that would actually have no space (or room for only 1 facilty at most) that could be built at an unstable star?

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Val, I think that would work. Way to think outside the box! Need to play around with it and make sure it does. You'd have to make a new planet size that was a created world, and had no room for cargo or facilities. Not sure if you could keep people from colonizing it. Maybe. Have to think about this some more...

Geo