More stupid newbie tricks ( questions ) !

Dogberry · #1 April 26th, 2002, 03:07 AM

Hi guys ( & gals ? ) !

Been on this game off & on about a week now. I have played many of the other space 4X games mentioned elsewhere.. MOO 1 & 2, BOTF & the new RFTS ( not a bad game actually, but the AI is not fiesty enough, outside of the scenarios ). Have not played any of the previous iterations of SE though.

I have read the printed manual, & browsed the PDF one, plus I have been reading some of the threads here.

Questions, comments & observations...

If you have excess resource production, beyond your storage capacity.. are they just "lost in space" ? ( this could be important in a finite resource game) Is the 50,000 storage that you start with, just part of the game ? or is there some structure that I am missing ?

What is the rationale for spaceships using so many minerals as opposed to the other types ? Is this just a designer built bottleneck.. or is there some thinking behind it. I am just starting .. but I can't see how you would run out of the other stuff.

There seems to be a vague & tenuous relationship between the type of planet & the type/amounts of resources found on it. Very vague .. very tenuous.

What is the true value of population ? There doesn't seem to be any relationship between numbers & manning ( aliening ? ) facilities. I take it that they are there for something aside from scoring. Along with that, what are the major & minor determinents of happiness/unhappiness ? Why is it that they don't eat anything ?

Is there a time limit on the tactical display, or if you come in on a planet that is loaded for bear.. are you just screwed ?

How do ships gain experience ? I gained some in various fights, but when I came in on a planet, had a tough fight & took some losses, but after I had prevailed.. I checked my ships & none had moved beyond novice ( 0 ) . Is there a table or something that I can check out ?

When I obsolete older marks of ships, they stay as potential choices on the contruction qeues. This is really irritating.. & confusing too ! What am I doing wrong here ?

Some comments on modding... while I congratulate the people that have the time, ability & talent for this.. I would like to point out that it can get in the way of building a player base for MP. Several months ago when I was active playing MP ( multiplayer ) MGE ( Civ 2 ).. we used to run across this with just a half dozen options. Given all the options with this game plus the mods .. you can see what I am getting at. Opposed to this is modding the AI.. hopefully to improve it.. While I am a big advocate of playing MP... if your life allows for it, I think everybody realises that the vast, vast majority of all games are SP... so AI improvements are always helpful. Of course .. I don't mod, so I might be talking out of my head ( or some other orfice ) here.

This brings me to another question... is there a standard game for MP play ? If so what is it ? I have book marked the PBW site. Is there a preferred style of play there ? Another question.. how many SEIV MP players are there out there ? Be honest now.

If you want to refer me to the PDF manual, a thread, an article, or some other site(s) .. please do.

A truly dumb newbie...

Dog

BTW... I have SEIV Gold ver. 1.67

[ 26 April 2002: Message edited by: Dogberry ]

TerranC · #2 April 26th, 2002, 03:55 AM

1. Pretty Much yes. It's surplus. You can always build new warships or facilities if you think it's wasteful.

1a. Yes. You start with it. You can build extra storage but that original 50,000 stays. with or without storage facilities.

2. You build ships out of steel; not out of plants or uranium.

2a. You can run out of stuff pretty soon. Especially Radioactives as you gain technology.

3. It's randomly Generated. You seem to see a pattern because Rock planets are generated more than Gas or Ice. (I think...)

4. Population produces stuff on your colonies. A colony with 0 population will not make or generate anything. It also increases the production rate as the population increases.

4a. Depends on what type of Happiness your race enjoys. It describes them on the very Last window of race creation. (Happiness Types)

Peaceful - likes new colonies, new ships, treaties. Hates wars, plagues and destruction of stuff.

Bloodthirsty - Likes destruction, Likes wars. Does not like peace or treaties.

Neutral - doesn't like anything except isolation.

Troops and the Number of ships in a system also determine happiness. If you have Partnership treaties with all known races of the galaxy, that will add happiness if you are peaceful. Lots of Battle victories also add happiness.

4b. If they did you'd have a shortfall. One farm for 4 billion... Yeesh.

5. Huh? I don't understand your question.

6. Fight, Fight, Fight. Until you research Advanced Military Science and build Ship training facilities. Your fleets also gain facilities, although in Gold, a lot slower.

6b. Ask some of the vets of this forum. Im sure they'd know with their modding experience.

7. Click the Only Latest tab.

8. The standard of Multiplayer was Play by Email before PBW came along. In that, you had to do what PBW would do for you instantly, Manually.

PBW is the preferred choice I think, since it is easy to learn, after you understand the basic mechanics of it. (Kinda like the game itself)

There is TCP/IP for Gold, but that is for privately arranged games, there isn't a main server to go and join a game.

Thank you, come again.

[ 26 April 2002: Message edited by: TerranC ]

Phoenix-D · #3 April 26th, 2002, 03:58 AM

"If you have excess resource production, beyond your storage capacity.. are they just "lost in space" ? ( this could be important in a finite resource game) Is the 50,000 storage that you start with, just part of the game ? or is there some structure that I am missing ?"

Extra resources go poof. The 50,000 storage is built-in (and modable).

"What is the rationale for spaceships using so many minerals as opposed to the other types ? Is this just a designer built bottleneck.. or is there some thinking behind it. I am just starting .. but I can't see how you would run out of the other stuff."

Design bottleneck. It IS possible to run low on one of the others, especially if you play an organic race or don't built enough resourcers.

"There seems to be a vague & tenuous relationship between the type of planet & the type/amounts of resources found on it. Very vague .. very tenuous."

It's more or less random.

"What is the true value of population ? There doesn't seem to be any relationship between numbers & manning ( aliening ? ) facilities. I take it that they are there for something aside from scoring. Along with that, what are the major & minor determinents of happiness/unhappiness ? Why is it that they don't eat anything ?"

More population = more production. More happyness = more production. It's assumed that each planet produces enough food for it's population, or if it can't your invisible civilian economy does.

"Is there a time limit on the tactical display, or if you come in on a planet that is loaded for bear.. are you just screwed ? "

30 turns.

"How do ships gain experience ? I gained some in various fights, but when I came in on a planet, had a tough fight & took some losses, but after I had prevailed.. I checked my ships & none had moved beyond novice ( 0 ) . Is there a table or something that I can check out ?"

They gain experience by being missed and killing with DIRECT FIRE weapons. You won't gain experience using missiles! (makes since, since missiles gain nothing from experience anyway- they always hit)

"When I obsolete older marks of ships, they stay as potential choices on the contruction qeues. This is really irritating.. & confusing too ! What am I doing wrong here ? "

There's a "hide obselete" button. Push it

"Some comments on modding... while I congratulate the people that have the time, ability & talent for this.. I would like to point out that it can get in the way of building a player base for MP. Several months ago when I was active playing MP ( multiplayer ) MGE ( Civ 2 ).. we used to run across this with just a half dozen options. Given all the options with this game plus the mods .. you can see what I am getting at. Opposed to this is modding the AI.. hopefully to improve it.. While I am a big advocate of playing MP... if your life allows for it, I think everybody realises that the vast, vast majority of all games are SP... so AI improvements are always helpful. Of course .. I don't mod, so I might be talking out of my head ( or some other orfice ) here."

It doesn't fragment the community THAT much. Hell, I'm either in, running, or planning games on two different Versions of SE4, on three different mods! Most people just play standard anyway.

Phoenix-D

Loser · #4 April 26th, 2002, 04:52 AM

Just another experienced solo-ist (yeah, yeah, har, har) here, who is new to the board, culture, and multiplayer, but I have some ideas on the population inquiry.

The way I see it, every 1,000,000 block of population is it's own arcology, that's why it weighs so much (ha!). It produces enough food, clothes, entertainment, and pharmaceuticals to keep it going. They produce their own power and are so big on recycling that they can keep going in cargo holds in space.

For most people in the world, the only job they have is providing for other peoples sustenance, and reproduction (whoo-hoo). Some of them are army reservists. Kind of like real life.

Your planetary facilities are big (BIG!) and mostly automated. They really only need someone to push the buttons. 1,000,000 people is enough that someone is there to push the buttons in the correct manner, less is not enough to figure out how to turn it on. It's something they're doing in their spare time, like fishing.

However, as you get truly obscene numbers of people on the planet (it starts at what, 50,000,000?) there are enough people pushing the buttons on the facilities that they figure out how to push them more efficiently. Population bonus time.

That farm on you homeworld is not producing consumables. It is making hemp, rubber, are peanut oil for the hoses, gaskets, and stuff in you industry.

Similarly, every unit is not just that unit, it is a modular support and maintainance harness that interfaces between the unit and whatever is carrying it. An unbilicus _and_ housing for the pilot.

Of course, that's just my paradigm. I could be wrong.

[ 26 April 2002: Message edited by: Loser ]

Will · #5 April 26th, 2002, 05:30 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Loser:
The way I see it, every 1,000,000 block of population is it's own arcology, that's why it weighs so much (ha!). It produces enough food, clothes, entertainment, and pharmaceuticals to keep it going. They produce their own power and are so big on recycling that they can keep going in cargo holds in space.

Well, if you do the math, 1M population = 5kT; 5kT = 10,000,000lbs; 1 person (alien) = 10lbs. And that's just the people

However, that is a good way of thinking about it on planets. The standard belief about population on cargo ships is that they're cryo-frozen, so they can't exactly reproduce on the ship, and don't take up as much space as "living" people (aliens) would take up.

Loser · #6 April 26th, 2002, 05:40 AM

Pardon, the "(ha!)" was meant to indicate my disdane for the low population mass. I like to think of them as alive but subject to 1-to-1 birth-for-death population control, like on a max-ed planet. Three cheers for contraception.

If they are cryo-ed, they would not feel it when I jettison them into space. I do want them to feel it. I wouldn't experience much less self-loathing if they didn't feel it.

Additionally, what if the 't' was a 'metric tonne'? How much would each savage weigh (mass) then?

Zarix · #7 April 26th, 2002, 08:13 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Dogberry:
Another question.. how many SEIV MP players are there out there ?

PBW had 300 active Users yesterday and 453 Last week. That is the amount of people who have logged in to the site.

Dogberry · #8 April 26th, 2002, 11:23 AM

Thanks for the quick replies .. folks. Gonna be laid low this week for a operation ... nothing serious. So I will have some time off. Sure to have more questions.

BTW... on the ships/minerals thing, I meant for maintanence.. not for initial production.

Good gaming,
Dog

Zarix · #9 April 26th, 2002, 02:44 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Dogberry:
BTW... on the ships/minerals thing, I meant for maintanence.. not for initial production.

Maintenance is just some per cent of initial cost.

Dogberry · #10 April 27th, 2002, 09:51 PM

Just got an "out of range" error about 100-120 turns into a standard game.

BTW..the figures for PBW look pretty good for MP .. for a game like this. There is probably two or three times as much actual activity out there. Has anybody tried hosting games by using ICQ to develop a player list ?

Dog