Lazy non-newbie questions..

Iron Giant · #1 December 15th, 2003, 03:36 PM

Sooo, I finally got around to using some of the mods on the Gold CD. Huzza! Love the TDM mod pack. Love them new races! The first time one of them actually invaded one of my planets with troops, I couldn't figure out what was going on. I'd never seen that before!

The Eagle heads are good.
The Drazhi (?) spooks are very nicely done.
Mr. Happy Pants people are pretty good and annoyingly happy (love it!)
Love the Rage.
Love the changed Messages.

Anywho: I am struggling with tactics in Single Player, now that I can't just go and beat everyone up on the highest difficulty levels. I'm sure these questions have been asked, but I did some searches and can't find anything definitive:

1. Fighters:

Is there a better weapon than the DUAC? I've looked through all the small (non-specialized tech) weapons, and the DUAC cannon seems to be the only game in town? 3 tons for 15 points of damage. All the others are much heavier, or don't fire every turn, or both for around the same damage??

How can I keep my fighters alive? A handful of BB's chew through them by the hundreds?? Does fighter shielding work correctly? I thought the concensus was that it only protected the first fighter in the stack then stopped so I stopped using it. Was this fixed?

Can I set fighters with missles to rearm on their carriers during tactical combat or can I only do this manually?

2. Trading tech:

How can I get this to work? Even when I have a partnership with another race, I can't usually see what tech he has and doesnt have. Most of the time, they just turn down my offers to trade tech.

3. Weapons:

It seems to me, that the DUAC is the best weapon in the game, considering cost to research, range, damage, etc. The other weapons start to add up late, late game, but cost millions of points to research for a slight range increase or damage increase over the DUAC. Some weapons never get any better than the DUAC when you look closely at tonnage and fire rate, so why bother with 75% of the weapons? The DUAC is cheap and available to all. The only weapon that is far and away the best (wave motion gun) takes millions and millions of research. Its worth it if you have the time, but if not, DUAC can do the job...

4. Ministers:

I like huge galaxys with huge fleets but late game the management is really hard.

How do I set minelayers (sat layers, etc) to automatically pickup and set mines?

How can I set ministers to automatically move population? Can they move population from/to planets with their atmosphere type?

Can I somehow setup ministers to automatically colonize planets without having them take over too much? When I get that Last planet colony tech, I usually have 20 - 30 planets of that type to colonize....

Can I set planets making fighters to send the fighters to one location when built?

Thanks!

Arkcon · #2 December 15th, 2003, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Iron Giant:

Can I set fighters with missiles to rearm on their carriers during tactical combat or can I only do this manually?

This can't be done ... at all. The rocket pods are one shot per combat, and there is no recall function for fighters.

Quote:

Most of the time, they just turn down my offers to trade tech.

For the most part, tech trading is more dependant on AI mood. The TDM-Modpack don't trade -- you're just going to cheat them anyway, so that's part of the challenge.

Quote:

The only weapon that is far and away the best (wave motion gun) takes millions and millions of research. Its worth it if you have the time, but if not, DUAC can do the job...

Exactly right...the DUC is better, until the other weapons go up in level. Then they're better.

The challenge is, researching fast enough and switching over your fleet at just the right time.

Quote:

How do I set minelayers (sat layers, etc) to automatically pickup and set mines?

That's easy. Just turn on the minister, and build units, turn on the minister for a transport ship...but you don't know for sure that the minister will lay them at the best spot.

Quote:

How can I set ministers to automatically move population? Can they move population from/to planets with their atmosphere type?

Can I somehow setup ministers to automatically colonize planets without having them take over too much? When I get that Last planet colony tech, I usually have 20 - 30 planets of that type to colonize....

Short answer ... you won't like the job the minister does in these cases.

[ December 15, 2003, 14:30: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

oleg · #3 December 15th, 2003, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Iron Giant:
...How can I keep my fighters alive? A handful of BB's chew through them by the hundreds?? Does fighter shielding work correctly? I thought the concensus was that it only protected the first fighter in the stack then stopped so I stopped using it. Was this fixed?...

Shields on fighters work correctly, each fighter in stack get the points from shield. You probably are thinking about Energy Transmission Lens - does add shield points to each fighter or only once per stack ? I have no answer but according to others, ETL works for each fighter. Could be scarry if you against 20+ stack of heavy fighters

Loser · #4 December 15th, 2003, 05:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arkcon:

quote:

The only weapon that is far and away the best (wave motion gun) takes millions and millions of research. Its worth it if you have the time, but if not, DUAC can do the job...

Exactly right...the DUC is better, until the other weapons go up in level. Then they're better. The challenge is, researching fast enough and switching over your fleet at just the right time.

The simplified progression goes like this.

DUC for early game.
PPB for midgame (it is beeter than DUC, and penetrates unphased shields).
SD + APB for late game.

Throw in some CSM and WMG for variety.

Cipher7071 · #5 December 15th, 2003, 05:20 PM

Here's a question that belongs in this thread:

I recently had a squadron of fighters 'taken.' I didn't suspect such a thing was possible, and I saw nothing special in the enemy carrier's tech (this was in TDM Modpack). All of a sudden the fighters I sent to attack an enemy carrier were just gone. Under what circumstances does this happen, and how can it be prevented?

Alneyan · #6 December 15th, 2003, 05:34 PM

Actually in the Pairs game the same thing happened. (That is, fighters reported being taken) However, they were plainly destroyed according to the battle replay. (Outnumbered fighters do not usually Last long) So I believe it is merely a typo, like the strange occurance where my ships are supposed to have been damaged while they are perfectly fine.

At any rate, you cannot capture units (nor can you retrofit these) so there would be no way to achieve this.

Cipher7071 · #7 December 15th, 2003, 07:16 PM

Okay. Then it's a "feature."

Suicide Junkie · #8 December 15th, 2003, 09:26 PM

Partial damage to components is recorded in the summary, but does not translate to damaged components.
A Scattering Armor component or a colony module are good examples of such things.

If a colony module takes 150/200 damage, plus 5 engines(100) and B/LS/CQ (30)
That makes for 150/330 or 45% damage even though no components were destroyed.

Also, in a simultaneous turn game, if you have repair ships in your fleet, the damage may have been repaired before you get a chance to look at the components.

[ December 15, 2003, 20:06: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

Alneyan · #9 December 15th, 2003, 09:33 PM

I see SJ, thanks for the information! As it is usually Talisman ships that are affected, I believe it is because they only took the direct occasional hit once and no components were actually destroyed. However I am still puzzled about these taken fighters.

rextorres · #10 December 15th, 2003, 09:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Loser:

quote:
Originally posted by Arkcon:

quote:

The only weapon that is far and away the best (wave motion gun) takes millions and millions of research. Its worth it if you have the time, but if not, DUAC can do the job...

Exactly right...the DUC is better, until the other weapons go up in level. Then they're better. The challenge is, researching fast enough and switching over your fleet at just the right time.
The simplified progression goes like this.

DUC for early game.
PPB for midgame (it is beeter than DUC, and penetrates unphased shields).
SD + APB for late game.

Throw in some CSM and WMG for variety.

I've been testing just sticking with the DUC throughout the whole game and I have been having some success.

For every 4 PPB armed ships I am generally able to build 5 DUC armed ships. I rarely have been able to use PPB against normal shields so PPB's shield advantage doesn't come into play. The high cost of rads for the PPB makes it too expensive IMO.

I used to be really big on APB but I am finding that the hit to miss ratio is lower because these ships fire at the longer distances. So an APB armed fleet fighting against PPB armed fleet usually gets beat. Even taking into consideration the lower build cost of the APBs.

Anyway it's just a theory - I could get blown out of the water in one of my next games.

If you have the Talisman then APBs are the best.