Newbie here!

DarkShikari · #1 December 25th, 2005, 01:04 PM

I got Space Empires 4 a few weeks ago, and have since then read through hundreds and hundreds of pages of various guides and stuff in an attempt to even start to understand this complex game.

However, I've run into a single thing that has kept me from really enjoying this game. An example:

I have about 100 planets, say. Lets say I discover the technology for the atmospheric modification plants, and I want to build one on all of my planets. This, of course, consists of going through the annoying "scrap" process once for every single one of my planets, and then going to every single one to add an atmo plant to the queue.

Is there any way in-game around this, or a mod? Micromanagement is all well and good, but after all too long playing Ferion, I'm used to hitting a few buttons to filter a list of planets, and then order them to do various things via the pretty "select all" button.

Atrocities · #2 December 25th, 2005, 01:29 PM

Hello,

What you describe is exactly how I do it. I often leave one spot open on each planet in order to build ACF's but more often than not find that I need to scrap a facility to build an ACF. This is just one of those things. I like to wait a while before begining to build ACF's until I have researched everything. Then I simply scarp all Research Facilities at once. This opens up a huge amount of room on most planets, or at least all those that have research facilities. But normally its a per planet basis. To many ACF's being built at once can and will bankrupt your empires resources.

However if you want to use the Select All button you have to press CTRL or is it SHIFT(?) and then click on the queues you want, then click on the SELECT ALL button. I have never tried using it for anything other than giving orders to large numbers of planets to build troops, weapon platforms, or fighters.

The game itself is not all that complicated, it just has layers and layers of good stuff. Good luck.

DarkShikari · #3 December 25th, 2005, 02:33 PM

The select-all feature, unfortunately, ONLY works for Units.

I have found out about the bankrupting process though...

Renegade 13 · #4 December 25th, 2005, 04:53 PM

Welcome to the forums DarkShikari!

Now as for your question...unfortunately there is no easy way to make room on all your planets, then add a single facility to them all at once. Yep, it sure would be nice, but as far as I know it isn't possible. What I end up doing is just starting at the colonies in a system on the far end of my empire then begin the process of scrap one facility, build Atmospheric Converter, move on to next colony and repeat. Yeah, it becomes quite tiresome after the first dozen or so planets, but reaps rewards later on when your min/org/rad production triples or so.

Hope you enjoy the game! (despite the occasional annoyance

) and I'm sorry I can't help you out.

DarkShikari · #5 December 25th, 2005, 06:18 PM

Heh, I guess this would be a very, very valuable feature for SE5.

Ferion has a very complex filter mechanism for filtering planets based on every statistic imaginable, and then orders that can be applied to a whole grouping of them. For example, in Space Empires 5, the following could be done if this was implemented:

1. I want to build an atmo enhancer on all my planets.
2. I select "show only planets without an atmo enhancer."
3. I choose to scrap a Research Facility on each one.
4. I then choose "show only planets without an atmo enhancer that are full of facilities" to show the planets that didn't have a research facility to scrap.
5. On each of these, I individually scrap. There won't be many of these, of course.
6. I select all the planets and build an atmo enhancer

Arkcon · #6 December 25th, 2005, 06:30 PM

If you need some help finding the colonies, you can open the colony window (that's the little dome icon on the left button bar.) From there, you can sort your colonized planets by atmosphere, or race. You can select each planet by double clicking. But like everyone else said, you do have to find each one.

DarkShikari · #7 December 25th, 2005, 07:25 PM

Managing the build queues individually on each of 100 planets seems to be the only thing stopping me from playing 24 hours a day... ^^

Caduceus · #8 December 25th, 2005, 10:37 PM

There has to be some sort of "hang-over" for a game like this

Welcome to the forums.

DarkShikari · #9 December 26th, 2005, 10:50 AM

I just got the demo for Starfury, and this thing is addictive as hell. However, I'm up to the mission to destroy the starbase in enemey space.

I reached the starbase, and realized I couldn't kill it with my destroyer. I waited, but no fleet came to help as promised. So I spent a good hour or two killing enemy ships and getting enough loot to fund myself a fully-kitted top-end cruiser. I put on four point defense cannons and thousands of shields, and headed back.

I blew up the starbase.

Mission didn't complete.

I know it isn't the right forum, but might as well keep it all in the same thread...

PvK · #10 December 27th, 2005, 07:45 PM

Welcome DarkShikari!

I think when you get to the point where you have an empire that's so big that managing something like atmosphere conversion is getting tedious, that it's time for one of the following:

* Relax your efficiency standards for yourself - only build a few atmospheric converters at a time, as you notice the need for them.

* If you're playing against the AI, start a new game session, since you've probably pretty much won.

* Start a new game in a smaller quadrant, and/or with colonization limited to original planet types.

* Start playing games on PBW against humans.

Cheers,

PvK