Stellar Manipulation

Tnarg · #1 April 3rd, 2002, 08:40 AM

I am changing my tacticts a bit and am begginging to start researching heavily in stellar manipulation. However; being a somewhat new player I do not know much about say: worm hole manipulation, planet creation, ring planets, and turning a star into a hefty platform of manmade wonder. So if any one has the time to perhaps explain or could suggest a site on how to do each of these that would be great. I like details.

Fyron · #2 April 3rd, 2002, 08:56 AM

Warp Point Manipulation is simple. Just go to the spot where you want to close or open a warp point, and you can do it.

Planet creation requires a star in the system and an asteroid belt. Move your ship onto the asteroid belt and give the order to create the planet.

Ringworlds/Sphereworlds are more complicated. You have to make them at a star. You need to assemble 11 star bases for a Ringworld or 21 for a Sphereworld. One base has the appropriate generator on it. You need 5 bases with Planetary Gravity Plating and 5 with Hyper Density Cables for a RW, and 10 of each for a SW. To get these, you have to make a ship with a space yard on it and move it there. The best thing to do is build some space stations with space yards on them to construct the starbases. They have less maintanence costs than space yard ships, and it takes a long time to build all of the starbases.

Arak Koba · #3 April 3rd, 2002, 07:19 PM

High-level cloak generators and stellar manipulation components are a delicious combination on ships, btw.

Fyron · #4 April 4th, 2002, 12:25 AM

Of course, one cloaked scanning satellite placed in every system (preferably in storms) will foil that strategy.

Loser · #5 April 5th, 2002, 07:19 AM

While you are using (immensely powerful, terribly expensive) Stellar Manipulation components for war, wouldn't it be better to just have another SM ship warp the SM warship into the enemy system.

You could have IRCC a cruiser with the warp-point maker, destroyer, and a repair bay at each location you are making the SM warships. When such a warship is made (star destroyer for ship size and ease of monitoring, nebulizer for cost) the warp-point making ship has a path to an enemy system. The suicidal SM warship zips through, makes his way to the system's star, and does his duty for God and Country. The warp point maker then has the option of popping though and leaving a recon sat (if you leave a couple of engines off), before it returns to the shipyard system and closes the warp point. Such recon sats would be utterly useless if you were using the nebulizer....

In a simultaneous game I guess you'd have to have the warp-point open a turn before hand (never used SM in simultaneous) which would give your opponent a turn to invade your shipyard or attempt to intercept the Little Samson Machine.

Additionally, every time you open such a warp-point, anyone in the target system might know where the attack is coming from (they'll see the line in the big-grid-map-thing), but only if they've seen the inside of your shipyard system before..... I think.... Or how would that work?

Additionally, this would all be extraordinarily expensive. A great way to deprive your enemy of an entire star system, but could you ever afford it? Are Stellar Manipulation Weapons used in multiplayer?

TerranC · #6 April 5th, 2002, 08:14 AM

I think many people just don't bother with Stellar Manipulation.

Except for the fact that you can construct Ringworlds and Sphearworlds later on, Researching Stellar Manipulation is an unnecessity.

Monolith Facilities maybe tempting as they can extract 900 of all "moolah" types, but they still depend on the percentage of production of the planet, and 100 minerals, organics, or radioactives are lost with every Monolith.

The power to create suns and planets may be tempting, but you can't create planets without Asteroids, You can't create suns unless nothing is in the darn thing, Nebulas and Black Holes actually become beneficial later, even with scanners because of the system abilities and Storms has no absolute value of investing in them unless you want to hide some ships or shipyards in them.

The only about useful Stellar Manipulation techs are Warp Point Creator when you want to cut a shortcut or some parts are cut off from the rest, and Warp Point Destroyer as a way of ignoring those psychotic races.

And Without cheat codes, building ringworlds and sphearworlds will take you lots of time...

Hope that helps

Phoenix-D · #7 April 5th, 2002, 08:20 AM

"High-level cloak generators and stellar manipulation components are a delicious combination on ships, btw."

Fortunately for the continued health of stars everywhere, mines don't care about cloaking

Stellar manip is fun, but most of the time it's a "if you can use this on the enemy you've already won" kind of deal.

Phoenix-D

Fyron · #8 April 5th, 2002, 09:08 AM

quote:
Monolith Facilities maybe tempting as they can extract 900 of all "moolah" types, but they still depend on the percentage of production of the planet, and 100 minerals, organics, or radioactives are lost with every Monolith.

Umm, wrong. A Monolith III makes 2700 resources, whereas a normal level 3 resource extractor makes only 1000. If you use a lowly Resource Converter I to convert the 1700 extra resources into the type that you claim is lost, you would actually get .5 x 1700 = 850 more of that resource. So, by using Monoliths, you get a lot more resources than if you used regular extractors. And when you add in the bonuses from Robotoid Factories and their ilk, the Monoliths provide an even larger bonus.

Using a Monolith III on a planet with a value of 100/10/10, you get these results:

100% --------- 900 Minerals
10% ---------- 90 Organics
10% ---------- 90 Radioactives

ConVersion to Minerals with Resource Converter III:

90 Org x 0.7 = 63 Minerals
90 Rad x 0.7 = 63 Minerals

Total Production:

900 + 63 + 63 = 1026 Min > 1000 Min from Extractor III

So, even on a relatively poor planet like this, you can actually get more resources using Monoliths than normal Resource Extractors.

tesco samoa · #9 April 5th, 2002, 03:24 PM

IF Stellar is in the game. I build my whole game around these facilities and the resource converter. ( plus value improvement)

Nothing beats internal expansion.

I would suggest that you invest the time in learning how to build them quickly without being hammered by a lack of resources within the first 60 turns

Loser · #10 April 5th, 2002, 07:47 PM

Monolith Facilities are great, really great, though they are time-consuming to build. I usually only use them on good-air, large or huge worlds, and build a Ship Yard 3 (or better yet a TSY3) just to cut down their construction time. But that reasource converter trick makes them even more impressive.... how devious....

As for the length of time it takes to build Ring Worlds or Sphere Worlds (or any tool of Stellar Manipulation), you really have to use the .... um .... 'cascading upgrade series' (got a better term?) technique or you'll never get it built (well, not _never_, but ... 'never'). Ship- (or Base-)based SY3 will build an empty Star Base in six turns IIRC, and once they're all built you need only one turn (and all of Brewster's Millions) to dance-retrofit-dance your way to the right components. *BLAM* : Big-Fracking-Planet-Thing.