More stupid newbie tricks ( questions ) !

[Dogberry]

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 ]