New player struggling - Page 4

Andy Watkins · #31 March 21st, 2002, 03:00 PM

Thanks for advice,

A few questions.

<<1)Problem is, you can just put one part on a sat, but this sat would not have to pay maintenance. Try to build a space station, they are 50% maintenance compared with ships, but you can put more miners into it compared with sats.>>

Good idea HOW do i move a space stion to the asteroid field?

<<2)You need a troop transport with ground troops, and the fleet has to be set up with "capture planet" strategy. >>

Sounds reasonable I will do that

<<If you have a military alliance with someone, this could be even a resupply by allies planet.>>

Didn't know this, will give it a try

Andy

Growltigga · #32 March 21st, 2002, 03:02 PM

Good idea HOW do i move a space stion to the asteroid field?

you need to develop cruiser size hulls so that you can build a spaceyard module in that hull and make a mobile construction base - move this beuaty to where you want to build the spacestation and bingo

dogscoff · #33 March 21st, 2002, 05:23 PM

quote:

>You need a troop transport with ground troops,
>and the fleet has to be set up with "capture
>planet" strategy.

Sounds reasonable I will do that

Or, if you're using tactical combat, fly your troop transport right up close to the planet, then click "options" and "drop troops".

Watch out for those pesky weapons platforms!

capnq · #34 March 21st, 2002, 05:52 PM

A few more points that haven't been mentioned:

quote:
first you need to build a ship that has "satellite layer" component on it. You get this free at the start of the game. Also make sure you build some cargo pods on your satellite layer ship.

The Satellite Layer component itself has a small amount of cargo capacity, but you usually want to add Cargo Bays, too.

quote:
Not very clear about combat. if you have ion cannons they seem to fire straight at whatever you target. I had a mk I capital missile and think I fired it, very difficult to tell, I think it was reponsible for a purple splat on my ship, I never seemed to get a purple splat on my target so don't know if it ever hit, or was the purple splat their missiles hitting me??

There are a couple different classes of weapon; you can see which is which when you're designing a ship (F3) with the Weapons Report button. When a weapon hits a ship, there will be an explosion sound effect and a visual that varies by weapon. If you see a brief flicker of a circle-ish thing around the target, you hit Shields.

Each race has its own ship and missile graphics; some races are much harder to see than others.

quote:
What does the set patrol button do, will they patrol, go back and resupply and then come back again??

I don't think I've ever actually used this in SE IV, but I think it will shuttle back and forth between its current position and the destination you set. It won't go back for supplies on its own unless you have the Resupply Minister [ (F11) Empire Staus/Ministers ] turned on.

quote:

Presumably if you were building a big fleet you could put a big freighter with lots of supply in the fleet and then the fleet could Last much longer??

Yes, but note that Cargo Bays and Supply Storage are two different things; you probably don't want to build your supply tender on a Transport hull.

quote:
maybe Shrapnel could give us an indication based on where they have shipped copies of the game..?

A long time ago, the Shrapnel home page had a Top Ten list of countries by games sold (though I think that was for all products). USA was first, of course; ISTR that 2-4 were the Netherlands, Germany, and Great Britain, but I may have the order wrong.

Andy Watkins · #35 March 21st, 2002, 06:24 PM

That might have taken me a long time to work out, I'll see if my light cruiser hull is big enough for the job.

Thanks everyone you are giving me loads of great ideas.

you need to develop cruiser size hulls so that you can build a spaceyard module in that hull and make a mobile construction base - move this beuaty to where you want to build the spacestation and bingo

rand029 · #36 March 21st, 2002, 09:23 PM

Guess I'll add my newbie question to this thread for convenience...

Is there any way to make the Ministers automatically pick what type of colony to make?

I set my ministers for Facility Construction on, and they take care of building, but no matter what I try, it still asks for what type of colony it is. I know the AI have a file that determines planet type... I just want it to work for me, so I don't have to worry about it.

Thanks in advance!

Also - is there a way to thread Messages in the board to put the newest at the end instead of the beginning? Reading whole threads involves a LOT of scrolling for longer Messages....

Alpha Kodiak · #37 March 21st, 2002, 09:40 PM

quote:
Originally posted by rand029:
Guess I'll add my newbie question to this thread for convenience...

Is there any way to make the Ministers automatically pick what type of colony to make?

I set my ministers for Facility Construction on, and they take care of building, but no matter what I try, it still asks for what type of colony it is. I know the AI have a file that determines planet type... I just want it to work for me, so I don't have to worry about it.

Thanks in advance!

Also - is there a way to thread Messages in the board to put the newest at the end instead of the beginning? Reading whole threads involves a LOT of scrolling for longer Messages....

It took me forever to figure it out, but there is a setting under Empire Options (I think) that allows you to turn that off. I'm at work, so I can't tell you exactly what it says, but I believe that it is toward the bottom of the first group of options.

rand029 · #38 March 22nd, 2002, 12:50 AM

Ah, I found it...
"Display select colony type dialog when colonizing planet."

Thanks. Much better now!

PsychoTechFreak · #39 March 22nd, 2002, 12:57 AM

"display confirmation dialog when ending turn" -off, saves a lot of clicks, too.

Growltigga · #40 March 22nd, 2002, 02:05 AM

quote:
Originally posted by dogscoff:
I'm pretty sure there's someone round here currently residing in Africa - and that doesn't even take into account the lurkers.]

His handle is Saxon and he only half counts as African as I think he is Canadian.

A head count would be interesting, you, me and Dogscoff = 3 brits, NippyTheMagicalDUck makes 4, Derb makes 5, trying to think who else there is