More beginners questions

Kling · #1 April 6th, 2002, 12:19 PM

If any of this is answered elsewhere on the board, I have been unable to find it. I have looked, and actually learned a lot of other interesting things.

Say I have a huge planet will all 25 facilities built. What happens if I drop population breathing a different atmosphere down on that planet? The planet will get "domed", but what happens to the facilitites? Are they instantly destroyed?

Related to above, what happens if I capture a planet from a race with "advanced storage techniques"? That race will have a few additional facility slots, right? Are those extra facilities destroyed? Cargo stored in the extra cargo space?

Null-space projector weapons do skip armour and shields. Do they also skip phased shields? If so, are there any way to "stop" null-space weapons?

How do the resource converter work? I have never understood how I can control how resources are converted.

The religious talisman, isn't it just to good for that small costs in resources?

Are fighters affected by mines?

What advanced racial traits do people use? I seem to have encountered exclusively organic and religious in PBW games.

I am currently playing 1.49 but have ordered gold, so any comments on how answers to my questions differ between Version are also welcome.

dumbluck · #2 April 6th, 2002, 12:49 PM

About the facilities: the extra facilities will remain. However, if any are destroyed, you won't be able to replace them (unless you drop below your current max # of facilities, of coarse).

Null space skips all shields, including phased. The best counter is to not get hit!

But there is no (unmodded) component that will block Null space.

I've never used the resource converter.

Well, it's cheap, I guess. But it did cost you 1500 Racial Points that could have been put into things like, say attack or defence or construction rate etc. etc. etc.

Fighters and mines: I don't know off the top of my head.

Advanced storage is very useful. I'm rather fond of Crystalline myself. It's a good counter to all those Organic minded people out there. Propulsion experts is cool, too. Otherwise, I just crank up my attributes usually. See this thread for a more detailed analysis of the Racial Techs.

Edit: grr. they changed the numbering on some of the topics.

[ 06 April 2002: Message edited by: dumbluck ]

Mephisto · #3 April 6th, 2002, 01:53 PM

Resource converter: Go to the planet it is build on. Select the planet. Press Control and V. A menue will pop up where oyu can convert the resources.

capnq · #4 April 6th, 2002, 09:52 PM

The planet would change from having 25/25 facilities to having 25/5. You'd see something similar if you capture a planet from a race with Advanced Storage Techniques.

PvK · #5 April 6th, 2002, 10:00 PM

In Gold, whether fighters detonate mines or not is determined by what you have in your SE4/data/settings.txt file.

In general, hitting mines with fighters is really bad for the fighters - multiple fighters in a group will be destroyed by each mine. Sending a single fighter ahead as a scout, though, can detect minefields without risking ships or entire Groups of fighters.

PvK

Kling · #6 April 6th, 2002, 10:19 PM

Thanks a lot for the answers. Now I have a few new ideas... Null-space technology seems very attractive later in the game.

In gold, what is the default (ie un-modded) setting for fighters encountering minefields?

Phoenix-D · #7 April 7th, 2002, 01:21 AM

Just keep in mind that Null-Space does pretty low damage. 60 every three turns. If your opponent is heavy on resources, it's great..but if you ONLY use null-space, he can counter by desining ships that are all weapon.

Phoenxi-d

pathfinder · #8 April 7th, 2002, 02:52 AM

IIRC fighters are a decent way to clear mines---if the carrier wasn't destroyed.

Kling · #9 April 8th, 2002, 08:05 PM

Ah. It only fires every three turns... Gah. Will have to think about this. So many decisions...

Meantime, another question. I recently took over an abandoned empire in a multiplayer PBW game, and noticed something strange. In the construction dialog, some of the designs were greyed because I did not have the technology to build them. How can you create designs that you do not have the tech for?

Suicide Junkie · #10 April 8th, 2002, 09:42 PM

The only way that you will get designs for tech you haven't researched is if the data files have been changed,
OR
if the empire saved its designs along with the race, and those designs are from the high tech endgame times.

If your empire's experience is quite high, the second option is very likely.