Comments after 2 days

[Henri]

OK, the game has kept me away from Morrowind for two straight evenings, so it must be good (sheesh, and the Lost victories CD arrived yesterday...).

The game is fairly complex and as I suspected the demo does not give a very good idea of the richness of the game due to it being too short.

I am still playing at the beginner level to get a good feeling for what goes on. In my present game, I play only from the galaxy view (100 systems) except when one of my scouts goes into combat. I gave myself some advantages so I wouldn't have to tweak too much -figuring out the best development strategy is pretty complex and requuires a good knowledge of the game. At least at this level, I found it best to create two or three scouts as soon as possible in order to explore as many systems as possible before my opponents. Freighters are sent out automatically, so the more star systems explored before the opponents, the more moola rolls in.

One problem I had with my previous game was that just after I conquered the next to last opponent, all of my starships (three) refused to move, even those in my worlds . But new starships I fabricated could move normally, except once in a while one of them also became paralyzed. I thought that this might be some feature of the game, but I was unable to find anything in the menus or manual that explains it. And no, the "rescue ship" button didn't come on. They had normal menus, but nothing happened when I gave them orders, they sust stayed where they were. Sounds like a bug...

Henri

[Andrew Ewanchyna]

I'm always willing to take a look at a saved game file, if you still have one. Saved games are in the Games subfolder. Just attach it to an email for support@apezone.com and I'll take a look. Check to see if these ships are missing either drives or generators.

[Henri]

Originally posted by Andrew Ewanchyna
IJust attach it to an email for support@apezone.com and I'll take a look. Check to see if these ships are missing either drives or generators.

This raises an issue I don't understand despite reading the manual. The game confuses power and energy (power x time), and both terms are used interchangeably. If the items in a spaceship require more "power" than the generators create, do some of the items go offline, or do items accumulate "power" so that if enough time goes by, all systems are fully charged?

In other words, just to illustrate, in the game let us say that the computer required 10 units and the beam weapon requires 15 units, but the generator can supply only 20 units. What happens: does the computer go offline, does the beam weapon refuse to fire, or does it fire and then go offline until enough "power" has been generated?

"Normally", beam weapons would require energy (power x time) to recharge or else a given amount of continuous energy to fire, or equivalently, a given amount of power over a certain amount of time. A computer would require a certain amount of power to keep it running, whereas a phasor beam would use a certain amount of power over a certain amount of time to store energy which is then spit out all at once in a bolt of energy.

How does this work in the game? Can a ship be stalled while it still has working generators due to lack of power?

Henri

[madmax88]

Well let's say you have ship with 2 lasers, 1 generator, 1 fwd laser screen and 1 drive. Each of these need power to operate but also can store this power. If you fire your weapons, your generator then tries to recharge them. If your shields have been hit, your generator will first try to regenerate them.

If you have too many components requiring power, and too little generator, it'll simply take a lot longer to recharge. Making you inneficient in combat. If you require a total of 200 power units for everthing, and have 1 generator supplying, let's say, 5 units/second , you'll need 40 seconds to recharge all your components.

And also, to answer your first query (ships won't move), make sure you have enough funds to support them. If you don't, your crew leaves and the ship becomes lifeless.

[Andrew Ewanchyna]

Yes, I like most everyone in the world use the words power and energy interchangably. With that said, things basically work like this.

Only generators can create energy. All components that use energy will store it like a capacitor (even generators can store some energy if there is no demand for it). Many will require a full charge before being able to do whatever it is they do. These components will be offline until they are fully charged.

[Henri]

Another question. What do the colors in the research screen correspond to? Can one tell from the research menu which age an item belongs to? Is there an easy way to determine what series of discoveries are required to obtaina specific advance?

I understand that you have to first be in the corresponding age, but there does not seem to be any easy way to determine which advances to choose to advance to the next one.

For example, let's say I am in the fusion age, and I want terraforming, which is in the singularity age.Is there any way except by poring through the manual for half an hour to determine what is the best way to get there as fast as possible? As nar as I can make out, I first will have to look at each new advance and make sure that it will help me to get to the next age. I have to do this until I advance to each succesive age until I reach the last one. If the colors corresponded to each age, it would be a lot easier, but I think they correspond to different classes of advances (weapons, shields etc).

And here is another one: I have never been able to request a planet in a deal sweetener. I have tried to do what it says in the manual, but whatever I do, all I ever manage to ask for is money. Let's say I press the option to let my advisors choose a planet; when I gt back to the next menu, there is still never any planet name in the planet line, and the only choice I have is to accept or refuse.

And, oh yest...fleets. Am I to understand that I can have only one fleet? I have not found any way to have more than one or zero (I knw, I can manually remove individual ships from the fleet after I create it, when it takes all the ships). It would be nice to have fleets of two or three ships to sail around kicking ***. I once lost about six ships in a row to the same pirated system.

Henri

[madmax88]

Colors correspond only to the type of technology... red/weapons, orange/generators...etc.

Upon reading about one technology, it says there what is required to get it.

To advance to the next age, you need 15 discovered technologies in that age plus 2 wisdom artifacts for the first age, one extra wisdom per age after that. When those criterias are met, the next age laboratory will be constructed, or do so yourself.

Using a planet as a deal sweetener is a little tricky, you just have to play with the menus for a while til you figure it out. It works fine.

You can have as many fleets as you want. It's under the settings button in the menu. Where you can change your ship name.