Kindeloids: Blow-byBlow AAR

[Baleur]

1991 called, they want their .gif's back [:D]
Nah sorry, cool AAR [:)]

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

Thanks for the replies, I was beginning to think I was the only one here.

2763.09.11 I manually ordered the 2nd, 5th, and 1st fleet to return to the Kantras Gula system (I’ll call it KG from now on).

2763.11.09 A large Kurbus fleet warps into the KG system (screenshot). They have 2 cruisers (CA) and 3 DDs!! 1st fleet loses 3 ships as I get flattened. I raise taxes on all my planets to 25%. It’s going to take extreme measures to deal with this, and I need serious financial gains now or this game is a done deal.

(Figure 19) 2763.09.11

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

2763.12.04 I decide to lay down a small space port at KG-5. I had to re-order 1st (what was left of it, which is one ship), 2nd, and 5th fleets to KG-5. They retreated before (after the last battle), and seem to want to refuel elsewhere instead of using the two planets I already own in the KG system. Why on earth they would do this I have no idea?? I went into the options tab and made sure “attacks against enemy” is set to “control manually”. I also made sure “empire settings” are all set to “engage nearby targets” only -> I hope these settings will keep my fleets at the planets I position them at & not engage anything beyond the planet they’re stationed at (what I interpret as “nearby targets”). Fleet control is becoming a problem as far as my inability to override “auto” on “manual”.

2764.04.11 .. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to keep my ships in the KG system, even at planets I own (which are refuel points) .. The large Kurbus fleet re-appeared at KG-5, killed my spaceport which was under construction and one ship from 2nd fleet. I might as well sacrifice the KG system, as I cannot keep my combat ships there on manual control. I send what’s left of 1st, 2nd, and 5th fleets to Abrigadu FOS. My exploration ships have done nothing for me this game from year 3ish on.

2764.06.14 I had previously jacked my tax rate to +60% what it was previously, but so far I’m only seeing a 2k increase in tax revenue. My ship maintenance dropped to 56k given my previous losses, but I’m still in the red. Unless something big happens soon (financially) as far as tax income, I’m going to concede. I’m expecting, after moving 12 colony’s tax rates from 15% to 25%, something on the order of: 15/25 = .6. Thus, I should get an increase of something like 160% of 62k (what I was getting from the old tax rate) or about 99k (1.6 x 62k = 99k). It’s essential that I have this large increase in funding to build a large enough fleet to destroy Kurbus, who are much stronger than I’d anticipated. Screenshot is taken on this date, as you can see my 5th fleet is being chased from the KG system to ab-FOS (Kurbus is the red dashed arrow).

(Figure 20) 2764.06.14

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: rk0123msp@mindspring
2763.12.04 I decide to lay down a small space port at KG-5. I had to re-order 1st (what was left of it, which is one ship), 2nd, and 5th fleets to KG-5. They retreated before (after the last battle), and seem to want to refuel elsewhere instead of using the two planets I already own in the KG system. Why on earth they would do this I have no idea?? I went into the options tab and made sure “attacks against enemy” is set to “control manually”. I also made sure “empire settings” are all set to “engage nearby targets” only -> I hope these settings will keep my fleets at the planets I position them at & not engage anything beyond the planet they’re stationed at (what I interpret as “nearby targets”). Fleet control is becoming a problem as far as my inability to override “auto” on “manual”.

2764.04.11 .. No matter what I do, I cannot seem to keep my ships in the KG system, even at planets I own (which are refuel points) .. The large Kurbus fleet re-appeared at KG-5, killed my spaceport which was under construction and one ship from 2nd fleet. I might as well sacrifice the KG system, as I cannot keep my combat ships there on manual control. I send what’s left of 1st, 2nd, and 5th fleets to Abrigadu FOS. My exploration ships have done nothing for me this game from year 3ish on.

I haven't seen similar issues - could you e-mail me a save file to erikr@matrixgames.com please? Only thing I can think of is that you did not in fact have the fuel they needed in that system.

2764.06.14 I had previously jacked my tax rate to +60% what it was previously, but so far I’m only seeing a 2k increase in tax revenue. My ship maintenance dropped to 56k given my previous losses, but I’m still in the red. Unless something big happens soon (financially) as far as tax income, I’m going to concede. I’m expecting, after moving 12 colony’s tax rates from 15% to 25%, something on the order of: 15/25 = .6. Thus, I should get an increase of something like 160% of 62k (what I was getting from the old tax rate) or about 99k (1.6 x 62k = 99k). It’s essential that I have this large increase in funding to build a large enough fleet to destroy Kurbus, who are much stronger than I’d anticipated. Screenshot is taken on this date, as you can see my 5th fleet is being chased from the KG system to ab-FOS (Kurbus is the red dashed arrow).

The tax rate reaches a point of diminishing returns - you can check this for each colony. If you put it too high, you can actually end up with less money, you need to find the sweet spot. It's generally possible to raise it from "peacetime" levels that are optimal for growth to "wartime" levels that bring you more income without going too far to where compliance and happiness drop through the floor.

Regards,

- Erik

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

Thanks for the info; I'm not sure what file the saved games are in?

I found the matrix, distant worlds file on my C drive, but where is the saved games file? I'm sure I have a saved game at each of my gif images, as I had to exit to save the image.

There's a lot I don't know about this game yet, and I seem to get a lot more questions than I can get answers for them.

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

2764.07.09 I lose a medium freighter at KG-4 to a Kurbus DD. KG-5 is under attack by two troop transports, I have 2 defending troops on planet.

2764.08.22 KG-5 falls to Kurbus.

2764.11.30 My tax income is a whopping 64k, a whole 2k increase in taxes from the massive tax increase to 25%. This is not going to cut it for me, and I’ll concede at this point. I needed more finances and 2k over what I had before is simply not going to do it. From my colony screen, I had 2 yellow faces, 8 white, and 2 purple. Only one colony, Nobea 1 is in my expansion planner as a colonizable world, that’s seven years, 2months and 10 days (2757.09.20 was the last year I actually found a new colonizeble world) without any new colonies for income generation, three-quarters of the entire game without one new world.

2764.12.01 This is the Kurbus diplomacy screen. I tried a last ditch effort to end the war with diplomacy. They would not accept (neither would I if I was them). As you can see, they have 4 advanced weapons tech over me in addition to cruiser level design. How in the hell they got that, I have no idea? I set the pregame tech advances to very slow, and I haven’t got one single tech advance this whole game, though I have my research maxed out, plus a 10% science bonus for democracy & human. I have no idea what’s going on here, how they got so far ahead of me is beyond me? They only have 4 star systems.

(Figure 21) 2764.12.01

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

2764.12.01 My final empire summary screen, you can see the piddling tax income of 65k after that massive increase of 60% tax rate in 11 of 12 planets. I have no idea why the tax increased so little given the whopping increase? A 3k increase in tax income for a 60% tax increase just seems wrong, what is it that I am not getting here? I calculate I should have 99k taxes: 1.6 (160%) x 62k (old pre tax income) = 99k … why is my income not going up reasonably close to this amount?? 65k simply does not cut it.

I also decided to look closely at my closing resources to see if there was anything else I lacked financially. I know that I did not find the rare resources, but why was my income so darn low? I know the lack of new colonizable worlds was the main factor.

4 argon (+1)
6 steel
2 irridium
2 gold
5 chromium (+1)
5 lead
4 emeros crystal (+1)
2 nekron stone
6 hydrogen (+3)
4 helium
4 krypton (+2)
1 *yarros marble
1 *megallos nut
6 carbon fibre (+1)
6 caslon (+2)
5 polymer (+3)
3 silicon
1 *Natarran Incense
1 *Dantha Fur
1 *Wiconium
2 Osalia (+1)
3 *Aquasian incense
1 *Vodkol
1 *Terallion down
3 Aculon
1 *Questrion skin
2 *Otandium opal
2 *Jakanta ivory
3 Dilithium crystal
2 Tyderios

Amazing!! Major gains made in my resources since the last time I checked on 2757.09.20 .. I guess I should expect a significant increase here given it’s 7 years and 3 months later. Everything below Osalia is bran new, that’s 9 new resources 6 of which are luxury. That gives me a total of 11 luxury resources, why this is not being translated into tax income I have no idea? Screenshot shows my final empire summary screen.

(Figure 22) 2764.12.01_es

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

Lastly, I thought I’d take a screenshot showing the galaxy screen, in order to determine where my 15 exploration ships were. I think the dominant reason I lost this game was the 7 years (out of 10) that my exploration ships failed to find any new colonizable worlds, hence the lack of income, and hence my decision to start a war with Kurbus (who were much stronger than I anticipated) in an attempt to gain new worlds that I wasn’t getting elsewhere. As you can see from the screenshot, there are two groups of 5 exp ships clustered tightly, the other 5 are spread out, either exploring or en-route to refuel. Why the “auto” control of my exp ships decided to cluster this way I have no idea? In retrospect, I should have taken manual control of my exp ships to make sure they explored optimally, but as I was involved in conflict most of the game, either against pirates early on or Kurbus later on, it was a challenge just to reel in my combat ships and get them to do what I wanted them to.

In a way, I’m glad I lost. It keeps up my interest in a game. I lose interest in PC games once I can beat them easily. I’m also not one of those who like to “cheat” by saving before a battle and only accepting good results .. if I lose, I lose, simple as that. I did no “editing” during the game, so what my AI opponents had was what they had. Basically, I like a game more when I lose, if that makes any sense?

In summary, I think the reasons I lost (some of which were under my control, some weren’t) were as follows in order of priority:

1) Definitely the lack of finding new worlds: from year 3 on to game-end. I did not find one single new colonizable world that could add to my tax base this whole period. This was partially my fault & partially not. My fault being the lack of manual control of my exploration ships (to provide the most optimal search patterns), and not my fault in the sense that if there’s no new worlds then there’s no new worlds (I can’t do anything about that).

2) The decision to make war on Kurbus. This AI had cruisers and 4 military tech advances over me at the time I attacked (unknown to me at that time). My military losses & gains are as follows (since the last time I evaluated them): Killed: 5 Kurbus DD, Lost: 3DD, 1FF,1TT, 1 med freighter, 1 planet (KG-5). Final military kill/loss ratio adding to my previous 19/22: Lost 26, Killed 27, almost a 50/50 split which stinks from my personal POV. This was what I was mainly concerned with in the game, given that I consider myself more of a military strategist & tactician than anything else.

3) The tax increase failure: why I only got a 3k increase in taxes for a whopping 60% increase in taxes over all 11 of my colonies but one is completely beyond me? If I was even able to get a reasonable increase (even 80k/90k out of the calculated 99k), I could’ve laid down 10+ new DDs, troop ships, and troops and waged an all-out war on Kurbus, but the lack of income is completely pigeonholing me & making it impossible to build the size military I need to wage an effective war. I also had 11 luxury items at game end, why did this not positively effect my income?

4) The lack of manual control. My troop ships doing a suicidal attack on a well defended colony is unbelievable, the ships were definitely set to “manual” and I have no clue as to why they did what they did? The KG system was a bit overstretched from my nearest colony at Abrigadu FOS, but the ships of the three fleets I had posted there should have been able to refuel at KG-4 and KG-5 while these planets were still under my control instead of trying to go to other systems for fuel, systems which were significant distances away. This caused dispersion amongst my fleets, and Kurbus was able to flatten me easily with their last two attack .. though it would’ve made no difference given their fleet strength (2 CA and 3DD) was far ahead of anything I had at this point .. which begs the question, how were they able to obtain cruiser tech this early in the game? Did my “slow research speed” pregame setting affect them at all?

So many questions, so few answers. [:(]

(Figure 23) 2764.12.01_ex

[Grotius]

Tough loss, but as you say, games are more fun if they're challenging. I thoroughly enjoyed your account. A couple thoughts.

1. On exploration, I pause and make sure I send each explorer ship to a different sector; I give them orders to explore all stars in that sector. Eventually each comes back home to refuel, and when I see the "explorer ship has completed its mission" scroll-message, I know it's time to send it back on station. It would be nice if there were a command saying "explore sector A4, refueling as necessary." Maybe there is and I don't know it? Anyway, my method works OK for me -- I use about a half-dozen explorers, so I don't have to tend to them that often.

2. On taxes, my experience echoes what Erik says: if you raise taxes too drastically, you can actually lose money because of backlash. I raise them gradually and see what happens. Also, I try to rely on other sources of income: starbases, resorts, trade.

3. On manual control, I also sometimes wonder why a ship I gave ordered to is back under auto control. This seems to happen most often with construction ships. But when it comes to fleets and military ships, I don't seem to have as much trouble as you did. I assume you're using the latest version of the game, as it supposedly patched some of this behavior. Are you sure your fueling station in that sector actually had enough fuel to feed the ships in question? I find that if I order a military ship to patrol a particular sector or star, it stays there until it needs to refuel. But I haven't really done a full-scale offensive operation yet, so my experience here is limited. Maybe others can weigh in.

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

Tough loss, but as you say, games are more fun if they're challenging. I thoroughly enjoyed your account. A couple thoughts.

1. On exploration, I pause and make sure I send each explorer ship to a different sector; I give them orders to explore all stars in that sector. Eventually each comes back home to refuel, and when I see the "explorer ship has completed its mission" scroll-message, I know it's time to send it back on station. It would be nice if there were a command saying "explore sector A4, refueling as necessary." Maybe there is and I don't know it? Anyway, my method works OK for me -- I use about a half-dozen explorers, so I don't have to tend to them that often.

2. On taxes, my experience echoes what Erik says: if you raise taxes too drastically, you can actually lose money because of backlash. I raise them gradually and see what happens. Also, I try to rely on other sources of income: starbases, resorts, trade.

3. On manual control, I also sometimes wonder why a ship I gave ordered to is back under auto control. This seems to happen most often with construction ships. But when it comes to fleets and military ships, I don't seem to have as much trouble as you did. I assume you're using the latest version of the game, as it supposedly patched some of this behavior. Are you sure your fueling station in that sector actually had enough fuel to feed the ships in question? I find that if I order a military ship to patrol a particular sector or star, it stays there until it needs to refuel. But I haven't really done a full-scale offensive operation yet, so my experience here is limited. Maybe others can weigh in.

This was the first game I played using the newest version, 1.6.0. You're right, I'm definitely going to have to order my exp ships to explore by sector. This was the first game I've played that I went 7 years without finding one new world, which is an anomaly for me. But you're right, I need to insure this doesn't happen again by manually sending my exp ships to explore by sectors in the future.

I've ran into financial problems in past games, but this was the first game I was unable to get out of the tank. Prior games, I've never went higher than 15% on non-homeworlds. Raising to 25% basically did nothing for me this game. Somehow, I don't think 20% tax raise would've made much of a difference either. I think part of my financial woes (in adddition to the lack of new colonies) was the lack of foreign trade revanue. I had one foreign trade-route set up in this game, but it seemed to have little effect. This might've been because I raised the bar on the difficulty setting at pre game, and thus AIs were more hesitant to do a trade route (I'm hypothesizing there). In prievious games, I've always gained significant foreign trade revenue.

I have no idea how to determine how much fuel is present at a new colony? I just assumed new planets are unlimited fuel sources. How do I determine what the fuel supply is on a planet?

I did have a resort, but it was too far and brought in little to no income. I had no adequete resort sites near enough to my large colonies to make use of this (which pretty much happens to me in every game). This is actually the first game I've even gotten a small amount of resort income.

I don't know why my transports decided to attack a nearby heavily defended world? It makes no sense, given that they were on manual. This happened shortly after my second attack on the KG system (after I reloaded my transports a second time) .. after I took the second Kurbus planet, I was shortly thereafter attacked by a significant Kurbus fleet (I think this was the one big battle I won against Kurbus). After the battle, I checked where my fleets were and the 5th fleet (of transports), was in the Abset system trying to invade a planet defended by a small spaceport. One of the transports was lost here.

I know that Rutkins mentioned that there is a "diminishing returns" as far as taxes go. Is there some way to exactly determine how much a tax raise will give you & affect you? As of now, I have absolutely no clue: I got 3k worth of increased income for 25% tax rate (raising up from 15%), this just seems very small to me. At minimum, I'd expect to see 25k to 30k increased income. My thinking now, based on what I saw this game, is: If you need more taxes & your tax rate is 15% already, you might as well forget it & search elsewhere for income.

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

One thing that I noticed, that would've had an impact is that I had 5 colony ships built eating up 13k of ship's maintenance costs. I laid these ships out early in the game in the expectation that I would use them quickly, which has always been my experience in prior games. Little did I know, I'd go 7 years without finding a new colony to send them.

That 13k could've provided me with 4 more DDs, which just might've tipped the balance in my favor had 1st and 2nd fleet been beefed up with 4 more DDs against those 2CA and 3DD of Kurbus in the KG system. At very least, those last two battles would've beem much closer and Kurbus would've bled more than they did .. possibly giving me a fighting chance .. darn, wish I'd noticed this earlier.

[Grotius]

I have no idea why transports would auto-attack another empire. This hasn't happened to me if I have everything on manual, which is how I play.

On fuel, doesn't the cargo tab tell us how much is at a particular place? As for fuel requirements, that you can figure out from each ship's detail screen. It's usually a few hundred units for early-game ships, I think.

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

I have saved games at all the printscreen shots in my posts above, so I could start the game from where I left off each time while making the gif image in paint.

I went back and found the cargo tab at KG_5 just after I took that planet. I have no idea which item is fuel? How do I know how much fuel is on this planet?

(Figure 24) 2762.07.19_fuel_KG5

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

This next printscreen shows my praeter 1 troop ship which is set to manual. This was where I found it after the previous battle in the KG system, which was what I was focusing on at that time. Afterwards, I found my transport fleet unbelievably attacking a strongly defended colony in the Abset system. You can see that praeter 1 is on manual, no blue arrows. Apparently its order at the top of the detail screen is “engage nearby targets”. The last positioning of this fleet was the KG system, which can be seen in the screenshot of my next post.

By the way, I also opened the options tab to show my settings. Maybe I can figure why these ships decided to do this, so I can better enable my settings & controls in the future to prevent the game from taking “auto” control of my military ships. Most of the settings are set to manual, and those that aren’t are set to “suggest” only (which I translate as: the in-game-advisor offers a suggestion menu only but does not act on his own accord as far as overriding my “manual” setting).

By the way, I just realized that there is actually a freighter of mine in this system; you can see it about three inches above my transport (has a ring of green circular dots around it). Why on earth would a freighter of mine be visiting a heavily defended planet of my enemy? Are private sector ships considered non-combatants? If not, it makes no sense to me why a freighter would visit a planet it obviously cannot trade with?

(Figure 25) 2763.09.10_TT_suicide

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

This screenshot shows the position of the transport fleet: Praeter 1 is in the Abset system doing its suicide attack on Abset-1. Praetor 2 is the triangle halfway there (between the KG and Abset system). The fleet is set to engage system targets & it's set on manual (no blue arrows). I assume this means it attacks only enemy ships which enter the system in which the fleet is positioned? Which should be the KG system because that’s where the transport fleet (5th fleet) was originally positioned.

(Figure 26) 2763.09.10_TT_fleet

[Grotius]

Fuel is either Caslon or Hydrogen (I think), depending on your ships. It looks like you had some fuel, maybe not a lot, on hand.

Dunno about the ship behavior. I think I read earlier that the devs suggested you send them a saved game, but you couldn't find the folder. It is indeed rather hard to find. On my Win7 system, it's buried somewhere in c:/users/.../appdata/roaming/codeforce (even though the game itself is installed on my E: drive). Might be worth a try; they could tell you whether the behavior you describe was as-designed or a bug.

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

I would send the saved game as I definitely have it somehwere, the problem like you mentioned is finding it. I found the matrix game -> distant worlds directory and I went through every single folder trying to find the saved games folder, but it's not there. I also have windows 7. I tried using the search tool for appdata/roaming but there is no matches. I tried searching for Kindeloids, the name of my saved games, but it's not showing the saved games (only the gif files I made).

I can load any of the save games once I go into "play" and select game, when I right click properties I get a long path result. I followed the path, but I think the "App Data" file is hidden (it's not in the directory of the path and it's not showing up in search-box results). I'm not sure where the show hidden files control is in windows 7?

I actually only just bought this computer a month or so ago, so I'm still adjusting to windows 7, I had a hell of a time just connecting to the internet & configuring my old stuff (printer, modem, wireless network, speakers, mic) which are all non-windows 7 era. July was the tech support month from hell for me.

.. figured out how to display hidden files in windows 7, have to go to control panel -> set "All control panel items" at the top search box -> folder options -> view tab at top -> show hidden files radio button -> Apply

I sent the saved game to erik, maybe he'll see something that I'm not.

[Equendil]

One thing that might have happened with your transports is that the lead ship started shooting something in the KG system (being in "engage system targets" mode) that warped away, and it followed all the way to that Abset system. Once the lead ship was there, the other ship would have followed as well, as that's an automatic behaviour (moving to the lead ship when idle) of ships in a fleet.

A suggestion for future games: remove weapons from your transports (replace with more shields). You don't really want them in the middle of a space battle, and if they don't have weapons, they'll stay where you park them, always. Not really a work around for the more general problem of unwanted automated behaviour, but it's a whole less annoying when your transports are not involved.

Also a suggestion for Erik if he reads it: ships on manual should probably not warp away to follow an ennemy ship if they engaged automatically, only when specifically asked to attack a target, or there should be an option to control that specific behaviour maybe.

About cruisers, it takes just one tech upgrade to your ship yards to build them, so they can be made pretty early if that particular tech is researched. You can also go to your design panel and make a "light" cruiser (copy the existing design and remove a few components) that's 230 in size and can be built right away from the beginning.

On the refueling thing: Either caslon or hydrogen are used as fuel depending what reactor tech you have. There was plenty of hydrogen but only 907 caslon in store on that planet and it's quite possible that wasn't enough for all your ships and they were sent to another place to refuel because of that. I don't know really, I've noticed in my games that ships rarely refuel at a planet, they usually jump to a location with a spaceport or a gas mining station but I've never really paid much attention to it.

[Equendil]

On exploration:

Galaxies seem to be generated with "patches" of independant colonies and good quality continental planets (well it seems that way to me at least). Once you've colonized your local patch, you might well not find much of anything until your explorers move several sectors away to the next "patch".

To keep expanding steadily, you need to be able to colonize more world types. To that end, you either need better colonization modules, or independent colonies living on those world types. If you secure an independent colony on a desert planet, you can then build colony ships on that planet to colonize other deserts, even if you don't have the necessary tech. If the population of such a colony is hostile, don't waste time and send troops right away, it'll soon pay off. As a bonus to the ability to colonize more worlds, it also gives you access to different resources without mining stations.

You also of course, need a good exploration scheme, best start exploring in all directions, favouring dense sectors over sparse ones, even if it means skipping a nearby sector for the time being (least until you encounter another empire in that direction).

[rk0123msp@mindspring]

Those are definitely some good suggestions. I definitely learned a couple of key things this game. It's good to know that caslon & hydrogen are the fuel sources. I was not aware of this up to this point (for some reason I thought there was some kind of generic "fuel" that I was missing); this makes the whole ship design dimension that much more important. I think in the future, I'll redesingn my starting ship types to include more useful items like fuel cells. I definitely need to redesign that transport; I absolutely can't have transports attacking ships, especially when they're loaded down with troops that cost a lot of time & bucks to recruit and maintain in addition to the transport costs itself.

More fuel cells on my starting is going to be a must, yanking the guns for troop ships & replacing with shield is an excellent idea. Making light cruisers is probably a good idea too, but I assume maintenence costs will be same as a cruiser? In that case, it might be better to make a big destroyer and save on maintenence (ends up with the same result but less cost, I'm guessing).