How does the area weapons work and some questions

[towerbooks3192]

I remember accidentally researching area weapons back in legends or shadows and I remember stuffing some ships and clumping them together only to find out the hard way that area weapons kill those around them. Now I noticed they are a different kind of beam shooting out from the ship. How does it work now?

Another question. I disabled everything on the options but never changed my empire policy. How do I set it that my construction ships and explorers will go about their business? I set them to auto and some of them would just stay there and never do their work.

Is there any gauge or numbers to look at in order to know how much is enough speed for a particular ship as I don't know how many engines and turning vectors to place on a ship.

I made some colony ship designs and never remember any colonies set as auto or something but I am getting some of my planets colonised by my people. how did that happen? I set my starting planet to be abundant by the way so is that a population problem or something?

Lastly, How do I know what I am short of other than the warnings and how do I use the expansion planner and what things should I be looking at?

I never played the heck out of this game due to a busy sched and these things eludes me.

[Bingeling]

Not sure about area weapons.

An automated explorer or construction ship should go about their business. If they just sit idle the AI can either not find any work for them, or just haven't gotten around to give them a mission yet.

I am not sure of the colonization question, but new colonies are either founded by a colony ship or conquered. So either a case of poor memory or some automation in the area.

If you got no warning, you have no shortage. One could pop up at any moment, though.

For resources, learn what are the important strategic resources for building you ships and bases. You can view a design and press construction summary near the middle, and see the resources used for building that design.

Some uses for the expansion planer could be: Sort the top table by strategi/luxury, and make sure you got at least 1 source for every strategic. Have an extra source as a backup. Have a few more sources (like 3 or 4...) for the most used resources in the common ships (freighters, desroyers...).

If I do manual constructors, I will scan the store values for strategics, and make note of any that seems a bit "low". I will try remember the level of the "low" resources, and at later visits see if their store seem to be increasing or decreasing.

The three most common "issues" in strategic resources, are chromium, carbon fiber and polymer. Scouting for these resources can be a good idea, and something that ought to be considered when colonizing. If you lack any of them, try to get some in your "zone of influence" as soon as possible.

Apart from that, you rarely can have too many fuel mines.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: towerbooks3192
I remember accidentally researching area weapons back in legends or shadows and I remember stuffing some ships and clumping them together only to find out the hard way that area weapons kill those around them. Now I noticed they are a different kind of beam shooting out from the ship. How does it work now?

Area weapons now project their epicenter some distance away from the firer, targeting an enemy. The blastwave then expands out from that point, not centered on the firer as previously.

Another question. I disabled everything on the options but never changed my empire policy. How do I set it that my construction ships and explorers will go about their business? I set them to auto and some of them would just stay there and never do their work.

Automated ships should still go about their business even when you turn off the automation options (i.e. manual). Maybe there's no good build locations within range for your construction ships? Or no good exploration targets in range for your Exploration Ships? This can be especially true in the PreWarp game when your ships do not have hyperdrives and thus cannot travel outside your home system.

Is there any gauge or numbers to look at in order to know how much is enough speed for a particular ship as I don't know how many engines and turning vectors to place on a ship.

You could look at the default designs that the AI produces. Or you could take a peek in the designTemplates folder to see how many default engines each race puts on their ship types.

I made some colony ship designs and never remember any colonies set as auto or something but I am getting some of my planets colonised by my people. how did that happen? I set my starting planet to be abundant by the way so is that a population problem or something?

You're saying that the Colony Ships are colonizing by themselves? If they're automated then they will do that. The Colonization automation settings control whether you *build* the Colony Ships (with specific colonization targets in mind).

Lastly, How do I know what I am short of other than the warnings and how do I use the expansion planner and what things should I be looking at?

In the Expansion Planner you can sort the Resources list at the top by Sources. This means how many sources of the resource do you have in your empire (i.e. mining stations, colonies, etc). For strategic resources (Caslon, Steel, etc) you should try to have at least 1 source of each, some more than 1 (e.g. fuel).

Hope that helps
Elliot

[elliotg]

Heh, ninja'd by Bingeling

[sanderz]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: towerbooks3192
I remember accidentally researching area weapons back in legends or shadows and I remember stuffing some ships and clumping them together only to find out the hard way that area weapons kill those around them. Now I noticed they are a different kind of beam shooting out from the ship. How does it work now?

Area weapons now project their epicenter some distance away from the firer, targeting an enemy. The blastwave then expands out from that point, not centered on the firer as previously.

a couple more questions...

do Area weapons on bases then auto target enemy ships - and if so do they go for the biggest or can the AI pick a dense mass of ships?

also

do area weapons affect fighters?

thanks

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

Heh, ninja'd by Bingeling

I think your answers are a bit more authoritative, though [:)]

[towerbooks3192]

Thanks Elliot! So the beam is still dangerous for both allied and enemy ships alike just like before?

As for the colonisation. I just don't know how it happened but I just had 2 colonies popping up when I remember that I did not give any colonisation orders and made sure the colonisation option is manual. Will double check empire policy.

Edit: Additional questions:

How do I pick up particular troops at a colony and then drop them to another? do they only work in invasions or something? I can't seem to find the load/unload button for friendly colonies other than the enemy planets.

[Bingeling]

If you view the colony details, troop tabs, you can set troops to be garrisons. These will not be picked up. There may be some other options there as well, I don't remember.

It should at least be possible to load exactly the troops you want to load, even if it could be a bit fiddly with garrison tweaking.

With a troop carrier selected, you should get the "unload at" option when right clicking (or ctrl-right?) a colony.

[Breet]

As Blingeling said, you can goto the colony details screen and click on the 'Troops & Characters'. Garrison will 'lock them down' on the colony so they wont get picked up. But if you have a troop transport (or any ship that can hold troops) in orbit you can transfer specific troops to the ship from the dropdown box (below the ungarrison button)

For Characters, you will have to transfer them via the character screen.

As for unloading, try move the mouse around the edge of the planet (around where the coloured ring is) and the icon should change to the unload troops icon (can always check with what the yellow text says above window in the lower left if it will unload)

[towerbooks3192]

Ok. I will have a look at that. As of the moment I just used the garrison to leave troops on colonies. Another question. I remember seeing a screen for the bonuses that you have and if you have conquered some other races they would be displayed along with the bonus you get. Which screen is that one? I can't seem to remember which one it is and where it is found

[Bingeling]

I think race bonuses are shown on either diplomacy screen, empire screen (left side), or both.

[btd64]

towerbooks3192,, You can disable the automated colonize function in the empire policy screen. GP

[towerbooks3192]

Yeah I just noticed it now that policy is separate from the options. Already fixed it.

Another question. I followed timotheus template for an early cheap SSP. I just added bew components as they come. As far as I know it only has 3 construction mods. How many should I put to upgrade it?

[FireLion1983]

ORIGINAL: towerbooks3192

Yeah I just noticed it now that policy is separate from the options. Already fixed it.

Another question. I followed timotheus template for an early cheap SSP. I just added bew components as they come. As far as I know it only has 3 construction mods. How many should I put to upgrade it?

1 of each type of construction module is usually good enough for about 30 construction yards, IIRC.

[towerbooks3192]

I noticed it only accomodates like 3 at a time. So I have to ad at least 1 factory(energy, weapons and high tech) then just add construction yards equal to the number of ships I want to be accomodated?

So does that apply only to building or I need more docks for retrofitting? Docks and manufacturing/construction components are the only ones that confuse me a little bit now.

[FireLion1983]

Construction yards are needed for building and retrofitting. To just drop off supplies, you will need docks. The standard AI loadouts are 3/6 for small, 6/12 for medium, and 12/24 for large, respectively.

[towerbooks3192]

ORIGINAL: FireLion1983

Construction yards are needed for building and retrofitting. To just drop off supplies, you will need docks. The standard AI loadouts are 3/6 for small, 6/12 for medium, and 12/24 for large, respectively.

Just to clarify. Ratios of what? manufacturing plants (1 each tech) and construction yards so for example 3 factory (1 per tech) and 6 construction yards for the ssp?