Noob Struggling...

[Schatten]

Energy Collectors, do they work like in DW1? So they collect only if stationary and nothing if on ship that is even slightly moving? Or is that changed in DW2?

[100thMonkey]

Energy Collectors, do they work like in DW1? So they collect only if stationary and nothing if on ship that is even slightly moving? Or is that changed in DW2?

That's something I'd like to know too. The Galactopedia's isn't clear on the subject.

[madasgardian]

That's something I'd like to know too. The Galactopedia's isn't clear on the subject.

Under Game Concepts > Fuel, it says that energy collectors only operate while stationary.

[100thMonkey]

Under Game Concepts > Fuel, it says that energy collectors only operate while stationary.

Thanks madasgardian. Adding the same text to the "Energy Collector" entry might be a good idea though.

[Schatten]

Thank you for clarification, but as 100thmonkey said that should be in the description of the Energy Collectors, not Fuel, after all they scoop energy and not Fuel.

Also thank the advisor needs one more fix, to stop spam you with energy collector advice for ship designs, as nearly no ship, maby with exception of a constructor ever hardly sits around, so you can save the slot and space

[76mm]

What do you do that causes it to crash?

um, I just click on the Next button one or two slides into the "tour". I stopped trying a few days ago after it crashed the game to desktop three times in a row.

And thank you all for your tips. I started my second game yesterday, changed some settings, and have played several hours into this new game. Gradually learning... But process of clicking back and forth between the game and the galactopedia is completely suboptimal... I think that the biggest thing the devs could do to improve the experience for new players would be to provide a more helpful interface for understanding the tech tree.

I am still having lots of weird issues with colony ships and independent colonies. I gave the order for one independent colony to be colonized, and then watched as the colony ship loaded and unloaded with colonists about ten times before finally setting off. Other times, I will have an existing colony ship available, but the potential colony screen doesn't recognize them and insists that I create a new colony ship. But at least this time there are a few more habitable planets and I've been able to create 3-4 colonies (instead of zero, like last time). Progress!

Having fun so far, but we'll see...next step is a deep dive into ship design, which is usually the kind of thing that I enjoy.

[madasgardian]

Also thank the advisor needs one more fix, to stop spam you with energy collector advice for ship designs, as nearly no ship, maby with exception of a constructor ever hardly sits around, so you can save the slot and space

They're stationary when they run out of fuel.

[100thMonkey]

Glad you're having a taste of the fun side of the game.

A recommendation: don't try to manually steal techs from other empires with you spies. Manually assigning them other types of mission is OK. But if you try to manually order them to steal techs, your blood pressure might reach dangerously high levels...

[76mm]

But if you try to manually order them to steal techs, your blood pressure might reach dangerously high levels...

I haven't assigned any manually, but on auto they seem to be stealing tech left and right. I had one guy get caught, but otherwise they are doing pretty well! Is that normal?

[100thMonkey]

In my games it doesn't happen that often, but my empire policies for spying are set at normal. Yours are probably set at a higher level. I suggest you take a look at those policies, and see if they're set the way you want. To do so, press "P", and then look at the "Intelligence Missions" section. There you can adjust the how aggressively missions are assigned to your spies, and you can exclude some missions if you want. There are tooltips when you move the mouse over the options' labels on the left.

[76mm]

Another question: I've salvaged several alien ships by now, and the pop-up always says that I can get new tech by disassembling them at a spaceport. But once I get them to the spaceport, I don't see any way to "disassemble" them--that is not a menu option. what exactly should I do with these ships once they've reached a spaceport?

[100thMonkey]

First thing is you don't have to disassemble them. You can also keep them. Some of the abandoned ships can be way more powerful than the ones you or the other empires have at that point. For instance, finding and repairing a carrier while everybody only have frigates can give you quite an advantage over your adversaries. Some might say too much of an advantage, but that's another story...

As for how you go about disassembling those ships, I don't have any in my current game, but assuming I remember correctly, it's the same way you retire any of your ships: you select it, and then click on the "Retire at..." button in the selection panel:

Retire button.png (127.08 KiB) Viewed 1067 times

[StormingKiwi]

As for how you go about disassembling those ships, I don't have any in my current game, but assuming I remember correctly, it's the same way you retire any of your ships: you select it, and then click on the "Retire at..." button in the selection panel:


Retire button.png

Correct.

Note that for button location is context dependent- e.g. if the ship is in the territory of another empire, that button will have a flag on it and say "Gift to [empire name]", while in other cases it will say "scuttle ship immediately". So you don't want to click by muscle memory.

Also you should ensure your ship is retiring at a spaceport (and its associated construction yard) NOT at a planet. Disassembly/Assembly occurs at the rate of the yard, and spaceport yards are many times faster than planetary yards.

[76mm]

As for how you go about disassembling those ships, I don't have any in my current game, but assuming I remember correctly, it's the same way you retire any of your ships: you select it, and then click on the "Retire at..." button in the selection panel:

Thanks; I tried "retiring" an escort, but didn't get any messages about new tech, etc., so didn't want to try it with, say, a destroyer. The biggest ship I've salvaged so far is a destroyer, I guess I'll keep most of those.

[100thMonkey]

Thanks; I tried "retiring" an escort, but didn't get any messages about new tech, etc., so didn't want to try it with, say, a destroyer. The biggest ship I've salvaged so far is a destroyer, I guess I'll keep most of those.

I don't know if you're guaranteed to get a new tech by retiring an acquired ship (found and repaired) that has, in its design, components not yet available to you. But I'm pretty sure that there's zero chance you'll get some tech advancement by retiring one that doesn't have at least one component not yet available to you.

So you should check the ship's design before deciding what to do with it. In case you don't know how to do that, you simply click on its design name in the selection panel (pointed at by the green arrow in this screenshot):

Design in selection panel.png (127.48 KiB) Viewed 1024 times

That will open a "read-only" version of the ship designer, showing you all its components. If you see any components not yet available to you, it might be worth retiring it.

Don't quote me on that, but I think that when you retire a ship, you get some resources from it. But that has never been a reason for me in my games, up to now at least, to justify retiring a ship.

[StormingKiwi]

As for how you go about disassembling those ships, I don't have any in my current game, but assuming I remember correctly, it's the same way you retire any of your ships: you select it, and then click on the "Retire at..." button in the selection panel:

Thanks; I tried "retiring" an escort, but didn't get any messages about new tech, etc., so didn't want to try it with, say, a destroyer. The biggest ship I've salvaged so far is a destroyer, I guess I'll keep most of those.

Sometimes you get enough of the tech to finish its research - then you get a research breakthrough notification.
At other times, you get a notification of research progress for a particular tech, and then you'll see yellow research bar progress for that particular tech.
Sometimes you look at your research screen and there is research progress for techs you've never researched or received notifications for.

So the messages can be silent

[100thMonkey]

Sometimes you look at your research screen and there is research progress for techs you've never researched or received notifications for.

So the messages can be silent

For those situations, the background music should be the Disturbed cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The sound of silence".

[Nightskies]

100th is 100% right about keeping the resources. Very rarely is that useful; namely if struggling to find a particular resource critical for expansion (particularly silicon or carbonite) in the starting stages of the game.

There's also only a chance of getting tech associated with the ship. This also happens while remotely repairing anything in space. That is, with a construction ship or shipyard. From unfocused observation and testimony, I think, but am not sure, that includes ships and stations you already own. Gimmicky? Potentially. I'm not suggesting you fire on your own advanced ships or anything just to force your techs to get their hands dirty on mysterious components in order to learn the secrets of the Machine Spirits of the Omnissiah.

[76mm]

In case you don't know how to do that, you simply click on its design name in the selection panel (pointed at by the green arrow in this screenshot):

Thanks, that's helpful. Although actually, I seem to have better luck when I send a salvaged ship to be "repaired" at a starbase rather than retired. When I do that, I've gotten messages about tech being recovered. So dunno.

Two more questions:
1) I get lots of messages about mysterious lost civilizations, etc. Many of them include coordinates for things to be investigated. The coordinates are not linked or copiable, so what am I supposed to do, write them down? Or does clicking on the "Take me to..." button take me to the same spot?

2) How do I load troops onto transport ships?

[100thMonkey]

1) I get lots of messages about mysterious lost civilizations, etc. Many of them include coordinates for things to be investigated. The coordinates are not linked or copiable, so what am I supposed to do, write them down? Or does clicking on the "Take me to..." button take me to the same spot?

The "Take me to..." takes you where the coordinates were discovered, not to the location corresponding to the coordinates. There's no need to write down the coordinates, and no point either, because in the current state of the game, there aren't any coordinates that can be seen or used by the player. Instead, zoom-out at the galaxy level, and you should see "pinging" locations (animated circle that start small, grow, disappear, reappear small, etc.). Those are locations referred to in messages like the one you got. These locations are special, and contain surprises, good and bad (abandonned ships, ambush by pirates, etc.). To see what's there, you need to send a ship at the location (usually, I send the nearest explorer I have).

As for loading (and managing) troops, if the ship is near the colony where the troops are, zoom-in so you see both the ship and the colony, select the ship and right-click on the colony. The right-click menu will have a "Load troops at [colony name]". If the ship is far from the colony, then it's a little bit more involved:

1- select the ship
2- select the colony
3- zoom-in on the colony
4- go back to the ship (by clicking on the arrowhead at the top-left of the selection panel)
5- right-click on the colony

Step 4 above go back one step in the selection panel history. Moving back and forth in the selection panel history is something that I do extremely often during a game (as probably everybody else). There are default keyboard shortcuts for that. I don't remember what they are (I've redefined mine long ago). I'd highly recommend that you either use the default one or define your own. To see them or change them, go to the main menu, then "Settings" and click on "Change Key Mappings" at the top of the dialog box. Look for the "Next Selection History" and "Previous Selection History" entries. They're near the end of the mappings.

To load troops in a fleet, you can do it in the same as for individual ships: select the fleet, right-click on a colony with troops, click on "Load troops at...". A simpler way is, with the fleet selected, to click on the "Load troops at..." button in the selection panel. But with that second method, you don't control where the fleet will load the troops from. The game will decide and the tooltip will tell you where they'll go. So if you want to control where the troops will be loaded from, with both method (right-click menu or selection panel button), you should first move the fleet near that location.