Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 1:34 pm Post subject: Hello and first newbie questions
Hello all, brand new here. I've got bucketloads of questions, but will try to figure out the answers to them by trial and error in the next weeks and months by myself. When I finally understand this game, might even try my hand at MP, but not yet. Came here by way of Dominions, by the way, and a couple of detours through Elemental and Sins of a Solar Empire. So much for introductions (?). Thanks in advance for your help and patience.
I only want to pose 2 questions now, which are itching at me. The first, I hope, will be easy:
1. I can't figure out what population is good for. There's no money, credits, or taxes, and "things" are made by facilities, not people, apparently, so I'm not sure how important population is. Here, on the wiki, http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/Population_%28SEV%29
they say it's important, but nothing else. (Like, does every 1 million population give me... what?
2. I'm computer illiterate. I've managed (with some help and a lot of time) to patch my game up to 1.79 (have the European version, so that was complicated for me) and install Mr. Kwok's fine Balance Mod -- yey! But I was browsing through the excellent stuff here on this website and see many things I would like to have running in additon to Mr. Kwok's wonderful mod, but I do not know how to install two things simultaneously and if that will cause compatability problems. For instance, I see these beautiful shipsets and all the goodies you have going here -- but can I have them and Kwok too? I am scared of altering files and breaking something, because I really do not know what I am doing, I usually just try to get as detailed instructions as possible and follow exactly what the person says.
Population is important because it modifies your production and construction rates. The more population you have, the faster you can build and more resources/points you can generate.
So population is important, but just how much 1 population actually does is something I guess I will figure out in the upcoming months.
If I may: When starting a new game, I was surprised to find under "settings" the default set to 200 maximum ships per player and 2000 maximum units in space at once. Is this considered a good setting for SP? 200 seems kind of low to me, but maybe I am just confused. (Also confused as to the difference between units and ships, but I will figure that out soon I guess.) If I raise this number, do I simply run the risk of too much micromanagement? Or why should I limit it to 200? THank you. Back to top
The default settings for ships and units are typically low for any quadrant that is medium size or greater.
The actual population modifier values are set in the data file Settings.txt, which is found in the data folder (or the Balance mod data folder if you're using that).
In the Balance Mod, you don't get 100% percent construction/production until you reach 100M. Then it's +1% for every 50M up to 1000M and +1% for every 100M after that to 10000M. Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod Back to top
Not sure if I am setting up the game optimally. So many settings I really do not understand (like the "type" of quadrant or its age... have no idea what most of those things do -- as well as the victory conditions), and I would like your advice.
I still need to get the hang of almost everything, from the tech tree to combat to the way economics work. One of the things I enjoy most is the early midgame. I dislike micromanagement of large late game scenarios, which is why I prefer small maps. Which I forgot to do on my first game.
So... if I set up the game for a "small" quadrant, how many AIs are considered ideal? Is there a general rule of thumb? The game doesnt seem to select any automatically...
I dislike micromanagement of large late game scenarios, which is why I prefer small maps.
Experiment using some of the ministers at this phase, population, facilities, clean up, unit creation, mines and satellites usally help rather than hinder.
By that time, I am focussed on large fleet actions, I delegate defence and update to the AI (until it messes up). Back to top
thanks!
I'm still really getting my feet wet. What a big confusing game!
This time around, I am trying to pay more attention. I don't understand something right off the bat, turn 1 -- I start on my homeworld with all space used up, and of this, I have 6 level 1 research centers. While I am a "scientific" kind of race, I do not understand how I get 6000 research points per turn. I thought I would get 6 x 500 = 3000 + 10% = 3300. Why 6000? Back to top
Take a look at the planet abilities list. It will show you all the bonuses that are applied. Population, racial traits, other facilities (shouldn't have these on turn 1, but later on), culture, etc. Smarter than your average Texrak. Back to top
Hey thanks so much. Didn't realize that "production bonus" also applied to research ;.) !
Slowly, slowly learning here, trying to answer as much as I can by myself by trial and error. Four more questions I cannot hang back with, however.
#1. I made contact with a foreign empire fairly quickly -- was in a neighboring system I found in my first warp exploration. I had made my first "combat" vessel (shabby thing that it was), but he had only an colony ship. I decided on combat, and what an easy choice it was -- turns out his ship was unarmed, and I won easily. Turns out that was his home system as well. Now all he does is turn out an (apparently?) unarmed colony ship every 3 turns and an (apparently?) unarmed starbase every 4 turns, all of which I shoot down without danger, needing to go back for more ordinance every once in a while. In other words: The AI doesn't seem to realize it needs to defend itself or repel me. Am I missing something? This is with Monsieur Kwok's Balance Mod 1.19h
#2. Combat itself seems to be a total mystery to me. So far, I have only had about 10 tastes of it, but they were all quite one-sided (see above). I tried both "tactical" and "strategic", and even with the odds stacked 1:infinity in my favor, I cannot figure it out -- if I do not use "automatic movement" and "automatic targeting", my ship won't do a darn thing. How am I supposed to get a battle going versus an armed opponent?
So my "tactics" so far has been to do just that: set to automatic and jack speed up to 8x. The unarmed colony ship charges at me (why?) and I circle round him shooting missiles until it dies. Any tips?
#3. The Tech Tree still baffles me. While I am sure I will figure out more in time, I would like to have something like an overview -- what will researching XYZ to the next level actually get me? When I click on "help" in the main menu and then "components", I can see what my current level is -- but have no comparison to old levels. In other words, I have no idea what the next sensors or ion engines or whatnot gets me. The wiki doesn't list this. Is there somewhere I can find out more?
(Concrete question was: Shields and Cloaking. I can see hints about shields and cloaking in the game options (for example, about damage types and display options), but nowhere in the tech tree can I see a hint about where to go about actually gettin me some shields. Just more trial and error?)
#4. Because the AI cannot defend itself (see #1 above), I am ready to take his planet. But how? Seems my ship alone will not do the trick, but I am unsure how to get "troops" there. Or do I need to learn "bombardment" tech first?
Thank you much for your patience and assistance Back to top
#2 In tactical combat you can select your ship (like in a rts game) and move it yourself via right clicks. The first time you move it will 'disengage' automove. Right clicking on an enemy ship targets that ship with all weapons. It will not disable autotargeting and the ship will pick a new target afterwards if its in range. You can also target with specific weapon, in the commands. For example if you could disable autotarget and specific target the unarmed ship with beam weapons which only use supplies and not ordance, in order to preserve ordance (and missiles) for armed opponents.
#3 Well in balance mods engines increase by 5 points each lvl. Shields (and cloaking) are in physics.
#4 Create troop units in your designs. Produce em. Load them on a ship that can carry cargo (no matter where it gets that cargo space from, you can even use a carrier if you have one) and take it to the planet. Select your ship and give it a drop troops commands on the planet. There is also a default strategy of capture planet in the design window which you can select if you make a design to use for capturing planets.
Bombardment tech gives weapons with heavy damage and short range that can only target planets. It wont capture planets buy destroy facilities and population. If you kill everyone you can colonise the planet your self Back to top
The AI's priority is to build Space Yard bases and Colony Ships at the start of the game. In this case, first contact has occurred unusually early and your attacks are taking advantage of a small loophole I suspect where the demand for scouts/attack ships isn't exceeded those of colony ships or bases yet - particularly when you keep destroying them.
I'll have to come up with some fixes for this particular circumstance.
The AI's priority is to build Space Yard bases and Colony Ships at the start of the game. In this case, first contact has occurred unusually early and your attacks are taking advantage of a small loophole I suspect where the demand for scouts/attack ships isn't exceeded those of colony ships or bases yet - particularly when you keep destroying them.
I'll have to come up with some fixes for this particular circumstance.
- @Kwok: thank you! Will that last change you just mentioned be for 1.19i? Just curious. Is the ETA on 1.19i sometime Q1 2011?
Since I last posted, that AI neighbor has drastically increased his defenses -- I came by with some troops, didn't see much in the way of ships -- and got CREAMED by what appeared to be a huge army of troops and weapons platforms once I entered his planet's space ;.) , so that I didn't even get a chance to land any troops, those platforms wiped out my fleet! ;.) nice.
- @all: Thanks much! Still leaning in to the learning curve here. I'm still trying to be reserved with asking questions and finding out as much in-game as possible, but do want to avoid some frustrations. So if you don't mind...
1. What is the difference between retrofitting and upgrading and making obsolete? I am unsure if I am unnecessarily confusing my ship-designing process. When I learn a new tech (better engines, weapons, ship sizes), I should re-design ASP, right? And make the old design obsolete, right? But I haven't figured out how to retrofit existing ships yet...
2. I get surprising little info on enemy ships and planets I can see. I thought (based on the tutorial) that I can view their designs in the "help" screen or in the shift-D screen (Design) screen and select filter: enemy designs. But usually when I see a ship on screen, most of the data on it is blank. Am I missing something? Or do I need special sensors first? (I have some "temporal" ones going, and while I have no idea what "scans up to level 6" means, it seems to be a lot better than the "basic" ones I also could have used.) I see on my nearest neighbor's planets now that he has TONS of troops and fighters and what appears to be weapons platforms, I just cannot see what they do. (I have less than 10% of what he has!)
3. I still think I set up this game poorly. I chose a race and customized it, and that was big fun, and I love the fact that there are so many options to choose from in game setup -- but I am confused about 2 or 3 things and dismayed at one. Dismayed because while there appears to be endless choices in galaxy type and what not, there seems to be almost no choice in number and size! I cannot understand it. If I see correctly, there are only 3 choices in the size of the galaxy (! why not 10?), and only 3 choices for the amount of opponents (! why not 27?). I suppose I am used to a different setup, but it just seems odd to me from a game which has SOOOO many variables in game setup. Specifically, I am looking for smallish maps (to avoid late-game tedium). Now if I understand correctly, I ONLY have the option to choose "computer generates random AI opponents" as a yes-no toggle -- right? And I can choose either lots, medium, or few opponents -- right? I would have imagined this would be more like Dominions, where you actually select from a drop-down list the actual number (from 1 to whatever). Am I missing something? Can I actually do that? When I tried to "load" an AI from a file, there were none to choose from! (Which strikes me as odd since I seem to be running into "stock" races from the randomly generated ones I have met so far in this game, e.g. Ee consortium et al.) Ideally, I'd like a pretty small map with really few opponents -- seems like I got 7 here.
I am also still confused about 2 setup options. Confusion 1: Galaxy Age -- does this actually do anything? Should I pay attention to something here? Then there is "type": So far I just choose "standard", since I don't really understand the other choices; one is supposed to be "AI-friendly", I failed to choose that and haven't started over yet -- mistake? Then there are the victory conditions. I am a big fan of victory conditions, but am confused and daunted by what appears to be the caveat "All Victory Conditions must apply" and that some of them apply to the human player (me) only. Am I missing something?
4. Fleets. I keep trying to make them, but they just don't seem to work as I would imagine them. I bring a few ships together in a sector and I hit the fleet button, and I get a little window asking me to create a fleet, which I subsequently do. Fine. It's called Task Force Alpha. Very nice. But once this window closes, I cannot find TFA again, clicking on "next fleet" button in the little map-view bottom left gets me nothing, and I can move my ships individually, but not as a fleet. So I try it again, and again, next turn too, and the game seems to recognize that I have made fleets, since it wants to call my next attempts "Task Force Beta" and so forth -- but something is not working as my imagination whispers to me. Is there a "fleets for dummies" somewhere?
1 Crtl-E retrofits, but sometimes retrofitting is not necessary. I rarely refit ships with new armor, for example, because it takes so long to repair the new armor. Obsoleting designs will make it quicker to pick desired designs in building ques.
2 You need long range scanners to see what the ships/units have on them. Otherwise, you can see design names and have to look them up(if you have access to them) in the menus. You get that detail from getting in a battle, using intel, or getting designs from other empires.
3a You can change values in setting.txt. It is a word file, very easy to alter and save.
3b The paradise galaxy(AI friendly) has no bad systems(nebula's, black holes, etc) and is easier for the AI to navigate. I usually play on standard or paradise, so I am unsure about many of the other types.
3c AFAIK, vistory conditions do not work. I have never used them, I play until I am far enough ahead that I assume the AI's cannot stop me, or until I have been crushed by them.
4 After creating the fleet, you have to move ships into it. either hit the add-all button to move all ships into the currently selected task force, or double click on them to add them one at a time. This way, you have have escorted colonizers, etc. Back to top
If you are playing BM / FQM, the age of a quadrant type influences the balance of system types. Younger galaxies have younger stellar features: more newborn systems, fewer supernovae, black holes, and other such "dead" systems. Older galaxies are the opposite.
Hey thank you so much. I am really enjoying this. I had purchased and played some GC2 when it came out a few years ago, having never heard of this game, and I find SE to be far, far superior in every way but performance/graphics and UI.
I really appreciate this Balance Mod as well as the FQM which is obviously integrated into it. Thank you!
I must ask a few follow-up questions, sorry I cannot wait!
1. I found the "comparisons" button on the foreign empires screen. I only found 2 other empires so far, but am surprised to see that I am last in score (who cares, but I have no idea how score is measured), and wonder about a couple of things.
1a. I have more research points than the others. OK. But they have many, many more "tech levels" than I. Häh? Is that because of some bonus they got, or are they merely researching cheap little techs while me spend on the big expensive ones?
1b. I have more planets than they do. But I have fewer ships. OK. But while I have about 15 units (those are weapons platforms on my planets, I try to make them quick because I was at war quickly in the beginning before I made a treaty), they have ... 680. WTF? I mean, fine, they have different priorities and obviously I am doing something either very suboptimal or very idiosyncratic, but HOW did they possibly make so many? If this guy X has only 5 planets, and it is year 2404, how could he have possibly churned out so many units? You can only have one spaceyard per planet, right? Oh you dont need spaceyards for units, but still, you can only have 1 c-queue per colony at a time (unless you build construction bases -- but those would have to take him at least half a year to make) -- so how can this be? Is this what you do -- make tons of units? What am I doing wrong?
2. Thank you for the link to the BM tech tree. There is all that neat stuff listed that you can research, like Robotoid Factories and Quantum Graviton Beams and what have you. Is there a listing of what all that stuff actually IS and costs somewhere? The manual seems to list some -- do they all do and cost the same thing in the BM?
2a. The notes to the Balance Mod say that weapons have been rehauled. Is there a listing of the "new" status of them somewhere? Not sure if I understand weapons correctly. Seems like I have tons and tons of choices, and when I look in the design window or help screen and check out what they can do, it seems like nothing beats a Capital Ship Missile, which apparently I get right off the bat. Huge range, huge damage, just needs some ordinance. Seems to beat my "special" tech which I got because my race seems to know Temporal stuff. I spent some research in other weapons, but even after purchasing new techs it doesn't seem to hold a torch to Capital Ship MIssiles. Am I missing something?
3. I am starting a new game with better setup conditions, I think I messed that up. I would like to try a bit better this time.
3a. You are saying that Victory Conditions don't work. So it's fight to the end only then, right?
3b. I will choose "Paradise" (because AI friendly) and "Small" system. The manual says I should get 10-20 solar systems. I want to choose "Small" number of enemy empires to be randomly generated. Do I then need to manually create and add some and flag them as AI controlled?
3c. If I want to use the race I made last time, and so load that from file, but change the starting tech or racial boni allowed, will I need to resave my race?
3d. Will changing the "starting technology for new players" mean that the default starting techs will be automatically reassigned?
3e. I cannot seem to load stock empires from file -- when I try to load an empire from file, the list is blank (except for the one custom race I made). What am I missing?
3f. Maximum ships and units -- are the default settings ok? Is there anything wrong with maxing this out?
4. Is there a way to produce more / faster on a colony besides increasing the bonuses to production (population, happiness)? I mean: I don't see any facility I can build which will let me produce units at a greater rate (while I guess if I increase my industry tech that I can update my space yards to be more efficient, but I can still only build 1 space yard per colony?).
I'll try to figure out the rest by myself. THanks so much! Back to top
1)
You can get extra tech levels in addition to those you research by
a) discovering ruins
b) trading with other empires
- swapping your tech for theirs
- buying it with surplus resources
- buying hi-tech ships & analysing them
c) forcing an empire to surrender and absorbing his tech
d) capturing enemy ships (ship capture tech off Mil Science)
e) entering into a tech share treaty with an allied empire
If your neighbour is up to any of those he might out tech you.
If you have a game setup with AI at high difficulty they start off at an advantage.
Those 680 units are probably mostly mines, fighters and/or troops which are quite cheap to make compared with WPs and ships. If you have been building more colony ships than him, wait until your colonies develop before making comparisons.
4)
You can increase production by researching Robitics & building Robotoid and System Robotoid factories.
Researching space yards ups their production rate further.
If you have a temporal race, you get Temporal Space Yards which are more productive still, you have to replace your conventional yard with one of these.
Do not discount the possibility of manually adding to a colony's population to up its production as opposed to relying on migration and birth rate.
If you have a breathable Huge world near your Homeworld, build a couple of population transports & set them to automatically transfer colonists there, its max population will become greater than your Homeworld, so will its bonuses.
If you send a loaded Population Transport along with every Colony Ship, the resulting new colony starts up faster; a useful trick when colonising remote breathable worlds.
Tech facilities such as Urban Pacification up the happiness, as does some of the Civics techs. Once you get your colonists Jubilant there are no greater production bonuses however.
(The Crimson Concept Mod lets you build 3 space yards, and multiple yards on bases.) Back to top
KineticShipyards maintains an excellent website that covers all aspects of the Balance Mod tech tree. It's update to v1.19f, which is 99.5% the same as the current version. It also covers weapon damage.
I keep forgetting to add it as a link though from the Balance Mod homepage!
Regarding some of your questions:
2a. The key statistic for comparing weapons is the weapon's damage per second per kT value and not just the absolute damage amount. This provides a better guide to weapon effectiveness.
While Capital Ship Missiles (CSMs) do offer a lot of damage upfront with good range, they can be defeated by point defense and fire at a reduced rate versus most direct fire weapons.
If you have Temporal weapons technology, the Alloy Burner Missile is typically more effective than CSMs particularly in the early stages as it does double damage to armor.
3a. All victory conditions work as far as I know.
3b. Small galaxies in the Balance Mod range from 30-60 systems by default. You do not need to create AI empires yourself. It's actually recommended not to.
3c. Only if you want to save it.
3d. You'll get more technology points to spend in the technology tab.
3e. Stock empire files are not compatible with the Balance Mod.
3f. The defaults in my opinion are too low, but reasonable for a small quadrant.
4. You don't really need to use Population Transports to bring colonists to other breathable planets since migration often works much faster. It's probably more important to use your transports to bring population to domed colonies that suffer greater production penalties with populations less than 50M. Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod Back to top
Thank you for your fantastic help!
I did not see a section for weapon damage charts on that site, Kwok, but the tech tree setup seems perfect. Thank you!
Just two brief tech questions, trying to get this game started:
1. I cannot find my save game files. I navigated to here:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Empire Interactive\Malfador Machinations\Space Empires V
where you'd think it would be, and then there is a folder "savegame", which is empty. I searched the space empires v folder for any file with the name of some of my old savegames, but no luck. I checked under "MyGames", that horrible folder that comes with Windows 7, but only Bioware seems to use that. What am I missing?
2. I think I am misunderstanding shipsets. I downloaded "Amarr" from the excellent "shipyards" section of this site because the ships look so groovy. I wanted to have these ships as the visuals for the race I created (a kind of peaceful researcher energy being thingy). Looking at the instructions here
http://www.captainkwok.net/balancemodhelp.php#custom_races which I dont entirely understand, it appears that doing so will add this race to the stock of races which the AI will choose randomly! That's not what I wanted. In fact, sort of the opposite, I want to make sure that only I can use these ships, at least right now, and I do not want to be religious humanoid warriors. Is there a way to install the "shipset", make sure that I get to use the ships for me, and then modify the race the way I chose it (including race picture)?
Regarding 1, it's possible it might be under another folder name in the My Documents folder perhaps under Strategy First or Malfador Machinations etc.
Regarding 2, in the Amarr empire folder edit the file Amarr_AI_Main.txt so that the line "Is Empire Race" is set to false. This will prevent it from being chosen as an AI empire. Space Empires Depot | SE:V Balance Mod Back to top
You don't get to see the components of an enemy unit unless: You have Scanners (not just sensors) and have scanned a ship or one that contains units; You have encountered it in combat (most common); You have captured it.
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