Stellar Manip Exploit?

[Pooka]

Is one supposed to be able to stack 20 storms on your warp point, or planet, or whathave you and dump thousands of points of damage when, one third of the time, all of the damaging storms (about 1 in 4 of them) unloads damage at once? A friend of mine who's a beta tester for EA found this one. Used to be that he could do it all in one turn, too, but that bug seems to be fixed. It seems silly to stack storms, I could handle the new one replacing an old one, but having hundreds of storms in a single sector, even artificially, seems kinda dumb(tm)

[Raging Deadstar]

It's a double edged sword really.

If you create 20 storms in a sector they'll be random abilties. And they do damage to anything that enters it, including your ships. Your ships would expirience shield loss, lose combat abilities and take damage just as the enemy ships would.

So unless you didn't want to enter that sector it's a dumb idea really http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

[Pooka]

He parks a shipyard inside the nebula though, uses armor and no combat sensors, and just waits in there. He's parking them on his planets so he has no need to move into the nebula and take damage. He just waits for the enemy to attack, or try to blockade him.

[spoon]

I'm not sure, but it could be that only one storm will actually do damage, no matter how many damage-dealing storms you have on a sector. I recall it working this way in a game a long time ago (v1.49 pre-gold). Like I said, I'm not at all sure, so test this before you rely on it.

Works great on warp-points. Just park some repair ships there, and consider it a scenic stopping point for your ships before moving on to the next system.

[Raging Deadstar]

Two Words then: http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Star Destroyer

If your enemy continues to hide in his "rabbit hole" then just detonate the system, it'll be a suprise to him and might just put him on the defensive.

[Alneyan]

Spoon (or anyone else), would you happen to known if *all* storm abilities do not stack, or if it is only the damaging storm that do not? For example, if I have ten "Combat Minus" abilities in the same stack, will they effectively destroy the accuracy of regular weaponry? (With the exception of the Talisman, ramming, boarding and seekers)

[PvK]

The damage can stack, making a very damaging system for some fraction of the ships that enter. I'm not sure about the other abilities. I've used this defense technique in the unmodded game. I usually build a Storm Destroyer too, so it can remove the storm types that I don't want. And, of course, try to combine it with system grav shields and warp manipulation, when possible.

It takes an investment of time and resources to protect a single sector this way. I tend to see it as a feature rather than a bug. It does make a turtling strategy have some chance of success and stalemate, as do other warp manipulation/defense techniques, but only if your opponents give you the time to carry it out.

Players who don't like it can edit Settings.txt to easily remove or drop the amount of damage done by created storms.

PvK

[Spoo]

The combat minus to-hit ability does not stack. I tested it in the simulator.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

I've heard the simulater isn't a perfect simulation of combat, although I don't think I've ever seen an exact rundown of why.