Favorite trick in the game (spoilers possible)

[rocky8311]

What is your favorite trick in the game, something that might help other players out?

I'll start with one. The manual sort of hints at this. When you find the Klakar homeworld, call the Klakar ship to your location. Starting with an item in your inventory, switch out all of the items on the planet with cheap, one-credit items on the Klakar ship.

After the Klakar planet has only one-credit items like time capsules and animals, you can go about your business. This way, whenever you want any of those items, they are now MOBILE and you can call them to yourself instead of having to go to the Planet.

This is especially helpful when you don't have a Hyperdrive or Zorg Helmsman.

[rocky8311]

And a second trick. This one is based on my understanding of points, so if I'm wrong, please correct me. When hiring a mercenary, if you're not careful, you can lose some credits in the process. You want to give them something that improves their ship and your score, but if you don't give them the right kind of item, you will not get as many points.

For example: if you're hiring a Garthan Corvette and you give them a Neptunium Railgun, that weapon replaces their Autocannon. You lose a credit that you could have had.

Another example: if you're hiring a Zorg Cruiser and you give them a Proton Matrix Shield, it replaces their current shield, which is lost. In that case you lose TWO credits.

A better option would be to give the mercenary a piece of shipboard equipment (circle shaped) that they would never have on them already, like a Nebular Extent Calculator, Graviton Shunt, or Cloak (but you'll probably want that one for yourself), something that they wouldn't have a different "version" of, like a Shield or Mnemonic Sequence.

If the item you give them doesn't REPLACE anything, nothing is discarded! You can still outfit the ship as you like, but this way you can do what you want with everything they have.

[Shadowcat]

If you have the Aethric Mirror and no sufficiently good stardrive, and you wish to engage a distant enemy in combat without the long travel time, all you need is a star in close proximity to yourself, and the Klakar beacon.

1. Summon the Klakar.
2. Travel to the nearest star using as little time as possible.
3. Mirror the enemy fleet.
4. Mirror the Klakar.
5. Travel the (now) very short distance to the enemy and fight it out.

[MrFantastic]

Anouther nice trick with the mirror is to always use it to place a fleet on any world you can trade at, most alien homeworlds and glory. Now wherever you are you can mirror to the world, trade and mirror back to where you were. Galactic trade at your fingertips.

[Puke]

not sure if this is a bug exploit or a feature, but i recently discovered that you can revisit conquered homeworlds with the cloak or with an indigenous ship, and make peace / get the ambassador.

thus, i was just able to play a game where I both killed everything that was killable, AND made peace with everyone who was peaceable. got my second highest score...

[Phoenix-D]

-You can ram while cloaked. (and BE rammed, but only accidentally..the enemy doesn't avoid ships they can't see)

-The plasma coil cloaker is not a unique item..

-The garthan carries produce an infinite amount of fighters. I haven't checked, but I suspect each fighter gives its own point bonus..

[Zogu]

You can mount 2 Particle Vortex Cannons on your ship, which makes it insanely powerful.

How is that possible? Find the first, "Bauble up" the second!!!

[Foosnark]

Yep, it's been confirmed elsewhere that you get points for every fighter you kill.

- The Bloodfang is both faster and better at ramming than any Terran ship. With a fast thruster, plasma coil cloaker, and good beam weapons it will handle almost anything singlehandedly. You'll probably want to retreat all your non-cloaked ships after taking out the first wave of fighters.

- Don't ram the Tchorak. It hurts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

- The better beam weapons may have less range than the PVC, but they reliably destroy incoming missiles and do more damage. The SQP fires almost nonstop, and the TRG has a decent range and does incredible damage. Equip 2 or 3 of these on a ship and use it to fend off incoming fire while another ship blasts away with a PVC or other long-range weapons -- or cloak your beam-wielding ship and attack from behind at close range.

- Unless you're constrained by a slow drive, you'll want to put off as much combat as possible until you've visited all the unoccupied and friendly systems. You'll be better equipped that way.

[Brainiac4]

The cheesiest trick in my repertoire is the Gong-and-retreat with either the Hyperdrive or the Zorg Helmsman. Attack, hit the Gong, retreat, repeat. With either of the fast-travel options, this is an effortless way to win, since the Gong autokills everything up to and including denizens of black holes.

[rocky8311]

Zogu said:
You can mount 2 Particle Vortex Cannons on your ship, which makes it insanely powerful.



Yes, happiness is a warm Particle Vortex Cannon.

Sheer, unbridled joy is TWO warm Particle Vortex Cannons.

But I prefer to mount them on two different ships.

And if I'm far enough ahead, I just get a Cobalt Torpedo for fun.

[Hugo]

I've indeed tested the "fighter" trick, the game gives 5 or so points for every fighter destroyed. With the right items onboard your ship, you could be going around the combat map for hours destroying fighters and raking in the points.

Some of us agree that this is more than a trick, it's an exploit and therefore should be dealt with in the next patch.

[Puke]

wishing for a Cobalt Torpedo is a neat trick, but a REAL cheese monkey will wish for a NOVA CANNON.

a slightly more legitamate trick, is to use non-point defense weapons to target missiles. just pick a point in space, and fire. Beam weapons are good for this, as is the Micro Metorite Cannon.

A good way to take advantage of this, is to have a smaller ship constantly fireing sideways across the bow of your long range ship.

Or while you're wishing for things you shouldnt, a Flash Crater makes a very nice area-effect point defense weapon. Not good for much else, though.

[Puke]

Hugo said:
Some of us agree that this is more than a trick, it's an exploit and therefore should be dealt with in the next patch.



honestly, it sounds kind of boreing. if someone wants to do that, let them have their points. I'd rather not be deprived of 5 points per legitimate fighter kill, especially with the carrier-centric mod i'm working on.

[Tanelorn]

That's the thing, until this game becomes competitive (co-op multiplayer could be fun), who cares if there's a minor exploit such as the fighters. The endless use gong is a different issue tho.

[Shadowcat]

We maintain a high-score table at ISF, so the game is competitive in that respect http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Zogu]

My new favorite trick.
Get the Timeless Bauble and then ask for a "Lava Bomb Launcher"... this is SO funny to use in combat.

Yarrrr!!! My dreaded Pirate Ship, the Pink Flamingo, burps up volcano bombs!!!! Yarrrr!

[TaoLibra]

When you have the Aethric Mirror AND an Anti-Graviton Shunt, you may safely clear the entire map of all enemies (and friends, if you feel so inclined) without ever firing a single shot. It's really quite simple:


1: Park your ship over a Black Hole.
2: Use the Mirror on whoever you want to flush.
3: Lather, rinse, repeat.

You have an AGS to protect you from being sucked into the Black Hole. They don't.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Mind you, I have no idea whether you get any points for flushing people down a Black Hole; but at least it lets you steal their stuff.

<font color="red">{Correction: It's not "stealing." It's "claiming those abandoned items that clearly don't belong to anyone, since there's no one here."}</font>

Of course, it might also be argued that it's not a "fair fight" — but when you've got crappy weapons, crappy shields and crappy systems, and there's three fleets of cloaked death waiting for you over that Urluquai homeworld, well… a "fair fight" just doesn't sound quite so appealing, does it?

[rocky8311]

What's a "Flash Crater"? (epiphany right as I'm typing) Is that what the lava ships use to attack you at close range?

Confirmed: The Cloak is not a unique weapon hmmmmmm

[rocky8311]

Regarding the use of the Aethric mirror to flush enemies down Black Holes...

TaoLibra said:
Of course, it might also be argued that it's not a "fair fight" — but when you've got crappy weapons, crappy shields and crappy systems, and there's three fleets of cloaked death waiting for you over that Urluquai homeworld, well… a "fair fight" just doesn't sound quite so appealing, does it?



I wouldn't feel bad about it for even a second...I doubt you get the points for the kills so there is some loss attached to it even if you do get the stuff from their planet. It ticks me off (to put it gently) when the game doesn't make anything available stronger than a Gauss cannon and you're stuck with a galaxy full of Tan Ru and Mother Vents or whatever those are called.

Or when you can't find anything faster than one Ruby Laser drive...But I was glad to finally figure out wormholes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

[rocky8311]

Oh my goodness the "Lava Bomb Launcher" is a lot of fun. Check out the picture they have for it, that made me laugh. "Placeholder"

[Fingers]

Hrm, you shouldn't be able to get those. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

[Zogu]

Hey, it was fun as hell!!!

So you try to make the game fool proof... but we're pretty good fools!

[Phoenix-D]

Just be glad they put in placeholder graphics. Some coders are lazy and don't..and then when you get things you aren't supposed to the game crashes. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Puke]

its actually a pretty simple patch to add the "nowish"
flag to items like lavabombs, nova bombs, cobalt torps, etc.

i never actually thought of using lavabombs, because theyre so easy to shoot down. but unless the AI has dedicated point defense, i guess they cant do that.

I guess it would be a pretty significant change to add manual targeting of projectiles to the AI.

[Fingers]

yes, we're adding this flag to all "structural" items in the patch. These are things that are part of a ship, not really items you can move around...

(if someone makes a "you are Tchorak" mod and make some graphics for these, they can remove that flag of course)

[Zogu]

When an item is "structural", does it means that the player cannot remove it from a ship in his fleet (and swap it around)?

[Fingers]

Yes.

[rocky8311]

&lt;sulk&gt; Me and my big mouth. I'm not cluing you into anything else to remove in a patch, Fingers. Takes all the fun out....

(the lava bomb is no longer wishable)

[rocky8311]

What is an example of something that is structural on a ship? Is this the Garthan Carrier's Fighter Bay we're talking about?

And what exactly is the third weapon that the Zorg Frigate has? (The triangle in the middle of the ship). Is it not really a weapon, but rather the LIGHT thingy?

[rocky8311]

Another good trick: entering wormholes can help you find a black hole you haven't discovered yet. (more points)

[Zogu]

rocky8311 : you can always mod it up on your local copy of the game. what if you remove the "structural nowish" flag? i haven't tried yet but i would probably work.

i'm testing my unfinished mod with the new Patch 1.1, i hope it won't break some of my weird ideas about kamikaze drones and mosquitos with big cannons.

[Puke]

rocky8311 said:
And what exactly is the third weapon that the Zorg Frigate has? (The triangle in the middle of the ship). Is it not really a weapon, but rather the LIGHT thingy?



Anti Chronon Pulse Blaster?

But I think you have hit on a brilliant idea, if you'll pardon the pun.

wouldnt it be slick, if you mod in weapons that dont actually do any damage, but make neat light effects.

imagine short range blinkey light effects, or wierd auras. or better, imagine a targeting beam that fires when further from a target, and tracks faster for the main weapon that is at the same location. then you would see the beam sweep on to the target just before a projectile weapon starts fireing along its path.

[Brainiac4]

The Zorg Fridate's third weapon is the Antichronon Pulse Blaster. It's in a rear-facing hardpoint, so you won't see it fire unless you are engaging them from the rear. It has a huge firing arc, though, so you don't have to be too far behind them to see it -- off to the side works fine.

If you are close enough, you can see the mount in the rear of the ship.

One tip -- if you want to see how a given race's weapons work (damage level, range, firing arc) set up the simulator with you as the Urluqai with a single Deep Hunter and two enemies you want to see go at it. Cloak immediately and watch the fun. Nihilix and I spent a fair amount of time with large-scale battles between the Kawangi and the Tchorak. The Tchorak have a notable range advantage, which makes battles between them very interesting.

Also, if you want to see the power of ramming, set up this exercise:
You have 3 Deep Hunters. The enemy is one Yellow Kawangi. Cloak and ram. You should win easily.

[Shadowcat]

I was fortunate recently to enter a system with two enormous opposing blips on the radar. I was not especially well-armed, but I just had to know what the heck was happening there!

It turned out that the Yellow Kawangi were intent on taking out a system patrolled by a Tchorak Vent Mother. That was pretty awesome to watch in a 'real' game http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[James Sterrett]

Cool - who won? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Shadowcat]

The Yellow Kawangi obliterated the Vent Mother once it got into range, and I ran away http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The Tchorak has a big range advantage and could pound the Kawangi into space dust, but it made the 'mistake' of closing the distance, allowing the Kawangi nova cannon to start pounding away early, and then the beam weapons finished it off in a hurry...

[Thorpe]

I'm not really sure if this counts as a trick or not, due to both its relatively high requirements, and the fact that it gives no points, but if you have both the Mirror Thingamajic, Gravity Shunt, and Hyperdrive (end game, in otherwords), eleminating pesky alien war fleets becomes no problem. Hyperdrive to a handy nearby Black Hole, and simply use the mirror. Unfortunately for the aliens, they have their adventure ended prematurely.

[Rokkitgrrl]

I agree. If you're "cheating" against a computer and not another person in direct interaction, who cares. In the ongoing war of Carbon versus Silicon, I say give Carbon every single advantage... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif