Updated the FAQ [Archive] - .com.unity Forums

Slick

May 30th, 2003, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by BBegemott:
Paragraphs 4.4.7 and 12.1 have the same purpose- riots. IMO it is better to incorporate all info about them in one place and place references when needed smth like this:

4.4.7. Rioting Planets do not construct anything, as the construction queue will display "Never." To resolve Rioting see '12.1 Riots & Riot Control'Yes. There are a few places with redundant information, but in this complex game, sometimes it is hard to keep the info only (or all) in 1 place because of how the aspects of the game are inter-related. Sometimes it is just cleaner to be slightly redundant so that the reader is not jumping around all over the place chasing paragraphs. In this case, you are right in that there is room for improvement and I'll see about making those two sections less redundant like you suggest for the next update. Thanks for the input.

Slick.

[ May 30, 2003, 16:10: Message edited by: Slick ]

Slick

June 1st, 2003, 10:47 PM

Mini update:
-- added a new paragraph under Waypoints
-- fixed a quote attributed to the wrong person
-- sections 4.4.7 and 12.1 now reference each other. This redundancy still needs some work - for the next major revision.

Slick.

[ June 01, 2003, 21:51: Message edited by: Slick ]

Slick

June 2nd, 2003, 04:08 AM

Please post any feedback to the FAQ in this thread if possible to keep the main FAQ as close to the top of the thread as possible.

Thanks.

Slick.

Ruatha

June 2nd, 2003, 05:46 AM

"Don't wait to long to research medical bays".
I still haven't had any use fo rthem. I can see that they can be good to have when you need them, but there are other things I think are more important, i e computers (System wide enhancements).

Slick

June 2nd, 2003, 06:27 AM

I put that on my turn checklist when I once got hit with a random plague. If you are facing an opponent who uses plague bombs, you need medical bays as well. Level 1 is all you need for the random plague event because all random plagues are level 1. Agreed that it shouldn't be too high on the priority list, but research for level 1 is pretty cheap and worth having "before" you get a plague.

Slick.

Slick

June 5th, 2003, 05:46 PM

Mini Update:

Added Weapons Report for Proportions Mod to section 25 courtesy of Deccan. Thanks!

Slick.

Slick

June 9th, 2003, 05:57 PM

Mini update:

- Updated the link to DavidG's Modder.
- Added section 11.2.3 courtesy of Grand Deceiver.

Slick.

[ June 09, 2003, 16:57: Message edited by: Slick ]

Slick

June 14th, 2003, 07:58 PM

Herc,

Thanks for the feedback. The first thought that went through my head when I saw that post was the same as Ruatha's and I questioned the value of the FAQ because it now seems that it can greatly benefit the pirates out there with no documentation. I guess that we will have to live with that since there was never an intention (nor a way) to restrict the information to people who bought the game.

I have to say that it was pretty crass of that guy to make that post and he should be Banned from this forum. But he already got what he wanted. Such is life.

Slick.

tesco samoa

June 14th, 2003, 08:40 PM

There will always be people who rip games... Maybe he will like it enough to purchase it.

Do not let that take away from the faq's main goal.

WHich is to help the community.

Ruatha

June 15th, 2003, 01:12 AM

Originally posted by Piron:
Well hotdamn!!!!!

Thanks a bunch!!!
Started playing the game yesterday, ancient but almost unlimited possibilities and thanks to you i now have a manual(which was not included in my rip).

You are the man!!!Post's such as these makes me wonder about the value of the FAQ http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

I bumped the FAQ to get this away from first page.
Nothing new included.

----------------------------------
To Piron:

Hi there.
This is such an awesome game, you will see that in a few days.
Then please support the author of it by buying it so that he can develop SPace Empires 5.
It's easy do buy it over the net. I live in Sweden and got my game a few days after I ordered it.
(Don't remember exactly how many days as it is quite some time ago now).

There is a free demo that can be downloaded aswell.
Please, don't spread pirated copies of this game around as it will take away the financial basis for a sequel!

[ June 14, 2003, 19:04: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

HercMighty

June 15th, 2003, 01:19 AM

Post's such as these makes me wonder about the value of the FAQ There is always one in every crowd. I for one would be constantly posting question if not for the FAQ. I am always checking looking for updates and look forward to seeing them as I would waiting for a new book at barnes and noble's. You and slick are providing an invaluable service to many players, and by some Posts this is veteran and newbie players alike. Do not let one post in any way make you feel that the FAQ's are taken for granted or not respected.

Stone Mill

June 15th, 2003, 04:25 AM

I'm with tesco. We move forward with best intent!

There are all kinds of great things that are abused. But that never tarnishes the value of the great things, and all the hard work invested, personal satisfaction, and good feelings from helping out our mates.

That is the reward we already have received, friend. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon6.gif

narf poit chez BOOM

June 15th, 2003, 07:45 AM

don't worry about what your posting as long as it isn't cracking information. pirates are going to pirate until they get caught or there conseince bothers them to much. if you don't post, you might get a few more people to play the game, but there wouldn't really be a community to play with. if you do post, 95% by my guess where going to pirate anyway. lack of a manual was only an annoyence when i was doing that and never stopped me.

Asmala

June 15th, 2003, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by Ruatha:
It's easy do buy it over the net. I live in Sweden and got my game a few days after I ordered it.
(Don't remember exactly how many days as it is quite some time ago now).
I agree, it's very easy to order the game over the net. I ordered the game on Thursday and I get it on Monday even so I live in Finland and I chose the slowest shipping method http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

Atrocities

June 15th, 2003, 12:47 PM

First, the guy is less than a good player if he really needs the info in the FAQ to play the game. Most new players catch on really quick and only use the FAQ for specific info.

The FAQ is a tool, and like any tool, is intended to be used. Wether it was posted here, or else where, people, especially those who pirate, are going to get there hands on it.

I am not really mad at the guy who has the ripped Version of the game, I am angry with the jerk, oh my a flame, who ripped it for him.

tesco samoa

June 15th, 2003, 02:51 PM

AT your going to be upset with me as well.

I like to read the FAQ's As it is another manual for learning the game.

Sure you can jump right in and play.

But I always take the time out to read the manual and player faq's and do the tutorials.

That way I can decide if I want to invest a couple hundred hours of my time in a game.

he he http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Cause 400 hours out of ones life is a huge chunk of time.

P.S. I only started playing the SE series for a few games while waiting for MOO3 and STAR2 Super Nova.

Damn time flies. I am still waiting.

Slick

July 6th, 2003, 10:28 AM

Ok, new update:

- added section 17.3 courtesy of Stone Mill. (Stoney, had to kill all your smilies, the UBB choked after 8 of them)
- incorporated discussions in the FAQ thread from the Last update.
- added numerous new sections from summaries of recent threads here on the forum. Credit given to original authors, as always.
- added some brand new material sprinkled throughout.

Sorry for taking so long on this one, but the weather here has been too great to spend on the computer.

Slick.

Slick

July 7th, 2003, 03:58 AM

Originally posted by Slick:
Please post any feedback to the FAQ in this thread if possible to keep the main FAQ as close to the top of the thread as possible.

Thanks.

Slick.Pardon the self-quote. Reminder...

Thanks.

Slick.

Fyron

July 7th, 2003, 07:08 AM

You could have at least answered the question...

Perhaps you should post a link to this thread at the top of the FAQ (the very top, not in the introduction section).

Slick

July 7th, 2003, 08:12 AM

You could have at least answered the question...The text in question was not written by me, it was written by Stone Mill as is all of section 17 (as noted in the Table of Contents) unless he specifically credited it to another author. Therefore it is only proper that the original author should answer questions about his own entries.

However, since asked, I also think it may be wrong, but I haven't specifically tested it to be sure. I am fairly certain you can get multiple Resource Procurements on a single turn and I believe I have done so on several occasions. If anyone wants to specifically test this one to prove it one way or another, have at it. When I find time to do more testing, I'll post the results if someone else hasn't done so already. Out of common courtesy, I do my best to specifically test things before I add them to the FAQ (or answer questions) unless I am absolutely positive of the answer. This does not mean that I haven't posted some wrong info here (I have), but I do try to minimize inaccuracies and I would hope others would do the same.

In the future, if you would like me to answer a question on text written by someone else, please address the question to me and I will be more than happy to answer you.

Perhaps you should post a link to this thread at the top of the FAQ (the very top, not in the introduction section). Done. Thank you.

Slick.

Fyron

July 7th, 2003, 09:44 AM

In an effort to keep the main FAQ at the top of this thread, please make an effort to post feedback, questions, input, etc., in the following thread:
You might want to use one fewer "effort" there. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Slick

July 9th, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by Q:
This seems to be rather unknown territory.
Therefore I made a little test myself:

Two empires under human control except the politics minister. The corresponding AI anger.txt file were modified with all events having an effect = 0 except the "regular decrease". There empire 1 had a value of -50, empire 2 a value of +50. When the empires established contact the moods changed rapidly for empire 1 to brotherly and for empire 2 to murderous. I completed a few more turns just to be sure to get the extreme values of the moods.
Then I changed the regular decrease values to +10 for empire 1 and to -10 for empire 2. This resulted in a clear but slower change of the moods towards the other extreme. From this test I believe the correlation between the AI mood/anger value and the displayed moods is the following:

0-9: Brotherly
10-19: Amiable
20-29: Receptive
30-39: Warm
40-59: Moderate
60-69: Cool
70-79: Displeased
80-89: Angry
90-100: Murderous

It seems impossible to get values over 100 or negative values.
My personal conclusion is that you should choose the values in the AI anger.txt file rather low otherwise you get extreme changes of the mood very rapidly. And there is no use to have in the AI politics.txt file conditions for anger below 0 or above 100.Values for anger, for next update.

Slick.

Stone Mill

July 9th, 2003, 02:24 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> --Resource Procurement: 15k, Resource Procurement steals 10000 resource points (lowers enemy total storage and raises your own stored resources by 10000), and only costs 15000... as opposed to Economic Disruption, which lowers enemy resource storage by 10000 points and cost 20000 intel. (Imperator Fyron) Never use the one that destroys resources, if you feel the urge to, use the resource stealing project instead - it's cheaper, has the same effect on the enemy, and you get resources as a bonus! (Note: some mods fix this oversight, check the mod before you try this!) (Ed Kolis) Bombard an enemy with many of these, and their economy eventually dries up. Unfortunately, only one successful subtraction will be made per turn. Are you sure there is only one subtraction per turn? I recall having successfully stolen 50k resources in a single turn from an empire once. I imagine that the one that just destroys the resources works the same way. This should be tested, of course.<hr /></blockquote>Whoops... I did not realize this was directed at me. You are right, it's my submission.

I seem to recall from experience, but not through empirical testing, that several projects will complete, but if you examine the actual resources subtracted and gained, it looked like only one took effect. I think Cheeze pointed it out to me actually, IIRC. I haven't looked at this in a while; but if anyone happens to have time, I think the test would be simple enough.

Slick

July 9th, 2003, 05:35 PM

Originally posted by Slick:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Erax:
OK, newbie question time : does a Master Computer prevent capture via Boarding Parties ? I've done a partial scan of the FAQ and I think it doesn't.Unfortunately, no it doesn't. I'll make this clearer in the next update.

Slick.<hr /></blockquote>

July 9th, 2003, 05:43 PM

Originally posted by Stone Mill:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> --Resource Procurement: 15k, Resource Procurement steals 10000 resource points (lowers enemy total storage and raises your own stored resources by 10000), and only costs 15000... as opposed to Economic Disruption, which lowers enemy resource storage by 10000 points and cost 20000 intel. (Imperator Fyron) Never use the one that destroys resources, if you feel the urge to, use the resource stealing project instead - it's cheaper, has the same effect on the enemy, and you get resources as a bonus! (Note: some mods fix this oversight, check the mod before you try this!) (Ed Kolis) Bombard an enemy with many of these, and their economy eventually dries up. Unfortunately, only one successful subtraction will be made per turn. Are you sure there is only one subtraction per turn? I recall having successfully stolen 50k resources in a single turn from an empire once. I imagine that the one that just destroys the resources works the same way. This should be tested, of course.<hr /></blockquote>Whoops... I did not realize this was directed at me. You are right, it's my submission.

I seem to recall from experience, but not through empirical testing, that several projects will complete, but if you examine the actual resources subtracted and gained, it looked like only one took effect. I think Cheeze pointed it out to me actually, IIRC. I haven't looked at this in a while; but if anyone happens to have time, I think the test would be simple enough.<hr /></blockquote>I used this resource stealing project quite frequently and if my memory isn't completely wrong several projects are effective in the same turn if the target empire has that many resources stored.

Fyron

July 9th, 2003, 09:02 PM

Yes, I have seen 5 of them effective in a single turn. I think I only stole 45k min, 20k org and 30k rad, but that is all they had. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

MutantGene

July 10th, 2003, 05:49 AM

Sorry guess I posted this in the wrong spot

I have a question about crystalline technology.
If you have an "Energy Transmission Lens" in a system and you have ships in that system with phased shields, what kind of shield does the ETL add? Phased or none phased? I read somewhere in this FAQ that if you have unphased shields on a ship then you negate the effect of the phased shields (i.e. PPBs will come right through). Also if you have ships, some with phased shields and some without, then what happens? So does anyone have an answer?

Fyron

July 10th, 2003, 09:17 AM

There is no phased Version of that ability, so the logical assumption would be that it adds to the shield point total, and does not affect phasing status.

MutantGene

July 10th, 2003, 04:31 PM

Thanks for the response, I'm not sure how many countless hours you guys have saved me experimenting by having this forum; keep up the great work.
One Last thing regarding ETLs are they like shields in that when they are overcome then they are gone, or are they always there for each hit.
For example if you have a stack of small fighters (takes about 20kt of damage to destroy) with ETL I you would need 40 damage to kill the first fighter, so I assume a PDC V would kill 2 fighters. Would the next PDC also kill 2 fighters or would it kill 3?

oleg

July 10th, 2003, 07:43 PM

I think ETL adds shields to each fighter. I am not 100% sure. There have been several claims that is the case. Not easy to prove - it must a real tactical battle in the system with ETL, simulator is no help here.

Fyron

July 10th, 2003, 11:51 PM

It just increases the max (and starting) shield levels of each ship, base and unit (including each individual fighter) in space in the system. The extra shields act exactly identical to a component on the ship generating those shields.

Slick

July 16th, 2003, 05:39 PM

Originally posted by Erax:
I'm sure most of you know this, but in Tactical, if the multiple planets are adjacent to each other (sometimes they aren't and there's a row of empty sectors between them), you can drop troops on one planet, conquer it, then select the conquered planet and order it to drop troops on an adjacent planet.

Fyron

July 16th, 2003, 08:21 PM

That sounds like a cheesey exploit to me.

Loser

July 16th, 2003, 08:25 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
That sounds like a cheesey exploit to me.You know, if I put that in the babelfish, translate it into Esparanto, then into Catalan, then into Manx, then back into English it comes out "Tactical Combat".

Fyron

July 16th, 2003, 08:29 PM

Umm... you are not serious about that, are you?

Loser

July 16th, 2003, 08:55 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Umm... you are not serious about that, are you?No, Babelfish should be capitalized and does not include Esperanto, Catalan, or Manx.

But yes, I don't see how you can call anything that can only be done in Tactical combat 'a cheesy exploit'. Tactical combat is already pretty cheesy and exploitive.

(Don't get me wrong, I use it in Single Player games when the AI is at a level that means it's going to pound me anyway. And I used to use it all the time.)

[ July 16, 2003, 19:56: Message edited by: Loser ]

Erax

July 17th, 2003, 12:31 AM

That sounds like a cheesey exploit to me. Fyron, I refuse to argue with you.

Slick

July 17th, 2003, 06:07 PM

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
I have played a few games where I was up against unarmed ships, usually mine sweepers. First thing I do is to make unarmed ships a priority target; that will often kill the mine-sweepers even when you loose the battle. This has a slowing effect on the opposing fleet, as they need to replace the mine-sweepers or risk running afoul of mine fields. Adding a single weapon will defeat this tactic. It looks like this is a mistake that lots of new players make.

Fyron

July 17th, 2003, 07:58 PM

Originally posted by Erax:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> That sounds like a cheesey exploit to me. Fyron, I refuse to argue with you.<hr /></blockquote>http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

You do realize that that is really a matter of opinion, so arguing on it would be futile, right?

Slick

July 17th, 2003, 09:10 PM

Both of you please take this discussion elsewhere. The purpose of this thread is for FAQ updates. Thank you.

Slick.

Loser

July 22nd, 2003, 02:19 PM

Originally posted by deccan:
I've read that having the Ancient Race trait lets you see the locations of other players' planets, but I can't seem to see it work in SP. Anyone?Look for the right sized planets with the right levels of resources, based on the game's settings. Do this in the Planets window.

Arkcon

July 22nd, 2003, 05:02 PM

Originally posted by Loser:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by deccan:
I've read that having the Ancient Race trait lets you see the locations of other players' planets, but I can't seem to see it work in SP. Anyone?Look for the right sized planets with the right levels of resources, based on the game's settings. Do this in the Planets window.<hr /></blockquote>For example, you start on a fair, medium oxygen rock planet, 99% min, 101% org, 98% rad. The stock EEE are in the game. Find the medium CO2 gas giant with the same rating -- you know they start there, as medium gas giants are pretty rare, using standard map generation.

Now, FQM will change all that, but Ancient Race is removing most of the fun of discover from FQM.

[ July 22, 2003, 16:03: Message edited by: Arkcon ]

deccan

July 23rd, 2003, 01:57 AM

I've read that having the Ancient Race trait lets you see the locations of other players' planets, but I can't seem to see it work in SP. Anyone?

Slick

July 26th, 2003, 02:47 AM

Originally posted by Krsqk:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
You can ram warppoints too!

Very occasionally useful if your ship is crippled, has no SDD and you can't let it be captured at any cost.I'm not sure I want to know why you know this. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif <hr /></blockquote>LOL! This is too cute to pass up adding to the FAQ!

Maybe this should also be added to the "200+ reasons you know you play too much SE4" thread... When you know that you can ram a warp point... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Slick.

tesco samoa

July 26th, 2003, 06:44 AM

here is one... perhaps it was mentioned before.

I noticed this when i was swapping out populations ( different atmospehere types to the proper breathing planets )

When you wish to figure out what planet to send those *______*breathers to.... click on the ship with the ______breathers and then press the 'm' quick key.... now open the colonies window 'f5' and in the general view click on the atmosphere column. ( it is now sorted by atmoshpere.) Then click on the Races View ( menu on the right ) Now each atmosphere type is sorted by atmosphere type and then population size. ( so when you see the number increase you know your on a different atmosphere )

As a bonus. Since you clicked on the ship you can see the current system highlighted on the galaxy map ( if your lucky , usually you have to remember which system it is) and the planet that needs the population transfer in the colonies map ( this way you can determine which planet is closest )

Works like a charm

Grandpa Kim

July 27th, 2003, 03:58 AM

As stated in the Newbie FAQ:

1.5.1 Victory conditions are �and� not �or�.

This is exactly backwards. The first victory condition reached will end the game. The only exception is the time limit at which victory conditions will take effect.

Therefore:

1.5.1 Victory conditions are "or" not "and".

Slick

July 27th, 2003, 04:27 AM

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:
As stated in the Newbie FAQ:

1.5.1 Victory conditions are �and� not �or�.

This is exactly backwards. The first victory condition reached will end the game. The only exception is the time limit at which victory conditions will take effect.

Therefore:

1.5.1 Victory conditions are "or" not "and".Ouch. Good catch. Fixed.

Slick.

Grandpa Kim

August 2nd, 2003, 05:01 AM

Just a small clarification:

Currently reads:

5.11.3 A ship needs a specific launch component to handle each type of unit, which cannot handle the other types. Planets can launch and recover units without needing any special facilities.(CapnQ)

Suggest change to:

5.11.3 A ship needs the specific launch component to "launch" or "recover" the appropriate unit. Any type of launch or cargo component can "transfer" any of the units or even population. IE: A satellite bay can pick up mines at one planet and drop them at another planet but cannot launch the mines into space. Planets can launch and recover units without needing any special facilities.(CapnQ)

Small addendum:

8.4.4 Mine damage is applied pseudo-randomly to a fleet, but appears to hit minesweepers first.

[ August 02, 2003, 04:48: Message edited by: Grandpa Kim ]

deccan

August 2nd, 2003, 06:21 AM

Has anyone ever done up an Excel spreadsheet of the SEIV weapons chart? I'll do one if no one else already has.

Fyron

August 2nd, 2003, 08:53 AM

Yes, they have. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I think it was a long, long time ago though, so it might be a bit tricky finding it. It might be in the old scenarios archive.

Slick

August 2nd, 2003, 09:28 AM

Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:

8.4.4 Mine damage is applied pseudo-randomly to a fleet, but appears to hit minesweepers first.I have no problem changing this, but is there some testing that backs this up? I have not done testing but I have not noticed that minesweepers are any more likely to be hit than anything else.

Slick.

deccan

August 2nd, 2003, 12:48 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Yes, they have. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I think it was a long, long time ago though, so it might be a bit tricky finding it. It might be in the old scenarios archive.Oh well, since PBW is down, I went ahead and made one anyway. I did it manually though, so there's bound to be lots of errors. Here it is:

1059821217.zip (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/newuploads/1059821217.zip)

Grandpa Kim

August 2nd, 2003, 05:09 PM

Originally posted by Slick:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Grandpa Kim:

8.4.4 Mine damage is applied pseudo-randomly to a fleet, but appears to hit minesweepers first.I have no problem changing this, but is there some testing that backs this up? I have not done testing but I have not noticed that minesweepers are any more likely to be hit than anything else.

Slick.<hr /></blockquote>No testing just my own game experience. If 5 ships are hit by the remaining mines, 3 of them will be sweepers. In my current KOTH game, I was able to sweep 98 of 100 mines. The other 2 killed one of my sweepers. Perhaps its just coincidental but I can't remember an exception.

Parasite

August 8th, 2003, 06:02 PM

Awesome list! Here are some changes and additions from a lurker (Parasite)

1.1.1.2.1 (edit) plagues, increase happiness system-wide,

2.9.7.1 (move "Neat trick" stuff move to here)
2.9.7.2 (add) Design colonizers with one more movement point than needed to reach a planet to have it move and colonize in one turn. Two moves away, make it the cheapest speed three ship. i.e. three engines III or one engine IX depending on TL.

2.14 (add the below)
A (Parasite)
d. Medium Transports are good for carrying a repair bay and can still carry enough cargo to design correctly. (see also the "Junk Carrier" strategy later)

4.4.8.1 (edit) (add here or somewhere)
Planet population markers tell how many people are generally on a planet. The marks appear in the top right corner of the planet.
Pop.(M) Dashes
0 0
1-200 I
201-1000 II
1001 + III

4.4.13
f. (edit) Add Tech Level too.

i.
(replace second answer) Static for all things. Note: If you save a queue with a low TL then after adding it, go to "Construction Queues" and click "Upgrade Facilities". It will upgrade all the faculties in your queues to the current TL faculty. It also adds all needed updates to your construction queues. This may or may not be what you want.

(edit to Last answer) have to click once for each facility in the saved queue over the current queue limit. Making a queue with 7 items can then be added twice to fill a 15 queue, or three times in a 20 or 25 queue.

5.5.3 (???) The wording here is not correct. I have construction as my highest priority and (during refits for sure) the ship/base with repair stations is not always repaired first. I think it is done on a Last refitted first repaired FILO queue. Battle damage repairs could be different. Once a ship starts repairing, it will complete unless moved out of the sector.

5.5.9 (add to end) Retrofit engines three (or half) at a time and only lose supplies to what the leftover/repaired engines can hold.

6.4.11 (replace) A captured ship will have its weapons disrupted for ten combat turns before they can fire. Any previous load time on the weapon (from firing before capture) is added to this.

6.7.4 (add) Click on a weapon to unhighlight it before firing. It will then not fire. It can then be clicked on again and fired at the same ship the same turn. Very useful for removing shields, killing WPs only, ect. This does not work for fighter stacks (unit stacks???) All fighters in a stack will fire at once. (Multi track may change this???)

7.2.8.1 (add) Capture a planet on turn 29 and the Sats will only get one fire at the planet. They will hit the troops you dropped first, and you can still get the planet intact.

7.2.17 (obsolete) As of 1.84 Gold you will not be able to attack your own captured planet. Also friendly missiles in flight targeted on the planet are stopped before they hit.

7.2.23 (edit sp) strength does affect

7.2.24 (edit) PD is OK. It will fire.

8.1.5 (edit A) Units (aka fighters) must also have supplies for shields to work.

8.5.4 (my question) Does this work in Strategic mode?

10.2.4 (add) Offering an AI empire a good trade can cause him to accept the trade. This will happen BEFORE he would declare war on you. This can be done for several turns even if you are a Mega Evil Empire. You will still get the normal treaty trade (because he didn't declare war). It can more than make up for the trade losses of 1-2K resources.

10.2.5 (add) How an AI refuses a trade can give hints on his tech. "We do not have that tech" means OK, no fighters, Attack! Whereas "We don't was to trade for that" means Get on that PD tech research!

13.1.2 (add) Trades may prevent full war for a time. (see 10.2.4)

17.3.6.2 (edit) values as your

17.3.10.1
c. (add) Preparing for upgrades.

17.11.5
d. (add) Build lots of cheap stupid ships for his "Any Ship" insurrections to capture.

17.11.7
(remove) Comm Mimic (in twice)

[ August 08, 2003, 17:06: Message edited by: Parasite ]

geoschmo

August 15th, 2003, 02:09 PM

Hey, as far as keeping the sticky Newbie Faq thread clean and posting questions here, we could lock the official faq thread so noone could post to it at all. Whoever is officially maintaining the FAQ could let one of the Moderators know when changes need made and we could unlock it for you at that point, or one of us can edit it. Let us know if you want to do that.

Geoschmo

Mephisto

August 15th, 2003, 02:20 PM

Good idea! Slick, Ruatha, what do you think?

Slick

August 15th, 2003, 05:31 PM

I could work with that.

Looks like there was some problem with a reply (?) that the Moderators took care of??? Was there a problem with content or credit to an original author or something like that?

edit: As soon as the latest "Strategy Article" is complete, I was going to incorporate it and the other additions in this thread.

Slick.

[ August 15, 2003, 16:34: Message edited by: Slick ]

Ruatha

August 15th, 2003, 06:09 PM

Right now I'll let Slick decide as he has already done, it's he that does all the work, I'm just a backup, and happy with that! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ August 15, 2003, 17:10: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

Slick

August 15th, 2003, 06:18 PM

Ruatha, I enjoy doing the updates and am proud to be able to contribute to the community - although the real credit goes to the contributors. I am glad that you allow me to help with this project. My work situation is really getting busy and will stay busy for the near term of 6-8 months, so I might need some help during this time. I think between the 2 of us, and the upcoming Starfury and SE5 we can manage. In the next revision, I will start sections for Starfury and SE5, and when the respective games are released, I will break out those sections as separate FAQ's.

Slick.

sheridangreen

August 15th, 2003, 07:08 PM

Hello all,

Long time lurker, first time poster. First of all, thank you _so_ much for the FAQ. I think just reading it and the rest of the info on this forum has bumped me from "newbie" to "novice". Not much of a difference, but it sounds better. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/tongue.gif

Anyways, would it be possible to post all of the updates separately from the FAQ? I mean, still put the updates in the FAQ, but also post all of the updates you did somewhere else? Like in this thread, or the now "Old FAQ" thread? That way there would still be a place for the "new" newbies to read the FAQ, and a place for the "old" newbies to get new information that was added to the FAQ, without having to scan through the whole thing to find out what was added. I know that some of the updates are discussed in this thread, but sometimes one of you will find some random piece of info and stick it in the FAQ. If it's too much extra work, nevermind, but it would be nice. Thanks!

Slick

August 15th, 2003, 07:56 PM

That's a good point and I have been resisting doing it because it adds to the amount of work, but what I'll do is make a revision synopsis which lists just the section numbers that were added or modified. That should't be too much extra work. The readers can then just read those sections to see new info.

Slick.

Fyron

August 15th, 2003, 10:33 PM

Mephisto, you added the header part twice in the new thread... it is important info, but having to read it twice is annoying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Mephisto

August 16th, 2003, 12:13 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Mephisto, you added the header part twice in the new thread... it is important info, but having to read it twice is annoying. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Actually, I did it on purpose and out of laziness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
I didn't want to alter Slicks original post (the lower part of my post) but then again I wanted to make clear that people should not post in the sticky thread. Slick had already posted it and I just copied it. I will not do this double post next time the FAQ is updated, I promise! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

eorg

August 19th, 2003, 07:56 PM

1.5.3 In Simultaneous games, you will lose your remaining movement points when moving into an
unexplored system. Your ship will also stop and lose movement when encountering an enemy, but this can be changed under Empire Options.

you can order your ship to jump and after that to move in the new system - you can nearly always tell where your ship will jump http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Rich

August 22nd, 2003, 12:44 AM

Is there a way to download the newbie faq?
Thanks.

Slick

August 22nd, 2003, 01:02 AM

Originally posted by Rich:
Is there a way to download the newbie faq?
Thanks.It is located in the topmost sticky thread. You can save it as a text file. Although the links won't work, they can be saved separately.

Slick.

Rich

August 22nd, 2003, 04:44 AM

Originally posted by Rich:
Is there a way to download the newbie faq?
Thanks.How do you save it as a text file? I tried copy/paste and that included the background.

Slick

August 22nd, 2003, 06:31 AM

Originally posted by Rich:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Rich:
Is there a way to download the newbie faq?
Thanks.How do you save it as a text file? I tried copy/paste and that included the background.<hr /></blockquote>The easiest way (but not the nicest):

Click on the link, then Click on File/Save As, select txt as the file type.

This method will save all the unnecessary text on the screen and might need to be "cleaned up"

A better way:

Click on the link, select only the FAQ text, copy, paste into notepad or similar text editor, then save the file from there.

Slick.

Asmala

August 22nd, 2003, 04:36 PM

You can also try the printer-friendly Version (link to it is in the bottom of the page).

Rich

August 23rd, 2003, 12:54 AM

Couldn't find the printer friendly link but was able to save it as a txt file. Thanks very much.

Asmala

August 23rd, 2003, 07:45 AM

Originally posted by Rich:
Couldn't find the printer friendly link but was able to save it as a txt file. Thanks very much.There is Printer-friendly view of this topic link at the bottom of the place just below the new topic link.

Slick

August 25th, 2003, 08:38 PM

This is a call for any new additions for the next update. As soon as the next installment (17.12) of the strategy articles by Stone Mill is complete, I will be posting an update to the FAQ in approximately a week. The info in this thread will be included, plus a few other goodies I am working on. If anyone wants to get something added (or fixed), please speak up - there are still several sections that are nearly empty. Thanks.

Slick.

AMF

September 1st, 2003, 12:52 AM

Well, now I've gone and done it. Decided to see how bad playing a "neutral culture" emprire really was. I always played peaceful or warlike before...

And, so whenever I met another empire, I wen tofr the non-intercourse treaty, and thats it. Well, now, all of my planets are rioting. How in the world does one make neutral people happy? I think my game is a wash unless I can figure this out...

Do the effects of having warships/troops in a system help with neutral empires? Admittedly, I am very low on warships and have NO troops...been expanding, and never built more than a few warships...

I guess this is what I get for playing a bunch of anarcho-libertarian belter types who just want to be left alone...sounded like a fun idea at the time...

any help greatly appreciated...

thanks,

Alarik

Slick

September 1st, 2003, 01:28 AM

Originally posted by alarikf:
Well, now I've gone and done it. Decided to see how bad playing a "neutral culture" emprire really was. I always played peaceful or warlike before...

And, so whenever I met another empire, I wen tofr the non-intercourse treaty, and thats it. Well, now, all of my planets are rioting. How in the world does one make neutral people happy? I think my game is a wash unless I can figure this out...

Do the effects of having warships/troops in a system help with neutral empires? Admittedly, I am very low on warships and have NO troops...been expanding, and never built more than a few warships...

I guess this is what I get for playing a bunch of anarcho-libertarian belter types who just want to be left alone...sounded like a fun idea at the time...

any help greatly appreciated...

thanks,

AlarikMost of the same things work on a neutral empire. From FAQ:

12.1 Riots & Riot Control (Note: see also section 4.4.7)
12.1.1 The following things can increase happiness on a planet: ships in the system, ships in the sector, urban pacification centers, troops on the planet, winning a battle, colonizing a planet, capturing an enemy planet, (sometimes) new treaties, building ships or facilities.
12.1.2 Since the number of troops matters for happiness, not the strength, someone suggested making small troops with just a cockpit to use for use as �riot police.�
12.1.3 A homeworld will never riot. Their anger will go up but it maxes out at 80% (where 100% is required to riot) But, if the HW is glassed, then recolonized, it can then be capable of rioting, as it is no longer a HW. (Slick, Imperator Fyron, Aaron)

The thing with neutrals, is that most things make them angry, (an exception to the above is that most treaties and battles make them upset) so load up on the troops and make a Urban Pacification Center in each system. Or better yet, don't pick neutral. To see what affects their happiness, read the appropriate text files.

Slick.

Nocturnal

November 19th, 2003, 12:43 AM

In my late-game, I now use this more expensive (takes two turns to build in most worlds) colonizer for colonization at any range, though the overwhelming majority of my colonization is short-range:
Bridge, life support, crew quarters, colony pod, cargo bay, one (1) best engine (quantum III), solar sail, best emergency propulsion (emergency propulsion V).
This has an effective one-turn speed of 12 allowing it to reach any planet in its system the same turn it’s built, but it runs out of fuel quickly. If I’m colonizing long-range, I usually send a bulk transport full of population along with it, and my bulk transports generate unlimited supply. So I don’t bother designing another ship. Or, I use an “obsolete” colonizer. I call this design simply “Rock Colony”, “Ice Colony”, and “Gas Colony”, and you may use it if you like. Feel free also to cut out the jabber from this post if it makes it into the FAQ.

JLS

November 19th, 2003, 12:47 AM

Sounds like a great design, squeeze a reacter or some steller harness on that and you will be in buz, Nocturnal.

[ November 18, 2003, 22:49: Message edited by: JLS ]

Nocturnal

November 19th, 2003, 01:23 AM

Thanks! You'd need to take out the emergency propulsion V or the cargo bay to make it a longer range design capable of self-resupply.

One advantage for remote mining that I didn't see discussed was that it costs you no space on your planets at all. Playing a race of god-like researchers, I got a HUGE advantage in tech very early by getting well over 60% of my minerals from remote mining ships, and stuffing every planet I could find full to the brim with research centers.

Now later in the game, remote mining only gives me about 30% of my minerals income because I've maxxed out all my research. (My colonies are focusing on intelligence now, but I'm already the Mega Evil Empire and pwn the azzes of all teh mofos wtf lol. Smaller empires sometimes capitulate immediately at my "Resistance is futile" speech that I give as soon as I get a new "first contact.")

Of course, this is against the AI, and such a plan may have weaknesses that a canny human player can exploit. However I feel that vigorously mining asteroids before you have the tech to build planets out of them can give a gigantic ROI in terms of resources and also planet space. For best efficiency, use the largest hull available for your miners - until the late-mid-game, my mining fleet was a bigger drain on my economy than my battlefleet, but the payoff was fantastic.

Note: Remote mining with other than satellites or bases is COMPLETELY USELESS on limited-resource games. You can never make up both the upkeep costs and the initial investment in a timely manner, unless you can reduce upkeep.

[ November 18, 2003, 23:36: Message edited by: Nocturnal ]

Fyron

November 19th, 2003, 02:38 AM

One advantage for remote mining that I didn't see discussed was that it costs you no space on your planets at all. Playing a race of god-like researchers, I got a HUGE advantage in tech very early by getting well over 60% of my minerals from remote mining ships, and stuffing every planet I could find full to the brim with research centers. You can't mine a colonized planet though...

Nocturnal

November 19th, 2003, 03:59 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> One advantage for remote mining that I didn't see discussed was that it costs you no space on your planets at all. Playing a race of god-like researchers, I got a HUGE advantage in tech very early by getting well over 60% of my minerals from remote mining ships, and stuffing every planet I could find full to the brim with research centers. You can't mine a colonized planet though... <hr /></blockquote>You can't colonize an asteroid belt either, early in the game. And most small moons can be exploited much more through mining than colonization. What's your point?

AMF

November 19th, 2003, 08:45 PM

Argh....stupid question that I *know* has been answered somewhere before, but here goes:

Under the Allegiance Subverter section, the FAQ says "In Versions earlier than 1.80, ships with a destroyed master computer CAN be captured [by allegiance subverter]."

So, am I to take this to mean that in Version 1.8, a ship with a destroyed MC *cannot* be captured by my AS?

Thanks,

Alarik
(biting my nails until PBW gets back up)

Phoenix-D

November 19th, 2003, 09:00 PM

That is true, yes.

AMF

November 19th, 2003, 09:04 PM

Well, that stinks...any way around this?
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
That is true, yes.

Fyron

November 19th, 2003, 10:29 PM

No. AS + Comp Virus was way too powerful before. Something had to be done. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

AMF

November 19th, 2003, 10:43 PM

Yeah, I can't really argue with that...I'll still argue though that, from a conceptual *and* practical point of view, that a better solution is to make those ships with *only* MCs invulnerable to AS, but those with MCs *and* crew quarters/bridges to be vulnerable. Logic being this: if it is solely a computer controlled ship, and the computer is destroyed, there is enough residual software to run it at the degraded (loss of control spaces) level; but if there is a crew onboard *also*, they take control of the ship and hence are then vulnerable to psychic enslavement.

Just myh two cents, I know it's not gonna change, but I can dream of a way to deal with Talismans...

thanks,

Alarik

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
No. AS + Comp Virus was way too powerful before. Something had to be done. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Fyron

November 19th, 2003, 10:50 PM

That is assuming that the ship is set up to give priority to crew commands. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Slick

November 25th, 2003, 04:53 PM

From the "Blockade Strategy" thread. I thought this was a neat idea and will include it in the next FAQ revision if I ever get some time. Thanks Primitive!

Originally posted by primitive:
Don't waste your frontline ships on blockade duty. Make a specific blockade fleet instead, with only minesweepers, PDC-ships and some minelaying capabilities. They are cheap, and can be built while the main fleet is in training (or retrofitted from antiquated designs). When possible I will use such fleets to blockade enemy planets in frontline systems my main fleet bypass while it strikes for home.

Move the blockade fleet to the planet and let the PDC-ships take care of any defensive fighters. Drop a few mines, leave a PDC ship for blockade and move to the next planet. Repeat (use shift-click to hit several planets in the same turn). Be sure to have some extra ships in the system as you will loose some ships to weapon platforms as your lazy blockade captains sometimes let themselves drift into range http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif . Send in the marienes to clean up later.

Be sure to drop the mines though, as sometimes the planet manages to build a siege braker (ship or fighters) before rioting. With a few mines in place over all blockaded planets, the damage will be limited to the one planet.

Done this a couple of times in games, both against the AI's and against humans, and it works like a breeze. Slick.

Asmala

November 27th, 2003, 09:05 PM

1.5.4 Score is calculated as follows: Every point of minerals, organics, and radioactives, generated counts as one score point. Every point of research and intelligence generated counts as one score point. Each kt of your ships and bases counts as 10 points. Each level of researched techs counts for 200 points. No points for units/pop/colonies/systems. (Ruatha) [editor's note: I *think* mothballed ships don't count to score. Can someone confirm/deny?] Mothballed ships/bases aren't count to score. So this is confirmed now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Asmala

November 28th, 2003, 09:22 PM

I don't know if this is common knowledge but at least I didn't know it. And it caused some work for me to notice this so I decided to post it here.

It is possible to get some techs which you cannot research by analyzing ships (only in mods, though). If a component's requirement techs are not racial techs, you get the component even if the requirement tech's prerequisite techs are racial techs.

For example, in stock game you have to research first religious studies and then religious technology. If only religious studies was racial tech, everyone could get talisman by analyzing ships but only religious player could research it.

Ruatha

December 1st, 2003, 06:14 PM

Slick, I see no hurry in adding to the FAQ at present.
So I'll wait for you to do it.

Slick

December 2nd, 2003, 04:10 PM

I have some time off coming at the end of this month. I'll try to get an update done then. Hopefully the next patch is out by then too.

Slick.

Slick

December 16th, 2003, 04:15 PM

For next update:

1.2.4 Happiness: Every five percentage points you increase your happiness makes 0,1% people happier every turn. For example if you increase happiness 10% it's the same effect if you have one troop on your every planet.(Asmala)

If you drop your happiness to 50%, it makes 1% of your population angry each turn. Natural decrease is 2% (neutral 5%). The result is 1% happy people each turn. (Asmala)

Loser

December 16th, 2003, 04:50 PM

Originally posted by Slick:
For next update:

1.2.4 Happiness: Every five percentage points you increase your happiness makes 0,1% people happier every turn. For example if you increase happiness 10% it's the same effect if you have one troop on your every planet.(Asmala)

If you drop your happiness to 50%, it makes 1% of your population angry each turn. Natural decrease is 2% (neutral 5%). The result is 1% happy people each turn. (Asmala) Might want to note that this natural anger decrease only applies to you own race. Ex-pats from other empires have a natural increase in anger, which will be magnified, slightly, but this setting.

Slick

December 16th, 2003, 05:16 PM

It's actually in there already. But you are right. This needs to be clarified and referenced in a few places because it is buried in the section for capturing planets. Thanks.:

7.2.9 Captured population (by any means) loses all of its racial attributes and is identical to yours except they retain their atmosphere breathing so can be used to populate your colonies appropriately AND they slowly get unhappy over time so you need to account for that so they don�t riot (riot police, upc, etc.).The positive happiness effect of 10 troops of any type will exactly cancel out the negative happiness of having alien population on a planet.

Asmala

December 16th, 2003, 05:40 PM

Loser

December 16th, 2003, 05:53 PM

Originally posted by Slick:
7.2.9 Captured population (by any means) loses all of its racial attributes and is identical to yours except they retain their atmosphere breathing so can be used to populate your colonies appropriately AND they slowly get unhappy over time so you need to account for that so they don�t riot (riot police, upc, etc.).The positive happiness effect of 10 troops of any type will exactly cancel out the negative happiness of having alien population on a planet. I believe they also get angrier while you are at war with their mother-empire.

But I am a slacker, and have not checked the FAQ to see if that is also covered in that specific block. I'll apologize for the slack, but I won't promise a change. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

December 16th, 2003, 07:08 PM

Originally posted by Slick:
It's actually in there already. But you are right. This needs to be clarified and referenced in a few places because it is buried in the section for capturing planets. Thanks.:

7.2.9 Captured population (by any means) loses all of its racial attributes and is identical to yours except they retain their atmosphere breathing so can be used to populate your colonies appropriately AND they slowly get unhappy over time so you need to account for that so they don�t riot (riot police, upc, etc.).The positive happiness effect of 10 troops of any type will exactly cancel out the negative happiness of having alien population on a planet. Forgive me Slick if I correct you, but the happiness thing is a little bit more complicated:

1.) What makes the difference between original and captured population is in the happiness.txt file
Natural Decrease := -20
Natural Decrease for Other Races := 20

The first line is the original population, the second all foreign/captured populations. Therefore this can be modded! If both values are equal then there will be no difference in the happiness reaction at all.

2.) You think that a positive value makes the population angrier and a negative value makes them happier. That is not correct. If you leave a happy original population with the "natural decrease = -20" alone they will get indifferent! A negative value shifts the happiness to indifferent no matter if you start jubiliant or angry. In contrast a positive value shifts the happiness to the extremes: if you start a little bit happier than indifferent you go to jubiliant, if you start a little bit unhappier than indifferent you go to angry. As far as I know the natural decrease alone will not cause a riot. For this you need other factors that influence the happiness.

[ December 16, 2003, 17:12: Message edited by: Q ]

Slick

December 16th, 2003, 07:29 PM

Thanks and I do appreciate any feedback on the FAQ. I guess I could make it a little more clear, but that is what I meant. From happiness.txt:

Our Troops on Planet := -2

-2 * 10 = -20 which offsets the 20 for being another race. I guess it should really be 20 troops to equal the happiness gain of your native population.

Slick.

Fyron

January 2nd, 2004, 09:00 AM

Please change the link to SE4 Modding 101 tutorial in section 16 to:

http://se4modding.spaceempires.net/

[ January 02, 2004, 07:00: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Slick

January 2nd, 2004, 09:12 AM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Please change the link to SE4 Modding 101 tutorial in section 16 to:

http://se4modding.spaceempires.net/ In the process of doing an update now. Will incorporate.

Slick.

Atrocities

January 2nd, 2004, 09:58 AM

You know you should also submit the FAQ to Gamespot.com and other game sites. I don't know if that is a good or bad suggestions, but I do know that many gaming sites do have FAQ's on games, so why not add the sites?

Slick

January 2nd, 2004, 10:16 AM

Ok, I'm a little too tired to continue tonight but I got about 1/3 of my latest material entered. Added 17.12 article by Stone Mill, numerous tweaks and some additions. Over the next few days, I will be adding a lot more material - stay tuned. This UBB editor is really terrible for handling large articles and I have tried several other editors, but somehow the UBB stuff gets messed up during cut/paste operations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Atrocities: good idea, thanks! I'll do that after this round of updates. If the next patch comes out soon, I'll do another update after that one for any changes.

[edit: Mephisto, you can delete the old Version of the FAQ in the sticky thread if you wish.]

Slick.

[ January 02, 2004, 08:26: Message edited by: Slick ]

Mephisto

January 2nd, 2004, 11:30 AM

The link in 1.0.1 is dead.

Ruatha

January 2nd, 2004, 11:42 AM

Originally posted by Slick:
Ok, I'm a little too tired to continue tonight but I got about 1/3 of my latest material entered. Added 17.12 article by Stone Mill, numerous tweaks and some additions. Over the next few days, I will be adding a lot more material - stay tuned. This UBB editor is really terrible for handling large articles and I have tried several other editors, but somehow the UBB stuff gets messed up during cut/paste operations. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon8.gif

Atrocities: good idea, thanks! I'll do that after this round of updates. If the next patch comes out soon, I'll do another update after that one for any changes.

[edit: Mephisto, you can delete the old Version of the FAQ in the sticky thread if you wish.]

Slick. I think I used wordpad Last time, don't remember if it messed up the linebreaks though...
First I choose "edit post" (or quote) to be able to copy the UBB formats and then paste that into the text editor. Later on it's just to post and paste.

Slick

January 2nd, 2004, 06:10 PM

I'll make a test and try it again. It was months ago but I remember text editors messed up spacing, tabbing, paragraphing or some such.

Slick.

Slick

January 2nd, 2004, 06:15 PM

Originally posted by Mephisto:
The link in 1.0.1 is dead. I have the file. Anyone know when the uploads section will reopen?

Slick.

Fyron

January 2nd, 2004, 09:05 PM

There has been no word on when the new system that is in the works will be ready. I could host the file on SE.net. Email it to admin at spaceempires dot net.

[ January 02, 2004, 19:06: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Asmala

January 2nd, 2004, 09:07 PM

Originally posted by Atrocities:
You know you should also submit the FAQ to Gamespot.com and other game sites. I don't know if that is a good or bad suggestions, but I do know that many gaming sites do have FAQ's on games, so why not add the sites? One great FAQ site is GameFAQs (http://www.gamefaqs.com).

Fyron

January 2nd, 2004, 09:13 PM

Just make sure to stay far away from GameSpy...

Slick

January 2nd, 2004, 09:16 PM

Added more stuff to the FAQ this morning. About 1/2 finished at this point.

Slick.

Atrocities

January 2nd, 2004, 10:19 PM

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Just make sure to stay far away from GameSpy... Did you mean GameBorg?

And you should consider reviewing that discussion we all had about Torpedos a few weeks ago. IIRC that thread was a hot topic for sometime. A lot of great tactics and strategies were discussed. I cannot seem to find the thread though. HELP.

Atrocities

January 2nd, 2004, 10:24 PM

Ah ha, found it!

LINK TO TOPIC (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=010355)

Fyron

January 2nd, 2004, 10:33 PM

Game Guide (http://www.spaceempires.net/home/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=364)

There you go.

Fyron

January 2nd, 2004, 10:39 PM

Originally posted by Atrocities:
Did you mean GameBorg? No no no. That is Atari. Just wait til Atari buys GameSpy... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif

[ January 02, 2004, 20:39: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Atrocities

January 2nd, 2004, 10:58 PM

One day all things will be a Pay to use Subscriber system. Atari will assimulate everything web based, game based, multiplayer based and turn us all into paying customers.

$50.00 for game
$120.00 per year MP access
$40.00 Game book
$40.00 Phone bill for game tech support
$120.00 subscription to game update site

$370.00 for game that you will play for only a year.

Not worth it!!!!!!!!!!!!

narf poit chez BOOM

January 2nd, 2004, 11:04 PM

One day all things will be a Pay to use Subscriber system. Atari will assimulate everything web based, game based, multiplayer based and turn us all into paying customers.
and in that day, i will make a lot of money selling hammers. just think of all the wonderfull things you can do with hammer's. you can bash, you can smash, you can smack, you can wack, you can thwack, you can smush, you can bang, you can...

Roanon

January 11th, 2004, 08:28 PM

Sorry for posting on topic http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif , but could someone please change the turn sequence in the FAQ to the correct one? Retrofit definitely comes before income, for example.

I think it is correct here:
http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=009418#000000
... but this is not very convenient as it is not sticky and I have to search for it every time I want to look it up. Also, its not nice to noobs who might rely on the FAQ http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Slick

January 11th, 2004, 09:13 PM

Fixed. Thanks. Also added a few things and fixed a couple of mistakes.

Slick.

David E. Gervais

January 25th, 2004, 10:30 PM

'Heads-up'.. the link to the Un-Official Space Empires IV Strategy and Tactics Page.. (
http://home.earthlink.net/~petemmer/ ) in the faq is broken.

Cheers! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Asmala

January 31st, 2004, 12:01 PM

I think this:
5.7.10 Fleet experience is earned by an relatively obtuse formula.

should be changed to this:
5.7.10 For each kill made by a ship in a fleet, there is a 25% chance that the fleet gets 0.1% experience

Also current 5.7.4 could be changed to 5.7.4.1 and then added

5.7.4.2 Ships get a small amount of experience for seekers, fighters, drones and satellites, but none for troops and weapon platforms.

Slick

February 8th, 2004, 02:42 AM

For next update...

Facility output:

Originally posted by Asmala:

Correct is (total facility production)*(planet value)*(population, happiness, racial characteristics)*(planet bonus facility)*(system bonus facility)

Fyron

February 8th, 2004, 05:49 AM

You should definitely replace the commas with plus signs to indicate that they add. As it is, it is somewhat vague.

Slick

February 28th, 2004, 03:11 AM

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=011092

for next update.

PvK

February 29th, 2004, 11:35 PM

FAQ entry 4.4.5.1 is incorrect. It is contradicted by FAQ entry 17.3.3, which is correct.

I.e., Happiness level has no effect on construction rate, unless it reaches the Rioting point.

PvK

PvK

March 1st, 2004, 12:11 AM

FAQ entry 7.2.14 is incorrect. See 8.3.1, which is correct.

That is, troop losses in ground combat are applied left to right (against first-in troops, not against first-out troops).

PvK

Slick

March 1st, 2004, 12:58 AM

Thanks PvK. I'm letting the dust settle after the Last patch to make the (probably) Last update to the FAQ to incorporate the new things in this and some other threads as well as from v1.91.

Slick.

geoschmo

March 1st, 2004, 05:12 PM

You should probably have something in the FAQ about TCP/IP games. If it's there I missed it.

Slick

March 2nd, 2004, 02:39 AM

Originally posted by geoschmo:
You should probably have something in the FAQ about TCP/IP games. If it's there I missed it. If I didn't have zero experience with TCP/IP games, I'd take a swing at it. I'd sure include it if someone were to write it. Wanna give us a short blurb about what the newbie needs to know?

Slick.

Asmala

March 9th, 2004, 10:11 PM

Reproduction without modifiers. +1 for each percentage of Reproduction and +1 for each five percentages of Environmental resistance.

<blockquote>code:<hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> Jubilant Happy Indif. Unhappy Angry Rioting
Unpleasant 13 10 8 6 3 0
Mild 15 12 10 8 5 0
Good 17 14 12 10 7 0
Optimal 20 17 15 13 10 0</pre><hr /></blockquote>

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 01:44 AM

Thanks Asmala. Just to be clear for my one, old, semi-functional brain cell... What happens if I lower reproduction and/or environmental resistance too much? Will reproduction rate ever go less than 0? I have never seen a rate < 0% so I assume it is capped at 0.

Also, what do you do with both of these? I like to take ER down to 51% and add +9 or maybe a few more percent to repro. I like to have populations grow fast. Helps production and construction, etc.

Slick.

[ March 09, 2004, 23:46: Message edited by: Slick ]

Fyron

March 10th, 2004, 02:36 AM

ER and Reproduction stack. You can not have less than 0% reproduction rate.

I guess you did not see any of my various planetary conditions testing Posts... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Oh well.

[ March 10, 2004, 00:41: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 05:12 AM

You don't have to be rude. I know that they stack, and I wasn't asking you what you did.

Slick.

Fyron

March 10th, 2004, 05:44 AM

My post was not rude in any way. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 06:08 AM

Fyron, I tell you this as a friend. Your Posts do sometimes come across to me as rude. I'm willing to bet that others may also find some of them a little offensive, but due to your relentless nature and repuatation here on this forum they don't say anything. Again, as a friend, I suggest you try to read your own Posts before that final click and place yourself in the shoes of the other person or persons that will be reading it. It is the receiver's opinion that should matter to you, not your own opinion.

Consider this. If it were face-to-face in a group and someone said something that was rude to the others but seemingly inoffensive to the speaker, whose opinion(s) would matter? In such a case, if nothing was said to the speaker, how would he know? And after he is informed that the statement is rude, what would be a mature response?

Slick.

Fyron

March 10th, 2004, 06:34 AM

What was rude about my post specifically? The answering of your questions, or the joke part? You may have misinterpreted it. It was only stated in gest, not meant to be rude. I apologize if it came off that way.

Ruatha

March 10th, 2004, 06:50 AM

Slick, condensed other thread for the next Faq edition (You know better then me where to place it):

To avoid having the AI mess up your turns during simultaneous multiplayer games when you miss a turn, always do this:
In the game, press the "Empire Status" button (The crown icon). On the pop-up screen press the "Ministers" button, the next to top button on the right.
Scroll to the bottom of the list and check the box saying "AI should not make changes to the empire during a Simultaneous Game".

When playing a simultaneous game, if you miss a turn and haven't checked the box "AI should not make changes to the empire during a Simultaneous Game" in the ministers option the AI will run the turn for you.
Due to the sequence in which events take place the Messages the AI send will block your message sending function the next turn.
So if the Ai decides to send a message or reply to the "Terran Empire", the next turn that you play the game will say "Message already sent" for that empire and you cannot send any new message until another turn has been processed.

Concerning the SLick-Fyron discussion. I agree with you both on this one http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Fyron> You are a fast poster and sometimes your Posts do come across as rude or should I say pompous..
In this particular post, the "Oh, well" can imply that someone isn't doing his homework, is sub-standard and such things. I see that it can also mean alot of other things...

Slick> In this particular case I don't think it was particularly rude.
It's not only the speaker who has to think of how what he says is interpreted, it's also up to the listener/reader to try to interpret what he means.
In the Fyron case I belive it's easy to have a bias when interpreting his Posts http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
Try to re-read this one in a positive way.

(I can butt off and mind my own buisness, but I'm not in that mood right now http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif )

[ March 10, 2004, 04:57: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

narf poit chez BOOM

March 10th, 2004, 06:54 AM

PM'd, apon consideration.

[ March 10, 2004, 04:57: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 07:01 AM

That's part of the problem with forums. People can't see body language or hear tone. The smilies are a poor substitute. What I found rude was that it was clear I wanted Asmala's opinion, but you responded in a way that basically said I would have known these things if I had seen your previous Posts. Again, since people are reading text, it's hard to tell the intent. No harm done, its clear that you meant it in a joking manner. I know some of my own Posts could be received as rude so I try to read them before posting with that in mind. Maybe I need to work harder at it.

Slick.

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 07:06 AM

Ruatha:
Slick, condensed other thread for the next Faq edition (You know better then me where to place it):
Thanks. I'll find a place somewhere in the multiplayer section.

===========================================

Originally posted by Slick:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by geoschmo:
You should probably have something in the FAQ about TCP/IP games. If it's there I missed it. If I didn't have zero experience with TCP/IP games, I'd take a swing at it. I'd sure include it if someone were to write it. Wanna give us a short blurb about what the newbie needs to know?

Slick. <hr /></blockquote>Anyone wanna take a swing at writing this section? I know nothing about it.

Slick.

Fyron

March 10th, 2004, 07:13 AM

Originally posted by Slick:
That's part of the problem with forums. People can't see body language or hear tone. The smilies are a poor substitute. What I found rude was that it was clear I wanted Asmala's opinion, but you responded in a way that basically said I would have known these things if I had seen your previous Posts. Again, since people are reading text, it's hard to tell the intent. No harm done, its clear that you meant it in a joking manner. I know some of my own Posts could be received as rude so I try to read them before posting with that in mind. Maybe I need to work harder at it.

Slick. Oh, I see... well, I meant the two paragraphs as wholely separate. The second was about the reproduction rates with happiness vs. conditions chart, and had nothing to do with the rest of the post. They were not meant to go together at all. Your interpretation is not what I meant at all. The first paragraph's answers really have nothing to do with that chart. Sorry for the confusion.

[ March 10, 2004, 05:15: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 07:40 AM

Ok, now that we're all friends again, we've sung our Kumbaya's and all that happy stuff, let's get back to business. I'm still letting the "dust settle" after the release of v1.91. I intend to put together one "Last" revision that has a bunch of things. ("Last" being only until another one is needed.) Here's what I'm thinking:

- I want to add a small section for "true newbie questions and frequent mistakes". I'd like input on this one. I'm thinking of things like colonizers with no population or other mistakes we have all made. I'll consolidate all these into a small section near the top, add a short answer, and refer the readers to various other sections of the FAQ if relevent. Maybe a "top ten list" or something of that nature. This section will be intended to be small.

- Update any sections for correctness under v1.91.

- Hopefully get Stone Mill (I've seen you lurking recently...) to finish, or at least do another installment to the Strategy Articles section.

- Incorporate things in this thread and others I have been keeping track of that contain applicable info since Last update.

- and do a Last scrub for overall formatting, etc. with the idea that I probably won't be updating it again.

- Last chance for anyone to submit anything. I'll target around the end of April or so. By then there will probably be revised mods out which use the new features in 1.91 so any issues under the new patch should have been found by then

Please know that I have tried a few methods of editing and the sheer size of the faq is becoming unwieldy (sp?). Copying/pasting into another editor usually results in losing some of the particular formatting that is used on this UBB. Using the UBB editor here is causing the board to almost choke and, even though you don't see it in the FAQ itself, there are lots of "errors" reported as it saves the text (even though it appears to save it properly in the end). The size is approaching some limit of the UBB. Hopefully there is room for a little more.

Slick.

[ March 10, 2004, 05:42: Message edited by: Slick ]

Fyron

March 10th, 2004, 08:26 AM

Perhaps save it as an HTML file and have it hosted somewhere? You should be able to use the forum's Printer Friendly option to get it in basic HTML with no sweat.

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 04:28 PM

I'll probably be breaking it up as Geo suggests. The idea of hosting it elsewhere has come up before. I still like the idea of it being here where it is easily accessible for forum questions to reference. I try to answer questions with references to the FAQ if possible. This way, people read it and hopefully get answers before they need to post, as well as if any incorrect info is there, it usually gets flagged out.

Probably moving it off site when the SE5 demo is released would be a good idea.

Slick.

Caduceus

March 10th, 2004, 05:13 PM

Reading the FAQ, I have found several spelling errors and repititions of information (credited to one person after another). It would be good to streamline that a bit. I'm no English major, but would be willing to go over it before it is finalized.

Any revisions I would make would be more for grammer than for content, I assure you.

Wildcard

[ March 10, 2004, 15:16: Message edited by: wildcard06 ]

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 06:05 PM

If you'd point them out, that sure would be helpful. Also, not all of the contributers (contributors?) has English as a first language.

Slick.

[ March 10, 2004, 16:06: Message edited by: Slick ]

geoschmo

March 10th, 2004, 06:31 PM

Originally posted by Slick:
If you'd point them out, that sure would be helpful. Also, not all of the contributers (contributors?) has English as a first language.

Slick. have? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Besides, you asked us to point them out. Oh, you just meant in the FAQ? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Slick

March 10th, 2004, 11:43 PM

Ouch. I sure asked for that one. Geo, your aim is pretty good too.

*rubs the sore spot between his eyes*

Slick.

Shrapnel

March 11th, 2004, 01:34 AM

I've been using the FAQ on SE.net as it has HTML links. Is this FAQ also being updated to mirror the changes on this forum??

Thanks!

Fyron

March 11th, 2004, 02:35 AM

No. It is several Versions out of date. The guy that was updating it has become rather busy as of late.

geoschmo

March 11th, 2004, 02:45 AM

If you want to post it somewhere I'd be happy to mirror it on PBW.

If you want to keep the full text of the FAQ here in the forum, what you should do is break it up. The problems you are having aren't caused by the amount of data in the FAQ thread. There are many threads much longer and they don't have problems. It's the amount of data for a single post in the FAQ thread. Break it up and put each section in it's own post. Rememeber to make the Posts in reverse order though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

One advantage of this is you'll be able to make the index clickable so people can go right to a specific section. You can make a UBB link that goes directly to a specific post in a thread.

Another advantage is since each section is a separate post, you can edit sections without having to edit the entire thread.

Paul1980au

March 11th, 2004, 03:49 AM

There isnt going to be any more SE4 patches - therefore the FAQ should recieve one Last upgrade - then when the SE5 demo comes out you could generate a new one for the next Version.

Slick

March 11th, 2004, 04:31 PM

From another thread. For next update.

<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Roanon:
<blockquote>quote:<hr />Originally posted by Slick:
1) let me know when a planet is on emergency build but not building anything
2) let me know when a construction queue finishes so that I can do my "per planet" upgrade thing that I mentioned in the first post in this thread.At least #1 is simple. Construction queues (F7), select Rate. Click on Rate, then Construction to sort: non-building colonies are listed first, starting with highest production rate (i.e. usually those on emergency) on top.

Having the same #2 problem (haven't we all? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif ) I usually design a few units named like "* upgrade *" or "* build ship now *" etc. Inserting them into the queue at the appropriate places alerts me to take action whenever I see an item starting with "*" in the queue. And they are listed first if you select sort by Construction, so it is easy to check it. <hr /></blockquote><hr /></blockquote>

Slick

March 16th, 2004, 01:26 AM

From another thread for next update:

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Actually Atmosphere converters do not stack. You can build more then one, but the way it works is you get the results form teh best avaailable facility. SO if you had one that converts it in 3 years and one that converts it in 2 years on the same planet, theatmosphere will be converted in 2 years.

If you have two faciliites that convert in 2 years it still takes two years.

Geoschmo p.s. I'll edit for spelling. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Paul1980au

March 16th, 2004, 04:02 AM

Didnt you get it slick - there isnt going to be another patch. Space empires 5 in 1 - 2 years is the next installment - if one can keep the revenues coming in for Se4 - so go promote and get some new paying players.

Slick

March 16th, 2004, 04:20 PM

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=011261

Ruatha

March 16th, 2004, 04:23 PM

Thanks Geo.

My wife came home and forced me to eat some pills, so I'm not feeling all that bad anymore, just feverish and about to die http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Edit:everything

[ March 16, 2004, 16:25: Message edited by: Ruatha ]

geoschmo

March 16th, 2004, 04:29 PM

Ruatha, please don't feed the trolls. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

Slick

March 20th, 2004, 04:07 AM

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=011291

Atrocities

March 20th, 2004, 05:08 AM

Has any one ever printed the FAQ? If so how many pages is it?

Fyron

March 20th, 2004, 05:11 AM

Click on the Printer Friendly link, do a Print Preview, and see how many pages it would be.

Slick

March 20th, 2004, 08:25 AM

The Last time I imported into MS Word it was 60+ pages. That was several Versions ago. I'd guess it's 80-90 pages nowadays.

Slick.

narf poit chez BOOM

March 20th, 2004, 09:41 AM

why print it out when it changes? maybe in six months...

Atrocities

March 20th, 2004, 09:50 AM

I need to upadate my copy.

We should also update the Dubvious guide as well. That thing is horribly out dated.

Fyron

March 22nd, 2004, 07:08 PM

WarChild

March 23rd, 2004, 12:26 AM

The most recent FAQ is 66 pages printed out in MS Word with 1/2" margins.

Slick

March 23rd, 2004, 02:29 AM

I notice that section 3.0 Research lacks these formulae:

Low tech cost: (Level Cost) * Level

Medium tech cost: (Level Cost) * (Level� / 2)
--> except at level 1, where the cost is simply Level Cost.

High tech cost: (Level Cost) * (Level�) It is located in 1.6.1; I'll cross reference it.

The most recent FAQ is 66 pages printed out in MS Word with 1/2" margins.
Odd. I just tried it and mine was 85 pages. Maybe different fonts or point sizes...

Slick.

Fyron

March 23rd, 2004, 06:38 AM

Ok. Could you also make it explicit that at medium tech costs, level one technologies cost LC, not LC / 2?

Slick

April 6th, 2004, 01:10 AM

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=011427

Kana

April 16th, 2004, 11:25 PM

Is there any FAQ or info on the best way to set up a TCP/IP game? Either via Internet or LAN?

Thanks,

Kana

Fyron

April 17th, 2004, 03:11 AM

Yes, click here. (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=59;t=000011#000007)

Grandpa Kim

April 25th, 2004, 09:00 PM

Some updates and corrections:

0.0 current Version is now 1.91

1.1.1.2.2 Gestation Vats - increases the percentage for reproduction rate in system. Replicant Center - increases population by an additional fixed amount each turn in system. Medical Lab - prevents plagues in system (actually cures plagues, but this occurs 1 turn after plague hits so you still receive 1 turn's worth of plague damage), increases the percentage for reproduction rate in system, increases happiness in system. All three levels of the Medical Lab give only 1% improvement in happiness, unlike other happiness facilities which increase the rate with each level.

2.10.2 Ships do retain original strategies after being captured - you can overcome this by making a 1-ship fleet and giving it new fleet orders. *Deleted "retrofitted or" between "being" and "captured".*

5.9.10 Attacking with Cloaked ships/fleets: You must first give the order to Decloak before an attack. (Stone Mill) Only one ship in the fleet needs to be decloaked.

6.2.4.5 Warp Point Defense Formations: Wall and phalanx are not so good here. Better to use a more "circular" formation like spider, dome or bull.

*Please delete this entry, it is not true.*
6.4.1.1 In strategic combat your design will refuse to board if there is a SDD present on the target ship.(Dogscoff)

6.4.2 Or use a level 2 intelligence project called "Crew Insurrection" where you plant a spy on the enemy ship and attempt to convince the crew to join your cause. If successful, the ship is yours to do with as you please. (Gandalph) The insurrection will occur at the very end of the turn, so no battle will occur that turn. On the next turn, you will often find the insurrected ship amongst a fleet of enemy ships.

6.6.1.3 Once the population has all expired, the [plagued] planet reverts to uncolonized and may be recolonized by anyone without fear of residual contagin. (Arkcon)
Q. Do the facilities remain?

6.8.3 Ship moves on different days during the turn depending upon their speed capacity. (The 'movement day' is the day that the ship ends up in a new sector.):
Spd Movement Days
02: 15, 30
03: 10, 20, 30
04: 7, 15, 22, 30
05: 6, 12, 18, 24, 30
06: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30
07: 4, 8, 12, 17, 21, 25, 30
08: 3, 7, 11, 14, 18, 22, 26, 29,
09: 3, 6, 10, 13, 16, 20, 23, 26, 30
10: 2, 5, 8, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26, 29,
11: 2, 5, 8, 10, 13, 16, 19, 21, 24, 27, 30
12: 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 17, 19, 22, 24, 27, 29
13: 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 20, 23, 25, 27, 29
This is essentially correct but I've seen ships/fleets move on day one, so there are minor variation.

7.2.24 Bear in mind weapons on a troop transport will not fire at the planet, even when in range, but will fire at ships and units in space. Unless you change the strategy [from "Capture Planet"], and then they won't drop troops. Point defense is ok though I believe. Will help if the planet is shooting missles at you. (Geoschmo)

9.5.0 Some stellar manipulation devices work anywhere, others must be at a specific location. IE: A warp point can be opened from anywhere, but naturally, you can only close a warp point where a warp point already exists. This can cause problems with the orders you give to the ship.
For a warp opener, your orders can read "open warp point, move" or "move, open warp point, move" or "move, open warp point, sentry". Basically just about anything.
A closer must start at a warp point to use its close warp point order. Your orders will read "close warp point, move" or something similar. Putting a move order before the close order is a risk and often not even possible.

*Please delete section "a.". It is not quite right.*
9.5.6.1 Sequence:
a. In simultaneous games worm hole opening and closing happens before all players ships are moved.

12.0.2 Happiness affects resource production and reproduction (see settings.txt)

Slick

April 26th, 2004, 12:34 AM

*Please delete this entry, it is not true.*
6.4.1.1 In strategic combat your design will refuse to board if there is a SDD present on the target ship.(Dogscoff)
I questioned this before adding it and DS stated that it was true. I don't use boarding designs; maybe I should. No offense, but are you sure this is wrong? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/confused.gif

Slick.

Grandpa Kim

April 26th, 2004, 03:14 AM

I'm dead certain for 1.84, but I'm not sure I've had an in-game occurance in 1.91.

In my experience boarding ships are unreliable. Sometimes they will close in to a target ship and neither board nor fire weapons. Sometimes they fire their weapons, sometimes they board and sometimes they board and both ships disappear indicating the presence of SDD. Further investigation has shown that, indeed, the target ship did have SDD. Unless something else is happening to cause the destruction of both ships, boarding ships will board SDD equipped ships, but not every time.

Slick

April 26th, 2004, 03:46 AM

That's good enough for me. None of the 1.91 changes should have affected boarding. Thanks.

edit: just ran a little test and boarding ships attempted to board 100% of the time and both ships were destroyed 100% of the time.

Slick.

[ April 26, 2004, 02:55: Message edited by: Slick ]

Slick

April 28th, 2004, 10:45 PM

Definitely need a link to this on the next update:

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=011584

Paul1980au

April 28th, 2004, 11:20 PM

Well it would seem that one of the bugs in v 1.91 is the boarding and SDD situation that said it runs reasonably well and will surfice until we have SE5

Grandpa Kim

May 1st, 2004, 06:54 PM

Paul, I don't consider that a bug, I consider it a feature. It allows a small and cheap boarding ship to eliminate a much larger ship. At the same time the SDD prevents the capture of a powerful ship. I can't decide if that's win/win or lose/lose... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Slick

June 25th, 2004, 04:27 PM

http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=011981

I'll get to an update one of these weekends when I am not working, which won't be for at least a month. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon9.gif

Slick.

Fyron

July 29th, 2004, 09:20 PM

6.8.3 Ship moves on different days during the turn depending upon their speed capacity. (The 'movement day' is the day that the ship ends up in a new sector.):
Spd Movement Days This makes no sense in the "6.8 Simultaneous Combat Specifics" section of the FAQ. It is not really part of combat, but of how the turn is processed. Perhaps it would be better located in the "14.1 Simultaneous" section? Or maybe place it in both, or just a reference to the chart in the section that does not get the chart...

Ruatha

July 30th, 2004, 04:12 PM

There should atleast be areference to it, as it explains WHY combat started....

Slick

July 30th, 2004, 04:31 PM

Sorry about the looooong overdue update, guys. RL is severely limiting my free time; most of my "free" time is spent catching up on RL things. I haven't forgotten about this.

Slick.

Ruatha

July 30th, 2004, 05:06 PM

No hurry.
I haven't thought it very pressing for an update..
so there's no hurry.

buba

August 29th, 2004, 03:26 PM

Trade Adds.

1� tech by now difficult to trade.

2� trade colonizing tech with neutral ai opponents NOT with the others (as they win options), if u cant in a 1 vs 1 add some resources.

3� Use trade as weapon if u have a good storage (even at the begining), mostly with ai opponents, sell them organics and rad resources get minerals, """!!!extremely!!!!!"""" important strategy in finite resources games.

Why? resource convertor looses a 50% in level 1 40% in level 2 20% (not secure about) in level 3, 5 years or more to take this tech.

you can trade ex-3000org+2000rad for 4000 minerals (loose of 20%).

-----

some tricks

puppet parties in enemy colonies they will abandon they empire, declare war on them they will give u the tech of the original empire.

Give this colonies to other empires (after scraping the buildings), mostly in direct or not direct contact, the relations between them will go badly (for contested systems).

Maybe (not secure yet), ruined planets too for this strategy (i dont know if they win the tech of the planet).

Avoid Mega Evil Empire if u can (u can win many with trade and so on), at the begining, u can colonize ruined better.

from a newbie player

Ruatha

August 29th, 2004, 04:42 PM

Good to see you at it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Gandalf Parker

September 26th, 2004, 07:49 PM

Has anyone ever posted info to update part 15? Multiplayer and PbEM play? Other than the next line sending them to PBW?
Whats the step-by-step to start an MP game without PBW?
The manual wasnt all that clear either.

sachmo

November 4th, 2004, 07:55 PM

The links at the beginning of the FAQ (section 0.1 Other Reading)are bad in some cases.

Specifically, the Un-Official Space Empries IV Strategy and Tactics Page, the SE4 Mod Utility 1.71, and the Encyclopedia link.

Arkcon

November 4th, 2004, 09:17 PM

sachmo said:
The links at the beginning of the FAQ (section 0.1 Other Reading)are bad in some cases.

Specifically, ...

*SNIP*

the Encyclopedia link.

Hit the refesh key if you use IE http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Slick

December 4th, 2004, 04:02 AM

Ok, between now and probably the end of the year as time permits I will be issuing a final (most likely) revision to the FAQ. I may update the actual FAQ in stages if it becomes easier to do it that way. Unless another patch is ever made, this FAQ will be finalized. I will be using all the info in this thread, some other things I have been keeping track of, and updating existing entries for changes since v1.91. The most likely scenario is that I will issue the final revision to the FAQ and SE V will be right around the corner so things will shift focus from SE IV to SE V in all likelyhood. Thanks for all the input so far provided in this thread.

If anyone wants to submit anything, please feel free to post in this thread. We are always open to input, corrections, and other ideas. But get the info posted here soon or it will be too late.

Thanks,
Slick.

Atrocities

December 28th, 2004, 01:21 AM

Question:
I only have about 5 planets with a ship yard on them. The problem is remembering which ones have a ship yard and picking them out of the colonies report menu. I realize I could write them down, but I was wondering if there's a way to view only colonies with a specific facility? When you have say 30 colonies and only 5 ship producers its quite difficult to pick them out you see.

Answers:
You name your planets with shipyards on them, or

1. click on the Minister icon (The Crown)
2. Click the EMPIRE OPTIONS Tab at the top right
3. Scroll down to SYSTEM DISPLAY.
4. Check the 6th line down "Show Resupply Depots (R), Spaceports (S), and planetary Space Iards (SY)
5. Click CLOSE
6. Click CLOSE

douglas

March 1st, 2005, 07:50 PM

Edit: Nevermind. I have continued the experiment, and order of construction appears to be the deciding factor. The ship that was built first gets repaired first.

Edit2: Grr. It's a bit more complicated than that apparently. Hold on, this explanation is going to get technical and includes some suppositions about the inner workings of the game. It appears that on construction each ship is assigned a unique ID, possibly an index into an array of ships, that never changes. This ID starts at 1 or 0 for the first ship, and the lowest available ID is assigned to each new ship on construction. When a ship is destroyed (scrapped in my test game), its ID is freed and available for another ship. Repair order of ships appears to be determined exclusively by this ID number, with the lowest ID ship repaired first. In practice, once ships start being destroyed irregularly (i.e. some stay around, others don't; typically happens first when you're regularly building both warships and colony ships), repair order is very difficult to predict or influence with any great degree of accuracy.

Edit: old theory, discredited now. See above. I have just discovered a hidden factor in determining which ships are repaired first: experience. The most experienced damaged ship in a sector will get top priority for repair regardless of what your repair priorities set in the empire status screen are. The repair priorities you set are only used as a tiebreaker when ships have equal experience and to determine the order of components repaired within a single ship.

I discovered this recently when I set repair priorities specifically to repair a damaged minesweeper first (putting Unit Launch at the top, with minesweepers being the only "Unit Launch" components I use right now), only to discover the next turn that the two damaged warships present were repaired first. I then ran a test game with the following series of events: build two ships with just engines; retrofit one with a weapon (moved weapons to bottom of repair priorities) and the other with several extra crew quarters, move both to same sector with inadequate repair ability; the weapon was still not repaired; retrofit both back to base design, send one to ship training center for one turn; retrofit trained ship with weapon (again, weapons are at bottom of list) and other ship with extra crew quarters, send both to repair center; trained ship was repaired first, even though its only damaged component was at the very bottom of the priorities list while the other had six components at the very top of the list (vehicle control).

Fyron

March 1st, 2005, 10:28 PM

Unless I am horribly mistaken, the repair priority list is definitely followed. Repair order by ship, not by component. A ship with a damaged component of the hihgest priority will be repaired first. The entire ship will be repaired though, not just the component. So if you have engines as the highest priority, pretty much any ship with damaged engines can be repaired first. If there are multiple ships that are candidates for repair, the order of construction then comes into play. The first constructed of these ships will be repaired first.

Incidentally, order of constructin is a very prevelant method used in SE4. You can see this in any screen with an unsorted list, such as the fleet joining screen.

douglas

March 2nd, 2005, 01:01 AM

Imperator Fyron said:
Unless I am horribly mistaken, the repair priority list is definitely followed. Repair order by ship, not by component. A ship with a damaged component of the hihgest priority will be repaired first. The entire ship will be repaired though, not just the component.

I wish that were true. If it were, my 200+ ship fleet wouldn't be held up an extra turn because the lone minesweeper can't move yet.

In my test game, the ship with a weapon (bottom of the list) had ONLY the weapon needing to be repaired, and the ship with extra crew quarters (top of the list) had ONLY those crew quarters to be repaired. Despite this, whenever the weapon ship was the one that had been built first or replaced the one that had been built first, it was repaired first. Repeating the experiment with the weapon ship being the later-built ship resulted in it being forced to wait for the other to finish repairing all 6 extra CQ.

capnq

March 2nd, 2005, 07:15 PM

Atrocities said:
Question:
I only have about 5 planets with a ship yard on them. The problem is remembering which ones have a ship yard and picking them out of the colonies report menu. I realize I could write them down, but I was wondering if there's a way to view only colonies with a specific facility? When you have say 30 colonies and only 5 ship producers its quite difficult to pick them out you see.

Answer #3: Click the Status button on the Colonies report. The shipyard planets will have a shipyard icon.

Puke

March 2nd, 2005, 09:31 PM

or go to the construction menu, and only select planetary SYs, and not planets.

douglas

March 12th, 2005, 05:52 AM

All of the following statements have been thoroughly tested. Please do not dispute them without testing them yourself. They also all refer to "ship ID". A ship's ID number is a unique identifier assigned to ships when they are built. It is not visible to the player. The first available ID is the one assigned. When a ship is destroyed, its ID becomes available again.

The order of repairing ships is completely independent from the repair priorities list. Ships are repaired in order by ID number. Repair priorities only affects the order of components repaired within the ship.

Within each day in a turn's movement, ships move in order by ID number. This matters for certain stellar manipulations, seek after orders, and minesweeping. Fleets move all at once when their lowest-ID ship moves.

Stellar manipulation: Whether trying to open a warp point and go through it at exactly the same time works or not depends on whether the warp opener has a lower ID than the moving ship. Also, destroying and recreating a planet in one turn with two different ships requires that the create order be executed either on a later day or on the same day by a ship with a higher ID.

Seek after: Particularly important when all ships involved have the same speed. If a ship with ID 1 is seeking a ship with ID 2, both moving at the same speed, 1 will seek 2's location at the start of the day, and then 2 will get to move away. In this situation, 1 must either get very lucky or the player must deliberately and correctly anticipate 2's movement in order to catch 2. Going the other way, 2 will have a much easier time seeking 1, as 2 will seek after 1's after-movement location.

Minesweeping: Minesweeping, unlike combat, is calculated after each individual ship movement rather than at the end of the day. This means that a minesweeper can only protect a fleet that it's not in if the minesweeper (or the minesweeper's fleet's lowest-ID ship) has a lower ID than any ship in the fleet. This is rarely important, but there have been occasions when I wanted to attack RIGHT NOW and my fleet didn't have a minesweeper, but I did have a minesweeper the fleet could meet up with partway through the turn. I also occasionally have large forces split into multiple fleets travelling together so that I can split the force up without losing the fleet training bonus.

Now for a way to make all this information actually useful: Ships are sorted in the fleet transfer screen by ID number, lowest ID at the top. This sort order is in effect both in the list of ships not in fleets and within each fleet. The order of the fleets is by fleet ID, which is used for nothing else that I can tell, except the order fleets are displayed in the ships screen (F6). The order ships are gone through by the "Next ship" operation, typically accessed by the space bar hotkey, is also by ship ID. Unfortunately, this order is cyclical and your current position in it appears to be stored in the savegame, even through turn execution. Of course, you could try building an escort on turn 1 specifically to keep it around forever as your known lowest-ID ship, but this isn't guaranteed to work perfectly unless you're player 1 - anything players before you build on turn one will have a lower ID, which could possibly be freed later and taken up by another one of your ships.

Slick

March 12th, 2005, 03:14 PM

Holy Smokes! That's interesting. Great testing; I'm sure that took some time to figure out. I'm a little confused on ship ID. Does each player have a separate ID list or do all players share the same list? This would be important because if a player I haven't "met" yet loses a ship and the game has a single ship ID list, the next ship produced by anyone will take that spot and that spot may be a very early ID number. If each player has his own ID list then you might kinda know if when new ships will get an older ID. It doesn't seem like you can control this very much.

douglas

March 12th, 2005, 04:29 PM

All players share the same ID list. This makes it very hard to predict whether you'll have trouble seeking after an enemy ship or not unless you have some past experience with that particular enemy ship to go by.

Controlling anything related to ship ID numbers is practically impossible outside of a test game. All you can do is observe the order of ships in the fleet transfer screen and the next-ship list and try to take advantage of what you see.

douglas

March 16th, 2005, 08:20 PM

Another kind of stellar manipulation where ship ID can matter: star destruction/nebula creation/black hole creation. A ship moving on the same day as the scheduled mass destruction order has two possible options if it has a lower ID than the stellar manipulation ship. First, if it is on a warp point, it can warp to safety an instant before the superweapon goes off. Second, if it is one sector away from the stellar manipulation ship, it can move there and prevent the ship from doing anything, provided that you do not have a non-aggression or higher treaty with the owner of the stellar manipulation ship. If it has a higher ID than the stellar manip ship, it can't do anything but wait to die.

All orders that do not spend movement points happen just before the ship's next move action. This means that if a ship runs out of movement with a stellar manipulation or load/drop or similar order at the top of the queue, that order will not be executed until its first movement of the next turn.

Now for a list of restrictions on stellar manipulation operations:

Note: "enemy presence" refers to any object that you can detect controlled by a player you do not have at least a non-aggression treaty with. Cloaked enemy ships will only prevent stellar manipulation if you have a good enough sensor in the system to detect them.

Create Planet: Can be issued anywhere, will apply to whatever asteroid field the ship happens to be in when it's executed. Cannot be done when there is an enemy presence in the sector.

Destroy Planet: Can only be issued when over a planet. Stores the target planet, even if there's only one there and it doesn't specifically ask, and will not work on any other planet. This is the only stellar manipulation order that can be done in the presence of an enemy.

Create Star: Can be issued anywhere, even in systems that already have a star. Will create a star wherever the ship happens to be when the order is executed. Will fail if there is another star in the system at the time of execution. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Destroy Star: Can only be issued when at a star. Stores the target star and will not work on any other star. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Open Warp Point:
Can be issued anywhere. Will open the warp point wherever the ship happens to be when the order is executed. Restrictions such as only one warp between the same two systems allowed and the maximum of ten warp points in a system are checked at time of execution. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Close Warp Point:
Can only be issued when at a warp point. Stores the target warp point, even if there's only one there and it doesn't specifically ask, and will not work on any other warp point, not even the other side of the same warp point. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Create Storm:
Can be issued anywhere. Will create the storm wherever the ship happens to be at the time of execution. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy. Will give an erroneous log message about lack of supplies when attempted in the presence of an enemy.

Destroy Storm:
Can only be issued at a storm. Stores the target storm and will not work on any other storm. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Create Nebula:
Can only be issued at a star. Does not store the target star, but does require that a star be present in the sector when executing the order. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Destroy Nebula:
Can be issued anywhere. Will apply to whatever nebula the ship happens to be in when the order is executed. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Create Black Hole:
Can only be issued at a star, but no star is necessary when the order is carried out. The star the order was issued at will be deleted even if it is not in the same system as the new black hole. This deletion will not affect anything else in the system - the star just disappears. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Destroy Black Hole:
Can be issued anywhere. Will apply to whatever black hole the ship happens to be in the same system with when the order is executed. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

I have not tested ringworld/sphereworld construction in the presence of an enemy.

Fyron

March 16th, 2005, 08:35 PM

Does the ID number exploiting really need to be in the FAQ? It really doesn't matter, and it greatly detracts from the "game" aspect of SE4... There is a point when over-analyzing the minute details of the game takes any possibility for fun out of it. Of course, whether this point has been reached or not is a matter of personal opinion...

Perhaps this should be moved to a new thread if it is going to spark lengthy discussions...

Slick

March 16th, 2005, 08:47 PM

*sigh*

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

No lengthy discussions, please. Fyron, the instant you feel like you are reading something that is over-analyzing and taking the fun away for you, just stop reading.

Slick

March 16th, 2005, 08:53 PM

Great research, douglas. I'm sure that took some time to test.

Fyron

March 16th, 2005, 09:05 PM

I was talking about the ship ID number stuff, to make it clear...

Slick:
You can delete posts now. Just hit the "Delete this post" button when editing the post you wish to delete.

douglas

March 16th, 2005, 11:14 PM

At least the part relating to ship repair order should go in, though possibly just as "Ships are repaired in the order they are listed in the fleet transfer screen." At least some part of it should go in the turn sequencing section, unless you really want to leave the updated 14.1.1 as "stellar manipulation may or may not happen before other ships move."

Speaking of the turn sequencing section, a few other things are wrong in there. The correct order to the best of my knowledge is:

A) TREATY CHANGES, TRADES (note: planet orders are not cleared when transferred through diplomacy, ship orders are)
B) MOVEMENT, 30 days, combat every time something in the sector gets a move and either the sector contents have changed or something has been damaged in the last battle in the sector this turn.
Immobile things carry out their orders on day 0 or 1, I'm not sure which.
-RESOURCE CONVERSION
-RETROFIT/MOTHBALL/SCRAP/ANALYZE/ETC.
-MINELAYING
-MINE SWEEPING
-UNIT LAUNCHING
-LOADING
-UNLOADING
-STELLAR MANIPULATION
-SHIP/FLEET EXPERIENCE, combat
D) INTEL
E) RESOURCE INCOME
F) MAINTENANCE
G) RESEARCH
H) CONSTRUCTION
I) REPAIR
J) SHIP/FLEET EXPERIENCE, facility
New ships and ships which have their final movement at a planet with a ship training facility benefit from the facility in that turn, as do fleets. (tbontob, Roanon)

Slick

March 16th, 2005, 11:25 PM

I just realized we need to figure out where ship construction happens. I think "income" should be "resource income" and "production" should be "construction".

Fyron

March 16th, 2005, 11:38 PM

In SE4 terms, production refers to making resources and construction refers to using those resources to build stuff. This seems to be very consistent terminology.

douglas

March 16th, 2005, 11:41 PM

I agree. My post has been edited to reflect that. I also remembered that I have seen repair bases repair things in the same turn they were built, so I moved repair down the list.

Slick

March 16th, 2005, 11:48 PM

I can confirm that repair happens near the end because if a spaceyard/repair ship ends its turn in a sector with damaged ships, it will assist in repairs.

Spoo

March 17th, 2005, 12:17 AM

douglas said:
Create Black Hole:
Can only be issued at a star, but no star is necessary when the order is carried out. The star the order was issued at will be deleted even if it is not in the same system as the new black hole. This deletion will not affect anything else in the system - the star just disappears. Cannot be done in the presence of an enemy.

Let me stress that the blackhole is succesfully created in the target system - even if the ship carries out it's "create black hole" order in a space that doesn't have a star! System Gravitational Shields still protect the target system, however.

Fyron

March 17th, 2005, 12:28 AM

Does the target system still have to have a star in it? Not necessarily in the sector that the ship ends up, but at least somewhere in the system?

Slick

March 17th, 2005, 12:32 AM

Lemme get this straight. (in simultaneous movement) If I have a black hole maker and I put it on a star and I give it the order to move out of the system, then give it the order to create the black hole (I'm still on the star at this point), when the turn is executed, the ship will warp out of the system and be saved while the star that I gave the order on is destroyed and turned into a black hole???

It seems that if it works this way, I can save the black hole making ship! Or am I reading this wrong?

douglas

March 17th, 2005, 01:16 AM

No. The black hole will be created in the system the ship moves into, just as you would expect. The star it is moving from, that it was at when you gave the order, will simply disappear with no side effects. You can't save the ship, but this does theoretically allow relocating stars in your own space without blowing up everything in your inhabited system first.

Edit: A star is only necessary to issue the order. No star is needed anywhere in the target system at all.

Edit2: I just tested it, you can even create a black hole in a nebula.

Edit3: Strange as it seems, you can even create a black hole in a black hole system. Doing this won't change the target system at all, but will destroy every ship and unit in the system. The star used to issue the order will still be deleted.

Fyron

March 17th, 2005, 01:54 AM

This is a pretty big bug exploit... Does it happen with the star destroying and nebula creating devices as well?

Slick

March 17th, 2005, 02:00 AM

Sheez... "Stupid Stellar Manipulation Tricks" This should be summarized in the Known Bugs thread.

I'm thinking that the list of known bugs is getting big enough to maybe make MM think about another patch.

douglas

March 17th, 2005, 02:02 AM

Read the list I posted exactly one page back now. Certain uses of nebula creation might be considered an exploit, as any star will satisfy the check when executing the order, not just the one you start at, but star destruction absolutely requires that you start the turn at the star you're going to destroy.

Fyron

March 17th, 2005, 02:05 AM

By enemy presence, do you refer to enemy in the same sector or system?

Also, were these tests made with "clear orders upon sighting enemy" enabled or disabled? I forget the wording...

douglas

March 17th, 2005, 02:20 AM

Same sector, and that option was disabled. Also, I got a log message each time enemy presence prevented the operation specifically stating that it couldn't be done because an enemy was there - except for the create storm trial, where it told me I didn't have enough supplies, even though the ship had 6 engines and a quantum reactor. Moving one sector away to an unoccupied spot fixed that problem, so I'm quite certain that error message was giving me the wrong text.

Fyron

March 21st, 2005, 03:55 PM

In the interests of keeping the hyperlink version (http://newbiefaq.spaceempires.net/) of the FAQ up to date, I plan to write a little program to auto-insert all of the necessary HTML formatting. Would you be interested in this for the official post on Shrapnel Slick?

Slick

March 21st, 2005, 05:41 PM

possibly if it isn't too much extra work. as of now I have many new sections and am in the process of filling out some of the areas that are sparse. I am also in the middle of cutting/pasting from numerous threads on the forum (with credit to the authors).

the part that may make an auto formatter fail is that I am also putting in many cross references. i.e. ".... see also section xx.xx.xx". which would be great for links, but probably require manual editing. if i have to manually edit all of those, it just won't be worth it.

Fyron

March 21st, 2005, 06:27 PM

I am sure I can figure out something. New line requirements are handy. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Caduceus

March 21st, 2005, 07:35 PM

I may not be a great player, but I am a good spell-checker and grammar-checker. If you need a second set of eyes on this sucker let me know.

Slick

March 21st, 2005, 09:18 PM

Thanks for the offer. I usually correct spelling. **Most of the time I let those "armour" and "colour" spellings stand as is, even though the game itself spells "armor" and this _is_ an American game** [insert evil laugh]. All kidding aside, as far as grammar goes, I usually only fix it when it is really bad or causes the entry to be wrong/unclear. Minor infractions give the FAQ its flavor of community contribution. Flavor? Flavour?
I always correct any spelling/grammar that might embarrass the author since that's never the intent of including a quote.

Slick

April 15th, 2005, 02:34 PM

See new partially completed update posted.

I will be going through an intense workload period soon so I wanted to at least upload the work that has been done so far. The previous version was ~93 pages and this version is ~145 pages so that just goes to show you how much has been added. I truly apologize for the unfinished sections and I promise to finish them as time permits in a couple of months. My notes to myself are listed with underlines: ___________________________ so please disregard them. Also, none of the links have been fixed yet, formatting is marginal for some of the tables, and I still have a ton of input from various people that I haven't got a chance to add yet. Here's a partial update for now. Slick

douglas

April 15th, 2005, 04:31 PM

I don't know if this is in the list of things remaining to update or not, but it's not marked with underscores, so here it is: the discussion of crystalline armor in section 1.1.2 is off; pretty much all the "half"'s and "50%"'s should be deleted. The shields from damage ability works out to exactly the same as emissive except that it stacks to a limit of the lower of your maximum shields and the structure of one component of it (minus 1).

Suicide Junkie

April 15th, 2005, 08:13 PM

Example: Insane gobs of crystalline armor. 150 hitpoints each, and 300 SGFD ability points total.

A weapon hits for 300 damage.
Two armors will be destroyed.
300 shields will be generated.
The next hit is blocked by the 300 shield points, resulting in an average of 50%

FunnyMan

April 27th, 2005, 01:15 AM

Correction to 1.3.3 ...with no atmosphere. Gas giants always have an atmosphere (i.e. not None), but an Atmosphere Converter can solidify them into a Rock/None planet.

I enjoy playing as Rock/None I can definitely say that an Atmospheric Converter will change a Gas/Any planet into a Rock/None one.
-FM

narf poit chez BOOM

April 27th, 2005, 02:00 AM

Hello, welcome to the forum. This has been an automated Narf-Message from the makers of Mass Destruction(TM). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

El_Phil

April 27th, 2005, 06:04 AM

We've got to switch that auto narf messenger off. Frankly having vampiric were-mice welcoming people to the forum is sending out the wrong message.

Welcome to the forum anyway http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

FunnyMan

April 29th, 2005, 09:23 PM

Well, for a first post, it wasn't a great one. I just figured out that I was wrong. Not sure what it was that convinced me that it WAS that way... Certainly seems like a logical thing to have happen, anyway.

-FM

Mephisto

May 2nd, 2005, 03:01 PM

Posted by tomas1931 in the FAQ thread (were posts are not allowed http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif).

I have space Empire IV not the gold. I purchased it when it first came out. Is there enough of a difference that I should purchase the gold for the retail price or is there a patch or are the differences modible ?

douglas

May 18th, 2005, 07:40 PM

For ships with emergency propulsion when the days they move on matters:
A ship with N emergency movement points will move on each day it would at its normal speed, and will also move on the first N days that it normally wouldn't after the first normal movement day. Among other things, this means that emergency propulsion on ships with only one normal movement point is useless, as there aren't any days for the emergency moves to be taken on after the first and only normal move on day 30; emergency propulsion also cannot change the day of the first movement in a turn.

Suicide Junkie

May 19th, 2005, 02:23 AM

Near the bottom of the FAQ, there are some... Essays or something.

The parts down there about organic armor are out of date, and talk about how OA stores up regen points (that was patched out) and how it dosen't regenerate back to full after combat (it now does)

Fyron

May 19th, 2005, 11:52 AM

The FAQ could benefit from a table listing the titles of all included charts and their section numbers.

Parasite

May 25th, 2005, 05:55 PM

At times I use troops, both defensively and offensively. I have read in the SEIV FAQ some things.

7.2.14 Regarding ground combat troops in a transport: first in = first out, and first out = front line.
and
7.2.26 It's a well known strategy, but I'll mention it nevertheless: If you want to achieve maximum efficiency in ground combat, it's worth to design 3 types of troops: Defender, Offender and Leader. Defender's design include small shields (or armor) only. Offenders are armed with you favorite weapon (ground cannons or small shield depleters) and nothing else. Leader is equipped with shields plus small combat sensor and small ECM components. Produce them in 3:6:1 proportions (rough numbers). Now, then filling your troop transport, place Defenders first, then Offenders and Last Leaders. Being dropped to a planet, Defender will play a meat shield role, Offenders will stay behind Defenders unharmed and wipe out militia (or hostile troops) and Leaders will provide attack and defense bonus to the whole stack of troops. (Aiken)

I have adopted this wholeheartedly, and have even expanded it somewhat to production of troops on endangered planets, tending to produce mostly shielded first, then fighters, then a limited number of leaders. I have never really tested it out though. I have not gotten to the point of switching between a player and an AI in games yet.

In a few recent games I have found cause to doubt it is true. Specificly in an old game I had troops stored on a planet I was guarding. An enemy attacked and of the enemy troops, only the shielded troops survived. My opponent was an experienced player and believes he loaded the troops correctly as suggested above.

In an ongoing game, I have invaded several planets. I always load the transport and interspace the leaders in the middle of the troops, being sure to at least put one first and one last. It then would not matter if FIFO or FILO were used on exit. In at least two of these battles, the 3 small leader troops I had were destroyed, while only some of the gun toting ones were killed. The leaders were loaded first, middle, and last, yet were all killed. They were fairly weak leaders as I don't have shields yet to use with them. The opposition was also very strong having troops with increased ground combat skills and high population planets. To me, this tends to prove that the troops are not landed in FIFO (or FILO) mode and that something else is going on.

Could a patch have changed this? I have read of the Weapon Platform tests and the difficulty of proving things one way or the other. Could some type of random damage be happening to troops as well? Would this call into question ECM/ECCM effects on unit stacks?

This would change small troop leader designs to have cockpit, ECM, and two shields; and cockpit plus ECCM with shields for maximum protection and surviveability. Shielded troops would be less usefull, while standard troops would stay the same or have protection given to each trooper.

Grandpa Kim

May 26th, 2005, 08:39 PM

Parasite, I've been suspicious of this for some time myself, and for much the same reasons.

Slaughtermeyer

July 28th, 2005, 09:13 PM

The following arguably are contradictory:

2.10.2 Ships do retain original strategies after being retrofitted or captured - you can overcome this by making a 1-ship fleet and giving it new fleet orders.

2.10.6 Captured enemy ships use the ship strategy decided by the original creator of that ship. He may change that ship types strategy at any time and it will affect your ship. To stop this retrofit the ship to a design of your own.

Are we to assume that original strategies are retained for retrofitted ships EXCEPT for captured ships that are retrofitted?

Fyron

July 28th, 2005, 09:29 PM

2.10.2 is partially wrong. 2.10.6 is correct. After a ship is retrofitted, it uses the strategy of the new design. Captured ships use the strategy of their original design, which is entirely under control of the player that built the ship. You can of course assign the ships to fleets that have strategies not set to break formation. As long as the ship remains in formation, it will follow the strategy of the fleet. If it breaks formation for any reason, it will revert to the design strategy, which will be of the original design.

Glyn

September 23rd, 2005, 04:11 PM

Addendum to the excellent stellar manipulation information provide by Douglas. This link (http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB23&Number=341049&Forum= ,f23,f150,f59,f128,f105&Words=&Searchpage=15&Limit =25&Main=123233&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=567 3&daterange=1&newerval=5&newertype=y&olderval=&old ertype=&bodyprev=#Post341049)
Based on simultaneous movement type game.

Create Nebula: (Correction to Douglas� information on Create Nebula.)
Can only be issued at a star, but no star is necessary when the order is carried out in a remote system. (Just like a Create Black Hole.) Note the star where the order was issued is NOT affected by the creation of a Nebula in a remote system unlike the Create Black Hole were it deletes the star were the order is issued.

Ring-World and remote Creation of Nebula or Black hole:
The remote system use of Create Nebula or Create Black hole is not affected by the presents of a ring-world in the remote system. (I didn�t test with a sphere world.)
A system with a ring-world can be destroyed by creating a nebula or a black hole, by using a ship at a sun in another system to issue the stellar manipulation order after giving it orders to move to the target system.

Ring-World treated like a planet when destroyed by a create nebula:
Interestingly, if a ring-world is destroyed by creating a nebula, the ring-world will be reduced to an asteroid field just like any other planet that can be seen after the nebula cloud is destroyed.

(Not Tested, but...) Stellar manipulation of one sun in a multiple sun system is probably not affected by the present of a ring world or sphere world around the other sun or suns.

Atrocities

October 20th, 2005, 11:38 AM

I don't know if this has been added or not. I looked under 4.12 Improving & Modifying Systems but did not see it.

Question: How do you clear up systems with organic infestation, and or other stellor items?

Answer:

1. Build A star making ship.
2. Build a Black Hole Making ship
3. Build a Black Hole Destroying ship
4. Send the Star Making ship to the system that you want to clear and make a star any where within the system. Then pull the ship out of the system to a safe location in a near bye system.
5. Use the black hole making ship to collaps the newly formed star into a black hole.
The black hole Stellor image will replace, organic infestation, exploded stars, system wide commet, etc.
6. Send in the black hole destroying ship and destroy the balck hole.
Presto the system is now clear. Send in your star maker and make a new star.

Suicide Junkie

January 6th, 2006, 05:29 PM

Fyron prompted me to post this...

Ok, a big fix section:
5.5.2 The order in which repairs are performed is set with (F11) Empire Status/Repair Priorities. Clearing the priorities list will leave only the component types that you have the technology to build; more entries become available when you research the corresponding techs. (capnq)
5.5.3 Ships are repaired in the order they are listed in the fleet transfer screen. (Douglas) "Repair Priorities" only applies to the ship currently being repaired, and does not affect which ship gets repaired first. See also section 5.13 for an explanation of ship ID and how it affects retrofits.
The above is wrong.

Instead:
- Repair priorities can be set in the repair priorities window http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gifF11) Empire Status/Repair Priorities. This is not an ordered list, but rather a true/false state. Items on the right side will be prioritized, while items on the left will not be prioritized.

- Any damaged component which falls into a category on the right side of the repair priorities list will get a "priority flag". Any SHIP which contains a damaged component with priority will also have a priority flag.

- Repairs will then be conducted in the following order:
1) Only ships with priority flags are considered. The priority ship with the lowest ID is selected first.
2) If no ships with priority flags are present, then all damaged ships are considered, and the lowest ID is selected first.
3) Components with priority flags are repaired first, in order of placement on the hull.
4) If there are still repair points remaining, then a second pass is made, and the non-priority damaged components are repaired in order of placement on the hull.
5) If there are still repair points remaining, and the ship has been fully repaired, the game selects a new ship as in (1) and starts over.

- If all the priority components on a priority ship are repaired, but there are not enough repair points to completely fix the ship, then that ship will not be a priority ship on the next turn. If there is a second ship with priority components damaged, that second ship will be repaired instead.