how do turns play out?

Taqwus · #1 March 6th, 2001, 07:02 PM

To reduce micromanagement I tend to leave colonization (after the first few), transports, and minelaying (if I bother) to the Ministers. I find planet creation and nebula destruction likewise tedious enough to automate occasionally; and I'd add black hole destruction to the list, if I weren't concerned that the SM ships probably would go through a damaging warp point when on autopilot.

Is that optimal? No. But I'm the sort of chap who hates to have to pull out a calculator (or spreadsheet) for a game to find optimal values... calculating troop morale in _Empires in Arms_ is annoying enough.

Then, I also tend to have a fairly busy research queue -- often a full one during the early/mid-game, when I'm going full-bore for infrastructure, so I don't have to check that one often. Intelligence, once in place, usually is given a repeating queue involving intel sabotage, crew insurrection, and counterintel, so that's low maintenance as well.

I'm with suicide_junkie when it comes to filling up build queues on new colonies. I'll pack 'em with facilities first; they don't have the pop to spawn off new colony ships (well, unless I'm Organic and there's a replicant center in the system, and I'm feeling particularly Hive-like), and I really normally don't have that much other ship production near frontiers; rather, more towards interior systems closer to mustering points where I can assemble/train fleets (when, say, you're going up against Temporal ships, which possibly have Event Predictor III's in their home systems [+30% combat bonus], take every bonus you can get...).

So I don't end up clicking *that* much... and if Aaron ever adds a 'Skip Minister-Controlled Ships', I'll be clicking even less.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Miles · #2 March 6th, 2001, 11:30 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Taqwus:
I find planet creation and nebula destruction likewise tedious enough to automate occasionally...

How do you automate planet creation? I tried and tried (a couple patches ago) and I could not get my planet creator ship to move on it's own.
Do I have to use a magic 'Design type'?
I had the 'SM' minister turned on and I had turned the ship over to minister control.
I can automate my population transports, but I could not get planet creator to automate.

Miles

Taqwus · #3 March 7th, 2001, 12:05 AM

Maybe it was fixed in a recent patch? All I did to automate the planet creators was to make sure they had a QR and a repair bay, to place them under Minister control, and to toggle on the Stellar Manipulation minister. They then went on wandering around turning asteroid fields to planets. *shrug*

As for design type, it was my own ('Stellar Manipulation', IIRC); since I added that, I doubt that the minister depends on it. It didn't have any other features it could use (like cargo bays for moving people, or weapons for attacking), so no other minister should have been used for it.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

Miles · #4 March 7th, 2001, 01:29 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Taqwus:
Maybe it was fixed in a recent patch? All I did to automate the planet creators was to make sure they had a QR and a repair bay, to place them under Minister control, and to toggle on the Stellar Manipulation minister. They then went on wandering around turning asteroid fields to planets. *shrug*

As for design type, it was my own ('Stellar Manipulation', IIRC); since I added that, I doubt that the minister depends on it. It didn't have any other features it could use (like cargo bays for moving people, or weapons for attacking), so no other minister should have been used for it.

Thanks. Must be a personal problem. Most likely I put in a point-defense or something and confused the minister.

Miles

Daehawk · #5 March 7th, 2001, 03:37 AM

in Stars! i never really "felt" anything for it..I would read the Messages and click a few things and watch some graphic..but it never felt like a game..more like a spreadsheet or something..no emotion.....but always loved the MOO games..my Last game of MOO2 Lasted about 846 turns before i decided to kill the Antarians.

Suicide Junkie · #6 March 7th, 2001, 06:14 AM

Tactical combat is great for that - your legendary ship you've won and lost so many battles with, bLasting apart an enemy ship, and then running hard as that pack of CSMs comes screaming up behind you and your 5 remaining shield points.

It all depends on how well you get into a game and/or roleplay.

Of course, it always helps to make small numbers of the biggest ships, so they stay alive longer. Or, going with a fleet, and naming all your members.