two questions: one on AIC and the other on scanner-blocking nebulas

[Yimboli]

Yes, I noticed the colony module is very large. i thought about editing the post, i guess i shoulda

about the population transporting: I can just as easily put a population transport component on a frigate, and have it go much faster. so why have a starliner??

To top it off, the "large" starliner is a wopping 20 kT bigger - and just as slow. Why?

Thanks!
-Timbo

[Alneyan]

The Starliner module does *not* give you the 1,000 cargo needed to transport one million settlers, and is merely needed to give you life support. (You could also put the regular life support on them) The Starliner hull gives you almost all the cargo you need to carry these civilians, but you may need to add more to reach the 1,000 mark. (My memory is faulty on this one)

[Fyron]

Do not starliners have maintenance bonuses?

[oleg]

Originally posted by Yimboli:
about the population transporting: I can just as easily put a population transport component on a frigate, and have it go much faster. so why have a starliner??

To top it off, the "large" starliner is a wopping 20 kT bigger - and just as slow. Why?

Thanks!
-Timbo

AIC is based on Proportions mod. Now, the main idea of Proportions is "realistic" treat of the population in SEIV. Shipping 1M people (and their books, clothes, furniture, cars...)to other world should certainly require enormous ships, not puny military frigates. Just think of Titanic
Unfortunately, when calculating player strength, SEIV takes no account to the true military power but the total tonnage of ships. It upsets AI relations . Because of this, JLS moded small populations transports that can held a lot of cargo and very slow but still relatively small. Just use your imagination and think of them as huge lumbering space starliners !

[ April 24, 2004, 08:33: Message edited by: oleg ]

[Yimboli]

Do not starliners have maintenance bonuses?

oh, they definitely do. maintenance is currently KILLING my economy. I wonder how the computer manages to have SO MANY ships, so i played as them for a turn, and it turns out that the ships that cost me over 1000 minerals in maintenance cost them about 200! Proportions mod? More like Disproportions mod! back to my question...

no one has really answered my question. I can put population transport modules on, say, destroyers and ship people overe 5x as fast. The tonnage isn't that much more, either. SO, why have starliners? they'rejust slow and high maintenance. And again, why have *large* starliners that are just as slow and only have room for 20 kT more space (which can't be used for population transport components cuz i'm already at the max of 3!)?

Thanks for the information all, it's like throwing spaghetti at a wall - keep throwin it at me cuz a little more sticks each time.

-Tim

[Alneyan]

Try to design a Destroyer, and then load it up with population. You will see that it cannot work with your basic technology, since you will not have enough space to put one million settlers on it.

I will develop my explanation of the "why you must use Starliners to transport population" (at least in the early game).
- The Starliner hull gives you 1798 cargo space (if memory serves), which is enough to transport one million settlers (requiring 1,000 cargo space).
- The Starliner module gives you 101 cargo space, which makes 202 if you put two of them on your Starliner. It allows you to reach the 2,000 cargo mark, and so you can transport two million settlers with such a design.

If you do not need the extra storage (meaning you will transport units), you could put life support or something else on the Starliners instead. Otherwise, you will need to cope with them until you can develop higher hulls with the best cargo technology, since you will need 10 Cargo Bays III to transport one million settlers.

Incidentally, there is no need to put three Starliner modules on the basic Starliner hull, since the modules on themselves offer little advantage. Instead, put the three modules on your Large Starliners, allowing you to ship three million settlers with every travel, since this hull gives you 2697 basic storage ability. (Plus 101 per Starliner module, and so the 3,000 needed to carry three millions)

In short, you only need to have a cargo space of 1,000 per million settlers, and Starliners are the only way to achieve this until you can reach much higher levels of technology. The Modules themselves are merely helpful to reach this mark, and gives you all the Life Supports you need as well.

[Yimboli]

*ohhhhhhhhhhhhh*

i get it! you're right, i had never noticed that it is the *starliner hull* that holds all the people, and not the population transport thingies. Thanks!