A couple of Component questions...

[Alneyan]

Greetings, and welcome aboard!

1) In the stock game, there is no difference between all the sensors: any can pierce all cloaking devices, so long as the scanner is of high enough level. Their sole purpose is to detect cloaked ships: the best sensors are powerful enough to detect the best cloak. Note that storms and nebulaes also provide automatic cloaking, and nothing can be detected inside red nebulaes. Again in the stock game, Hyper Optics are by far the cheapest to research, so you should only by using these (and perhaps the Physic or Temporal Sensors if you have the appropriate trait).

Long Range Scanners allow you to detect what is inside a ship, ie its components, the damage it has taken, its cargo, and so on. You will thus gain all information you have about your own ships. However, the Scattering Armour negates this effect, and it is unfortunately a very popular component due to the +15% defence boost it gives.

2) The Cloak button activates all the cloaking devices on board your ship, as they are not activated by default (for ships at any rate, as satellites are cloaked by default, though it does not show on the game screen). You may want to turn the Stealth Armour off under specific circumstances: for example, Minesweepers must not be cloaked in order to work. You could also lay a couple of ships in the midst of an enemy system, with a cloaked armada in the same sector: if the enemy engages, all your ships will join in the battle, regardless of their cloaking.

4) Warp Weapons (under Physics 4) give you Wormhole Beams, used to "teleport" enemy vessels during a battle. A ship hit by a Wormhole beam will be moved somewhere else in the battle, and the effect is pretty much random.

5) Phased Weapons perform as ordinary weaponry (Normal Damage) when they hit a target protected by Phased Shields. Since they are quite expensive, you might want to switch to another weapon once Phased Shields become standard, but they have no other drawback when they hit a Phased Shield.

6) All special damage types (Only XXX) bypass all sorts of shields, including Phased Shields. If you are playing SE4 Gold with one of the Last patches, Ionic Projectors are an exception to this rule, as these are stopped by shielding (normal or phased shields).

5 and 6) Phased Shields perform as Normal Shields in all matters, except that Phased Shields stop Phased Weapons.

[brianeyci]

Alneyan said:
6) All special damage types (Only XXX) bypass all sorts of shields, including Phased Shields. If you are playing SE4 Gold with one of the Last patches, Ionic Projectors are an exception to this rule, as these are stopped by shielding (normal or phased shields).

That is new. So tachyon projector cannons go through all shields hrm?

Brian

[Alneyan]

Tachyon Project Cannons go through all shields just fine (as Shield Disruptors incidentally).

And while on the topic of shields, they need supplies to work: if your vessel does not have any supply, all shields will fall. Of course, you will have other problems when you run out of supplies, like figuring out how to fire any weapon.

[Slick]

hehehehee...

[Chinese accent]
Supplies! no shields!
[/Chinese accent]

get it?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Me kills Slick for the really bad joke

[Aiken]

Alneyan said:
6) All special damage types (Only XXX) bypass all sorts of shields, including Phased Shields. If you are playing SE4 Gold with one of the Last patches, Ionic Projectors are an exception to this rule, as these are stopped by shielding (normal or phased shields).

Except "Only Security Stations" damage type. Afair, it damages shields first.

edit: not afair, but for sure. just tested it.

[jfp3]

Speaking of Security Stations...I tried Boarding parties on a couple of ships a few games ago...after they boarded and captured...they would not repair themselves at a SY. What is the deal with using them effectively then? You have to "retrofit" just that one slot or something? That would be kind of ugly~~

[Alneyan]

I didn't know about those Aiken (but then, I never actually used them); the same may hold true for Only Boarding Parties, or perhaps Only Planet Destroyers.

I don't really get your question Jfp3. Boarding Parties and Security Stations will be repaired by repair bays or spaceyards. However, you may have trouble to repair the captured ship, as you need to know the technology to use a component before being able to repair it. So, if you have captured a Talisman ship, but you don't have the Religious trait, you will be unable to repair the Talisman (it will work just fine until it is destroyed).

[jfp3]

hmmm ok I must have done something wrong with re-populating my Boarding Parties then....

Ok another couple of questions:

If I'm terraForming a no atmosphere planet (none) with 2 species, does it TF to the atmosphere of the majority? If I swap the population type at level 2 TF to a new species, then upgrade to TF 3, will it convert the atmosphere to the new species type?

How does one get the new ships to show up in listings for a Neo Shipset? Is it all/only in the Settings.txt? Can I change add the Neo Ships to a game-in-progress or till it cause a melt down?

Thanks Gents!

[Alneyan]

- The atmosphere will adapt to the species with the most members, but the planet would be domed then. If you are using Atmosphere Converters, you should have only one species on the planet.

- I think the Atmosphere Converter will convert the atmosphere every turn after the atmosphere delay, so you could change your atmospheres by changing the leading species on the planet. I have only read that however, as I do not see why you would want to do that.

- Neoshipsets are only used by certain mods, such as the Highliner mod, and perhaps Proportions (among others). Mods using Neoshipsets add hulls to the Vehiclesize.txt file, and the images from the Neoshipsets are used. You could use an image from the Neoshipset for a regular hull though, but I am not sure you would like to do that.

You could change a mod in the course of the game, but you would have to put all your additions at the bottom of the appropriate file. Changes to already existing components/facilities... can be done, but they will not necessarily affect already built components/facilities... (A lower construction rate will affect already existing spaceyards, but increasing the cost of spaceyards will not affect the spaceyards you have already built)