Frequently Asked Questions for Newbies

[minipol]

it might be interesting to add a section on the most know mods and what they are focusing on. a lot of questions of that kind have come up. i can't help you much with this since i'm a newbie myself when it comes to mods.

[Elowan]

This may have been suggested before but I don't see it here.

Add a cargo pod to the Colony Ship design used to colonize your race's breathable planets. Then when you hit the "Colonize" button to send a ship off to a planet (whether you do it from the planets screen or main screen) extra pop will be loaded to give that colony a kick-start.

I use 3 colony ship designs:

CS-LR - long range (has a supply pod on it)
CS-SR - short range with cargo pod for breathable (green + planets)
CS-SR-nbr - short range, no cargo pod for non-breathable atmosphere planets (red + -- cheaper to build). I use these for storage planets so pop doesn't matter as much.

[Mylon]

Newbie question: What does racial experience mean? Does this somehow give the race an edge, does it carry over across different games (importing a pre-made race), or is it just an indication of how much a particular race is played?

[Taz-in-Space]

From what I heard on previous discussions, the racial experience has no effect on the game. Theory is that it is a feature that was never implemented.

[Quikngruvn]

Originally posted by DirectorTsaarx:
First, Quikngruvn, good work on most of your inputs. I only disagree on one point:

If your ship ends its movement over a planet with a resupply depot, the display will show you have full supplies MINUS one sector's worth of movement. I haven't tried moving one sector beyond the resupply depot, so I don't know if "touch and go" provides a workaround...

Thanks, Tsaarx. Are you doing your resupply with simultaneous or sequential turns? All I ever play is simultaneous, so there may be a difference.

Also, addendum to 2.4.2.02:
Well, I was about to list all the variables that could affect the chance to hit a direct-fire weapon, but that would make for a huge entry, so....

2.4.3 Chance to hit with direct-fire weapons
The chance that a direct-fire weapon will hit its target depends on the following factors:
2.4.3.1 Range: longer range is less chance to hit (-10% per square on the tactical map).
2.4.3.2 Racial bonuses: aggressiveness for the attacker, defensiveness for the target.
2.4.3.3 Cultural bonuses: the Space Combat bonus of both attacker (added) and target (subtracted).
2.4.3.4 Ship and fleet experience: experience of the attacker is added to the chance, experience of the defender is subtracted. Ship and fleet experience are cumulative (if the ship is in a fleet).
2.4.3.5 Inherent weapon to-hit bonuses: for example, the Wave-Motion Gun has a built-in +30% chance to hit.
2.4.3.6 Size of the target: smaller ships (light cruiser and smaller) are harder to hit.
2.4.3.7 Components: Combat sensors on the attacker increase the chance to hit; ECM, stealth armor, and scattering armor on the defender all decrease the chance.
2.4.3.8 Weapon mount: some mounts, such as weapon platform mounts, increase the chance to hit.
2.4.3.9 Caveats
2.4.3.9.1 If the attacking ship has a talisman, every direct-fire shot will hit, if in range.
2.4.3.9.2 Without a talisman, the highest adjusted chance to hit you can have is 99%.
2.4.3.9.3 The lowest adjusted chance to hit you can have is 1%.

I think that the base chance to hit is 100% before modifiers come into play, but someone should confirm this. I hope I remembered all the to-hit variables....

Quikngruvn

[Suicide Junkie]

The base to-hit is 100%, and is moddable in settings.txt.

However, the closest two ships can get without ramming each other is range 1, so that might make it effectively 90%

[tbontob]

This is getting huge

Thanx guys

Lots of "stuff" to think about.