Questions, questions ...

[Fyron]

1. Is there an option in diplomacy to demand that an empire stop its war against you? (There only seem to be options for demanding an end to specific sorts of attacks, not the war in general.)

I don't know.

2. How does armour show in statistics? I add it to ships but I have no sense of its representation (i.e. another stat line in its description, for example) or how it works (i.e. do 10 armour points stop 10 points of damage from each weapon that hits it in a turn before being destroyed, or is it gone with the first 10 points of incoming fire it takes?).

It doesn't show as a separate statistic. Armor takes damage just like any other component, except that it is hit first. If it has 40 hit points, it is destroyed after 40 points of damage hit it. Crystalline Armor does what you were thinking. It channels the first X points of damage from each shot into the shields, thereby reducing the damage each shot does.

3. While I'm upgrading extraction facilities, do the ones currently upgrading still produce minerals, radioactives, etc., or are they offline?

They still produce resources. In fact, you could but the build queue on hold, and they would still produce.

4. I did a massive upgrade of my mineral miner plants from I to III (500 per turn to something like 1000 per turn). There appeared to be NO CHANGE in my production even though there should have been a massive one as far as I know; I kept checking stats under empire and it seemed to be stuck around 139k. What's going on?

Level I makes 800. Level III makes 1000. So, it wasn't as massive as you thought. Did you wait a turn after the upgrade was completed? There is generally a turn delay in the updating of some of the windows.

5. When ships are in formation how is their individual positioning in the formation being determined? (I want to be able to make sure certain ships are nearer the front of the formation, for example.)

It is something like the order that the ships were built. You can choose the Leader, but thats it.

6. Can boarders not attempt to board an enemy ship until the enemy shields are completely down?

You cannot board a ship until it's shields are at 0.

7. Under strategies, I don't understand the "damage" option where it says "damage percent per ship." Is this referring to how much damage my ships will take before attempting to flee?

No. I believe that what you are refering to is the setting that determines how much damage your ship will do until it changes to a different target ship.

8. Do tractor beams actually work? I had three each on some destroyers and took them up against some enemy dreadnoughts. Didn't appear to do anything.

Yes, they work. I don't think that there is a size limit to what they can affect, but I am not positive.

9. Do tachyon projection cannons actually work? I had TP IIIs on a veritable horde of small ships and took them up against said dreadnoughts but it appeared that the latter really didn't lose any weapons. I thought it would be the great equalizer given my small ships vs. the AI's heavily gunned ships. Are the cannons simply not worth it.

They, like all special damage weapons, have to completely destroy the target component in one shot, or else they do not do anything. Their damage does not build up or stack. Try using larger mounts.

[Fyron]

Wow, 3 replies in 3 minutes! There must be a lot of people with nothing better to do than be here tonight.

[Spuzzum]

I choose not to answer that. ;-)

[Suicide Junkie]

Tractor Beams only work on something smaller than you.

Note that a weapon platform counts as being part of the planet, and thus wins in any tug of war contests

Also, if your ship is big enough, you can push defense bases away from the planet they're protecting

[ July 05, 2002, 14:26: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[Silent Sorrow]

Guys, about the upgrading of the mineral miner facilities, this was deep in the game--yes, I did have space ports and no, I wasn't mistakenly looking at my storage capacity and yes, I know about the one turn delay. In fact, I must have had 30-45 planets all going from miner Is to mner IIIs with about eight miner IIIs coming Online every turn. So I should have seen a big jump in my actual production even if there was no place to store the excess, right? I've started a new game and will see what happens when I try it again.

[Ed Kolis]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
Tractor Beams only work on something smaller than you.

Note that a weapon platform counts as being part of the planet, and thus wins in any tug of war contests

Also, if your ship is big enough, you can push defense bases away from the planet they're protecting

So why doesn't it say that anywhere - the weapon description, the manual, etc...

[Silent Sorrow]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Each component has two kt Ratings- size and strengh. Armor components have a higher KT than their strength- armor III will stop about 40kt of damage for example. Once it's gone, it's gone.

So in your opinion should I even bother with armour? Given the amounts of damage that even the most basic weapons do (i.e. a DUC I does 30 pts in one shot) it seems like you'd have to pack on an insane amount of armour for it to really make a difference. Better to spend that tonnage on other systems, no?