|
|
|
 |

May 10th, 2004, 11:42 PM
|
Second Lieutenant
|
|
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Somewhere out there...
Posts: 432
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
|
Re: Just got the demo...a few questions
Quote:
1. What are the best technologies to get early on? I usually get ship construction I first, but I'm not sure what to get after that. Weapons? Propulsion? What do you reccomend? And when should I research ice/gas giant colonies?
|
MY favorite weapon of choice in the demo was the phased polaron beam. Since you don't get phased shields in the demo, these are pretty powerful weapons.
|

May 11th, 2004, 04:30 AM
|
Private
|
|
Join Date: May 2004
Posts: 5
Thanks: 0
Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts
|
|
Re: Just got the demo...a few questions
A few more things:
1. Is it just me or are fighter rocket pods basically worthless? They do a lot of damage, but have terrible range and take ages to reload (30 turns, that means you can only fire it once per combat!) I'd much rather have a meson, anti-proton beam, or even a level 3 uranium cannon on my fighters. Maybe they could be useful for fighters that are made to just launch their missiles and then die, but why not just build suicide drones or kamikaze fighters in that case?
2. What exactly does the ionic disperser do?
3. Weapon platforms are for planetary defense, right?
4. Do computers ever keep alliances for more than a few turns? They offer a trade alliance, I accept, and a few turns later they break it.
5. Are robominers worth it? I mean, they do permanently deplete the planet, but I suppose they could be useful if you really need resources.
6. Not a question, but a general comment. Tactical combat seems lacking compared to MOO2. The ships take way too long to move, they're too small, and it needs to be a bit easier to determine weapon range (especially when dropping combat satellites - ugh, if you're one space off, they don't do a thing!) Besides the obvious graphics and sound issues, the tactical combat is the only real flaw I've found.
|

May 11th, 2004, 04:48 AM
|
 |
Shrapnel Fanatic
|
|
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 11,451
Thanks: 1
Thanked 4 Times in 4 Posts
|
|
Re: Just got the demo...a few questions
1) Rocket pods are for the instant-kill. If you crush the enemy on the first turn, it dosen't matter how long the reload time is
Plus, your fighters don't have to stay close and face the PDCs... They do all their damage up front, instead of being gunned down after a shot or two of the regular guns.
2) IDs will destroy engines. Armor and other components are ignored, although they only do normal damage to shields.
3) Yes. Toss on guns and shields, and the planet can shoot back at the enemy. Platforms will be destroyed first, before any population loss occurs.
4) It depends on the AI, but if you stay out of their way, and if they're already at war with someone else, they will tend to be friendlier towards you.
5) I personally loathe to use robominers, and prefer to StellarManip my way to 100% breathable, optimal conditions and 255%+ maxvalue planets, even when its not practical.
Robominers are effective, but I just don't like them
When you do use them, DON'T mix and match miner types. If you have all mineral robos, then the organics and rads value won't decrease, but if you have even one miner working the resource, its value goes down by 1% per turn.
6) There are settings and options to toggle, animations, fast combat, etc.
Its definitely not practical for large combats, and you can't use it in multiplayer unless you're doing it HotSeat.
You should definitely get some practice with developing good strategies for your ships, or you'll be at a disadvantage when you play against other humans.
__________________
Things you want:
|

May 11th, 2004, 04:59 AM
|
 |
General
|
|
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
Posts: 4,547
Thanks: 1
Thanked 7 Times in 5 Posts
|
|
Re: Just got the demo...a few questions
1. Is it just me or are fighter rocket pods basically worthless? They do a lot of damage, but have terrible range and take ages to reload (30 turns, that means you can only fire it once per combat!) I'd much rather have a meson, anti-proton beam, or even a level 3 uranium cannon on my fighters. Maybe they could be useful for fighters that are made to just launch their missiles and then die, but why not just build suicide drones or kamikaze fighters in that case?
Small missile pods allow fighters to fire once, deliver HUGE damage (just imagine your standard squadron of 5 fighters all firing their missile pods for a total of 500 damage, enough to destroy an unshielded cruiser!) and retreat to safety (unlike a kamikaze fighter  ). You might have to fiddle with their strategies a bit to get them to actually retreat though...
They also are one of the Uber Troop Weapons, another being Small Shield Depleters, since all troop weapons have rate of fire 1 and normal damage type overriding any settings the weapons might normally have on fighters
2. What exactly does the ionic disperser do?
Destroys the enemy's engines, reducing his speed and his ability to fire weapons (since engines store supplies needed to fire). In the Gold Version the ionic dispersers are required to get past the target's shields first; in 1.49 they skipped them entirely.
3. Weapon platforms are for planetary defense, right?
Yep! Just leave them in cargo on a planet and they will fire at attackers that come in range. They won't work if you put them in cargo on ships, though that does let you ferry them around from planet to planet when needed.
4. Do computers ever keep alliances for more than a few turns? They offer a trade alliance, I accept, and a few turns later they break it.
They do, sometimes. The AI is just plain silly.
5. Are robominers worth it? I mean, they do permanently deplete the planet, but I suppose they could be useful if you really need resources.
IMHO, they're not too useful in the stock game, unless you build a huge starbase that pulls in 10,000 of each resource per turn or something... but those things take years to research and construct anyway  Some mods make them more useful, though.
6. Not a question, but a general comment. Tactical combat seems lacking compared to MOO2. The ships take way too long to move, they're too small, and it needs to be a bit easier to determine weapon range (especially when dropping combat satellites - ugh, if you're one space off, they don't do a thing!) Besides the obvious graphics and sound issues, the tactical combat is the only real flaw I've found.
Yes, MOO2 had excellent tactical combat; the only flaw was that it could get tedious when you had hundreds of ships on the screen! If you want to speed up ship movement, though, you can disable ship animations and/or enable Fast Combat, using the options button on the right. Actually, I don't think many people around here play tactical combat anymore; most of us play PBW games, where you can only have strategic combat.
Now you might like SE5's combat - though no one apart from Aaron Hall and maybe David Gervais have seen it (assuming it's even been implemented yet!) it's supposed to look something like Starfury, only on a larger scale with more ships (maybe a bit like MOO3). (Yes, I know, MOO3 was horrible, but the combat engine did have a FEW good points...  )
__________________
The Ed draws near! What dost thou deaux?
|

May 11th, 2004, 06:31 AM
|
 |
Shrapnel Fanatic
|
|
Join Date: Dec 2000
Location: USA
Posts: 15,630
Thanks: 0
Thanked 30 Times in 18 Posts
|
|
Re: Just got the demo...a few questions
Wait until you buy the full Version of the game and can get into the mods. 
__________________
Creator of the Star Trek Mod - AST Mod - 78 Ship Sets - Conquest Mod - Atrocities Star Wars Mod - Galaxy Reborn Mod - and Subterfuge Mod.
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is On
|
|
|
|
|