Hello

[Machiavelli]

Hello, everybody.

I guess this is sort of my hello message and introduction. First off, I ordered SEIV Gold Last week (was that Friday?) and it's not my first time playing (in a way). I played the demo of SEIV for awhile, but then stopped playing it for awhile. And recently all my games seemed to be getting boring, and I thought of SEIV.

So I went to order it and it just so happened that Gold had been released just a couple months ago. So I ordered it and shipped it Ground - should be here towards the end of the week.

Additionally, I wanted to throw out a few questions that I recall from when I had the demo.

1) I recall reading that, when it came to damage absorbancy, regular armor IV is more efficient (when looking at tonnage) than shields up to level III. What is the deal with armor, shields and their usefullness in comparison to each other? If anybody cares to elaborate, would you bother telling me about the other armors and shields (emissive, phased, organic, etc)

2) When it comes to designing your race at the game setup screen, what are the best Advanced Race technologies - Organic, Crystalline, Psychic, Temporal(?) or Religious?

3) Early game considerations - colonization tips, scouting, "build orders", good early ship designs, good early-game research projects, etc.

4) Are there any good sites out there for SEIV? I found spaceempires.org, but it seems they had a recent server crash or something. Any other good ones out there (if I enjoy SEIV enough, I might put a site out there myself)?

5) I plan to play single player for awhile to re-familiarize myself with SEIV - but I plan to delve into PBW (perhaps quite heavily). Are there any, let's say, not-so-good players (can't really put that politely) who would like to include me in their PBW games?

6) Speaking of which, is it that much extra fooling around including Custom Race Styles in games, or is it not worth the trouble (and just stick with the defaults)?

Like I said, just some broad, general questions. Mostly, this is a hello message.

Hello and thanks for your help!

[ 09 April 2002: Message edited by: Machiavelli ]

[Suicide Junkie]

Armor is much cheaper than shields to research but quickly maxxes out on the damage absorbed per space on the ship used.
Emissive is still useless. Organic is uberpowerful as long as you give it time to store up some regen points before it gets hit.

2) Depends completely on your play style.
eg: hermits would make good use of religious, for all the defensive & infrastructure bonuses.

3) Typically, building numerous construction bases around your homeworld is reccommended.
Other people will have more to say on this.

4) Good sites for what in particular?

5) Start a PBW game with "for beginners" in the name, and you shall find many.
6)
If by that you mean installing mods or shipsets, they are very much worth it.
Making your own is also very rewarding.

[pathfinder]

I'll try and answer those i can

"1) I recall reading that, when it came to damage absorbancy, regular armor IV is more efficient (when looking at tonnage) than shields up to level III. What is the deal with armor, shields and their usefullness? If anybody cares to elaborate, would you bother telling me about the other armors and shields (emissive, phased, organic, etc)"

Not sure on this, haven't delved THAT deep yet..

"2) When it comes to designing your race at the game setup screen, what are the best Advanced Race technologies - Organic, Crystalline, Psychic, Temporal(?) or Religious?"

Well, in honesty, try them all and see what fits your style of play. They all have advantages/disadvantages.

"3) Early game considerations - colonization tips, scouting, "build orders", good early ship designs, good early-game research projects, etc."

Kinda hard to answer in a short answer. again, maybe see #2? Though one thing that has "saved" me early on is a space station/yard facility with a missile. helps an early escort or frigate from glassing your homeworld(s).

"4) Are there any good sites out there for SEIV? I found spaceempires.org, but it seems they had a recent server crash or something."

Kuat drives (Star Wars)
( http://se4kdy.cyberwars.com/)
and Universal Shipyards
( http://universalshipyards.tripod.com/ )
and New Age Drives (Star Tek) (http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/NewAgeShipyards/intro.html )
come to mind. Hmm, hope I got these right. I'll get the URL's in a bit...unless someone beats me to it

"5) I plan to play single player for awhile to re-familiarize myself with SEIV - but I plan to delve into PBW (perhaps quite heavily). Are there any, let's say, not-so-good players (can't really put that politely) who would like to include me in their PBW games?"

Hehe, well I stink so bad the AI beats me most of the time (I keep trying different things )

"6) Speaking of which, is it that much extra fooling around including Custom Race Styles in games, or is it not worth the trouble (and just stick with the defaults)?"

Hehe, me trying to help with a B5 conVersion has hastened my hair loss but has been fun too. I also have a race style "published" (Hampsterattii) and had a bLast making them...just tweaked a default AI in research and designcreation.txt a bit. It can be fun if ya don't try to be TOO ambitious, at least at first. IMHO anyways.

Have fun...

[ 09 April 2002: Message edited by: pathfinder ]

[ColdSteel]

Here is a brand new SE4 strategy and tips site that might have some of the answers you're looking for.

http://home.earthlink.net/~petemmer/

Some good tidbits there.

CS

[TerranC]

Facility wise:

Organic - Medical Lab
Religious - Fate Shrine/Time Shrine/Nature Shrine
Temporal - Temporal Space Yard Facility
Psychic - Psychic Scanner
Crystaline - Crystaline Restructuring Facility (?)

Component wise:

Crystaline - Crystaline Armor
Religious - Religious Talisman
Psychic - Mental Singularity Projector
Organic - Organic Armor
Temporal - The one with the 4X damage to shields

That's my thoughts.

[ 09 April 2002: Message edited by: TerranC ]

[Machiavelli]

One more question (for the time being); I'll post it here because it would be unconstructive to start a whole new topic:

Like many other forums I've been to, you guys seem to use a fair deal of abbreviations. I have figured out a few... DUC = Depleted Uranium Canno, PDC = Point Defense Cannon, CSM = Capital Ship Missile, Etc, Etc.
Are there any threads/web pages out there that have a big list of common SEIV abbreviations?

Thanks

Mach

[Gryphin]

RE: Abriviations
I have not seen a list of them. I'm willing to take on the project. If folks would like to email theier suggestions to me or post them here. I could put together a Tab Delimetted table.

[Suicide Junkie]

The damage factor list I made a while back includes all the acronyms for weapons.

Look most of the way down the page to find it.