Newbie question

[Cryptotec88]

When you hit "c" or the Colonize button then click on the planet you want to colonize, the game automatically loads 4M of your people and then sends the ship off to the destination. At least that is the way it normally works. (Works great for me, full or demo.)
You can load the colonists yourself by clicking on the colony ship then hitting "T" or the Transport button and loading the colonists onboard yourself, then telling it to colonize the planet.

Cryptotec88

[Lerchey]

Fenris,

You are, inadvertently, sending empty colony ships.

There are three ways to "fix" this:

1) When your colony ship is still in orbit, don't use the "move" or "warp" buttons to send it colonizing. Use the "colonize" button, click on the target sector, then click on the target planet. It will autoload colonists and head off to colonize.

2) Click on the "load cargo" button before telling it to move, and load population from the planet. That will load up colonists, then you can fly around to whereever and colonize at your leisure.

3) Build a transport with lots of cargo containers, load population at the homeworlds, and then drop population on your empty colonies.

Hope this helps,

John

[Ferendra]

Hi Fenris,
you are not alone out there.
I (am) was new to SE, and made the same *mistake*
Have Fun
Ferendra

[Toastchee]

How do you attack planets? What can you do to an enemy's planets? Control them, blockade them, bomb them, plague them - What are all these tings?

[Taqwus]

You attack planets just like any ship/unit -- move into their square and confirm combat. You do have to watch for weapon platforms and satellites, however (always check the Cargo tab of a defender's planet, and of his transports and carriers), and certain weapons are better (e.g. planetary napalm only hits planets and WPs, but it does a *lot* more damage than standard anti-ship weapons).

Nasty things you can do to colonies and planets include...

- Destroy the colony outright, by attacking with weapons.
- Destroy only the colonists themselves, not facilities, via neutron bombs. Useful before invasion.
- Destroy only certain facilities, via smart bombs.
- Invade the colony with troops (note: quite difficult, it seems. Not sure what the rules are here).
- Cause it to join you, or form its own side, via espionage ('Puppet Political Parties').
- Blockade it, by simply remaining in orbit (which slows its production, IIRC, and should deny its resources to the owning empire; it should probably also make it unhappy).
- Drop plague bombs on it, which causes plague (which causes mass death and corresponding unhappiness every turn until cured or colony wiped out. Nasty, especially if your opponent never bothered to research even Biology and it's Plague V...)
- Destroy the planet, IIRC, using tectonic bombs.
- Destroy the planet and everything else in the entire system, by either exploding a star (into a nebula) or collapsing one (into a black hole).

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Puke]

on blocading, how exactly does that work out? i send a ship or fleet to orbit a poor little undefended planet and the game asks if i want to attack. if i say no, then the move is canceled. if i say yes, then the overzealous captains (stragic combat only..) procede to bomb the unsuspecting residents into oblivion. how do you just orbit without attacking? how do I make ships use harsh words instead of planetary napalm?

I seek peaceful co-existance, but I am having a hard time starving out my neighbours to persuade them to my ways of thinking since my fleet captains get all happy slaughtering the women and children

[Taqwus]

To orbit w/o attacking for real, you can choose 'attack', then tactical, and simply hit 'end turn' 30 times.

You might also be able to set the ship/fleet strategy to 'don't get hurt' and see if that works for strategic, but a) don't forget to change it back (usually to either optimum or maximum firing range) afterwards. I'd try this in the simulator first, 'tho.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night