How do I move my ships? I can't tell
you how many times I hear this one! This seems to cause many people
to give up quickly and uninstall the game. In the upper right display
is for your ships. First, left click your mouse on a place where you
have ships. The ships in that sector will now appear in the display.
Those which can move will be highlighted in green. Then, all you do
is right click on the sector you want the highlighted ships to go to.
A menu will pop up and you then simply left click on "Move To". If
you want your ships to warp to another star system, then right click
on a sector with a warp-point in it. Then, left click "Warp" on the
menu.
Now, a word of warning.
Sometimes, especially when you are building ships, a vessel will be
highlighted, even though it is not 100%. There are two ways to check
on this. The best is to right click on a highlighted ship in the display.
A menu will pop up and then left click your mouse on "Ship Report".
This will give you a complete status check on your vessel. Another
method I use when building ships is to right click on the sector
where I'm doing the building. Usually there's a planet there, but
you can have Yard Bases and Yard Ships anywhere. On the menu, left
click at "Construction/Repair Queue". This will give you a display
that shows what ships are still under construction and when they will
be completed.
How do I build industrial facilities on newly
colonized planets? This is another fundamental question I get
asked an awful lot. Right click on the planet, and then left click on
the menu at " It takes so long to build ships. How can I
speed things up? Each planet can only build one ship, base,
fighter, or mine at a time. The time it takes depends on how big the
item is you want to build, as in the number of ship components. Planets
will complete only four components per turn..., unless you chose as a
Racial Advantage, 'Ship Craftsmen'. This doubles that to eight. When I play against the computer, I always lose.
What am I doing wrong? Hehehe. Probably nothing, actually.
Bear in mind the computer knows how to play the game. If you're just
starting out, you don't yet. No offense to Malfador, but the tutoral game
is not very helpful. I'm putting together one of my own you'll be able
to download and then unzip in the SaveGame file. But till then, here's
what you do. First, do the Set-Up option on the start menu. As a beginner, you need
a bit of an edge. As you go through the various sections of the Set-Up,
leave them in their default settings until you get to how many planets you
begin with. Start off with five, all with Good Value. I'd also start with
50,000 construction points and a Tech Level of 30 or 50. When you get to
the computer player settings, give them only three planets initially. If
you want a bit more of an advantage, make their worlds only Average in Value.
That will help get you off to a good start. Next, or actually back a step, when setting your Empire statistics, select
for 3-5 Racial Advantages, too. I like to pick, at the very least, Propulsion
Experts and Natural Merchants. For choosing initial Tech Levels, set all colony
types at Level 1. You want to be able to colonize as quickly as possible,
and this helps a lot. Set Ship Construction at Level 3 or 4, so you can build
decent sized vessels early. And be sure to set Construction Component to
Level 1 also, so you can build Yard Bases immediately, as mentioned earlier.
This will get you off to a good start. Plasma Seekers are cool, to, as afr
as weapons go, though Missiles are ultimately better. Point Defense is a must! My last piece of advice to winning is not modify the Combat Strategy for
each ship class you design. Select after you design a ship class, highlight
it at Ship Design and click on View button. When the ship display pops up,
click on Combat Strategy button on lower left. Now, you'll be able to modify the
default settings. Ships with Beam Weapons or Torpedoes need to be close
to the target to hit, so change Range Settings to Point Blank, at least for
the two top settings, where you outnumber the enemy. Further below, there
are sections for target priority. My advice is to at least change Nearest
to the top on the left side section. You can play around with the others.
On the right side, move "Seekers Targetted At Us" to top. Moving Fighters
up is also a good idea. Experiment. You'll find that by changing your
ship's combat strategy, you will do much better when performing Strategic
Combat. I know many will want to fight each battle in Tactical mode, but
this is very time consuming. How do I join an email game? First,
e-mail me and I will put you on the list for the next game, which should be starting
about mid-April. Bear in mind two things before signing up. You MUST
have an e-mail client that permits attached files. I know that some of
those freebie e-mail deals don't. Next, joining a Play-By-E-Mail game takes
a bit of commitment. You should check your mail daily. When you get the
game passed to you, please do your turn quickly and pass it along promptly. Now for the brass tacks of doing the PBEM. Once enough people sign up
for a game, I will send out a list of instructions for preparing the Game
Set-Up. Read it carefully and follow it precisely. This list will give you
the game parameters, such as how big the galaxy is, how many starting
planets, or Tech Levels, etc..., we will all begin with. Some types of
technology may be excluded. When you set-up your Empire at the Add Empire
section, click SAVE. This is now your EMP.file. You then attach this file to
an email message and send it to me. Sometimes, the format may be incorrect
due to different email clients. If this happens, we will work something out. Once everybody sends me their EMP.files, I will then set-up the game and
load each EMP.file. Each game will have an identity code, such as PBEM2.
I will then send everyone a list of players, in their order of play, along with
all email addresses. Usually, I start the game and once I play my turn,
I mail it to Player #2. He/She will receive it as PBEM2_2_24000.gam. The game gets
passed along, till the last player sends it to me. At this point, the file
will be called PBEM2_1_24001.gam. The first few turns are usually pretty
bland, as everyone is building their initial ships. By the 4th or 5th
game turn, we start moving ships and exploring.
Eventually, we start bumping into each other, and that's when the real fun begins. With prompt players, who send out the game as quick as they can, it
is possible to do about 3 or 4 turns per week. One year of game time is 10 turns,
and we will play at least 3 years or 30 turns. By this time, those who
are left are either strong or are part of a strong alliance, or are in
pretty bad shape and on the verge of collapse. Depending on the situation,
we will either end the game, or, if everyone desires, play another year or
two. After 5 years, 50 turns, there will be a clear winner, or winning
alliance. In short, a complete game may take between 3-6 months to play.
For course, some will not last that long. But be prepared for at least a
three month game. These are just some of the commonly asked questions. If you have
others, feel free to e-mail me and I will answer them. If enough people
ask the same one, I will add it to this site.
The only other way to speed up your ship construction is to use Yard
Bases and Yard Ships. You will need a 'Construction Component' of Tech
Level 1, 2, or 3. It's always a good idea to start off the game with
this during the set-up. It's also a good idea when practical to build
yourself a Yard Base right on the first turn. I like to build these
using the 'Space Station' selection on the Ship Design display. In
normal-size mode, these are 35 spaces in size. Five spaces are used for
the basics (2xCrew Quarters, 2xLife Support, and 1xBridge). This
leaves 30 spaces, with which you can fill with three Construction
Components, or 'Yards'. Each Yard takes 10 spaces. With one Yard
Base of this design at your planet, you can build four items simultaneously.
The Tech Level determines how quick these Yards are. Level 1 completes
3 components per turn. Level 2 does 4 per turn, and Level 3 does 5 components
per game turn.
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