So Now 5 games beyond 200 turns

[UncleFred]

Basic questions:

The AI got by me and dropped into a system where I had a planet well settled. (Orbital Shipyard +) and colonized a planet there. I was onto of that system within two turns. There were around a dozen "decoy" ship, plus mines. I've been looking for information about decoy ships to figure out how to beat them, but how in the hell does a colony put that much crap in a system before they build anything? A serious question.

Exactly what is required to open a supply line fully. It is certainly not always just an outpost, because on a couple occasions I had to get a colony going before it opened. Yet on other occasions just an outpost was sufficient. Hard to plan an strategy if you don't know what's required.

How do mines work? If I have the tech do I just get them? Is there something I have to build? If so please see the first question above. I ask because I have researched the tech and as far as I can tell no mines show up in my systems.

I've been working on learning the game so I have been repeating a game vs a single AI that I happened to save 36 turns in. The first time I didn't see the hostiles until around 130 turns. The second pass 118. The third pass 88. The fourth pass 87. Give the same restart point it's hard to understand exactly how this happens. Now I am changing my build strategy, but it's hard to understand how changing my research and my colony starts 8 or 10 jumps from the boundary with the AI should influence what it chooses to do. I fully appreciate that once there is contact all bets are off, but I would expect the AI, given the same map on its side, to expand predictably. No?

I've been spending a lot of time reading through pedia. Jesus what a chore. Isn't there a tool to extract all that into a wiki? The labor of finding out exactly what a given hull or weapon or armor or drive will have on a ship is really annoying. Not to mention trying to dope out the trade offs on which hull or other technology to pursue, and understand all the supporting requirements. Most of the time enough digging produces the information (I'm sure the info on mines is in there I just haven't dug it out yet) but seriously there must be a better way. Yes I understand that in a month or so I'll have dug all this out on my own, but for craps sake this is a game.

Please don't take this the wrong way. You folks have built a pretty amazing body of code, but it's pretty unapproachable to a novice, and if you want it to really get traction more of the basic mechanics have to be clear and the trade offs as well.

[defaultuser]

Decoys are just colony hulls with no attachments. The idea is that some number of your shots will find those instead of relevant targets. They cost essentially nothing to build, so a bunch can be built with little production. They do take like three turns to build though, so I'm not sure on your timing.

On supply lines, it depends. Some construction techs extend the lines for colonies and outposts.

Mines you just research under defense, then they happen automatically. No building or anything.

The best way to find out the effect of a ship part is to just designing one and see its attributes change as you drop the part on.

[Vezzra]

but how in the hell does a colony put that much crap in a system before they build anything?

As defaultuser already said, they are dirt cheap, and if this enemy colony is supply connected to its empire (which I assume is the case, otherwise you're right, it shouldn't be able to build so much decoys in only 2 or 3 turns, which would mean we're dealing with a bug here), then the entire production capacity of that empire is available at that colony. Usually more than enough to build a dozen decoys.

Exactly what is required to open a supply line fully. It is certainly not always just an outpost, because on a couple occasions I had to get a colony going before it opened.

What do you mean by "open a supply line fully"? Supply connection should be established once the supply range of the new colony added to the supply range of the nearest colony is sufficient to cover the distance between the new and this nearest colony. Two things to keep in mind:

• You don't get the full supply range immediately. Like resource meters, the supply range meter grows by 1 each turn, until it reaches its target/max. So it might take a few turns for supply connection to be established, if the new colony is some distance away from the rest of your empire.
• AFAIK colonies have a greater supply range than outposts. So what you've observed might be caused by the fact that the outpost didn't have enough supply range to connect, and upgrading to a colony fixed that.

How do mines work? If I have the tech do I just get them?

Exactly (as defaultuser already said). Once you've researched the tech, all enemy ships which are in a system where you have a colony (or, IIRC, an outpost) will suffer a fixed amount of damage (important: regardless of shields, shields are useless against mines). Researching the refinement techs for mines will increase this fixed amount.

I've been working on learning the game so I have been repeating a game vs a single AI that I happened to save 36 turns in. The first time I didn't see the hostiles until around 130 turns. The second pass 118. The third pass 88. The fourth pass 87. Give the same restart point it's hard to understand exactly how this happens. Now I am changing my build strategy, but it's hard to understand how changing my research and my colony starts 8 or 10 jumps from the boundary with the AI should influence what it chooses to do. I fully appreciate that once there is contact all bets are off, but I would expect the AI, given the same map on its side, to expand predictably. No?

No. The only thing that will reliable produce the same result given the same settings is the universe generation process. After the game starts, "all bets are off", as you put it. You can test this by starting a game with a couple of AIs, just build the Super Tester Takeover building (which changes the species of your planet to the "Super Testers", which gives you visibility of the entire map), and don't do anything else, just watch (you need to use one of the test builds for that, the Super Testers are disabled in release builds). Do this a couple of times with exactly the same game settings, and you'll see that the games proceed differently.

Yes I understand that in a month or so I'll have dug all this out on my own, but for craps sake this is a game.

Well, the perks of an open source project carried on only by volunteers who do it just for the fun of it... and after all we are still in alpha stage. Yes, we know, the pedia has much potential for improvement, some info in there might even be outdated. Mat does his best to improve it (in the little time he can spare for that task), and always appreciates helpful feedback, especially by people new to the game like you. The more specificly and exactly you can tell what you think could be done better, which changes you'd like to see, the easier it will be for him to do something about it. That said:

Please don't take this the wrong way. You folks have built a pretty amazing body of code, but it's pretty unapproachable to a novice, and if you want it to really get traction more of the basic mechanics have to be clear and the trade offs as well.

...the pedia is actually meant more as something like a reference. The introduction into the basic game mechanics should actually be provided by our Quick Play Guide, which unfortunately is hopelessly outdated and in kind of a sad state. No one simply gets ever around to update the thing.

With the game being in development and things constantly changing keeping the Quick Play Guide and the pedia up-to-date isn't exactly easy either...

[UncleFred]

Thanks for the answers. It could have been 3 turns, which would fit the scenario described. Should the opportunity present itself I'll be more observant of the timing.

[MatGB]

Exactly what is required to open a supply line fully. It is certainly not always just an outpost, because on a couple occasions I had to get a colony going before it opened.

What do you mean by "open a supply line fully"? Supply connection should be established once the supply range of the new colony added to the supply range of the nearest colony is sufficient to cover the distance between the new and this nearest colony. Two things to keep in mind:

• You don't get the full supply range immediately. Like resource meters, the supply range meter grows by 1 each turn, until it reaches its target/max. So it might take a few turns for supply connection to be established, if the new colony is some distance away from the rest of your empire.
• AFAIK colonies have a greater supply range than outposts. So what you've observed might be caused by the fact that the outpost didn't have enough supply range to connect, and upgrading to a colony fixed that.

It's not that colonies have greater supply, it's that most (but not all) species increase supply, so once you've got a colony going you get a bonus. Most have "Average Supply" which gives +1, some have better than that (eg: George, Etty, Egassem) and a couple have Bad Supply, meaning they give no bonus (eg: Mu Ursh, Trenchers).

How do mines work? If I have the tech do I just get them?

Exactly (as defaultuser already said). Once you've researched the tech, all enemy ships which are in a system where you have a colony (or, IIRC, an outpost) will suffer a fixed amount of damage (important: regardless of shields, shields are useless against mines). Researching the refinement techs for mines will increase this fixed amount.

I have come to the conclusion we need to put in a Sitrep for your mines damaging others as well as your ships being damaged by other peoples mines, most people don't seem to notice them.

Anyone fancy doing it, or should I add it to my ever increasing list?

I've been working on learning the game so I have been repeating a game vs a single AI that I happened to save 36 turns in. The first time I didn't see the hostiles until around 130 turns. The second pass 118. The third pass 88. The fourth pass 87. Give the same restart point it's hard to understand exactly how this happens. Now I am changing my build strategy, but it's hard to understand how changing my research and my colony starts 8 or 10 jumps from the boundary with the AI should influence what it chooses to do. I fully appreciate that once there is contact all bets are off, but I would expect the AI, given the same map on its side, to expand predictably. No?

No. The only thing that will reliable produce the same result given the same settings is the universe generation process. After the game starts, "all bets are off", as you put it. You can test this by starting a game with a couple of AIs, just build the Super Tester Takeover building (which changes the species of your planet to the "Super Testers", which gives you visibility of the entire map), and don't do anything else, just watch (you need to use one of the test builds for that, the Super Testers are disabled in release builds). Do this a couple of times with exactly the same game settings, and you'll see that the games proceed differently.

Aye, the AIs, when faced with a decision, have an algorithm to make that decision that includes odds, and it's therefore partially random, a scoutship may turn left or right at a junction, etc. Combine all those decisions over several turns and they'll discover and colonise different planets, conquer different natives, etc.

Worth noting that the game is really better balanced with multiple AIs and having them fight each other a bit, playing with just one AI, especially on a larger map, means the AIs can also get confused and not do sensible things, instead they just spam out decoys and similar (Beginner AIs use more decoys (recently renamed Comsats BTW) than the more aggressive AIs, "Beginner" isn't "Easy", deliberately)

Yes I understand that in a month or so I'll have dug all this out on my own, but for craps sake this is a game.

Well, the perks of an open source project carried on only by volunteers who do it just for the fun of it... and after all we are still in alpha stage. Yes, we know, the pedia has much potential for improvement, some info in there might even be outdated. Mat does his best to improve it (in the little time he can spare for that task), and always appreciates helpful feedback, especially by people new to the game like you. The more specificly and exactly you can tell what you think could be done better, which changes you'd like to see, the easier it will be for him to do something about it.

I personally have been putting effort to taking stuff out of the Wiki and putting it into the in game Pedia where it belongs, the game should be self contained as much as possible. That the Pedia isn't as well structured as ideal is something that's slowly being worked on, but most things have a reasonably detailed entry these days and that's as it should be.

It is possible to take info from the game and auto post it to a Pedia page but it requires third party hosted scripts and isn't reliable, I would much rather ensure in game info is as clear as possible and keep the PEdia for project management and overview stuff.

Having said that, if others want to commit to the time to transferring info into the Pedia and keeping it up to date, I have zero objection, it's just not something Iw ant to do.

[defaultuser]

One of the good answers for complaints about something lacking in an open-source effort is, "Feel free to jump in on that."