I'd say Tarka. While they both are fairly simple in the strategic map, Liir ships are very frail and you need to be able to micromanage them and take advantage of their maneuverability; whereas Tarka is just "point at them and fire".
Any other settings suggestions? Like number of opponents, type of map, and number of stars?
Opponents: 1-3. If you go for more than 1, you may want to leave the option for alliances on so you don't have to fight a war on 3 fronts; just make sure that at least one of the other opponents is zuul if that's so because zuul AI never allies with anything, so you won't accidentally get an allied victory without fighting anything.
Size: About 30-40 stars per player. Huge sounds fun but if you go really huge it's hard to tell if/when/why you screw up. If you go small, you might get bumrushed by humans/zuul.
Type of map: Pick one, they're all pretty fun. Just don't pick the 2d map because it bones humans and zuul pretty hard.
new mp game going up for anyone interested. going to launch it in a few minutes. has 2 spots.
game is BarnabyJones:Mygame
password is wang
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
I need to find the next proper step of difficulty. I've not finished a game yet, because they've all been too easy(and for at least two of them, I'm quite confident there wouldn't be much difficulty wrapping it up). As in, no remotely serious encounters in the first 75 turns.
I either need to turn up the players from 3, turn down the number of stars from roughly 25 per player, or re-enable random events at some reasonable percentage.
I need to find the next proper step of difficulty. I've not finished a game yet, because they've all been too easy(and for at least two of them, I'm quite confident there wouldn't be much difficulty wrapping it up). As in, no remotely serious encounters in the first 75 turns.
I either need to turn up the players from 3, turn down the number of stars from roughly 25 per player, or re-enable random events at some reasonable percentage.
Seriously, play at 100% randoms. Its good practice for dealing with the unexpected, and its the rate at which the game was balanced. Less randoms gimps the morrigi and helps the hivers. More randoms is kinda crazy, but fun once in a while, though it gimps the hivers.
Besides, most of the randoms come with attendant bonuses, which can help you out at least as much as the randoms slow you down.
Yeah, pretty much all of the random encounters give you some bonus for beating them or managing them in the right way. If you have enough morrigi xenotech (or are morrigi) then colony traps/asteroid traps give you some money and morrigi wreckage gives you a fuckton (500,000, easily); killing silicoids gives you money; killing VNs, derelicts, and taking control of asteroid monitors boosts your research, etc.
I don't have nearly enough patience to play this multiplayer. I've tried, but when people get into fights that don't involve me I fall asleep.
That's when you alt tab to do other stuff like read the forums, and when the new turn is up the program flashes in the task bar. Or design ships, plan your next research, or any of that other stuff.
And the single best way to learn the intricacies of the game is to play with an experienced player and ask any question you can think of. (except DOA, he's a dick and only told canis why he lost a fight after he won it while laughing :P)
Other than that the only thing I did was start a single player with 1 easy AI and maximum efficiencies and just researched everything and played around with it all. Oh, and read this thread of course. As a source of general knowledge this thread is probably second only to talking to experienced people in the PA vent.
I play with friends who are much better than I am, and they've taught me a lot. I just can't stand playing with them because they are slooooooooooow. But not exactly fast enough for me to actually do anything else :P
For people who dont like waiting: try playing SotS one on one with a 90 second turn timer. Its quite possible to play with only 90 seconds a turn, and if there are only two players, there wont be many combats with only one player involved. You'll have to play a small galaxy, but It'll really speed up the game.
So, the ANY expansion shows up as uninstalled in my Steam list, but still launches properly - and if I want to play with ANY, I need to use that icon in the list of uninstalled games rather than the main Sword entry. Weird.
I need to find the next proper step of difficulty. I've not finished a game yet, because they've all been too easy(and for at least two of them, I'm quite confident there wouldn't be much difficulty wrapping it up). As in, no remotely serious encounters in the first 75 turns.
I either need to turn up the players from 3, turn down the number of stars from roughly 25 per player, or re-enable random events at some reasonable percentage.
If you want more action sooner, stars per player is the thing to adjust. I find that 12 gets you to make interesting decisions in the fission era.
So, the ANY expansion shows up as uninstalled in my Steam list, but still launches properly - and if I want to play with ANY, I need to use that icon in the list of uninstalled games rather than the main Sword entry. Weird.
Man. I expected Photonic Torpedoes to be something slow and missile-like, but my Assault/Barrage cruisers with 3 Photonic Torpedo mounts and one 360 degree Particle Beam kick major ass.
Ok is there a more detailed manual than the tutorial, or else can someone tell me whats going on?
What the heck effects morale and how do I deal with rioting planets. The planets are both fully terraformed, fully industrialized, have defense ships in orbit, and aren't under any kind of attack. By all my 4x experience they should be happy but morale is at like 25 and dropping every turn.
Also something that (I think) is related, whats the difference between Imperial population and Civilian population?
Ok is there a more detailed manual than the tutorial, or else can someone tell me whats going on?
What the heck effects morale and how do I deal with rioting planets. The planets are both fully terraformed, fully industrialized, have defense ships in orbit, and aren't under any kind of attack. By all my 4x experience they should be happy but morale is at like 25 and dropping every turn.
Also something that (I think) is related, whats the difference between Imperial population and Civilian population?
You have a pop limit on civilians so they don't overpopulate a planet by default. This generates a small amount of unrest once they hit the cap.
To alleviate:
1) Save up a million spacebux to cancel it out, or 5 million to gradually repair the morale of your worlds
2) Build a police cutter/propaganda cruiser (requires fusion, ftl communication and trade) to subtract 1 from all morale losses and negate the pop growth pressure.
3) Max out all of your trade routes to make them fat and happy.
Below 25 morale is the danger zone by the way, and you better fix it fast or they will revolt.
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
So, the ANY expansion shows up as uninstalled in my Steam list, but still launches properly - and if I want to play with ANY, I need to use that icon in the list of uninstalled games rather than the main Sword entry. Weird.
For me I seem to be playing ANY when I click the installed games Sword of the Stars (unless I'm missing the improvements, but I have heavy drones avail in techs), but yeah, ANY shows up separately as uninstalled, and if you try to install it it launches the game instead.
And I think in my last game my sudden DN appearances were countered by HOLY 45 CR BEAM HEAVY FLEETS EVERYWHERE. I had a good 3-4 defenses before they started using ships that could break my DN lines.
Are all modules not available to all races or is it per game? I started Tarkus and I can't seem to get a War module at all, so nothing I have can do broadsides for crap, and I get stuck in turning fights with the Liir.
So, the ANY expansion shows up as uninstalled in my Steam list, but still launches properly - and if I want to play with ANY, I need to use that icon in the list of uninstalled games rather than the main Sword entry. Weird.
For me I seem to be playing ANY when I click the installed games Sword of the Stars (unless I'm missing the improvements, but I have heavy drones avail in techs), but yeah, ANY shows up separately as uninstalled, and if you try to install it it launches the game instead.
And I think in my last game my sudden DN appearances were countered by HOLY 45 CR BEAM HEAVY FLEETS EVERYWHERE. I had a good 3-4 defenses before they started using ships that could break my DN lines.
Are all modules not available to all races or is it per game? I started Tarkus and I can't seem to get a War module at all, so nothing I have can do broadsides for crap, and I get stuck in turning fights with the Liir.
Research the level 1 zuul language tech for war sections. If there are no zuul, then you can't get it.
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
Ok is there a more detailed manual than the tutorial, or else can someone tell me whats going on?
What the heck effects morale and how do I deal with rioting planets. The planets are both fully terraformed, fully industrialized, have defense ships in orbit, and aren't under any kind of attack. By all my 4x experience they should be happy but morale is at like 25 and dropping every turn.
Also something that (I think) is related, whats the difference between Imperial population and Civilian population?
You have a pop limit on civilians so they don't overpopulate a planet by default. This generates a small amount of unrest once they hit the cap.
To alleviate:
1) Save up a million spacebux to cancel it out, or 5 million to gradually repair the morale of your worlds
2) Build a police cutter/propaganda cruiser (requires fusion, ftl communication and trade) to subtract 1 from all morale losses and negate the pop growth pressure.
3) Max out all of your trade routes to make them fat and happy.
Below 25 morale is the danger zone by the way, and you better fix it fast or they will revolt.
The million spacebucks thing is the key, effectively if your bank balance is below a million, and won't be above a million soon then you have lost the game.
Ok is there a more detailed manual than the tutorial, or else can someone tell me whats going on?
What the heck effects morale and how do I deal with rioting planets. The planets are both fully terraformed, fully industrialized, have defense ships in orbit, and aren't under any kind of attack. By all my 4x experience they should be happy but morale is at like 25 and dropping every turn.
Also something that (I think) is related, whats the difference between Imperial population and Civilian population?
There may be several .pdf manuals (one for the base game, one for each expansion, and one racial appendix) in your game install directory. If you got it on Steam, there should be a "download the manual" or "view the manual" button from the game's page in the store or maybe a right-click on your MyGames list.
Imperial population generates more Industrial Output than civilians, while civilans generate more Income than imperials. Imperials determine the number of planet missiles fired during tactical combat. If all imperials are killed, the planet is uncontrolled or independent. Colonizers are filled with civilians who become imperials when the Colonizer is used to make a colony.
Do cruiser-sized freighters give more income than DE freighters?
Yes, though I kept seeing in the thread that it wasn't worth the time/effort to replace the DE ones.
It is if you don't have anything better to do with the cash. When you swap them out, the CRs don't have to wait the 3 turns for the establishment phase of the traderoute. And it's not a bad idea to do it to all of your DEs if you have zero-g deconstruction. Lets you get a lot more out of scrapping those expensive DE freighters.
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
Do cruiser-sized freighters give more income than DE freighters?
DE freighters give 5,000/turn. CRs give 15,000/turn. Morrigi get a 15% boost on top of this, and Modular Construction boosts it by 5%.
There are also Q-ships which are CR freighters you can build once you get modular construction. They only bring in 10,000/turn, but they're heavily armed enough to hold their own against raids from enemy players.
Tangent: What tech do you get Rail Guns from? It doesn't seem to be a seperate tech in the tech trees, so I assume it's something they added in to an older tech.
Do cruiser-sized freighters give more income than DE freighters?
DE freighters give 5,000/turn. CRs give 15,000/turn. Morrigi get a 15% boost on top of this, and Modular Construction boosts it by 5%.
There are also Q-ships which are CR freighters you can build once you get modular construction. They only bring in 10,000/turn, but they're heavily armed enough to hold their own against raids from enemy players.
Tangent: What tech do you get Rail Guns from? It doesn't seem to be a seperate tech in the tech trees, so I assume it's something they added in to an older tech.
Above heavy drivers.
Darkchampion3d on
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence --Thomas Jefferson
Ok is there a more detailed manual than the tutorial, or else can someone tell me whats going on?
What the heck effects morale and how do I deal with rioting planets. The planets are both fully terraformed, fully industrialized, have defense ships in orbit, and aren't under any kind of attack. By all my 4x experience they should be happy but morale is at like 25 and dropping every turn.
Also something that (I think) is related, whats the difference between Imperial population and Civilian population?
There may be several .pdf manuals (one for the base game, one for each expansion, and one racial appendix) in your game install directory. If you got it on Steam, there should be a "download the manual" or "view the manual" button from the game's page in the store or maybe a right-click on your MyGames list.
Imperial population generates more Industrial Output than civilians, while civilans generate more Income than imperials. Imperials determine the number of planet missiles fired during tactical combat. If all imperials are killed, the planet is uncontrolled or independent. Colonizers are filled with civilians who become imperials when the Colonizer is used to make a colony.
Also from the wiki, Civilians don't generate any IO at all. It's entirely Imperials. Every 100m Imperials generates 300 IO, and the first 100m Imperials also produce IO from the planet's resources, capped by the Infrastructure. This has implications about where you want to put a planet's resources while developing it... pumping everything into Terraforming or everything into Infrastructure is not the right choice (unless it has zero resources, I guess). But figuring out the optimal path might be more work than it's worth.
Civilians and Imperials DO generate 1 unit of "Trade Output" per 70k, which is like IO that's being used for trade, and generates 5 spacebux at its base. Additionally, the number of trade routes out of a planet is capped by the population (both Imperial and Civilian), though I'm not sure what that relationship is. I do know that on your homeworld for example, if you increase the population by ANYTHING above the normal max, you'll get another trade route, which may be worth it for 1 unit of overharvest per turn. But you lose it if you build a colonizer... whoops.
Speaking of trade routes: expanding an already-existing network is the most frustrating thing ever. No, I do NOT want to devote four fucking CRs for three turns to establish this route!
Pretty much no. I was playing on a disc galaxy, so only really three potential neighbors. To my left was another Morrigi empire who wanted to form an alliance (and was very far away, regardless). To my right was a Tarka empire that seemed to have gotten its balls crushed early-game... it got four colonies at the most, and I wasn't even harassing it. To the center was some Liir that also didn't seem to want to attack me (possibly because it was in the center and so in a rather vulnerable position).
Right now I'm carousing about the galaxy with my fleet named A Murder of Crows, consisting of 21 DNs, 22 CRs, and 19 DEs (accidentally lost one), being lead by my flagship Quetzalcoatl. Bombarding a new colony with four DNs every turn (also: my initial, slightly-worse fleet that is still wrecking the rest of the galaxy).
It's just absolutely absurd at this point. 463 CR freighters, and I haven't bothered to build any more because I have 100 million spacebux. 1 turn to research ANYTHING.
So yeah, harassing players is rather important. Turn 200, by the way.
What's the deal with the Zuul drive targeting? I start with two colonies, and expand in different directions, and bore a few nodes. Then went I want to create a direct link between those two first colonies, which are for example 5 LY apart, it wants to route me through another start with a node line connected to it, and that other star is 6 LY from my destination. It's slower overall, as well as being less efficient for creating your future paths.
Posts
Any other settings suggestions? Like number of opponents, type of map, and number of stars?
Size: About 30-40 stars per player. Huge sounds fun but if you go really huge it's hard to tell if/when/why you screw up. If you go small, you might get bumrushed by humans/zuul.
Type of map: Pick one, they're all pretty fun. Just don't pick the 2d map because it bones humans and zuul pretty hard.
password is wang
I either need to turn up the players from 3, turn down the number of stars from roughly 25 per player, or re-enable random events at some reasonable percentage.
Seriously, play at 100% randoms. Its good practice for dealing with the unexpected, and its the rate at which the game was balanced. Less randoms gimps the morrigi and helps the hivers. More randoms is kinda crazy, but fun once in a while, though it gimps the hivers.
Besides, most of the randoms come with attendant bonuses, which can help you out at least as much as the randoms slow you down.
Pouring just about 7 million into research per turn.
And it's only turn 148.
(AI techs may have helped slightly, hello 45k IO homeworld)
That's when you alt tab to do other stuff like read the forums, and when the new turn is up the program flashes in the task bar. Or design ships, plan your next research, or any of that other stuff.
And the single best way to learn the intricacies of the game is to play with an experienced player and ask any question you can think of. (except DOA, he's a dick and only told canis why he lost a fight after he won it while laughing :P)
Other than that the only thing I did was start a single player with 1 easy AI and maximum efficiencies and just researched everything and played around with it all. Oh, and read this thread of course. As a source of general knowledge this thread is probably second only to talking to experienced people in the PA vent.
And here's a tech tree image updated for Argos expansion. http://users.on.net/~luchich/SOTS%20ANY%201.7.1%20techtree%20v1.4.png
Here's a tech tree that links to each technology's description in the wiki, but it only has AMOC. http://chariot.nickersonm.com/AMoC_TechTree.html
Same thing here.
What the heck effects morale and how do I deal with rioting planets. The planets are both fully terraformed, fully industrialized, have defense ships in orbit, and aren't under any kind of attack. By all my 4x experience they should be happy but morale is at like 25 and dropping every turn.
Also something that (I think) is related, whats the difference between Imperial population and Civilian population?
You have a pop limit on civilians so they don't overpopulate a planet by default. This generates a small amount of unrest once they hit the cap.
To alleviate:
1) Save up a million spacebux to cancel it out, or 5 million to gradually repair the morale of your worlds
2) Build a police cutter/propaganda cruiser (requires fusion, ftl communication and trade) to subtract 1 from all morale losses and negate the pop growth pressure.
3) Max out all of your trade routes to make them fat and happy.
Below 25 morale is the danger zone by the way, and you better fix it fast or they will revolt.
For me I seem to be playing ANY when I click the installed games Sword of the Stars (unless I'm missing the improvements, but I have heavy drones avail in techs), but yeah, ANY shows up separately as uninstalled, and if you try to install it it launches the game instead.
And I think in my last game my sudden DN appearances were countered by HOLY 45 CR BEAM HEAVY FLEETS EVERYWHERE. I had a good 3-4 defenses before they started using ships that could break my DN lines.
Are all modules not available to all races or is it per game? I started Tarkus and I can't seem to get a War module at all, so nothing I have can do broadsides for crap, and I get stuck in turning fights with the Liir.
Research the level 1 zuul language tech for war sections. If there are no zuul, then you can't get it.
The million spacebucks thing is the key, effectively if your bank balance is below a million, and won't be above a million soon then you have lost the game.
On the details of morale, hit up the wiki article.
Imperial population generates more Industrial Output than civilians, while civilans generate more Income than imperials. Imperials determine the number of planet missiles fired during tactical combat. If all imperials are killed, the planet is uncontrolled or independent. Colonizers are filled with civilians who become imperials when the Colonizer is used to make a colony.
Yes, though I kept seeing in the thread that it wasn't worth the time/effort to replace the DE ones.
It is if you don't have anything better to do with the cash. When you swap them out, the CRs don't have to wait the 3 turns for the establishment phase of the traderoute. And it's not a bad idea to do it to all of your DEs if you have zero-g deconstruction. Lets you get a lot more out of scrapping those expensive DE freighters.
DE freighters give 5,000/turn. CRs give 15,000/turn. Morrigi get a 15% boost on top of this, and Modular Construction boosts it by 5%.
There are also Q-ships which are CR freighters you can build once you get modular construction. They only bring in 10,000/turn, but they're heavily armed enough to hold their own against raids from enemy players.
Tangent: What tech do you get Rail Guns from? It doesn't seem to be a seperate tech in the tech trees, so I assume it's something they added in to an older tech.
Above heavy drivers.
Also from the wiki, Civilians don't generate any IO at all. It's entirely Imperials. Every 100m Imperials generates 300 IO, and the first 100m Imperials also produce IO from the planet's resources, capped by the Infrastructure. This has implications about where you want to put a planet's resources while developing it... pumping everything into Terraforming or everything into Infrastructure is not the right choice (unless it has zero resources, I guess). But figuring out the optimal path might be more work than it's worth.
Civilians and Imperials DO generate 1 unit of "Trade Output" per 70k, which is like IO that's being used for trade, and generates 5 spacebux at its base. Additionally, the number of trade routes out of a planet is capped by the population (both Imperial and Civilian), though I'm not sure what that relationship is. I do know that on your homeworld for example, if you increase the population by ANYTHING above the normal max, you'll get another trade route, which may be worth it for 1 unit of overharvest per turn. But you lose it if you build a colonizer... whoops.
Speaking of trade routes: expanding an already-existing network is the most frustrating thing ever. No, I do NOT want to devote four fucking CRs for three turns to establish this route!
I would raid you like the fist of the north star. :winky:
were you fighting at all garthor?
Pretty much no. I was playing on a disc galaxy, so only really three potential neighbors. To my left was another Morrigi empire who wanted to form an alliance (and was very far away, regardless). To my right was a Tarka empire that seemed to have gotten its balls crushed early-game... it got four colonies at the most, and I wasn't even harassing it. To the center was some Liir that also didn't seem to want to attack me (possibly because it was in the center and so in a rather vulnerable position).
Right now I'm carousing about the galaxy with my fleet named A Murder of Crows, consisting of 21 DNs, 22 CRs, and 19 DEs (accidentally lost one), being lead by my flagship Quetzalcoatl. Bombarding a new colony with four DNs every turn (also: my initial, slightly-worse fleet that is still wrecking the rest of the galaxy).
It's just absolutely absurd at this point. 463 CR freighters, and I haven't bothered to build any more because I have 100 million spacebux. 1 turn to research ANYTHING.
So yeah, harassing players is rather important. Turn 200, by the way.
Can it work well to jump in and take over an AI player? Or is that likely to put the new player in a bad position?
Depends on how far along the game is. If its like 50 turns in or something its kinda dicey since the AI is abit off.