A few more complex questions from a NOOB

Hi I just bought the game recently and still pretty noob about it. I am about to beat it on masochistic but I came so close to losing I think I need a leg up if I am going to go on more difficult levels. I have a few questions that I could not find in other sources on the website (basically looked through wiki and forums for about 1 month now). I was wondering if I could get some answers here? Thanks for the replies in advance and here come the questions:

1. If your empire is completely connected (maybe "overlapping" is the right word here) by your area of influence does it give your any advantage over having your empire more scattered (not completely connected by influence overlapping)?

2. Do military resources increase your ship’s strength that travel outside your area of influence?

3. What all can espionage due? Reveal information? Steal tech? Sabotage buildings/ships? And on the same note, can it get you in trouble diplomatically?

4. What do the bravery and creative race picks really do? I know that bravery makes your ground troops better but how? Is it just a flat modifier on top of your soldering skill or does it modify your soldering base skill? As for creative, what breakthroughs would I not normally be able to make without this. Does it just randomly finish researching a tech if it still had say 10 turns to go? And if so does it have a diminishing chance to finish a tech immediately if it takes longer to research (IE is 5 turns left more likely to finish instantly than 20 turns left)?

5. Are their really differences in the number of research points required to reach the end of each weapons and defense stage (IE do all the laser tech stages add up to 50,000 research points and do all the missile tech stages add up to 50,000 points)?

6. What are the real differences between the weapons paths? I have gotten the impression that lasers cost more to produce on a ship but have a smaller size. While missiles are cheaper to produce but take up more space. Am I right?

7. How do you win by alliance? I don’t see alliance as an option in the diplomatic screen. Do you just have to get the other races to really like you (IE far into the green) before you can alliance or do they have to offer?

8. When you choose the race bonus that increases your research say by +20%, is that 20% added to each individual planet? If not, do you still pay 1BC to produce each of the 20% bonus research points?

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I forgot to mention that I am running 1.40

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1) Not really. Although if your influence area is quite scattered your planets may be more likely to be "flipped".

2) Yes. Mining military resources increases your ships stength regardless of where they are.

3) In v1.4 espionage reveals information and can steal techs but can't sabatoge or get you in trouble. Also once you reach the highest level that's it, so stop spending money on it after this point.

4) Don't really know.

5) Big difference in total number of research points to reach the ultimate weapon of each branch. Doom Ray is by far the cheapest.

6) Sort of. There's also sizemod that takes up a percentage of hull space making things scale differently with the size of the hull. This tends to make lasers good for small hulls and missiles better for larger hulls.

7) Make alliances with some and kill everyone else. You need to be "close" (I think) to be able to get an alliance. You also need to have the alliance tech, but they don't. You can offer them an alliance. I helps to have a larger military might than they do to get them to accept it.

8) Yes. Racial abilities are all global i.e. apply to all planets. The "global" bonuses for research or production only cost 50%. So you get 2 RP's of global bonus research or production for 1 bc. Any on-planet bonuses i.e. 700% research bonus cost full price.

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1. If your empire is completely connected (maybe "overlapping" is the right word here) by your area of influence does it give your any advantage over having your empire more scattered (not completely connected by influence overlapping)?

Exactly how influence is calculated seems to be a bit of a mystery. But I think your total influence area and points (ie what you get at UP votings) are linear, so that it doesnt matter where your planets are located. Clustered they are easier to protect against aggressors of course.

2. Do military resources increase your ship’s strength that travel outside your area of influence?

Yes. All resource derived benefits are global.

3. What all can espionage due? Reveal information? Steal tech? Sabotage buildings/ships? And on the same note, can it get you in trouble diplomatically?

Espionage is underdeveloped in GC2. All it seems to do is reveal info about opponents strength, planet layout, starbases, where their ships are going, etc. Very occasionally you actually steal a tech (though never as often as the Darloks of Moo2). Sometimes minor races steal all the techs of a race and allow you to buy them (at an outrageous price). If you don't espionage a race, you run the risk of going to war with them by chance (you shoot their president or something).
This is for option espionage. For the destabilize option you merely lower their morale. AFAIK you cant sabotage anything.

4. What do the bravery and creative race picks really do?

Courage gives a 25% ground combat bonus. The manual isn't clear on this, but basically it comes on top of your soldiering skill. See it as a permanent 'mini-soldier' advantage. With creativity you have the chance of spontaneously 'discovering' a tech without actually researching it.

5. Are their really differences in the number of research points required to reach the end of each weapons and defense stage (IE do all the laser tech stages add up to 50,000 research points and do all the missile tech stages add up to 50,000 points)?

YES!! The weapon tree for a given branch takes a lot longer to research. Zero point armor costs 2500, while the biggest laser costs almost 4 times that. If you're really interested, look in TechTree.xml file.

6. What are the real differences between the weapons paths? I have gotten the impression that lasers cost more to produce on a ship but have a smaller size. While missiles are cheaper to produce but take up more space. Am I right?

There are no differences combat-wise, all that counts in the core is the attack number. The real answer to your question is that you shouldn't look to maximize your attack number, but to pick the path your opponents don't have defenses for. If they have huge missile based weapons (and usually matching defenses), you can own their ships easily with a simple laser and adequate missile protection.

7. How do you win by alliance? I don’t see alliance as an option in the diplomatic screen. Do you just have to get the other races to really like you (IE far into the green) before you can alliance or do they have to offer?

You can only ally if your relation is 'close'. For some strange reason, the green bar never goes above friendly...

8. When you choose the race bonus that increases your research say by +20%, is that 20% added to each individual planet? If not, do you still pay 1BC to produce each of the 20% bonus research points?

Yes. Same goes for resource-mining starbases.

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Thanks for all the help. I just changed my nickname because I could not figure out how to do that before.

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Mistralok1

Join Date 05/2006

+22

Reveal information? Steal tech?

This is all you can do in 1.4x. In DA, espionage is greatly expanded, giving you the ability to sabotage production facilities.

What do the bravery and creative race picks really do?

Bravery adds a soldiering bonus during planetary defense. Creativity gives you a chance to research techs quicker than expected occasionally. [Edit] There is an event that happens from time to time, that gives a 25% 'bump' to whatever tech is being researched. I have a feeling that this is what 'creativity' does, just more often. This is just a guess, mind you.

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