Ships can be created without hyperdrive component!

Hi!

To go faster. Base speed for ships is 1 and not zero, what one would expect for a spaceship without engines.

BR, Iztok

Well space goes downhill so you get a base speed of 1.

Actually instead of thinking the ship has having no engine just consider that you are getting a free one, like impulse drive or simple thrusters.

When you research certain milestone techs, like warpdrive, you get an additional +1 to your base speed and a military starbase can be fitted with another +1 module. But to move around at all you ships will need so sort of engine. Unless you intend to keep them in orbit to prtect, then just save your money and hull space.

Leaving out engines is a good way to make "orbital drones" to keep attackers busy. Just load them up with weapons and defenses, no need to bother with engines, life support, etc.

In technical terms, I'd say all ships come with sublight thrusters by default. Hyperdrive engines are only needed to get your ships to their destination before everybody grows old and dies.

1 space per turn in the game equates to 1 parsec per week which is still very, very fast. It equates to a speed that is about 171 times the speed of light. So you are getting a free hyper drive engine I guess.

Lets put things in perspective. I think Proxima Centauri is the closets star to the Earth besides the sun at 4.4 light years I think.

If we say the fastest human built ship right now could travel 100,000 miles per hour which I think is an over-estimation with current technology, I calculate that it would take 29,462 years to travel to Proxima Centauri. 29,462 years is quite a few game turns, so you are getting a free hyper drive. There is no other explanation.

I build ships without engines all the time, and not just orbiters. The big kick comes in when you research Impulse drive; that gives your ships a default speed of 2. That is acceptable. When you research Hyperwarp and build the Grav Acclerators, that's a default speed of 5. That is very acceptable. But this is all presuming smaller galaxies with dense planets.

Another trick I'll do is build constructors w/o engines and send them to starbases that are already maxed out. By the time they make it, I've researched the next tech & they're in business.

Say what?!





Those shouldn't let you "jump".

This, of course, doesn't make sense with the implemented interstellar travel system - it would with stargates though.

Well who's to say they are? 1 parsec/week may represent crawling along at sublight.
Of course, it's still too fast in real terms but GCII isn't very realistic when it comes to interstellar distances.

Did you read my previous post? 1 parsec per week using the definition of the parsec as a unit of length of 1 Parsec = 3.08568025 × 10^16 meters, which is about 3 light years (the unit of measurement I am sure that was intended for this game) is an incredible rate of speed. It is 171 times the speed of light. So you aren't getting a ship with sublight standard impulse engines. You are essentially getting free hyperdrive that can fold space and cause the ship to "travel" at a rate of 1 parsec per week. End of discussion.

Hi!

Gentlebeings , we're talkinga about a completelly fictional COMPUTER GAME. Please consider that when you start nit-picking again.

BR, Iztok

So does the AI.

What gets me is that the minor races are able to build these scout ships and constructors even before they have Hyperdrive technology. I can suspend my disbelief enough to imagine that each new ship I build already comes with at least 1 Hyperdrive, but I can't manage it with those races that don't even have the technology yet. They really shouldn't be able to go anywhere except within their orbits until they acquire that technology. That would certainly prevent them from grabbing all the nearby resources before I have a chance to build a constructor, or at least delay them.

Oh for Pete's sake people, you get basic FTL propulsion free with the hull. There, simple, done, find something else to nitpick.

Why on Earth would this bother you? The minors never really do much of anything so it isn't like they are a threat to you in some way, now is it?

Treat it like you're getting a free hyperdrive on every ship, and anything added on top is simply kicking it up a notch.

A good reason to build a ship wtihout an engine is that the DA engines take up a lot of space, and so faster ships take a corresponding hit in attack potential. Other people take the hit (and complain about the AI not doing the same) but until late game I can't justify the loss in power easily.

Because it defies the logic of the game. Races aren't supposed to be capable of interstellar travel without hyperdrive. And it bugs me when they beat me to a nearby resource.

If you don't like the 'free' speed that is dished out to ships, it's possible to mod it out. I've tried something along thse lines and it does make things interesting. Obviously it's not for everyone though

The fact is, everyone has hyperdive capability from the start.

The opening screen of every games states:
...
Earth creatures have shared the schematic for a useful Hyperdrive engine...


So, it does not defy the logic of the game in any sense.

It may be clunky, at only 1 parsec/week, but it is available from the start.

Get over it. Everybody - and that includes Minor races - starts out equally when it comes to Hyperdrive capable ships.


The first propulsion tech has a description of:
"We've got Hyperdrive, the great contribution to the galaxy made by the Humans. But Hyperdrive is pretty basic stuff. To go faster, we need to come up with other ways to go faster.

There's basically two ways to increase how fast we travel. The first way is to bend space more. That's basically all Hyperdrive does. Ships still cannot move very fast in normal space; so Hyperdrive used immense amounts of energy in order to slightly warp space to make a 10 million mile trip seem the same as taking a one light year trip. The second way to make ships travel faster is to increase how fast they move in normal space. Bigger thrusters and what have you. We have some great ideas that, with some good research grants, will allow us to come up with much more advanced stuff."

One light year equals a distance of about 5,879,000,000,000 miles.
The description is a little backwards, I think.
Hyperdrive should make a lightyear long trip seem the same as taking a 10 million mile trip.
(obviously the dev that wrote the description should have done a teeny weeny little bit more research first.)

All the future techs refine hyperdrive in some respect. But all ships have basic hyperdrive capability to start with. It is built into the design, hence the +1 speed of hulls that do not have a better engine installed.

Why? This is as good a flaw as any other. Yep, there are plenty in this game, so any single one is as good as the others    There has been a lot of nitpicking already, there'll always be. Why shouldn't this particular issue be nitpicked?!



Yet another reason to make this an issue.



Thing is, there's little logic to the game, and that's why these issues keep coming up.



This doesn't automatically mean that *everyone* got the schematics.



Equally is a bad word. Some races actually start better (Ion Drive) than even the humans. Another "glitch".



Well, since you can't play a minor, how is this relevant?



When designing a ship, you choose a *hull*. Engines are not part of the hull, they're seperate entities.



So when you build an advanced ship with better engines you still get the basic engine as a bonus?

But only with the major races. If you encounter a minor race early in the game, quite often they don't yet have the technology. I've traded it to them on many occasions, I can usually get Galatic Warfare for it. So logically they shouldn't be able to go anywhere but into orbit around their home planet until someone gives it to them.

Interesting. And how did the AI deal with it? Were they smart enough to build ships with engines or did they end up with tons of them in orbit?

Just use your imaginations and all the little illogicalities and issues will just disappear. I mean come up with your own explanations for the +1 speed and the population type questions and go with it. I said that we get the +1 without engines because outer space is slanted downhill. Rediculous? YES! Does it matter?

So how about if we get zero speed and we have to add a +1 engine to it and then all hulls have more space for this added to their size? will that make everyone happy? the end result is the same.

i hate to have to say this, but, its a GAME. you take whats given to you and play it. All games have rues, a basic speed of 1 is this game's rule. Its true that a lot of aspects of this game defy real world logic. If the devs made it wonderfully realistic we'd all complain about micromanagement. i mean how can the whole of planet earth only have room for 8 structures? Who cares?

I bet they made a bunch of ships that couldn't move.

You got think of it as like an entire network of factories, research or whatever that takes up an entire citys worth of space. So when you build a "factory", you are building like an entire manufactoring network the size of a couple cities perhaps.

Yes. Where there's downhill, there's also uphill.   



No it isn't. It was mentioned above, you can have defensive "drones" with no engines, and therefore with more space for weapons and/or defenses.



Not necessarily true. One thing is making things realistic, another completely different thing is making things excessively detailed and realistic. Having hulls with speed zero is realistic, but doesn't make the game any more micro. You see, it's not that hard. Don't confuse realism with complexity.

Not in space. its all down hill, both ways all the time.



and how will these drone move without any engine at all. Zero speed is zero speed. Sure in the battle sceen yopu'd see them move but that would be unrealistic. The realistic answer would be that an engineless drone would do noting since it could not move to the place where the invasion is coming. There would have to be a lot of them to protect a planet, they could never act as a fleet since they can't move, they would really be just like a mine field, and thats a different post thats going on.

My point was for the nicpicking to stop not to try to come up with solutions for everyone, i said that every one should just come up with their own solution for something thats not going to change. Now we're nitpicking eachothers posts.

Orbital defence platforms, they don't have to move anywhere.