it's one component per starbase. you could build 18 starbases with interdiction beams and warp inhibitors, but 1 base can only reduce enemy movement by -3.



also, the ship retains all it's movement for the rest of the turn if it enters the SB's area of effect. the SB only affects ships if they start the turn within its AoE. plus, ships don't lose the rest of their move points after attacking. fast ships can engage in as many battles per turn as they have move points, assuming they don't die.

In GalCiv 1, if I remember reading correctly, Terrorstars were super starbases with special modules that allowed them to move 1 parsec per turn, and blow up stars. Given the current lack of any ability for starbases to defend themselves (in the long term), or to join in fleets, they are probally going to need fleets of ships flying around them to ensure that no hostile ships attack the Terrorstar while its on route.



Beam weapons are the fastest weapons one can research. Missiles are the longest to research to equal tech level, plus they take up more room than lasers.

________________
Anyhow, welcome to the forums. I hope you enjoy your stay.

In addition to Divine's cogent answer, another point: the Evil Alignment is extremely popular among conquest oriented players. Evil allows you to research Psyonic Beam, if your beam tech is up to the right level already. Psyonic Beam has the best kick to cost ratio, and smash to space ratio of any weapon in the middle technology zone.

drrider

Nobody knows anything about how the TerrorStars will work, except what may be inferred from the 7 year old Gal Civ game. They don't exist until the ToA expansion comes out, or at least is available for beta.

Star bases are not designed and built like ships, at all. One generic constructor ship goes to the SB, and becomes an SB module. You choose which available SB module type from a drop down menu. Each SB module type is added once and only once (except that the damage repair 'module' which patches SB hit point losses but doesn't use a module slot.)

You could do some of what you are describing by building multiple military SBs in the sector, but you are only allowed 4 of all types, and the TerrorStar will count as one.

The immobilizing thing works because having a combat uses a movement point. Put a couple of rings of them around an enemy fleet to use auphis movement points. Also its an exploit of the AI's very short term logic. It will kill all the easy targets in its vicinity before it moves on, even if it is ultimately on a planetary invasion mission.


I suggest you chill out on the technically complicated plans until you actually recieve the game and experiment with it.

drrider

Its a typo: "...use up his movement points."

drrider

"when you have the intelligence of a human player"

I am a human player! A Terran, not a fly!

I don't plan on playing Metaverse, at least for a few months. I'm going to stick on with Missiles because I just don't like the beam weapons in GC2. And anyway, with missiles, it makes sense that they can fly in any direction irrespective of the launcher's heading, while beams will fire out of the back of their gun! I plan on eventually maxing out my logistics to 57 and build fleets of 11 frigates or 8 battleships or 5 capital ships + 1 battleship. I don't know how to make logistics go up any higher than 57.

As for my first game:

I plan to start out on a large galaxy with occasional stars and few habitable planets as to reduce the colony rush. Since every major race and a few minors will be included, there ought to be enough planets to conquer later on due to the other races' home systems.

I plan on having a dedicated manufacturing-oriented industrial planet in the PQ 8-24 range, and 1-2 dedicated research planets in the PQ 3-18 range, which I will try to fill with NLCs depending on how many I can afford, along with a few industries to help build those NLCs. Mars will be one such planet. I also hope to find one good PQ 10-26 planet which will be 75% economic and 25% research. Earth will be purely economic. Due to neutrality, Earth will become Class 13 and Mars Class 10 upon researching terraformation techs, which should be very nice. I'll research or buy extreme colonization techs as needed to fulfill the above planet requirement.

Using Terran Alliance Super Diplomat, I plan on making some deals early on to further my technological standing or to make a bit of money off of ship sales(I'll be building and selling Freighters for a profit to hopefully unsuspecting chump... er, customers). I'll also set up several trade routes and grab every free asteroid I can find with Space Miners. I plan on eventually covering my trade routes with as many economic starbases as possible in order to magnify income, and then selling(not gifting) every upgraded starbase to my trading partner for some profit, once again taking advantage of Super Diplomat and the diplomacy boosts that the trade route itself gives. Trade will be beneficial, with the uncommonness of planets.

Once my economic network has been established(to some extent), or if some thuggish, militarily-armed neighbors begin demanding money, I'll start building my military by researching and tech trading to obtain engines, armor and missiles, and getting some degree of miniaturization early on if possible, to create 2-3 fleets of this:

Name: Nutcracker-Class Frigate

Hull: Medium
Miniaturization: Advanced
Size = 67

Warp Drive - Size 25, Speed 3, 80 bc

Harpoon - Size 13, Damage 3, 55 bc
Harpoon - Size 13, Damage 3, 55 bc

Titanium Armor 3 - Size 6, Absorb 1, 30 bc
Titanium Armor 3 - Size 6, Absorb 1, 30 bc

General Life Support - Size 4, Range 0.8, 3 bc

BC = 253
MP = 333

Total Costs = 586 bc

Attack Damage = 6( Missile )
Defense = 2( Armor )
HP = 23( Xinathium Hull Plating )
Speed = 6
Sensors = 3
Range = 0.8

Yes, those are the specs I've written in a Notepad file for my Generation 1 frigate.

Once that's done, and those inevitable tribute-demanding AIs have been beaten back(or even conquered if possible), I'll continue to build up economically and militarily, then take over some minor/weaker races, and then head for the big ones, all while trading to make money, get technology and occasionally obtain planets, as well as make some alliances. My espionage efforts will mainly be to counter enemy spies, but not do much/any myself.

A few (game)years later, once I'd have maximized my tech tree, I'll begin having some real fun by targeting one AI player(enemy or ally, either one), training spies, building purpose-designed 'bomber' ships, and to beginning to wreak havoc on that hapless AI's soft space targets(i.e. asteroid mines, non-military starbases, constructors, transports, trade ships) and planetary improvements in peacetime, in an attempt to stunt their chances of building up a military and then eventually attack them straight, and repeat this until I control over 75% of the galaxy and win my influence victory. One such 'bomber' ship design is this:

Of course, my normal military ships will be far more balanced than these purpose-built lightly-armed, very fast and very long-ranged bombers.

Name: Veyron-21 FastBomber

Hull: Medium
Miniaturization: Supreme
Size = 121

Hyper Warp Drive 2 - Size 24, Speed 4, 120 bc
Hyper Warp Drive 2 - Size 24, Speed 4, 120 bc
Hyper Warp Drive 2 - Size 24, Speed 4, 120 bc
Hyper Warp Drive 2 - Size 24, Speed 4, 120 bc

Black Hole Eruptor - Size 13, Damage 25, 160 bc

Ultra Life Support - Size 4, Range 1.4, 6 bc
Ultra Life Support - Size 4, Range 1.4, 6 bc
Ultra Life Support - Size 4, Range 1.4, 6 bc

BC = 658
MP = 738

Total Costs = 1396 bc

Attack Damage = 25( Missile )
Defense = 0
HP = 25( Reinforced Hull Design, Xinathium Hull Plating )
Speed = 21( Hyperion Shipyard )
Sensors = 13( Eyes of the Universe )
Range = 4.2

That's about as far as I've planned, although I can't tell what will until the game finally arrives and I actually start this sandbox mode. Of course, I'll switch over from armor to other defenses using tech trade if necessary, but I won't deviate from missiles.

One more week to go...

No credit card. Getting a relative to send it.

BTW, I'll be the only one using it, I'll have the sealed box, and I'll have the CD key.

Every game I have played I end up with military conquest with phasor beam weapons and large hulled ships within 3-4 years at the most. I have never even come close to maxing the tech tree out. At any rate, nothing damages my ships more than star bases as they have a decent amount of hit points and two modules can give them an attack of 8 in one weapon category. I can see where late in the game, when people have huge hulls, maxed out miniturization, maxed fleets, that star bases become really weak. Granted, the highest difficulty I have tried so far is challenging. I also don't like to play bigger than medium galaxies (trying to log in lots of metaverse games)

will you be playing with tech trading enabled or disabled?

with tech trading on, it's exceedingly difficult to out-research the AI and not get wiped to snot in the process, even with NLCs, though it's very doable on challenging. even still, NLCs don't even come close to making up for the fact that the AI players get a great deal of their non-weapons techs from each other without the same cost you'd have to pay. on the other hand when you disable it, they tend to fall behind you pretty quickly if you focus mostly on tech, and then the end game is kind of anti-climatic (you spend all that time to build things you'd know would kick butt... then it's like, do i really have to go to all this trouble?).

personally, i find i enjoy the game most when i disable tech trading, set research to very slow and the map size to huge or gigantic, and restrict the overall number of planets. reducing the number of planets on the map makes every tech a major investment, and the superabilities involving techs also gain a higher premium.

that's one great thing i hope you find out about GC2. it has great replay value because there are so many variations to the game, especially if you start getting into mod'ing.



phasors start getting more powerful after phasor III

I'll be playing with tech trading on. Hopefully Super Diplomat will give me a boost in this. Yes, I will be doing technology resale for a profit, and also to facilitate fast switching of armament in case I ever need a different kind of defense or get a chance to grab Psyonic weaponry from an evil AI.

Anyway, the AI-to-AI tech trade ability would get reduced later in the game with less AIs on the map. I don't want to be going up against Yor Battleships using Doom Rays and Aereon Missile Defense while I have Black Hole Eruptors and Zero-Point Armor.

Thus, I will probably take that second option from the last post: Send all those free freighters to the Yor worlds, establish friendly relations with them, build econo-starbases around the trade routes, sell most of them to the Yor and begin strangling them, either by
(1) overwhelming flipping. I'd send lots of constructors one fine day and get those robots to work for me.

(2) destroying each ship that gets launched from their planets before they can make fleets. Then, whenever I want, send in transports.

(3) buy off the Yor's most powerful ships/fleets, integrate them into my own force, and do option(2) in an easier but somewhat more financially expensive way.

These challenges are only in the case of the Yor since they're the only ones who can effectively deny free access of my forces to their space. Hopefully, when I actually get down to the game, the Yor will fall to someone else earlier on; they are only a threat if they hold several planets near the endgame.

As for Phasors vs Torpedoes, all the missiles are more powerful than the equivalent beams by at least 2 points of damage, and although they are larger, they have 2% multipliers against the 4% multipliers for the beams, which nullifies the beam weapon size advantage in larger/further miniaturized ships.

but you can research beams much, much more quickly. by the time you'd be done with photon torps, you could be on disruptors for about the same amount of research. only a little more brings you to the inferior doom ray, whereas a missile researcher still has generation upon generation of research to do before reaching the BHE. i think that's the main point of most players' experience that's bearing on the conversation. in practice, the best weapons are the ones your enemey can't defend against. i myself usually research through harpoons III, and then divert my efforts towards socio-economic infrastructure. when i'm ready to come back to weapons reasearch, then i decide if i want to start a new tech line or continue with missiles, based on what my enemies are actually using in terms of defenses.

Doom Ray - Base Size: 10
Multiplier: 4%
Damage: 22
Cost: 150 bc

Black Hole Eruptor - Base Size: 11
Multiplier: 2%
Damage: 25
Cost: 160 bc

Black Hole Generator - Base Size 6
Multiplier: 4%
Damage: 16
Cost: 100 bc

The stats say it all. Doom Ray is the worst of the top of the line weaponry. The big gun, Black Hole Generator, has good smash-to-size and bang-for-buck ratios, but it's research line is filled with lots and lots of weak mass driver weapons(except for the 5-damage Nano Ripper and 10-damage Psyonic Shredder).



I'll build fleets only when relations with someone get low or someone is conquering too much. I'll upgrade fleets only when a war breaks out, and upgrade only my more experienced fleets(and sell off the rest). BTW, how are upgrade costs calculated?

Also, why would I want to keep my big ships out of fleets(like the Dread Lords do)? What's the gain?

Aah, I see your anti-Yor strategy... Send in your military, take out their orbital defenses, and send in turbo-transports within one turn. Dang, for some reason I haven't designed any super-transports yet.

As for the Korath(and other Drengin), if they are still alive by endgame(I expect them to be), and begin building Spore Ships, I'll just keep destroying them, locking down their planetary improvements with spies, and keep destroying their starbases, space mines, constructors and trade ships too fast for them to respond, using hit-and-run bomber raids and avoiding their main battle fleets until I see an opening and take their planets. They don't have Isolationist, so I can hit them from anywhere I want.

This is, assuming that the Spore Ships are unarmed cargo hulls like Transports are.

Hopefully, several AIs will go to war during mid-game and weaken themselves, so I would be able to 'fiddle while the galaxy burns', but I don't think this will happen so easily, so I'll try to ally up with anyone who is willing to and anyone who has a strong enough military.

For 9850 RP, you can get Photon Torpedo. For 9525 RP, you can get Phasors 3.

Photon Torpedo - Base Size: 9
Multiplier: 2%
Damage: 5
Cost: 55 bc

Phasors 3 - Base Size: 5
Multiplier: 4%
Damage: 3
Cost: 40 bc

Of course, Phasors 3 is slightly closer to DR than Photon Torpedo is to BHE, but Photon Torp is the much better weapon for the time being.

One more thing: Is it effective to buy military ships from others, fight your wars with those ships, then sell them off or scrap them once the become obsolete, and buy more imported ships when you have to fight another war? I suppose it would require a very strong economy, but your opponent will never be able to adapt their defenses if you buy ships from several other races. What if the ships you buy are too far away from your sphere of influence?

Edit: My political party will be the Universalists, for their 25% luck bonus as well as other small bonuses. Hopefully, the luck bonus will result in outnumbered or outgunned fleets being able to fight an equal war, with their higher rolls.