Hello from a new player.

IIRC, the ships will be slowed down to a speed of 1 rather than 0.

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.

PeskyFly welcome to the GC2 community.   

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.

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

"2. Why do people keep writing long, flared-up stories in their AARs, which I'm sure stands for After Action Report?"

Everyone's reason is different: for fun, to show off thier writing skills, or whatever else it might be. For the record, some of the AARs on here are very entertaining reads. Give 'em a look when you have the time. Oh, and welcome Nerd Heaven.  

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

Yeah, Psyonic Beam is crazy with 12 damage(but Pysonic Shredder ain't far behind). It doesn't apply for me since I'm going to play Neutral, and I can build Neutrality Learning Centers which will allow for faster research required for missiles and armor, provided my economy can keep them running.

Once you reach the top of the weaponry tree, the Black Hole Eruptor simply outclasses the Doom Ray. More power, smaller size, just 10 bc extra.

Black Hole Generator has the best bang-for-buck and smash-for-size stats, but has a long research tree of weak mass driver weapons.

I've seen that nobody said anything about my 'buy-core-ships-at-a-discount-and-sell-them for-profit-using-Super-Diplomat' idea. If this thing can actually work, then it would be a nice source of cash by buying hundreds of them, banding them into big fleets, and selling the fleets.
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@ DivineWrath

Is it possible to build a starbase(or multiple starbases) with tons and tons of Inverse Tractor Beams and Stellar Wakes, and then sit a TerrorStar in it's AoE for a turn, followed by launching the TerrorStar at high speed? I've seen this being done with normal ships in MottiKhan's Technically Evil AAR.
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Also, in that same AAR, MottiKhan 'immobilized' several AI frigates by simply surrounding them with tiny, cheap fighters. How does this work? Can't the frigates just kill one of them and break out? Or do you need to be at war in order to attack a foreign ship?

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

"Star bases are not designed and built like ships, at all. One generic constructor ship goes to the SB, and becomes an SB module."

I know that.

"You choose which available SB module type from a drop down menu. Each SB module type is added once and only once."

I didn't know that. Nevertheless, you can have 3 military starbases, and attach a Stellar Wake and an Inverse Tractor Beam to each one to have a total boost of 6 pc/wk. If it works on a Terror Star(I hope it does), than it will save you 6 turns.

I like technically complex plans. They take micromanagement to the next level. And I can't wait for September 3 to come.

Edit: You said:

"enemy fleet to use auphis movement points"

What is an auphis movement point?

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

drrider

if you plan on playing MV, then you won't want to wait for the end of the tech tree. you'll want to start conquoring immediately. another consideration with lasers is that the strongest shields are weaker than the strongers armor or missile defenses; though they lag behind missiles in damage in the long run. if you don't plan on playing MV (i don't care for it myself) then playing very long games may well appeal to you. i like playing that way, but in MV play there's a huge premium on finishing in the first few games years.

also, beams look the coolest and help resolve battles more quickly (if you watch the full battle).

and with regard to the starbase modules that reduce speed, i believe they're generally disfavored because they require the enemy to come to you to have any effect. personally i find this game's set up to favor offence, at least for the human player. it's exceedingly effective to take the fight to the enemy when you have the intelligence of a human player. and if you really enjoy micromanaging, it allows you the freedom to preserve your units so they can gain levels, especially if you focus on building huge fleets of ships - which is, from what i understand of MV scoring - the best way to get higher scores.

as for me, i don't particularly care about scores. i play the GC2 in ways that are most fun for me. if you have a similar outlook and execute you strategy, and you're willing to be flexible enough to make it work, i'm sure you'll have fun showering your enemies with death.

"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...

well yeah, that was kind of the point.

anyway, i'm glad you're excited. good luck.

PS why do you have to wait so long to get this game?

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.

I am impressed peskyfly. Not bad for someone who hasn't actually played the game yet. Now, thats doing your homework!

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)

"I am impressed peskyfly. Not bad for someone who hasn't actually played the game yet. Now, thats doing your homework!"

Thanks. I've been doing this planning as to not suddenly land in the galaxy, not know what to do, and then get eaten by some Drengin.

Also, I find designing ships to be fun, especially when you have to do the calculations manually. This lead me to search for the technologies required to get the components to design my ships, ending up with me 'researching' the whole tech tree, and then going deeper and deeper into the game concepts, finding it to be fun, until I ended up with this plan.

The two flaws I'm seeing in this plan are:

1. If I'm too late in beginning my military buildup due to discounting threats, and focusing too hard on my trade network, I might end up with the unlucky combination of being 'very rich and very dead'(quoted from the Torian AAR). Fortunately, I'll probably not let this happen(at least not at this difficulty level).

2. After I've finally maxed out my tech, built the bombers and began my enemy-dismantling session, it would be a mistake to go after the Yor by gradually locking them down, since their Super Isolationist ability will slow down my flimsy-but-freaking-quick bombers to one seventh of their maximum speed. This negates their long range and I must operate my hit-and-run strikes from the border or from an influencer starbase - and thus can only strike 9 parsecs into their territory. Not good when you plan on death-gripping your target. Chances are that the Yor would also be somewhat close on tech(but not equal since they won't have NLCs), so if I let them survive too long, they may end up to be costly robotic threats, and my trade will be down by then due to the lack of surviving races.

The key to subjugating the Yor will probably to either let my Constructors brave out the Super-Isolationist storm, set up influencer starbases, flip their asteroid mines, and therefore create a staging base for my fast bombers and my much slower-moving 9pc/wk heavy-military frigates and dreadnoughts to operate off of, OR to concentrate my free trade routes against the Yor, either befriending them or using the economic starbases I build around them as a trojan horse, with which my bombers can gain entry into their area, cut the Yor down under 'friendly terms' and pave the way for my heavy military to steamroll them. Probably, I'll take the second route if faced with such a problem, as it's the sneakier, more tactical thing to do.
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The thing I see about military starbases is that starbase components need less tech than equivalent starship components, and don't have to be shrunken - thus starbases are more powerful over the short term but get weaker and weaker as time passes. I agree with DivineWrath here. Huge hulled ships, with technological progress, become immensely powerful, and as expensive as starbases are, but are mobile too. My own near-maximized Huge hull design, the Dimension Class, has an attack of 200 and defense of 120 at speed 9 and can travel 1.4 sectors into foreign territory.

And another thing - Phasors - cause me to dislike Beam weaponry. You pass through the first two breakthrough techs of Lasers and Plasma weapons, and suddenly, you're stuck with Phasor after Phasor being thrown in your face for forever, constantly shrinking, until you break out and get the somewhat decent Disruptors, followed by the utterly pointless Subspace weaponry and finally the inferior Doom Ray. Not like missiles, where you keep making good progress until you reach the Photon Torpedo - after which the dam breaks and almost every piece of research rewards you with increasingly powerful weaponry at a constant size until finally you get the best weapon in the box(at least until TA arrives) - Blackhole Eruptor.

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 can't stand tech trading because to keep up with the AI, you have to give into tech whoring where you trade for techs every turn and then sell them to the other AIs to make mad cash. If you don't do this, then the AIs will tech whore amongst themselves and all end up superior to you. Without a doubt, if you play with tech trading on and refuse to do any tech trading at all of your own, the game will be significantly more challenging. Also, if you play with tech trading off, then you get some AIs that focus on beam weapons, some that focus on missles, and some that focus on mass drivers, etc. making each AI feel distinct. Of course this will be magnified with the unique technology trees for each civ with the T of the A expansion pack.

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.

you can't benefit from the tech if you don't have the alignment.



you do realize, i hope, that it's gonna cost absurd amounts of money to upgrade fleets to new defenses - unless you're planning to only produce warships in times of war.

another thing to consider is that at very advanced tech levels, it's better to keep your big ships out of fleets. it's abberant behavior in many players' opinions, but it's still how it works out best.



i think you're also over-estimating the Yor in general. i find they're rarely much of a threat in my games, just a big annoyance. but that might just be my idiosyncratic experiences. in practice i've found it's pretty easy to swoop in and take over their planets faster than they can respond - and in 1 turns time, making their isolationism meaningless. i've found the korath are the only consistent thorn in my side, and that's only because they produce their military so singlemindedly.

PS: on these forums, you might try highlighting text and then using the "quote" link at the tops of most reply boxes. it makes it easier for many people to follow the conversation.

cheers!

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.

What makes doom rays inferior?

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.

don't know. i'm not a number cruncher. they seem to become exponentially more expensive as you go along. i've seen upgrades for a single ship in the 10-12K range when giving it the highest level everything from mid level techs.

i think it's much more effective to get others to fight your wars than it is it buy ships. ships you aquire start wherever they last were -often on the other side of the galaxy map, and the AI ships are typically pretty slow.

i think you're going to find you're starved for cash, no matter your diplomacy value. creating a healthy economy early is the most difficult challenge in this game, IMO - not fighting battles. wars against the AI are pretty easy if you have a strong economy and a decent tech level. i actually prefer the terran's ability over the drath. challenging still isn't too overwhelming. IIRC i started my first game a level up from easiest and several decades into the game realized the AIs hadn't done anything. so i started a new game and bumbed the level up to normal or challenging.

on weapons, here's one thing to consider. if the largest militaries are all using missiles, which does happen from time to time, then everyone's going to have missile defence. in that case, it's clearly better to use either beams or mass drivers - if you want to switch suddenly, beams are often preferred, as i've said before, because you can research them very quickly. it's much easier to research the sum total of technologies to get disruptor IIIs than it is to get quantum torps, and the same is true of doom rays vs. BHE - that's the point i've been trying to make. the research cost of torpedos jumps considerably once you reach photon torps.

and mass drivers have another advantage in a vacuum, having some of the smallest weapons and costs (HD spike driver IVs are the smallest weapon in the game, and their last two weapons are quite potent as well). if you wanted to maximize on your luck bonus, you'd want a greater number of weapons on each ship, not stronger damage ratios.

cheers