Stellar Cartography » Forum Post by Uranium

Everyone gets it now? Last I played various races didn't have it. IMHO I beeline for that tech to see where planets are around stars.

Successfully updated karma reason!

actually everyone EXCEPT the terrans do start out with that and besides it's too easy to get (on average 2-3 weeks) so it should be replaced or have more of a use than HOORAY you see white dots on the mini map.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Stellar Cartography is worthless. Completely. It shows planets, great. But you still have to check each planet to see if it's habitable. Me? I just go for the star and check the stats for 'Habitable Planets'.

Stellar Cartography SUGGESTS that you can see habitable planets and differentiate between low PQ and high PQ planets... but you can't. Horray.

Successfully updated karma reason!

meh, it saves me time from checking a star with no planets, so its not totally worthless

Successfully updated karma reason!

meh, it saves me time from checking a star with no planets, so its not totally worthless

Of which in most games I see less than a dozen of... *shrug*.

Successfully updated karma reason!

It should show habitable planets and unhabitable ones.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I guess it depends on your settings. With uncommon or even rare planets (not just habitable, planets in general), you'll see more stars without planets, making Stellar Cartography more important early on.

Also, when creating a custom race, you can choose NOT to have Stellar Cartography in the beginning, which gives you more points to invest in other starting technologies.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I for one find Stellar Cartography wholly useful. It saves precious time and money if you know in advance where the planets are clustered. I could see how it may not be useful in games where the planets are abundant and assumed to be around every star, but I play with the planets more dispersed.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I remember another race doesn't have it....Krynn is one of them.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Stellar Cartography is worthless.

lol. It can mean the difference between a good colonisation phase or a bad one. Basically between victory and defeat.

If theres a hall of fame for donkey quotes on the forums somewhere uraniums quote deserves a place.

Successfully updated karma reason!

So since Stellar Cartography is pretty much the most worthless research I've seen, and it's a given research to everyone now, can we replace it with something a little more useful somehow?

Unh. Uh-huh.

Nooo....

I don't know what planet you're coming from, it may just be radically different galaxy settings, but Stellar Cartography means the ultimate difference between Victory and Defeat in a great many situations.

For instance, immense galaxy, rare stars, uncommon planets: send a colony ship on a 25-week journey to an empty star. Even WITH the tech, you can stumble on class 0 systems.

So,

NO.

Successfully updated karma reason!

Even WITH the tech, you can stumble on class 0 systems.

Perhaps because even with the tech I've never noticed any differentiation between Class 0 and Class 32 planets, even though the description suggests otherwise?

Successfully updated karma reason!

Hi!

Stellar Cartography SUGGESTS that you can see habitable planets and differentiate between low PQ and high PQ planets

There are many description in the game that don't reflect changes of the game. Unfortunatelly Stellar Cartography in one of them, inherited from GC-1, where it was very usefull. Despite nowaday's SC might be worthless, it's free. What would you expect from something that's for free?

BR, Iztok

Successfully updated karma reason!

I think that you should be able to see the PQ of planets within so and so number of sectors of your colonies.

Successfully updated karma reason!

If I don't have it, it's the first tech I research. So no, it's not worthless. Even if all the races have it to start (which isn't the case), there's always custom race which can opt to exclude it in lieu of something else.

Successfully updated karma reason!

At one point in time, this tech did show the difference between uninhabitable and habitable planets. I believe uninhabitable would show as gray and habitable planets were white. now all planets are white. I would guess this feature of the tech got "messed up" with the introduction of the planet classes for DA, since w/o the proper tech some planets can be uninhabitable for the player, but are habitable later when dofferent colony techs make planets habitable.

I know this tech changed but I don't know exactly when. I only really realized it w/ this thread. Maybe nobody reported this as a bug, or it was a bug that was so small it got lost in the shuffle since nobody was complaining about it. The mini map has had it's share of problems in the past year, so I'm happy it shows all the planets and does not crash the game.

Successfully updated karma reason!

I don't know what planet you're coming from, it may just be radically different galaxy settings, but Stellar Cartography means the ultimate difference between Victory and Defeat in a great many situations.

For instance, immense galaxy, rare stars, uncommon planets: send a colony ship on a 25-week journey to an empty star. Even WITH the tech, you can stumble on class 0 systems.

After I read this post last night, I started up a gigantic game, five opponents, rare systems, rare planets, rare habitable planets, and it's been the most fun I've had since picking the game back up last week.

I probably should have shut minor races off, but I totally forgot about them. They've been inconvenient about inhabiting approximately 75% of the unclaimed at the start planets, but I also had good luck. The one planet outside the Solar System I managed to colonize was a class 19 with two precursor archives, which put my tech development so far beyond everyone else's that it's not even funny. Later, I researched the ability to colonize water planets, landed on the one water planet in range (quality 8) and got a +700% and a +300% industry tile. I did miss out on a handful of resources, unfortunately, but have otherwise been doing much better than the other races (Altarian, Drengin, Arcean, Yor, Torian).

And stellar cartography (which was one of the first techs I researched) meant I did not waste my time sending colony ships to planetless stars, of which there are many (relatively speaking).

Successfully updated karma reason!

I don't know what planet you're coming from, it may just be radically different galaxy settings, but Stellar Cartography means the ultimate difference between Victory and Defeat in a great many situations.

For instance, immense galaxy, rare stars, uncommon planets: send a colony ship on a 25-week journey to an empty star. Even WITH the tech, you can stumble on class 0 systems.

After I read this post last night, I started up a gigantic game, five opponents, rare systems, rare planets, rare habitable planets, and it's been the most fun I've had since picking the game back up last week.

I probably should have shut minor races off, but I totally forgot about them. They've been inconvenient about inhabiting approximately 75% of the unclaimed at the start planets, but I also had good luck. The one planet outside the Solar System I managed to colonize was a class 19 with two precursor archives, which put my tech development so far beyond everyone else's that it's not even funny. Later, I researched the ability to colonize water planets, landed on the one water planet in range (quality 8) and got a +700% and a +300% industry tile. I did miss out on a handful of resources, unfortunately, but have otherwise been doing much better than the other races (Altarian, Drengin, Arcean, Yor, Torian).

And stellar cartography (which was one of the first techs I researched) meant I did not waste my time sending colony ships to planetless stars, of which there are many (relatively speaking).

LOL! Thanks!

Successfully updated karma reason!

Thank you. My games were getting bogged down and I hadn't thought to rearrange those particular settings.

Successfully updated karma reason!

So since Stellar Cartography is pretty much the most worthless research I've seen, and it's a given research to everyone now, can we replace it with something a little more useful somehow?

if you don't find it useful, don't research it. if you're utterly offended by its presence on the tech tree, mod the tech tree. and if you don't like that option because you want to start playing MV games, just avoid picking the Terrans and you won't have to research it. and if you're dead set on playing as the Terrans (or a custom race), trade for it: the AI give it almost no value, meaning you can usually tack it onto another trade as an afterthought. you can avoid it entirely in TA if you don't like it, since it's not a prereq for anything else. and even in DL and DA, where it's a prereq for advanced sensor techs, it takes almost no time to research and shouldn't slow you down by the time you're ready to pursue sensors I.

there are several solutions to the problem you seem to have, but none of them need involve rude language toward others or their opinions.

Perhaps because even with the tech I've never noticed any differentiation between Class 0 and Class 32 planets, even though the description suggests otherwise?

i think that description is a bit of a hold-over from GC1, where one actually could tell the difference. it probably should be changed, either to reflect what the tech really does, or to make the tech do what its description implies. in either case, this is the only valid point you've made.

happy hunting.

Successfully updated karma reason!