some questions after our first game

[dstar]

My wife and I finished our first game this afternoon, and really liked it. We have a few questions remaining, however:

1) How do shields work? That is, do they block a specific amount of damage, or a percentage of incoming damage, or what? And how do I see that value?
2) What's the difference between the various types of engine? Is there any way to increase movement speed on the strategic map?
3)Are the meanings of the various specials (critical hit, vorpal, etc.) listed anywhere?

[Fairin]

shields work they block damage based on the ships size (not sure of the number myself but its quite a decent one) - rank 10 shields on a mother ship are quite resillient especally with the regen

engines are not balanced yet as far as i know - they all seem to go the same speed just use different ammounts of power, which seems to be inconcenquencial atm

shield piercing = not effected by shields
enveloping = hits all quadrants of a ship at the same time (basically it does x8 damage since ships have 8 sides - should be excessively devastating to shields)

[dstar]

enveloping = hits all quadrants of a ship at the same time (basically it does x8 damage since ships have 8 sides - should be excessively devastating to shields)

Eight? Top/bottom, left/right, front/back... what are the other two?

[Zaimat]

My wife and I finished our first game this afternoon, and really liked it.

Happy to hear you enjoyed the game! Here are some answers:

Engines don't yet make a difference. Only way to increase movement speed on the map right now is if you discover stargates and transient race ability (Har'kan race have it).

Weapon specials are not yet documented in the game.

* Shields have 4 sides
* Hull (structure points) has 8 sides : 2 Front, 2 on left, 2 on right and 2 on back

Shields absorb as much damage as the shield strength (shield points) can absorb. Shields recharge slowly every combat round if not damaged or destroyed.

Critical hits inflict internal ship damage (core and special systems). All weapons have a small chance for critical hits but laser cannons beginning L5 always critical hit.

Ship components hit are damaged on the first hit and then destroyed on the second hit. Crew are also killed if there is internal ship damage, the better your ship life support systems the less crew killed.

Vorpal are the ultra-powerful weapons which inflict extra damage. The most damaging weapons in the game.

[Lithari]

I am thinking that this needs to be in the game, like hovering over the vorpal or whatever things in the R&D screen, cause there is no info anywhere about anything.

[Fairin]

and burn? =)

vorpal shoulda been a marine killer figured it was from the neutron gun from moo2 bearing similiarties =)

[dstar]

My wife and I finished our first game this afternoon, and really liked it.

Happy to hear you enjoyed the game! Here are some answers:

Engines don't yet make a difference. Only way to increase movement speed on the map right now is if you discover stargates and transient race ability (Har'kan race have it).

Weapon specials are not yet documented in the game.

* Shields have 4 sides
* Hull (structure points) has 8 sides : 2 Front, 2 on left, 2 on right and 2 on back

Shields absorb as much damage as the shield strength (shield points) can absorb. Shields recharge slowly every combat round if not damaged or destroyed.

Critical hits inflict internal ship damage (core and special systems). All weapons have a small chance for critical hits but laser cannons beginning L5 always critical hit.

Ship components hit are damaged on the first hit and then destroyed on the second hit. Crew are also killed if there is internal ship damage, the better your ship life support systems the less crew killed.

Vorpal are the ultra-powerful weapons which inflict extra damage. The most damaging weapons in the game.

Where are shield points displayed? I saw a recharge rate, but not anything that looked like strength or points.

Also, what exactly is the difference between missiles and torpedoes?

I would like to re-iterate, btw, that my wife and I agree that this is the best game of its type since the original MoO, and the first where the determining factor in whether it can match it has been a matter of 'if nothing screws it up' rather than 'if the developers go in the right direction' .

A few suggestions:

1) Instead of having terraforming unlock all non-terran types, perhaps have the first level unlock Barren, a few levels later unlock Metallic, etc.
2) As I understand it (we didn't get the tech), Asteroid Mining currently just provides a bonus to industry; it would be interesting if it only provided a small bonus to all planets, but a larger bonus for each gas giant in the system (e.g., 5% per gas giant, so if you have 5 gas giants in a system, each colonized planet would get a 25% bonus to industry)
3) It would be really nice if there was some way to find out the maximum population of a planet once you've colonized it; there doesn't seem to be a tool-tip for anything but pollution in that top stats box on the planet screen.
4) Is there any reason not to have 2 light mount weapons instead of one regular mount? It seems they do the same damage per size, and also get the benefit of having a wider firing arc. If not, you might consider having a 'minimum damage blocked' in addition to percent of damage absorbed for armor, based on hull size; if the first 10 points of damage are absorbed no matter what, there's a benefit to the larger sizes of weapon. (Perhaps do something similar for shields, and have them stack.)
5) It would be nifty to have a 'spinal mount' weapon slot which takes up double the size of a heavy mount, uses a _lot_ of energy (or perhaps has to charge for a turn before firing), can only fire directly ahead, but does significantly more damage than even a spinal mount and has a special depending on the weapon type (e.g. a laser can carry over to an enemy ship directly in line, if there is excess damage after the target is destroyed, while a particle cannon would have some other effect (weakens all shields within a certain radius of the target?))

[Traker]

I second the spinal mount weapon, a heavy heavy weapon that is expensive that can destroy a smaller ship or be a bombard weapon but has a very long recharge rate.

[salvo]

I agree to all the suggestions, especially the terraforming tech should not give access to all formerly non colonizable planets at once, a better approaoch would be to unlock planet types corresponding to a certain level of that tech, i.e. level 1 unlocks one type, level 3 or whatever unlocks the next one etc. Apropos terraforming, as it works now, what benefits do you actually get from levelling this tech up?

As for ship upgrades does anyone know if there is way to tell whether a ship/fleet needs to be upgraded? I didn't find any way to tell it.

[Xytop]

3) It would be really nice if there was some way to find out the maximum population of a planet once you've colonized it; there doesn't seem to be a tool-tip for anything but pollution in that top stats box on the planet screen.

If you are in the colony view, you can right click on your colonized planet at the top to see all the infos about it.

[Madbiologist]

and burn? =)

vorpal shoulda been a marine killer figured it was from the neutron gun from moo2 bearing similiarties =)

Well not all ships have marines (making it somewhat of an overly situational perk for one of the main weapons), unless you mean crew killer as well... then yeah I can see it being -very- useful. 'Killing' a ship by killing its crew as well. But I can live with extra damage, we need a few weapons that hit like sledgehammers.

That said, I do second your question: What does Burn do?

[jermleenats]

Hello sir is your first game have using the best weapons,, cause i was hopping that it was good to use.


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