Questions and Answers Q: What do the red crescents and the yellow brackets imply when they appear next to explored stars in the Universe view? A: A crescent indicates that another empire (computer and/or human) has established a home surface at that star; a bracket indicates that another empire has established a colony at that star. If the same empire establishes both a colony and a home world at one star, only the red crescent will appear. If one opponent has established a home and another opponent has established a colony within the same system, both a bracket and a crescent will appear. Q: When I play in real time, I often hear two different types of peeping sounds. Do these sounds imply something? A: One sound notifies that a fleet has reach its destination. The other sound, (the one that sounds like a bell), indicates a rise in tech level. Q: What are the population capacities for the three differently sized transport hulls? A: Small transports 100k Medium transports 1000k Large transports 10,000k Q: If you do not have enough population at the time of construction, will a transport be built with the remaining population? A: Transports do not need to be completely filled, however, a minimum requirement must be met. Transports will enter active duty only when the world's population (the world at which the transport is being built at) can fill at least 33% of the ship's total occupancy and still leave 100k people on the world. If the population is insufficient at the time of boarding, the ship will remain in production until the population grows to the proper size. Q: Are my transports destroyed upon landing? Can I ever use them again? A: Once a transport lands, it can not be used for travel again. The environmentally conscious crew uses the ship's resources to support the new colony until infrastructure is constructed. Q: Does play level affect the complexity of the computer players? A: Computer players become increasingly tougher for each of the four play levels; Beginner computer players will advance at a slower rate than Expert computer players. Q: Which play levels offer multi-region worlds? A: Play level # of regions Beginner 1 Intermediate 1 Advanced 1 & 4 Expert 1,4, & 9 Note: Beginner and Intermediate play levels generate single region worlds so that empires are easier to manage. Q: How can I get a closer view of a region that's on a multi region world? A: If you open the Surface Window of a multi-region world, you will see that the surface map is divided by a grid. Hit the various arrow keys or single click with the cursor to highlight the different regions. When a region is highlighted, notice that the resource amounts (located in the bottom left portion of the window) pertain to that region rather than the whole surface. If you double click on a region or hit the enter key, a zoomed-in view of that region will open. To return to the multi-region view, double click on the surface map or hit enter. While this zoomed-in view is open, you can build and, or scrap infrastructure. To scrap infrastructure, select the Scrap button and click the tool cursor on a city, a port, ect... Scrapping on multi-region worlds can only occur in this zoomed-in view . Note: Scrapping infrastructure will return 100% of the people, 50% of each resource, and 0% of the money originally used to build the infrastructure. Q: How many ports must I build on a multi-region world in order to change it into a home world? A: You only need to build one port on the entire surface. Once you build a port, people in every region of the multi-region world will be taxed. Q: What do the resource amounts listed in the bottom- left portion of the Surface View represent? A: These resource values represent the total amount of unmined Ferrites, Pyrrites, Silicates, Crystals, and Radiants contained on that entire surface. If the surface map represents a multi-region world and a single region is highlighted, the resource values will change to indicate only the unmined resource amounts of that one region. Q: Can I review the total amount of resources mined during the last turn and the total amount of resources available for current use? A: To review these amounts, open your Economic Report and select Surplus. The values listed under Production indicate the amounts of each resource mined last turn, and the values listed under Available indicate the amounts of each resource that have been mined and which are currently available for construction purposes. Note: Resources that are listed under Production are added to your Available resources on your next turn. Q: Are resources pooled Empire-wide for construction? A: Resources that are mined at your colonies and home worlds are collectively pooled. Each turn, these newly mined resources are totaled and listed under Production (in your Economic Report). Q: Can I ever lose access to my mined resources? A: If you lose control of a region(s) to another empire, that empire will gain access to all your unused mined resources from that region(s). Q: Is infrastructure more expensive on inhospitable surfaces? A: Infrastructure is costly on inhospitable worlds. If the world meets only one of the two criteria, temperature or atmosphere, it is less expensive then if both factors are not met. It is almost always advisable to first colonize worlds that satisfy both criteria, then worlds that satisfy one criteria, and finally worlds that satisfy neither. Although infrastructure is more expensive in terms of money and resources, the population requirements for building infrastructure is cheaper on inhospitable worlds. Inhospitable worlds optimize their population to compensate for the unfavorable living conditions. Q: Why should I keep my colony worlds? What advantage do colonies have over income-producing home worlds. A: Although colonies do not collect taxes and require both social and colony spending, they can be extremely useful. Colonies have faster population growth rates and faster mining rates. When you allocate money towards colony spending via the Economic Report, you can significantly increase the population growth of your colonies. If you allocate your spending properly, colonies will grow extremely fast, much faster than any home world possibly could. It is often a good idea for a world to remain a colony until its population has grown; once the population is large, build a port. Note: Building a port on a colony's surface will automatically change the colony into a home world. Resources are mined significantly faster on colony worlds than on home worlds. Before you change a colony into a home world, you may find it useful to mine most of its' resources first. Q: How can I develop colonies into home worlds? A: One good strategy: 1) Land colonists via a transport(s). To initiate the colony, you must land colonists on a surface. 2) Build factories. While the world is a colony, take advantage of the fast mining rates by building factories. Since ships are only built at home worlds, do not waste time and money building shipyards. 3) Increase colony spending. Increasing colony spending, via your Economic Report, will increase the population growth rate of your colonies. 4) Build cities, bases, and shipyards. Build infrastructure while the population growth rate is high. 5) Build a port(s). After all infrastructure is built and resources are mined, change the colony into a profitable home world. Note: If you allocate a budget towards colony spending and you do not own any colonies at that time, money will not be subtracted from your treasury. Q: Is there an advantage to having multiple systems on a ship? A: There are no significant advantages to having multiple tac drives, star drives, Target sensors, ECM sensors and, or ECCM sensors. However, having multiple weapons and shields can be extremely advantageous. Drives: Multiple drives do not accumulate speed. The fastest star drive of a ship will determine that ship's overall traveling speed and the fastest tac drive will determine the ship tactical mobility. If a ship's drive is destroyed due to combat damage and, or poor maintenance, the second fastest drive will take its place. However, if you do not have a replacement star drive and, or tac drive, your ship's movement will be drastically reduced. Note: You do need both types of drives to undergo both traveling and combat functions; an extra star drive will never replace a damaged tac drive. Aside from being a "spare tire", additional tac drives are often required to help power the other systems of a large ship. If the ship hull is small, you may not need an extra drive for power, but if you want to fill a large hull with high-tech systems, additional tac drives will be necessary. Note: When designing ships in Ship Design, the ship's Energy requirement (located within the ship's blueprint) should be a positive value. A positive value indicates that a sufficient amount of drive energy is being supplied to that entire ship. However, a negative value would require that you add drives to the design in order to support the ship's systems. If you do not add drives to the design, you should delete other systems in order to avoid building ship's with expensive unusable systems. Sensors: Sensor strength is never cumulative. Only the most powerful target, ECM, and, or ECCM sensors of a ship are used. If one of these sensors is damaged, the second most powerful sensor of that same type will be activated. If there is no replacement sensor available, the ship will lose that type of sensor capability. Note: Target sensors can only replace target sensors, ECM can only replace ECM, and ECCM can only replace ECCM sensors. Weapons: Multiple weapons do not accumulate power; weapon systems fire independently of each other. If a ship with three space weapons enters Tactical Control, each weapon will get its chance to fire at its own target. All three of these weapons may or may not fire at the same target. If a space weapon is instructed, via Ship Design, to target a specific type of ship, it will always target that type of ship first. If a space weapon is not instructed to attack a specific ship type, it will always fire at the first available target. Note: In Ship Design, you can designate a space weapon's preferred target. After you place a space weapon onto the ship hull, click and hold the cursor on top of this newly positioned weapon. A pop-up menu that lists the twelve types of hulls will appear. Drag the cursor to highlight a specific hull type. If for example you choose a Light Cruiser, that particular space weapon will always fire at an enemy's Light Cruiser first. If a Light Cruiser is not present, the weapon system will fire at the first available target. Note: Space weapons fire effectively during tactical control, and planetary weapons fire effectively during planetary attacks. Note: Space weapons aboard stock ships will always fire at the first available target. None of these weapons were instructed to fire at specific hull types. Shields: Shield protection is always cumulative. M/Def shields protect against hits from mass weapons, and E/Def shields protect against hits from energy weapons. M/Def and E/Def are protective energy fields that are powered by a drive. Armor is a physical barrier that surrounds the ship. Unless the energy-supplying drive is destroy, M/Def and E/Def shields regenerate 100% after each hit. However, armor can never be recovered after a successful penetration. Whereas Armor actually attaches to the outside of a ship, M/Def and E/Def form energy fields that surround a ship. All three shield types work well together. If an enemy opens fire against a ship containing all three types of weapons, M/Def and E/Def will try to deflect the incoming damage first. If the incoming damage exceeds the strength of the energy shields, the ship's armor will be attacked next. If the incoming damage destroys the ship's armor, the damage will destroy various parts of the ship. Note: M/Def shields cannot prevent damage from energy weapons, and E/Def cannot prevent damage from mass weapons. Example: What happens if: Incoming mass weapon damage equals 100 points M/Def strength equals 50 points. Your M/Def shield will deflect 50 points of the incoming mass damage. The remaining 25 points of incoming mass damage will attack your ship's Armor. If the difference between incoming damage and the amount of Armor present is a positive number, the ship's systems and, or hull will be destroyed. If your ship contains 14 points of armor, 11 points of damage will occur to the ship. At this time, your ship's armor will be gone. Since all armor is destroyed, increased ship damage will occur on the next hit. The amount of damage that will occur on the next hit depends on the strength of the incoming damage and the strength of your energy shields. Your shields may have experienced damaged if their supporting drives were damaged on the first hit. Example: What happens if: Incoming energy weapon damage equals 75 points. E/Def strength equals 100 points. Since the difference between incoming energy damage and E/Def strength is a negative value, all of the opposing damage will be successfully deflected. Note: Tactical combats occur in rounds of ten impulses. During an impulse, each fleet gets a chance to fire all of its weapons at its opposing fleet. Each weapon fires only once per impulse at its' maximum rate of fire. Your M/Def and, or E/Def shields will regenerate for each enemy weapon. Q: Is fleet sensor strength cumulative? A: Sensor strength is never cumulative. The ship with the strongest target sensor will be the fleet's guiding light. The leading sensor is always situation specific: 1) In space, the target sensor with the most powerful long distance range capability will always lead the fleet. 2) In combat, the leading target sensor is that which is most powerful at the opponent's current location. ECM and ECCM strength is not cumulative; only your fleet's strongest ECM and ECCM sensor will be used. Q: Do multiple star or tac drives increase a ship's overall speed? A: Multiple drives do not accumulate speed. A ship's speed is determined by its fastest drive. When traveling within the universe, your ship's fastest star drive will set the speed; when in tactical control, your ship's fastest tac drive will set the speed. If the fastest drive is damaged, then the second fastest drive will allocate the overall speed for that ship. Note: A Fleet can travel only as fast as its slowest ship. It is often a good idea to separate fleets according to speed capability. Example: Lets say that Fleet A contains 7 ships and all of them, with the exception of one (only a star drive), contain both tac and star drives. If this fleet enters tactical control, the fleet will be limited in its movement due to the one ship which lacks a tac drive. (Explanation - Tac drives are necessary for tactile maneuvers and without them, ships barely move). Q: Is there a ceiling on tech levels? A: There is no ceiling on tech levels; as long as you designate funds towards research via the Economic Report, your tech levels will continue to rise. However, each type of technology will reach a state of perfection. At that point, additional rises in tech level will no longer advance that technology, but it will make that type of technology cheaper to manufacture. The tech level at which each type of system reaches its state of perfection will vary. Basically, perfection is established when all the points of the system's graph (located in Tech Design) reaches 100%. Q: How can I go about managing my fleets more efficiently? A: As your tech levels increase and you build advanced ships, it is important to organize fleets according to ship speed. Thus, ships capable of traveling fast will have the opportunity to do so without being slowed down by other ships within the same fleet. To quickly determine whether ships are well grouped, open the Fleet Control window. Select a fleet from one of the pop-up menu buttons in Fleet Control and review its individual ships. The values listed below Spd indicate ship speed. If you decide to move a ship from one fleet to a new fleet, follow these instructions: 1) Select a fleet from the pop-up menu button (choosing either the left or right pop-up menu button makes no difference). 2) Find the ship(s) that you want to move. 3) Select a destination fleet from the second pop-up menu. Select either an existing fleet, or create a New Fleet. 4) Go back to the first fleet and highlight the ship(s) that you want to move. 5) Select a move arrow. If the ship(s) is on the left side of the window and the destination fleet is on the right side, choose the Move arrow that points towards the right; if the ship(s) is on the right side of the window and the destination fleet is on the left side, choose the Move arrow that points towards the left. Always choose a move arrow that points towards the destination fleet. 6) The ship(s) will now join the destination fleet. If the transfer ship(s) is at a different location then its destination fleet, the ship(s) will be sent on a course to meet up with its destination fleet. Note: Fleet Control is an extremely efficient way to reorganize your fleets. Use this widow to regroup your existing ships into military fleets, exploration fleet's, migration fleets, etc. Q: How can I get my fleets to move faster? They seem to move so slow! A: To increase drive speed you can either build stock ships with faster drives or custom design your ships with faster drives. The option you ultimately choose depends on how much time and money you're willing to spend. although it may not be the best option, building stock ships with advanced drives is a quicker and cheaper option than building ships with custom-designed drives. If you have designated funds for your Research Budget via your Economic Report, your tech levels will advance periodically. Open your Science Report to find out the current technological level of each of your systems. As your tech levels increase, additional ship designs are added to the Ship Build window, and new stock systems become available in Ship Design. As tech levels increase, faster drives become available to you. Check your fleets for efficiency, via the Fleet Control window. Make sure that each fleet contains ships of comparable speeds. Fleets will only travel only as fast as their slowest moving ship. Note: Do not adjust Game speed, via the Game menu, if you want to increase fleet speed. Game speed affects the pace of monthly updates. You should only adjust game speed if you need the game to slow down (you might need more time to concentrate without the updates occurring too rapidly), or speed up (you nothing to do and you are just waiting for updates to occur). Q: How many fleets do I start out with? A: Beginner: Fleet 1 is a Sensor Scout. Fleet 2 is a Mass Transit. Fleet 3 is a Mass Transit . Intermediate: Fleet 1 is a Sensor Scout. Fleet 2 is a Mass Transit. Advanced: Fleet 1 is a Sensor Scout. Expert: No starting fleets available. Q: How do I see the stolen information of a bribed minister? A: After your Espionage minister notifies you of a successful bribe, go to the stolen files: 1) Open your Espionage window. 2) Click and hold on the first arrow. 3) Drag to the appropriate empire and let go. 4) Select the bribed advisor. 5) Click on the binoculars. The bribed advisor's window will open. You can see all of your opponent's information. When you are finished, just close the window. As long as you pay the monthly bribe fee (10% of the original fee), you will maintain access to the bribed information. Except if your opponent happens to replace his unfaithful minister, then access to the files will be denied. To cancel bribe updates, follow these instructions: 1) Open your Espionage Report. 2) Click and hold on the first arrow. 3) Drag to the appropriate Empire. 4) Select the minister from one of the six advisor buttons. 5) Click and hold on the second arrow. 6) Drag to No Activity. At this point you will no longer be charged for that minister's bribe incentive. Q: After I successfully bribe an opponent's Minister of Science, how can I steal tech designs? A: If your Espionage advisor informs you that your bribe mission was successful, go to the stolen files: 1) Open your Espionage Report. 2) Click and hold on the first arrow. 3) Drag to the appropriate empire and let go. 4) Select the Science advisor. 5) Click on the binoculars. Your opponent's Science Report opens. Notice that you can review your opponent's research budget and find out the current tech levels of each system. To review individual tech designs: 1) Click and hold on an arrow. 2) Drag the cursor to a system of interest. 3) Let go . Your Tech Design window will open. The window will contain the stolen design. If you wish to steal the design: 1) Click New. 2) Click Accept. 3) Name the system. 4) Click OK. If you wish to steal another design, go back to your opponent's Science Report and follow the instructions for reviewing individual tech designs and stealing the design. All of your opponent's tech designs are fair game. However, if you are stealing systems which are of a higher tech level than your own, the cost of using these stolen designs will be expensive. This cost is listed in the Tech Design window next to Cost:. Prior to accepting and naming a stolen design, you can adjust its' parameters. However, keep in mind that manipulating stolen systems has its limitations. If the stolen design is of a tech level higher than your own, you can only lower the system's parameters. If the stolen design is not of a tech level higher than your own, you can adjust the system's parameters more freely. Q: When I land a transport on an unprotected world, a world without military bases, what percent of that world's population defends itself? A: 10% of a region's population becomes its defending militia. A region with a population of 20,000k will have a militia consisting of 2,000k troops. If a transport is landing 10,000k colonists in that region, the region's 2,000k troops will be out-numbered and over-powered. Consequently, control of the region will go to the landing colonists. Q: What factors affect the outcome of a migration war? A: 1) The number of foreign troops entering the region. 2) The number of indigenous troops located within the region. 3) The aggression values of each species. 4) The presence of a base. Q: How is tactical combat resolved? A: Tactical Control is always turn mode based. Each turn consists of 10 impulses. All orders are issued before the first impulse. After the last combatant issues his orders, the combat round is processed. The order of events within each impulse is the same for all fleets. The order of events occurs as follows: 1) If your fleet is not at its destination, it will move closer to it. 2a) If your fleet is not withdrawing and its target is not destroyed: -Your fleet will attempt to get a lock on its' target. If your fleet's targeting sensor is stronger than the target fleet's ECM, the lock will be successful. If your fleet has ECCM, it will help to override the target ship's ECM. - If your fleet locks onto the other fleet, each weapon system will select a target and fire. The determination for a hit is based on the accuracy of the firing weapon compared to the Tac speed of the target ship. - If your fleet fires a successful hit, damage will occur. The amount of damage is determined by subtracting the target ship's shield and armor ratings from the weapon's strength. If this difference is greater than zero, the target ship will receive damaged. The damage will be randomly applied to the internal systems of the target ship. If systems are partially damaged, they will function at a fractional value until they are repaired. 2b) If your fleet is not withdrawing and its target fleet has been completely destroyed, it will look for another fleet owned by the same player as your last target. 3) If your fleet is withdrawing, run away... Q: How can I increase Efficiency? A: Lower the tax rate. Increase social spending. Increase the number of cities per region. Choose an Economic advisor with a high ability rating. Rule an efficient non aggressive species. Q: How can I improve mining production? A: Increase efficiency. Increase population. Increase the number of factories per region. Q: How can I improve factory production? A: Increase efficiency. Increase the number of factories per region . Q: How can I improve shipyard production? A: Increase efficiency. Increase the number of shipyards per region. Q: What do the ability ratings of the various advisors effect? Defense Advisor Ability Effects the outcome of all combat situations. Economic Advisor Ability Effects the cost of building infrastructure. Effects the efficiency of your empire. Exploration Advisor Ability Effects the support costs of your colonies. Espionage Advisor Ability Effects the probability of successful bribe and assassination attempts as well as your counter espionage missions. Protocol Advisor Ability Effects the reliability of receiving accurate messages from other empires. Science Advisor Ability Effects the rate of tech level increases. Note: The Abilities of elected advisors will either increase or decrease the overall efficiency of their office. Preferably, only advisors with Ability ratings above 75 should be elected into office. If you happen to elect a science advisor with an ability rating of 50, tech level increases will occur very infrequently. Because of your poor choice for an advisor, you will need to spend more money on research to compensate for your incompetent Science advisor. Note: If you do not select your own advisors during game set up, all of your advisors will have an average ability rating of 75.