Post by Dominion of Zabéara on Dec 19, 2013 22:34:12 GMT
Let's not beat around the bush on this - Space Empires Proportions Mod has a bit of a rough learning curve, and it has some elements that are not necessarily very intuitive right from the get-go. So to help all the new players along with the basics, this thread is for more experienced players to post some basic tips on the game that the new players might otherwise miss, but are important nonetheless.
I'll start with a couple:
1. Mothballing
Your ships cost maintenance. If you are running a resource deficit and are facing an economic crisis as a result, you can mothball some of your ships. They will shut down, not cost any maintenance, but cant do anything either. You can mothball them at any time, but it costs a fair amount of resources, so it only makes sense to do this if you plan to shut them down for several turns. Hint: Its a great way to build up a "reserve" fleet for your navy!
2. Bigger Planet Facilities
This one almost screwed me over in my first proportions game. Your planets create resources by building facilities. They can hold only a limited number of facilities. Lets say you have a regular Mineral miner facility. You can research upgrades to that facility, which can be upgraded by clicking "upgrade" in the building que. BUT you can also research better facilities altogether: Say, instead of a regular mineral miner facility, you can via research discover "mineral miner complex", a whole new kind of facility that is much more expensive to build, but provides a much bigger improvement in resource production. The regular mineral mining facility cannot be upgraded into this new complex, you have to tear it down and build the complex over it. Its a costly thing to do, but upgrading your homeworld in this way is essential for increasing resource production in the long run. This may sound complicated, but its not - you'll get it when you see it.
3. Some Resources Are More Important Than Others
This game has 5 kinds of resources. Three you harvest, 2 you produce from facilities. But not all resources are created equally. of the three harvested resources (Minerals, Radioactives, Organics), Minerals are generally the most needed by volume, followed by Radioactives and Organics being a distant third. Their relative importance, however, depends on the technology you use. If you use the crystal weapons technology tree for instance, your radioactive needs are going to be quite a bit higher than normal. If you use the organics weapon tree...yeah, Organics are not going to be as worthless as they may be to the player using crystal weapons...
Same goes for the two resources produced by your facilities without any relation to their planetary environment: Research and intelligence points. You build research centres to generate research points, and intelligence centres to generate intelligence points. Research points are absolutely critical to technological advancement, Intelligence points are used for espionage and covert activities. In this version of the game Intelligence points are, bang for your buck, almost worthless compared to research points, and some people hardly build them at all.
I'll start with a couple:
1. Mothballing
Your ships cost maintenance. If you are running a resource deficit and are facing an economic crisis as a result, you can mothball some of your ships. They will shut down, not cost any maintenance, but cant do anything either. You can mothball them at any time, but it costs a fair amount of resources, so it only makes sense to do this if you plan to shut them down for several turns. Hint: Its a great way to build up a "reserve" fleet for your navy!
2. Bigger Planet Facilities
This one almost screwed me over in my first proportions game. Your planets create resources by building facilities. They can hold only a limited number of facilities. Lets say you have a regular Mineral miner facility. You can research upgrades to that facility, which can be upgraded by clicking "upgrade" in the building que. BUT you can also research better facilities altogether: Say, instead of a regular mineral miner facility, you can via research discover "mineral miner complex", a whole new kind of facility that is much more expensive to build, but provides a much bigger improvement in resource production. The regular mineral mining facility cannot be upgraded into this new complex, you have to tear it down and build the complex over it. Its a costly thing to do, but upgrading your homeworld in this way is essential for increasing resource production in the long run. This may sound complicated, but its not - you'll get it when you see it.
3. Some Resources Are More Important Than Others
This game has 5 kinds of resources. Three you harvest, 2 you produce from facilities. But not all resources are created equally. of the three harvested resources (Minerals, Radioactives, Organics), Minerals are generally the most needed by volume, followed by Radioactives and Organics being a distant third. Their relative importance, however, depends on the technology you use. If you use the crystal weapons technology tree for instance, your radioactive needs are going to be quite a bit higher than normal. If you use the organics weapon tree...yeah, Organics are not going to be as worthless as they may be to the player using crystal weapons...
Same goes for the two resources produced by your facilities without any relation to their planetary environment: Research and intelligence points. You build research centres to generate research points, and intelligence centres to generate intelligence points. Research points are absolutely critical to technological advancement, Intelligence points are used for espionage and covert activities. In this version of the game Intelligence points are, bang for your buck, almost worthless compared to research points, and some people hardly build them at all.
