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hobknob
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I don't have evey tech in the game and don't pretend to, but there are numerous items that can be researched or found that apparently have no use. Any use would be fine but no use seems to be a bit of a waste of research efforts.

 

So I throw out a list of things that have been completely useless to me so far.

 

Improved/Advanced weapons

Mineral fertilizer

Cargo Barge

Improved/Advanced foodstuffs/concentrates

Improved/Advanced Textiles

Improved/Advanced Consumer goods

 

The list goes on but there are a few to start things off.

 

I am all for stuff that has some use, any use. No use ever is another story.

 

:cheers::huh::cheers::blink:

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Some of those have improved use when used as Diplomacy gifts, to lure a neutral into your control. Admittedly, it's not exactly glamorous....instead of thinking about giving them consumer goods, think of it as dropping washing machines on a neutral from high orbit to get them to like you :huh: Or BBQ grills. Can't go wrong with a nice gas grill dropped in from 20 miles up :blink:

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Some of those have improved use when used as Diplomacy gifts, to lure a neutral into your control.  Admittedly, it's not exactly glamorous....instead of thinking about giving them consumer goods, think of it as dropping washing machines on a neutral from high orbit to get them to like you  :huh:  Or BBQ grills.  Can't go wrong with a nice gas grill dropped in from 20 miles up  :blink:

 

 

Alas most neutrals are completely and utterly useless and it is better setting a fleet on XDIP and six turns later noticing " Ah , what joy, a neutral with 6 population, 12 broken installations and a pile of Mineral Fertilisers

 

So what you are saying is that they have no other use those items? I know Cargo barges were defunct as Troop Shuttles. Perhaps a review of the items in the game that have no use should be made and their research cost lowered?

 

/Locklyn

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Some of those have improved use when used as Diplomacy gifts, to lure a neutral into your control.  Admittedly, it's not exactly glamorous....instead of thinking about giving them consumer goods, think of it as dropping washing machines on a neutral from high orbit to get them to like you  :o  Or BBQ grills.  Can't go wrong with a nice gas grill dropped in from 20 miles up  :blink:

 

 

Alas most neutrals are completely and utterly useless and it is better setting a fleet on XDIP and six turns later noticing " Ah , what joy, a neutral with 6 population, 12 broken installations and a pile of Mineral Fertilisers

 

So what you are saying is that they have no other use those items? I know Cargo barges were defunct as Troop Shuttles. Perhaps a review of the items in the game that have no use should be made and their research cost lowered?

 

/Locklyn

 

 

It could be worse. You could have a planet of neutrals with a big pile of Animal Fertilizer. :P

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Some of those have improved use when used as Diplomacy gifts, to lure a neutral into your control.  Admittedly, it's not exactly glamorous....instead of thinking about giving them consumer goods, think of it as dropping washing machines on a neutral from high orbit to get them to like you  :o   Or BBQ grills.  Can't go wrong with a nice gas grill dropped in from 20 miles up   :blink:

 

 

Alas most neutrals are completely and utterly useless and it is better setting a fleet on XDIP and six turns later noticing " Ah , what joy, a neutral with 6 population, 12 broken installations and a pile of Mineral Fertilisers

 

So what you are saying is that they have no other use those items? I know Cargo barges were defunct as Troop Shuttles. Perhaps a review of the items in the game that have no use should be made and their research cost lowered?

 

/Locklyn

 

 

It could be worse. You could have a planet of neutrals with a big pile of Animal Fertilizer. :P

I agree with Locklyn... Neutrals are almost worthless and those players that thought that taking racial traits that would help with diplomacy would help them

gain a little bit of power by enticing some juicy neutrals to thier cause were in for

a rude awakening. :blink: There are some more advanced neutrals out there

but by and large they are very very rare and dropping a few marines would certainly take much less time then 'talking' and net the exact same result.

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I'm also with Locklyn on this one. Although I've heard of others occasionally finding an "advanced neutral" with a handful of population and a few worthwhile items, for the most part neutrals have been a major disappointment in this game. I assume RTG didn't want those lucky enough to find good neutrals to get too large of an advantage over other less lucky players, but I think they ended up being way too stingy with them. A few thousand pop running some interesting/advanced installations and with a few hundred thousand tons of advanced items in stockpile wouldn't have been unbalancing in my opinion, and would have given players something to search for and maybe even negotiate/fight over. Allowing for the possibility of some of these goodies being destroyed in an invasion would have given players incentive to try diplomacy while not preventing the more militant players from going their route. These things would have been trivial to have implemented within the current system.

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Agreed. The 2010 neutrals of SN II were a bit unbalancing since a couple of them could equal a HW for production. The neutrals of SN:ROTE need to be beefed up a lot to be worth something. I think a 100 fold increase in pop would be completely justified. A remote neutral with 10,000 pop would require alot of infrastructure help to be useful and then would only be a decent mining world or a minimal industrial base. They would also be alot more fun and interesting if the pop was higher.

 

Even 20,000 pop is not unbalancing, but it would be a gem of a find. It would also justify and explain those neutrals with some really advanced installations and stuff in stockpile.

 

:P

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Agreed.  The 2010 neutrals of SN II were a bit unbalancing since a couple of them could equal a HW for production.  The neutrals of SN:ROTE need to be beef up a lot to be worth something.  I think a 100 fold increase in pop would be completely justified.  A remote neutral with 10,000 pop would require alot of infrastructure help to be usefula dn then would only be a decent mining world or a minimal industrial base.  They would also be alot more fun and interesting if the pop was higher.

 

Even 20,000 pop is not unbalancing, but it would be a gem of a find.  It would also justify and explain those neutrals with some really advanced installations and stuff in stockpile.

 

:P

 

Ditto ditto and ditto! So Pete.... how hard would it be to implement the addition of

larger pop neutrals to the mix?

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I would also say that it would also be a revenue generator. Right now I don't bother with PMAP's until I get close to a potential HW location. I am not likely to colonize 12 away from the HW and a 3 pop neutral isn't worth the time and orders to aquire it. 300 pop on the other had could be quite useful and then I would need to geta convoy route set up to it and move all the materials to get some mining set up and so on...

 

Seems like a win win all the way around..

 

:P:o

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Hobknob forgot my favorite useless item - Plantfood. :o

 

I would have to agree that Diplomacy in SN:ROTE is severely neutered. Most fragmentary empires - Imperial Fragments, Primitive Neutrals or whatever - seem to have very little to offer and require more diplomatic effort than they are worth. Sure I can drop high-tech BBQ grills on them, but I could also drop Imperial Marines on them and get some experience for my military along with the 17 Mark IV Cold Fusion Refrigerators. If you had mad diplomacy skills, I guess it would be fun to see if you could collect the whole set. :blink: But, I don't see that the neutral empires offer much. I might be missing something. I don't think I am, but I admit that I surely don't have a clue as to the 'big' picture of SN:ROTE. (I still dream that there is a big whiteboard at RTG full of nifty upgrades and features that have yet to be implemented.) :blink:

 

It would be nice to see Neutrals that were more mini-Empires in nature than the intergalactic equivalents of rural Georgia trailer parks. :ranting: Although, with my luck, upgraded Neutrals would be implemented and the people would rejoice! :thumbsup: But it would only be in the latest incarnation of 'newbie' space and therefore nowhere near my 'coreward' Empire. :(

 

I concur with my compatriots that 'useless' things, which I define as being of no value or having no real function in the game (being high-tech beads for seducing current neutrals does not count a real function in my book), should be removed from the game. I would go one step further and say that Empires should receive SRPs equivalent to their research cost. However, I would be satisfied if the dead branches of the research tree were just pruned off. The refund would make me truly happy. :D

 

I am ambivalent about the neutral empires at this point. The word is out that they're not worth much, so people aren't spending the points on Diplomacy unless they want to for flavor. Useless items/techs are still a potential time and energy sink that reduce the 'fun' of the game, in my opinion anyway.

 

(All that being said, I also understand that Pete's plate is pretty full regarding SN:ROTE. :blink: So just add this onto the ever-expanding list of scope creep. :P )

 

M2CW,

-SK :P

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I'll add my $0.02 to this discussion.

 

I also think that it would be nice to see the role of neutrals made relavent. It would add some flavor to the game and improve customer satisfaction, which is always good for business. It would also be an incentive for players to go through newly discovered star systems explore each planet in the hopes of finding that 1 in 100 (or 1 in 500 or 1 in 1000) diamond in the rough Advanced Neutral. As Hobknob stated, the likely end effect will be to increase the number of orders submitted which is good for business...

 

I've found one Advanced Neutral to date and had high hopes for it. While I did get a few neat anti-matter engines out of the deal, I found that it really isn't worth the orders to put any effort into tracking down new neutrals, and I haven't expended one order to find more of them. If they changed, I'd go back to neutral hunting.

 

So, it's a win-win for RTG and the customer all around.

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Giving a few SRPs to the conquerer of an advanced neutral  would go a long way toward getting my attention.  Otherwise I too don't even bother with PMAPs.

 

I think it would be an interesting addition if you could gain the SRPs by conquest or diplomatic means. It would be even more interesting if each method of 'acquiring' a Neutral garnered you something different. For example ...

 

Conquest gets you a one time haul of SRPs and 'loot' (i.e. Item stockpiles).

 

Diplomacy gets you less 'stuff', SRPs and/or Items, but gets you additional Legendary Characters based on the 'nature' of the Neutral in question and the level of the relationship. Basically, their Imperial Tradition dictates the type of LCs you might get and the more the Neutral 'likes' you, the more LCs you'd get.

 

Just a thought. :o

 

-SK :P

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Giving a few SRPs to the conquerer of an advanced neutral  would go a long way toward getting my attention.  Otherwise I too don't even bother with PMAPs.

 

I think it would be an interesting addition if you could gain the SRPs by conquest or diplomatic means. It would be even more interesting if each method of 'acquiring' a Neutral garnered you something different. For example ...

 

Conquest gets you a one time haul of SRPs and 'loot' (i.e. Item stockpiles).

 

Diplomacy gets you less 'stuff', SRPs and/or Items, but gets you additional Legendary Characters based on the 'nature' of the Neutral in question and the level of the relationship. Basically, their Imperial Tradition dictates the type of LCs you might get and the more the Neutral 'likes' you, the more LCs you'd get.

 

Just a thought. :o

 

-SK :P

 

 

As I believe that there were plans for social stability of colonies and "acquired" neutrals (I deduce this from various items and installations in the game) it could also be possible to have neutrals react in different ways to acquisition such as Conquest leading to a sullen population that requires you to have troops stationed on the planet whereas diplomacy gets you a more reliable ally. Other approaches could have their own unique impacts on teh stabililty and loyalty of a pop.

 

Even beyond that you could also have instability in the empire if there were not enough consumer goods or luxury goods given to the HW pop as well forcing the classic guns versus butter economic decisions (and adding some value to the Improievd and Advanced items).

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Giving a few SRPs to the conquerer of an advanced neutral  would go a long way toward getting my attention.  Otherwise I too don't even bother with PMAPs.

 

I think it would be an interesting addition if you could gain the SRPs by conquest or diplomatic means. It would be even more interesting if each method of 'acquiring' a Neutral garnered you something different. For example ...

 

Conquest gets you a one time haul of SRPs and 'loot' (i.e. Item stockpiles).

 

Diplomacy gets you less 'stuff', SRPs and/or Items, but gets you additional Legendary Characters based on the 'nature' of the Neutral in question and the level of the relationship. Basically, their Imperial Tradition dictates the type of LCs you might get and the more the Neutral 'likes' you, the more LCs you'd get.

 

Just a thought. :D

 

-SK :blush:

 

 

As I believe that there were plans for social stability of colonies and "acquired" neutrals (I deduce this from various items and installations in the game) it could also be possible to have neutrals react in different ways to acquisition such as Conquest leading to a sullen population that requires you to have troops stationed on the planet whereas diplomacy gets you a more reliable ally. Other approaches could have their own unique impacts on teh stabililty and loyalty of a pop.

 

Even beyond that you could also have instability in the empire if there were not enough consumer goods or luxury goods given to the HW pop as well forcing the classic guns versus butter economic decisions (and adding some value to the Improievd and Advanced items).

 

Or alternatively acquiring a neutral pop group could give your empire a marginal boost to its colonisation bonuses. After all most of these neutrals are on worlds much different from our homeworlds, surely our empires would learn something in the process.

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