Jump to content
Rolling Thunder Forums

Helpful information for new players


Clan Elder 'Keen
 Share

Recommended Posts

/agree SK

 

100%! :drunk:

 

I've heard quite a lot of this:

 

"If it weren't for the people, I'd have dropped along time ago....."

 

Ultimately, this is the battlecry for all players in all games. In some instances, it reflects a player's boredom, in other instances, a player's disappointment.

 

No game lasts forever.

 

Sadly, I think that as we lose more vocal members on the board, we'll lose the others. This underlines the importance of having something other than a bulletin board to strengthen the community. :beer:

 

I'm not sure I want to know how many active players there are. I'm going to guess that there are at least 75-100 active empires, and as we know, many of us run more than one empire....

 

BTW

 

The Galactic Senate was my attempt to add something more. I think it was misinterpreted as some power play...but it was myattmpet to psice up the diplomatic process nonetheless. If anyone has any ideas, I'd be happy to contribute.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 49
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

SK,

That sums it in a nice concise manner.

I'm sure that the response will be something like see "letter to our players."

 

In reference to the software, what do people out there have? I am currently working on some spread sheets that would be considered simple to most advanced users. But I'm new to this spread sheet thing but they do excite me.

 

What are the chances that our community would share their spreadsheets for use? What if we as a community figured out what we need and developed something that most of us felt was useful? I know Phasdragon made some stuff but I was never able to make most of them work. Thoughts anyone?

 

Eternus,

You are big wild flower, and if you start coming up with ideas for something like the senate you can count me in. I need something to keep my interest up, however, I'm short on ideas at the moment.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe the problem with Phasedragons program was it's dependance on a static format. If any changes are made by RTG then it won't work. It also has problems with the latest adn greatest Acrobat Reader version.

 

For myself I use several Excel spreadsheets that pretty much cover everything that I need from ship designand production to mapping.

 

:beer:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the software front, I have been talking to some of fellow (RL) engineers and programmers about how to tackle this very issue. Most of them don't play SN:ROTE, however, they do like a challenge. This isn't a monolithic challenge but it does come with some interesting aspects, like the ability to just "scan" in your turn results, multi-empire management, predictive SURV success rates, auto production queue generation based on NUD design, etc. :drunk:

 

I'm getting re-invigorated about the Empire Management Tool project, but I worry that it will be too little, too late. :beer:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That is certainly one opinion.  For myself I think it boils down to a couple of things.  Start with points enopugh to buy your way to beter JSS's, some armor and at least 1 weapons sytem as far as you can go.  Bridge systems I can do without as a couple of commanders will fill the void in a pinch.  All of this should only use about 1/2 your points.  If you saved less points then you won't go as far, etc..

 

The other half of the equation is on infrastruture needs.  I would never pass up the opportunity to get to improved industries or well on the way to industrial science boosts.

 

I would not spend any points on ground combat.

 

Knowing what I know today I would certainly consider spending points on horizon techs as well as improved and advanced resources.  It all depends on wharer your priorities lay and what your game plan is.

 

:)  :cheers:  :drunk:

 

Good point. I did overlook the importance of production capacity.

 

Each player joins the game with their own goals and preferences. And boosting your production capacity early by spending research points on Industrial Science and related Horizon Technologies is a valid goal.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here is my opinion on startup Production. And yes, I know, everyone has an opinion.

 

Obviously, the first thing you need is stockpile of construction materials. If you don’t have enough in your stockpile on turn 1, then don’t produce anything else until your population is fully employed. From then on, plan on using tooled production to make enough construction materials to keep up with your population growth. I made the mistake early in the game of not producing enough, and then had to drop everything to catch up.

 

You need 500 construction materials per population unit for all of the regular installations, plus plenty extra for power plants. The number of power plants you need depends on too many factors to list a clean and simple formula here, you will need to come up with your own estimate. Religious facilities also require a huge amount of construction materials. I don’t believe they serve any purpose on your home planet, but I could be wrong about this. And I do know that if you use the DIP command to add a Neutral Pop Group to your empire, then these religious facilities can help attract a few additional population units. If you want to role-play a religious society, then by all means, build up your religious facilities on the home planet. Plus you will need some extra construction materials for future colonization projects.

 

The number of mining facilities you need to build for each resource depends on the planet’s yield rating in each of those resources. Peak production occurs with a number of facilities equal to 5 times the yield rating. Here is some additional math:

 

R = resource yield ratings from Geological Survey (GEO).

I = number of mine/mill installations producing that resource

P = average tons of resources produced per installation

T = total tons of resources produced for the population group

 

P = (R-I/10)

T = IP = I(R-I/10) = RI-0.1I**2

dT/dI = R-0.2I (It hurts the brain cells to recall that Calculus stuff.)

 

The peak of the production curve occurs at dT/dI = R-0.2I = 0

I=5R

 

Total production for the pop group will be

T = RI-0.1R**2 = 5R**2-2.5R**2 = 2.5R**2

 

Next, you need Steel, lots and lots of Steel. You can begin producing Cargo Bays, Fuel Tankage, Colonial Berthings, Troop Berthings, Drone Racks, and Fighter Bays right from turn 1. These items are only made of Steel, and they don’t become obsolete with research. Fuel Shuttles, Survey Landers, and Troop Shuttles also never improve with research, so you can build them early in the game and then switch to building high tech items later.

 

Most of my production queues take place at priorities 100 through 2000. This way I can add BI commands below priority 100 in an emergency. And I also enter something like this:

BI 5,000,000 Steel Popgroup 3000 N

BI 15,000,000 Iron Popgroup 3010 N

This way, all of my production capacity is always used for something.

 

Here’s another idea that you may (or may not) find useful. I produce Fuel in a separate population group. It has enough Stripmines and whatever fuel production facilities to make a good amount of Fuel each turn. This way I don’t ever have to re-enter the BI commands. My main pop group changes its BI commands relatively frequently. But the Fuel producing pop group never changes. I also have a separate pop group that produces ground divisions. Since I don’t have any of the resource yields to make Food Concentrates, that pop group just runs on Stripmines. The tooled BI commands get set up to produce Food, Weapons, and Armor, and those never change. Then I occasionally make Textiles or Black Market Goods when necessary. You can also TRansfer these items from your main production pop group if you have Transportation Centers in both.

 

If you are planning to build production colonies, then you will need enough Colonial Berthings to get the job done. I’d say the goal is to send out a number of Colonists every turn equal to your population growth. This way, your home world population stays steady. (This is a very flexible goal.) Multiply your population growth times the number of turns for a round trip to the colony. If you are colonizing a planet in your home system, then a 2AP fleet can do one round trip per turn. Colonies outside your home system will take longer. Transwarp Drives and better Engines can help with this. But after doing the math, you will discover that it takes an enormous amount of production to accomplish this. The sooner you get started, the better. Because later on you will want to devote your production capacity to more wiz-bang cool stuff. Once again, I didn’t get started on this soon enough. After playing for 3 years, I still don’t have enough Colonial Berthings.

 

If colonization is not one of your major goals, then you will end up with a large population on you home planet that is employed in Stripmines and Industrial Complexes. In this case it would be a good idea to begin building Improved Heavy Machinery and Improved Construction Materials as early as possible so that you can convert your facilities quickly when the time comes.

 

After spending some of those Saved Research Points and achieving a reasonable tech level on ship components, you may want to start going out and exploring the universe around you. I’m not going to get into ship design here. But I strongly recommend leaving a small (1 kiloton) ship to stand picket duty at every warp point you visit. Give each of these fleets an XSENSE order, and maybe an XLFE order, and then leave them stationed at their respective warp points for the rest of the game. Give them a ROE of Q so that they don’t start a fight. And don’t worry about weapons, armor, action points, etc. since a ship this small with beginning technology can be destroyed by a puff of wind if a fight ever does develop. The only things these ships really need are sensors, and you don’t even need sensors to spot most alien fleets. But anyway, this is the only way to keep track of other empire’s fleet movements in your neighborhood.

 

Beginning empires struggle with a lack of fuel for a little while. But in no time at all, you end up with a huge overstock. There are a few different ways to get fuel out to your fleets as they move about the universe. You can use convoy routes, X commands, SKIM commands, pop groups for fuel depots, and tanker fleets on SUPP duty. This article is already getting too long and there are lots of options for refueling fleets. So I’ll skip it here. But you will need lots of Fuel Tankage, and possible lots of Fuel Shuttles.

 

This should get you well past the starting stages of the game. You will quickly discover your own preferences on how best to use your empire’s production capacity. Next step: SPREADSHEETS!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some added thoughts to Sargon's commentary

 

On Fuel: Sargon mentions that he has a separate pop group make Fuel for his empire. There is another common method where skimming the HW is effective.

 

Build an orbital facility over your HW with Fuel Tankage and Fuel Shuttles. Build enough Fuel shuttles to fill the tankage in one turn. Use the following orders.

 

XSKIM

XOC "Fleet#" "HW Pop Grp #" "All"

XSKIM

 

and put the fleet on SUPP

 

If you produce enough fuel, you can fuel the new ships you build as they come out of the shipyard and you also stockpile fuel on the HW for other items.

 

 

 

On Exploration: While you are building colonization items, you may also want to build some JSSs as you do the research and add to your exploration fleet. After all those Pathfinders with their Mk I JSS are not going to help you get very far. Without an Explorer character you will only crack class B WPs and so you will need some ships with better JSSs. Therefore make sure that you set up some production of Electronics (and Improved Electronics) to support your Exploration efforts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Build enough Fuel shuttles to fill the tankage in one turn

I'm surprised. I did try skimmers designs to some length and I'm pretty sure that engines are cheaper than shuttles, meaning that a 3 AP ship (which needs 3 SKIM to fill its tankage) is cheaper than a ship which would have three times the number of shuttles and an old engine. This with MkII fusion engines. Would I be wrong once more?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Build enough Fuel shuttles to fill the tankage in one turn

I'm surprised. I did try skimmers designs to some length and I'm pretty sure that engines are cheaper than shuttles, meaning that a 3 AP ship (which needs 3 SKIM to fill its tankage) is cheaper than a ship which would have three times the number of shuttles and an old engine. This with MkII fusion engines. Would I be wrong once more?

 

Depends on your preference. In Ali's example- with a fleet over the HW- all you need is one Mk I Nuclear Engine (giving you the default 2 AP), which would allow:

 

XOC

XSKIM

 

Different for Gas Giants (and especially for GG outside your Home System), unless you have one fleet just sitting over the GG, a POP on the GG, and another fleet transferring the fuel to a depot (or wherever).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Build enough Fuel shuttles to fill the tankage in one turn

I'm surprised. I did try skimmers designs to some length and I'm pretty sure that engines are cheaper than shuttles, meaning that a 3 AP ship (which needs 3 SKIM to fill its tankage) is cheaper than a ship which would have three times the number of shuttles and an old engine. This with MkII fusion engines. Would I be wrong once more?

Depends on your preference. In Ali's example- with a fleet over the HW- all you need is one Mk I Nuclear Engine (giving you the default 2 AP), which would allow:

 

XOC

XSKIM

 

Different for Gas Giants (and especially for GG outside your Home System), unless you have one fleet just sitting over the GG, a POP on the GG, and another fleet transferring the fuel to a depot (or wherever).

 

It also depends on "when" you are in the game. Early in the game, you can't build Mk II Fusion Engines, but you can build Mk I Nuclear Engines (and Fuel Shuttles and Fuel Tankage). I agree that once you have better engines, you can get more 'bang' out of your Fuel Shuttles by putting them on a high AP ship. However, it doesn't get much more inexpensive than a 2AP ship (using a single Mk I Nuclear Engine) with a Mk I Nuclear Jump Drive to travel between systems. :drunk:

 

-SK :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Build enough Fuel shuttles to fill the tankage in one turn

I'm surprised. I did try skimmers designs to some length and I'm pretty sure that engines are cheaper than shuttles, meaning that a 3 AP ship (which needs 3 SKIM to fill its tankage) is cheaper than a ship which would have three times the number of shuttles and an old engine. This with MkII fusion engines. Would I be wrong once more?

 

Depends on your preference. In Ali's example- with a fleet over the HW- all you need is one Mk I Nuclear Engine (giving you the default 2 AP), which would allow:

 

XOC

XSKIM

 

Different for Gas Giants (and especially for GG outside your Home System), unless you have one fleet just sitting over the GG, a POP on the GG, and another fleet transferring the fuel to a depot (or wherever).

 

 

Actually Hughestrog, you don't not need any engines. All you need is Fuel Tankage and Shuttles if you are over your HW. You get 2AP as a default even if you have no engines.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share


×
×
  • Create New...