Play recommendations

[Davin]

For those of you using GTac, I'd like to recommend that you use the Check For Errors choice on the Actions menu before submitting each turn. This will alert you to many common problems, such as running out of PI, before you lose an action during actual processing.

[Davin]

For those of you designing missile-based warships, you might like to consider an additional action.  Missiles will normally fire in any combat, which is what you want for a large battle.  But when you're fighting something trivial, such as an intruding scout, this will cost you a number of missiles that then have to be resupplied and reloaded.  This is quite annoying at best, so there are actions to help you with this.

Using the COMBAT action (with ATTACK) or the STANDING action (with DEFEND) you may specify a minimum fleet size on which to use your missiles.  That way if your large fleet encounters a only a few scouts or cargo ships or fighters, they won't waste their missiles on them.  (Presumably you'll also have other weapons in your fleet that can take care of the small ships themselves.)

[Davin]

If you're designing ships with only missile and drone weaponry, you might consider saving some PI on their movement.  Normally, impulse drives are used in combat for both attack and defense, and for P-weapons this is quite important.  However, missiles and drones, once fired, maneuver independently and no longer use the impulse drives of the launching vessel.  Therefore, such ships use their impulse drives for defense only.  It is sometimes practical to save money by reducing the impulse drives to "-1" if you're not as worried about their defensive factor, since extra engines will not help offensively.  Of course if the ship gets destroyed then you have to build a whole new one to replace it, but cutting back the number of engines can sometimes save so much that you can afford to field two or three times as many ships for the same cost.

[Davin]

Does anyone have any other recommendations that they'd like to request?

[Lugh]

I have a question (more accurately, a series of related questions)...
What happens to a fleet if its flagship is destroyed during combat?  Does the rest of the fleet continue to fight the combat under the orders issued to the flagship?  What happens after the combat is over (assuming some ships in the fleet survived)?

Thanks!

[Davin]

If a flagship is destroyed during combat then it ceases being a flagship, but all the other members of the fleet continue to fight and retain the same orders as before.  They got their individual orders when the fleet did (or when they joined the fleet) and those persist.  However, they are no longer joined to the destroyed flagship and surviving members will show up as independent ships on your report, and these will continue to have the same orders as before.

If the surviving ships are themselves flagships of their own sub-fleet then those joins persist and there will be several fleets remaining instead of one big fleet.  These can be re-joined together into a single fleet as desired.

Does that help?

[Davin]

Here's another tidbit for everyone...  If you don't like an existing classification code and/or name you may use the CLASSIFY command to reclassify the existing definition (without DECLASSIFYing it first).  You may NOT change the design specs (rating) of an existing code but you MAY change the code of an existing rating.

For instance, if you decided that you don't like the code FX for your empire and would rather use C10, you might rename it using a command such as:

Code:

CLASSIFY  C10   Small Cargo  /;;10/20-1

This can be done even while ships exist with that design.  They will simply have their classification code changed and will otherwise continue as before.

One thing this also means is that you cannot have two classifications with the same design - the new name will instead be applied to the old classification (and any ships).  So if you're meaning to create a new design you might first check to make sure that rating is not already in existence or else you'll be renaming the old design.

[Lugh]

If a flagship is destroyed during combat then it ceases being a flagship, but all the other members of the fleet continue to fight and retain the same orders as before.  They got their individual orders when the fleet did (or when they joined the fleet) and those persist.  However, they are no longer joined to the destroyed flagship and surviving members will show up as independent ships on your report, and these will continue to have the same orders as before.

If the surviving ships are themselves flagships of their own sub-fleet then those joins persist and there will be several fleets remaining instead of one big fleet.  These can be re-joined together into a single fleet as desired.

Does that help?

Yes, that does help.  Thanks!

[Davin]

Here's another tip for you...

When doing lots of colonizations in the beginning of the game you may well find yourself short on actions available.  One reason might be because you're loading PI on each individual freighter before sending them out to Chart.  If so, you can save a lot of actions by Joining the freighters together first, doing a single huge Load command on the flagship (which loads the whole fleet), and then sending them on their way separately with Chart orders.

Organizing your actions this way is efficient, but be careful of the order in which you enter them.  Joins must come first, then the Load, and then the Charts.  Otherwise things won't work out the way you planned.

(Don't Join up more ships than you wish to use this turn or else you may find the extra ships tagging along with the flagship when you send them out.)

[Davin]

While I'm on the subject of the order of your actions, do pay attention to the order in which you do things, in general.  The game will process your actions strictly in the order in which you enter them.  As long as you're dealing with different ships on each action (the usual case) then you shouldn't have much trouble.  But occasionally you'll want to do something tricky by processing multiple "before-group" actions in a particular sequence.  These will typically involve actions such as Join, Assign, Load, Unload, and Detach, so just keep an eye out whenever you try something tricky.

For those of you using GTac, there is a menu choice under <Actions> that allows you to <Sort Actions>.  This does NOT just alphabetize them.  Instead it sorts them into a logical sequence so that if you've got something out of order it should put it in the right place.  For instance, it makes sure that your Classify actions happen before the Builds that try to use those designs.  It also groups all of the same action types together, so all your Builds are in one place and all your Scouts are together, etc.  Those of you with OCD issues will love this but many other players also find it helpful to see things laid out very neatly (and easier to spot things you didn't mean to do) and know that there won't be any problems with things being out of place.

(BTW, this sorting process has never yet produced an ordering that didn't do exactly as a player intended, but if you ever run across such a situation please send me an example.)