Author Topic: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?  (Read 121476 times)

Offline x4000

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AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« on: October 06, 2010, 07:52:58 pm »
Please see this feature idea for reference: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=317

Or, to quote Winder Born:

Quote
A sticky on the main board inviting members to post their favorite tip or a "I wish Id known this sooner" tip could go a long way to populating a tip database.

So here we are.  Please post either in this thread, or as suggestions in the new Suggestion - Tip of the Day Ideas category on the bug tracker (in this case, either is fine with us, as the maintenance to add these is pretty low).

What did you wish you'd known sooner than you did, when it came to AI War?
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Offline lanstro

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2010, 08:51:45 pm »
- on the galaxy map, pressing 'q' shows the number of ships you have in all the planets, while pressing 'k' shows the knowledge you've harvested from each planet
- on the 'normal' planetary screen, pressing 'd' selects your space dock, pressing 'b' brings up the build menu and 's' selects any science vessels: means you don't have to find those buildings
- while you have ships selected, holding the 'v' key while right clicking somewhere will put those ships into 'free roaming defender' mode, which basically puts them on automated guard mode on that planet
- in a multiplayer game, each player can have a separate set of power stations on each planet, so gift each teammate a set every time you take a planet
- in a multiplayer game, you can gift fabricators to share them around the team
- if you put 2 or more shields over a key asset (eg your home command center), in an emergency, you can repair one while the other is being hit, buying you the time you need for your fleet to come back and rescue it

Offline Winter Born

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2010, 09:59:42 pm »
The "L" key

Select some ships - Hit the "L" key and now you have 1/2 the original selected ships, again 1/4th
I often use it to select some engineers to assign to a task or ot grab a few scouts to send on a mission.

Offline Lancefighter

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #3 on: October 06, 2010, 10:34:01 pm »
that ctrl-L took 1/3 of units..

and thus you can make 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, 1/6, 1/8, 1/9.... etc. (damn you prime numbers! 5, I'm looking at you)

Or, that scout starships are ideal to bring with your main fleet (countersniper + tachyons) all the time. No more losing your entire fleet to spider turret fire..
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Offline Affine

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #4 on: October 06, 2010, 11:07:02 pm »
After clicking the "reactors" button to bring up a list, you can shift-click to turn them on or off.

Offline unclean

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2010, 12:13:02 am »
- If you place a forcefield over a wormhole entrance you can push enemy units directly onto minefields.

edit, remembered a couple more!

- Zenith Space Time Manipulators can be used to make "highways" between the various battle fronts of your empire.

- Cloaker Starships can be combined with Transports to cloak HUGE numbers of units at once.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2010, 01:36:03 am by unclean »

Offline Lancefighter

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2010, 12:38:57 am »
oh yes, on that - cloaker starships provide counter-sniper and counter-dark matter fire. Oh yeah, and cloaking super-boost.

Dont underestimate the use of any of those abilities either :p

(fun missile delivery system - cloaker starship + warheads. Once you clear out the wormhole tachyon emitters, including the cloaked ones, you can send the entire group through cloaked. Makes for some fun surprises when hybrids get lightning warheaded back to the clone vat..)
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Offline Shardz

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2010, 12:53:40 am »

You can press the F12 key for screenshots that will be saved within the game folder.

(I actually suggested this in our weekly polls and just noticed last week that it made the cut! :D)

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2010, 04:49:48 am »
- on the 'normal' planetary screen, pressing 'd' selects your space dock, pressing 'b' brings up the build menu and 's' selects any science vessels: means you don't have to find those buildings
Would like to extend this tip with "t" as well to select the starship constructor. The space dock, science vessel and starship constructor are the most used structures on your planet. Having a quick access to those are excellent!
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Offline Ozymandiaz

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2010, 04:52:55 am »
Forcefields can "free" your units from tractors :)
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Offline Winter Born

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2010, 12:45:31 pm »
Transports can load tractored units. Click on the tractored units and tell them to load in a transport, fly the transport over the ships and they will load into the transport. The sweet spot is small so several slightly different passes may be required to recover them all. Also works on ships with dead engines.


Dragable planets / Custom galaxy maps for each player in multiplayer in the galaxy view. Organize your galaxy map so that it makes sense for you. Group stars and have your teammates look at your map to see your priorities/suggestions.

Offline Giegue

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #11 on: October 09, 2010, 06:11:59 pm »
if you destroy your command post on a Dyson sphere planet, the Dyson sphere reverts to being your friend. if you can handle a few hostile Dyson gatling guns, this is a great way to capture advanced reasearch or golems.

Offline RCIX

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #12 on: October 12, 2010, 06:35:45 am »
Free Roaming Defender works on engineers :)
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Offline Eagleheart

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #13 on: October 18, 2010, 07:36:24 pm »
Don't put ships on FRD mode for offense.  ;)
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Offline zebramatt

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Re: AI War "Tip of the Day" -- What do you wish you'd known?
« Reply #14 on: October 20, 2010, 06:49:57 am »
- on the 'normal' planetary screen, pressing 'd' selects your space dock, pressing 'b' brings up the build menu and 's' selects any science vessels: means you don't have to find those buildings
Would like to extend this tip with "t" as well to select the starship constructor. The space dock, science vessel and starship constructor are the most used structures on your planet. Having a quick access to those are excellent!

Most of these shortcuts no longer apply!  ;)
« Last Edit: October 20, 2010, 08:03:53 am by zebramatt »