ARG! Share your troll starts here.

[keith.lamothe]

Yes only the seed affects the layout of the universe. But things like AI types and difficulty levels, Hybrids (on/off.. what difficulty level).. affect on AI buildings that are seeded into the universe. Like the position of Raid Engines, AI Eyes, Advanced Factories. It's because AIs can only have X amount of Y on every planet (or something like that). If I'm playing with 5/5 Hybrids the universe will have much more Hybrid Facilities which will take space.. so they affect the seeding of other buildings.

It does impact the seeding of other buildings, but not because of a lack of space or capacity or whatever.  It's just because if the game says:

RNG, pick a place for this command station.
RNG, pick a number of fortresses between X and Y.
RNG, pick a place for this Fortress.

in one start, but due to different options says this in another start:

RNG, pick a place for this command station.
RNG, pick a place for this hybrid spawner
RNG, pick a number of fortresses between X and Y.
RNG, pick a place for this Fortress.

Then the number-of-fortress-pick and the fortress-position-pick will get different rolls, despite using the same original seed.

[Magron]

I'm seeing the close by high mark planets as a benefit now.  If you expand using warp jammer stations and don't put the planets on alert to build up they're not all that tough and quite rich.
try it.

[Draco18s]

Then the number-of-fortress-pick and the fortress-position-pick will get different rolls, despite using the same original seed.

Such things have drastically altered my map layouts (in my own games) when tweaking things that effect the RNG.

Like adding ONE additional call to the RNG suddenly produces a pathfinding array-out-of-bounds error due to a rarely seen edge case that was unhandled and the RNG just HAPPENED to place a unit in a spot that caused that scenario.

[Kahuna]

I got rid of the Raid Engine and the wave it sent.

Chthon - Before.sav = before I destroyed the Raid Engine
Chthon - After.sav = after  I destroyed the Raid Engine

I destroyed Ascs 674 (Argon something in your .save file (thanks to a different altplanetnames.txt)) because it has 7 resource asteroids, it's in a good spot and to get rid of the Raid Engine wave and the ships guarding the planet. When you destroy the Command Station it frees all the ships on that planet so they will probably attack. But that was no problem thanks to my defenses. Now you can beachhead the planet and capture it. Aaand Yren (Zyarth's Dominion in your .save file). Or whatever.

All done is less than 1 hour. Vast majority of that hour was waiting for resources and stuff to build.

Load the Before.save and use the 24 Bombers loaded into the Assault Transport to destroy the Raid Engine. Just fly the Assault Transport there.. pause.. unload.. unpause.. pause.. select bombers and order them to attack the Raid Engine and then order a waypoint back into the Assault Transport.. then fly the Assault Transport back home.

You can keep playing these .save files or you can try to copy/study them or whatever.

[Kahuna]

This is relevant to the discussion.

lol'd which version is this screenshot from?
At least Gravity Drills aren't as annoying as they were before the gravity nerf.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, before the gravity nerf those drills may as well have been called "Troll Engines"

[Draco18s]

This is relevant to the discussion.

lol'd which version is this screenshot from?
At least Gravity Drills aren't as annoying as they were before the gravity nerf.

I don't even know any more.  It was a while ago.

Date...Oct 9, 2011... Makes it either 5.018 or  5.019.

[Chthon]

Yea, before the gravity nerf those drills may as well have been called "Troll Engines"

That would have been awesome if they still were that bad.  I love playing multiplayer with my friend Spelguru.  He always picks champion only, and if I know we'll have gravity drills I pick a bonus ship type immune to gravity   Trolololol.  I then complain every time he kills a drill.

[MaxAstro]

I had a start once where in my very first offensive, maybe 10 minutes into the game, some etherjets grabbed some of my units and dragged them through two Raid Engines, BOTH on Mark IV planets within a few hops of my homeworld.

Yeah, I died fast.  Stupid etherjets...