New Guy.....Bunch of Questions

[ledshok]

Hi,

Picked up the game and expansion during the recent Steam sale....and am loving it! 

I've spent some time trawling the forums and wiki but have a couple of questions that I can't seem to find the answers to. Much appreciated if someone could help me out or point me in the right direction!

1. When left-click dragging a selection box over a bunch of units, what does the number in brackets signify? It appears to be some sort of 'non-shooting' unit count as tractor beam turrets, scouts, science labs, etc are included.

2. I seem to have gathered that Core Planets are those neighbouring an AI Home Planet, but what exactly are Core Ships? Is it just another name for a Mark V ship (the galaxy map mentions "Mark V/Core" in the ship counts)?

3. Do Science Labs have a low power mode?

4. What do three flashing question marks over my Command Ships 'quick button' (bottom left) mean?

5. What do the icons under each planet on the galaxy map mean? They are of the various human and AI players colours but I can't figure out what they're signifying. There's a downward-pointing 'arrowhead', and a circle/shield...

Anyway, awesome game, feel like I'm just scratching the surface so far (haven't even tried the expansion yet!). Many thanks for a great game. 

[triggerman602]

1. Yes, the number in brackets are non-military units that are within your selection box. they will not be selected if there are any military units within the selection box.

2. Yes, core ships are simply mark V.

3. Nope. wish they did.

5. Each icon in the planet summery represents a special type of building or unit that is present on the planet. look on the planet for any units with that icon to figure out what is what.

and of course, welcome.

[ledshok]

5. Each icon in the planet summery represents a special type of building or unit that is present on the planet. look on the planet for any units with that icon to figure out what is what.

Thanks for the quick reply triggerman.

Re #5 - I probably wasn't very clear with my question. The 'icons' I was meaning are the ones on the planets themselves (ie the map, not the planet summary that pops up when you mouseover a planet), just under the + that shows who controls the planet.

[x4000]

Welcome to the forums!  And, thanks for your support.

Looks like the majority of these were already handled, but to the remaining ones:

4. That means that you don't know how many enemy ships there are at the current planet, but there are some.  If you have a scout along, then that will change to an actual number (same if it is a planet you own).  Basically, if the red number of enemy ships would be showing on the galaxy map, then that same number shows there.  If it would be blank on the galaxy map, no red numbers, but there are actual enemy ships there, it shows the flashing question marks here.  In earlier versions of the game many players (including myself) would commonly flip out to the galaxy to see how many ships were at the current planet, which is just backwards.  So that number was added to give visibility into that sort of thing on the actual planetary screen itself.

5. Those little icons primarily represent which players have any ships there.  The little upside down triangle just means "there are some ships there." The little circle ones means "there are some starships there" (which usually also means other ships, too, but only one icon per player is ever shown there).  If a little star appears next to a player's icon there, or appears without a larger icon, then that means they have an incoming warp to that planet.  Honestly, those little icons are something that I think most players don't even notice anymore, since a lot of more recent galaxy map features have replaced their function for most people.  Hence why triggerman602 wouldn't even think of what you were meaning.

Hope that helps!

[keith.lamothe]

The little upside down triangle just means "there are some ships there." The little circle ones means "there are some starships there"

I never had known what the difference between the triangle and circle was

[x4000]

Back in alpha versions, before command stations and guard posts existed, starships were absolutely crucial and central to the game.  They were also called command ships.  All your ships were attached to a starship via munitions-boosting-like lines that could stretch as far as you wanted on a planetary map. There were no wormholes, so when the starship warped between planets (which would take about 30 seconds per inch on the screen, more or less, and the line of warp couldn't go through black holes or asteroid fields) it would take all its little ships with it.  The way to win was by killing all of you opponent's starships before they killed all of yours.

Early versions of the game were completely pvp for testing versions, and then when I started adding the AI it was neat to watch it retreat, etc, with its starships.  But at the same time, it was not any more interesting than pvp, which was already getting stale and repetitive with the game.  So that's when I rejiggered the whole thing and turned the idea of what I wanted to do with the AI on its head.  The result was that starships became pretty unimportant, and only the AI retained the ability to warp ships (and this from outside the planet, not into), and warp sensors became a lot less useful, and these icons remained somewhat useful (and so stayed in the game), but not so central as they once had been.

Yeah, this game has evolved a long way...

[ledshok]

Thanks!

[x4000]

My pleasure!

[Awod]

I love hearing stories like this. Makes the game so much more interesting to hear of the history in ages past.

Back in alpha versions, before command stations and guard posts existed, starships were absolutely crucial and central to the game.  They were also called command ships.  All your ships were attached to a starship via munitions-boosting-like lines that could stretch as far as you wanted on a planetary map. There were no wormholes, so when the starship warped between planets (which would take about 30 seconds per inch on the screen, more or less, and the line of warp couldn't go through black holes or asteroid fields) it would take all its little ships with it.  The way to win was by killing all of you opponent's starships before they killed all of yours.

Early versions of the game were completely pvp for testing versions, and then when I started adding the AI it was neat to watch it retreat, etc, with its starships.  But at the same time, it was not any more interesting than pvp, which was already getting stale and repetitive with the game.  So that's when I rejiggered the whole thing and turned the idea of what I wanted to do with the AI on its head.  The result was that starships became pretty unimportant, and only the AI retained the ability to warp ships (and this from outside the planet, not into), and warp sensors became a lot less useful, and these icons remained somewhat useful (and so stayed in the game), but not so central as they once had been.

Yeah, this game has evolved a long way...

[RCIX]

What Awod said.

If you ever do want to make another RTS type game, i'd like to see something PvP; with all of your experience playing Pvp RTses, surely you'd be able to do something in the way of not making it stale; perhaps something in the way of procedurally generated stats or something else far out?

[x4000]

Thought folks might find that interesting. The problem, for me, with pvp rts is that I don't really play them competitively. Playing with just my little group of four is one thing, but aside from that I have logged maybe 500 hours of pvp rts play in the last 12 years. That sounds like a lot, perhaps, but it is really not. I don't even know how much time I have spent playing comp stomp or coop rts, but it was astronomically higher even before ai war.

There is talk of maybe adding pvp modes to ai war at some point, in tandem with an expansion. And doing something smaller scale, but with some really out there mechanics, might be inetesting in another half decade or so (right now my strategy focus is simply ai war). But I think my interest in strategy games might turn to making something turn based at that time, not entirely sure. At any rate, either way it would need to be something super different from ai war, even more than it is different from every other rts, to be really worth creating. I haven't had that flash of design inspiration quite yet.

[Spikey00]

If it was in the previous versions of the game, why not implement it as a "secret" cheat mode?  I previously mentioned that I would like a debug mode where there could be some testing pvp (more for unit balancing and testing than for actual competitive play) because giving units to the AI (which I see isn't working anymore since I left until the recent versions) doesn't fit my exact desires because the AI uses them in ways I wouldn't want them to (ie. destroy harvesters instead of doing my testing [more so recently since harvesters rebuild]...).

Simply put, it:
1)  Would be helpful to unit balancing and testing,
2)  Would suffice those at the moment who want pvp dearly,
3)  Would be consequently, a skeleton mode where it isn't supported, but given to the players as a very basic and simple mode for their own uses until an actual pvp actually is developed.

OP:  http://arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,2841.0.html
Again, my intention was not for pvp (unlike the others that believed it was the main idea) but so testers could create null/existing factions and give them units and make them hostile, then control them specifically instead of having the AI muck about. 

[x4000]

Well, in previous versions this was a turn-based game, too, but that can't be easily added back in either.  This game hasn't had pvp since before... man, before most of the game you would recognize as AI War was there.  Your lungs once had the ability to breathe amniotic fluid, but it's not easy to go back to that stage either.