Specific Component Mechanics Questions

[Alphanos]

I have several questions about the functionality of specific components that I'm hoping people here can answer =).

1) I've noticed that each star has stats available for the "quantity" of different radiation types that it emits. Does this affect the functionality of energy collector components? If so, how do these interact? Similarly, does distance from the star matter, or is it all the same within the system borders?

2) The energy to fuel converter has a fuel production rate, but I'm hoping for more information. Does this production function on the same timescale/units as energy consumption/production? What are the requirements for the components to activate on a station/ship? In particular, if a station has full fuel tanks, can it save extra produced fuel to provide to ships that dock, or can the component only provide for the needs of the station itself?

3) Ship weapons have different graphical representations, and I'm unclear about how accurately that reflects the internal game mechanics. For example, the race-specific wave weapons have relatively slow-moving energy "shots", which can visually appear to be dodged more easily. Does this mean that they are in fact less accurate than e.g. beam weapons? Or is that just graphical flavour? Any information about the relative accuracy of different weapons and what affects them would be helpful =).

Thanks!

[OzoneGrif_slith]

1) Distance from the star matter for collectors. That's why you must put more collectors than the static energy because they won't produce 100% energy at all times. I'm not sure about the radiations, but I've read a few years ago that it wasn't implemented.

2) It's the same timescale and I'm pretty sure it produces fuel directly in the tank, so no sharing with other ships.

I don't know about 3.

[Bingeling]

1: As far as I know the star properties do not matter. Collectors always works the same. I think the original intention may be different, but as long as in a star system or gas cloud collectors should work just fine.

3: I would safely assume that graphics is just something to make stuff pretty. Any targeting info should be shown on the component if there is some. I find "hit or miss" somewhat hidden and irrelevant, but there is a targeting component.

There are also countermeasures and other things that it is not very easy to see the effect of.

[Joking_Phantom]

2) I tested the energy to fuel converter component once in a stationary star base located by a star. Every tick (which was around a week but hard to pinpoint), the station would produce 49 hydrogen and 49 caslon placed in the cargo bay. This is unfortunately one of the components on the Galactopedia that has practically no documentation of numbers and functionality, stating only that it must in a star system and on a stationary object. Based on my experience, you can place these in any stationary object with cargo and docking bays located in a star system to refuel ships (refueling ships deployed anywhere once EtF converters are unlocked, star ports or star bases). Objects that use fuel as well replace their fuel if its available in their cargo bay (which also happen to able to store far more fuel than the best fuel cell). The trick is actually getting the fuel in there, so bases without EtF converters and energy demands higher than that supplied by energy collectors will require freighters to support them, especially bases in deep space that cannot be self-sufficient for their energy. I don't even think its possible for military ships to use cargo bays to store fuel, the level of micromanagement just isn't possible by the game UI (!opinion).

Since caslon and hydrogen are both prevalent in the galaxy, used by colonies for growth, and are both produced by EtF converters, I usually keep some designs like civilian freighters based on caslon, while my military ships suck up hydrogen since those are more efficient. If you specialize your military ships into specific roles, like using escorts to actually escort civilian ships and outposts, I suppose its feasible to keep those on caslon as well. Jeeves outdated DW guide says that there is often more hydrogen than caslon in the galaxy, and if you look into the resource.txt file you'll see that hydrogen does indeed occur more often (50% chance of caslon on gas giants and 56% for hydrogen with same distribution statistics, higher stats for respective gas clouds as well).

3) Not too sure about this one, but from experience I've seen all weapons miss their shots. A substantial amount of shots usually miss. The Galactopedia lists distance to and speed of the target as influences on accuracy, but whether or not that's harder aiming or faster ships being able to dodge the shots is not clear.

[Oberst_Klink]

While we are on the subject of components and how they work together or which ration, e.g. armor-shields, energy collectors-reactors, engines-directional thrusters...

a) what do most of you use in attack ships, engines:thrusters, any special ration, e.g. 2:1, 3:1?
b) noticed pirates ships, e.g. escorts/frigates make heavy use of rail guns, perhaps to bypass the shields. so, smaller ships for close combat with rail guns or blasters?
c) any 'perfect' solution or amount of boarding modules per ship? e.g. pirates even equip their escorts with them.

Thanks folks!

Klink, Oberst
@Ubreacer,Icebu System Terran Republic

[Aeson]

a. There is no 'special ratio' or 'golden number' of thrusters to use. I tend to like my ships to have cruise speeds around 20 and turn rates around 15-20 degrees per second, but how many thrusters that is depends on which thrusters you're using and how big your ship is. I tend to prefer raiders and fast attack ships to be a little faster, with a cruise speed around 30 and a turn speed closer to 20 degrees per second.

b. Entirely up to you. Small ships are easier to make fast, so they're theoretically better at using short-range weapons, but they're also more easily destroyed.

c. If I'm designing a ship to perform boarding actions, I like to make it relatively small (200-300 size, roughly) and put two or three boarding modules on it, and give it enough firepower to wear down shields and enough speed to catch enemies. Then I'll put it into a squadron with other ships like it. If I'm designing a raider meant for harassment, I'll make something very fast with 1 boarding pod, and that also gets built into squadrons if I can afford it (I only build raiders as a pirate faction). Other ships I typically do not bother equipping with boarding pods, unless I want to up the boarding defense. Incidentally, if you open up the design screen and look in the lower right corner of the design overview, you'll see a panel labelled 'weapons' and another labelled 'defenses'. Boarding strength is listed under weapons, and gives you an idea of how strong your boarders are, while boarding defense is listed under defenses and gives you an idea of how difficult it would be to take over a ship of this size with this many boarding modules on board. Habitation modules give ~20 boarding defense each, and you can expect one habitation module per 100 size units (unless you're using the scaling options, size can be estimated by comparison to your own ships - if a ship's sprite is similar in scale to your cruiser's sprite, then the ship is roughly the same size as your cruiser).

[Oberst_Klink]

Thanks for the input and suggestions mate!

Klink, Oberst