on". It will take a few updates for the F's
damage level to go from 75 down to 0, and you can only build
ships (with the build command) at F's which are undamaged.
Once you've turned a factory on, you can't change the basic
design of the ship, so plan carefully! You can modify the
ship later at double the cost differential (which is new cost
- original cost) provided you can fit the necessary resources
into the cargo bay of your ship. This means that ships with 0
cargo capacity cannot be modified.
vi. What tax rate should I set?
After you've covered the planet and are on the verge of
building ships, start it off with a few percent. This may
vary depending on your race, but I think it is a good rule of
thumb. This small amount will pay for your ships and keep you
from losing morale. Later on, when you're not so worried
about increasing your sector efficiences, you can up the tax
rate (but watch out for insurgencies!). Note that the higher
the tax rate, the less chance you have to increase in
efficiency, and the average.
vii. What's the difference between military and civilians?
Civilians have a fighting strength equal to your race's
fight. Military have fighting strength 10 times stronger than
your civilians. Contrary to what you might think, military
_cannot_ pilot ships _or_ fire guns...only civilians can do
that. Thus, if you have 5 guns on your explorer and 2 mil and
3 crew, you will only be able to fire 3 guns at a time. Also,
if you have only mil on board a given ship (ie. your only civ
on board gets killed by a lucky shot from an enemy), you
cannot order the ship to any destination.
viii. What should I set my mobilization level at?
I've found that it's a good idea to mobilize only a few very
large planets that you may own. The reasoning for this is
long and involved, but you'll learn through experience that
mobilizing small planets (as opposed to building weapons
plants there) only makes them more vulnerable to a metamorph
invasion force. Mobilizing big planets still leaves you
vulnerable to a ground assault (your high mob allows enemy
troops to arm just as easily as you can if they bring their
own destruct and absorb a few hundred civilians, for
example), but big planets require a lot of AP's to take and
require a lower mobilization in order for planetary guns to
come into effect.
ix. How do planetary guns work?
You don't have to load them. These guns will take destruct
directly from your stockpiles (provided you have some dest
there). You can actively use them against ships in orbit
around your planet by using the "defend" command (in the help
files). These guns will also _automatically_ fire on any
non-allied ship that tries to land on your planet...even a
couple of medium caliber planetary guns is better than
nothing. Also, the ship may not be destroyed, but if it is
damaged, there is a chance that it will crash land, thwarting
the attack. You get a certain number of planetary guns
proportional to how many sectors you own on the planet and
how high your mob level is.
x. How do atmosphere processors work?
To put it simply, it doesn't matter who builds a processor...
only who currently owns it. A processor will slowly change
the atmosphere of a planet (rate inversely proportional to
planet size) to the ideal preferences of the owner of the
processor at a cost of 3 fuel per update, which must be
loaded into the processor. The last time I checked,
processors will continue to eat up 3 fuel per turn if they
have fuel to burn even after a given planet is perfectly
atmospherically compatible with the owner, so it's a good
idea to scrap processors once you reach this goal.
xi. What's the quickest way to jump to other systems?
Since you receive jump technology at a tech level of 50, your
best bet is to have a ship ready to modify once you get
there. If you're going to build a large fleet of jump ships,
you'll save a lot of res by just building a factory and
starting it up AFTER you've been able to design the ship with
jump included. Some players, though, prefer using a few
heavily armed explorers or Terraformers (which have large
hanger and fuel capacity for long jumps) which they modify
for jumping as soon as they can, saving a few updates by not
having to wait for a factory to come on line.
xii. How do I get hyperdrive on board ships?
In order to get hyperdrive aboard ships such as e's and T's,
you must first have a given number of resources in the cargo
bay. The amount depends upon the new cost of the ship with
hyperdrive minus the old cost (double that to get the cost of
the upgrade). That means you must be able to fit that many
resources _on_board_ your ship to make the upgrade. For e's,
big cargo holds aren't very common, so you might find that
you have to "bootstrap" your way up by upgrading the size of
your cargo hold. See the "upgrade" command in the help files
for more info. In case the help files aren't very
enlightening, here's an example of how to build a jump
capable terraformer: > build T 2,2 (let's say this gives you
T #1456 in sector 2,2)
> load #1456 r 18
> cs #1456
> upgrade hyper (now you've got hyperdrive capability)
> load #1456 r 16 (assume you want to add a crystal mount)
> upgrade mount (now when you jump, you'll do it in one
update,
and you'll use a _lot_ less fuel, if you've
got a crystal in the mount, of course)
> load #1456 x 1 (assuming you have a crystal on the planet)
> mount #1456 (now you can take advantage of your xtal mount)
Say I wanted to increase the hanger capacity of my T, here's
how I would do it:
> cs #1456
> load #1456 r 2 (This can cost 2 or 4, depending on your T)
> upgrade hanger 6 (Default hanger of a T is 5...you must
also have a high enough tech to build this kind
of ship)
xiii. How do I build ships in space?
Well, the way to do this is get a ship into orbit with the
resources you need. You can use just about any ship, but a
shuttle works just fine. You can load it with an infinite
number of resources, but you just can't land an overloaded
shuttle...so you _don't_ need ships with huge cargo bays to
build some of the larger structures like H's, O's, S's, etc.
You can get resources onto the shuttle by ferrying them up
from the surface with another ship. Once you have done that,
change scope to your shuttle, and type "build ".
This will create a new ship docked to your shuttle. You can
then launch it or do whatever you want with it (but be
careful about trying to land damaged ships! Some ships are
built with a certain damage level that must then be
repaired...others can't land at all).
xiv. How come I don't have any resources yet?
Often, races with low metabolisms and/or small homeworlds or
worse, a combination of the two, will take painfully long to
start generating any resources. You can help alleviate this
problem by buying a reasonably high metabolism. I usually
find that 1.0 gets me off fairly quickly, but if I have the
points to spend, I'll go higher. High metab isn't so crucial
for Jovian races since they start with huge homeworlds, so
this minimum could go down to around 0.85 or so, in my
opinion.
xv. How come my pods didn't explode when they reached their
destination?
Speaking from personal experience only, pods can explode at
an update or a move seg. The chance of this happening for
each pod at each update/segment is around 30%. Thus, if your
pods arrive at a system, go ahead and set them on course for
nearby planets. Some might actually get there before
exploding, giving you a new colony in the early parts of the
game.
xvi. How do I get a list of where my crystals are at?
Once you are at tech 50, you'll be able to see the location
of all crystal sectors on planets you have explored. At
times, these sectors will be covered by structures built by
you or someone else (such as F's, a's, Y's, etc), but you can
get around that problem by using "toggle geography" and than
viewing the map.
xvii. How do I get crystals?
If you occupy any crystal sectors, you have a chance,
depending upon that sector's efficiency, to mine a crystal at
every update. Once you've mined from around 1-6 crystals from
a given sector over time, it will revert to a "normal"
sector.
xviii. How do I get a list of ship types I can build?
Try "build ?" which is described under "help build." This
will give you a summary of ship types. If you want detailed
info on a specific ship, type "build ? x" where x is the
letter that represents that ship type.
5. Final Warnings and Advice
If you see a bug, tell the deity in charge. Period. Many games are
thrown out of balance by players who find bugs and exploit them.
If you're really in this to have fun and play the game well, you
shouldn't need to cheat to win.
Remember that some types of ships are built with damage that takes
a few updates to repair. This means that you'll have to plan
ahead, and, more importantly, don't try to land these or any other
damaged ships unless you want to risk losing them! You have a
percentage chance equal to the ship's damage of crash landing and
possibly destroying your ship!
Use the "tactical" command often to check for the presence of
enemy ships which may not show up on your map. Remember, to check
an entire system for enemies, it might be better to do a "tact g"
rather than just a "tact." This gives tactical reports for your
planets only (which is still full coverage most of the time) and
avoids repetitive tact reports from every single one of your ships
in system. Also, be careful what orders you give in Universal
Scope (the top level)...sometimes, asking for tact reports from
all of your ships (or even just stock reports) can tie up the game
and waste a lot of everyone's time.
Remember that some types of ships can't be built in factories,
most importantly ships such as Stations and Habitats. To build
something like this, you can overload a shuttle in orbit! Also, be
sure you know what the rules are for Habitats in your game (ie. do
they produce extra resources every turn? If so, how many?).
If you've got "smart guns," learn how to use them and take
advantage of them! Don't get caught off-line at an update only to
have everything you hold dear destroyed simply because you didn't
set up a protection network.
The beginning of the game is a critical time when you need to get
your race started off and several updates occur very close
together in order to get things moving. When you sign up for a
game, be sure you can make this first update "blitz" or you may
find yourself hopelessly behind.
--------------------------------------
********************* I M P O R T A N T ***************************
Finally, remember that the deity of the game is there to help you.
If it weren't for him/her, you wouldn't be playing GB at all.
So don't whine. Be polite. Make constructive comments.
It'll be easier for everyone that way.
********************* I M P O R T A N T ***************************
--------------------------------------
*** RELAX. IT IS ONLY A GAME. ***
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
History: Jan 17, 1997 - Converted to HTML - Evan Koffler