This section contains some information on game mechanics. For example,
if you want to know how many units of organics your planet can make in a
turn, you could probably find it here.
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Please send me any cool tricks you think of. I'll list the ones I know.
- Before you attack a planet check to see if it is set to sell. If it
is, buy all the energy. The planet's beams and shields will be made
useless.
- If you need to go to a special port and don't particularly care
where you go afterwards, shop at good old sector 0. After you're done
wait around and let the update that runs every 6 minutes place you in a
random sector. You effectively get a free move. Of course, this only
works if you're hull is over the allowed federation space limit. I call
this the "sol bump".
- Whenever you buy an EWD, buy a warp editor to go along with it. That
way, if you get attacked you can easily create a link back to wherever
you were before. If being there is important that is.
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Planets can produce all sorts of things. Here goes. By the way, all of
the commodity production rates assume you're producing at 100% capacity.
If you're putting 50% towards a commodity, for example, it would take
twice as many colonists to make the same number of said items.
- Colonists reproduce at the rate of 1.0005 * your current population
each turn. So, it takes 2000 colonists to have one baby each turn. Man,
these guys need some more mood music I guess.
- Money left on the planet will increase at the rate of 1.0005 *
current money on planet each turn. In other words, you get .05% interest
on your cash every turn. This works out pretty well if you have lots of
money.
- It takes 20,000 colonists to make 1 fighter each turn. The number of
fighters produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .01
- It takes 20,000 colonists to make 1 torpedo each turn. The number of
torps produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .01
- It takes 800 colonists to make 1 unit of ore each turn. The number
of ore units produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .25
- It takes 400 colonists to make 1 unit of organics each turn. The
number of organics units produced is as follows: number of colonists *
.005 * .50
- It takes 800 colonists to make 1 unit of goods each turn. The number
of goods units produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * .25
- It takes 2000 colonists to make 1 unit of energy each turn. The
number of energy units produced is as follows: number of colonists *
.005 * .1
- It takes 67 colonists to make 1 credit each turn. The number of
credits produced is as follows: number of colonists * .005 * 3.0
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Hull Sizes by Tech Level ( Updated)
This list will show you how many items you can store in your holds.
This list also represents armor, shields, beams, torps, and fighter capacity.
I have shown up to tech level 55 That's the highest level that we currently support.
The formula for figuring out the capacity of your holds or other tech levels you will have is 100 * (1.45 ^ (the tech level in question)).
Round off that number and you have your answer.
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100
100
200
300
400
600
900
1,300
1,900
2,800
4,100
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5,900
8,600
12,500
18,100
26,300
38,100
55,300
80,200
116,400
168,700
244,700
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354,800
514,500
746,100
1,081,900
1,568,800
2,274,700
3,298,400
4,782,600
6,934,800
10,055,600
14,580,600
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21,141,900
30,655,700
44,450,800
64,453,700
93,457,900
135,513,900
196,495,200
284,918,100
413,131,200
599,040,300
868,608,500
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1,259,482,300
1,826,249,400
2,648,061,700
3,839,689,400
5,567,549,700
8,072,947,100
11,705,773,300
16,973,371,300
24,611,388,500
35,686,513,300
51,745,444,300
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Upgrade Costs by Tech Level ( Updated)
This is a listing of how much it costs to upgrade to a certain tech level.
For example, upgrading from level 0 to level 1 costs 1,000 credits or upgrading from level 27 to level 28 costs 134,217,728,000 credits.
New: We now display the worth of level 0
To work out your next single device upgrade cost you subtract the cost of your current level from the cost of the level you want to upgrade to then multiply that by 2.
For example, say your hull level is currently level 15 and you want to upgrade the hull to level 35, you would calculate it like the following:
Cost = (( cost of new level 35) - ( cost of current level 15)) * 2
Cost = (( 17,179,869,184,000) - ( 16,384,000)) * 2
Cost = ( 17,179,852,800,000 *2) = 34,359,705,600,000 Credits.
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500
1,000
2,000
4,000
8,000
16,000
32,000
64,000
128,000
256,000
512,000
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1,024,000
2,048,000
4,096,000
8,192,000
16,384,000
32,768,000
65,536,000
131,072,000
262,144,000
524,288,000
1,048,576,000
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2,097,152,000
4,194,304,000
8,388,608,000
16,777,216,000
33,554,432,000
67,108,864,000
134,217,728,000
268,435,456,000
536,870,912,000
1,073,741,824,000
2,147,483,648,000
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4,294,967,296,000
8,589,934,592,000
17,179,869,184,000
34,359,738,368,000
68,719,476,736,000
137,438,953,472,000
274,877,906,944,000
549,755,813,888,000
1,099,511,627,776,000
2,199,023,255,552,000
4,398,046,511,104,000
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8,796,093,022,208,000
17,592,186,044,416,000
35,184,372,088,832,000
70,368,744,177,664,000
140,737,488,355,328,000
281,474,976,710,656,000
562,949,953,421,312,000
1,125,899,906,842,624,000
2,251,799,813,685,248,000
4,503,599,627,370,496,000
9,007,199,254,740,992,000
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Combat is tricky. I'm going to lay it out one step at a time. First
we'll do ship to ship combat, and then we'll do ship to planet combat.
This is basically an English representation of the code. Now, those of you
who complain about not being able to read the PHP code can quiet down.
One very important thing that I want to stress is this. In a fight, you
use 100% of your fighters. You only use 2% of your torps. This is because
the torpedo launchers mounted on your ship can only launch a salvo equal
to 2% of the maximum torps you can carry. Make sense? I hope so.
VERY IMPORTANT ADDITION TO VERSION 0.1.14 COMBAT: Combat now
requires energy for beams and shields. If you have 20k energy on your ship
and your beams can support 25k beams and your shields are at 25k shields,
you'll actually get 20k beams and 0 shields. The reason is that beams use
energy before shields do. In this example, you'd have to have 50k energy
on hand for beams and shields to both be at max power.
Ship to Ship Combat
Ship to ship combat happens in a very straightforward manner. Here we
go. I'll be using the following method to determine who is the attacker
and who is the defender. a_shields is attacker shields. d_shields is
defender shields. No here we go.
- First, a_engines and d_engines are compared. A chance to attack is
determined by this formula: success=(10-d_engines+a_engines)*5. This
number is then compared to a random number between 1 and 100. If the
random number is higher than the success number, the attack goes on.
Otherwise you get a message saying "Target out maneuvered
you!".
Here's an example. If your engines are 13 and his engines
are 16, then we calculate the success rate as (10-16+13)*5. The result
is 35. Hence, you have a 65% chance (35% chance to fail) to
succeed.
- Second, a_sensors and d_cloak are compared. A chance to attack is
determined by this formula: success=(10-d_cloak+a_sensors)*5. This
number is then compared to a random number between 1 and 100. If the
random number is lower than the success number, the attack goes on.
Otherwise you get a message saying "Unable to get a lock on
target!".
Here's an example. If your sensors are 7 and his cloak
is 3, then we calculate the success rate as (10-3+7)*5. This result is
70. This means you have a straight 70% chance of success.
I know
this looks the same as the above engines check, but here you get the
success percent right away. There you have to subtract from 100. Looks
like two different people wrote this code. Incidentally, there's always
at least a 5% success or 5% failure chance. Nothing is certain.
- Okay, now combat is a go. If the defender has an Emergency Warp
Device, it is used and the defender is sent to a random sector between 1
and the max sector number, which is 5000 in this game. Combat, of
course, would end. If the defender has no Emergency Warp Devices, combat
is continued.
- First, beams are exchanged against fighters. The a_beams will
destroy up to half of the d_fighters and vice versa.
For example,
you have 20,000 beams and he has 14,000 fighters. Your beams will take
out 7,000 fighters (half) and leave you with 13,000 beams left over. If
you had 20,000 beams and he had 47,000 fighters, you would take out
20,000 fighters. That would leave you with 0 beams and leave him with
27,000 fighters.
- This step only happens if either player has any beams left. Assume
we have beams left. The a_beams will go against d_shields. If the beams
are higher, they will negate all of the shields and there will still be
some beams left over. The same thing goes for the defender's beams
against your shields.
For example, you have 7,000 beams left over
from the previous step. Your opponent has 20,000 shields. Your beams
would take away 7,000 shield points and your beams would be done. If he
had had only 6,000 shields, your beams would have taken away all shields
and left you with 1,000 beams left over.
- This step also only happens if there are beams left over from the
previous two steps. In this step, a_beams are matched up against
d_armor. If your beams are greater than his armor, then he is going to
die. If your beams aren't high enough, you just take away that many
points of armor.
For example, you have 3,000 beams left over and
the opponent has 40,000 armor. You'll take away 3,000, leaving him with
37,000 armor. If he had 3,000 armor or less, he would die in the
conflict. Death equates to an armor rating of 0 or less.
- Now we have an exchange of torpedoes. In this version of the game
(blacknova.net 3/6/01) torps have a damage rating of 10. This is
something that can be changed in the config file, so it might not always
be the same. First off, torp damage is calculated by multiplying the
number of torps you have by the torp damage rate. So, if you had 400
torps, your torp damage would be 4,000 (400*10).
If the defender
has any fighters left, the torp damage will take out up to half of them.
It's basically the same as with the beams. So, if your torp damage is
4,000 and d_fighters is 5,000, you will take out 2,500 fighters. That'll
leave you with 1,500 worth of torp damage to work with. If he had had
10,000 fighters, you would have taken out a full 4,000 of them. You
wouldn't have any torp damage left though.
- If you have any torp damage left, it is applied to the defender's
armor. So, if you had 4,000 torp damage left, you'd take away 4,000
armor.
- Now, fighters attack. Your original fighters total is subtracted from
his fighter total, and his original total is deleted from yours. This
might not seem immediately intuitive, but it is. I'll give some
examples.
You have 40,000 and he has 36,000. You'll end up with
4,000 left over and he'll end up with 0. You have 20,000 and he has
20,000. You'll both end up with 0. You have 15,000 and he has 27,000.
You'll end up with 0 and he'll end up with 12,000.
- If there are any fighters left, they are applied to the defender's
armor. So, if you have 34,000 fighters left, you can do 34,000 damage to
d_armor. If the defender doesn't have enough armor left, too bad.
- The last step is to test whether or not either player is dead. If
either player has armor of 0 or less, they are dead. If you die, life
sucks. You learned a hard lesson. If your opponent dies and you live,
you get some money based on salvaging his ship. If you want to know how
much, look in the code. I'm tired.
Ship to Planet Combat
This works almost exactly the same as above. If the defender's ship is
not on the planet, then the planet is considered defeated if its shields
and fighters are reduced to 0. The planet has no armor, so skip the part
where you attack the opponent's armor.
If the planet's owner is on the planet, then things are somewhat more
complicated. You should understand how combat works from the above
listing, so I'll just list the order in which things happen.
- Your beams can take out up to half of the planet's fighters.
- Planet beams take out up to half of your fighters.
- Owner beams take out up to half of your fighters.
- Player beams go against planet shields.
- Planet beams go against your shields.
- Owner beams go against your shields.
- Your beams go against owner armor.
- Planet beams go against your armor.
- Owner beams go against your armor.
- Your torp damage takes out planet fighters.
- Your torp damage takes out up to half of the owner's fighter.
- Planet torps take out up to half of your fighters.
- Owner torps take out up to half of your fighters.
- Your torp damage goes against owner's armor.
- Planet torp damage goes against your armor.
- Owner torp damage goes against your armor.
- Your fighters go against planet fighters.
- Your fighters go against owner fighters.
- Your fighters go against planet shields.
- Your fighters go against owner armor.
- Planet fighters go against your armor.
- Owner fighters go against your armor.
- If your armor is 0 or less, you die. Bozo.
- If owner armor is 0 or less, he dies. Good job.
- If you're alive, he's dead, and the planet has no fighters or
shields, you win and get the planet. Well played.
See, I told you it was easy.
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This is something I wrote in the forums... thought it belonged here.
Standard cut 'n' paste action. Here goes:
Also, I've seen planets that have 100 million colonists on them
already. I'm gonna give a short lesson right now on why you should NEVER
colonize a planet to 100 million people.
First, I pose a question. How many extra, and conveniently free,
colonists does a maxed out planet make per turn. The answer is zero.
Now, how many new colonists could be produced by 100 million peeps if
they were allowed to reproduce. The answer is 50k peeps. At 5 creds per
peep, that's a value of 250k per turn for free. You don't even have to
transport them from a special. They take care of that on their own.
Now imagine that you don't have 100 million peeps on one planet, but 50
million each on two planets. Now, each planet will make 25k peeps per turn
and you'll get your 250k credits worth between the two planets.
Those two planets will take exactly 1387 turns to reproduce until they
are full. You will gain free colonists, which means free money, on every
one of those turns. If you had just the one planet, you'd get nothing for
free.
Now imagine that you had spread those colonists over four planets
instead of two. It would take each of those four planets 2774 turns to go
from 25 million peeps to 100 million peeps. You'd be getting free people
for that many turns. Ultimately you'll get an additional 300 million
people for free. At 5 creds per person that's 1.5 billion credits for
free. It's spread over 2774 turns, but it's still a damn lot of credits
for free.
I assume you see where I'm going with this. Residual income is a gold
mine. By spreading the same number of colonists over a greater number of
planets you are increasing the total future amount of residual income. The
only downside is that you have more planets to defend. The upside is that
even if you lose one, you have other equally large planets to rely on for
income.
Hence, the moral of this story is not to colonize to 100 million. It's
dumb. I am going to suggest a maximum colonizing limit of 15-25 million
colonists. That gives you a solid planet, but also gives you plenty of
time for the planets to grow. That's just a suggestion. Use your own
judgment.
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