User:Shard

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[edit] Sun Tzu 2.0

(Planets 4 veteran, VGAP 3 expert).

I'm a big believer in Sun Tzu's maxim of 'know the enemy and know yourself and in 100 battles you will never be defeated' - so I'm still learning about the game and hopefully contributing a bit at the same time.

[edit] Ship Race Table - with Notes

I'd like to be able to add notes to the device lists for the various ships, so I'm going to add an extra column to the SRT (Ship Race Table). In fact, I'm going to create a whole new table to avoid affecting the existing one (SRT2).

Test bed:

[edit] Ships with this Device

The Colonies of Man Celestia celestia notes
The Commonwealth of Mivorari Mivorari Atlantis Space City notes
The Interstellar Master Traders Vegetarian Orbital Fort
The Privateer Bands Lady Royale more notes
The People's Army Propaganda Luxury Cruiser propaganda notes
Independence Cruise Carrier
The University Alliance Hive Class Carrier notes denotes

[edit] Shard's Guide to moving from VGAP 3 to Planets 4

Some info for getting started.

You'll need to download the latest version 4 from http://www.planets4.com/, follow the planets 4 and download links. In addition, you normally need all the updates that have happened since the latest version was uploaded (there aren't any right now). There are some installation instructions in the newbies guide linked below. On top of that, there are often also patch updates (for host, client and race packs) that are usually available on Drewheads (Game Info, Downloads, or just click here: http://vgap.drewhead.org/cgi-bin/wrapper.cgi?file=files).

Following the help link on that page takes you to the main planets 4 help, which isn't bad but is incomplete and some of it is out of date.

There is an excellent 'getting started guide' at http://www.vgap4-info.org.uk/VGAP4-Int/english/index.htm, follow the newbies guide link. I recommend going through the whole tutorial.

There's a stack of information for newbies at GRG Zone: http://www.grgzone.com/games/planets4/index.html, although I don't use this one much.

There's also loads of info here on this wiki, which is more up-to-date than the official site.

And finally, there's another excellent Planets 4 site, Klingon Kommand: http://www.furfur.demon.co.uk/geop/vgap4.htm, which contains more advanced strategy guides and links to all the available race guides. Also on this site is a list of key differences between version 3 and version 4 http://www.furfur.demon.co.uk/geop/vgap4newstuff.htm. I recommend reading that one first.

Some other differences:

[edit] Military stuff

  • A much greater selection of weapons on ships, which are either small weapons, large weapons or super weapons.
  • A greater selection of defenses on ships - a shield (one of ten types), armor and point defenses (PD), plus each ship has an 'evasive bonus' which indicates how likely it is to dodge weapons (0 = no chance).
  • Some of the weapons, armor and point defenses have 'special abilities'. Some races get bonuses using particular weapons or types of weapons. The various weapons and PD have different ranges.
  • Torpedoes have been replaced by 'ordnance', which is general purpose explosive stuff. Not all weapons or PD use ordnance, beam weapons just use 'power'. Ordnance is also used for mine laying. There are now 5 different types of minefields.
  • There are 20 different engine types, with different max speeds (and therefore different ranges), and different power outputs. The power output can be increased by adding generators to ships, so beam weapons will recharge faster.
  • All races get three types of fighters. These can be organised into 'wings', which can contain up to all three types of fighters. The wings share power and ordnance during a battle. Wings can be moved around like ships, and can attack on their own. Some fighters have a range of 400 ly!
  • Over half the ships now have one or more 'devices'. There are lots of these (99). The Cloaking Device is familiar, as are the various 'mine laying' devices, the Alchemy Forge, Fuel Converter, Glory Devices, Hisser Units, Gravitonic Accelerator, Bioscanner, Global Warmer and Global Icer. Mine sweeping and mine laying can now only be done by certain ships with special devices.
  • All races can now board each other's ships in order to try an capture them. For most races the target ship needs to be damaged or the ship doing the boarding needs a special device called a 'boarding laser'.
  • Ground attack is also more complex now. In addition the various kinds of people in your empire you can also build assault units to help with ground attack and ground defense.
  • All ships can be refitted with the latest gear when a new tech level becomes available.

[edit] People stuff

  • Clans have gone. You now just have numbers of colonists.
  • You don't just have colonists any more, you have crew, troops and 'high guard' as well.
  • Your whole empire is linked to the number of colonists you have. You get 'resource points' based on your population size, so if a lot of your colonists die you might not be able to build ships or create wings an more.
  • High Guard are your Jedi or Sith or Captain Kirk types. You need one on each warship, and they can help with ground attacks and with boarding other ships as well.
  • All the people now travel in the 'passenger' accommodation of ships rather than the cargo bay, or frozen in pods (see below).

[edit] Economy stuff

  • Planets now have bases. It's possible to have multiple bases on a single planet (one for each race).
  • There's a range of new structures in the bases, so you are not just confined to factories, mines and defense posts any more. Some of the structures are used for building ships and parts for ships. Some races also get starbases so they can build ships in space as well. Some large ships can also be used to build ships.
  • You still need MC, supplies and the usual selection of minerals. You now get mineral 'ore' as well as pure mineral, which might need to be smelted down to pure metal (smelters are not really required, as mineral mines also do a bit of smelting).
  • You now need food for your colonists. You can get this from farms, which also produce a little money.
  • You also need a few medical packs to keep your colonists happy.
  • Factories now convert money into supplies, so don't build too many too early.
  • You can build 1 city per 100000 colonists. Cities produce 100 MC each per turn.
  • You can also build undercities to get money as well.
  • One of the most important structures is the pod launch pad, which can be used to launch pods of just about anything into orbit or send them to other planets (usually slowly). So you no longer need lots of freighters running around (although some have pod bays and so can move pods faster...).
  • The same selection of natives are still there, although they have changed a bit. Amorphous natives are now among the most valuable, and there is a new native race called 'chupanoids' that are a plague that will eat all your food.
  • A lot of races now have the ability to build terraforming structures, as well as using terraforming ships.

Enjoy the game!

[edit] Essential Links

Basic stuff

More advanced stuff

Stormer related

[edit] Todo list

  • nowt right now

[edit] Miscellaneous Ideas

None of these have been implemented ;). I've stuck them here so I don't forget about them.

[edit] Colony Pods

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.vgaplanets4/browse_thread/thread/a38f87f153394d8a

I was thinking that it might be nice to be able to put everything needed to start a small base into a single pod.

I would propose a maximum capacity of 10'000 5000 colonists, 200 food, 200 med units, 200 supplies and megacredits. It would be colonists only, no crew/troops/hg.

I think this would help to get rid of a fair bit of micromanagement in the early part of the game.

Suggestion: Allow construction pods to carry ore too, to free up an object type for colony pods.

[edit] Racial Dislike

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.vgaplanets4/browse_thread/thread/b16d0b3877d837b6

I was mucking about with a race concept for an (another!) environmentally friendly race and I was thinking about how to give them a racial dislike or even hatred of the "we destroy whole biospheres for profit" IMT. I've seen a suggestion on one of the discussion pages the wiki of 'not being able to turn off attack commands against a particular race' and I didn't think that went far enough. I was thinking that generally speaking this kind of racial dislike option might be an interesting option to have in a game - personally I don't think the EE and Rebels should be able to ally, or the Colonies and Robots for that matter. Or the Draconians and Coalition. Or the Borg with just about anyone!

My idea would be to (configurably) link the race commands to happiness - so if you're playing the Rebels and you disable 'Attack!' against the EE a wave of unhappiness would sweep across all the bases in your empire every turn. This could be linked to population size, with the biggest bases being the worst hit. Sharing any data or allowing commands would have a similar but reduced effect.

I was also thinking of two levels of this - dislike and hatred. So dislike would cause a noticeable but potentially manageable unhappiness effect (e.g. Feds and Stormers might be candidates for 'mutual dislike'), whereas hatred would cause your population to start rioting in the streets after a turn or two. The actual values for the unhappiness negatives, and who feels what level of emotion about who could all be configurable (the whole lot could also be turned off by one switch), so could be mucked around with to find a balance, or altered to match the requirements for a particular game (a 'no alliances' game could have everyone hating everyone else for example).

As the Borg don't suffer from unhappiness I would suggest not allowing them to change any of the Ally Commands at all, and make them at least disliked by all other races (except possibly the unassimilatable Crystals).

I guess there is also the potential for going the other way and getting a happiness boost if you turn off attack options against a race that you get on well with (or maybe if the other race is simply not in your dislike/hatred list). Because not being at war is something that your colonists are likely to find comforting.

A first pass of some potential dislikes and hates: (TODO convert this to a table!)

Just about everyone (should!) dislike the Privs and Borg I think!

  • Feds - dislike Stormers, Privs - hate Borg
  • Lizards - dislike Privs, Borg, Crystals
  • Birds - dislike Feds, Lizards, Privs, Borg (Loki)
  • Stormers - dislike Feds, Privs, Borg
  • Privs - dislike Borg, Crystals, EE, Bots, UEA, Scavs (contraband

lockdown, mines, competitors)

  • Borg - N/A
  • Crystals - dislike Lizards, Stormers, Privs, Crystals, Cols, Peeps, Solorians, IMT (Crystals + scalar wave amp = nightmare for everyone

else)

  • EE - dislike Privs, Borg - hate Rebs
  • Bots - dislike Stormers, Privs, Borg, UEA, RCS, Aczanny - hate Cols

(some insectoid competition going on)

  • Rebs - dislike Privs, Borg - hate EE
  • Cols - dislike Birds, Privs, Borg, Crystals - hate Bots (someone has

to dislike the Birds!)

  • Peeps - dislike Privs, Scavs, Aczanny - hate Borg, IMT (assimilation

or grinding up of natives = big no no)

  • UA - dislike Privs, Borg
  • Scavs - dislike Privs, Borg, EE, Peeps, Aczanny, IMT (makes things a

bit more challenging)

  • Dracs - dislike Privs, Borg - hate RCS
  • UEA - dislike Privs, Borg, RCS - hate Bots (insectoid hatred)
  • RCS - dislike Privs, Borg, Bots - hate Dracs
  • Aczanny - dislike Borg, Scavs, RCS - hate Bots (insectoid hatred)
  • Centaur - dislike Privs, Borg
  • Solorian - dislike Privs, Borg, Crystals
  • IMT - dislike Privs, Borg, Crystals, Peeps, Scavs

No-one dislikes the UA or Centaurs yet. The Rebels and Birds are popular too. The Bots I think need to be a little more disliked than they are.

[edit] Mercenaries

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.vgaplanets4/browse_thread/thread/5ee24b4aee2c2864

TODO condense that discussion into a simple, meaningful proposal for NPC mercenaries.

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