Stars!: Difference between revisions

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* [[Action Initiative]]: Counted per weapon slot. It rarely matters much, but sometimes it's possible to tweak design for the first strike. Short ranged weapons shoot before their longer-range relatives. Naturally, shield sappers have the best initiative and shoot before all other weapons on the same ship. Battle computers improve initiative, which makes them somewhat useful even on beam ships.

* [[Action Initiative]]: Counted per weapon slot. It rarely matters much, but sometimes it's possible to tweak design for the first strike. Short ranged weapons shoot before their longer-range relatives. Naturally, shield sappers have the best initiative and shoot before all other weapons on the same ship. Battle computers improve initiative, which makes them somewhat useful even on beam ships, though rarely as useful as capacitors (boost damage) or jammers (protect from missiles).

* [[After Action Report]]: All fighting is done by AI on the host, but you get to see Battle Reports.

* [[All There in the Manual]]: "Guts of" (formulae and algorithms) cloaking, bombing, mineral packets, etc.

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* [[Gatling Good]]: 4 weapons, though only 2 available for everyone. Hit all targets in range, also 4× mine sweeping rate.

* [[Imported Alien Phlebotinum]]: Mystery Traders offer exclusive components and ships built of them. Most of this stuff is awesome, but tend to have multiple and high Tech Level requirements. Many are combinations of different component types - most not as good as common components you'll have on those tech levels, but due to using a slot type different from some of the common equivalents allow greater optimization and can be used on hulls normally unable to perform a given function or inefficient at it.

** Alien Miner (Mining): Weak, but ~~light and~~ still much better than Mini-~~Miner~~. Secondary benefits are of dubious ~~usefulness~~ for a miner ~~ship~~, though not ~~completely~~ useless: not being noticed in the first place is the best defense, as miners remain slow even with these robots; and since most of the time they're orbiting and only visible to penetrating scanners (in shorter range), cloaking about 50% for Mini-Miner hull gives a good chance near enemy territory; jamming isn't much against a proper war fleet, but may help against weaker raiders.

** Alien Miner (Mining): Weak, but still much better than Mini and Midget. Lighter than anything but the same starting miners, which is good for gateable designs. Very cheap and thus cost-effective, though miniaturization and overhead reduce this advantage. Secondary benefits are of dubious value for miner ships, though not useless: not being noticed in the first place is the best defense, as miners remain slow even with these robots; and since most of the time they're orbiting and only visible to penetrating scanners (in shorter range), cloaking about 50% for Mini-Miner hull gives a good chance near enemy territory; jamming isn't much against a proper war fleet, but may help against weaker raiders like armed freighters.

** Enigma Pulsar (Engine): ~~It's a~~ Warp 10 ~~engine~~ ~~with~~ built-in maneuvering jet. What could be better for beam ships? ~~And~~ a ~~weak~~ ~~Cloak~~. The last common engine is more economical, but Enigma can be built with much lower tech levels, is cheaper and runs up to warp 5 for free.

** Enigma Pulsar (Engine): Nominal Warp 10 and a built-in maneuvering jet. What could be better for beam ships? Also modest, but free cloaking: greater advantage to the ships with more engines, heavier thus harder to cloak in a fleet, making it actually useful; it's an edge, but rarely critical given scanner ranges at comparable Tech Levels. The last common engine is more economical, but Enigma can be built with much lower tech levels, is cheaper and runs up to warp 5 for free.

** Genesis Device (Planetary): Removes everything except population and generates the fresh planet randomly. Maybe habitable, maybe not.

** Hush-a-boom (Bomb): Just a good bomb, but more importantly, very light.

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** Multi-Function Pod (Electrical) aside of combining Cloak and Jamming effects gives you Movement bonus (normally only two Mechanical components do).

** Multi-Cargo Pod (Mechanical) gives Cloak and Armor (otherwise extra dp are provided ''only'' by things that go into Armor and Shield slots).

** Multi-Contained Munition (Beam Weapon) has weak effects of a cloak, guidance system, mine dispenser plus decent penetrating scanner and bomb, with very modest mass. It's slightly weaker than beam weapons you'll have at its level, and a bit too expensive for "chaff" fleets, but now you can stop making ponderous bombers beyond their primary function useful only as expensive mobile fuel ~~tanks~~, and instead build bombing warships - light enough to use stargates, tough enough to not be easy prey for cheap interceptor fleets ''and'' even when not bombing they still scan, lay mines (at least you won't need to use up one more design slot for a dedicated minelayer), and sweep enemy mines!

** Multi-Contained Munition (Beam Weapon) has weak effects of a cloak, guidance system, mine dispenser plus decent penetrating scanner and bomb, with very modest mass. It's slightly weaker than beam weapons you'll have at its level, and a bit too expensive for "chaff" fleets, but now you can stop making ponderous bombers beyond their primary function useful only as expensive mobile fuel depots, and instead build bombing warships - light enough to use stargates, tough enough to not be easy prey for cheap interceptor fleets ''and'' even when not bombing they still scan, lay mines (at least you won't need to use up one more design slot for a dedicated minelayer), and sweep enemy mines!

** They also circumvent component restrictions from racial traits: Langston Shell, Mega Poly Shell and Multi-Contained Munition are penetrating scanners you can build despite '''No Advanced Scanners''' LRT. Alien Miner is outperformed by the 2nd mining robot, but still performs 2.5 time better<ref>and since it's cheaper, you can build about twice as many ships</ref> than the only component available with '''Only Basic Remote Mining''' LRT.

* [[Jack of All Trades]]: A Primary trait allowing extra population and free scanner automatically upgraded to your Tech Level in any ship built with either of 3 small "scout" (Scout, Frigate, Destroyer) hulls, and a boost to starting Tech Levels.

** '''Generalized Research''' lesser trait allows to allocate only 50% of research spending on the chosen field, but gives 15% into others, i.e. adds up to 50%+5*15%=125% total research points from the same resources. As such, it has cost between minor negative and minor positive values.

** '''Generalized Research''' lesser trait allows to allocate only 50% of research spending on the chosen field, but gives 15% into others, i.e. adds up to 50%+5*15%=125% total research points from the same resources. As such, it has varied cost between minor negative and minor positive values.

* [[New Tech Is Not Cheap]]: Each item becomes cheaper by -4% per [[Tech Level]] exceeded in all prerequisite fields (if it has any), until its resource cost drops to 24%.

** With '''[http://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Bleeding_Edge_Technology Bleeding Edge Technology]''' lesser trait the cost of a new technology is 2x until its Tech Level is exceeded, but improvement is -5%/level with 20% bottom. This sucks on highest-level items, however, since there's no room left for improvement, thus you're just stuck with double cost until the end.

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** Jump Gate ([[Imported Alien Phlebotinum|MT component]]) allows the equipped ships to jump from deep space, with cargo and still not using up any fuel<ref>of course, fuel matters only if the destination is a Space Fort with gate</ref>. In this case the destination stargate's limits apply rather than the sender's. You may need to move away from the colony for 1 year before jumping, however.

* [[Ramscoop]]: There are almost as many Ram Scoop engines as non-scooping. The scooping ones are rated for lower nominal speed (which affects fuel consumption and combat mobility) than normal engines of comparable [[Tech Level]], and they produce surplus fuel when moving another 1-2 notches slower than this. The differences add one more way to break off [[Easy Logistics]] on big maps, creating niches for solutions like chains of fuel depots (which scoops also help to resupply).

** On the upside, ability to sustain moderate minimum speed for unlimited range makes scoops most useful for ships that can't carry enough fuel to reach objectives in reasonable time (unless the map is small) - scouts need to go far by definition, same applies to mid-game colonizers on big maps, while remote mining ships and bombers are too massive for their engine number and fuel reserve.

** On the upside, ability to sustain moderate minimum speed for unlimited range makes scoops most useful for ships that can't carry enough fuel to reach objectives in reasonable time (unless the map is small) — scouts need to go far by definition, same applies to early/mid-game colonizers on big maps, while remote mining ships and bombers usually are too massive for their engine number and fuel reserve, thus need either scoops or expenses on support fleet for decent range.

** There are trade-offs: lower combat speed (matters mostly for beamers and scouts), fuel consumption raises with warp speed much steeper than for normal engines, so usually only ships with particularly large fuel capacity can exceed their nominal speed for 2 turns in a row; [[Space Mines]] inflict more damage to ships with scoops ''and'' their fleets. They tend to be heavier (which matters on smaller ships, and in fringe cases interferes with gate-ability or reduces combat speed further) and more expensive.

** This applies even more to Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop, with lowest Tech levels of commonly available scoops; it also kills some transported colonists ''in the same fleet'' unless the race got rather high radiation ''optimum'' (not even ''maximum'') value. This means not only freighters with rad-scoop are limited to hauling minerals, but e.g. armed escorts with scoops would have to dance around a transport or colonizer as a separate fleet without merging.

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* [[Spiritual Successor]]: Very likely to be inspired by ''VGA Planets'' - it uses many of the same concepts, but has a fairly competent AI, rather than being PvP-only.

* [[Starting Units]]: There are several hardcoded starting designs chosen depending on PRT and LRT.

** Starbases: "Starbase" - Space Station hull half-full of weak shields and lasers<ref>which means it can be beaten with impunity using wimpy starter torpedo, thanks to its greater range</ref>, ~~given mass driver or gate for '''Packet Physics''' or '''Interstellar Traveller''', but otherwise~~ '''not''' upgraded to the higher tech levels no matter what; '''Packet Physics''' has it equipped with mass driver and '''Interstellar Traveller''' with gate; "Accelerator Platform" orbital fort with mass driver on the 2nd planet for '''Packet Physics'''; "Porthole to Beyond" orbital fort with gate on the 2nd planet of '''Interstellar Traveller'''; "Starter Colony" empty orbital fort created when '''Alternate Reality''' race colonizes a planet<ref>help says Orbital Construction Module does this, but in fact standard Colonization Module does the same for AR, while OCM works like a normal CM for everyone else, and even shares its bug.</ref>

** Starbases: "Starbase" - Space Station hull half-full of weak shields and lasers<ref>which means it can be beaten with impunity using wimpy starter torpedo, thanks to its greater range</ref>, '''not''' upgraded to the higher tech levels no matter what; '''Packet Physics''' has it equipped with mass driver and '''Interstellar Traveller''' with gate. "Accelerator Platform" orbital fort with mass driver on the 2nd planet for '''Packet Physics'''. "Porthole to Beyond" orbital fort with gate on the 2nd planet of '''Interstellar Traveller'''. "Starter Colony" empty orbital fort created when '''Alternate Reality''' race colonizes a planet<ref>help says Orbital Construction Module does this, but in fact standard Colonization Module does the same for AR, while OCM works like a normal CM for everyone else, and even shares its bug.</ref>

** Ships: "Santa Maria" colony ship - everyone have one, except those with other colonizers: '''Alternate Reality''' ("Pinta" - the same, but with AR-specific colonizer module), '''Hyper Expansion''' (3x "Spore Cloud" mini colony ships) and '''Interstellar Traveller''' ("Mayflower" - exactly like "Santa Maria" except chosen picture, possibly at some point was intended to be something else). "Smaugarian Peeping Tom" basic scout; advanced scouts are downgraded to Peeping Tom if they don't meet tech level prerequisites. "Long Range Scout" - exactly like "Smaugarian Peeping Tom", except chosen picture. "Armed Probe" - scout with beam weapon (Weapons 3+, or downgraded to Peeping Tom). "Stalwart Defender" hybrid destroyer (Construction 3+). "Teamster" - medium freighter with <s>chain and ball</s> armor (Construction 3+). "Swashbuckler" - hybrid privateer (Construction 4+, or downgraded to Teamster). Shadow Transport ('''Super Stealth''' exclusive) - small freighter with shield and cloak. Shadow Sleuth ('''Super Stealth''', Electronics 5+, or downgraded to Peeping Tom) - scout with cloak. Gadfly mini-bomber ('''War Monger''', Construction 1+, Weapons 2+). Change of Heart orbital terraformer ('''Claim Adjuster''' exclusive). Little Hen and Speed Turtle mini-minelayers for normal and speed trap mines ('''Space Demolition''' exclusive). Cotton Picker - basic mini miner ('''Jack of All Trades''')- "Potato Bug" - midget miner (2x, '''Advanced Remote Mining''' exclusive). And hardcoded, but apparently [[Dummied Out|not used from v. 1.x]] "Lilliputian Freighter" - basic small freighter.

** Designs (except Starbase) are upgraded, while preserving class of each components (per technology browser or design drop list) rather than filling slots with the "best" that fits: if you start with Tech Level 4 in all fields (JoAT all+75% start higher), "Stalwart Defender" destroyer upgrades to your new best beam weapon, scanner and armor, but retains its mostly-useless starting torpedo; "Teamster" armored freighter with new scanner and better armor in Armor/Shield slot, never shield; Armed Probe with better beam weapon and scanner, etc and all ships have your best engine. Also, if you start with Radiating Hydro-Ram Scoop <ref>IT with IFE and Energy start at 3, or JaoT with IFE, CE and Propulsion start at 4</ref>, it will put on everything except colonizers, unless it's safe per race parameters.

* [[Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors]]: The result: Missile Capships > Beamer Capships > Beamer Capships + Chaff > Missile Capships + Chaff > Missile Capships.

* [[Tech Level]]: 6 fields.

* [[Terraform]]: Common, for each of 3 variables separately. '''[https://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Claim_Adjuster Claim Adjuster]''' is a Primary Trait specializing in it - they have free auto-upgraded terraforming, ~~permanent~~ ~~terraforming~~ chance ~~and~~ their ''mineral packets'' hitting a planet terraform it toward their ~~references~~. Total Terraforming lesser trait improves it.

* [[Terraform]]: Common, for each of 3 variables separately. '''[https://wiki.starsautohost.org/wiki/Claim_Adjuster Claim Adjuster]''' is a Primary Trait specializing in it - they have free auto-upgraded terraforming, special components for ships, chance of "permaforming" (changing base values, thus gradual ''unlimited'' terraforming), even their ''mineral packets'' hitting a planet terraform it toward their preferred values. Total Terraforming lesser trait improves it. They can be viable and even competitive at habitability values of 1 in 60 planets or so.

** [[Genesis Effect]]: Genesis Device (MT technology) - it removes all buildings and randomizes environment and minerals on the planet.

** [[Hostile Terraforming]]: '''Claim Adjuster''' has exclusive toys for this - "Retro Bomb" (undoes terraforming and ignores planetary defenses) and Orbital Adjuster (goes into mining robot slot and terraform friendly planets to the benefit of their owners and hostile/neutral to the owner's detriment).