I've been playing MOO2

[Blake]

I played MOO2 a bit a long time ago, but at the time I was a bit obsessed with other games so didn't give it proper justice. So I *ahem* acquired it, was dissapointed to find it run buggy at best on Win2k, so set up an old P266 with Win98 for some MOOing. Back when I was playing a long time ago Creative was still at 6pts, and the Creative Telepathic combo was particullary Overkill. Now Creative seems much better balanced, even if Telepathic is strong as ever.

I've read err, most of this forum so found the things like the quick guardian kill techniques, the statis field one is really easy . Then I tried the EMG Merc one, but couldn't get the missile timing right. Well, after a bit I gave up trying to make my MERC fleet work (through repeated reloads), so self destructed some of the ships and noticed that an exploding cruiser can take down the guardians shield quite nicely, so next wave to attack the Guardian was 4 Cruisers with simple loadout.
4x ARM Merc.
2x EMG MIRV ECCM Merc
Battle Pods, RH, Augumented Engines, Fast Racks.

The Guardian surges forward and damages one cruiser. I hit done for all the cruisers, the first cruiser dies and another is hit by the guardians Beam, now the guardian is in range, so I move one cruiser forward and self destruct, taking out the shields, then I move another forward and fire the ARM then EMG missiles point blank into the Guardian, which promptly dies. I always seem to be using this technique now, just grabbing some "obsolete" Cruisers or BB's to bust the shields, and some cruisers with the MERC loadout. Except having Loknar that early is just pathetic because he can take on the universe by himself.
(Can we use BB for Battleship here? I picked it up when playing Stars!)

Now I actually have a pressing question, regarding Aquatic Races, I like races like Demo/Aquatic/Creative. But whenever I play an Aquatic race it seems I get a ludicrously good start, as in a couple of neighbouring systems will have nice big water worlds, and there will be some nice Tundra worlds too. Sometimes I even have a Terran world in my starting system, which is mind-bogglingly good. I never seem to get these good starts with non-Aquatic races.
So is it pure coincidence or does the game try to place some nearby planets where Aquatic can use their bonus? In particular I can see how the Terran world can end up in the starting system, the game probably wont put two terran worlds in one system, but a Water world (the HW) and Terran world is legal.
In one game playing Aquatic/Subterr/Creative I got a terran world in my home system, and about 3 Water worlds in nearby systems and I think another terran world as well, all unguarded by monsters. One of the water worlds had Alien Artifacts as well and was of equal quality to my homeworld.

[Whoha]

Did you have the neutron scanners? the minimal fleet is quite small and depends on alot of luck, I tend to just go in with 5 or so battleships with the mirv mercs.

I've never particularly noticed the aquatic bonus but I tend to play in mineral rich galaxies.

[vmxa1]

I used BB fro battleships as that is the USN designation and I was a swabby once.

You had to mention Stars and remind me the SuperNova is dead, huh.

So I cannot address the probabilities of you worlds, but if you use the game setting you can increase the chances for those planets occurring.

I mean if you use Mineral Rich, you will see lots of bad ecology types and less for your aqua to like.

[P-K]

Aquatic races have 66% more chance to find wet worlds on organic galaxy. However even with this bonus i rearely see those nice planets anyway.

[Croesus]

Maybe you just notice the wet worlds more, because they are more valuable? Finding an abundent ocean world for most races only allows around 6 pop, whereas for a aquatic, you get 18 (not actual numbers). So, you just glance over the swamp/tundra/ocean worlds if you are playing something else.

[Blake]

I tried running a bunch of starts with an omni race in an large average universe and counted the number of ocean worlds, it seems that normally theres about 2 or 3, while with an Aquatic it's not unusual to find 4 or 5, and there seem to be a lot more wet worlds than dry worlds. So no special treatment for the Aquatic, but the presence of the aquatic does seem to give the universe an overall boost to wetness, making an Average universe look like Organic Rich. Mind you, highly unlikely conincidence still can't quite be ruled out.

I tend to like Ocean worlds regardless, because they are easy to farm, often have alien artifacts and are easily terraformed to terran.