questions...

[vmxa1]

I am not sure what you are talking about when you say drive window. Do you mean when you design a ship and one of the sections has the drive specs?
We are talking about Moo2, right? I have been knwo to get my wires cross at times.
Anyway two numbers for drives 1- parsecs speed, the distance you can travel with that engine.
2- combat speed. This how many sectors you can move during combat.
Black holes can force you to go around, adding distance, so if they are in the path you maybe required to go farther than the f9 says. I am not sure how reliable it is anyway.
Did the fleets have all ships of the same range? IOW do any have older engines or fuel cells. Remember that if you have aquired new cells and have not been to a star base, then the ship would not have that new tech.

[vmxa1]

vee4473 , mystery solved. The deal is that if you used f9 to go from sol to those destinations, you get the numbers you mentioned. The key is it does not matter how far they are from sol in determining if you can go there, it matters how far as to the amount of time need only.
The distance from the nearest system of yours is what determines if you can go to a given place.
F9 from Fluvius to Zwreg or what ever it is called is only 5 parsec, so you can go as you have 5 parsec engines.
The nearest planet to Curisa or whatever it was was 6 parsecs.

[vee4473]

very interesting vmx

thank you very much!

so you are saying that the distance that a fleet can travel is judged not by the system that the fleet is in but by how close the destination system is to your nearest colonized planet?

that explains it i think


am i weird for being so confused? is this mentioned in the manual somewhere that i overlooked??

[vmxa1]

Somethings you may want to consider for this game or the next. BTW I did not notice the game settings, but they do have an impact.
You did not build structures in many of the planets I looked at and worse was that Sol had the planetary super computer, but it was not queued up. You can not win with out getting at least some place close to parity with the other races and better yet a lead. How soon this occurs is a function of the difficulty settings and your race as well as the location you inherit.
It is best to create a custom race so you can get the most power availble. Game setting and style of play are factors here as well.
You need to expand in any 4x game to get power (more pop more money more research and less for them).
So if you are playing in a prewarp game with a non creative race (my normal) the tech choices you make are going to make or break you and when to make them.
If a research blitz player, you may want to get on the task of science, if colony blitzer you will put the research off a bit to get colony bases or ships going.
Maybe the most important move is to get to the research labs quickly and then build them. This is often the only RP you will have on that planet for awhile.
Getting the tech to create colony ships and outpost is a top priority.
Most will then move on to get Automated factories to boost production for further builds.
Somewhere in the Mirved thread you will find a save game with detailed logs that will at least give you a good idea of what you may want to do.

[vmxa1]

Originally posted by vee4473
so you are saying that the distance that a fleet can travel is judged not by the system that the fleet is in but by how close the destination system is to your nearest colonized planet?

that explains it i think


am i weird for being so confused? is this mentioned in the manual somewhere that i overlooked??

Yes it is mention on page 31 where it says in the second paragraph thata fleet can only travel as far from a friendly colony or outpost as the ship with the shortest...........

[vmxa1]

So as you can see one way to extend your range is to create an outpost and drop it someplace. This acts as a colony for travel purposes. You can drop then on gas planets or whatever. I tend to stick them on a planet I want to colonize soon. Once you send a colony ship, it will turn the outpost into a marine barracks. If you are a Unification race, you may want to sell, otherwise you have a morale boost right away.

[vee4473]

thanks for all your help vmx

i know my save game must seem like an amateurish mess, but like i said i just bought the game a week ago and have really only been focused on how the star travel system works, which i may add is a bit confusing.

I have played Civ games for a long time and thought MOO would be a great change of pace since I love space settings and science fiction.

Love that SMAC, but always thought it was lacking because it wasn't a TBS game in space with ships and such..it was just civ on another planet..but damn great game!

but i must say MOO2, although it has some comparable elements to civ, takes a bit of time to get used to.

[vmxa1]

Yes a learning curve for sure. I played all of those games forever and a day. Civ/Civ2/Civ3/PTW, SmaC/Smax is like you say not really a space game, just civ in a different planet.