Xs and Research ships

[Ghostbear]

Yeah, yeah, I've got the manual and the strat guide but if someone would answer this question I'd give them a slightly used neutron blaster...

Antaran Expeditions - Is this a special mission? How do you set a fleet to do this?

Research at Black Holes and such - In one game I got the "research module" as a SPecial. Loaded up a BC hull and off to the far ends of the galaxy. However, in the current game (turn 200) I can't seem to get it. What is the tech that gives it to you or what am I doing wrong?

Thanks,

GB

[Harry Seldon]

The fleets for Antaran missions are sent from the second tab of the Victory screen. That may not be the correct name; it's the last tab on the bottom right. Look for a tab on that screen and it'll flip up a page about sending ships, victory points, and which X's you've recovered.

Research module is a tech and all techs are randomized at the beginning of the game. I've played three games and only gotten it once.

[BobD]

Research module? I have had research labs (twice) that can be added to a ship as a special. I noticed that when a ship with a lab is taken on an expedition, potential discoveries are found more quickly. The chance of discovering an X is supposedly also greater.

Make sure that when you want to send an expedition there are enough ships in your fleet reserves. You cannot choose which ships are taken yourself, but I noticed that the AI automatically took ships with a lab (when I had them available).

[Brazuca]

Modules

When you send a Antaran Expedition the first ships to be taken from your reserve are ships with reseach module, in my game i send lot on expedition and the only one that found a X's are the one that had 16 ships and all of they have a Research Module , when the archeological investigation begin i made a partial discovery every turn, i found the last X's, really great, it boost my mineral and industry by 20 % and reduced my polluition effects by 50 %, next i found on a Guardian system, a X's that boost my spaceport and other things, to finish, a question, can i found X's sending ships to neutron stars and black holes? i had to put modules o this ships?

[drsparnum]

In my latest game I designed a Super Dreadnought (SD) with research labs and ordered my best industry planet to build 10 of them. When they were done I sent an Antaran X Armada out. I was concerned in previous games that the game might not be taking ships with the lab. Well, after I sent my armada all 10 of these SDs were gone, I presume on the X finding mission. It is nice that the game is intelligent enough to take ships with labs on them. It would also have been nice for the manual to tell you that it chooses ships with labs first (which it does not). Just another case of game smart, game documentation dumb.

[smellymummy]

this kinds of make it easy, at the expense of early expansions, but when you start a game if you create some small recon ships (corvettes), design them cheap, then set three relatively good planets to build 5x of these, you can have an expedition coming back with your first X by the 120th turn. Repeat this a couple of times and you can have the X win by turn 220 if you're lucky.

16 small and old recon ships usually always finds an X, and comes back with 2-3 ships left, which is real close at loosing that X you just found (return expedition). and the faster the warp drive you put on an expedition ship, the faster the expedition finds the X

what I do is build 16 corvettes, send those out, and maybe try to get 32 if I can (or more, this really depends how the game starts).

When I research the next warp drive I send out 16 frigates. On the next warp drive I send 16 destroyers, which at this point a research lab fits in. And I continue that cycle.

As for neutron stars and blackholes, you won't find any X at those even with a research lab. AFAIK research lab is only good to be used on ships specifically designed to go on expeditions.

[Noone]

It also helps to have Antaran Background (custom pick) that gives a bonus 10% i think.

[Flinx]

Re: Modules

Originally posted by Brazuca
When you send a Antaran Expedition the first ships to be taken from your reserve are ships with reseach module, in my game i send lot on expedition and the only one that found a X's are the one that had 16 ships and all of they have a Research Module , when the archeological investigation begin i made a partial discovery every turn, i found the last X's, really great, it boost my mineral and industry by 20 % and reduced my polluition effects by 50 %, next i found on a Guardian system, a X's that boost my spaceport and other things, to finish, a question, can i found X's sending ships to neutron stars and black holes? i had to put modules o this ships?

In my current game, my 1 and 3 ship Antaran fleets are finding the X's not the larger ones.
...But that may be because they have been out and about longer

[Brazuca]

X's x's x's x's

I only know that ships wiht modules found X's quicker, i guess that smaller ships could do the job more faster but had more chances to fail, if not why can i send Flotilas if only armadas could do the job ?

[Ghostbear]

Research bonus at neutron stars

Did I not read that you get a research bonus from parking a research vessel at a BH or a NS?

Does it have to have a research lab on board?

[Flinx]

1) The in game description for the Research Lab says that each Research Lab sent on an expedition adds +20 to your chances of finding an X
2) No you do not need a research lab, you will just find the X's faster with one.
3) The size of ship sent does not matter and the AI picks the ships anyway (Antaran X expeditions are sent from the Victory panel)
4) The size of the fleet sent does matter. As the manual says on pg124 "A small Task force will cost less .... a large task force will be better equipped for the rigors of a long and perilous journey into the unknown." From experience small task forces can work, but they get destroyed more often than larger ones, so it is a bit of a trade-off.

[gloob]

I found out there's also an advanced research lab, about at lvl 25. it gives +40 chance and is a bit cheaper than 2 small ones.