Where to find information?

Maybe it's time to fill out the wiki. I'm a little anxious about doing it myself because I wouldn't know where to start. I would be more than happy to fill out all I know about some aspect of the game, maybe Holy-Fire, if you had a list of questions that would be somewhere to start for me. Or if someone else has some better ideas I'm willing to help. That way when someone asked a question we could just link to the wiki, or if something comes up we could add it to the wiki. Dunno, I never was great at explaining stuff, maybe the wiki isn't for me.

since i'm playing the german version i would like to see some explanations about how to fix the diplomacy-bug. it's already solved and it works fine (ok, ai is still pretty weak) schaeen posted this link: http://www.cyberstratege.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1170
i think this information is very important but it's hard to find. would be nice if someone adds this to the wiki. i don't want to create another account only to do this.
(maybe here? http://wiki.spaceempires.net/index.php/MainStrings.txt_%28SEV%29)

Just pick any unfilled link on the Manual or Modding Tutorials page and start typing away. Look at the SE4 stuff for reference on the kind of info that might be useful.

SpaceEmpires.net | Space Empires Wiki

Thanks for the info, I'll see what I can fill in tonight.

i too seek this type of information. i've only started to post them and the more we can get out there, the less i also get to bother you.

How to choose a good planet to colonize during the colony "rush"?

How does population affect colony growth? Does population produce natural construction/research points?

Is there a "must have" set of techs?

Are the racial trait technology trees worth the 1000 each to buy them? Is it ever worth having more than one? Are there must have racial qualities? Does 5% really affect things in the long run ?

I could easily come up with 100 questions to fill the first 2-3 pages on the forums. Enough for someone(or me eventually) to be able to build a FAQ for others(or add to the wiki.

Brian

I can probably offer my own opinions and views and otherwise give some answers... and I don't mind typing a lot... I hope you don't mind having to read a lot...

Good planets to colonize early on?
I got some possible good tips.
1: Go for larger planets if possible, ones with proper atmosphere, especially if they have some good resource values. Go for Huge planets, even if they don't have the right atmosphere, especially if they have good resources, as a Huge domed colony is like a Tiny habitable colony but with more population and cargo capacity.
2: Ruins, even if it is a Tiny with the wrong atmosphere, go for it if you can! (if not, drop some mines, sats or otherwise park a ship there so someone else can't get it easily...)
3: Planet Value: The first ones you get should compliment your production and needs. a high Mineral value might be useful early on since much stuff usually costs mainly metal early on, but a modest value for organics or radiactives is a secondary concern. Higher priority goes for Organics or Radioactives if you have Organic or Crystalline tech respectively.
4: Once you get all the 'good' planets, keep on colonizing, take up all planets in your core systems you can colonize, reduce the chances that someone else will just come in and colonize a planet in your own backyard. Perhaps use sats, mines, whatever, to keep potential trespassers from setting up shop in your territory. Later on, as you get research improved, consider putting points into getting tech to colonize the other two colony types. Nothing says "My system!" like having ALL of the planets in it colonized.

Population Size:
It gives a bonus to production (of resources, iirc) and construction.
The normal max is something like +199%.

Racial Techs worth it?
Yes!
Organic Tech: Ordnance Vat, a 20kt ordnance producing component. Organic Armor, gets tough later on and regens itself while stll intact. Organic Hulls, basically swaps metal and organics cost iirc. Seeking Parasite is a living missile that can outrange the Capital Ship Missile. Some of the weapons have good range, such as the Lightning Ray later in the tech tree. A facility that improves growth rate and one that increass that and happyness, and one that... um... mass produces population...
Crystalline Tech: Crystalline Armor adds some damage done to it to shields. Crystalline hulls, swaps metal and radioactives cost iirc. Crystalline Gun/Torpedo weapons have lower damage but ignore armor. The Solar Generator, generates resources at a base rate x number of stars in system, uneffected by planet value iirc. A facility that reduces maintenance costs of stuff in the system, a facility that adds a (meager) amount of shields to stuff in the system.
Religious Tech: No real weapons, some components that have offensive and defensive abilities/bonuses, quite a few facilities that have useful system wide effects.
Psychic: Interesting weapons, a few facilities that boost ship/fleet xp gain, a 'long range scanner' facility that gives a planet the ability to scan ships in range. A few interesting weapons, one of which is one of the most powerful weapons. Has a 'Scanner' also.
Temporal: Interesting weapons including ones that do extra damage to shields, an 'improved' (and much more expensive) space yard facility, a 'Scanner', and a pair of other 'useful' facilities.

Must Have Techs:
In my opinion, yes, there are a few important techs that are either a must or very helpful.
Sensors: Knowledge is power. Also gives Combat Sensors, which boost weapon accuracy.
Defense Systems: ECM, be harder to hit.
Scanners: Good for detecting enemies with stealth, and for those hiding in areas that obscure sensors, such as storms.
Weapon Mounts: make a weapon a little heavier, but more power. It's like getting the firepower of 5 guns for the price of 2.
Satellites: Very handy, Large Satellite Mount gives weapons +40ls range, a big advantage for defense.
Intelligence Services: Espionage can do bad things, best to at least have some for defense.
Energy Stream Weapons: Anti-Proton Beam weighs the same as a DU Cannon, has better range potential, and needs no ordnance.
Point Defense Weapons: Protect ships and stations from missiles/seekers, can also target drones, satellites and fighters. Eliminate the chance a lone ship can sit back and pound your ships or planets from a safe distance
Torpedo Weapons: Quantum Torpedoes are better than Capital Ship Missiles in that they are a little lighter and fire a little faster, improving damage potential in the long run, and can have equal range. Anti-Matter Torpedoes are also lighter, but and are lower damage, shorter range, but much cheaper, good if you need cost effective firepower that allows ships to be made a little faster.
Resource (Minerals/Organics/Radioactives) Extraction: More resources faster, handy investment.
Planet Utilization: Facilities that improve assorted factors of planets, even an effective "terraforming" facility.
Armor: Make ships last longer by slowing the enemy's ability to damage important ship components such as engines and weapons.
Shields: Make ships last longer, and also mean less damage that has to be repaired.
Repair: Repair Bay tossed on a ship can be a life saver for ships disabled away from a planet.
Space Yards: At lvl 10, get a Space Yard component for ships. Can not only repair, but allows for building stuff away from planets.
Starship Support: A must if you plan to have a lot of ships that will see a lot of use, by increasing the capacity/distribution ability of Resupply Depots.
Cargo: Carry more supplies and ordnance per component, cargo bay that hold more means fewer ships needed to carry a lot, and also handy for boosting the capacity of a colony ship.

Thank you. I am going to accumulate this information with others and post it to the wiki, if you don't mind. Here are some other questions:

What benefit do you get from advancing a colonization tech above 1? I mean i start off with Rock, for example, so i have a 1 there. What do i get for a 2 ?

It shows in my treasury 148k of metals and underneath it a 50k maximum? Is this a first turn thing? If so, it doesn't say so or did i miss it somewhere ? Apparently it is a first turn thing as i lost it all down to 50k after my first turn. What could i have possibly done with all that material? Is there a way to increase the treasury maximum ?

how do you increase your construction rate at a colony ?

Brian

Hi Brian, I'm sure any addition to the wiki would be great, so first of all thank you. I'm starting to add some of what I know to the wiki, but time is not my greatest asset at the moment. As for your latest questions:

Colinization level 2: It increases the cargo capacity of the colonization modules, so you can transport more population to a planet. This can be achieved by cargo bays though, so combined with the excessive research cost it is generally thought useless.

Treasury: The 148k thing was probably a first turn bonus. Your treasury could also be higher than maximum from scrapping facilities and ships, or possibly from gifts. If the bonus resources aren't used by the end of the turn they are lost down to your maximum storage. Storage can be increased by building resource storage facilities on your planets, these are upgraded through the cargo technology area.

Construction Rate: As Rditto mentioned increased population increases the construction rate of a planet. Also increasing the tech level of your construction yards will also give you a bonus.

Fell free to post more questions, someone will always answer, and hopefully your question and answer page on the wiki will be a great success.

how do you get some of the techs? I cheated once to find out what techs give me later on and how it all works but with some it didnt help too much, like stealth for example is in its own category and didnt tell me how to research it.

Also where can I get info on the ring world creation?

You can find the tech tree in the manual (it should be in your menu options). Stealth is actually an armor, I believe level 20?

"We are the Vahl, resistance is...welcomed"

there are 2 ways to 'cloak' in the game.. (this is for stock)
one is stealth armour wich you get from the Armour Tech (way late level... i think first stealth armour level is at level 30 or 40)
the other one is Cloaking device that comes from level 3 physics >> Cloaking techs.

as for ring worlds and sphere worlds. you need stellar manipulation max level (can't remember what it is) wich comes from astrophysics.
it will open up 3 components: hyper-dense cable, planet gravity plating and the sphere/ring generator.
you need to design and build bases that have these components around a star. (can only build worlds in systems with a single star). the number of components required should be stated on the generator component. i think ringworld is 10,000kt of each (5 bases with cable component and 5 bases with plating component)
and sphereworld is 20,000kt of each (10 bases with cable component and 10 bases with plating component)
lets say you are going for the ring world. so you have 11 bases (5 of cable, 5 of plating and 1 of generator) select generator base and right clicking should give you option to create ringworld. ta-da!!

Actually, there's a third way in stock; the Stealth Totem which you can get starting at level 5 Religious Technology, and also provides an ECM-like bonus. I haven't played Religious races much, but at low levels it seems to be a significant advantage; it looks like it maxes out at level 21, providing 25 Combat To Hit Defense and a Cloak Level of 9.4 in a single 30kt component.

Ring/Sphereworlds:

I think also when a sphereworld is constructed, it destroys any planets in a six sector radius (a shockwave I think from the loss of light from the star) so make sure you haven't colonized the system. I usually like to find a nebula system and create a star in there (which I think also clears out the nebula) so I am left with a system with only a tiny star to construct a sphereworld with.

Inigma's Colonization Strategy:

Game start:
I usually send out scout colony ships during the early game colony rush (colony ships with sensors, supply, built with emergency build, with a shipyard space stations rounding out the last 1 or 2 emergency build slots). The Colony Scouts attempt to scout out defensible choke point systems (systems with one defensible entry into your claimed systems) usually ending their run when their supplies run out if they can't find out, and colonize the closest available planet of the same race atmosphere type. A well led and well designed colony scout ship will be able to scout out 4-7 systems before running out of gas in BM, increasing your initial empire size claim to at least 5 good and defensible systems in a medium game.

I am at work, so the following may not be accurate but the purpose of the screen formats can be derived by planning your setup accordingly. I will edit with my more accurate setup when I get home.

Customized Reporting Screens:
The power of this game is its ability to easily micromanage large inputs. The ability to create custom reports in the reporting windows is, I think, the greatest thing about the game as it makes it easy to cover all your turn plans without having to think much.

Systems (shift + x)
I set my Systems screen to show only planets I've colonized, and their current status which will reveal at a glance if there are units I've constructed that need picking up or launching.

Planets (shift + P)
I set my Planets screen to show name, size, atmosphere, mineral value (or org for org races, or rad for rad races), and ship enroute. I prioritize the list by showing colonizable breathables (then switch to just "colonizable" when I have colonized my breathable targets) with the greatest mineral count. The "Send colonizer" button is most useful in a one-click colony solution (assuming you have a waiting colonizer without orders).
Purpose: See at a glance top colony targets that have no colony ship enroute to them yet. The send colonizer button makes for quick one-stop-one-click expansion to those targets. I use the embedded quadrant map to ensure my colony targets are going to systems I want to own instead of halfway across the quadrant in enemy territory. Later in game, I sort by planet name and target entire systems for backfill colonization in order to completely own them.

Colonies (shift + C)
I set my Colonies screen to show planet name, population, total facilities, max facilities, construction queue, time to complete, and status icons. Sorted by empty queues first, largest max facilities.
Purpose: to see at a glance which planets can build facilities or units, or need breathables (the dome icon shows up in the status icons). Backyard planets with full facilities are set to build mobile units (drones, fighters) which can be picked up by passing utility ships for delivery to the frontline. Frontline planets are set to build stationary units (weapon platforms, satellites, mines, troops) when that tech is available and when there is a need, which are picked up by dedicated frontline system workbees (frigates in BattleMod with a cargo, satellite, and mine bay) for distribution throughout the system accordingly.

Construction Queues (shift + Q)
I set the Construction Queue report to show all queue names, item being constructed, time remaining, on hold, and emergency queues. Sorted by time remaining.
Purpose: to manage my queues. For planets constructing only facilities, I use emergency build, and its useful to see when they are set to emergency build and full of facilities (because then their queue shows up at empty at the top of the report) so I just then switch them to slow build, without absent-mindedly wasting emergency build time for planets that can't build any more facilities. When resource-crunched I put queues on hold for items of least importance.

Ship/Fleets Status (Shift + S)
Showing ship name, type, fleet, damage, status, supply and ordinance. Sorted by name.
Purpose: To know what ships at a glance need help, are mothballed, sentried, or need a fleet to call home.

For my turn process, I read update research, create new designs and upgrade queues (Shift + D), read treaty offers, check intel, I launch any units (based on Systems report) and give them orders, send out the colonizers (Planets report), give orders to ships and fleets (Ship report), I check my resource levels (Shift + O), give shipyard construction orders (Queues), check resource levels again (Shift + O), give planetary facility/unit construction orders (Colonies), respond to treaties, confirm I did research, and finish with responding to intel.

I will update as I go forward.