Question on how to give custom ships a ckassification ability(how do you)?

Do you mean "how can I build a survey vessel, a constructor, a colony ship, etc."?

In that case, you need to add the corresponding component: you have weapons, defenses, engines, then a 4th category of ship elements and that is where you can find those components. Though for survey vessels you need to research some technologies first. Custom constructors and colony ships can be built from the start.

As a specific example: you need to add a survey module before a ship can function as a surveyor; adding a troop module will enable your ship to hold soldiers; adding a colony module allows it to colonize planets; adding a trade module turns it into a trader,...

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Quoting Noctilucus,

reply 1

Do you mean "how can I build a survey vessel, a constructor, a colony ship, etc."?

In that case, you need to add the corresponding component: you have weapons, defenses, engines, then a 4th category of ship elements and that is where you can find those components. Though for survey vessels you need to research some technologies first. Custom constructors and colony ships can be built from the start.

As a specific example: you need to add a survey module before a ship can function as a surveyor; adding a troop module will enable your ship to hold soldiers; adding a colony module allows it to colonize planets; adding a trade module turns it into a trader,...

Lol yea, and ironically, now that I have tons of things researched I just figured it out(such options weren't available when I first decided to try making a custom ship), but thanks a lot anyway.

PS. I just wish the research tree wasn't such a mess(as to what's needed for what vs not being able to view the whole tree, and to unlock certian things, you need to research suff from completely different skill set "branches". However I must say, It's astonishing how customizeable this game is(It's like combining civ II, with Sim City, and then some).

I'm basically playing a token game(stip AI, big map), just so I can figure out a plan on the order I should research stuff in.

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Well, I think the option "view more" and the ability to zoom in and out in the tech tree help a lot in getting a good overview.
I'm not sure whether in Twilight of the Arnor you can still see for each technology what you need to research before; I believe this was possible in the earlier expansions.

For the order of what to research, this will also depend a lot on the race if you're playing the Twilight of the Arnor expansion (it has unique tech trees for each race) and sometimes you need to change your approach if you urgently need a certain technology in a particular situation. But it's definitely a good idea to play a few test games to get to know the tech tree better!

P.S. glad to help - driver issues prevent me from playing it again but I love this game

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Quoting Noctilucus,

reply 3

Well, I think the option "view more" and the ability to zoom in and out in the tech tree help a lot in getting a good overview.
I'm not sure whether in Twilight of the Arnor you can still see for each technology what you need to research before; I believe this was possible in the earlier expansions.

For the order of what to research, this will also depend a lot on the race if you're playing the Twilight of the Arnor expansion (it has unique tech trees for each race) and sometimes you need to change your approach if you urgently need a certain technology in a particular situation. But it's definitely a good idea to play a few test games to get to know the tech tree better!

P.S. glad to help - driver issues prevent me from playing it again but I love this game

There's just so much*not just this tech unlocks that tech" kind of thing, but these 3-4 random techs, unlock these modules,hulls, coponants exc, that they should of added a sorting system(that allows you to have the tree the way they are now, this tech unlocks that tech, or to sort the trees out buy what non techs they unlock).

That's stupid, so aside from the simple this tech unlocks that tech, how do you know what non techs you unlock by researching a tech?

I'm playing the original Dread Lords right now(however I'm probally gonna end up getting the 2 expansions as well), however I read that in the blogs, and it scared me.

Are you still able to customize your race in the expansions, and if so, can you choose what skill trees the custom race gets, and how many trees? If you're gonna play a 100% diplomatic type of game, having different races only have access to certain skill trees would work fine(well for the most part anyway), however if you want to play a war type game, being restricted kind of breaks the game.

PS. Yea, and ouch that such(what happened, got a new Video card, that doesn't have drivers that support this game?).

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Hm, true, though after playing some games you'll be more familiar with the benefits of each tech.

I've never used Galactopedia, but as far as I know it's designed to bring more clarity in the tech tree and non-tech elements of the game: http://www.kynosarges.de/Galactopedia.html

Dark Avatar doesn't change that radically compared to Dread Lords but I agree it's good to get familiar with DL / DA before moving on to Twilight. It's not scary, just adds more variety once you've seen it all in DL / DA.

In the expansions you can still customize your race and you have to choose which race's tech tree you want to use for your custom race (you always have to choose one tree). It's true that with unique tech trees, you have to play a little closer to the race's characteristics, but even in Dread Lords this is the case: if you have all your bonuses on military production, soldiering and such you almost *have* to take an aggressive approach because you'll be lagging behind in diplomacy, economy and research.

P.S. no new hardware whatsoever so there wasn't even a need for the driver update. Unfortunately this is a work laptop (I travel too much for work to have any use for a second pc at home, I would go crazy with half of my stuff on each pc) so I can't do a roll-back. *End of my rant*

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Quoting Noctilucus,

reply 5

Hm, true, though after playing some games you'll be more familiar with the benefits of each tech.

I've never used Galactopedia, but as far as I know it's designed to bring more clarity in the tech tree and non-tech elements of the game: http://www.kynosarges.de/Galactopedia.html

Dark Avatar doesn't change that radically compared to Dread Lords but I agree it's good to get familiar with DL / DA before moving on to Twilight. It's not scary, just adds more variety once you've seen it all in DL / DA.

In the expansions you can still customize your race and you have to choose which race's tech tree you want to use for your custom race (you always have to choose one tree). It's true that with unique tech trees, you have to play a little closer to the race's characteristics, but even in Dread Lords this is the case: if you have all your bonuses on military production, soldiering and such you almost *have* to take an aggressive approach because you'll be lagging behind in diplomacy, economy and research.

P.S. no new hardware whatsoever so there wasn't even a need for the driver update. Unfortunately this is a work laptop (I travel too much for work to have any use for a second pc at home, I would go crazy with half of my stuff on each pc) so I can't do a roll-back. *End of my rant*

The new Techviewer(that posted on the home page, seems to do nicely(aside from the fact It's a seperate program, leading to alt tabing fests lol).

Evidently they cleaned the tech trees a great deal in twilight(sortcut buttons to skill trees, so no more never ending scroll serching, and instead of each individual study of technology, being split up into 5 or so seperate tech blocks, they just us one tech block, but partition it in 5 selectible thechs).

They should of more accurately explained how it works(in the blogs they wrote, and the interviews they gave), but basicall everyone has all the assential tech trees(however different races might have to take differnt paths to get said tech), but different races can get special unique techs(these techs are Bonus type techs, and although may make different aspects of the game slightly easier, aren't assential techs).

Ah ok.

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Quoting Zoltor,

reply 6

They should of more accurately explained how it works(in the blogs they wrote, and the interviews they gave), but basicall everyone has all the assential tech trees(however different races might have to take differnt paths to get said tech), but different races can get special unique techs(these techs are Bonus type techs, and although may make different aspects of the game slightly easier, aren't assential techs).

Are you referring to Twilight of the Arnor or to Dread Lords? Because in Twilight, the list of technologies accessible to all the races is fairly limited.

Don't forget that the ethical choices you make will also change the tech tree: evil, neutral and good races get access to a different set of technologies.

While the unique techs are indeed "bonus techs", they can be quite essential in winning the game since they are part of the unique advantages of that race. Some of those technologies are powerful enough that not using them would put you at a disadvantage since the AI will be researching its own unique technologies. And of course tech trading allows you to obtain some unique technologies that you can't research yourself

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Quoting Noctilucus,

reply 7

Quoting Zoltor,
reply 6

They should of more accurately explained how it works(in the blogs they wrote, and the interviews they gave), but basicall everyone has all the assential tech trees(however different races might have to take differnt paths to get said tech), but different races can get special unique techs(these techs are Bonus type techs, and although may make different aspects of the game slightly easier, aren't assential techs).

Are you referring to Twilight of the Arnor or to Dread Lords? Because in Twilight, the list of technologies accessible to all the races is fairly limited.

Don't forget that the ethical choices you make will also change the tech tree: evil, neutral and good races get access to a different set of technologies.

While the unique techs are indeed "bonus techs", they can be quite essential in winning the game since they are part of the unique advantages of that race. Some of those technologies are powerful enough that not using them would put you at a disadvantage since the AI will be researching its own unique technologies. And of course tech trading allows you to obtain some unique technologies that you can't research yourself

Yea, Twilight of the Arnor. It's not possible to see a over wiew of the entire tech tree(and make out what the techs are, that you're looking at from afar, even using these 3rd party tech viewers), however I looked through all the races, and they seem to more or less have the same techs, just certain races have prereq-prereq-prereq to some of the techs, making it harder for them to get said assential tech, but never less, they could get it.

I could be slightly off, but that seems to be the case.

Yea, I noticed something to that effect while toying around with creating a race/starting techs, and viewing the tech tree. Question, can you change your alignment from good, to say evil by constantly picking bad choices in the event cenes durring the game?

Lol yea I know, the Yor race gets a space folding drive(Kalaxial warp drive?)for crying out loud(you know, when Hyper Warp Drives just aren't fast enough lol).

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WIllythemailboy

Join Date 03/2006

+70

Some races are entirely lacking. Thalans have no farm tech at all. The Yor don't have spammable economy buildings or normal morale and farm structures. The Arceans don't have normal engine tech.

You are correct in that at least 60% of the techs are the same. There is some variations, but all trees have the same colonization, (most) weapons, defenses, miniaturization, logistics, life support, sensors, asteroid mining, etc.

Allignment: yes, you can shift your ethics if you pick enough evil choices. Or you can choose to pay to shift to whatever you want when you research the Xeno Ethics tech. This is generally used to get all the evil event bonuses then to go neutral or good when the colony rush ends.

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Quoting WIllythemailboy,

reply 9

Some races are entirely lacking. Thalans have no farm tech at all. The Yor don't have spammable economy buildings or normal morale and farm structures. The Arceans don't have normal engine tech.

You are correct in that at least 60% of the techs are the same. There is some variations, but all trees have the same colonization, (most) weapons, defenses, miniaturization, logistics, life support, sensors, asteroid mining, etc.

Allignment: yes, you can shift your ethics if you pick enough evil choices. Or you can choose to pay to shift to whatever you want when you research the Xeno Ethics tech. This is generally used to get all the evil event bonuses then to go neutral or good when the colony rush ends.

Ah ok

Ok sweet(lol yea, that's what I had in mind), thanks.

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Well, all races share some technologies but still there are quite some gaps. For example only few races still have access to all the diplomacy techs and the oh-so-important spin control center, whereas in DL / DA everyone can build a spin control center.

And then there are races with unique buildings instead of the regular ones (Thalans no longer have factories or labs; the Korath or Drengin have much cheaper versions of factories; if I remember well the Arceans don't have engine techs anymore)

Yes, your choices in the event scenes will determine your ethical alignment (you can check your current alignment in the civilization manager or however that tab is called + the robot presenting the news changes depending on your alignment). However you can research that "good or evil" technology and change your alignment to good, neutral or evil as you wish. Worst case it costs you 10000 (or a loan) to change your alignment in that way.

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