Novalith Macro

from Sins Forums
I was doing a 102 planet, 5 star game this week, and towards the end, I started spamming Novalith Cannons. At first, I was hotkeying them to 0, 9, 8, 7, etc, but when I came to control too many, I just started putting them on autofire and forgetting about them. Although it was fun to see 30-40 Novalith shots traveling between systems, it was a pain in the butt to have to wait 20 minutes for the shots to subside before I could colonize any plants that had been flattened, for fear of more shots hitting the planet after I colonize it.

My question is this: Is there any way that I can easily select all of my Novas and then fire them one at a time? I tried to shift-select them all into one group, but I was having problems with tabbing through them, as it wouldn't progress through them uniformly. Also on a few planets I was able to squeeze two on (due to planet specials), and when I selected both of them at once, I couldn't cycle through them with tab either.

Also, I was wondering if anyone knows how to mass-scuttle a group of objects? It's a pain in the butt to have to scuttle everything individually...

Thanks!
21,374 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Nothing? Is there no way to select a type of building / unit across the entire empire? The search function is nice, but it's limited by the types of units that can be selected, and I *still* can't tab-cycle through two buildings in the same gravity well.

Hell, I could forgive the limited search tool, if I could just tab through buildings in the same grav well...
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Can't tab through 2 of a building inside the gravity well?
Use 2 numbers.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Can't tab through 2 of a building inside the gravity well?
Use 2 numbers. Not a perfect solution, but it works well enough.
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
The NOvalith is smart enough to only fire on enemy planets. The wait time is for the radiation to die down, which is why you only need to hit a planet once.

Have you tried selecting them all and then pinning them?

Sometimes you have to use shift-tab as the method of selection for the tab shift to work properly.

Hope that helps! :)
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
The last time I had multiple Deliverance Engines (in different systems), I had them all bound to 0 in a group, and could tab through them. I'm not sure why that didn't work for you.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Slow way:

Go to each Novalith cannon and add it via the shift-key to a numbered control group.

Fast way:

Display all your planets via the empire tree. Press alt and select all novalith cannons. Add them to a numbered control group.


Either way you can cycle through them with the tab-key. Just don't have stacked symbols activated in the empire tree, or you'll only select one novalith in each grav well (if you have multiple there).
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
Ah ha! I never knew that I could alt-select from the empire tree. That's the magic bullet I was looking for I guess. And yes, I had my icons grouped, because the tree was too unwieldy without them being grouped... looks like I'll just have to deal. Thank you Vandenburg.

My second question still stands though -- Is there any way to delete a stack of units simultaneously? When I select a group and try to scuttle them, it only scuttles one at a time.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I assign all my novalith's to a single numbered group. To fire them I then select the group, hit the hotkey to fire the cannon, select my target, hit the "tab" key and repeat. It sounds like a lot of steps but it actually goes pretty quickly. Besides, it takes 30secs-1min for the darn thing to change facing anyway, so it's not like it's all that fast to begin with.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
The "alt-select from the empire tree" solution in-game didn't work... has this technique been verified by anyone as working in-game? I displayed the empire tree, disabled stacking, and alt-selected a cannon from the tree, but all it did was select the one cannon at that planet.

The problem persists... why is it this difficult to macro-select and control my assets?
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Alt-selection in the empire tree only selects units in the same gravity well. You'll have to pin the planets with superweapons to your tree and shift-select them one by one, then put them in a ctrl-group for fast selection later. Then at that point you can do the tab-clicking thing to fire them as you see fit in a manner of seconds.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
The empire tree alt select is good to know. I have 1 so far but adding a second soon. Not even really attacking the guy at the moment, just feel like blowing his infrastucture a bit as he annoyed me.

First he kicks me out of the starting star system, then asks to be my friend for 6 hours, then changes his mind when i take his enemy out of the origional star and come home again. I see him sitting on my starting home world all smug, then he decided to raze me. Really rude I figure so I am random bombing him into oblivion bit by bit. Serves him right. (course I did just take 4 of his planets to set a better choke point. Got his artifact to boot.

Just goes to show. Don't be rude.

2 of 8 dead, 2 somewhat crippled, 1 peace treaties, 1 cease fire, and a third to be injured...then I take his ships from him.