Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares/Engineering: Difference between revisions

*you can't design. The up-side is that Star Bases (and their advanced versions later in this page) are upgraded immediately and at zero cost whenever you research a relevant tech. But the designs forced on you by the game software always use [[../Warship technologies|un-modified versions]] of your latest weapons except for HV and PD "beams", even when useful modifications are available without miniaturization, and usually make poor choices of special systems - for example they always include Security Stations when available (improved defense against boarding parties) when you have good shields (which block boarding parties) and would rather have Structural Analyzer and / or High energy Focus (kill enemy ships faster, so boarding parties do not become a threat). As a result, the defensive effectiveness of Star Bases declines significantly during a game.

*improves the colony's morale by 20% for Dictatorships and Feudal governments if there is no other types of Barracks.  

Ship component which launches four Interceptors (the lowest grade of Fighter), each of which has your best computer and carries one of your best PD weapon (although the weapon is considered 'normal' for purposes of damage calculation) and can fire four times, always at zero range and hitting the side of the target where the shields are weakest, before needing to go back to re-charge. Their combat speed is  8 + (2 x the number of parsecs their empire's drive can travel per turn on the Galaxy map); that's 12 to 22 squares per combat turn. Each Fighter's structure strength is 2 * the strength factor of your best armor (Titanium = 1, Tritanium = 2, Zortrium = 4, Neutronium = 6, Adamantium = 8; Xentronium = 10); that's 2 to 20. Very dangerous in the early game, because Anti-Missile Rockets can't target Fighters and PD weapons are weak and inaccurate at that stage. But they can be wiped out by drive explosions.

Recommended choice for non-Creatives: most prefer Reinforced Hull, which is useful throughout the game; but blitzers may prefer Anti-Missile Rockets or Fighter Bays.

Ship Special System that doubles the number Marines it carries. Useful for performing or defending against boarding attacks; but becomes less important when moderately good shields appear, as shields block boarding raids.

Achievement (no construction or ship component required) that saves any Ship Leader whose ship is destroyed, provided if at least your ships is present at the end of the battle (i.e. you must win for Survival Pods to work; if all your surviving ships retreat, the stranded Leaders die).

Recommended choice for non-Creatives: Battle Pods, the extra firepower on each warship is needed, especially since command points are limited (unless Warlord trait) early games. The primary purpose of Battle Pods though is to make ship specials more worthwhile; if you do not have the tech then Battle Scanner most importantly is less worthwhile, and that means you will want to choose Tachyon Communications instead and will rarely use beam weapons.

Building that increases a colony's non-special income by 50% (does not affect income from gold or gem deposits).

Building that launches 10 Interceptors or Heavy Fighters (if you research Heavy Fighters) to defend the colony. New fighters are made every 10 turns to replace ones destroyed. For detailed information about the capabilities of Interceptors and Heavy Fighters see "Fighter Bays" above and "Heavy Fighters" (below). They are slower than missiles but do significantly more damage when they arrive. Their greatest weakness is that, if a ship's drive explodes, they may all be destroyed and you have to wait for up to 10 combat turns for replacements.

Since fighters can target missiles and fighters, Fighter Garrison can be an effective defense base, especially against enemy's fighter which often can slip through star base.

Recommended choice for non-Creatives: Space Port. Some players like Fighter Garrison a lot, but Fighters can be wiped out by a drive explosion, and a clever opponent may self-destruct a heavily damaged ship to eliminate Fighters. Extra money helps you to [[../Speeding up production|"buy when half built"]] while developing your colonies, and to pay the high costs of an invasion campaign. In short, only research Fighter Garrison if you feel that an invasion is imminent or are surrounded on all fronts, otherwise Space Port, which benefits colonies in most cases.

Fighter Garrison is useful when you have low computer tech (low beam attack) because fighters attack at point blank, in always-hit manner. Ground Battery; however, depends so much on targeting computer, in contrast to Fighter Garrison.

A strong toss up between all options; Powered armor is a massive multiplier for marines in both space and ground assaults, as the doubled survivability makes even marginal attacks far more viable, allowing much greater ease in the capture of needed technologies, worlds, and population and against lesser opponent, lets the player expend fewer transports, while the massive bump in manufacturing offered by Robo-miners is self-explanitory. Battlestations are a very useful buff to your command point supply, and can easy pay for itself, even before the increased survivability and fleet buffs.

Ship Special System that allows ship to fire missiles twice in 1 combat turn, but it must wait for 1 combat turn a turn without firing any missiles. The idea is to overload enemy anti-missile defenses.

Ship "weapon": shuttles carry troops that automatically board enemy ships or Starbases when in range, trying to either raid (damage) or capture them. Their combat speed is 2 + (2 x the number of parsecs their empire's drive can travel per turn on the Galaxy map); that's 8 to 16 squares per combat turn. Each Shuttle's structure strength is 3 + the strength factor of your best armor (Titanium = 1, Tritanium = 2, Zortrium = 4, Neutronium = 6, Adamantium = 8; Xentronium = 10); that's 4 to 13. They can be destroyed by a drive explosion. Useful for capturing Antrain ships as their damper fields has a 50% chance of killing marines using transporters and the ships will self-destruct should you immobilize them with a tractor beam. Assault shuttles are incredible in combination with the Trans-Dimensional racial trait since both the ship and the shuttles receive the tactical movement bonus, enemy ships and starbases can fire their beams but have no chance to retreat or use missiles before being captured. Another tactic is to launch the shuttles only once the enemy target is directly adjacent to the launching ship (to the side, not to the front), so as to immediately resolve the attack rather than wait till the enemy moves and gets a chance to defend itself. Note that the assault shuttle's marine contingent is in addition to (but not part of) the normal crew compliment, and they are not affected by crew-killing weapons (Deathray, Neutron Beam) prior to launch.

Recommended choice for non-Creatives: Advanced Damage Control or Fast Missile Racks, depending on your military situation and research strategy (e.g. if you're going for "beams" or torpedo weapons, Fast Missile Racks are not useful). Assault Shuttles work best if you have good ground combat stats and you use them in hardened "troop carrier" ships so their sheer numbers can overwhelm enemy defenders.

Allows you to build Titan class ships (before this the largest you can build are Battleships). Titans have 25% better shields than Battleships, provide over twice the internal space, about are about 2.5 times as expensive to build as Battleships, but require only 25% more Command Points. To put it more simply: in a typical case 6000 PP worth of Titans (2) will have slightly less firepower than 6000 PP worth of Battleships (5); will take slightly less damage in total but it will take the enemy longer to make the first kill, so your fleet is dealing out full damage for longer; and requires only 8 Command points rather than 20. Titans also have tactical advantages when assaulting heavily defended enemy colonies, especially if your main weapons are "beams" - 2 or 3 Titans can direct their full firepower against the target sooner than 5 to 8 Battleships, because the ships at the ends of a wide line usually take an extra combat turn to get into range.

Planetary Defense Building of your best HV and PD "beam" weapons. Probably the most powerful defensive installation (with the possible exception of the insanely expensive Star Fortress); in particular the only ground-based defense that can defend itself against missiles and fighters. Ground Batteries protected by a planetary shield can be  tough opposition for attackers. The one reservation about Ground Batteries is that you need good targeting computers in order to make them fully effective. By this stage in the game 200 PP is not ahuge amount of production to stockpile, so threatened colonies can usually build Ground Batteries instantly (provided you can see the enemy coming, i.e. provided their ships are not cloaked).

Recommended choice for non-Creatives: usually Titan Construction, as Titans can be used for both attack and defense, and they provide a significant increase in combat capability without a huge increase in Command Points required; but Ground Batteries are often a reasonable alternative, especially with good computers and "beam" weapons that naturally have no dissipation at long ranges (Mass Driver, Gauss Cannon, Disrupter; Plasma Cannon are also good if enemy ships do not have good shields, because their natural enveloping effect more than compensates for their twice-normal dissipation).

Building that enables each colonist (and Native!), regardless of job, to generate 1 PP in addition to whatever they're already producing, and with zero pollution. Due to it's high cost it's only useful for colonies with population of 15 or more, where you want the colonists to concentrate on research and / or farming; less useful on your all-out ship-building planets, where you'd spend 200 PP to build something that only adds a small amount per turn.

Ship Special System that repairs up to 20% of a ship's armor or structure ''or'' repairs 10% of its systems per combat turn, and after combat completely repairs the ship (in both cases provided that the Automated Repair Unit is not destroyed). Quite bulky, and the space may be better spent on weapons. Advanced Damage Control also repairs fully after combat, takes no space in ships, and cannot be damaged in combat as it's an "achievement".

Enables a colony to create new colonizable planets in the same system by converting Gas Giants into Huge Barren Abundant planets and Asteroid Belts turn into Large Barren Abundant planets. To colonize the new planets you also have to build a Colony Base (200 PP), so the total cost is 1000 PP per new colony - you can't afford this against good human players, as 1000 PP will produce a good Cruiser plus quite a large addition to your stockpile (or a very good Battleship if you add 300 PP).

Recommended choice for non-Creatives: usually Recyclotron, so that your less industrial colonies can produce the more advanced buildings more easily and / or move workers into research. Some Cybernetic players use Automated Repair Unit along with their natural repair ability to produce extremely durable warships. Artificial Planet Construction takes time to make it pay off, but if you have over a dozen asteroids and/or gas giants in your empire this can be a great way to expand your production in a close but deadlocked game.

Building that needs no workers but increases production by 5 to 20 PP, depending on mineral type of planet (5 PP for Ultra-Poor; 8 PP for Poor; 10 PP for Abundant; 15 PP for Rich; 20 PP for Ultra-rich). Useless on all except Rich and Ultra-rich planets. It takes at least 10 turns just to recover the PP used to build the Robotic Factory and you're paying 3 BC maintenance during that time, so the actual break even point is even further in the future. Additionally, unlike all other flat bonuses from buildings this one increases pollution.

Ship Special Weapon that launches 4 small ships, each of which carries your best bombs, and can drop one bomb before returning to reload. They attack at zero range and always hit the side of the target where the shields are weakest. Their combat speed is 4 + (4 x the number of parsecs their empire's drive can travel per turn on the Galaxy map); that's 16 to 32 squares per combat turn. Each Bomber's structure strength is 4 * the strength factor of your best armor (Titanium = 1, Tritanium = 2, Zortrium = 4, Neutronium = 6, Adamantium = 8; Xentronium = 10). Bombers can be used to attack ships, Star Bases etc. and planets; but, like all types of Fighter, can be destroyed by drive explosions as well as by PD and other weapons (anti-Fighter weapons will be effective by this stage).

Building that completely eliminates pollution penalties; if the colony already had a Pollution Processor and / or Atmosphere Renewer, these are scrapped and the proceeds paid into your treasury. Core Waste Dump's very high maintenance means it should only be built where there's a significant amount of pollution, usually in rich/ultra rich shipyard colonies.

Recommended choice for non-Creatives: Tolerant races prefer Deep Core Mine, unless they want to build ships at Rich or Ulra-rich captured colonies whose populations are non-Tolerant and only if they lack an Atmospheric Renewer; non-Tolerant races should choose Deep Core Mine, because coupled with Atmospheric Renewer it provides a far greater increase in production than the Core Waste Dump in all situations(Core Waste Dump increases production by less than 15% compared to an Atmospheric Renewer, while the Deep Core Mine provides over 20% increase in production even in the worst case scenario).