04-03-2003 03:03									#1
	Help! How do I use my first technology? Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

Hey fellas,

I'm hopin' someone out there can help a Moo3 newbie who's struggling to process the butt-load of information that the game throws at you.

Okay, I been playing the game off-and-on for about 4 days now, and I'm still trying to figure out how the technology tree works (among other things). My sitrep told me that I'd developed "Hydroponic Farms" and that they were ready to use. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Okay, so how do I use them? I couldn't find an option to build "Hydroponic Farms" anywhere...not in the planetary queue or in the DEA area queue. So what's the deal? Do all my agriculture zones just "automatically" get Hydroponic Farms?

Help!

-Yoink

P.S. I like this smiley ----->

	04-03-2003 03:07									#2
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You don't use Hydroponic Farms, your viceroy uses them.

He'll build one in a Bioharvest DEA sometime soon and then he'll tell you about it. It took me a loooong time to figure this out.

Maybe it would be helpful if on the SitRep when a new tech is ready there is some indication of whether it belongs to me or my viceroy would eliminates the confusion. As it is, whenever a new tech comes along I have to go to a planet and see if I can build that tech. Tedious.

	04-03-2003 03:11									#3
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So what...I can't even choose to build Hydroponic Farms if I want to? You've got to be kidding.



-Yoink

	04-03-2003 03:11									#4
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Yeah, for the most part your viceroy's will build whatever planet upgrades are available to be built...so you don't need to really worry about them as much.

Just make sure you always upgrade your ship designs, and make sure you use good task force management.

	04-03-2003 03:12									#5
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quote: Originally posted by TheMaestro Yeah, for the most part your viceroy's will build whatever planet upgrades are available to be built...so you don't need to really worry about them as much. Just make sure you always upgrade your ship designs, and make sure you use good task force management.

	04-03-2003 03:14									#6
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quote: Originally posted by yoink15 So what...I can't even choose to build Hydroponic Farms if I want to? You've got to be kidding.

Afraid not. Hydro farms, soil enrichment, they all belong to the viceroy. You'll get to build the astro univ and some pollutions stuff later.

But, the thrill of building that first hydro farm belongs to the viceroy.

	04-03-2003 03:17									#7
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why do you care so much about personally building Hydro-whatevers?

That's just stuff that grows your pop and improves production. Who cares about building them?

All it means to me is more money for spies, more money for ships, more money for military grants, more task forces I can build and more empires I can politically force to give me stuff and I can militarly subjugate

Battelships, railguns, plasma guns, shields... that's the juicy stuff

	04-03-2003 03:20									#8
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This is a truely confusing issue - It would seem that some planet build items DO appear in the Planet build queue list (the one right under the Military Queue in the planet screen) but others do not. I can see the Vicery Building the Hydroponic Farms but I haven't been able to select these to be build. I suspect that if I had gotten there early enough I would've seen the item in the list and could've added it to the queue but since the number of planetary improvements is relatively small in the early game, the viceroy always starts building things immediately as the become available.

	04-03-2003 03:20									#9
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there is a micromanagment mod around that let's you build all those farms and such

	04-03-2003 03:29									#10
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I dont know why you would even want to do that. An Emperor does not concern himself with such small matters

What I would love is that vicroys had some kind of in-game graphic representation/personality and you could execute them publicly on the planet or something if they went too far against your wishes

	04-03-2003 03:30									#11
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quote: An Emperor does not concern himself with such small matters

Why is it in the game then?

	04-03-2003 03:34									#12
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Because it affects bioharvest output? The Emperor's concern is with setting the policy of the planet, not telling every little peon what he/she must do or even developing relatively small projects; that ist he viceroy's job. Of course, if the viceroy goes too far the Emperor has full authority to intervene.

But like I said, it would be awesome imho if the viceroy's (at least one per system) had some more personal representation and u could execute them and stuff... would be cool

	04-03-2003 03:40									#13
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Yes, the basic division is that certain things that affect the entire planet fall under the realm of the Emperor, whereas regional things are under the control of the viceroy. Hydro-Farms can be built in any Bioharvest-DEA and will be built as long as there is enough funding in the "Normal Econ. Activities" section. Whereas something like a Pollution Control Center (whatever it's called...) effects the entire planet, it can be selected to be built by you, the Emperor, at your choosing. So, unless you really want to personally build a hydro-farm in every single one of your Bio-DEAs by hand, I think the system works out pretty well as is.

Oh, and if the Viceroy isn't building it and you've had the tech for a while, try upping the "Planetary Development Grants" in your main empire budget.

	04-03-2003 04:08									#14
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Okay...

Perhaps my second post expressing my disbelief that you couldn't build Hydro Farms on your own is more an exclamation about how *that isn't mentioned anywhere in the manual or encyclopedia*!!!

If it wasn't for you guys, I wouldn't have known that Hydro Farms get built automatically.

See...there are a dozen other tech advances I'm sure I'm going to come across...how am I supposed to know if *I* can choose to build them, or only the *viceroy* gets to build them?

I'm totally happy to let the viceroy build all my farms for me...but I'm upset about is that I didn't even know he was going to do that.

-Yoink

	04-03-2003 04:41									#15
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Basically if they are improvements to existing DEA's you will not be dictating when to build them, the Vircory will determine it. Things like Deep Mines, Automated Mines, Soil and the like. A simple color coding or highlight could be used to alert you to the fact that it will be handled without you putting it in the queue. In fact a hyperlink for the tech could have that info.

	04-03-2003 07:50									#16
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One of the biggest problems right now is the manual. A sizeable chunk of the technology descriptions are vague. Hopefully they'll fix it so that the tech tells you which is autmotatic and which is not...

Talking about hydrophonic farms, how about improved govt or whatever it is called (one of the first ones). I can't figure out how you implement this or what its benefits are

KoalaBear33

	04-03-2003 12:17									#17
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This just lowers your HFOG by a small amount (5%?) IIRC. There's a few techs that do this.

-Jam

	04-03-2003 12:24									#18
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The improved government stuff reduces Heavy Foot of Government by 2-3%.

But since we don't know how Heavy Foot of Goverment works, this information is equally worthless.

	04-03-2003 12:32									#19
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HFOG explained :
HFOG is a simple multiplyer of how much it cost to build things.
If you have a HFOG of 2, then everything costs twice as much.If you have a HFOG of 3, then everything costs thrice as much. And so on.

Some techs decrease the HFOG.
Each turn there is an x% chance of the HFOG increasing, where x is your oppressometer setting.
The size of your Empire affects the HFOG - bigger gives you a higher HFOG.
Changing government reduces HFOG to an average of the current value and 1. This is an easy exploit, as the AI doesn't do this.
On Impossible the AI has a 85% HFOG starting rate.

Hope that helps a bit.

-Jam

	04-03-2003 12:39									#20
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Yes, that's the best explanation I've seen so far. Then again, it's the first one.

Is there any way to see your current HFOG?

	04-03-2003 12:59									#21
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quote: Originally posted by darcy Yes, that's the best explanation I've seen so far. Then again, it's the first one. Is there any way to see your current HFOG?

its under the victory tab

	04-03-2003 13:35									#22
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back to an explanation of DEA buildings: there are basically three flavors of buildings one can have on a planet.

The first are planet-wide structures. Things like pollution processors, any of the *modules, astro university - all are built on a planetary level and usually have some effect on all DEAs on that planet, or something close to that. These are built using the planet queue, and the player has full control over them if they see fit.

THe second are regional structures. These go in a region - any region on a planet - and boost the region itself in some way or give an unrelated bonus. Hydroponic farms is a regional structure, and it gives half a food point - which is actually pretty lame. C'mon, guys. Sheesh. Other types are bio-monitoring stations which increase the region's biodiversity (which in turn increases pop growth rates and happiness), regional fortifications, etc. The key word to look for in the tech description is 'region'. Also note that while it might give a boost to DEAs of a type, it doesn't need to be built with any DEA. All regional buildings are built by the viceroy according to your dev plans and the planet's needs.

The third are DEA buildings. These always have to do with a specific kind of DEA, and are built off of one specific DEA. For example, automated mines helps mining DEAs, while soil enrichment helps bioharvesting. These are the most intuitive to grasp, IMO. These also are totally controlled by the viceroy.

And for a special treat, there are spaceports. Spaceports can be built in any region, and each region can have one (and only one) spaceport DEA. However, unlike all the other DEAs, you can't build it explicitly. It's controlled again by the viceroy. Unlike regional buildings, however, spaceports have add-ons of their own. Very odd fish, they are, but they give you lots of money and that's what's important in the game.

	04-03-2003 14:32									#23
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quote: Originally posted by darcy Yes, that's the best explanation I've seen so far. Then again, it's the first one.

Why thankyou I plan on making some kind of guide... but I'd need someone to offer me some server space ?

-Jam