Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

BOTF Strategy Guide

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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by QuasarDonkey »

cleverwise wrote:I am not a fan of the Turn and Summary buttons being so close together. I, too, and probably all of us have hit Turn by accident. I wouldn't want a double confirm Turn but it really should be on another part of the screen (at the bottom of that panel perhaps). Another annoyance is the fact the Summary tab doesn't remember where you were. It should remember if you were last on the Events, Systems, or Relationships screen.
You should try the shortcut keys.

Press 'S' for Summary. Press 'T' for Turn.

The summary tabs depend on which screen you're on. If you click Summary from the Main Galactic screen, you get the Events tab. On the Solar System screen, you get the Systems tab. On the Diplomacy screen, you get the Relationships tab. You can also quickly switch tabs using 'E' (for events), 'S' (for systems), and 'T' (for relationships).

There's many other shortcut keys in BotF too.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by cleverwise »

Well that is useful information. Thank you! I admit I haven't used any shortcuts; just the mouse. Is there any trick to having the scroll start at the last item you selected on the Events tab?

It isn't uncommon for me to have turns with 20 to 40 events. Since I micromanage the heck out of my systems I will visit them when their build queue reports some action completed. It is easy to double click on the entry as that takes you to the system screen. However when returning to the Events tab you have to scroll down after a dozen events or so (never counted). It is a royal pain in the arse.

What does suck is BotF doesn't seem to support scrolling mice. That would help if all scroll bars worked with the scroll wheel. Well at least Vanilla 1.0.2 and stock BotF don't support scrolling mice. I haven't made it to any mods yet.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by adi »

cleverwise wrote:Since I micromanage the heck out of my systems I will visit them when their build queue reports some action completed.
:) yes, i remember those days; I have a little CDO also; but i found a way that works better for me; in the events i only visit systems that have "unpowered" events. then i switch to the system tab and i look for the ones that don't build anything currently(with "Trade goods"). That way I only visit a fraction of the systems every turn. And i get to the battles faster.
About shortcuts: another useful ones are the arrow keys to scroll the map. And 'I' and 'O' to toggle between small map large map.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by cleverwise »

I do often look for any systems with "Trade Goods" status to make sure there is nothing that can't be built. I prefer to check in on systems as sometimes things change based on my current needs.

One issue is keeping everything straight. An additional feature that would be nice is to be able to leave say 30 to 100 character note on a system. For example you want to use x system for intel, y system for research, etc it can get tough when you have 40, 50, 60+ systems. In a recent game I played I ended up with 64 systems. Now you have won the game by that point as I kept answering no to do you accept the surrender of the other major governments but still it does get hard to keep everything straight.

I do use the arrow keys to scroll around the map but it would be much better if the game responded to the mouse. Thanks for the "I" and "O" for small and large map toggles. :-)

Don't get me wrong I like BotF and I am not complaining just expressing observations that I think would make the game better. I think BotF is the best game ever made but, as with any software, there is always room for improvement.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by Lathon »

cleverwise wrote: I do use the arrow keys to scroll around the map but it would be much better if the game responded to the mouse. Thanks for the "I" and "O" for small and large map toggles. :-)
.
You mean you didn't know that if you double click on a cell, it will focus on that cell, moving the camera view with it?
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by cleverwise »

Yeah I knew that but BotF won't respond to a scroll wheel nor does it have left, right, up, and down arrows at the edge. I realize you can click on a cell or use the arrow keys. I usually just use the arrow keys though. Still it would have been nice had more mouse awareness been build into the game.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by brianmcfa »

I was just wondering what anyone thought of bombing a system out of existence versus invading. When I play, especially later in the game, I will amass enough starships to completely wipe out a system in 1 or 2 turns. Morale doesn't get hurt quite as bad as a long drawn out affair. I will then include a colony ship in the fleet and immediately colonize the system and build a Starbase for protection. The plusses I get out of it are mostly that I have to worry less about morale in that system later. I think that offsets the loss of population and buildings initially. The only difficulty I've ever had was the occasional loss of the system later but if I'm careful that doesn't happen often.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by cleverwise »

I have never tried that approach. Other empires don't care like the Federation does about bombing so while playing say the Klingons or Ferengi I have bombed a system for many turns. The Federation has been more of a challenge there, but I have never massed enough ships together to wipe out all the population in a system in a single turn. It is an interesting thought.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by brianmcfa »

cleverwise wrote:I have never tried that approach. Other empires don't care like the Federation does about bombing so while playing say the Klingons or Ferengi I have bombed a system for many turns. The Federation has been more of a challenge there, but I have never massed enough ships together to wipe out all the population in a system in a single turn. It is an interesting thought.
I had 200 slow, 270 fast, and about 30 tactical and that wiped out a planet with a population of 535 in one turn but the same task force only hit 400 of 450 on another planet so that's just a rough idea to go by. My tech level was 7-8 by the time I hit them. I did make the mistake of doing a manual combat with this fleet. I ended up letting the computer run for a while to do the calculations. It took about 5 minutes a turn.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by cleverwise »

Wow! 500 ships in one system/sector. That is huge. The scroll list of ships must have been a mile long. ;-) Seriously though that is a lot of ships in one area.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by brianmcfa »

cleverwise wrote:Wow! 500 ships in one system/sector. That is huge. The scroll list of ships must have been a mile long. ;-) Seriously though that is a lot of ships in one area.
That was definitely end game. I'd just eliminated the Ferengi and the Cardassians in the same turn and had sent all the ships to wipe out the Klingons. I'd taken out the Romulans early on. They had one of those games where they were parked in a corner with two hostile species nearby so they didn't get far.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by adi »

brianmcfa wrote:
cleverwise wrote:I have never tried that approach. Other empires don't care like the Federation does about bombing so while playing say the Klingons or Ferengi I have bombed a system for many turns. The Federation has been more of a challenge there, but I have never massed enough ships together to wipe out all the population in a system in a single turn. It is an interesting thought.
I had 200 slow, 270 fast, and about 30 tactical and that wiped out a planet with a population of 535 in one turn but the same task force only hit 400 of 450 on another planet so that's just a rough idea to go by. My tech level was 7-8 by the time I hit them. I did make the mistake of doing a manual combat with this fleet. I ended up letting the computer run for a while to do the calculations. It took about 5 minutes a turn.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by brianmcfa »

You, Borg!
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by jlberner13 »

i played the game when it first came out eons ago but only casually...i just opened it back up (like a lot of my other 10 yr old strategy games) and have played a game or two. Question - I read all of this (new to me) info about using command/control ships ahead of troop transports so i thought i'd give it a try. I started a vanilla T5 game as romulans (purely military conquest) and started out. I got through the federation and cardassians within 100 turns or so (i'm guessing, i can't really remember) and all of the planetary assaults were going great.

Then for whatever reason I hit a wall...and started losing all of my warbirds to the orbitals. I saved/re-loaded several times and couldn't come up with a combination that would prevent me from losing everything. Took me another 300 turns (& 8 hours) to get through the Ferengi & Klingons because of the number of ships I had to build...i switched to sacrificing TT's instead.

What went wrong? My only thought is
a) it's a 1999 game and it glitched up on me or
b) being T5, the Ferengi & Klingons had some time to do some research which allowed their OB's to become strong enough to wipe out any warbird that it touched

Kind of killed the mood of the game...I'm wiping through them getting back into how the game works and then it drags on for hours just to get to that inevitable period where i still win.

Thanks.
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Re: Planetary Assaults - Morale Management (Damage Control)

Post by cleverwise »

I make sure to have at least one major capital ship per battery. So if the system has 10 batteries have at least 10 capital ships (Command Cruisers or better). The TT's should be after the warships which means listed below the warships. Also the TT's combat points should be at least double +1 the system defense number. So if a system has 350 you need 701 (min) in TT combat points.
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