Some newbi questions

[UncleJoe]

I like this game, so far (won one, lost one, may be winning a third). Got some newbi questions:

Trade between my planets and the AI's: where does the profit/loss show up? Same for "extra" income from monuments, vistas, etc. on colony worlds. Where is it reported?

I found I had a "Grand Scale Factories" on some planets. How did I get that and what's the benefit?

Occasionally I can add weapons, etc. to a ship I designed a couple of hundred turns ago. How did that happen?

Only 9 buildings (including upgrades!?!) on a planet. Why? And how to choose which ones? This whole issue of planet development has me confused.

Is there a hotkey for switching between colony screens? It would sure help.

Is there some easy way to compare benefits between research items? E.g. Fusion power plants vs. hydrogen power plants.
Just looking at the chart for each individual research item does not tell you much, especially since each incremental advance produces such a small benefit.

The manual says I can nominate myself for leader of the galaxy, but does not say how. In fact, the manual does not say "how" on a lot of issues. I wonder if the devs are planning to do anything about that. On that thought, I wonder if someone is going to publish a strategy guide for Horizon? Or add one to this forum?

Anyway, thanks for your help.

[Lithari]

Trade between my planets and the AI's: where does the profit/loss show up? Same for "extra" income from monuments, vistas, etc. on colony worlds. Where is it reported? The profit is shown at the top centre of the screen, otherwise, i do not know.

I found I had a "Grand Scale Factories" on some planets. How did I get that and what's the benefit? The Grand Scale Factories are the third of four levels of the industry buildings you can build and the forth is only found via digging discovered ruins and the industry buildings increase production on building anything on that planet it is built.

Occasionally I can add weapons, etc. to a ship I designed a couple of hundred turns ago. How did that happen? I believe with each level of the weapon researched increases the quality of the design, making it take less room.

Only 9 buildings (including upgrades!?!) on a planet. Why? And how to choose which ones? This whole issue of planet development has me confused. This can be confusing to me as well, but the building limit is based on the planet size, so small is limited to 8, medium = 9, large = 10, huge = 11, while the capital world is limited to 14. When it comes to choosing which to build depends on how you designed your race.

Is there a hotkey for switching between colony screens? It would sure help. I never understand the need for a hotkey, but i use the arrow keys, left and right to switch between colonies, but it sometimes can be confusing on which order they are in.

Is there some easy way to compare benefits between research items? E.g. Fusion power plants vs. hydrogen power plants.
Just looking at the chart for each individual research item does not tell you much, especially since each incremental advance produces such a small benefit. I check the ship design window for that, if you have researched even level 1 of each of the power plants, you can find the overall best one, but i ultimately pick one that fits my style and as we all know, everyone has their own style.

The manual says I can nominate myself for leader of the galaxy, but does not say how. In fact, the manual does not say "how" on a lot of issues. I wonder if the devs are planning to do anything about that. On that thought, I wonder if someone is going to publish a strategy guide for Horizon? Or add one to this forum? Well, the ways to win is determined by which game mode you are playing, i think the developers said that somewhere, correct me if i am wrong please, the normal mode, with the story missions enabled (fun way to play) doesn't have the galactic victory option enabled, otherwise its bring all the races into an alliance or wipe them out, the classic mode, which have the stories disabled, has the same victories, but also has the galactic victory, which is won via the senate voting.

[Bansheedragon]

Is there a hotkey for switching between colony screens? It would sure help. I never understand the need for a hotkey, but i use the arrow keys, left and right to switch between colonies, but it sometimes can be confusing on which order they are in.

There is a thread about Interface enhancements in the Main section of the forums here.
I asked for just this very thing to be added, as well as a couple other things, but there has only been 1 reply to that thread and nothing more for a very long time, as if its just forgotten or nobody was interested.

http://forum.l3o.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1031

Perhaps if you can get some more attention to it we can get the devs to at least look into adding it.

[UncleJoe]

Thanks, Lithari, Bansheedragon! I do hope there will be additions/corrections to the game. As is, there are just too many unexplained things going on. Apparently, you pay your money, you take your chances!

[Bansheedragon]

They have been very busy since the release trying to squash bugs and generally improve the game.
They are also quite involved with the people on the forums here and they listen to what we have to say,
So at the current point in time I'm reasonably confident that they will improve and add on things as time goes by, we just need to give them the time they need to get it done.

Suggestions and feedback as of course always welcome.

[Khanti]

I got another newbie question, so this theas should be fine to ask.

1. Is it possible to send colonists from homeworld to new colonized planets? Let's say from Earth to Mars to speed things up?
I tried to find a way, but failed. So all my colonies has only a few millions people.

[True_poser]

Nope, there isn't a way to boost colony population.

You can set high growth rate in the race editor.
I won't go into details, but the result is drastically different.

[arscola]

You would think that it wouldn't be all that difficult to allow moving of colonists using your Colonizer ship. Basically getting it filled up (refit) at a Starbase then when it arrives at the new planet basically have an "unload" button to unload the 50k colonists to the planet. What I find very strange is having a Colonizer ship laying around for 5 or 6 turns and that's after it tried to colonize a planet only to be beaten to the punch by an alien race so the colonists on that ship are now living 10+ years in that Colonizer ship.

Also one major pet peeve that I have with the game has to do with trading as it doesn't exist. I know that I can "demand" techs and removal of ships but the only trading that occurs happens behind the scenes and seems to involve credits but it's hard to get a handle on that with no reporting mechanism. If say I could trade one tech and some credits for a better tech or help with a war then at least something can be done from the diplomacy screen once you've established all the basic agreements.

One more thing, very minor but it would be nice to have some sort of Hero/Leader that could help out your fleet or even help out one planet. Overall though I like the game and it's basic premises and really love the quests and digging for ancient tech or race specific remnants.

[Davor]

If you won one, lost one, how are you winning a third? Wouldn't that be your second win?

[Khanti]

OK. So no colonists transport. It's rather strange, but maybe in the future it will be possible.

1. What about ship prices? Why my ships tends to rise in maintenance every new tech discovered?
Please give me some maintenance price lower tech

2. Is there any sense in building cruisers or should I build motherships only?
Can I kill mothership with 4-5 cruisers?

[True_poser]

50k means nothing at all, actually, as on ~7th turn your population exceeds 10 million.

Yes, you can kill a mothership with cruisers, but tactical combat is not rewarding, so better use the biggest guns on the biggest ships.

[tomindy13]

I have won many times by nominating myself for election. Click on the middle of the Galactic Meeting scene to bring up yourself and click elsewhere than ABSTAIN to nominate yourself. This is only available when not playing the scenarios.

[keller]

Also one major pet peeve that I have with the game has to do with trading as it doesn't exist. I know that I can "demand" techs and removal of ships but the only trading that occurs happens behind the scenes and seems to involve credits but it's hard to get a handle on that with no reporting mechanism. If say I could trade one tech and some credits for a better tech or help with a war then at least something can be done from the diplomacy screen once you've established all the basic agreements.

Trading of techs is possible. Sometimes an AI race will offer you a treaty and you can choose to ask for a tech in return. If they agree then on the next turn you will have a new tech to research which must of course reach level 1 before it can be used.
For normal trade you will need to secure a trade treaty with the race in question and have trade centers on your planets. After you have secured a treaty with them then trade routes will appear on the map (if you have the map set to show trade routes). If you need instructions on how to set your map to show trade routes just post back and I'll provide you with a screenshot and some general info