Off the wall GC III questions

Id always assumed a multi module constructor was useless not it requires money to upgrade now. 

No you will need ships to protect a shipyard.

So when do my new planets get Zones of Control?  I can't build a mine on an adjacent asteroid (yet).

The planet's influence radius will slowly increase as the planet's influence increases.  It should be noted that asteroids, that are already mined, will slowly exert influence too.

Thanks.

The rate the ZOC (zone of control) grows can be sped with influence improvements, techs, and culture starbases.

You used to consume a Construction module on a Constructor to build a starbase and each of the starbase's improvements.  The dev team, I guess, thought it was silly that players would mass produce Constructors with as many modules as they could crammed on them, so now Constructors just build starbases, Starbases build their own upgrades, and there's no value (SFAIK) in having extra Construction modules on a Constructor.

If that's true, I don't like it.  But so far there are several things I don't like about GCIII 2.5.  More as I play more.

Okay, I have accumulated Food.  Now how do I use it on low-food worlds?

If I can't use it there, what is it food good for?  [Freudian slip??]

Build cities.

I tried that.  They tell me I'm not producing enough food.  Ooops.  I see that the food surplus has fallen below 4.  One of the Cities must have gone through.  And now I have to worry about Approval.  Isn't there a selective taxation level?

How does this "free improvement" bonus work? Sometimes the first thing I put in the queue gets rushed; sometimes it doesn't.  Sometimes a later one does; sometimes it doesn't.  Which ones are eligible and when?

I was usually the yor in the base. Terran a few times. Not that i can think of i played colonisers. This is a great way to build a shipyard i hear.

So you just throw a Shipyard into the queue first and hope that it's free?

No, constructors can still build Shipyards in the base game.  I built a multi-point Ctor, but haven't tried it yet.  I do see that SB improvements take credits...

I'm playing past game victory.  I want to try a few things, like the console.  Will cheating affect the status of the victory (i.e. the Metaverse reject it)?

How about playing a game with -cheat enabled, but not cheating?

What do the different ship Roles really mean?  Is this Assault Carrier 'Support' as it defaults, or Assault, or Capital, etc.  Or does it matter?

Ship roles are weird.   I just went all Kinetic weapons last game, and I found it better to do it backwards and make my large ships Assault.   They took all the hits, and they have all the hit points.   Meanwhile my precious, medium-hulled mercenaries were Escorts, and they didn't take any damage.   It's like your tanks and cannon fodder should be assault.   Your fleet assist and long-range missiles who don't have much defense should be capital.  Unless you're throwing fleet assist on cargo hulls, in which case cargo hulls should always be support (and I don't think throwing fleet assist on cargo hulls is a good idea--they take up too much logistics).

I wish you could take all your obsolete ships and change their roles to assault, but that is not to be.

roles change which other roles they target, and should also change where they spawn in combat. Ships will still shoot whatever comes into range first or at least they are supposed to. I normally quick battle all combat, but have heard stories of battle viewer achieving different outcomes.

there is no global tax rate, so it normally is a good idea to build approval on a planet before building cities. also a farm only makes 3 food, cities take 4, so you need 3 farms for every two cities. silicon based i don't know costs.

any constructor building a shipyard uses all remaining points and consumes the constructor. in theory building a new starbase should only take 1 construction point, so constructors could still build multiple. however with the modules taking administration points at least in crusade, i usually just build single constructor w/ lots of engines and range.

as for the free building, it basically only works with regular buildings, not wonders. I am unsure if it still works with shipyards or not, hub buildings like the space elevator might be a good use, tho they are low cost to produce anyways. 

Hmm.  That's interesting.  Ship roles map to where they are in the battle space.  Does this look right?

• Assault - up front shooting at bigger ships
• Interceptor - up front shooting at enemy ships up front
• Escort - mid-range shooting at intruders
• Capital - In the back shooting at other capitals
• Support - way in the back dodging missiles
• Guardian - back home guarding the flag ??

Why isn't this documented anywhere?

Hmmm... I see there's a section in the wiki, and it's more complex than it seems.

Ship_roles

Looks like I should have left my Carriers as Support.

As far as I can tell, there are four(?)types of drones: assault, guardian, interceptor, and escort(?).  Know anything more?

Snips from the wiki:

• Assault drones (Escort role, small hull, mixed weapons and mixed defenses)
• Interceptor drones (Interceptor, tiny, beam) will not protect their motherships
• Guardian drones (Guardian, tiny, kinetic) do too little damage, so the Assault drones seem the more effective alternative.

Carrier drone roles didn't even work until recently (assuming they do now?). 

If their was a CEO Citizen called Brad what would his abilities be ?

Inventive, Relentless.

The ability to change the rules of the game in the middle.  

Does anyone know why coercion was removed in the last patch? Not that I dont agree, it was a good thing. Im just curious on the reason behind it.

When I try to edit full XML from the Civ. builder, it opens the XML file in IE, which will not allow me to edit anything! How do I change this?