MOO Strategy Guide v. 1.0, Section 1
The originial MOO faq contained a strategy guide, which has been omitted from subsequent versions of
the faq. Here is my attempt to restore some of the gems from that original, as well as to add other
discoveries since then, as well as some of my own insights. This is the resulting strategy guide. If
anybody has other strategy insights they would like to send me, I would be glad to include those in future
editions of this guide. Each of the hints in this guide apply to version 1.3, unless specified otherwise.
Also, if you would like to lay claim to some of the tricks or hints that I got off the net, let me know and I
will cite you.
This Guide is organized into three sections.
1. Clever Tricks
Go to section 2: Strategies
Go to section 3: Tables and Formulas
This trick has been posted on the net, but I do not recall who originally posted it:
Versions 1.2 and higher allow you to click on a retreating ships fleet and redirect it, either to another
planet, or back to the planet they came from. If you build a ship with missiles or bombs, you can attack a
planet, use up your missiles or bombs, retreat, and then reattack next turn, with all your missiles and
bombs restored.
NOTE: I do not use this trick personally because I consider it a cheat, just as I do not use the save game
cheat, or the ALT-GALAXY cheat.
This trick was also posted on the net, by somebody. If you want to attack a race, and you want to know
the population, number of missile bases, and number of factories on each of their planets, one way to find
out is to perform sabotage on them. Then when you are given an option what to do to what planet, you
can click on each of their planets to find out this information about each one.
I ... eventually noticed the line in the manual [about taxing planets] that there was a 50% penalty, so I
stopped doing it. In case you wondered, putting money into your reserve by putting money in industry on
a planet that is maxed out on factories has the same problem. However, rich planets give you the same
double bonus for industry expenditures that are going into the reserve, so you can put money from rich
planets into the reserve without any overhead. I've never done it, but presumably with a super-rich planet
you could put the money into the reserve and get a 150% return, which you could even plow back into the
same planet! A cute feature. Also, there is one time that it is particularly useful to transfer money from a
built-up planet to a recently colonized planet: when you are expanding your frontier very rapidly, you
should put lots of colonists on the frontier planets so that you can transfer colonists from last turn's newly
colonized planet to this turn's newly colonized planet, thus putting population on newly colonized planets
very rapidly, without waiting for transports to move all the way from your center planets to the fringe for
every colonization. However, due to the overhead of waste management, newly colonized planets often do
not have enough money to transport half the population to another planet, so you need to have just a few
BC in reserve to pay for it.
Contributed by: jacob@sun19.objy.com (Jacob Butcher)
Generally, I do not have rich or ultra-rich planets do any research at all. Any excess production I plow
back into reserve. For ultra-rich planets, I continually plow it back into the planet's production (this
effectively increases the amount going into the reserve by a third. For example, suppose an ultra-rich
planet has production of 100, all of which is going into reserve. This means we are feeding 150 into
reserve every turn. If we then double this planet's production each turn by plowing 100 back in every
turn, we are effectively feeding 200 (or 200*3/2 - 100) into reserve every turn, or an increase of 50 over
not doing any plowing back.
I also then try to feed reserve into artifact planets, doubling their production every turn. If this production
then goes into research, I am getting effectively double the research than if I had let some rich planet
produce research rather than planetary reserve. (Note that it does not pay to have a non-rich planet feed
into reserve, which is then fed to artifact planets. This situation is a wash.)
So every few turns, I make sure:
- all research spending for each rich and ultrarich planet ----> planetary reserve instead.
- planetary reserve ----> Orion, ultrarich planets, artifact planets, new planets, and rich
planets producing ships (in that order)
Contributed by cox@unx.sas.com (Jim Cox)
This is one I just recently discovered. Although it is most useful for Humans, it also works with other
races.
The documentation notes that the maximum trade amount you can establish with another race is 25% of
the lesser race's total production.
When I first meet a race, I set trade at the minimum amount possible. Then I wait a long time until my
trade is getting close to the maximum. Then I renegotiate trade agreements. But first I do the following:
I take all my reserve and distribute it to a number of my planets for the next turn. This fools the computer
into thinking that I have up to twice the amount of production I really have. Since I play impossible level
where the computer races have OBSCENE production bonuses, I am usually last or near last in total
production at this point, but I have artifically dramatically increased my production for one turn only.
Then I meet with each of the other races, and increase trade to the maximum allowed. This trick can
dramatically increase trade revenue.
(Additional note: NEVER add small increments to trading amounts often, as the algorithm the computer
uses to determine trade will work against you. Do large increments at very infrequent intervals instead. I
usually do not increase trade until I can at least double the previous trade amount)
Contributed by cox@unx.sas.com (Jim Cox)
SHIP CHEAT (I hesitate to call it a cheat, but it is like the production cheat in civ). If you want to have a
huge fleet "hidden" from the enemy, design a really huge ship with all sorts of expensive toys on it. Then
dedicate 1 click to SHIPS and set the planets producing this ship (I name it SHIP CHEAT, call me
logical). The[n] I forget about it because it will normally take 400+ years to build this ship. When the
time comes to "reveal" your fleet to the enemy, with you highly advanced fleet, you change the type of
ship you were producing and presto.... instant invasion force! Personally I like to do this around Zortium
Armor. You should be able to build speedy small ships for fodder (computer likes to attack largest
NUMBERED fleet, I THINK at least on Average) and that's from on[e] or two planets. The great thing
about this is that you can design COOL large and HUGE ships (that you would actually use) and get them
rather quickly without dedicating all resources to SHIPS. [cox: Just be sure you keep up with these
planets regularly to change the ship they are building or you may find yourself with a pretty worthless
fleet, when they actually do finish building what you have told them to build!]
Contributed by: Barry Bloom
I have gotten some of the following tricks from the net, some from my own discoveries:
By putting a stack of ships equipped with repulsor beams directly in front of your planet, no bombers
will be able to get to your planet without destroying those ships first.
I like to keep my first scouts around for awhile and keep them at my planets. Then if the computer
attacks the planet with ships that cannot penetrate the planetary shield they will continue moving forward
until the scout is destroyed, being torn apart by planetary bases the whole time.
However, I am not sure this is wise. I have recently stopped doing this, because it is really nice for the
computer opponents to be keeping big fleets of outmoded designs around a long time. Each turn,
maintenance is being paid on those ships. In addition, if the computer opponent continues to have a large
fleet of these outmoded ships, maybe he won't design a brand new ship to replace it!
When I have ships defending a planet, I like to take the battle away from the planet. Then the opponents'
ships will attack my ships rather than moving to the planet and bombing it.
My favorite way [to crack planets with many missile bases] is to use bombers with Sub-space Teleporters.
On your first move you can teleport right next to the planet and drop a load of bombs. Even if you don't
take out all of the bases, you're still in no danger. The planet will launch a pile of missiles that will
appear directly over the planet. Now you teleport to the far left. The missiles will travel their max
distance (let's say '5') toward you. Now you teleport back to the right of the planet and drop another
bundle of bombs. The missiles on the left will travel their max distance back to the right but will max out
over the planet, one space too short. The planet will launche another barrage of missiles. Teleport back to
the left, etc., etc... Either you will ultimately eliminate all bases (which will also eliminate all airborne
missiles), or you'll run out of bombs, in which case you should 'retreat' while next to the planet. Then on
the next turn, return to the planet with a fresh load of bombs (pretty realistic, huh?) and finish the job.
Contributed by --pat traynor-- traynor@bostech.com
[Editor's note: As commented in further posts on net, this only works if opponent does not have subspace
interdicters]
Always fill up your weapon slots, unless you are putting less than four weapons on a ship. Then you can
continue firing slots of weapons at other stacks if one stack is destroyed by one slot. For example, suppose
you build a large ship with 10 autocannons and 2 death rays. Put five autocannons into each of two slots,
and a death ray in each of the other two slots.
If you really only have one type of ship you want to build, make six copies of the same ship, and produce
the different kinds on different worlds. You have a lot more flexibility in attack and defense with multiple
stacks than with a single stack.
This allows maximum flexibility in attack. For example, suppose you put death rays (range 4), stellar
converters (range 3), gauss autocannons (range 1), technology nullifier (range 4), neutron stream projector
(range 2), and black hole generator (range 1) on the same ship type. During a single attack, you can
attack up to 6 enemy stacks as follows: Move four squares away from one stack, turn off specials, and fire
at the stack (the death rays fire). Turn specials back on, move if necessary and fire at another stack 4
squares away (technology nullifier fires). Then fire at another stack 3 squares away (neutron stream
projector fires). Then move if necessary next to two of those 32000 ship stacks, turn off specials, and fire
autocannons at one, then turn on specials, and fire your black hole generator at the other.
Then you can move towards enemy ships, unload your weapons, and then back away out of range of his
fire.
Evidently (according to some postings I have seen lately) a cloaked ship will not be repulsed by a repulsor!
I like to build cloaked bombers, i.e. smalls that have only bombs as weapons. Their only mission is to get
to the planet and bomb it. The only time they are decloaked is after they have obliterated the missile bases
with their high powered bombs. And then they retreat. (Of coarse, I send escorts to take care of any other
ships that may be lurking around).
Wait til you have a few tech levels in construction and propulsion. Then design a _new_ colony ship, and
add the reserve fuel tanks as well as the colony base. Tech 3 in construction+propulsion seems to be
enough to shrink the colony base and engines so that they both fit into a LARGE hull with the fuel tanks.
This will usually be _way_ before you get the range-6 or range-8 propulsion tech (or even the warp-3
engines!).
Then your colony ship has the same range as your scouts, so colonise away!
Contributed by Gregory Bond < gnb@bby.com.au>
On impossible level, the computer races (especially psilons) can get a huge tech advantage over me.
Solution: I trade low level but highly valued techs (such as inertial stabilizer) for very high tech items. To
do this, I wait until the other race has gotten most of the high-tech advances.
Then I try to trade with them. Usually, they will not offer me anything valuable at first. But I keep on
cancelling the trade until they offer me something high-tech. This may take several turns, as their
diplomats often leave before I can get what I want. But eventually, I can usually get a high-tech item in
each of the six tech types this way. Then the next time I make a tech advance in that area, I am allowed to
research any item up to the tech level of the item I traded for. (It's nice to directly research complete
terraforming instead of +40, +60, etc. especially considering it only takes four times the research to
discover a tech 50 advance as a tech 25 advance). I can leapfrog tech levels in this manner.
Contributed by cox@unx.sas.com (Jim Cox)
Go to section 2: Strategies
Go to section 3: Tables and Formulas