<- - - - - - - - - - - recommended width to read this FAQ - - - - - - - - - - - - - -> __ __ _ ___ _____ ____ ___ ___ ____ | \/ | / \ / __)_ _) ___) \ / \| ___) | |\/| |/ A \\__ \ | | | _)_| - / | - | __) |_| |_|_/ \_\___/ |_| |____)_\_\ \___/|_| ___ ___ ___ ___ _ _ _____ / \| \( )/ \| \| | ( ) | - | - / | || - | | | | | Ultimate Ship FAQ version 3.1 \___/|_\_\(___)\___/|_|\_| (_____) Written by Andy Poon - Comments were inserted here and there. - The configuration of my current Globe is released. - More explanation of the Orion Globe features - A new section is added. See Table of Content. INTRO (06/23/99) For those of you reading my FAQ for the first time, this is a FAQ that releases the configuration of a ship that I have created in the Masters of Orion II universe that is virtually indestructable. It is the most powerful ship that can be constructed at the late stage of a game. When used correctly, this ship, by itself, is proven to be able to take on an entire fleet of enemy vessels, no matter how big, and then some. (^^) This ship is intended for one player gaming, because multi-player games usually end before the necessary research can be done to build the Orion Globe. *- It seemed to me, after reading my old FAQ over just to admire my own work, that some of the details on my Orion Globe are not explained very clearly on my previous FAQ, thus people were confused about why those systems that I have on the Globe are on it, and how to use the Globe itself. This version will rewrite parts of the old FAQ, and explain my creation in more detail and clarity. (11/16/99) - It was stressed that the Orion Globe shouldn't be used for multi-player games, but people are still mailing me multi-player questions about the Orion Globe. An added section to this FAQ will change that. ___________________________________________ ORION GLOBE I called this ship I have built the Orion Globe because in Master of Orion II, Orion is the symbol of power, and because I made it a DoomStar. What this ship can do in terms of destructive force well deserves its name. The record so far is 36 Doom Stars and 64 Titans destroyed, single-handedly. (07/31/99) - The record is now 71 Doomstars, 17 Titans, and 12 battleships! Since the maximum ships that can go into one single battle is 100, this record is hard to be borken. How did I managed to invoke the enemy to send me that many ships you ask? Well, first I gave the seat of the galactic council away , then I used a program I downloaded called Corion2, and gave the enemy 5 billion credits, which they used to buy all the ships they could, and an all out attack was launched against me. The rest you can figure out on your own. ----------------------------------------------- TABLE OF CONTENTS A. Necessary Technology B. Explaining the Essential Special systems a. misc. systems b. movement systems c. defensive systems d. offensive systems C. Explaining the weapon choices D. Disecting the Orion Globe E. Special Guest - Loknar F. End Result G. Working the Globe H. The Orion Globe Antidote _______________________________________________________________________ A. Necessary Technology ----------------------- Here is the list of the necessary technology to have in order to construct the 'best' Orion Globe possible. Some of the technology improve the weapon capacity of the Orion Globe, others are essential parts of it. Because you might have to acquire more than one technologies from the same research field, it is strongly recommended that the 'Creative' special race ability be selected when you begin a game so that all the necessary technology can be gained. But if for some reason you chose not to be 'Creative', this list is here for reference as to what you do need to get, if by other means than research. Categories Fields Applications ---------- ------ ------------ - Construction - Capsule Construction - Battle Pods (essential) - Planetoid Construction - Doom Star Construction (essential) - Power - Ion Fission - Ion Pulse Cannon (optional) - High Energy Distribution - High Energy Focus (essential) - Megafluxers (optional) - Hyper-Dimensional Fission - Hyper-X Capacitors (essential) - Interphased Fission - Plasma Torpedo (optional) * - Drive - The faster the better. - Chemistry * - Armor - The stronger the better. * - Fuel Cell - The larger the better. - Sociology - None are essential. - Computers - Cybertronics - Structural Analyzer (essential) - Moleculartronic Computer - Achilles Targeting Unit (essential) * - Computer - The smarter the better. - Genetics - none are essential. - Physics - Multi-Phased Physics - Phasors (essential) - Multi-Dimensional Physics - Disruptor Cannon (optional) - Tempral Physics - Time Warp Facilitatir (essential) - Stellar Converter (optional) - Force Fields - Magneto Gravitics - Warp Dissipater (optional) - Transwarp Fields - Subspace Teleporter (optional) - Inertial Nullifier (optional) - Temporal Fields - Phasing Cloak (essential) * - Shields - The thicker the better. _______________________________________________________________________ B. EXPLAINING THE ESSENTIAL SPECIAL SYSTEMS ------------------------------------------- a. Miscelaneous Systems Battle Pods - There's nothing special about this, just that it gives you more room to work with. After all the vital special systems are installed, there really isn't much room left for weapons. So this is quite important. Time Warp Facilitators - Combined with other systems, this is one of the most essential equipments. It enables a ship to take two consecutive turns after the enemies have finished theirs. This system works with the Hyper-X Capacitor, Phasing Cloak, and other things like Plasma Torpedos that all take one turn to recharge or restore. ------------------------------- b. Movement Systems Inertial Nullifier - When you're only one ship, the limited weapons range requires you to travel near the other ships, and start shooting at close range. If you go up or down on the screen, you'll still need to turn around, and head back the other direction. If you lost movement points while turning, it'll lose you some time before you can reach the enemies again, so this is a good equipment to have. - Not only that, after you destroy the ships infront of you, and try to turn around and get the ships behind you, they will fire at you because their weapons are still at full. At this time, the nullifier will evade their shots, and you'll suffer much less damage because most of the shots will miss you. (optional) Subspace Teleporter - This teleporter moves you further, so that most of your weapons can be used. Believe me, with the amount of weapons this ship equips, some times, you'll still have a lot of weapon shots left because you don't have enough movement points to get you close enough to the enemy. (optional) - After a long time perfecting the Orion Globe (Why do I have so much time on my hands you ask? don't ask), I actually prefer to use this more than the I. Nullifier, and have some weapons at fx or 360. Doing this will take away some of the weapons on board because of decreased space, but since you won't be turning, you won't even be shot at. Using this will also allow you to move more freely than just using your movement points. Adds incredible mobility. ------------------------------- c. Defensive Systems Damper Field - This cuts your damage by 3/4 if you are taking accidental damage such as warp core breaches. Very useful in some cases, because if the enemies equip Plasma Webs on their ships, which always hits, you'll suffer quite a bit if you get caught uncloaked and without the Damper field. (optional) Phasing Cloak - Combined with the Time Warp Facilitators, it allows the ship 10 cloaked turns to not be attacked at all. If you can't be attacked, you can't be destroyed. It's so simple yet effective. However, all weapons must be turned off in order to re-cloak. (essential) ------------------------------- d. Offensive Systems Achilles Targeting System - If you look at the descriptions for this system, you'll know that the system allows you to completely ignores armors, and go for the hull. What does this do? obviously cuts down the weapon use to nearly half the neccessary amount! - Not only that, at times, it hits the systems of the enemy ship, causing warp core breaches that damage other enemy ships, and when this happens, your weapon usage is even less. (essential) High Energy Focus - This increases the damage each of your weapons can do by 50%, and decrease the weapon usage to destroy a ship. I think it's worth it. (essential) Hyper-X Capacitors - If you want even more weapon shots, you gotta have this. Combined with the time-warp facilitators and the phasing cloak, this thing will pump out twice your equipped weapons every time you decloak. Because the combination of the Time-warper and the Phase cloak requires you to not fire for one round to recloak again, it is the perfect time to recharge the Capacitor. What a combination, eh? :) (essential) Structural Analyzer - It Doubles the damage of each weapon that penetrates the shield, it is just like another Hyper-X, except it works in a different way. You've gotta have this to do more damage. Although this system only works when the enemy shield is down, there is a way to bypass the enemy shields which will be explained later, if you don't already know it. (essential) _______________________________________________________________________ C. EXPLAINING THE WEAPON CHOICES -------------------------------- Stellar Converter - The Stellar converter is, of course, the most powerful weapon to use against anything; ships, space stations, planets. But the problem with using it against ships is that it is too powerful, like killing a fly with a smart missile. Another flaw is the space that it takes up. Although you can still get it miniturized to 200 space per, it is still too much for one weapon, although they ARE cool to have on board. (Not Recommended for efficiency/ Recommended for coolness) * - The Stellar Converter is not compatible with other systems, but IS compatible with the Structural Analyzer and the Achilles Targeting Unit !! Smart people will know what that means. Ion Pulse Cannon - This gun is recommended for minimum use, and only over short distance. Obviously with the system config on the Globe, the power of the Ion Pulse Cannon will sky rocket, but the result is still too unstable to be effective. (Not recommended for efficiency/ Recommended for coolness) Mauler Devices - People also think that maulers are the best weapons because it always hits. I can give you many reasons right now why NOT to use it. 1. Double range dissipation 2. No Autofire, point defense, and other mod's. 3. takes up still too much space for a weapon that can't use autofire. There's so much that this weapon can't do that others can, and the 100% hit is not exactly necessary, as long as you have near 99% hit. (Not Recommended) Death Rays - Same with the Mauler Device, It has no mods available. Sure it kills marines, fine! But if you're eliminating a ship anyways, do the marines even matter?? (Not Recommended) Phasors - As far as I can see, the two best weapons to use are phasors and disruptors. Surprised? Yes! Phasors and Disruptors are the best weapons by far!! (Recommended) - The reason for this is that Phasors have the Shield Piercing mod and the AutoFire mod. a. Shield piercing - This IGNORES the shields completely! *----- At this point I'd like to make a concept clear. A ship has 4 levels of defense: Shield, Armor, Structure, and System. But when the structure is destroyed, then the enemy ship is destroyed. So all we want to target is just the structure! Lvl1: Shield Bypassed by the shield piercing ability Lvl2: Armor Bypassed by the Achilles system Lvl3: Structure Nothing left to protect it Understand now? Shield piercing allows your weapons to completely go through the shield, unless they got hard shield, then there's nothing we can do about it. Combined with the Achilles system, all that's left of the enemy that's worth a darn is the structure. So the lesson for today is that with the modifications that you've see so far, all you are shooting at, IS the structure!! *----- b. Auto fire - This enable you to shoot a single weapon three times! tripling the damage each weapon can do! Below is a theoretical calculation of the total increase in weapon power after all the modifications have been done to the Orion Globe. Let's see now: Normal weapon: x1 High energy focus: x1.5 (50% power up) Achilles system: x2 (skipping the armor) Structural analyzer: x2 (double structure damage) Autofire: x3 (triple weapon fire) Hyper-X Capacitor: x2 (double weapon fire) --------------- x36 The systems here enhance one single weapon by 3600%, meaning that with 1 of the modified weapons, you can do the damage that's needed by 36 of the non-modified weapons! Don't tell me You're not impressed. When the ship you've just made becomes a veteran, each of the modified phasors will do 180 damage to the enemy ship structure. That's a lot for a phasor considering the max damage the descriptions gave was only 20 points. Wait 'til it becomes an ultra-elite, then they'll REALLY hurt them. Disruptors - This gun certainly is more powerful than the phasor, but it also takes up more space, and unlike the phasor, cannot have the shield piercing ability. But if you're going to fighting on a planet in a nebula, or if the enemies have weak shields that can be penetrated easily, it is definitely the optimal weapon to have. (Recommended) ---------------- (11/16/99) - I received an e-mail suggesting this weapon. At first I was skeptical, but I came to realize the advantage of this weapon. Thanks, if you're still reading my updates. Plasma Cannon - Although this weapon can't pearce shields or AutoFire, it does have a lot of power thanks to it's inherent Enveloping Mod. And after minaturization, it'll use just about the same space as Phasors. Because this weapon has Double Dissipation, it is recommended to use this without the Heavy Mounted Mod. Good against close by enemies and stationary targets such as space stations. (Recommened) ----------------- Particle beams - Obviously, the particle beam has more force than the phasors, and itself is always shield piercing. If only there's a method to miniturize the particle beams, then this would be the better weapon. (Not Recommended) Other weapons aren't really worth mentioning, such as missiles that get shot down too easily, so I won't mention them. You can try and fit as many weapons as you can onto this ship after you equip the necessary special systems. I can tell you right now, if you're only going for phasors you'll be able to fit 198 SP, Af Phasors onboard, that's 2 whole slots of 99 phasors. However, It's also a good idea to have some Heavy Mounted phasors. Because if you have 198 regular phasors, you're definitely not going to be able to use them all because all other ships will be out of range of your weapons, so put some heavy mounted phasors on for a farther reach. _______________________________________________________________________ D. DISECTING THE ORION GLOBE ---------------------------- This is the basic layout of the Orion Globe: (***) phasors (shield Piercing, Autofire) Shields (**) Other Weapons (Optional) Computer Armor Achilles Targeting Unit Battle pod High Enegy Focus Hyper-X Capacitor Phasing Cloak Structural Analyzer Time Warp Facilitator * One optional System The Orion Globe is created by combining the technologies listed above together, and all of them work together with one another. The Orion Globe : - Has increased weapon capacity using the Battle Pod. Without it, the firepower is too little. - Has 900% increase in weapon power by using the AutoFire mod, the High Energy Focus, and the Structural Analyzer! Allows less weapon usage to destroy an enemy vessel. - Allows 100% effectiveness of the Structural Analyzer (except against hard shields) by adding the Shield Piercing mod to the Phasor weapons to bypass the shields. Allows even less weapon usage to destroy an enemy vessel. - Cuts weapon usage to destroying enemy ships in HALF by using the Achilles Targeting Unit to completely bypass their armor. This effect is accumulative with other systems!! - Has double the weapon shots by using the Hyper-X Capacitor and Time Warp Facilitator Combination! If the Orion Globe has 200 weapons, that's 400 shots every turn an enemy takes! No ship can fit that many weapons! This effect is accumulative with other systems!! - only shoots at the enemy's vulnerable spot - the structure - by bypassing both the shields AND the armor using the Shield Piercing weapon mod and the Achilles Targetting Unit!! - Avoids enemy fires by using the combined effect of the Time Warp Facilitator and the Phasing Cloak. Decloak, fire weapons, next turn, take weapons offline, recloak. A more detailed explanation of this feature will be posted later. - Actuates total harmony between the Hyper-X, Phasing Cloak, and the Time Warp Facilitator, the heart of the Orion Globe! - Has room for an extra System for increased mobility or defense! Recommend Subspace Teleporter for Maximum added mobility. - Doesn't require any unresearchable technology!!! ____________________________________________________________________ E. SPECIAL GUEST - LOKNAR ------------------------- There's one thing I'd like to add here now. I mentioned before that people might be concerned with the side-effects of Auto-fire, because it _does_ decrease the accuracy rate. It is why so people want to put the Rangemaster on, or have the Continuous modification to the weapons to compensate. Loknar is one of the reasons why I called the Orion Globe the Orion Globe. With Loknar on your ship, his extraordinary abilities enhance every feature of the ship, including his super Weaponry skill which gives you extreme accuracy, and his Ordnance skill that increases the weapon damage by even more. I've always had loknar onboard the Orion Globe (It's just cool to assign the legendary captaion to the legendary ship), but if you have a hero that also has a high Weaponry skill, that hero can be used as well. _______________________________________________________________________ F. END RESULT ------------- The result is a ship that is so deadly, one of its kind can take on the entire universe, no matter how big, and it won't suffer any direct damage. ---------------------------- (11/12/98) Almost a year later after I finished the game(many many times) and the original FAQ, I got bored, and went back to the game. At this time I still was victorious and had nothing better to do than design a better Orion Globe. After many other trial designs, I have refitted a new Orion Globe. It now contains many other new options. See for yourself. This is now the official Orion Globe configuration. (01) Stellar Coverter (**) Phasors ( f ) sp,af (**) Phasors (360) sp,af (**) Phasors (fx ) hv,sp,af (01) Plasma Torp. NR,env,eccm,ovr (01) Disruptor (360) hv,af (01) Ion Pulse (360) af Achilles Targetting Unit Battle Pods High Energy Focus Hyper-X Capacitor Phasing Cloak Structural Analyzer Subspace Teleporter Time Warp Facilitator My very last version, after many, of Orion Globes, Has a Stellar Converter on Board. I know I said that it takes up too much room, but it still kicks ass. Besides, It's awesome for planetary sieges. If the Enemy has Barrier Shields on their planet, none of the phasors on-board will work, even if you fire all of them at once (yes, even the heavy mounted Phasors can't penetrate a Barrier Shield). The Converter can take out 2 of the planetary defenses every time you fire it. Although the Converter took space, I still had room for lots of regular Phasors and ones with 360 degree span. I was able to get a clean number of phasors and save enough room to put a Plasma Torpedo on-board. But why would you want a Torpedo' you ask? 'cause it's FUN! The old ship had power, but it's no fun just making enemies disappear. Target little ships with the Torpedo, and watch it do it's job; you can even savor the moment as the shields disappear on Starfortresses and raid them. It's not very powerful at all, it wastes space, but it's fun. For fun, I also added a Hv. Disruptor and an Ion Cannon on the Globe. Ion Cannons disable ship drives, and causes immobility in enemy ships or even Warp Core Breaches. But in order for it to work on the enemy, their shield has to be down first, and that's where the disruptor comes in handy. Watch them as they can't handle being disabled and chooses the honorable death of committing suicide and self-distructs the ship instead of being captured. It's just fun to watch. The Subspace Teleporter is there to increase mobility. There's no need for an Inertial Stablizer because the phasors are already 360' capable. Although a lot of space is used for 'fun' equipments, The original Globe had too much power itself, and lots of phasors were wasted anyways. Having the extra stuff there means that I won't be bored with the Globe and just press Auto and let it do it's job, but rather take some time to torture the enemy ships. (07/31/99) - A good ratio of Phasors, Phasors(360') and Hv Phasors(fx) is 8-5-2, for a good and even coverage of areas. I used to have a 1-1-1 ratio, but that wasted room on heavy phasors that did the job a regular phasor could have done. So here's a new ratio to fit the max amount of weapons, and being efficient at the same time. ________________________________________________________________________ G. WORKING THE ORION GLOBE -------------------------- *- Some people still don't understand how the Time Warp Facilitator & Phasing Cloak combo works, so this section will be a little more detailed. The Orion Globe, as explained before, is awesome because it has a Time Warp Facilitator and a Phasing cloak onboard. What this does is allow you to de-cloak and unleash your firepower on your enemy during your first turn, save your ammo (AND recharge the Hyper-X Capacitor) and re-cloak on your second turn. And when the enemies attack you with what's left of their forces from your attack, they can't hit you because you've already recloaked. When they have no target and no choice but to pass their turn, your turn comes up once again, and you wipe out the rest of their forces just like the way you do it on Your first two turns. There, that just about explain the whole Orion Globe 'Elimination' process. The hard part is explaining the workings of the T.W.F. because in MOO2 Ver1.31, it is pretty tricky. In MOO2 Versions before 1.31, the T.W.F is simple; after you take your turn, you get another go, then the enemy goes if they survived. However, MOO2 creators made things in Ver1.31 a little different, in my opinion, a little more logical. Thus, The workings of the T.W.F changed, and here is how to work the T.W.F & P.Cloak combo in version 1.31. The time warp facilitator turns(version 1.31) works like this: In each round, _________________________________________ You start enemy start Turn 1: you Turn 1: enemy Turn 2: enemy Turn 2: you ---- ---- Turn 3: you Turn 3: you ---- go back to turn 1 go back to turn 1 _________________________________________ After both sides have taken a turn, the final turn (3rd turn) goes to the ships that have a time warp facilitator on. Know your turns so that you can shut off all your un-used weapons and allow the ship to recloak. Therefore, if you are using the Orion Globe, and you are attacking first, SKIP THE TURN!!! Let the enemy go first. If the Orion Globe is the only ship standing up against the enemy (highly recommended), then when you skip your turn, the enemy will have nothing to shoot at because you have NOT decloaked yet. THEN you attack, and the Phasing Cloak and T.W.F combo will work. And if the enemy attacks first, the all is well, as long as your ships in that fight are cloaked. If you do it right, you can sustain up to 10 rounds undiscovered, 10 turns to do whatever you want. Unless the enemy runs before they're all destroyed, but through my experiences, I doubt that they'll run before you finish mowing them down. Besides, you'll only have like 20-30 ships to worry about if they launch an attack anyways. There's PLEANTY of firepower for that. * It is recommended that the Orion Globe go into battle alone, because the Orion Globe itself can already take care of a whole fleet of enemies. But if you have ships that also have the Time Warper and Phase Cloaker combo, you can send them in with the Globe, and they would compliment eachother. Well, here it is. Use the ship wisely. If you're not careful, and it's exposed to the enemy range, it is quite possible that they will shoot you down. But otherwise, this ship cannot be beaten. ________________________________________________________________________ H. The Orion Globe Neutralizer ------------------------------ This section of the FAQ will give you a ship configuration that is capable of destroying the Orion Globe 100% of the time. This is the one and only weapon against my deadly Orion Globe. A while back when I was driving home from a music rehersal (I'm a musician too, if you didn't notice from my e-mail address (^^)), I ran the Orion Globe through my mind, and wondered if there's anything that can defeat it. And sadly, I figured out how to destroy my proudest creation in the world of Master of Orion II, right there in the car. I was going to call this section the Orion Globe Killer, but that didn't sound good, so I used "Neutralizer" instead. I suppose the Orion Globe Buster works as well, or the Orion Globe Antidote. =) I'm putting this section in the FAQ just as an amusing section. This ship should never exist because the computer is not smart enough to build it, and since the Globe should not show up in a multi-player game, players should never have to build it as a counter-measure. So if there ARE players out there trying to build my Globe in a multi- player game, watch out, 'cause this ship will kick Orion Globe's ass. >From now on, I will refer to this ship as the O.G.N. Here goes: - The only way to attack the Orion Globe is to wait until it is decloaked. The only way to do that is if the O.G.N. is phase-cloaked as well, so as to wait it out with the Orion Globe and not get attacked at the same time. So a Phasing Cloak is necessary. - Now, if the Orion Globe can't target the O.G.N., it can simply retreat to avoid a fight. To prevent it from running away, the O.G.N. also needs a Warp Dissipater. Now the Globe is trapped. - If the Orion Globe Can't run, and can't decloak to fire, it's cloaked turns will go by in 5 of O.G.N.'s turns, because the Time Warp Facilitator doubles time flow for the Globe. - So, in 5 turns, the Globe will have to decload, but it's not a complete decloak, because a Phase-cloak will turn into a regular cloak that has 80% evasion, so the O.G.N. also needs a 100% sure hit weapon, namely the Stellar Converter, because it can fire anywhere in the battle field. now the Orion Globe can't run, can't hide, and can't evade. - It's best for the O.G.N. to ready at least 2 Stellar Converters, because if the Orion Globe has been equiped with shields, it'll probably withstand 1 S.C. blast with a strong Armor. But an Achilles Targetting Unit and a Structural Analyzer can be fitted onboard to increase weapon power because the Stellar Converter is compatible with both Units, as mentioned earlier in the FAQ. To summerize it, here is the necessary configuration: (01) Stellar Converter (01) Stellar Converter (If there is space) (**) Anything Achilles Targeting Unit Battle Pods Phasing Cloak Structural Analyzer Warp Dissipater Anything Anything Anything Notice that the O.G.N. does not have a Time Warp Facilitator onboard, because that will just make it a 50/50 chance out of who will decloak first and get killed first. The O.G.N. is still a normal ship if it is decloaked too early, and will get pounded by the Orion Globe if it decloaks before the Orion Globe does. There you have it. The for sure way to defeat the Orion Globe. If some people does try to use my Globe in a Multi-player game, kick their ass with this. Since it does not require much onboard, it is not necessary for the O.G.N. to be a Doom Star; a Titan O.G.N. will do nicely. *- Actually, I haven't tested the O.G.N., because I can't pit my own ships against eachother. But the theory works. ___________________________ (11/12/98) - Thank you all for reading my work. Since I'm satisfied with the current Globe, I won't be improving on it, meaning there won't be another FAQ on the Globe. (07/31/99) - I guess I lied. This should be the last version of this FAQ. I put in as much detail as I could, I think that's enough. Questions? you know what to do. (11/11/99) - Guess what? I lied again! I've corrected spellings, added a brand new section, and changed my e-mail address. ___________________________ Like any FAQ, many thanks to Microprose for making such a wonderful game. There, I said it. If there's any questions, or anything that I might have left out, please feel free to e-mail me at the address on the top of this FAQ. I don't need any money from any of you (like I can get any), but a little thank you note in my e-mailbox would be much appreciated.