I hadn't really thought that much about the cost of the replicators. Money is always a concern for me because I try to stay on 0 taxes to keep the production rate as high as possible.I guess I always think of the food problem as a pain and try to keep as many workers as possible in production.

Do you know how the various food producing activities and equipment play off of each other. For instance, if you have the hydroponic farm, some farmers working, and a subterranian farm, does that limit how much food the food replicator produces?

Do you have a favorite PD weapon, or a combination of weapons?

I'm often stuck with mass drivers for a long time, but I'll upgrade to PD phasers as soon as they become available, and I'll usually stick to those for the rest of the game.

There aren't many other PD options to be had between those two, unfortunately. Sometimes I'm forced to upgrade to 'normal' neutron/graviton beams for anti-missile/anti-fighter purposes in the meantime, even though they're not very efficient.

Thanks a ton for all the info, everyone. Still loving this game.

Yet more questions:

1. I don't understand pollution. How does it work? What does it do? Does it have a significant impact? Should pollution-minimizing techs be a priority? (Assuming I'm not Creative)

2. Is there any place where I can find stats on the various space creatures (amoeba, space hydra, space dragon, etc)? I never have any idea how strong they are and whether my fleet can defeat them

I usually go with enveloping fusion beams for point defense, but that's because I pick up ECM instead of Mass Drivers and I don't research new computers until Moleculartronic. Phasers are the late-game choice, of course.

Pollution: you can find a detailed explanation of it [url=http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion_II:_Battle_at_Antares/Some_details#Food.2C_production_and_research_points]here[/url], but the short answer is that it takes production to cancel pollution. It can really slow down building - there's a reason Tolerant is a 10 point pick. I almost always skip Pollution Processors to take Merculite Missiles, but will grab Atmospheric Renewers at the next level of Chemistry. Core Waste Dumps are good too, though Deep Core Mines are supposed to be a better choice. (Android worlds with Deep Core Mine, Robo-Miners and Auto-Factory make great shipyard planets and you can make a lot of money with 'em in between ships by making trade goods.)

This page has the stats for all the monsters, including the Guardian.

I have found that Fusion Beam with the enveloping modification is pretty effective. I think the best is probably the particle beam, but they don't come right away abd depend on the lucj when capturing Orion. I also sometimes use Phasors.

I was just wondering if you had found one that you were particularly enamoured with.

PollutionI have not seen stats on Pollution, I usually research them as a secondary item. They are fairly easy to trade the AI for. I don't know how much they help, but I know that the Pollution processor knocks one or two turns off of building . I usually trade for them(or extort them) .

Monsters

I have found the eels the easiest to kill, but if you just leave them alone they breed and you may have two or three of them to deal with.

I think that Crystals are the hardest. They can steal your ships too. Over kill is the best policy for them, or you may wind up fighting your own ships.

Maybe the Dragon is next to the hardest.

The rest seem to fall in beween the dragon and eel.

In the early part of the game, I wait until I have 3 battleships before I take them on, but wait for 4 for the Crystal.

It's hard to tell you how many, because I don't know what kind of ships you are building.

By the way, the Ion Pulse Cannon has almost no effect on them.


That's a great site, thanks

No, that only applies to Cybernetic (0.5 food, 0.5 production per unit of population), and androids.

The effect of pollution is that, over a certain amount of production based on planet size, population, techs, etc, some of your production points become pollution points. They don't do anything - which is exactly the point; you're effectively losing production output to it. Anti-pollution techs reduce or eliminate the amount of pollution generated, as do certain racials.

Re: Ion Pulse Cannons - as their description states, they don't work on space monsters or antaran vessels.