Recently I have been thinking a lot about all the advantages (through tricks, glitches, or whatever) that people have over the AI and even other people. As a fairminded gamer (stop snickering ), I thought it would be best if at least all the human players here could know them. I have my own fair share (although most of you have probably heard all of them before), and they follow:

1. When building outposts (and maybe even starbases, not sure, don't use this one all that much) and the tech level for outpost IIs is reached, outposts are completed instantly. In addition, your troop transports are not used up and can be used for other tasks.

2. Ships that are cloaked can bombard systems in the same turn. This can be accomplished simply by hitting the redeploy button, then selecting a cloaked ship and having it redeployed. Once this ship is redeployed (it will be not cloaked and on avoid status), you can simply include all the rest of your cloaked ships into this none cloaked group (and all will be able to bombard). (I know all you Romulan lovers who didn't know about this one will be drooling about this; and, I suppose, the Klingon lovers who are actually crazy enough to bombard planets with K'vorts)

3. Making ships realize that they are actually upgraded. This one is more actually to cure a nuisance than a trick. You may notice sometimes in games that vessels, although having the names of upgraded ships ie. war cruiser II, do not have the galactic speeds of them (and often will not have those speeds for a few turns). You can fix this, however, by simply regrouping those ships. Say, for klingon destroyer 2s, you have a taskforce that reads 1 galactic speed. You simply, again, redeploy this group and remove one ship from it. You can then add this ship back to the taskforce and it will read its proper speed (unfortunately, you can't help the lonely ships that are by themselves out in space).

4. This one is very well known, but still worth repeating. Planets can be terraformed instantly through the use of a colony ship and troop transport combination. You simply group them together so that it says two support ships, then terraform with them. Again, well known, but helpful for the new people out there.

5. This is just a tip for using your dilithium most effectively (I know some people out there will laugh about this one, but I didn't really know about this until recently, well, rather recently). Just because that convenient little dilithium counter in the corner of the screen says you don't have enough dilithium, doesn't mean you can't build ships out of that many places. For instance, say you have 6 dilithium and 9 systems building ships (thus, a -3 dilithium reading per turn), 3 build their ships in 1 turn, 6 build them in two turns. It can be worked out that every ship can be built the turn it is done simply by adjusting it so that the 2 turn systems will split the turns they are done with their ships by in half (meaning 3 get done one turn, 3 another). Obviously, your situations won't be this cut and dry, but even more complicated situations can be dealt with through the use of some creative purchasing (buying ships in a turn when you have spare dilithium, for instance). Just about everyone probably knows this, but I thought I'd put it here because I didn't really know this.

6. Recycle your fallen enemies. Using your enemies over and over again prevents the waste commonly associated with morale (almost serious). Again, probably commonly heard, but worth stating. First you must have a completely wiped out and enemy empire. Use a system of your enemies as a morale booster by (and I only recommend doing this with the Cardies and the Klingers since they know best how to piss off their enemies) building morale crushing structures (ie. mining prisons, forced labor farms, and labor whatchamacallits) and having them rebel. Them rebelling in itself won't help your morale, but reconquering them and wiping out their fledgling empire for a second or third time will.

7. Another helper for the Romulans: train your ships without the hassle of a facility. Basically, just find the Edo guardian (unfortunately, this doesn't work if you own them) and send your cloaked ships at it. Attack the first round, then hail. If you didn't do any damage to its armor (it tends to get cranky in a big way if you do), it will hail you the next turn. You don't lose ships, and the ones who did damage have lots of xp. *note, I found this one, #4, and #1 in Calladice's guide, I believe, so all credit for those should go to him (its a really good guide that I'd suggest beginners read).

Well, this post is getting fairly long and I'm all tricked out .
I'll just wait to see what the response is and see if I can think up any more.

Apparently I got most of them, or people aren't in the mood for sharing.

Either way, there is one trick/tip that I would like to know, and that is the easiest method for getting screenshots while inside BOTF. Please reply if you have at least that information.

With the BOTF screen up hit CNTL-PNT SCN. Hit the Windows key to minimize the game (or just exit the game). Then open Word or Paint or some other program, right click and paste. Tada!

Ahh, thank you kindly. I've been wondering how to do this for a while (and, after hours of googling I discovered there are surprisingly few resources on the subject, namely none). Thanks again.

So what is this " Calladice's guide," and where can I find it?

http://www.geocities.com/maasenstodt/bo ... adice.html

But... ahem... google would surely have told you the same

Sorry,

I never google.. But thanks for the link. There is things there I did not think of. Should make my games a lot more interesting to play.

I like the part where it is mentioned that the HARDEST to play is my favorite! Level 1 No minors. Impossable mode.

printing that bible off for further study!

When I read it I was very surprised he considers the Cards as the hardest race to play. I always thought they are really easy because of their moral/conquer advantages... but might be this has to do with my style of playing ^^

I agree. Some amasing statements there for sure. I was also a bit surprised that he mentioned the Romulan Star Empire, was the Best overall for a race to play. While I'm still reading the site, I prefer to play the
all level 1, no minors, impossable mode. HE has it listed as the hardest way to play and with that I can concur!

i think he meant easiest from a beginners perspective. The cardassians and the klingons have the lowest starting incomes so it IMO takes a more experienced player not to hit the financial skids early game (especially from tech 1) The romulans have the easiest ship combat and are generally jack of all trades in other areas (ambigous morale, decent economy, good research/intelligence) so there little a new player can do wrong.

thats just my take

I've seen people doing so much crap things with a superior fleet of warbirds I imagine there are things you can do wrong

yeah thats definetly right, one thing that bugs the crap out of me when playing the romulans is that you basically end up building warbirds exclusivly in order to stand a chance against the other races best ships. There cloak basically removes the risk and i think thats what makes it easy for new players, less consequences. The cardassians i can imagine would be a nightmare for a new player from tech 1, those ships generally suck until destroyer II/galor level. Hence why i play the bmod, it has an excellent cardassian ship tech system(very good romulan one too)

Why do you build so many Warbirds?, I hardly ever make them. Prefer to use Battlecrusers as my large ship fleet. Mix them with a set of distroyers and scouts, and you got a powerful set of fleets. Does not eat up much of your credits either....

thats all fine and well single player but in multi you need destroyers battlecruiser dont stand a chance against a human

Battlecruisers en mass are the best choice in a T5 game. The upgrade automatically with two(!) techs research. That actually means, if you pump out BC I all the time and then ge this gratis upgrade to BC II, you have enough credits to eventually *buy* 4 destroyers for one single BC II. After that effect, you should be able to have around 150-200 destroyers around turn 120.

So in an online game.. Distroyers are the way to go. Perhaps mixing even 1 or 2 BC in the mix is a good thing?

No, don't ever mix them up.

Right;

The key advantages of most destroyers (esp. Rom) is speed. Don't slow them down by adding a scout or battlecruiser! Basically, if a target can't be taken out by 9 or 18 destroyer II's, you should leave it to your capital ships!

That's where those Warbird II's come in handy! Rampage less important targets with your DD's, spreading mayhem and confusion, and then deliver a crushing main attack when your enemy tries to catch the destroyers!

Or if you have a lot of Battle Cruisers just set them to target a section and normally they're destoryed within one turn

In this case you're using the wrong tactics. Never use direct assault (well... use it in case you outnumber your enemy by a factor of 3 at minimum) but strafe and (for damaged units) harry.

I always use the counter menauvers anyway, which usually work

Yeah, I've heard that even just evasive can do a lot of damage if you have good (and manuverable) ships!

Yeah, just try evading with a Defiant!

You take very little damage, but you'll still score massive damage against the enemy. Of course, it is all dependant on the training level of your crew. The better trained they are, the harder it is for enemies to hit them, and the easier it is for you to hit them.

Don't forget to read the information that appears at the bottom of the screen when you hover the cursor over each of the orders. Whilst you don't always know what orders the enemy will have, you can often hazard a guess by turn 2. (If the battle has lasted that long)

Depending on the type of battle, you may even be able to guess their first orders. Using the info, you can select the order that will work best against their tactics, minimising your losses, whilst maximising the effectiveness of your fleet.

I'm sure all the information in this thread is useful to everyone, even if you've played BOTF to death...well, unless you're a Mizarian...

To be honest I've not seen an enemy fleet *not retreating* the first turn at all, even on impossible.

Another thing when i always have battles is that my phasers nver hit, just the torps (which evidently do enough damage anyway)

Of course botf lacked realism here because phaser seem to be far more accurate from big distances in canon, but not in the game at all. You need to come as close as 3 ship distances at a minimum to score a hit. I have hardly ever seen a phaser hit in round one as well. But legendary trained ships in close combat can be a true nightmare if they come to use their phasers

Cos they have lots of them and they are good. Of course if its you against 3 battle criusers your dead - usually

Some editors can mod the accuracy of the weapons, but you need to make sure you have a good one. Modding the accuracy of the weapons in BOTF can be a headache, and many of the editors aren't really up to the job.

I don't know of any such editors that are also compatible with XP though...

Again my friend Virtual PC comes to mind. For those that have never heard of it, it allows you to have multiple operating systems running on your pc at one time right from Windows 95 or eralier right up to Mac OS/X on a Windows PC. Good for all those illustration and editing companies.