Gas Giants and resources

I believe the Advent colony frigate can also build mines...

TEC and Advent colony frigates and Vasari scouts can capture the neutral mines.

1. What we can do on giant gas planet? i notice that it can not be colonized and also nothing. Only the crystal and metal around them are good.
Any point of having giant gas planet?

2. I found a short of "magnetic cloud" some in my star system. What we can do with it? any special or hidden artifact within it? does it disturb the trade chain?

3. I do explore on my planet and found a natural resources. How/Where can i check of what natural resources that i found? and what its for? How many kind of natural resource we have in SoasE ?

4. What is the different between natural resource and the artifact? What can we do with artifact? how many kind of them? because i notice that other empire has founded a powerful artifact on the notice screen.

Ryeeson -

1. not much more to do then collect the resources here. one bonus of having collectors here is that you can see ships when they jump in, info never hurts.

2. if you select nebulae/astroids/storms/etcs and look in the bottom right you'll see an ability. hover over it to see what it does. i forget which is which but examples are; no strike craft, no abilites, etc. not sure about the trade chain, i've played where it hasn't when it has so i'm ont sure what the condition is.

3. hover over your plant to see it's info card. towards the bottom (around the gravity well info) it should tell you about what you've discovered on the planet. no idea how many of these there are.

4. when exploring a planet you'll find nothing/resources/artifacts. resources affect a planet where as artifacts affect your empire. if you want to know what artifacts you've got you can see them on the bottom research tab (called artifacts funnily enough). i recall there's 12 but check the research screen.

hope that helps, or at least doesn't lead you to far wrong =P

MrL

Neutral mines tend to have a higher output then regular mines. There's actually nine artifacts.

Neutral mines always give the output of 100% allegience. Plus, they often have higher base rates than the mines around planets.

Neutral extractors don't get penalties for allegiance, and they have a fairly high base extraction rate. Neutral extractors provide really high resource income. Also, they give you vision of the sector they are in, so they also serve as a sort of early warning system.

do gas giants interrupt the trade routes?

No, but you have to build a starbase with the trade upgrade in order to have your route go through them. Magnetic clouds are the only thing that totally stops a trade route.

A little calculation is needed for the starbase trade route because it is very expensive even for the TEC, so if it extends it with only one or two planets it might be better to build another trade port elsewhere if you don't have the chance to expand your economy in this expensive way (and if you have available logistic capacity anywhere). The TEC second trade upgrade gives so much credits if I have a starbase not in the worst frontline I always try to put 2 points in it. But if you wipe out one of your enemies it should worth the cost for it to link the two "sides" of your empire divided by a non coloniseable thing. I don't like maths that much so maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but it seems logical to me.

I have not tried it so far, does a Star count in the trade route? Maybe it's a strange question but I'm curious.

Yes, I'm not entirely sure if it will jump solar systems or not though.

It does. I use it all the time.

What do people mean by "stops a trade route"? - i find my trade ships flying through enemy planets to get to trade ports owned by my allies, or travelling through Gas worlds, dead asteroids, clouds, Star systems etc

For gas giants, put a starbase with trade port upgrades (lvl 2) and a hangar bay, makes sure that no stray AI colony frigs take those neutral extractors from you. 

You have to build a starbase with the trade upgrade on the non-colonizables, however on a magnetic cloud all abilities are disabled, so you are unable to build a starbase. This effectively stops your trade route

Quoting Roqul, reply 14

What do people mean by "stops a trade route"? - i find my trade ships flying through enemy planets to get to trade ports owned by my allies, or travelling through Gas worlds, dead asteroids, clouds, Star systems etc

For gas giants, put a starbase with trade port upgrades (lvl 2) and a hangar bay, makes sure that no stray AI colony frigs take those neutral extractors from you. 

 

Your reply is strange for me, do you really understand the logics of trade routes, the thing highlighted when you get your cursor over the credit income and see your planets from far above? Or maybe I misunderstood what you wanted to say? Then I'm sorry.. There is nothing to do with enemy or allied planets where you don't have a trade port, and the allied trade ports only count in the diplomatic bonus I don't really understand, the trade routes of both players or something like that.

Trade route is shortest route trough all connected planets that you own with a trade port. You can extend it with star bases to planets that you cannot colonize (etc gas giants allied planets) . You can also extend it with trade pact which acts as

chain length = player 1 chain + player 2 chain

Trade route chain length (number of legs - planets that are connected) increase output of trade port that you own. For faster settings 

Trade port output = 1.7 + (length of legs in trade route * 0.1)

More trade ports in same gravity well increase trade output of planet but do not increase trade chain. 

To see how many legs it has zoom out to galaxy view and hover cursor over credits. White line will represent it. It is worth to say that sometimes you can extend trade line by planning ahead and not building trade ports on all your planets. 

Those mineral extractors you are talking about are called neutrals as they are in always neutral gravity well. They are very important as they are not effected by allegiance and cost no investment at all. They are significant boost to your economy especially early game . If you play vasari scouts with 60 AM can capture them and if you are TEC or Advent you need colony ship with 40 AM.

They are so important that in skilled games most of early battles are to secure them for your team. If you are vasari in skilled games it is not unheard of that you plant starbase in system with 3 of them just to keep control of them. Vasari early game are extremely dependant on them as they will decide if vasari that is battling advent will have to play defensively or be on offensive.       

It is same story as with gas giants. I might be wrong but I think that magnetic cloud disables all abilities so unless you are VR you cannot build star base inside it. If you are VR you can simply jump one in. 

There is another type of neutral gravity well (ion something) that disables strike craft launch although skirantra ability scramble bombers works in it so those are only strike craft that work in above mentioned type. 

Although I might have mixed them

 

Either artefacts or natural resources can be find on planet info card. Difference is that artefacts work on empire scale while resources work on planetary scale. What artefacts do can be seen on research screen....  

Difference is that artefacts work on empire scale while resources work on planetary scale. What artefacts do can be seen on research screen....  Both of them give boost to your empire in one or other way.

They can be moded to handicap planets or empire as well as many SINS mods have done.