Empires Of Planets 4

The University Alliance

Race Attributes

• Small but powerful ship list
• Very gadget oriented ship list
• Hull designs are generally specialized for a specific task
• Poor spy powers
• Speed 32 cargo pods
• Average Trooper attack ratings, but low colonist and crew attack ratings
• Good growth rate
• Poor trooper and high guard conversion rates
• Good income
• Good mining rates
• Can build both alchemy devices
• Very happy race
• Starts with 3 Watchmen, 2 Pathfinders, and 1 XL-5

Missing Base Buildings

• Labor Camp
• Labor Mine
• Resort

Special Base Buildings

• Tech Center: Produces Illegal books and stim bright pills. Makes intellectual natives (Humaniods and Ghipsoldal) natives happy. Produces 300gc a turn. Limit 5 per planet. Requires 100,000 colonists each to produce the 300gc each. The building itself costs 3,000mc and 200 supplies, as well as a planet tech of at least four.

Ship Attributes

• Small but powerful ship list
• The ship list is designed for craft to work with other hull types in a fleet mentality
• Most ship designs average scanners, but some hulls have very powerful scanners
• All ships designs (except the Violator) have at least a few devices
• Most of the combat craft can mount the Transport Inhibitor device
• The Watchman Class Scout is a fast cloaking recon ship that can use the Probe Launcher to gather a great deal of information from up to 500LY away
• The Pathfinder Class Transport is a lightly armed and armored heavy freighter with a decent top speed. It can also make Jump Gates
• The Hunter-Killer Class Cruiser is a light combat ship that is heavily armed for its mass and also has high combat bonuses. It also has Hacker Droids and a Boarding Laser.
• The Incident Utility Cruiser has many varied devices that allow it to fill many different rolls and is a large prize for alien capture.
• The XL-5 Weapons Platform is an engineless weapon platform that has a high scanner range.
• The Hive Class Carrier is a large capacity carrier that can build XL-5's and Watchmen.
• The Violator is a mobile Super Laser.
• The Singularity Class Dreadnought has many large weapon mounts, as well as some ship devices.
• Merlin Class Alchemy Ship will produce metals from supply units.
• For further ship specific ship usage suggestions and attributes, visit the University Alliance Detailed Strategy Guide.

Ship Special Devices

• Transport Inhibitor: Burns 10kt of fuel when on. The device has a 70% chance of stopping an enemy ship from transporting a boarding party onto your ship. Your ship must have less than 30% system damage for the transport inhibitor to be able to function.
• Cloaking Device: Burns fuel and reduces the ship's sensor image by 50 points. Ships that have a sensor image of 0 can not be seen. The ship overview screen will show you your ship's current sensor image. Be aware that moving at high speeds, using your transporters, traveling through web minefields, or enemy tachyon scanners can uncloak your ship. You can never be completely sure that you have not been seen.
• Jump Gate Builder: Builds a jumpgate after movement is all done. The ship must have 1000 molybdenum and 10000 mc. Once a jumpgate is built it can not be destroyed. Every jumpgate has an access code. You can see the access code by looking at it with a data pad. To use a jump gate park your ship at the game and set one of your ship's command codes to the access code of the gate that you wish to jump to. The next turn you will end up at the other gate. Anyone can use a jumpgate, all that you have to know is the command code of the one that you wish to jump to and a gate to jump from.
• Global Icer: When on it will cool planet by 5 climate units until the climate reaches 50. The ship burns 5 kt of fuel to change the climate by 5 units.
• DTMS-N fuel Converter: The device when on will convert 10 supply units into 1 kt of fuel. It can also convert 1 duranium, 1 tritanium, or 1 molybdenum into 1 fuel unit. The converter only uses metals and supplies that are in the ship's cargo hold. It will stop processing when the ship's fuel tank is full.
• Alchemy Forge: When on, it grabs supply units from junk pods and resupply pods belonging to anyone, plus supplies from planets and bases that you own and converts the supplies to metals. Twelve supply units yield 1 duranium, 1 tritanium, and 1 molybdenum. Control switches on the ship can limit the process to just one metal type if you wish.
• Laser Mining Drill: Extracts mineral ore from the core of the planet under the ship and converts it into metals and stores the metals in the ship's cargo hold. The only limit to the amount that can be taken is the size of the ship's cargo hold. The drill increases the climate of the planet by 0.3 a turn and the HD stress of the planet by 10 to 60 points. The device has no effect on ore or metal that is sitting on the planet's surface.
• Ore Processing: When on the ship grabs ore from any pod in the area (including ones that do not belong to you), any planet you are over and any of your own bases. The ore is converted into metals and stored in the ship's cargo hold. You can have the metals automatically transported down to a base you own if you are over one with the ship command code BDM (Beam Down Metals). Two ore units yield one metal unit. The only limit as to how much can be processed in a turn is the size of the ship's cargo hold. Ore processing costs nothing.
• Barbitic Mine Dropper: Converts ordnance units into Barbitic mines and drops them. Barbitic mines are powerful anti-ship mines that also can be used to destroy enemy minefields. When a barbitic minefield is blow up it does damage to all ships in the field and destroys all minefield in the radius of the field. All minefields have a limited lifetime of around 20 turns before they run out of power and disappear. Any ship belonging to another race moving through your barbitic minefield risks hitting a mine and taking massive damage. Minefields can be stacked on top of one another. After dropping a minefield the mine dropper does not reset to off. It will lay minefield after minefield until the ship runs out of ordnance or the device is turned off. Mine dropping and sweeping is controlled from the mine screen that all ships with mine dropping devices have.
• Gravitonic Mine Dropper: Converts ordnance units into gravitonic mines and drops them. Gravitonic mines are anti hyperjump mines. A ship in a gravitonic minefield can not make a hyperjump. If a ship is jumping trough hyperspace and they cross over a gravitonic minefield they will return to normal space. After dropping a minefield the mine dropper does not reset to off. It will lay minefield after minefield until the ship runs out of ordnance or the device is turned off. Mine dropping and sweeping is controlled from the mine screen that all ships with mine dropping devices have. Ships moving through a gravitonic minefield can hit them and take some damage. A ship with a hull mass of 100 kt can take up to 10% hull damage. Gravitonic mines are 10 times less powerful than barbitic mines but your odds of hitting a gravitonic mine is 2.6 times greater than your odds of hitting a barbitic.
• Laser Mine Dropper: Converts ordnance units into laser mines and drops them. Laser mines are anti fighter and anti small ship mines. Mine dropping and sweeping is controlled from the mine screen that all ships with mine dropping devices have. Large ships take a small amount of damage from laser mines, ships with a hull mass of less than 60kt can take heavy damage from laser mines. Wings take heavy damage from laser mines. A Wing hitting a laser mine will loose a random number of fighters. Laser mines can do no more than 3% hull damage on ships with a hull mass of over 100 kt. The odds of hitting a laser mine is 2 times that of a gravitonic mine and 5.3 times greater than than your odds of hitting a barbitic mine. A ship or wing hitting a laser mine increases it scanner visibility by 20 points, which is enough to knock a ship out of cloak.
• Mine Sweeper Array: Destroys one enemy minefield or recovers one minefield belonging to your race converting it into ordnance units and stores the ordnance on your ship. You do not collect ordnance from enemy minefield that you sweep.
• Long Range Mine Detector: Allows you to see all minefield within 500 LY including cloaked ones. There are no negative effects for using one.
• Mobile Ord Factory: When on it turns supplies into ord units. One supply unit is turned into 100 ord units. It is only limited by the size of its cargo hold and ordnance hold.
• Mobile Fighter Factory: Builds fighters in space using just cash. The device will add fighters to any wing docked with the ship that does not have the full number that can fit in the fighter bay. If the ship has any empty fighter bays new wings will be formed and the bays will be filled with new fighters.
• Agro-Dome: Grows a minimum of 100kt of food a turn. On ships with a cargo hold of more than 500 kt it will grow 20% of the total cargo hold worth of food a turn. The device uses nothing.
• Bioscanner: Its primary use is detecting native life on planets out to a distance of 700 LY. When on the bioscanner's findings will be reported in the ship's log. Using the scanner does not make the ship any more visible to the enemy than normal.
• Food To Supply Converter: When on all the food on the ship is turned into supplies. One food unit is turned into one supply unit.
• Probe Launcher: Uses 100 ord units and scans all planets within 500ly of the ship. The probes have a 90% change of detecting any enemy bases on the planet.
• Hacker Droid: When on, the plans to the ship being towed are stored in the ships data bank. Will only work if the ship's data bank does not currently have a ship plan in it. Will work on any ship under tow, including enemy ships that you are not in control of. To use it just turn it one and tow the ship that you want the plans of. If you end up towing it you will get the ship plans.
• Boarding Laser: Only used when you are transporting your colonists, troops, crew, or high guard to an enemy ship as a hostile boarding action. The boarding laser helps your troops take over the enemy ship. It cuts holes in the enemy ship doing between 25% and 35% hull damage to the target. It kills 50% of the enemy crew, 20% of the enemy high guard, 60% of the enemy colonists, and 60% of the enemy troops. To use it just beam over 1 or more of one of your guys. There are 200 movement phases and combat will not start until phase 50 so during the first one quarter of movement you have time to fly past an enemy ship, transport over a boarding party, rip the enemy ship up with the boarding laser and get away back out to deep space.
• Show Lounge: Produces 0.1 mc per crewmember per turn. Takes nothing to use. Increases the happiness of the crew.
• Advanced Training Center: Turns more than 20% of the colonists on the ship into troops. Costs nothing to use.
• Minefield Destabilizer: Has a 80% chance of destroying one minefield that is within 150 ly of the ship using the device. It works on all minefields, including cloaked ones. It can destroy your own minefields as well as enemy minefields. When your own minefield is destroyed no ord units are recovered.

Ship Super Weapons

• Super Laser: The best of the superweapons when it comes to ship combat. The weapon also has the power to destroy a planet. Just set the planet as your ship's kill target and park the ship over the target planet, the next turn the planet will be gone. Any bases on the planet will also be gone. Any ship firing a super laser might show up clearly on enemy scanners.

Playing As

The UA is great at growing and collecting materials and cash, but your ships are not as strong as some other races. Be sure to use your mines intelligently, especially gravitonic mines to stop Jump Point Generator reliant races dead in their tracks. Watch out for races such as the Stormers with good combat, since your combat is poor to crap. They will probably try to board you occasionally, so be ready for it. The Incident is great at laying mines (Agro Dome+Food to Supply Converter+Mobile Ord Factory=free ord, but it takes quite awhile to go through this process), so use them accordingly. You will want to get hull tech 5 rapidly (that way you get the Incident and the Hunter-Killers), as well as planet tech 4 so you can build those Tech Centers (costly, but worth it in the long run). Your next tech priorities are engines every turn (of course) and get shields up to tech 7 sooner rather than later since most of your hulls rely on shields quite a bit. Since all of your hulls can be refitted and since you probably will not be doing much combat and offence for quite a few turns, weapons tend to be a lower priority. Every ship in the list is designed to be used and built, for they all fill a unique and often needed roll. The Tech Institute, while costly to get the tech for and costly to build, can rapidly pay for itself in the "research" it produces and in the contraband it collects. Do not be afraid to use it. Finally, the Transport Inhibitor is costly to run, but it exists for a reason. Do not be afraid to activate them when you feel skittish. Just watch your fuel.

Playing Against

Most University Alliance ships rely very heavily on shields, especially their Singularity Class Dreadnought, so be sure to equip Sandcasters when you can. Also, use your cloaking ships to eliminate Violators by themselves when they are at their weakest. The UA are experts at gaining information about the space and races around them. Be sure to drop the highest odds minefields that you can (webs first, then Laser mines, Gravitonic, then Barbitic last) in scattered areas around your empire to try to catch those slippery Watchman that are probably doing the occasional scan of your empire. Be sure to remember, though, that the Probe Launcher only gives planet data and says nothing about current ship locations. Also, be sure to bring with plenty of minesweeping ships. The UA can lay all mine types (except webs) quite easily with their Incident Utility Cruiser. If you can, get your hands on an Incident Utility Cruiser, even if you have to bribe, pillage, or steal to get one. Finally, do not forget that the University Alliance is one of the few races that has a Hacker Droid, so if you have an enemy ship that you want the plans for, be sure to ask your local UA player.

Natural Enemies

• The Lizards: The Lizard's combat ratings mean that they can chew through the UA's colonists and crew especially fast. Their cloaking ships, along with this combat advantage, makes most UA ships very vulnerable to capture.

University Alliance Race Stats