Is there any truth to the rumor....?

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

I read in several places that if you build enough communications posts, you'll be able to find bombs easier. Does anyone have experience with that. If so, how does it work? Do the bombs glow or something?

Unrelated, I started crashing while making slug beds. It happened three times and its disasterous because this is an old game that doesn't save frequently. The slug beds can't be packed too tightly or something.

In case there's noobs reading, Slugs supposedly give out energy as they roam about. I've seen something like that happen, a big ring of energy sort of emminates from them and I suppose it recharges bots and maybe gives you more energy. Slugs seem to like mountaintops more than hogs.

[Mickmane]

In my custom mission games I turned off all the hectic stuff (no scrashers, no bombs,...). I don't think they're fun. So I don't remember the thing about the bombs, but maybe you can find info on that and other stuff here: www.rakrent.com/rtsc/rtsc_startopia.htm
(More than anyone not into the game would ever want to know! :) )

You can save manually, any time, just press esc and pick save from the menu, then put in a name for your save. The newest will always be on top in that list.

I'm not aware of crashing due to slug beds, but it's known that they can get stuck or just won't leave their slime baths and die there. Maybe you blocked some paths with pots or something?

Slugs poop out gem turds when they are happy, that you can recycle for energy:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=354261603

The emanating energy ring might be a overly joyed Karmarama, it's good for peeps and scuzzers nearby, but mind that criminal Karmaramas send out negative waves that are bad for nearby peeps and scuzzers.

[Funktapus]

Security controls help your security scuzzers automatically locate and remove bombs. If anything, comsensors might enhance that. So you can get the same effect with more security control and kasavagorians.

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

I have yet to witness a bomb being removed or defused. Sounds like it should happen.

Anyhow, I managed to take over the whole space station. The RTSC guide was of some help. I came across the idea that greys should not be hired if they have less than two skill stars because they don't cure the patients. Criminal grays take their money and make the patients worse so I fired the low skilled greys and built a lot of security bots and let my energy fill up. I also recycled my old sick bays because at one point they had no doctors even though they were powered up and there were plenty of qualified greys. They looked a little discolored so I thought maybe they're damaged.

When I had 4 doctors manning their stations, I cracked open the doors and opened crates of security scuzzers and started attacking some buildings. There was a couple of big battles but after that I'd just power up what was there or take it down and build security columns. Oh and made sure I had lots of power and more security bots being manufactured.

It seemed like you should have been allowed to send security bots deep into their territory with bombs to do major damage. Would have been fun to see them getting thrown around but then they didn't have the ragdoll like we have now. Myth bombs and the Myth damage model would have been cool but I guess then it would have been a whole different game.

Startopia is very groovy. Kind of like Tropico with combat. Someone should turn it into a series.

Val or Arona changed their accent late in the game. Got a little Scottish in there.

[Mickmane]

Yay for beating the enemy. :)

Funny, I don't remember the accent changing. Hm.

[Tungsten Whitmarsh Cadow]

It was rather glaring and it made me wonder if some long period of time had passed or he worked on some other job where he used a different accent and forgot to use the right accent when he came back to work on Startopia.

Some other observations I have on the game - I'm annoyed that I don't get to adjust my land while paused. Or recruit for my army while paused. I'm all alone here. Terraforming is a whole career for another person.

If I had a dollar for every time I right clicked on certain plants that were maybe on steeper terrain with no result I'd have a lot of dollars. That being said I think you can double or triple your growing surface in a section by having a lot of steep terrain. It would have been wonderful if instead of getting stuck in terrain or doors the boxes tumbled out into the valleys. 2) Bombs are annoying. I wish I could at least have saved them somewhere and then set them as land mines when I needed them. 3) multiple pattern buffers would have been nice. One for cargo and one for litter and damaged goods and maybe with crates stacking in slots even if they're not picked up in the right order. Another for bombs.And one for scuzzers.

[Fantastic Fwoosh]

Drop a security scuzzer onto a bomb when you find one early and they'll do a little animation and defuse it (to my experience it will not chain reaction explode) with or without security control if it manages to target it.

Despite what the F1 flavor text says, you can just immediately throw a bomb into recycler trash safely or onto a laboratory analyser (nothing will come of it, since its not a researchable item) but scuzzers will automatically defuse them passively anyway.

Pattern buffer is overpowered, its more about management of storage and being unafraid to just throw stuff on the ground though a small part of me would have liked pattern buffer's to least have been upgradable in the game.

[LadyAquanine735]

I actually found a defused bomb once. That's never happened to me before, but I do know that if I haven't found a bomb, and there were no explosions or deaths, it means a Security Scuzzer defused it. If you have enough of them, and a good security setup in general, bombs become less of a problem later in the game.

[Cununculus]

I have never seen a Scuzzer defuse a bomb, I must try that some times.
If I manage to find a bomb I either throw it in the recycler (yay, money!), throw it outside through the spacedock while it is open (you get some weird noises though, sort of angry alien comment through scrammbled communications), or keep it to dump it in the middle of a battle I am losing.
Downside of the latter is you are also killing your own, so it is more a last moment of vengeance before you lose a section...

[sabotage]

They do actually defuse bombs. But why do you want that when you can have a string of instant explosions to set back enemy attacks?

One thing i never thought of until recently is that the moment you are told theres a bomb plant, you pause (the actual pause key if you dont know that hotkey) the game and find it. Unpause and put it in your pattern buffer for later use or for placing into the recycling plant.

[Black Jesus]

There is a well known bug where a Slug will get stuck in the bed and stay there until they die (then the corpse gets trapped). I have heard of a few stories where this caused crashes upon the Slug's death, one guy swears up and down that it bluescreened his PC (which it can't because Startopia doesn't get direct kernal access since it runs in user space. So it had to be an issue with his hardware or driver.)

The advice has always been to forgo Slug Beds and just don't use them you don't even need them anyway as Slugs will literally crap out poop that turns into a hefty amount of energy when recycled. There is supposedly an unofficial patch made by one of the former programmers of the game that adds dynamic lighting among other things some claim it fixed the beds for them. For me it didn't your mileage may vary.

[Fly]

The comsensors have no effect I could tell, but the security controls do. Also, security scuzzers dearm any bombs they come across, so having plenty of them pretty much ensures that no nasty booms should happen.

If everything fails, and cheating is not beneath you, hit the pause button as soon as you get the bomb warning, take your time searching the bomb, beam it up into your pattern buffer and drop it into the recycler for some free energy...