Ludicrously newbie question - but how does one actually build the Executor?

I'm playing operation SkyHook, but can't work out how to build the beast! 

You'll need a level5 space colony, then a level5 shipyard and a research station above a single planet. Only planets with 5 slots for space building is able to be upgraded to level 5 space colony. The option to research the SSD will appear if these requirements are satisfied. You'll be able to build it after it is researched.

Thank you very much! 

Stupid follow up - Some planet don't seem to have space colony options (The Maw, for example) - is there anything I need to build beforehand?

The Maw has a level5 space colony from the start if I remember correctly. You can check what level the planet is on by checking the filled-with-color space building slots. So if you see 5 blue space slots, that means you already have a level5 space colony, if all the slots are grey, you don't have a single space building orbiting the planet.

Brilliant, thank you! 

The plot thickens.

Double checked the Maw, I've built a level 5 space station, and a research station, and all five space symbols are blue... But I can't see any research or build option for the SSD. Perhaps I need to work out these research mechanics! 

You should be able to check if it's unlocked or not in the droid advisor's space tech tree screen.

It's not unlocked, apparently.

So just to check, in order to progress onto level four, I simply need to build a research station with the appropriate sized space station? Or is there some way to advance through the tech tree?

Yes. Check the tech tree pre-requesites for the Executor-class, and see what level 4 ships you need to research first.

It's not my intention to spoil the fun or anything... Not forget about researching Praetor 2 first.

Well, all your advice worked. 

The only problem, is that the game became unplayable after week 30. Just slowed down to an insufferable crawl.

Tried Chih's sub mod on GFFA, which worked great at first, but the same problem eventually occurred.

Pah! Great mod, but my comp is too shit to play it. Typical. 

Nah the performance issues probably aren't specifically down to your PC, but rather the game having problems utilizing the resources that are available to it. It's single-threaded and CPU-bound so once one of your CPU cores is saturated, it can't perform any faster.

Well, all your advice worked. 

 

The only problem, is that the game became unplayable after week 30. Just slowed down to an insufferable crawl.

 

Tried Chih's sub mod on GFFA, which worked great at first, but the same problem eventually occurred.

 

Pah! Great mod, but my comp is too shit to play it. Typical. 

Welcome to the PR club   lol

Like Evil Bob said, there is absolutely nothing team can do about this. Of course there is small work around to mitigate the issue to some extent (removing useless units from map, limiting fighter buildup, disabling/removing certain useless ships from research tree), but you'll run PR into the ground at some stage anyway. If it is any consolation [prize] 1.2 is much, much faster than 1.1 was not to mention 1.0. Original GFFA was much bigger and totally unplayable when PR first appeared. On Pentium 4 it was literally suicidal-sadomasochism kind of game, Core 2 Duo improved it, but real breakthrough came with X58/1366 CPUs. I can testify than all further top CPUs failed to deliver on performance front badly. All i7 which came after X58 are just slightly better copies of old Nehalem. There was no (incl. X99) burst of raw power we experienced jumping from P4 (old VW Beetle) to C2D (SR-71) to i7 (USS Enterprise-e oh wait.... Millennium Falcon ha, ha).

Yeah, that's why I was curious about using similar maps to base FOC. Frankly, I'd be happy just replacing the base units with their upgraded PR equivalents (the combat mechanics and graphic effects in this mod are amazing). Having a gazillion different units doesn't matter as much as playability to me! 

Having a gazillion different units doesn't matter as much as playability to me! 

We are in agreement on this one - with a proviso: each unit built must be useful, not just unit for sake of unit. And issue was raised few times, to cut number of upgrades. Each upgrade clogs CPU a little bit. For capitals it's not that bad, but for corvettes, transports and fighters 7-10 it's pain. Each upgrade slot is a new unit, which create loooong list of same units just with different specs. Not perfect. Human player can easily replace old units with new ones. AI can't [won't?] do that and it clogs CPU performance one fighter wing at a time. Often the only way for AI to replace ships is to attack and be utterly defeated, but also often when player create 'stack of doom' in every target-able world, AI just sit camped and stacks junk.

Forgive me for being totally ignorant, but if that were the case, could one not just replace all of the 'upgrades' with a single edition? The same as base FOC.

Less canonical, sure. But much more playable right?

Is there anything else you would need to alter to remove the lag?

And how would you go about doing that?

Upgradable units are one of PRs main features. I agree however, that there are way more units than an average player needs. How about 3 levels for a single unit? It would cut about 60% of current the unit number, and probably around the same amount of lag. Do you know any canon/legend ships that has more than 3 types worth implementing?

To break up upgrades into tiers (excluding of course ships added in 1.3):

Battleships - 1 (Praetor, MC120, Bulwark)

Star destroyers and heavy cruisers - 2 (lvl 4 shipyard and perhaps some on lvl 3)

Rest - 3

+

removal of ordinary Tie-s. I have nothing against Tie spam during tactical combat (seriously beefed up complements), but build menu are no-go for them.

Most dreadnaughts and battleships are ok to have only one version. Some star capital+ sized ships could have 3 levels -if it's logical- though. While the victory mk3, the imperial mk3, bulwark mk2 or the MC80c are fan fiction, there are models already made for them, and it's always possible to modernize the complements too, creating a what if scenario.

It would be interesting to make the whole tech tree nearly impossible to research in a single campaign (due to money/time limits), so the player had to choose what units he/she upgrades. It could increase the replay value significantly. 

I agree to remove ties without hyperdrive from the build quene. There could be an upgrade tech tree as a requirement for higher level carriers, but I don't think its necessary to have them as separate buildable units.