I'm back! Lets talk about s... mining

Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time, 4X space strategy game which models a "living galaxy" with incredible options for replayability and customizability. Experience the full depth and detail of large turn-based strategy games, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. Now greatly enhanced with the new Universe release, which includes all four previous releases as well as the new Universe expansion!

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thiosk2
Posts: 21
Joined: Tue Jan 15, 2013 6:44 pm

I'm back! Lets talk about s... mining

Post by thiosk2 »

I played DW for a while a couple years back, but kinda fell out of it. Also, lancer killed off emperor fred, so i was all 'screw dw.' But since then, there were a couple expansions, and expansion 3 seems about to hit, and things were on sale, so, im back!

I have always been a miner. I love collecting stuff and putting mining bases, well, everywhere. EVERYWHERE. 2% chromium? NEEDS A BASE. My motto? "Too much is almost always never enough."

I found a window in the colony management area type place that seemed to suggest that I had twice the stockpile for the... entire... galaxy... of about half the minerals on the list.

I really have no concept of how much of everything I need, and whether or not there is any problem with having too much. I noticed a "price" there-- have I glutted the galactic market by over extraction of minerals? In practical terms, how much of these things do I need?
Cruis.In
Posts: 202
Joined: Sat Nov 10, 2012 5:31 pm

RE: I'm back! Lets talk about s... mining

Post by Cruis.In »

hey them whiny private citizen bitches pay for the mining bases upkeep so why not :)
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feelotraveller
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Joined: Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:08 am

RE: I'm back! Lets talk about s... mining

Post by feelotraveller »

I would not worry too much about a glut.  Prices are capped at both minimum and maximum ends.  For most resources this scale is 0.8 (actually 0.83333....) to 2.5.  Luxuries and ultra-luxuries have higher base prices but same variation (maximum price = 3x minimum).  Can you have twice the galactic stockpile?  I thought your own stockpiles contributed to this figure meaning the hard limit is having 100% of the galactic stockpile.
 
How many resources you 'practically' need depends on how you play the game.  The main factors for non-luxuries are: a) how much stuff you are going to build - you can see summaries for each individual component and how much each base/ship uses on the design details screen; and b) the amount you end up trading the cpu players. 
 
When ships/bases 'die' in combat those resources exit the universe forever, so do the resources used in damaged armour and components (in normal circumstances but sometimes constructors repair ships without needing resources...) and those dumped by freighters when they flee.  Resources can be 'stuck' (reserved never to be collected) when freighters get interrupted/destroyed before collecting them.  Some races consume very small amounts of resources at their colonies. 
 
Fuel is somewhat different and is consumed in movement, combat and maintaining life support.  If you are not expanding (not that this ever happens [:D]) you need very little other than fuel. 
 
Luxuries are consumed but quite slowly.  They are more likely to be traded.  Unless you have a huge empire having more than one source of each is entirely optional (but can be very convenient).
 
However all the above said the sufficiency of resources is a local phenomenon in the game.  It is more than possible (=highly likely [:)]) to have a massive surplus of a given resource but have none locally and a large demand for it.  So rather than thinking total amount it is usually quite useful to think distribution.
Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:42 am

RE: I'm back! Lets talk about s... mining

Post by Bingeling »

And figuring out the distribution of resources is SO convenient in this game. [:(]
unclean
Posts: 163
Joined: Fri Dec 31, 2010 6:27 am

RE: I'm back! Lets talk about s... mining

Post by unclean »

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

And figuring out the distribution of resources is SO convenient in this game. [:(]
Yeah kind of annoying isn't it? You get a feel for it eventually, but hopefully it's getting some love in Shadows.

To the OP: When I started I was a massive pack rat too. You'll get over it :)

My advice is to grab every luxury resource you can get your hands on, and strategic resources only if you need them or if there's a big galaxy demand. If you try to mine too many strategic resources early on you just end up paying tons of upkeep on unnecessary constructors, and it slows your expansion by taking construction time away from colony ships.

As far as what you need, it depends on where you're at in the game. Early on you need lots of and polymer for space stations, and if you're building tons of ships Steel and Carbon Fibre, and Gold and Iridium once you start climbing the tech tree. Aside from that 1 mining base per resource (except for fuel) is fine for a pretty long time unless you're building weird custom designs.
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