A few questions

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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Caledor
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

A few questions

Post by Caledor »

After playing this game many hour, i have still a few questions.

1. Why is my economy so weak? I have the most coloniest and the biggest population. But my economy is on rank 12. Is this part of the difficult? I play on hard. One empire with 2 colonies has more tax income than i with my 33 colonies.

2. Can you explain me how the victory conditions work? I don't understand if i had to reach all 3 and for what is the big number...

3. Whart are the different storiers?
Standart: ?
Shakturi: Attack of the shakturi.
Legend: Just the special pirates or are all pirates stronger? I play just with this story. Are the pirates much weaker without this?

4. For what are ambassadors?

5. Is it normal that the savetime is longer than 20 minutes?

Special thanks to goolge translator.[;)]
erieelmer
Posts: 21
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2011 11:02 pm

RE: A few questions

Post by erieelmer »

Sounds like you may have expanded to fast. Check the income for each colony make sure it's positive. A net negative income on new colonies especially at the beginning of the game can create a real drag on your econemy
Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:42 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Bingeling »

1: The key is to have good quality colonies with huge populations. If you have lots of small/fresh colonies, they probably do more harm than good for the time being. The difficulty also gives a penalty, but I doubt it is that massive at hard.

2: Victory conditions are like (from memory). 40% territory, 40% population, 40% economy, 50% racial. Your target is to reach those percentages. Then there is the threshold. If you got a 80% victory threshold you need to be 80% on the way to reach the percentages to win.

I never play with victory conditions, so I am not sure if being "above" the requirement reduces the demands in other area.

3: Standard: Discover the past. Find derelict ship fields and signs of the ancient war.

Shakturi: The shakturi :)

Legends: Special pirates, not pirates in general.

Shadow events: Just the small happenings in pre-warp, but this expansion redid pirates in general. Before this they were wimps, apart from the legendary ones.

4: You deploy them at other empires to gain bonuses according to their stats. If you got a neighbor that is threatening, deploying an ace diplomat can stop hem from going to war.

5: Very long save times can happen in very mature galaxies, but 20 minutes seems a bit over the top. What is the size of your save files? Turning off "dead pirates respawn" is supposes to help a bit in this respect.

Saving will of course take longer time on a heavily breathing weak computer with a 5400 rpm laptop disk, compared to a state of the art computer with a SSD. But saving can still be slow in both cases, just not slow to the same degree.
mordachai
Posts: 684
Joined: Fri Mar 06, 2015 4:55 pm

RE: A few questions

Post by mordachai »

2: victory conditions: is a distribution of what portion of your total victory number comes from how-well-you're doing in each specific area.

e.g. 40% population would mean that 40% of your total score comes from how high your population is compared to the whole galaxy. If you had 100% of the total galactic population, then you'd get all 40% of that category. (90% of total pop would mean 36% in that category, etc.).

Maybe more intuitively, if you had succeeded in accomplishing all of your racial goals - and racial counted for 50% of your total victory score, then you'd have fulfilled 50% of your total victory just from racial score. Then you'd add your relative values of other categories to see if you've reached the game threshold for total victory (default = 80% overall).
Caledor
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Caledor »

Thank you for the answers. To my economy.
The most of my colonies have the maximum population.
I just have a look at my total income. I don't know where to look for one planet. Has one planet expenditure, except the planetare shield and the military forces?
Except 1 colonie, all my colonies have a quality of over 50%.
When i have a new colonie i put the tax at 0% until the population is at maximum. Then comes the tax 25% until 40%. Nonhumans become resettle or exterminate.
I can't understand why a empire with a population like my empire has 3 times more tax income.
How can i influence this. I had a big pirate problem at the start, but the other empires should have this too. I have just ignored them at teh start. At the moment I kill every pirate in my empire and i attack there bases, but my economy don't get much better.

To my savegames. They are 130 MB and they become bigger with every time I save. Pirates don't respawn, but just 2 pirate nations are dead. There are still 24 pirate nations. The strongest has over 1.600 ships and 36 colonies. More than I.[:)]
Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:42 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Bingeling »

Colonies below 70% don't give much income. Sort your colony list by revenue, and you should discover that population and quality is key.

For quality I feel that.

60s is "meh". Pretty useless.
70s are somewhat worth it.
80s are ok
90s are the good ones

Of course, colonizing a 60% may be worth it if it adds control of some useful systems.

Also, whether a 60% is worth it or not depends on whether you have to spend resources on defending it.
Caledor
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Caledor »

Ah, ok thank you. I have looked at my colonies the most have just a small income.
40% earns my Homeplanet.
My homeplanet has a GDP of 600k and my secound best planet has a GDP of a bit over 200.
I have just colonized all planets over 50%. They are all close together and easy to defend.
Have the small conolies a maximum GDP or will they grow slowly in time?

Do i need the small planets for the resources? I have no idea from the resources...
Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:42 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Bingeling »

Low quality colonies have low maximum population, giving a poor potential for income.

I would put the lower limit for colonization in the 60s. There are exceptions of course, I will colonize 20% if it brings an ultra rare source under my control. Or if I happen to notice that it will bring under control a 99% planet that I can't yet colonize, for instance.

Until better colonies are close to full, I will consider just about any new colony a negative, apart from grabbing territory. A new colony is one more colony to protect from pirates, and one more colony to keep hold of during war or I potentially lose territory that otherwise would be mine due to the major colony nearby. There is of course a time when there is lots of migration, and the "home area" is safe from both pirates and enemy powers. That is when one can colonize that 65% in the system next to the capital just to cure some boredom.

Colonizing will mine the resources, but at a slower rate than a mine would mine it. A colony is a bit safer from pirates than a mine in extreme situations. For instance with a single carbon fiber mine that the pirates keep killing, colonizing would lead to some raids, but a safer mining situation.

The point with resources is having sources to fill the stores. A source is a mine or a colony on a planet/cloud with that resource. You need sources for all strategic resources, and want them for luxuries. For fuel you need lots of mines, for other resources maybe a single mine is enough, so get two just to have a backup. Some resources, like steel, are more in demand, but also easier to find.

As long as you build some construction ships and automate them, the AI will take care of resources. You may need to pay attention to strategics with 0 sources, though, and maybe give some priority to finding sources for that. The galaxy map is useful to find specific sources (known resources at the top left filter).
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CyclopsSlayer
Posts: 583
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:49 pm

RE: A few questions

Post by CyclopsSlayer »

Be careful of building too much, too fast. Ship and Base maintenance can cripple you.

I have a Colony Control starbase I favor, low cost, high value. Starbase Hull, Commerce, Medical, Recreation Bays to promote and favor colony growth. 5x Fighter Bays, Energy collectors. NO Yards, no guns, just a few shields. Usually costs about 8K cash.
Caledor
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Caledor »

I had a big economic crisis a few days ago, because I build too many starbases.[:)]
My economy is now on rank 9. I have conquered a very good planet from pirates an i have made this planet to a minor capital and i have enslaved all 24 billion inhabitants. This planet gives 29% from my economy.

My resources are controlled by the ki. I have looked and it looks good. I have all resources except 3 ultra rare resources.

Is there a quick way to destroy pirate planets and planets without owner? I want to expel all pirates, but i don't want all of there planets. The ki creates my ships and the ki puts just bombs on my capital ships. One way would be conquer,exterminate, tax 100% and than bombard the rest.
Kaien
Posts: 9
Joined: Wed Jun 03, 2015 4:43 pm

RE: A few questions

Post by Kaien »

5. Is it normal that the savetime is longer than 20 minutes?
For me, it is ''only'' 2 or 3 mins. And I must save often, because every hours, I crash. Too borring.
Twigster
Posts: 1024
Joined: Tue Jan 13, 2015 1:35 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Twigster »

I am posting this to show an extreme example of living with an outrageously high negative cash-flow. This shot took place at the end of a major war where I was enormously expanding my fleet and ground forces, bases etc. When I started all of that I had @ 2300K Cash On Hand. Eventually that whittled down to what you see here (with a good healthy bonus income that took the better part of a year to blow through). The battle for the enemy capital was taking place when I took this shot- I was trying to wait until I took the capital before I sold my Galaxy map via Diplomacy, but I had to resort to that before the capital fell. My rate of decrease in my cash on hand was too great and I did not want the disruption of going massively negative during a war.

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Caledor
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Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Caledor »

How high should be the tax rate? On planets with maximal population I have the maximal tax rate.
When my reputation was falling very quick i have automated the tax rate, because I had to change the tax rate all few minutes on many of my 40 planets.
When I automated the tax rate i thougt that it would be the highest tax rate, but the tax rate was too small for my empire. On my homeplanet I have a tax rate from 45% the ki had made a tax rate of 25%. This was too less. Now I again controll the tax rate my self.
Bingeling
Posts: 5186
Joined: Thu Aug 12, 2010 11:42 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Bingeling »

The AI taxes according to happiness, I think it tries to keep happiness at +10 or +11. You should do the same, but can of course pick a different friendliness target. And be better at zero taxing where it is beneficial.

The problem as you seem to have discovered, is that it is tiresome to keep taxes "right" as war weariness and various other effects kick in. The AI is pretty good at doing that.

If you think the AI does not tax enough, it could be that you have too high expenses [;)]
Caledor
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Caledor »

Maybe my expenses are too high. I am on rank 9 by economy and on rank 5 by military[:)]

I wan't to start a new game. And the onliy thing i can't do myself is creating ships. Where can i find a indroduction? Have i to creat bases and private ships, too? How do the designs upgrade?
RiftHick
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2015 5:24 pm

RE: A few questions

Post by RiftHick »

I can only find some dated text based guides for this but I'll try to keep it as brief as I can.

Creating ships, bases and stations might seem daunting but it really is simple once you've done it a few times. Ships and bases/ stations are designed in much the same way as each other though obviously some components are meant for either ships or bases/ stations and not really the other, many components are just universal in that they work just as well on ships as they do on a station. If you are going to be largely managing your designs manually then remember to make sure update/ retrofit columns are set appropriately you can do this by clicking the specific column for each individual design in the "Design Screen" in my game the hotkey is f8.

This design screen will give you a very basic overview of all your latest designs, including things like sizes, maintenance costs, how many current exist using those designs...etc, when you select a design it will highlight the whole row, then you will be able to make use of the buttons at the bottom of the design menu. A design can only be edited if nothing is using or set to use it (it might read "0" but there might be something out there getting around to retrofitting to it..etc) the game will tell you if this is the case, manual update allows you to edit a design regardless it will start you with the design as it currently is you will be able to change all components, amounts of each and things like your image that represents the design. Auto update takes what the design currently as and using whatever logic the game operates on will "update" the design with newer/ better components provided the components already have some basis on the existing design, in other-words it will not but put torpedoes and hangars on a design if the design as missiles and no hangars...etc. I would not use the auto update button until you have all important components on your designs and even after you do I would recommend that you double check each and every one of the designs after you use it just on the chance it decided to put the wrong shield/ armour/ reactor/ engine type on your design so yhea it can save you time but sometimes it can create needless work. Delete design is self explanatory, as for copy as new this allows you to take an existing design as a basis for creating a new design for example I could do copy as new using my Defensive Base design to quickly make an Starbase that is as a baseline identical to my Defensive Base I can then alter the Starbase design how I see fit potentially saving me time. Add new allows you to make your design completely from scratch without using anything as a template or baseline.

The editing screen itself is very straightforward and the screen does tell you all the relevant numbers you would want to know of your designs and will tell you if there is an issue with the design (insufficient power, lacking potentially useful components or just plain too big for current size allowance). On the left of the screen is a vertical sub menu that holds all your researched components (both "obsolete" and latest) to see all together you just uncheck the tick box above this sub menu. Once you have a component in this menu selected you then look to the immediate right of this sub menu to the left/ right pointing arrows, the right pointing arrows are the ones you need to concern yourself with they add the selected component to your design. >X5 adds 5 of that component to the design the single > adds a single one, when you make a mistake or want to remove components from a design select the component on the right sub menu then you use the left pointing arrows again the <X5 would remove up to 5 of that component while < removes just one.

Once you think you are done with the design (no conflicts, no problems...etc) take a look through the various numbers to make sure you have the required ability, power and the so on so that the design isn't partially effective at it's intended task then name your design and save it. Congrats you have finished your design, as for a basic guideline for designs then I suggest that before you finish/ cancel your current match that you take a record of all the important designs that the AI as made in your game and and try to use them as a guideline as to how much of what component to use, sometimes because components can be very different you may have to go off of size, power usage and firepower figures of your designs to be sure that they are comparable as you will have to take into consideration differing component sizes and energy requirements. The designs will be pretty simple early on as you lack size allowance and components for your designs so it might take you a few ingame years before you can finish the basic design depending on how advanced you set your start.

You can also save designs so you can use them later on or in later games, I don't use that feature so can't really say much more than that but I can see the value in that feature for speeding up the beginning of a brand new game when all designs are basically the same anyway. As for building them you are only incharge of building state stations and ships, you do chose where mining bases go but the private sector pays for everything when it comes to private sector ships and bases and the private sector will make their own ships. Becareful not to bankrupt either by building too big and/ or expanding too fast.
Caledor
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Caledor »

Thank you at the moment i have just a few ships create manuel for special actions like bombards.

Can it be that the ai is not intelligent enough to conquer a big planet? I play with the extended universe mod and the improved ai mod and the game is still to simple for me. At the first few hours it was very hard, but now i understand how it works and the ai has no chance. I play on very hard and i have sometimes war, but they don't really attack me.
One race has lost his homeplanet. I think through rebellion and don't colonize it again. There military is much stronger than mine.
They have 4 times more income than me and are unable to build a invasion fleet just with troop transporters.

They have much more ships and income than me, but there empires stand still and i conquer one planet after the other.

I normally start in Prewarp to build up my economy and i don't like the medium space port. Is this a problem for the ai?
RiftHick
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2015 5:24 pm

RE: A few questions

Post by RiftHick »

When you get around to manually building most of the private sector designs don't forget to increase some of their component amounts, eventually even if you keep them updated with the latest relevant components they might still be too slow or have insufficient cargo space because the number of things like engines and holds are the early game values back when the ships weren't able to be any bigger.

As for the AI, it's just a limitation of the game itself and all that mods like the AI Improvement can do is to try to help guide it along with better research paths, better designs, better policies...however at the end of the day it will not be able do anything to fix what the AI does with those designs or with it's substantial amounts of resources/ ships...etc because for now those behaviours can't be altered with mods.
Caledor
Posts: 22
Joined: Sun Jun 07, 2015 11:12 am

RE: A few questions

Post by Caledor »

Has anyone ever seen that the ai conquers a homeplanet?
I have no idea what the ai is doing with so many money.
RiftHick
Posts: 54
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2015 5:24 pm

RE: A few questions

Post by RiftHick »

Yes the AI will conquer an homeworld I've seen the more avarice prone species (I'm looking at you Teekans) rapidly take over an entire empire before (the war declaration came after a few planets had simultaneously fallen), it was annoying because the defeated empire had been extremely useful to me. Incidentally it then set that Teekan empire up to fight a 3 front war (later 4 when they begged me to help them).

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