Ancient Galaxy LP On YouTube

[StarLab]

Since the Pirate play series fell apart (will try that again in future), I've started a normal empire game in the Ancient Galaxy for this series. This is the first time touching the Ancient Galaxy since beta testing for Universe, so I have never played through it before. Should be interesting. [8D]

Comments are welcome both here and in the video comment sections at Youtube.

Below is the pasted description

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We take on a new game in the Distant Worlds "Ancient Galaxy" as the Terran Federation. All is at peace, but for how long? Ancient threats loom to the north with other minor threats lurking close by.

Can we save the Galaxy before all is lost? Tune in and find out!

Get Distant Worlds HERE: http://www.matrixgames.com/store/515/Di ... -.Universe

Playlist for this series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... zK3VpJBWIE

Using the Ancient Galaxy Theme

Game setup details
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None, really - hit the Ancient Galaxy button on the New Game Screen and that's it.

Difficulty: Normal (Scenario default)

Victory Conditions: 80% of 33%/33%/33%

[Aeson]

It's probably too late now, but if I recall correctly you can grab a couple wonders if you start them on your high-population planets at the start of the game and don't have any other facilities in the queue ahead of the wonders. As to whether or not it'd be worth building the research wonder, I'd say that it would be if it completed before the Shakturi got it; all of the research modifiers listed separately in the research screen stack multiplicatively with one another (aside from Super Genius and Pirate Facility bonuses, which for some reason are already factored into Total Empire Research Potential), so if you have 723k High Tech research output immediately before completion of the wonder, that'll jump to ~1085k after completion of the wonder. You also have a high enough income that dropping 100k on a wonder that doesn't complete because someone else gets it first is, while not great, at least not terrible. It's probably already too late to bother trying to build it by the time you read this, though.

Also, you might want to go to [Esc] -> Options -> Empire Options and play around with the drop-downs for Default Engagement Stances. Setting them to No Default Stance should let you set your Resupply Ships to Engage When Attacked and not need to worry about them resetting to System Targets and wandering off to go after random space monsters or exploration ships on the other side of the system or things like that.

As far as diplomatic relations go, I don't really think that any of the empires that you know at the start of the game aside from the Dhayut will really be all that unfriendly with you, the Ackdarians, or the Kiadians, especially once the Shakturi start being recognized as a problem. Also, due to the way the diplomacy system is set up, empires which like your empire will also tend to like the friends of your empire, because they'll get a "you have beneficial treaties with our friends" relations modifier.

Since you commented on weapon power requirements, I'll just say that the energy requirement listed on the component is the energy required per shot, not the energy required per second. If you want to determine whether or not you currently have enough reactor output to support a weapon system, you need to look at both the rate of fire and the energy requirement of the weapon, not just the energy requirement.

A side-note on hyperdrives: If you put multiple hyperdrives on the same design, the ship will have a 'virtual' hyperdrive with a jump initiation time equal to the lowest jump initiation time of any hyperdrive on the ship, a hyperspeed equal to the highest hyperspeed of any hyperdrive on the ship, and a power requirement equal to the highest power requirement of any hyperdrive on the ship. A Kaldos II and Equinox II together approximate the performance of a Torrent I or Velocity I. I personally don't feel that dual-hyperdrive setups are worthwhile on small or mid-size vessels, but on large ships they can be worth it both because it can emulate a better hyperdrive (useful for getting an edge over similarly-advanced opponents or keeping up with more advanced opponents) and because it makes it a little harder for a ship to be rendered unable to flee by battle damage (useful for high-value vessels like the flagship carrying your highly-skilled admiral, debatably useful for other vessels).

[StarLab]

Yup, I'm 4 episodes in so I would say likely too late to change things up now. [:(]

Engagement stances! Ugh! That's what's going on! I forgot to reset those after my reinstall! No wonder I'm having problems! Didn't think of those since the last time I looked at or adjusted them was like 3 years ago. Thanks for that! [&o]

Does the listed "Energy per second" not take into account the fire rate? I always assumed it did... ??

Hmmm... mixed hyperdrives... never considered that. I do mix up the shields to achieve both stronger and faster recharge. Sounds like something worth trying. [:)]

Again, thanks for your input. I'm glad your insight is here and not buried and lost in the youtube comment system.

[Aeson]

Does the listed "Energy per second" not take into account the fire rate? I always assumed it did... ??

Yes, the Weapons Energy per Second takes into account rate of fire, but that's not what's listed in the weapon component overview, that's something that's listed in the design screen giving the total power requirement of all weapons on the ship. If you select Impact Assault Blasters in the list of components to add to the design (or which are already on the design), the component overview in the lower left corner of the design screen will list a weapon energy requirement of 38. Adding one to your design will only increase the Energy per Second statistic listed above the weapons list by 22.4 or 23.8, depending on how upgraded the component is.

A picture since I think I'm not explaining this well:

[StarLab]

I see what you're getting at... at the MOMENT of firing the weapon (every 1.6 sec) there is an energy surge of 38... Not 24 as the average value would have you think.

So I'm guessing as long as you have enough energy STORAGE to cover the spike (per second) you can recover from the sudden drain... at that point I guess we're back talking about reactor capacities.

[Tophat1815]

Larry!

Fantastic that you are back!! Love this replay series.....if you get the chance think about another multiplayer series like the Keskedon empire you did with Das and a cast of thousands(or 8).......lol!!

[Aeson]

I see what you're getting at... at the MOMENT of firing the weapon (every 1.6 sec) there is an energy surge of 38... Not 24 as the average value would have you think.

So I'm guessing as long as you have enough energy STORAGE to cover the spike (per second) you can recover from the sudden drain... at that point I guess we're back talking about reactor capacities.

You can look at it this way, yes. Energy storage limits the number of weapons which can be fired simultaneously, reactor output limits the overall rate of fire (or the maximum number of weapons you can fire at maximum rate, if you prefer to look at it that way). If you have insufficient reactor output to meet the weapon power requirements, the overall rate of fire will be reduced once the stored energy runs out; if you have insufficient energy storage, the weapons you have will fire in staggered sets rather than all at once.

To give a quick example, say that I have a ship with 300 excess reactor output and an energy storage capacity of 300. I decide to arm this ship with unupgraded Impact Assault Blasters (38 energy per shot and one shot every 1.7 seconds, so time-average power requirement of 22.4 energy/s). This ship can fire 7 Impact Assault Blasters simultaneously (300/38 = 7.9, rounded down to 7) and 13 Impact Assault Blasters continuously at maximum rate (300*1.7/38 = 13.4, rounded down to 13). If I arm the ship with 13 Impact Assault Blasters, the firing pattern I'll get should be something like 7 blasters firing simultaneously, followed by another blaster shot about 0.013 seconds later (300 - 38*7 = 34, so the ship's reactors need to generate 4 energy), then 3 more blaster shots at intervals of 0.127 seconds, with this pattern repeating every 1.7 seconds. If I arm the ship with only 7 Impact Assault Blasters, then every 1.7 seconds I'll get a burst of 7 blaster shots.

If the ship has an available reactor output of 112 instead of 300, then the ship's reactors can only support the continuous firing of 5 Impact Assault Blasters at maximum rate of fire. If I arm the ship with 7 Impact Assault Blasters, the ship can still fire 7 blasters simultaneously if it's had time to store up enough energy, but the volley 1.7 seconds into the engagement will consist of only five shots, with one additional shot being fired at about 2.04 seconds into the engagement and another shot at about 2.38 seconds into the engagement, and the volley at 3.4 seconds into the engagement will consist of only 3 blaster shots (with four more shots following at 0.34 second intervals), and so on until the ship's overall rate of fire is reduced to something that the reactor output can support (in this specific example, that'd mean that the long-term average rate of fire for the ship is going to be similar to that of a ship armed with only five blasters instead of the seven that this vessel was armed with).


The reason I brought this up initially, though, was that when you were looking at arming your stations, you dismissed a couple of weapon options because the energy requirement listed in the weapon component detail panel was greater than the difference between excess reactor output and the current weapons energy per second, which is a faulty comparison because the units of the things being compared do not match.

[StarLab]

ORIGINAL: Tophat1812

Larry!

Fantastic that you are back!! Love this replay series.....if you get the chance think about another multiplayer series like the Keskedon empire you did with Das and a cast of thousands(or 8).......lol!!

Thanks, Tophat. [:)]

Unknown if another collaborative series will happen. I'm not against it at all, but a lot of the dead time in the series being published was my fault and I still feel bad about it to this day. (Ok, I feel worse about being gone completely from my channel for 2 years, but at least other players weren't waiting on me...)

Not ruled out by any means... [8D]

[StarLab]

ORIGINAL: Aeson

I see what you're getting at... at the MOMENT of firing the weapon (every 1.6 sec) there is an energy surge of 38... Not 24 as the average value would have you think.

So I'm guessing as long as you have enough energy STORAGE to cover the spike (per second) you can recover from the sudden drain... at that point I guess we're back talking about reactor capacities.

You can look at it this way, yes. Energy storage limits the number of weapons which can be fired simultaneously, reactor output limits the overall rate of fire (or the maximum number of weapons you can fire at maximum rate, if you prefer to look at it that way). If you have insufficient reactor output to meet the weapon power requirements, the overall rate of fire will be reduced once the stored energy runs out; if you have insufficient energy storage, the weapons you have will fire in staggered sets rather than all at once.

...<<snip!>>

Thanks again, Aeson! I go through this briefly in the next batch of videos which start publishing today.
I'm directing viewers over to this thread so they can benefit from your insight. Again, I'm glad you're posting this kind of stuff here and not having these posts lost in the youtube comment system. Wise choice on your part. Plus the info is searchable for anyone in the future.

Appreciate your time! [8D]

[Aeson]

Personally, I'd be inclined to get rid of the two formerly-pirate space ports you have. It might be a good idea to give the one in the Ethur system to the Haakonish since they took the system over (you might be able to trade it for something useful, or you can just hand it over to remove the relations penalty), or you might want to give it to someone else to create some tension between them and the Haakonish (to give it to someone else, you'll need to select the base, cntrl-rclick -> give to ... rather than using the diplomacy menu; be aware that the computer may just trade the base away if you do this).

As a warning, those secret construction projects you found are already owned by the Shaktur Dominion - you can tell because their icon outline color is the pink/purple of the Shaktur Dominion rather than the light grey of independents and derelicts. Blowing them up counts as an attack on the Shaktur Dominion, will tick them off, and will damage your empire's reputation a little if you aren't already at war with them when you do it. If you want to repair the superweapons yourself, you're going to have to use boarding pods to capture them first. You may have already discovered this for yourself by the time you read this, so I don't know how helpful this actually is, but it's something to be aware of in case you haven't yet done anything about it.

Also, a minor spoiler regarding the superweapons (highlight to read):
The Shakturi are more than willing to wage an undeclared war against you, and may send fleets to bombard your colonies and destroy your stations in response to attacks against their superweapon projects. Attacking the superweapon projects will delay a significant in-game event - the destruction of Rekallios 5 - for as long as you can prevent the superweapons from being completed, but if I recall correctly there are three or four superweapon construction sites going on at the same time, and the Shaktur Dominion starts another superweapon construction project shortly after you destroy an incomplete one.

[StarLab]

Yes, I am not looking to start anything with the Shakturi right yet - they are double my strength at the moment. Taking the spoiler into account, (I helped test this, so nothing spoiled) I realize it wouldn't change much other than delaying the inevitable.

I'll consider your idea on those ex-pirate space ports next time I record. Thanks.

[Aeson]

What happened with naming the alliances in the diplomacy menu is that the list scrolled when you double-clicked the empire relations you wanted to name, putting the empire you double-clicked on as close to the top of the menu as the scroll bar would allow and selecting the empire which ended up under the cursor after the list scrolled as the empire whose relations with you were going to be named. To avoid this happening in the future, it's best to select the empire first, scroll the list so that the empire is as close to the top of the menu as the scroll bar will allow, and then double-click the relations to give the treaty a name.

Also, as you concluded when looking at the Goltak Republic-Atuukian Kingdom relations, the opinion listed next to each empire is the opinion of that empire towards the selected empire.

Edit:
Stations which are not at colonies are capable of retrofitting themselves as long as they have the necessary resources in their cargo holds. You don't need to use a construction ship to retrofit them (in fact, I don't know that there's a way to use a construction ship for this). If I recall correctly, this was added with Shadows so as to allow pirate factions to keep their spaceports up to date; previously, you were unable to retrofit space stations which were not at colonies.

You may want to go into the negotiations window with the Kiadians and Ackdarians, and perhaps any other particularly friendly empires. At a relations level of 30+, they'll sell you generic technology; at a relations level of 50+, they'll sell you their special technologies. Might be useful for leveling the playing field with the Shakturi.