Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

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KAHUNA
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by KAHUNA »

If I want to add something to existing bases I'l click the design as new button,make what changes I desire,then I'l obsolete the old design.I only have one design for each unit[except for cruisers] With my cruisers I added a pure Missile/ Torp design that utilises ALL the different kinds of missiles and torps.Why use old tech some may ask?Because of the differnt ranges and load/fire times I can usually totally destroy anything I point them at in a very short order.I have to be careful tho when building my cruisers to make sure I control which are being built because the AI will usually choose my least expensive cruiser designs over my Heavy Missile designs.
Xmudder
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Xmudder »

I think I know what happened... I upgraded to SSP Mk 4 design and then tried to upgrade that, cancelled, but it was still marked as obsolete... so I couldn't retrofit to it.
I think a monitor station at all new colonies would work better, with rec and med facilities, once I have the tech. That way the AI can still suggest SSPs and I don't have random ships queued up to be built there.
Bingeling
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Bingeling »

Long range scanner on spaceports is nice, but if the area is dense with colonies, you won't need that on everyone.

If optimizing a scan and no-scan version of SSP makes sense.
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Tanaka
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Tanaka »

Thought it would be helpful to bump this for new players. Great stuff here! Join in the discussion! [8D]
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Icemania
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Icemania »

Worth another bump. Some useful material, some entertainment and hopefully prompts more discussion for Shadows.

From recent threads I would add:

Ports and Bases at Colonies
Bases provide defence and some colony development support, minimising resource shortages elsewhere and inefficient use of freighters, which spaceports can cause. As the colony development support is small (particularly if you don't mind Assimilating) it also appears quite valid to defend colonies with ships only. Personally though I would use a mix of Bases and Ships. Bases will still help on newly conquered planets to prevent revolts.

Later on, there is value in having either a Base or Port at all well developed reasonable quality colonies that are being taxed, since the happiness benefits allow tax rates to be increased, which can be quite lucrative.

Use Large Spaceports at a handful of your most strategically important worlds tasked with fleet building, typically homeworlds ... which I normally design to be much larger than the default e.g. double the yards and docking bays at least. Otherwise use Small or Medium Spaceports to ensure you have a Spaceport every 3-4 colonies ensuring travel times for internal empire freight stays small.

Freighter Cargo Bays
It would appear there is a case for giving a Small Freighter as many cargo bays as a Medium Freighter as a minimum. There might be a case to simply make all Freighter designs essentially a Large Freighter with cargo capacity. If you can afford it of course. However, adding cargo bays to a Large Freighter seems to have little value.

Pre-Warp Research Centres
Prewarp build a very large Energy Research Centre immediately with enough labs to utilise the majority of Total Empire Research Potential. Getting Warp Drive and Construction Technology as early as possible provides a huge strategic advantage.
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Icemania
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Icemania »

Prewarp, you can build a Speed 52 Explorer by including 16 Ion Thrusters and stripping down other components that aren't mandatory. I use them to very quickly explore my home system and get the Warp Field ruins ASAP.

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Keston
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Keston »

Are torpedoes useful? Missiles have better range for standoff, and short-range weapons seem to deliver more bang for the space and energy. Am I missing something?
Aeson
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Aeson »

Are torpedoes useful? Missiles have better range for standoff, and short-range weapons seem to deliver more bang for the space and energy. Am I missing something?
Torpedoes offer a much better balance of long-range standoff capability and short-range firepower than missiles do, as well as having better armor penetration than either missiles or blasters due to the high per-shot damage and their lack of the anti-armor penalty carried by missiles. The end-game Plasma Thunderbolt torpedoes are additionally generally much better than the Assualt Missiles, with the Assault Missiles having only a minor range advantage (50 range units difference between the Plasma I/II and Assault Missile I/II, and the fully-upgraded versions have equal range) for lower DPS over most of the shared range band and generally lower per shot damage.

So yes, torpedoes are useful, and in fact in the long run they're more useful than missiles. Early missiles are better stand-off weapons than torpedoes are, but the advantage doesn't last much beyond the mid game.
Drmzsz7
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Drmzsz7 »

So I noticed everyone uses, Titan's and Energy Torps. I've found that phasers are are awesome, no dps loss for distance, and missile cruiser spammage eats everything, when coupled with assigning primary/secondary/tertiary targets, irregardless of defensive/offensive power.

I realize some people consider escorts/frigates/destroyers to be of varying tonnage/size, but i've found I tend to use the max weight up until 300 ship size for each respective class. The difference being in the ships overall role, rather then weight. For instance, my escorts are always 40/30/20/10 in their loadout. 40 to shields/armor, 30 to engines, 20 to weapons, and the last 10% goes to various smaller gadgets and/or as research allows into twin assault pods. They're not designed to kill alone per say, but in the system defense force groups which they tend to run in, the swarm em tactic seems to win out on anything less then a determined Task Group. My frigates are generally fitted with a similar approach, however instead of assault pods and tankability, I slap on a fighter bay, and a warp inhibitor (as research allows) with a small increase to firepower. In the SDF role I can let 2-3 SDF's run around (I use a 4/2/1 ratio 4 escorts/2 frigates/ 1 destroyer) and they will almost always win. The destroyer is the only real heavy hitter in the group, with gank/tank being its sole purpose and a lone troop compartment for the occasional colony harassment, or if necessary, should the SDF's fail to stop a troopship, the combined group can reinforce or retake a colony without troopship support, sometimes. They do a phenominal job early-mid game, of suppression, capture. The frigates provide a warp blanket and support fighters, to the fast hunter/raider escorts, and the destroyer packs the punch for anything that the swarm cant handle on their own. They tend to capture a variety of pirate oddities and other empire stupidities. (for whatever reason early-mid wars tend to be the AI feeding me ships, 1 by one, with the occasional "skirmish" of 4+. I to tend to fortress out my mining stations, with an emphasis on defense over offensive capabilities. If it can take out a ship or 2, good, if it can hold out on a siege long enough for SDF forces to arrive, better. I tend not to expand beyond colony systems much, in terms of resources, unless the system in question is either very important, or close enough by for a reactionary force to be worthwhile. Once I get into the cruiser weight, ie 400+ then I turn my aim towards missile cruisers, backed by carriers that also have a few launchers. I also designed/assign an AEGIS style cruiser, with a long range scanner. (its usually fitted with heavy armor/shields, as the enemy really doesnt like this class of ship very much, so I use it as a Brawler.) I've used this to my advantage, kitting it for tank/gank to cluster up the enemy and provide a buffer space for my Missile boats to set up a wall of missiles. Individually they rather lack the punch to fight 1v1, they have the tank to be able to stand up to anything thrown at them, up until the hyperdrives kick it. In groups, oh boy does everything melt. ECM'ed out or not a wall of missiles hits/hurts, and against stations, nothing but missiles/energy torps reaches far enough for standoff range. The missiles I have to worry about, the torps are a joke at these distances, as my cruisers can shrug off a volley with only a few tics taken off the shield bar. Every ship 400+ also gets PD weapons, because again the only thing hitting are missiles/torps/and fighters, and a wall of Missile cruisers with a wall of PD means a cloud of dead star fighters. These cruisers backed by Missile Carriers, makes up the bulk of my Navy-Task Group (N-TG) In unison the SDF's and N-TG's, Can run amok, though for large scale sieges, I tend to build more frigate to escorts then with the standard SDF. I don't want anything running away, as I've literally fought a pitched colony tug of war, with the Kaidens. They have quick charge shields, and tend to hit an run, more often then my vessels, which have a never run SOP. For about 3 years they attempted to retake a trio of colonies I annexed. (They apparently discovered the Way of Darkness, which turned them into super douchies at the diplomacy tables, which led to my irritation and a war that has spanned from early to mid game. I am still In mid game, and have fought only 1 other war. The first race I went to war with, poor Securons (SP?), they were my neighbors and they bore instinctive prejudices against my Giz, swarm ,haha, during first contact. The Swarm kicked them back to the stone age. Quite literally, they went from 20bil population amongst 3 colonies down to 50mil after I baited their main forces in a colony grab whilst sending in the main fleet to sack their homeworld. I felt so bad afterwards, that I uplifted them, built them some industry. gave them mineral/fueling rights. After I discovered loros fruit, we released them from subjugation, and made them the sole race I traded said commodity with. They are now delighted with us, at 500mil population.) Also as a side note, I've begun to discover the irritation of Projectile weapons, backed with quick charge shields ( sure they have energy torp boats but my absurd shielding makes this weapon pointless unless outnumbered. Though my ships have absurd amounts of shields per size, the Kaidens insistence on archaic weapons has resulted in massive repair bills. Alas no repair drones for the Swarm, yet.
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Unforeseen
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Unforeseen »

ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan

Wow, that would be a bug worthy of Initech. Can someone from Matrix maybe comment on this? Or do I need to necro this thread every 7 days with a post about Dwarf Fortress?

I'll do it.

So about Dwarf Fortress...
Sithuk
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Sithuk »

Any opinions on putting shorter ranged weapons on bases? Are ranged weapons like torps/missiles/fighters always better?
Bingeling
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Bingeling »

If you have no long range option, you risk it being destroyed without being able to fire back.
Sithuk
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Sithuk »

Any idea why the base game designs, and most of the game mods, put short range weapons In the design templates for bases?

Is it because some races have short range weapons as a racial pref? Their research is therefore scripted for a short range weapons tech like beams. The base design templates then have to match the race weapon pref otherwise low tech ranged weapons could be selected over higher tech short ranged weapons?

Is there a way have the auto designer make a smarter weapon choice for base weapons?
Bingeling
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Bingeling »

I believe they are just set up to use "their weapon" everywhere. The auto designer does what is said in the design templates. If it say 3 torpedoes, it is 3 torpedoes. Unless they are not researched, or the AI has to shrink the design to fit.
twinkypillow
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by twinkypillow »

set the basses with 50 missles and Derasian? shockwaves.. probably 20 terminator autocannons or pointdefense for the carriers fighters that may attack you too.

forget any blasters on basses.

you can substitute for torpedos, but missles are the sure way to keep the ranged situation at bay..

chaosegg
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by chaosegg »

If you do not have area weapons (or even point defenses), it seems to me that you might put blasters (short range stuff) on stations in order to shoot at fighters and space creatures, or the occasional ship that enters short-range?
Sure, having mostly long range, powerful stuff on stations is nice, but I wouldn't say it's always useless to put blasters on stations;
depending on your game setup of course...
if you have space creatures set to low or none, pirates on low... then I guess you're a lot less likely to have your outposts attacked by things that could jump up into close range and bother you?

I'm playing a training game run within the [updated] version just before Universe (so DW+RotS+Legends+Shadows),
trying to do everything manually in order to re-learn what I forgot, having been a few years away.
My setup is basically like Timotheus' The New Guy Newbie Guide suggests for playing on FULL MANUAL.
~700 stars, weak pirates, fewest space creatures, pre-warp starting tech, mostly normal settings otherwise i believe.~

Q1: Where there is more than one thing a station could do at a location, is it effective and/or efficient to combine the functions into a single station?
Example; a place with both research bonus & scenery bonus are frequently found, so what should I do with it?
A.: research station with some passenger compartments & extra docking bays (maybe extra defenses too)
OR
B.: a resort with research labs etc.
Q1a: Would both A. & B. work?
Q1b: Would it be more cost-effective than having those functions at two separate station/locations?
Q1c: Do I always want to do it one way, versus the other way (always add research to something else versus add other to research station)? or can it vary depending on situation?
.
.
.

Apologies if this has been answered already earlier, I neglected to read the entire thread since it appeared most of the posts were quite old at this point...
also sorry for the necro [:D]
Modify, upgrade, build, or destroy;
in the end 'what' must follow 'why',
and if you have no answer for 'why',
then "to reduce suffering" is a good start.
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Hattori Hanzo
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Hattori Hanzo »

ORIGINAL: chaosegg
also sorry for the necro [:D]
"Necros" are cool !!! [8D]

ps: I always put a mining device on my Resort Stations or Research Labs too.
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Retreat1970
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Retreat1970 »

Don't worry about experimenting with builds. That's what makes the game great. I've never tried a research-resort base but it may work. Just try it.
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Shark7
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Shark7 »

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

Don't worry about experimenting with builds. That's what makes the game great. I've never tried a research-resort base but it may work. Just try it.

I put mining equipment on my resort bases all the time. Works out great. No need to build 2 stations when you can do it all with 1. Now with this idea, it might be why build 3 when I can build 1. [:D]
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Yaourt
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RE: Post your optimal base/ship design tips and why!?!

Post by Yaourt »

I guess some of it already has been mentioned...
-Small space port with minimalistic design to get this sweet medical/recreation bonus. To be built ASAP. Actually a better way would be to do a star base in the worlds you don´t want to build so the system does not pile strategic ressources on the world, but I experienced it can be a pain to manage and I like my ressource spread for emergencies/remote mines
-1 unique research station at my home world to cap the researchs. No weapon so that it is not targeted. I usually get bonuses from wonders (build or captured)
-1 minimalstic mine design at the beginning to get the economy started. Defense is assured by escorts at this point.
-Escort have a ~8sectors autonomie as they stay around, all the rest 30-40. Exploreres and building ships have more.
-Once I can afford it and my economy is stable, I retrofit gas stations to be forteresses (Caslon/hydrogen are the main bottleneck in my experience), Super luxury mining stations as well. Regular mining station are retrofitted so that they can hold against pirates/small fleets. I usually go for torpedoes because of the range and bang for bucks. I used to go for fighter bays for mines (space is not relevant and energy consumption is really low)....but it makes the game very laggy at a point...
-When very motivated, I create the following fleet organization. First design optimized for talking the hit (armor + shield) will be equipped with two warp engines, so that the initialisation is a bit faster than the main fleet. As it arrives first, it takes the initial blow. A second design is damage optimized, usually with torpedoes (sometime shakturis as well if I can get them so I can bombard if needed). A third design is troop transport, optimized for defense but without the two warp engines. Finally I get a "commander" ship, usually ressupply, with loads of fighters and area shield/gravity well as needed. propotion is 3/9/2/1. All my docking infrastructure is organized to work with it (15 slots for refuel)
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