What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate Player spawns?

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What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate Player spawns?

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds Series >> What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate Player spawns?

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What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate Play... - 5/8/2015 2:07:44 AM

HerpInYourDerp

Posts: 118
Joined: 5/7/2015
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I've been running a modified UE2 theme and everything aside from custom games as a Pirate Faction has gone on without a hitch.
As I understand it, a player pirate spawnpoint is just any planet with one of the fuels (H/He/Caslon in this case) available to mine. I've reduced availability of the fuels in my settings, but whenever I try to start custom pirate games, I'm usually (one single successful load and it was probably just a fluke tbh) just stuck at the "Creating new Galaxy" screen - not crashed or hanging (no dumpfile generated) - I can only guess that the game is stuck searching for a spawn location, because I've tested making the fuels only available in clouds and that failed to start the pirate tutorial game, but reverting that allowed for the tutorial to load up. It's not a case of slow loading either, I even happened to leave it for the best part of 3 hours by chance and it was still 'loading' by the time I got back.

I don't have a problem starting a game "Pirate Start in the Age of Shadows" mode either using these exact modifications, so it's not as if the modding completely brakes the game, but because game performance completely devolves to a point somewhere between god-awful and absolutely unplayable for me with just half a dozen empires by mid-to-late game, playing the quickgame settings with 15+ sides is simply not viable.

Also: Is there a debug/logging function where the game will throw out what it's doing into a .log of some sort?

< Message edited by HerpInYourDerp -- 5/8/2015 3:20:12 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate ... - 5/8/2015 6:23:35 AM

Bingeling

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Joined: 8/12/2010
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It could be worth the effort to detail your settings, and to upload your theme, on the tech forum. Maybe the developer will try it at figure something out. If nothing else one could think of a few more desired responses than just "hang".

From what I have seen as an (empire) player, a "pirate" site needs a fuel location and no empire presence. So I as an empire player can keep the pirates away by placing a fuel mine (or other) in every system nearby. My guess is that the low amount of fuel locations mess up something in pirate generation (AI pirates?).

Is there are difference in starting in the age of shadows, vs starting in the classic game? If it is lack of locations, age of shadows should be "easier" to start in, since the empires have no mines. In a classic game, I seem to remember every empire having a mine or four in nearby systems. With very few fuel locations in the galaxy, the 20 or so fuel locations (in non capital systems) could be a large amount compared to the total number of promising pirate sites.

(in reply to HerpInYourDerp)

Post #: 2

RE: What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate ... - 5/8/2015 9:31:15 PM

HerpInYourDerp

Posts: 118
Joined: 5/7/2015
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You can't start a pirate game via Classic Era quickgame...
And I've been using random start location, prewarp/prewarp/distant AI empires with all story modes & events (obv. except the shaktari one).

(in reply to Bingeling)

Post #: 3

RE: What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate ... - 5/9/2015 1:22:50 AM

HerpInYourDerp

Posts: 118
Joined: 5/7/2015
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OK, so after a bit more trial and error, I think I've got the requirements figured out.

1) At least one of the fuel-marked resources must be available on a planets; tested by making H & caslon only in clouds (UE2 has He as fuel). Abundance and prevalence are irrelevent, apparently.
2) Independent worlds set to scattered or higher <- it seems this was the one that kept messing it up during my previous attempts, as I normally stick to rare.
-Everything else was neither or there as far as determining starting a pirate game.

(in reply to HerpInYourDerp)

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RE: What are the specific starting criteria for Pirate ... - 5/9/2015 7:15:38 AM

Bingeling

Posts: 4697
Joined: 8/12/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: HerpInYourDerp

You can't start a pirate game via Classic Era quickgame...
And I've been using random start location, prewarp/prewarp/distant AI empires with all story modes & events (obv. except the shaktari one).

There is nothing special quickgames. They can also be created by the custom game menu, but it is not said what the exact quickgame settings are.

To get a "classic style" setup just move the expansion setting one step to the right (from pre-warp). Not starting in pre-warp would be bad for the pirate factions, though.

(in reply to HerpInYourDerp)

Post #: 5