Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (Full Version)

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lordxorn -> Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (3/26/2010 10:28:47 AM)

This is my first Micro AAR for DW, more to follow [;)],

Science At The Edge of Eternity

One of the first dictates I had as Lord of my new fledgling Space Empire, was to capitalize on my superior research abilities. To accomplish this I set out to find a suitable location for my Empire's best Kiadian minds to do their research.

The exploration division came up with spades, when they delivered a report on a local Black Hole, aptly named "Devil's Cauldron". According to my Science Division a research station built there could return my investment six fold. I already had a field of research to focus on, weapons research.

Eager to get started, I immediately ordered the nearest mobile construction yard "Scheme of Sivarkus" to Devil's Cauldron to begin construction of the "Sivarkus Prime Weapons Research Institute".

Ruling an interstellar empire is a busy task, and therefore I did not give more througrough orders to the engineers, and they foolishly cost my Empire a construction yard. Reading the After Action Report, the captain foolishly started construction within the event horizon, which my scientist tell me was a foolish thing to do. This is because within the event horizon, the orbit of construction yard rapidly decayed to a point where it was too late for the crew to do anything because they started construction already.

Needless to say, I rectified the situation (A Bill for the lost Yard was sent to the surviving families) by sending direct orders to the next construction yard "Mocking Merchant" to stay outside the event horizon.

This incident has been filed away under the "Do Not Repeat Archives", so that my successor's will not repeat this mistake. I am now eagerly awaiting the next weapon research project, Concussion Beam which will improve our current beam tech by 20% damage rating.

UPDATE

The Devil's Cauldron mission has paid off handsomely and the immediate research benefits has paid off handsomely with a 168K Bonus to weapons research. This was just in time too, as relations with Murubi Hive is turning south, they just imposed sanctions on our Empire.




[image]local://upfiles/33474/0CD52C3B7F6B4C9EADA348A6B5CB9EF1.jpg[/image]

UPDATE

The Devil's Cauldron mission has paid off handsomely and the immediate research benefits has paid off handsomely with a 168K Bonus to weapons research. This was just in time too, as relations with Murubi Hive is turning south, they just imposed sanctions on our Empire.




Wade1000 -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (3/26/2010 11:42:00 AM)

Nice discovery!



elliotg -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (3/26/2010 12:36:33 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: lordxorn
Needless to say, I rectified the situation (A Bill for the lost Yard was sent to the surviving families) by sending direct orders to the next construction yard "Mocking Merchant" to stay outside the event horizon.

This incident has been filed away under the "Do Not Repeat Archives", so that my successor's will not repeat this mistake.

LOL! [:D]



Tycow -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (3/26/2010 1:09:52 PM)

Haha - awesome report lordxord [:D]



Vlad77 -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (3/26/2010 3:26:54 PM)

This game really excels at immersing the player into a "living" universe. Other games like Dragon Age of course already have an edge due to the graphics and voice acting. Now we have a space 4X game that plays like a movie at least in what we add to the living cosmos instead of a spreadsheet in space (cue Muppets' Pigs in Space music0.

:)

Vlad



lordxorn -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (3/26/2010 7:02:28 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: Vlad77

This game really excels at immersing the player into a "living" universe. Other games like Dragon Age of course already have an edge due to the graphics and voice acting. Now we have a space 4X game that plays like a movie at least in what we add to the living cosmos instead of a spreadsheet in space (cue Muppets' Pigs in Space music0.

:)

Vlad


Great point! I was thinking exactly that as I was trying to get the positioning of my research lab just right, and carefully watching the event horizon of the black hole rotating past. Other little attention to detail that Codeforce did was like liitle nebula storms that are overlayed the background map adds to the realism and living galaxy.

Another point is when I first tried deploying the constructor inside the event horizon, I noticed it was not maintainging it's distance from the center mouth of the bh, so I ordered the constructor out of there.

This was interesting because I know that once something is caught in that event horizon that is the point of no return, alas the constructor simply engaged it's jump drive to escape. [:D]



Fishman -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/2/2010 7:31:35 AM)

I don't build specific lab types when I do things, I just build "The One Lab". 8 labs of each type crammed on a single base: Saves lots of upkeep since you're not repeatedly paying maintenance on basic infrastructural components which contribute nothing, and such a beast pretty much fills your research needs...forever. Then you can strip the labs entirely off your spaceport designs, because they won't do any good anyway, since the research cap is so harsh. Save lots of money, and get your tech...well, as fast as everyone else, since you can't go faster.



Gertjan -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/2/2010 9:25:08 AM)

Smart, but I would consider this cheating the game design a bit.



Jim D Burns -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/7/2010 10:06:28 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: lordxorn
This was interesting because I know that once something is caught in that event horizon that is the point of no return, alas the constructor simply engaged it's jump drive to escape. [:D]


I just had a thought. Is it perhaps not a good idea to build right on the edge of the event horizon like that? Ships warp in and randomly appear around their targets, so if you build too close and tourists start flying in, you may end up seeing about half of them getting sucked into the void.

Jim



lordxorn -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 1:55:17 AM)

That is a good point, I wonder if it happens at all. LOL!



Kriegsspieler -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 8:26:05 AM)

I'm sorry, and go ahead and call me obtuse -- but how does one know what the event horizon is for something like a black hole? Is it defined by that pinkish ring in the screenie? Did I overlook the description of "event horizons" somewhere in the manual?



lordxorn -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 10:43:15 AM)

When you select the black hole, the selection ring is the limit of the event horizon. The Ai builds near black holes onit's own just fine. However if you manually control that portion of your Empire just build outside the selection circle or the purplish haze.



Kriegsspieler -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 1:59:36 PM)

Ahh, many thanks! I suppose the same considerations would apply to building in the vicinity of supernovas too, right?



Gerth -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 1:59:41 PM)

Purple Haze! I'm naming a base parked near a black hole Hendrix for sure.



lordxorn -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 4:59:44 PM)

My experience with Supernovas are that they just damage your shields, so it take a little bit for the stations shields to reach max cap.



Xenoform21 -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 9:49:05 PM)

I've heard lots about this research cap, but I haven't investigated it yet. Does it have to do with your empires intelligence, or maybe even more generally, what is it?



lordxorn -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 10:07:02 PM)

The way I understand it is that based on the size of your empire there is a hard research cap listed on the top left of the research screen. To say 800 is the number on the top left, then the most you can benefit from research bases is 200 in each field. I guess the design intent is that more scientist doesn't necessarily translate to more results. Of course racial effects and government effects will apply.
Also Elliot mentioned before release that it was also their intention to not give really large empires that big of an advantage over smaller ones.



Xenoform21 -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (4/8/2010 11:23:34 PM)

Wow, thats another fantastic new tidbit to learn. I'm pretty impressed with the research system thats being used so far then, seems like its trying to emulate "real world" research.



JasmoVT -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (5/23/2010 3:47:59 PM)

Don't know if anyone can confirm, but I seem to have had good luck letting the AI select position by zooming all the way out then clicking the black hole and giving order to build. Haven't lost anything but have not done enough testing to prove.



Astorax -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (5/24/2010 5:41:34 PM)

Well, in the past iterations, when I had let the AI try it on its own I would invariably lose a constructor. So, I started doing it myself and have never let the AI even attempt it since. Not sure if they changed it or you are just incredibly lucky, lol.



Baro -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (6/8/2010 4:17:40 PM)

I was surprised to see the AI build a lab station at the first black hole without even asking. Built it perfectly, no problems.



Aures -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (9/15/2010 10:19:05 AM)

I do not believe the purple ring you get when selecting a black hole is its event horizon. It is the edge of the accretion disk, the event horizon itself is represented by the ball at the centre of the black hole.

But even so, you can pass a ship directly over this ball and have it come out alive:
[image]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/a1c1b03526.jpg[/image]
[image]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/807a503a6f.jpg[/image]

I believe this is due to the way the 3rd dimension is abstracted in DW. Although the pixels representing the ship passed over the pixels at the centre of the black hole representing the event horizon this does not mean it was inside the event horizon any more than ships that obscure some of a ordinary stars pixels are "inside" that star. The point where you cross the event horizon is the point where the ship goes boom.

Also, you can build a station quite far away from a black hole and get the full research bonus:
[image]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/d693e0ed51.jpg[/image]

The station furthest from the black hole (Research Station 002) does not get the bonus, other two(Research Station 001 and 003) do:
[image]http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/7fa200d28d.jpg[/image]

So there is no need to place your research station that close to the black hole. Although, it could have interesting consequences if another empire decides to attack it...

quote:

ORIGINAL: lordxorn

The way I understand it is that based on the size of your empire there is a hard research cap listed on the top left of the research screen. To say 800 is the number on the top left, then the most you can benefit from research bases is 200 in each field. I guess the design intent is that more scientist doesn't necessarily translate to more results. Of course racial effects and government effects will apply.
Also Elliot mentioned before release that it was also their intention to not give really large empires that big of an advantage over smaller ones.


Yes there is a hard cap on the total research your empire can perform at any time. However, it is not pre-split between the research areas eg if you have nothing but 800 worth of high tech research and you have a Total Empire Potential of 800 then you will get 800 research in that area rather than 200. If you have more than the cap the actual amount allocated will depend on the relative amounts of research eg if you have 800 hi-tech as per the previous example and you then build 800 industry and 400 weapons you will then do 320 high tech, 320 industry and 160 weapons research. In my screenshot of the research screen you can see that the actual output for the research areas are different and they are proportional to the maximum potential in that area eg energy actual output=1025*752/(752+738+767+781)K=253.7K=254K.



lordxorn -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (9/15/2010 12:42:10 PM)

Yes I should have broken it down more like you have, where you given a detailed report.[:D]

With the latest patch, the shaded area where it is ok to build a research station has been removed.

This shaded area was quite large and plainly indicated where you can place a station, as to why this was removed I have no idea.



WoodMan -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (9/15/2010 12:50:17 PM)

I have a hunch it might be a bug Lordxorn!!!  The shaded area is still there sometimes and not other times.  Some Blackholes have a shaded area and some don't, it is rather annoying.



tornnight -> RE: Micro AAR: Science at the Edge of Eternity (9/16/2010 1:41:37 AM)

It has to do with if if the blackhole is explorered and if you have a ship currently in sensor range.

If already explored and no ship is in sensor range, you can see the shaded area.



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