Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (Full Version)

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TheSAguy -> Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/7/2014 4:48:22 PM)

I’ve been playing a lot of Distant Worlds over the long 4th of July weekend and have some questions that I’d like to get some feedback on please.
I play my games on Very Hard with lots of Pirates if that makes any difference.


1. Civ Ship docking – Planet vs. Star Base:
I have a planet with a horde of independent civilian ships trying to dock. The planet has a large space port with a lot of docking bays, but they are mostly idle. They all seem to try to dock with the planet and that can only dock about 8 at a time. When clicking on the planet, it shows the 8 docked and about 250 waiting. Is this correct? Should they not dock with the Space Port that’s at the planet?


2. Civ Ship Construction:
I always leave this on Auto and never edit these designed. I was wondering if there were any tips to improve the civ ship designs, or just leave them as is?


3. Civ Economy:
For some reason, my Civilian economy never has any cash on hand. In my current game, on very hard, they earn over 300K per year (Cash flow), but has a negative Cash on Hand of about 4 million. I’m not expanding rapidly at all and only have 4 planets and probably 8 systems in total under my control, so I’m not sure why they can’t get out of the negative… I’ve looked through some economy posts, but could not find a solution to this.


4. Different ship designs, how does AI use them:
I try to design all my own military ships. I usually have them in small fleets patrolling systems with a lot of resources. I read somewhere that the only difference between escorts, frigates, destroyers, cruisers… is how the AI uses them. Could someone please tell me how does the AI use each class? The Escort seems pretty self explanatory, it usually escorts civ ships around, but what is the main use of the other classes by the AI?


5. Mining Base Upgrades:
In my current game, I have probably about 10 Gas Mining Stations and 20 Mining stations. I manually re-designed the layout and added a lot of shielding and armor and then tried to upgrade my bases. I went to the “Ships and Bases” menu, selected mining bases and then sorted by type. I then selected all gas mining station and clicked retrofit and selected my new design. I had the cash on hand to do the upgrade, but the bases never upgraded. Same with the mining bases. Has this something to do with my Civ Economy, since they have negative cash on hand? I thought that I pay for these bases.
Also, possibly related to the above. When I click on a planet, and want to use the action buttons in the lower left corner to build stuff at the planet, it would say that I don’t have the cash to do so, even though I have 10x enough cash to build a base. I wonder if this and the above is a bug.


6. New Leader Elected:
I take it that this is totally random and that nothing can be done to prevent a new leader from taking the place of your well established leader that has some greats traits, correct?


7. Save/Load time:
I play on a 8x8 with 700 stars and 16 starting civs. So it’s a large game, but not huge, since I could go to 10x0 and 1,400 stars. When I’m well into my game, maybe 3 hours or so, I have 4-6 colonies and a bunch of fleets, most of the galaxy explored. My game saving and loading takes a very long time, like almost 5 min. The saves are about 90 meg. Is this normal? I have a decent PC, not uber - Intel X980 @ 3.33GHz with 12MB ram.



Thanks for any feedback



Kilravock -> RE: Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/7/2014 7:08:55 PM)

A lot of questions. Lets see if I can help.

1. That's strange, planets have like 20 docking bays and will use those if you don't have a space port. The port should take over if you have one. The waiting ships could be ships without a current mission. Click on the ships and see what they are currently doing. Also check the cargo of the colony. You could be low on some resources there.

2. The AI does an OK job for civilian ships, but I like designing my own. I make them faster, more agile and have more fuel. I try to keep them cheap since the AI will build a lot of them. Losing some once in awhile helps the economy from the AI building replacements. I give them no weapons, but I do give them counter measures and some armor & shields (1-2). I have the freighters use caslon and everything else is on hydrogen. 1-3 more cargo bays helps for the freighters, but no more than that. Miners get 2-3 of the miners and more cargo bays. Passenger ships get 10 passenger compartments ASAP if I can fit them, more if I think I should for increase resort income and migrates to the colonies.

3. What is your tax rate? You could be taxing too much. Also what is your homeworld starting condition? Also, are you building mining stations? Try to get a least a single source of every strategic and luxury type at the start. Have an early focus on steel, caslon, polymer, and nearby luxuries.

4. Escorts - Used mainly to chase your civilian ships around the map when solo. Some times they are placed on patrol missions around bases. Almost never placed in fleets, some times in strike fleets.

Frigates - Used on patrol missions around bases and can be placed on escort missions. Can be placed in strike fleets, and some times in fleets.

Destroyers - Used on patrol missions around bases & colonies when solo. Are used in fleets and strike fleets.

Cruisers - Used mainly in fleets. Will be used to patrol mainly colonies and targeted planets for colonization when solo.

Capitals - Like Cruisers

Carriers - Like Cruisers, but almost never solo.

Troop ships - Mainly in fleets, but sometime solo. Will load troops and invade on their own if solo.

Resupply Ships - Never in fleets, and used like a capital ship.

Explorer - Explores until no more unexplored systems. Some times used to scout enemy systems. Never in fleets.

Construction Ships - Builds mining stations and repairs bases.

That's enough for now.



Kilravock -> RE: Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/7/2014 7:32:15 PM)

5. Sounds like your economy is screwed in that game. Mining stations are paid for and upgraded by the private sector, even when you do it manually. If they have no money, then the mines & civilian ships will not be upgraded or built. Also if you are low on needed resources, the construction will be halted until you have enough for the current build orders. To help prevent this, don't over tax them or over engineer civilian ships & bases. Design them to do what they need to do well at the minimal cost. The private sector needs a large positive cash flow and cash reserve.

6. Yeah, working as design. Some governments have even higher turn over like democracy, while some races never change leaders like the Giz.

7. Yeah saving and loading takes forever. It gets worse the bigger the empires get. The latest expansion and patches have helped this, but I typically load a game and watch TV or something while it loads.



Kilravock -> RE: Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/7/2014 7:35:32 PM)

Thinking about your first question. It could be that your ships are queued to be retrofitted, but the private sector does not have the money to do it, or you don't have the resources at the port.



FarAway Sooner -> RE: Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/10/2014 3:04:06 PM)

1. Single clicking on a ship tells you what it's current mission is. Double-clicking on the text box in the lower L corner allows you to see what it's cargo is. It may just be empty and waiting for something to do. Those are both good possibilities to rule out. They may also be waiting for upgrades that can't finish due to resource shortages (it's the DW:U equivalent of "we'll have that alternator into the shop on Thursday"). This is one of the most micromanagement-required parts of the game I've run into, but spend some time browsing the resource threads, as getting your resource mix right is less intuitive than getting your spending right.

3. Cash flow measures ongoing stuff, but not one-time expenses or revenue. If you're upgrading lots of civilian ships all the time, that doesn't show up in cash flow but will put (and keep putting) a hole in your private sector bank account.

The two are quite possibly related.



Airpower -> RE: Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/10/2014 10:05:27 PM)

Gotta run, but wanted to respond on your question #5

Your mining base upgrades are paid for by your private sector. Moreover, the money THEY spend to do the upgrades goes to YOUR bankroll. If you order 1,000,000 credits worth of mining base retrofitting, your private sector will lose 1,000,000 credits, and your state sector (you) will gain 1,000,000 credits.

You can use this (what I believe to be an exploit) to collect massive amounts of cash from your private sector, if they are doing well.



Airpower -> RE: Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/10/2014 10:06:01 PM)

Incidentally, this may also be why your private sector is broke as hell.



johanwanderer -> RE: Some Game Mechanic Questions / Understanding the game better (7/13/2014 6:47:42 AM)

This may be a bit late, as most have been answered already, but I'll take a shot at your questions:


quote:

1. Civ Ship docking – Planet vs. Star Base:
I have a planet with a horde of independent civilian ships trying to dock. The planet has a large space port with a lot of docking bays, but they are mostly idle. They all seem to try to dock with the planet and that can only dock about 8 at a time. When clicking on the planet, it shows the 8 docked and about 250 waiting. Is this correct? Should they not dock with the Space Port that’s at the planet?

I find this usually happens because you build the spaceport after the freighters already has orders to dock with the planet. Example: you just conquered a well populated planet (independent or otherwise). The spaceport was not there (independent) or was destroyed (enemy). Because the planet has a large population and most like has a diferent mix of resources than your other planets, freighters all over your empires will try to ship things around to balance them. Then you order the planet to build a spaceport. This gets done very quickly (because of high population and resources) but all the freighters are now stuck in the planet docking queue.

I have seen over 500 freighters stuck at each of my newly conquered planets like that.

quote:

2. Civ Ship Construction:
I always leave this on Auto and never edit these designed. I was wondering if there were any tips to improve the civ ship designs, or just leave them as is?

I have done both, and now largely just leave them automated. If I find that too many of them are getting destroyed, then I might beef them up, but I find no real reason to do so otherwise.

quote:

3. Civ Economy:
For some reason, my Civilian economy never has any cash on hand. In my current game, on very hard, they earn over 300K per year (Cash flow), but has a negative Cash on Hand of about 4 million. I’m not expanding rapidly at all and only have 4 planets and probably 8 systems in total under my control, so I’m not sure why they can’t get out of the negative… I’ve looked through some economy posts, but could not find a solution to this.

This sounds like a pirate smuggling issue. All those smuggling missions are paid by the private sector, and without caps. I wish they would stop when the private sector can no longer afford them, but they don't. I have bankrupt mine a few times like that.

quote:

4. Different ship designs, how does AI use them:
I try to design all my own military ships. I usually have them in small fleets patrolling systems with a lot of resources. I read somewhere that the only difference between escorts, frigates, destroyers, cruisers… is how the AI uses them. Could someone please tell me how does the AI use each class? The Escort seems pretty self explanatory, it usually escorts civ ships around, but what is the main use of the other classes by the AI?

I think the main difference is in fleet formation, where the AI will try to form a fleet with a set composition, as set in your empire's policy. I play with fleet automation OFF, so it doesn't make much of a difference. Escorts, as their role implies, will escort freighters. Everything else will go on patrols. I generally don't have solo ships until later in game, when I can afford to let them flight around.

quote:

5. Mining Base Upgrades:
In my current game, I have probably about 10 Gas Mining Stations and 20 Mining stations. I manually re-designed the layout and added a lot of shielding and armor and then tried to upgrade my bases. I went to the “Ships and Bases” menu, selected mining bases and then sorted by type. I then selected all gas mining station and clicked retrofit and selected my new design. I had the cash on hand to do the upgrade, but the bases never upgraded. Same with the mining bases. Has this something to do with my Civ Economy, since they have negative cash on hand? I thought that I pay for these bases.
Also, possibly related to the above. When I click on a planet, and want to use the action buttons in the lower left corner to build stuff at the planet, it would say that I don’t have the cash to do so, even though I have 10x enough cash to build a base. I wonder if this and the above is a bug.

The private sector pays for the construction and upgrade of mining stations. Since yours have negative cash on hand, they won't be upgraded. So it's not a bug (even though the error message can definitely be clearer. I was very confused about this when I first played.)

quote:

6. New Leader Elected:
I take it that this is totally random and that nothing can be done to prevent a new leader from taking the place of your well established leader that has some greats traits, correct?

I heard that if your people are unhappy, you will get elections and/or coup more often. I try to keep each planet's happiness level about 16-17 at all time. That seems to help.

quote:

7. Save/Load time:
I play on a 8x8 with 700 stars and 16 starting civs. So it’s a large game, but not huge, since I could go to 10x0 and 1,400 stars. When I’m well into my game, maybe 3 hours or so, I have 4-6 colonies and a bunch of fleets, most of the galaxy explored. My game saving and loading takes a very long time, like almost 5 min. The saves are about 90 meg. Is this normal? I have a decent PC, not uber - Intel X980 @ 3.33GHz with 12MB ram.

This is the biggest issues I have with the game. After a certain threshold, I just turn autosave OFF. My current game takes 20+ minutes to save now, so it just doesn't make sense to have it on anymore. However, it only takes a few minutes to load, so that is not so bad. I also stopped launching it from Steam, as that seems to cause Out-of-memory crashes for me.



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