so I have ships on fully automated with the default settings and its not creating fleets. I see military ships going about their business refuelling, upgrading, doing escorts, etc. what am I doing wrong?
Likely nothing. The AI just doesn’t think you need them yet. Usually it seems like you need a dozen or so ships before the AI starts to form fleets. I think you need 4 minimum ships in a fleet by default and the default non-fleet is 60% so that would mean you’d need at least 10 ships before the AI thinks you might need a fleet.
Hmm I’ll keep playing then and see if it changes. Thanks.
KevinC
1904
To be honest I’m finding the game thus far to be a little obnoxious and short on entertainment. There’s such a lack of feedback for everything. My cashflow is negative… why? How do I fix it? Should I be trying to fix it, or is that normal? When I have negative cash flow, why do I always have cash on hand, where is that coming from? If I have cashflow in the negative, I don’t know why I suddenly get another $10,000 in the bank.
A race I’m friendly with contacts me and says “Hey I’ll trade you these stations and some tech for one of your mining stations”. Is it a good deal? Why does he want this particular mining station, what does it mine there? Are his mining stations any good? There’s no summary provided of what exactly is being traded here, no way for someone new like me to even begin to gauge the value of the trade. I could hunt around trying to find each of these individual stations but I’m a bit hampered by the fact that I have the diplomacy dialog taking up the middle of my screen. Annoying.
I see that a diplomatic option is to enter a Free Trade agreement, but the race says no, I’m too poor. I’m genuinely glad the AI actually gives a reason other than “no”, but why am I poor? I’m playing with default settings so most things are automated. Is the AI controlling my empire just making bad decisions? Did I get an unlucky start? Why am I poor? How do I fix being poor? The empire summary doesn’t really tell me a whole lot in terms of how I can shore up my income.
I’m going to stick with the game for a while because it looks pretty deep and like there might be a lot there, but it’s also looking like it might be a mirage. At the moment it’s feeling like the game is a really expensive but cool screen saver.
Kevin, I agree that lack of feedback is a huge problem, particularly for newcomers. Its frustrating if you’re trying to run systems rather than just let the AI handle a lot. I think the various iterations of the game have gradually improved the lack of feedback but only gradually, they still have far to go. My least frustrating time with the game is when I’m letting AI handle resource gathering and construction, and I’m just managing military deployment and diplomacy. YMMV.
That’s said, I don’t think DW is just smoke and mirrors. I believe it truly is a deep game, and meets my desire to experience a living breathing universe in which I have a role.
KevinC
1906
Good to hear, I’ll keep plugging away at it. Hopefully I start to grok it at some point because “deep”, “complex”, and “living universe” are all the kinds of things I look for in games and I hear those words used to describe DW frequently. I’m also probably a bit tired and groggy after having spent a week up in Alaska and getting woken up by 3:00am sunrises, so I might just be a little crabby at the moment. :)
Any recommendations on message popup settings? It gets a little annoying getting spammed whenever random exploration ships get targeted but I do definitely want to be notified of more important things (colonies being hit, etc).
Klaatu
1907
Change the default settings. Go to the fleets section and change the percentage of ships in fleets to 100%. Also change the number of ships in fleets and strike forces (what’s the difference between a fleet and a strike force?) to like 2-4. Then see what happens.
that’s a great idea, I will try it tonight
Yeah, that was it. When I messed with fleet size/percentages, it formed fleets. Thanks for the info.
Hey guys, I hope y’all don’t mind a bit of pimpage, but this week’s podcast on my site covers Distant Worlds, with both Erik from Matrix and the game’s creator, Elliott Gibbs, joining us, and it’s pretty informative, so I thought y’all might enjoy it. :)
Thanks!
KevinC
1911
Pshaw, Distant Worlds is just a poor substitute for StarDrive.
Ow! Ow! Stop it, I was kidding, Brian, put the pipe down already! Gonna go check out the podcast.
Hahaha, you right bastard.
Sweet! Will be listening to this tonight I hope!
Thank you for pointing out the podcast. I’ve only played maybe twenty hours or so and I feel like I have a good grasp of most of the systems. I just really like the design choices of this game. The independent economy might be my favorite, something about seeing economy somewhat organically change and adapt based on my choices just really interests me as a game system.
I haven’t gotten the most recent expansion (man they can be pricey), but my biggest gripe is the lack of more upfront flavor to the universe, particularly the races. That being said, I’ll be purchasing the new expansion and I hope they are able to do a sequel expanding on the basic concepts.
Awesome. Gonna listen to this during my morning run.
FYI, we just released a major update:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3381893
This Build has the following changes from version 1.9.0.9 Beta to 1.9.0.10:
CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash with mining
- fixed rare crash when expiring old pirate missions
- fixed rare crash when planet destroyed
- fixed rare crash when drawing hovered ship information
- fixed various other crashes
BUG FIXES
- fixed bug where could not build pirate Criminal Network facility at empire-owned colonies (could previously only do this at independent colonies)
- now properly cancel pirate attack missions when target of mission is destroyed or captured by someone else
- fixed bug in “Most Homeworlds” race victory condition (was incorrectly counting conquered enemy homeworlds)
- fixed bug where could not scrap bases at independent colonies
- fixed bug where could not build oversize bases at colonies via construction Action buttons under Selection Panel
- fixed problem where pirate colony raids would sometimes give conquest messages
- fixed bug where under attack messages for space creatures were often not being sent
AREA WEAPONS
- improved willingness of area weapons to fire even when other nearby ships may suffer some minor collateral damage
- added area weapon components to design templates for spaceports and defensive bases of all appropriate races
GAME BALANCE AND AI
- added an option in game setup to turn off Tech Trading between empires (Victory Conditions step)
- homeworld colonies now have more defending/garrisoned troops, especially on higher difficulty levels
- AI ship building process now uses excess funds to overbuild on military ships, especially on higher difficulty levels
- optimized AI planetary facility building choices so that builds less (e.g. Academies), thus saving maintenance costs
- disaster events no longer occur near start of game (i.e. never within first 4 years)
- reduced fuel production speed of Energy to Fuel Convertor component. Also ensured that it does not completely fill cargo space with fuel
PIRATES
- pirates now have concept of empire corruption (income losses dues to fraud and pilfering). This reduces the amount of ships they build in the late-game. Pirate empire corruption can be viewed in the Empire Summary screen under the pirate home base. Pirate empire corruption applies to the following types of pirate income: colony control, colony taxes, raiding, looting, resorts and smuggling. Other types of income are not affected by corruption (Protection Arrangements and Selling Info for a price)
- pirate factions now more careful about building new ships - will no longer generate excessive build queues at construction yards
- increased the strength of Legendary Pirates so that they are stronger than a typical pirate faction
DISPLAY AND USER INTERFACE
- improved visibility of ship and base symbols when zoomed out to system level
- clicking buttons in Fleets screen no longer turns off automation of selected fleet (Repair and Refuel, Retrofit, Load Troops)
- disabled Retrofit action button and popup menu options when a ship is already sent for retrofit (avoid multiple retrofit assignments with associated costs)
- removed duplicate display of Koloros Medical Academy in bonuses panel of Empire Summary screen
- added sector to description of tradeable bases in Diplomacy trade screen
COLONY INVASIONS AND RAIDS
- when special forces troops are attacking a pirate base at a colony, will now only destroy pirate facilities, not normal empire facilities
- when pirate raiders withdraw from raiding a colony, they now never obtain any loot if they do not have any nearby ships
OTHER
- improved boarding and capture with large groups of ships while still allowing ships to fire at nearby enemies (i.e. better coordination with other ships of same empire so that do not fire at ships being boarded)
- extended rule in design editor to disallow multiple gravity beam weapons on freighters (maximum of one)
V1.9.0.9 – August 2nd, 2013
• Beta Update
CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when generating new troops
- fixed rare crash related to pirate missions
- fixed various other crashes
BUG FIXES
- fixed problem where tech breakthroughs were not being applied for ruin encounters, abandoned ships and some other situations
- fixed mining ships to handle situation when do not have luxury resource extractor components but are mining a planet/moon with luxury resources (i.e. will no longer stall at planet)
- fixed bug where research locations were not showing in Empire Navigation Tool when your empire had no buildable research station designs
- now ensure that Retrofit Stance setting is properly applied to new ships and bases from their design (Default Retrofit Stance)
- fixed problem where ships captured by an enemy were sometimes not being attacked
MILITARY SHIPS, FLEETS AND COMBAT
- groups of military ships (e.g. fleets) are now much better at balancing targetting of multiple enemy threats so that they do not all attack a single enemy. However they will still gang up on an enemy when no other targets are nearby
- military ships are now much better at firing at nearby enemies even when pursuing other targets
- unautomated fleets will now always properly honor manual commands and thus will no longer auto-respond to intercept incoming enemy fleets and planet destroyers
- reduced the frequency that idle auto-controlled fleets refuel when in the same system as refuelling points
- idle fleets will now always return to home base, regardless of whether the home base is nearby or not
AREA WEAPONS
- epicenter of area weapons is no longer centered on firer. Instead area weapons now fire at target and the damage shockwave expands from the target (similar to area gravity weapons)
GAME BALANCE
- reduced bonuses from most wonders, especially for wonders focused on colony income and empire research
DESIGNS
- changed behavior of “Manually Upgrade Design” button in Designs screen so that previous design not obsoleted unless new design saved
- if your empire cannot build a design, the reason is now explained in the hover tooltip of the construction Action buttons (when Spaceport selected), e.g. design too big, missing tech
OTHER
- added pirate strength option in Game setup. Decreasing pirate strength makes for an easier game, with pirates closer to the weaker, old-style Legends pirates
- Ancient Guardians no longer automatically declare war on empires building victory wonders
OMG, pirate empire corruption?! LOVE IT.
Tom_Mc
1918
Any mention of a nice base game + expansion set(s) that is representive of the game Brain loves available for a reasonable price? I hate to think that this still might be the greatest game I’ll never play.
Tom M
There’s actually a bit of talk of that on the podcast with Erik linked above, Tom, if you’d like to listen to it. :)
Tom_Mc
1920
Oh I heard it. I’m just waiting for them to actually put it together. It is nice to know that they understand the barrier to entry and I’m hopeful that they’ll sort it out.
Tom M
