Couple of Questions to Characters

[dastuma]

I have several questions to the Characters system:

1. How fast do characters travel? Is there a way to speed up the travel time?

2. Is it better to concentrate all scientists in one station or should I spread them out?

[Theluin]

1. They travel at a speed of 1 sector per 2 months or something close to that (But those times may vary and I've never seen travel times shorter than 3 month or longer than 2 years) You can't speed it up afaik.
2. You should definitely spread them out (Unless you are at war and fear you will not be able to defend them properly) There are 2 reasons for that:
a)Each scientist enhances the output of the station in the fields he has a bonus in. But afaik those bonuses do not stack and only the highest one is taken into account (You can check Nedrear's guide to research for a little more info)
b)If the location on which the research station is built (and even if it doesn't) grants an empire wide bonus in a field (weapons, energy or high-tech) the present scientist's bonus is added to that bonus providing you with a large boost in research output. Bonuses from different scientist's do not stack if they affect the same field (But if you have a station with a scientists with a high energy skill and a second scientists with a high weapons skill then you will receive a bonus in both energy and weapons)

It's quite a bit complicated and if you can't understand something I wrote I'll be glad to explain further [:)]

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: dastuma

I have several questions to the Characters system:

2. Is it better to concentrate all scientists in one station or should I spread them out?

Hello Dastuma and welcome to the forums! [:)]

When more than one character is assigned to the same location, there can be synergistic effects.

Scientists are assigned to a research location. They give the research at that location a bonus that should be cumulative with the existing bonuses.

Each scientist at a research station provides research bonuses to the specific research area of the station (Weapons, Energy, HighTech). Additional scientists at the same research station provide half their skills on top of the first scientist, progressively halving with each additional scientist. Thus: Scientist 1 gives full 12% energy research bonus, Scientist 2 gives half of their 10% energy research bonus (5%), Scientist 3 gives one quarter of their 8% energy research bonus (2%), for a total of 19% energy research bonus (12 + 5 + 2). According to Elliot, this is how it works. Enjoy learning and
playing Distant Worlds.

[dastuma]

Thanks for the quick reply and the welcome.

Looks like I will spread my scientists a little bit. Pity that you can't speed up character travel.