Pirate Faction Gameplay (Video Series) -Updated August 28th, 2015-

[echo2361]

Nice video series! Never really played a pirate faction so it is interesting to watch

[UnitedFreelancers]

Episode 4 is out now! I may begin again from a lack of resources and weak managing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7w-3RWRv0c

[Blabsawaw22]

uh.. better start that new game haha..

Start a new one and have another go..

[UnitedFreelancers]

I'll add abundant resources to the new one so this doesn't happen again hopefully. I should be a god in the next one, gonna be fun.

[Blabsawaw22]

ok well thats cool but you don't have to do "abundant resources" unless you really want to..

did you try unchecking the "trade with other empires" box in policy screen.. I believe that stops other empires from trading/taking your resources from you.. that means you get to stockpile whatever your mines and gas/mining ships are bringing to your spaceport..

think about that. hehe.

I guess the trade-off is not making money from trades.. when people buy stuff from you.. i think that is what it turns off..

so see if you have a problem with resources with that unticked..

now get recording! come on.. haha

[UnitedFreelancers]

The problem is I don't even have some planets for the resources, I'm basically missing out completely. Starting over with less AI and some more abundant resources would be best for a playthrough.

[Spidey]

A few things I feel like saying, just because. Don't take this as a critique, it's just me being me, saying what's at the top of my head.

1) Rolling about at 4x non-stop? Man, I really couldn't do that. Too much OCD, I guess. And clicking about while the game is unpaused takes time, quite a lot of time at 4x even. Since this game is essentially a long race to see who build up faster, you're constantly bleeding serious amounts of time.

2) Maybe I missed something but I didn't really notice a lot of colony invasions and stuff on your part. I would've thought that spawning a galaxy with lots of indies that you could then dominate easily would've been a more reliable way to make money than smuggling. It sure seems to work fabulously for pirates when I'm playing a regular empire.

3) I believe the easy solution to troop upkeep is to not have very many and simply nuke any colony with troops into a smoking ruin. It's not very fitting for regular empires but pirates are supposed to be evil bastards so why not?

4) I'm not sure how tech works in that mod but it sure didn't look like you had much of a tech lead relative to the normale empires. I could be wrong, but I suspect that limited tech advantage plus cruising at 4x speed results in regular empires catching up relatively easily, at which point you're in big trouble, since they are technically speaking rivals.

[UnitedFreelancers]

Yeah I get impatient easily. Pirates have very little tech power starting out, so we must steal it which is what my automation did. It's not perfect though and I'll attempt to manually steal here in the next map.

[Blabsawaw22]

haha Spidey is correct.

You have to be sending raids out all the time to independent colonies or lowly defended empires.. it all really happens near the mid-beginning stage..

you have to unfortunately do things like manually adjust your designs.. even of mining station.. make them so they are extremly cheap and just support 1500 cargo..

playing pirate is about having hyperdrive capability before the other empires and keeping empires colonies from getting a planetary shield.. because then you can't raid them and raiding not only gives you resources,money, and steals tech...

so you need to manually design your escorts,frigates , bases, mining stations, and everything unfortunatley to make them extremely cheap in the beginning of the game.. so you can focus on building a ton of ships and fleets to raid and cause havoc giving you money and resources!


manual design of things has been whats got me what I need especially in the beginning of the game..

take off extra fuel cells except 1 on all mining and gas stations.. and your starbases and spaceports.. you only need 1 fuel cell.. as long as you have energy storage enough to fire weapons and energy collectors more to help with energy over the static in design screen...

there are so many more things but I can't type a 2 mile long story here.. maybe another time..

anyway I enjoy watching your games because 1. nobody else puts pirate play as of the new updated Legends .. the only pirate play i see is from old old versions..

and 2. I want to see if the crap that happens to me happens to others.. haha.. and I don't even have any mods installed..

I've actually never installed any mods.. I kinda want to .. but dont know which ones to try..

[UnitedFreelancers]

I'll be getting much more involved in the new one hopefully. The Extended Universe mod I use only adds some graphics, difficulty tweak, and some new races to play I believe. It's not a super game changer so it's really fun to use.

[UnitedFreelancers]

Episode 5 is out now! Started over and spent this episode setting up my policies, ships, and bases. A look at what I'm building basically. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOpl3er7fq8

[UnitedFreelancers]

Episode 6 is out now! The first gameplay of the new game and I almost lost from going broke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH_Dim42HKc

[Spidey]

Your ship design could be a bit better, I think. I've only gotten around to watching your setup video now, but what strikes me is that you're essentially building space snails with guns. Cruise speed 11? That's really slow. Turn rate 10 degrees isn't nimble either. It might feel like 99 firepower is a lot, and indeed it isn't bad early on, but epsilon torpedoes are not a good enough weapon, in my opinion, that you get the necessary bang for the very severe amount of bucks you're paying in production and maintenance costs. A more nimble ship could stay out of range of enemy weapons a lot better, thus surviving a lot better, and that in itself would probably be enough to get the job done until you get more worthwhile tech.

Also of note, your energy economics just barely work out that you can move and shoot at the same time, though "move" is perhaps a bit flattering at speed 11. Generally, you'll want the sum of your engine cruise energy requirement and your weapon energy per second to be less than the excess energy output of the reactors. In your case, you're five over, which means you'll be draining your energy storage during long engagements. It's not really a problem at a mere five but it isn't optimal either.

And finally, what's up with your Gerax drives having warp speed 7000? That's definitely not a vanilla setting. Are you using "beyond extended" or some other tech mod?

Oh, and before I forget, you do not actually need troop modules on destroyers and the like, but you can in case you like dropping off raiding parties. When playing as a regular empire, I never bother with troop modules on anything but dedicated troop transports, but of course you might want to move troops on your combat ships. If so then I would delay designing ships with that capability until you actually start raiding colonies so that you don't pay maintenance early on for a capability that you're not using. This game rewards a cost/benefit approach to certain questions. Like, "what is the cost of adding this component and what is the benefit?", and if it turns out that there is any cost and zero benefit, well...

I know you don't want to crush yourself under the weight of too many details but early game micro does wonders to give you a good start.

[UnitedFreelancers]

I'll try to bump the speed a tad, although I don't know what to change just yet. The weapons are temporary as I don't have speed and short range guns would be the death of me so I need to out-range the enemies. I'm using Extended Universe mod yes. I'll try to drop the troop stuff since it's better to use troop transport instead, if I remember.

[UnitedFreelancers]

Episode 7 is out now! I tweak some things and jump about 15 minutes ahead to get some contact going. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWrG_uhVN30

[UnitedFreelancers]

Episode 8 of Distant Worlds Universe is out now! Getting interesting now that I found most of the AI. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njjOn9hCBlk

[UnitedFreelancers]

Episode 9 is out now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8wthRLsz1w

[UnitedFreelancers]

Episode 10 is out now! Using the new ending format so there is now a "next time". I also figured out why Pink is insanely strong now, although that was after the video. Pink is making a bunch of carriers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyR6tDQHmdI

[LordArkham]

I'm going to watch your videos. Thanks for taking the time to make them.

[UnitedFreelancers]

Thanks for watching them!