I hesitate because.......

[DiggyDad]

Well, I've got to give it to the designers, I don't think I've played anything quite like this before. This game would not work as a Turn-Based game, the Real-Time is not so bad with this one either. You can slow it down enough to enable multi-tasking in an intelligent manner. It was a bit disconcerting starting time rolling the first time and seeing all of my ships moving without my telling them to do anything. Now I see myself as trying to shepherd my empire in the right direction rather than micromanaging, although as I get better I'm sure I'll take on more tasks myself.

I do have some questions though:

1) Should I leave available a space port or star base for civilian construction? I feel like I may be hampering my business growth by using my construction for military too much.

2) How do you, or can you, get one ship to break off from a fleet to refuel and leave the rest of the fleet intact? Is there a way to automate this behavior or do I have to do this manually?

3) Is there a way to check how well the civilians are doing on particular mining bases? Can I get them to transport certain commodities to certain planets or am I at the whim of the freighters and the AI?

This game is certainly an achievement in design and vision and I'm sure I will enjoy this for some time. It does have a learning curve, which I'm still on, but if you want to try something really different this is it. If the devs continue with development and maybe even some expansion packs this game could remain on hard drives for a long time. I heartily recommend it. More questions to come, thanks!!

[Grotius]

I have the same questions as DiggyDad, especially about transport of particular resources. I like the idea of a private sector I can't touch, but at least can I influence which resources go where? Maybe I do this indirectly by starting construction of a ship at a particular location?

[EisenHammer]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
So more tech, more aliens, more mod support, new ship types, etc. is all stuff that can be expected once we get past the post-release support period and back to "new" development.

Nice...[:)]

This game is awesome.

[DiggyDad]

I think I may have found a bonafide bug.  I have a mining station in the middle of a system not on a planet,  I can't scrap him because it is civilian.  Bugger is sure sucking up money though for maintenance.  How do I correct this?

[freeboy]

how mobile are star bases?
if they can move they are the substitute for no carriers

[Zakhal]

Is the AI any good? Does it provide plenty of challenge even after you have learned to play the game?

[DiggyDad]

ORIGINAL: freeboy

how mobile are star bases?
if they can move they are the substitute for no carriers

I don't know much yet but I can tell you that Star Bases don't move.

[licker]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

Is the AI any good? Does it provide plenty of challenge even after you have learned to play the game?

The answer is 'it depends', but generally the answer will probably be 'no'. Of course there are lots of different ways you can set up your games to give yourself additional challenges, though that kind of a challenge is somewhat different in nature from the AI being challenging in and of itself.

Though is there a game you feel has an AI which provides 'plenty of challenge' after you've learned the game?

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: licker
Though is there a game you feel has an AI which provides 'plenty of challenge' after you've learned the game?

I would say that if I loose just because I dont know how to play the game aka build ships or colonize planets then the AI is not challenging. If I know how to play the game but still loose because my strategy in the game is not good enough yet then the AI is challenging.

How challenging the game is depends on how long it takes to discover good strategies against the AI. I would say 30-40 hours is pretty good if the game costs only 30€. Thats how I would define it.

[DiggyDad]

I just noticed another weird occurrence.  I had my fleet out destroying some pirates; when they finished the job I told them to 'refuel at nearest' as gas was getting low. The fleet captain must have been panicked about the situation because he decided to go to a neighboring empires' star base to do it.  Needless to say my neighbors weren't pleased.  I think we need to change the AI on this one.  Fleets should only go to our own bases or to neighbors were we have a mutual agreement, if there is such a thing.  It was weird though; even though my neighbor didn't like them there, he still refueled my ships.    

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: DiggyDad

I just noticed another weird occurrence.  I had my fleet out destroying some pirates; when they finished the job I told them to 'refuel at nearest' as gas was getting low. The fleet captain must have been panicked about the situation because he decided to go to a neighboring empires' star base to do it.  Needless to say my neighbors weren't pleased.  I think we need to change the AI on this one.  Fleets should only go to our own bases or to neighbors were we have a mutual agreement, if there is such a thing.  It was weird though; even though my neighbor didn't like them there, he still refueled my ships.    

Yes and I have seen this and presume it is a bug so post it on the tech forum.

[licker]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

ORIGINAL: licker
Though is there a game you feel has an AI which provides 'plenty of challenge' after you've learned the game?

I would say that if I loose just because I dont know how to play the game aka build ships or colonize planets then the AI is not challenging. If I know how to play the game but still loose because my strategy in the game is not good enough yet then the AI is challenging.

How challenging the game is depends on how long it takes to discover good strategies against the AI. I would say 30-40 hours is pretty good if the game costs only 30€. Thats how I would define it.

That's a good way to look at it.

My immediate concern with DW is that the automation makes some really poor decisions. As a human (I assume you are human anyway [;)]) you can step in and override the decisions, but the poor AIs are stuck with bad ship designs or other sub optimal considerations. That assumes that the automation you see is the same for the AI.

I can say that even in my 1st game I was easily able to out colonize the AI, meaning that I would have a bigger economy to go to war with them when that time came. Since that 1st game I've not seen any of the AIs I've met have empires within 50% of my size after a couple hours of playing the game.

Now it's still a smallish sample size, but it's somewhat worrying to me.

Anyway, we all expect there to be plenty of content updates over the next several months, so hopefully some of the issues you have seen elsewhere, as well as improvements to the AI will be forthcoming and the game will be what people hope it will be.

[HsojVvad]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: DiggyDad

I just noticed another weird occurrence.  I had my fleet out destroying some pirates; when they finished the job I told them to 'refuel at nearest' as gas was getting low. The fleet captain must have been panicked about the situation because he decided to go to a neighboring empires' star base to do it.  Needless to say my neighbors weren't pleased.  I think we need to change the AI on this one.  Fleets should only go to our own bases or to neighbors were we have a mutual agreement, if there is such a thing.  It was weird though; even though my neighbor didn't like them there, he still refueled my ships.    

Yes and I have seen this and presume it is a bug so post it on the tech forum.

Wow. Are you a wana be Mod or something? Maybe you don't intend it, but your writing style seems harsh and makes you look beligerant. I almost want to say we are not as smart as you so give us a break. I don't think you intend to do this, but ease up on us. The person was just trying to say something, and you telling him to post in the the tch forum seems so rude. Ease up a little. This is a complex game and we can't know everything.

[PDiFolco]

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

I'm loving it and each game I play I take more and more stuff away from automation and am really getting into the nuts and bolts.

My latest game I've gone to town on ship design. Left that up to the AI before mostly. The default designs are horrible, you can optimize those.

I'm also getting the hang of fleets. You have to babysit those to get 'em right, the fleet automation is bad. 

So far as refueling goes, I've solved that issue to my own satisfation by designing ships with more fuel capacity. Like 1.5-2 times more than the default designs. That's more than enough for deep strikes into enemy territory. I also am a fanatic about putting spaceports everywhere, including my frontier worlds and have a cheap port design to support fleet strikes as a fuel point. They don't need to be expensive ports with all the bells and whistles of your homeworld.

I completely agree ! Designing own ships gives you better ones, cheaper, alleviate the fuel issues, and allow proper upgrading.
Did you try some "unusual" designs to share ?

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: Davor

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: DiggyDad

I just noticed another weird occurrence.  I had my fleet out destroying some pirates; when they finished the job I told them to 'refuel at nearest' as gas was getting low. The fleet captain must have been panicked about the situation because he decided to go to a neighboring empires' star base to do it.  Needless to say my neighbors weren't pleased.  I think we need to change the AI on this one.  Fleets should only go to our own bases or to neighbors were we have a mutual agreement, if there is such a thing.  It was weird though; even though my neighbor didn't like them there, he still refueled my ships.    

Yes and I have seen this and presume it is a bug so post it on the tech forum.

Wow. Are you a wana be Mod or something? Maybe you don't intend it, but your writing style seems harsh and makes you look beligerant. I almost want to say we are not as smart as you so give us a break. I don't think you intend to do this, but ease up on us. The person was just trying to say something, and you telling him to post in the the tch forum seems so rude. Ease up a little. This is a complex game and we can't know everything.

What? I said it was a bug and to report it.Chill out.

[HsojVvad]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: Davor

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76




Yes and I have seen this and presume it is a bug so post it on the tech forum.

Wow. Are you a wana be Mod or something? Maybe you don't intend it, but your writing style seems harsh and makes you look beligerant. I almost want to say we are not as smart as you so give us a break. I don't think you intend to do this, but ease up on us. The person was just trying to say something, and you telling him to post in the the tch forum seems so rude. Ease up a little. This is a complex game and we can't know everything.

What? I said it was a bug and to report it.Chill out.

Maybe I read it wrong, but from reading your other posts, it seemed beligerent enough. Sorry if I misread it. But as I said before, your other posts in other threads is where you need to chill out.

Again, sorry if I misread it here. I appoligize.

[HsojVvad]

ORIGINAL: DiggyDad

I think I may have found a bonafide bug.  I have a mining station in the middle of a system not on a planet,  I can't scrap him because it is civilian.  Bugger is sure sucking up money though for maintenance.  How do I correct this?

Once you build a mining station they can't be removed that I know of. If you want to get rid of a mining station, just open up the editor, and use the eraser to remove or erase the mine. I don't consider it cheating, since you can decomission ships, you should be able to get rid of mining stations as well.

Try that.

[JosEPhII]

I've come to ignore those "warnings" that other Empires give when this occurs. The ships refuel and then move out of the system, so it's just "AI squawk" to me now.

Seems to be plenty of this in the game. I've started to turn off some of the Pop up warnings. They become a Huge distraction and are Not worth the attention they "demand".

The Advisors can be become tiresome too. And at first you think they have so good suggestions. But when they continually want to to "Impose Trade Sanctions" or "Declare War" on an Empire that you are generating 15% or more of your Trade Income off of, they become an irritation. And a Detriment to your Reputation! Just go ahead and do all their "Suggestions" and see how soon you begin to have colony problems with rebellions and Empire Swapping. And your Rep goes from Admired to Nasty in no time.

JosEPh [;)]

[autarkis1967]

On the base thing might try giving it away to a pirate or something then destroying it. Haven't tried this but I have given bases away.Didn't think the private sector made bases though. How would they do it without construction ships?

[DiggyDad]

ORIGINAL: Davor

ORIGINAL: DiggyDad

I think I may have found a bonafide bug.  I have a mining station in the middle of a system not on a planet,  I can't scrap him because it is civilian.  Bugger is sure sucking up money though for maintenance.  How do I correct this?

Once you build a mining station they can't be removed that I know of. If you want to get rid of a mining station, just open up the editor, and use the eraser to remove or erase the mine. I don't consider it cheating, since you can decomission ships, you should be able to get rid of mining stations as well.

Try that.

Excellent idea, thanks.