Question

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: PJL

Out of interest, what CAN'T you do while stationary?

I have the game paused right now and I went back into it after reading your post, and the only thing that doesn't happen is animation of movement (planet animation ring continues) and of course the flow of messages and any combat. As far as not being able to do anything? I'm able to manage everything and make all decisions as long as they don't require any interaction from other races.

If I find anything that I missed I will surely post here immediately. [X(]

[Anguille]

I am a hard-core TBS player too but playing DW is smoother than Europa Universalis...

Honestly...no stress here...just fun. [;)]

[lordxorn]

ORIGINAL: Judykator

In total, only war, no economy and the development of civilization [&:]

I think his original question was if there are more techs to research other than just ship parts?

I understand that the AI will develop it's own economy, but is it not reasonable to ask that there should be technology that can improve more aspect of your empire other than your military fleet.

For example MOO2 had many techs that made the production of food more efficient, to the point where you don't even need labor allocated to farming.

Or another tech from MOO2 allowed you to pick another 4 points of Racial bonuses, that makes the tech tree more varied and interesting.

I can understand the disappointment if it is only to research ship components.

[lordxorn]

ORIGINAL: Epsilon

Most likely we're waiting for the game to hit retail shops, like gamestop.
Eventhough gamestop hates pc games, but... go figure

Oh man I know, it is sad when Best Buy carries a better selection of PC games then Gamestop. EB Games still had love for PC Games, until they got bought out by Gamestop.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: lordxorn
I think his original question was if there are more techs to research other than just ship parts?

I understand that the AI will develop it's own economy, but is it not reasonable to ask that there should be technology that can improve more aspect of your empire other than your military fleet.

Some of the tech you research is related to your economy. E.g. better research laboratories, better command centers that lower maintenance costs, better commerce centers that increase trade revenue at your space ports, better mining components that allow faster mining, etc.

But these economy-related components still end up being built into your bases. E.g. there are dedicated research stations built at special locations in the galaxy, commerce centers built into your space ports, dedicated monitoring stations that give you scanner coverage of enemy systems, etc.

So these economy-related improvements that you gain through research are realized in-game by building bases that use the new tech.

[Andrew Brown]

This looks like a fantastic game. I do have a question though - How much of the game is moddable?

For example, many space 4X games have cheap construction costs for ships and little or no maintenance costs, so that, after a while, space fleets can become huge, with thousands of warships. I prefer having a much smaller fleet of expensive, costly to maintain ships.

What are fleet sizes and maintenance costs (if there is maintenance) like in this game? Are construction (and if applicable, maintenance) costs moddable?

I already see that there is a slider for slowing down research speed - slow rates of research is another thing I strongly prefer in this type of game.

[hadberz]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown

This looks like a fantastic game. I do have a question though - How much of the game is moddable?

For example, many space 4X games have cheap construction costs for ships and little or no maintenance costs, so that, after a while, space fleets can become huge, with thousands of warships. I prefer having a much smaller fleet of expensive, costly to maintain ships.

What are fleet sizes and maintenance costs (if there is maintenance) like in this game? Are construction (and if applicable, maintenance) costs moddable?

I already see that there is a slider for slowing down research speed - slow rates of research is another thing I strongly prefer in this type of game.

Maintenance costs are dynamic based on the price of the required resources. I've not seen any direct way to mod the maintenance costs, but you can add extra mining stations with the in-game editor. The more mining stations producing resources the cheaper that resource will be. This would lower maintenance and ship building costs over time.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: hadberz
Maintenance costs are dynamic based on the price of the required resources. I've not seen any direct way to mod the maintenance costs, but you can add extra mining stations with the in-game editor. The more mining stations producing resources the cheaper that resource will be. This would lower maintenance and ship building costs over time.

Thanks for the information. To follow up my question - can construction costs themselves be modified in the editor?

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown
This looks like a fantastic game. I do have a question though - How much of the game is moddable?

For example, many space 4X games have cheap construction costs for ships and little or no maintenance costs, so that, after a while, space fleets can become huge, with thousands of warships. I prefer having a much smaller fleet of expensive, costly to maintain ships.

What are fleet sizes and maintenance costs (if there is maintenance) like in this game? Are construction (and if applicable, maintenance) costs moddable?

You can mod a lot of stuff, but much of the core game values are currently fixed.

There are maintenance costs for ships, bases, troops and spies. For ships and bases the maintenance costs are partially based on fluctuating resource prices, as indicated by hadberz. There's also a constant factor that determines the maintenance cost in relation to the ship purchase price.

This constant ship maintenance value is not currently moddable. However I'm very happy to open up this value and many others to modding in the future. After release all of you keen players can get a good idea of exactly which values you want to change and once we have some kind of list I'll extract those values into a text file so that they're moddable.

[Andrew Brown]

Thanks again for the information. Just to follow up some more...

ORIGINAL: elliotg
You can mod a lot of stuff, but much of the core game values are currently fixed.

There are maintenance costs for ships, bases, troops and spies. For ships and bases the maintenance costs are partially based on fluctuating resource prices, as indicated by hadberz. There's also a constant factor that determines the maintenance cost in relation to the ship purchase price.

That all makes sense. My original question was about making ship construction costs higher, rather than maintenance costs (If maintenance costs are a fixed ratio then they would increase proportionally in any case).

So my interest would be in changing the construction costs.

Out of interest, how large do the fleets become in the game?

Also, spies are a pet hate of mine. Is it possible to mod these out of the game entirely (or at least minimise their existence somehow)?

Thanks.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Andrew Brown
Out of interest, how large do the fleets become in the game?

Fleets typically consist of around 15-25 ships of various types and sizes. Of course you can decide exactly which and how many ships you want in your fleets, but that's the typical size.

It's usually better to have more fleets, rather than one big uber-fleet. That way you can defend/attack a wider area.

You can also use more than one fleet to attack or defend a target, so battles can still get quite big, with 100 or more ships engaged.

Also, spies are a pet hate of mine. Is it possible to mod these out of the game entirely (or at least minimise their existence somehow)?

Currently not possible to disable spies. But could possibly add this feature in a patch.

[Baleur]

In a patch? Does that mean release is that close?

[Jamerson89]

Will technological supremacy play a large part in DW or is strategy and fleet placement more important?

[hadberz]

Tech helps, but in my opinion fleet placement is more important. I can't tell you how many times I've had pirates attack a far off mining station and my fleet arriving too late to defend it. [:)] Of course I find out who did it then go after their base. [:)]

[ASHBERY76]

The game year starts around 2750 how long is an average game so that most of the galaxy is full in years and how long does a year take on normal speed.

[Gertjan]

"It's usually better to have more fleets, rather than one big uber-fleet. That way you can defend/attack a wider area.

You can also use more than one fleet to attack or defend a target, so battles can still get quite big, with 100 or more ships engaged. "

I like this aspect. Do fleets typically also contain different classes of ships, or rather is it optimal to have various types of ships in one fleet?

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
The game year starts around 2750 how long is an average game so that most of the galaxy is full in years and how long does a year take on normal speed.

A game year is 10 minutes long. Game lengths can vary a lot - depends largely on the size of the galaxy (from 100 stars to 1400 stars). You can also start a game with the galaxy partially-, or even fully-expanded, so that empires are already large with many colonies and ships. So if you don't like the expansion phase much you can jump directly to major wars and battles between large empires.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan
"It's usually better to have more fleets, rather than one big uber-fleet. That way you can defend/attack a wider area.

You can also use more than one fleet to attack or defend a target, so battles can still get quite big, with 100 or more ships engaged. "

I like this aspect. Do fleets typically also contain different classes of ships, or rather is it optimal to have various types of ships in one fleet?

Fleets usually contain a balanced cross-section of military ship types and sizes. Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Capital Ships and Troop Transports. But you can put whatever ships you like in a fleet. Smaller ships are generally faster (if you design them that way), so they can be useful for pursuing escaping ships. Larger ships are usually better armed and defended, and have stand-off weapons that are good for attacking bases.

You might want to have specialized fleets for different roles: planetary invasion, hit and run raids, colony defense, etc.

[Gertjan]

" So if you don't like the expansion phase much you can jump directly to major wars and battles between large empires."
Wow this is very innovative and I like it a lot

Question regarding ships, are there also battlestar galactica carrier type of ships, with lots of little fighters?

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan
Question regarding ships, are there also battlestar galactica carrier type of ships, with lots of little fighters?

There's various sizes of ships, but no ships carry other ships like this.