Matrix Games Forums

This is my first Micro AAR for DW, more to follow [;)],

Science At The Edge of Eternity

One of the first dictates I had as Lord of my new fledgling Space Empire, was to capitalize on my superior research abilities. To accomplish this I set out to find a suitable location for my Empire's best Kiadian minds to do their research.

The exploration division came up with spades, when they delivered a report on a local Black Hole, aptly named "Devil's Cauldron". According to my Science Division a research station built there could return my investment six fold. I already had a field of research to focus on, weapons research.

Eager to get started, I immediately ordered the nearest mobile construction yard "Scheme of Sivarkus" to Devil's Cauldron to begin construction of the "Sivarkus Prime Weapons Research Institute".

Ruling an interstellar empire is a busy task, and therefore I did not give more througrough orders to the engineers, and they foolishly cost my Empire a construction yard. Reading the After Action Report, the captain foolishly started construction within the event horizon, which my scientist tell me was a foolish thing to do. This is because within the event horizon, the orbit of construction yard rapidly decayed to a point where it was too late for the crew to do anything because they started construction already.

Needless to say, I rectified the situation (A Bill for the lost Yard was sent to the surviving families) by sending direct orders to the next construction yard "Mocking Merchant" to stay outside the event horizon.

This incident has been filed away under the "Do Not Repeat Archives", so that my successor's will not repeat this mistake. I am now eagerly awaiting the next weapon research project, Concussion Beam which will improve our current beam tech by 20% damage rating.

UPDATE

The Devil's Cauldron mission has paid off handsomely and the immediate research benefits has paid off handsomely with a 168K Bonus to weapons research. This was just in time too, as relations with Murubi Hive is turning south, they just imposed sanctions on our Empire.






UPDATE

The Devil's Cauldron mission has paid off handsomely and the immediate research benefits has paid off handsomely with a 168K Bonus to weapons research. This was just in time too, as relations with Murubi Hive is turning south, they just imposed sanctions on our Empire.

Nice discovery!

ORIGINAL: lordxorn
Needless to say, I rectified the situation (A Bill for the lost Yard was sent to the surviving families) by sending direct orders to the next construction yard "Mocking Merchant" to stay outside the event horizon.

This incident has been filed away under the "Do Not Repeat Archives", so that my successor's will not repeat this mistake.

LOL! [:D]

Haha - awesome report lordxord [:D]

This game really excels at immersing the player into a "living" universe. Other games like Dragon Age of course already have an edge due to the graphics and voice acting. Now we have a space 4X game that plays like a movie at least in what we add to the living cosmos instead of a spreadsheet in space (cue Muppets' Pigs in Space music0.



Vlad

ORIGINAL: Vlad77

This game really excels at immersing the player into a "living" universe. Other games like Dragon Age of course already have an edge due to the graphics and voice acting. Now we have a space 4X game that plays like a movie at least in what we add to the living cosmos instead of a spreadsheet in space (cue Muppets' Pigs in Space music0.



Vlad

Great point! I was thinking exactly that as I was trying to get the positioning of my research lab just right, and carefully watching the event horizon of the black hole rotating past. Other little attention to detail that Codeforce did was like liitle nebula storms that are overlayed the background map adds to the realism and living galaxy.

Another point is when I first tried deploying the constructor inside the event horizon, I noticed it was not maintainging it's distance from the center mouth of the bh, so I ordered the constructor out of there.

This was interesting because I know that once something is caught in that event horizon that is the point of no return, alas the constructor simply engaged it's jump drive to escape. [:D]

I don't build specific lab types when I do things, I just build "The One Lab". 8 labs of each type crammed on a single base: Saves lots of upkeep since you're not repeatedly paying maintenance on basic infrastructural components which contribute nothing, and such a beast pretty much fills your research needs...forever. Then you can strip the labs entirely off your spaceport designs, because they won't do any good anyway, since the research cap is so harsh. Save lots of money, and get your tech...well, as fast as everyone else, since you can't go faster.

Smart, but I would consider this cheating the game design a bit.

ORIGINAL: lordxorn
This was interesting because I know that once something is caught in that event horizon that is the point of no return, alas the constructor simply engaged it's jump drive to escape. [:D]

I just had a thought. Is it perhaps not a good idea to build right on the edge of the event horizon like that? Ships warp in and randomly appear around their targets, so if you build too close and tourists start flying in, you may end up seeing about half of them getting sucked into the void.

Jim

That is a good point, I wonder if it happens at all. LOL!

I'm sorry, and go ahead and call me obtuse -- but how does one know what the event horizon is for something like a black hole? Is it defined by that pinkish ring in the screenie? Did I overlook the description of "event horizons" somewhere in the manual?

When you select the black hole, the selection ring is the limit of the event horizon. The Ai builds near black holes onit's own just fine. However if you manually control that portion of your Empire just build outside the selection circle or the purplish haze.

Ahh, many thanks! I suppose the same considerations would apply to building in the vicinity of supernovas too, right?

Purple Haze! I'm naming a base parked near a black hole Hendrix for sure.

My experience with Supernovas are that they just damage your shields, so it take a little bit for the stations shields to reach max cap.

I've heard lots about this research cap, but I haven't investigated it yet. Does it have to do with your empires intelligence, or maybe even more generally, what is it?

The way I understand it is that based on the size of your empire there is a hard research cap listed on the top left of the research screen. To say 800 is the number on the top left, then the most you can benefit from research bases is 200 in each field. I guess the design intent is that more scientist doesn't necessarily translate to more results. Of course racial effects and government effects will apply.
Also Elliot mentioned before release that it was also their intention to not give really large empires that big of an advantage over smaller ones.

Wow, thats another fantastic new tidbit to learn. I'm pretty impressed with the research system thats being used so far then, seems like its trying to emulate "real world" research.

Don't know if anyone can confirm, but I seem to have had good luck letting the AI select position by zooming all the way out then clicking the black hole and giving order to build. Haven't lost anything but have not done enough testing to prove.

Well, in the past iterations, when I had let the AI try it on its own I would invariably lose a constructor. So, I started doing it myself and have never let the AI even attempt it since. Not sure if they changed it or you are just incredibly lucky, lol.