Matrix Games Forums

Wow is this game getting better and better or what? I had stoped playing for a bit untill I found out there was an expansion and then felt the Sirens compeling song telling me to buy it...and now im back.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask all you Gurus out there:

1. Are the abandond ships and random evens from exploration limited or could you just continue to scout the galaxy and just continue to find ships and stations and other stuff forever or will you eventually run out of ancient warships to collect?

2. If you start a game with both story lines checked do you have enough time to go through and get all the nice stuff from the first storyline before the second story starts to come about?

4. Should I be colonizing EVERYTHING...or just planets that have 50% or more in quality? I seem to have alot of things i can colonize with 25% or less in quality and I am currently just ignoring those planets.

3. I was traversing the forums at work when I thought I read a post about what people do when a patch hits, it sounded like they were reinstalling distant worlds everytime a patch came out? I question this because i keep getting my game crashed to the desktop with this error every time:

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: distantworlds.exe
Problem Signature 02: 1.5.0.1
Problem Signature 03: 4d134ca3
Problem Signature 04: mscorlib
Problem Signature 05: 2.0.0.0
Problem Signature 06: 4bebd50b
Problem Signature 07: e2
Problem Signature 08: 16
Problem Signature 09: System.ArgumentOutOfRange
OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033

I have updated everything including video drivers but after a while every game I play shuts down with this error message

I had 1.5.0.0, reinstalled everything and it seems to run..then i upgraded to 1.5.0.1 and then the error message started, do i need to reinstall with every patch?

Thanks in advance, this forum really does kick ass.[&o]

welcome to the community, Zilas. Let's see
 
1) limited but oo so many [:)]
 
2) more than enough, too much even
 
3) you shouldn't need to but better post this in the tech support section as well for more visibility
 
have fun

Didn't think I should need to..but for this game...I will! Hehe thanks Data

4. Should I be colonizing EVERYTHING...or just planets that have 50% or more in quality? I seem to have alot of things i can colonize with 25% or less in quality and I am currently just ignoring those planets.

Everything that is 50% or higher quality, yes. These planets are essentially pure profit. (Most players build a small starbase at every planet to get the happiness/growth bonus from it, and so they do pay a modest amount of maintenance there. However, the planet should easily pay for itself by trade.)

Low-value planets should be colonized if they are in some way special. Colonizing any planet in a system with no colonies claims ownership of that system. AIs will (mostly) honor ownership and not colonize in yours, nor build (new) mines. So, by settling a low-value world you can grab some valuable systems.

Systems with value are those with lots of planets (including moons), particularly if the planets have valuable resources. Also grab any system with a planet that will, at higher tech, become colonizable, unless you are absolutely certain you will win the tech race to that level. And finally, sometimes you'll want a system for strategic reasons -- i.e., to claim a place you can build up deep in enemy territory.

Colonize any planet, no matter how cruddy, with any of the relics that give you whole-empire bonuses. Also grab the Fortress of Torak (2x strength for troops), and turn that planet into your empire's training planet.

I will sometimes colonize low-value planets in the 40+% range in contended areas (i.e. where lots of pirates are operating, or hostile empires). I don't have any numbers to prove it, but my feeling is that the money you lose on the colony is made up for by the trade from the resources, and not losing bases (or having to build big ones).

One other reason to grab crap planets would be to cheese the AI with them. I.e., settle a planet with very low quality in an enemy system. Then sell it to the AI for whatever you can get for it. (This is taking advantage of the AI overpaying for stuff.)

1. You should differ about exploration and combat events.
- The relic's on planets can only discover by the first one who explore them, thats why its important to keep an eye on your exploration ship. To keep them on automated isn't the best choise. Since you never can explore all planet at first, you never will discover all possible thing on the Map and dont get all the things you maybe found on another map before.

- You can get random events from destroying pirate stations, like abandon ships/station/colonies. These encounters are created after you destroyed the Pirate station.
Since you never run out of pirate stations these events are unlimeted.

4. like wreck said, colonize anything about 50% and below 50% just the planets with special resource or relics.