Questions! Help!

[Evrett]

I need a frame of reference regarding the component statistics in the ship designer. Is the energy a reactor generates a resources that shields and weapons ect slowly use up? If a reactor makes 84 what can that 84 do? Is that a lot or hardly anything? how much farther does a fuel capacity of x vs y get me? Does having more than 1 resource scanner increase anything? How do I know, besides eventually being told I need more, how much crew support i need or what the max size of my ship is. What does a cargo bay vs docking bay actually do ? I get that static energy generator works when your not moving but is it a separate "well" for weapon/shield energy ? I understand and appreciate the fairly useful graph regarding speed but what acceleration/turning is considered average, bad, good ect? I've found the component information to be VERY sparse and while they often provide a number of some sort with no experience playing the game I cant tell what number to aim for. A useful stat would be "what is the galactic average of this stat for a ship of this type".

[feelotraveller]

See my response in the Ship AAR thread.

This is a better place for discussion though. [:)]

[Evrett]

Thanks Trav! You must have posted in ships AA while I was re posting this here heh. So would a cargo bay only be useful for bases that build things? And why do bases have fuel cells ? I'm considering building a research station and I was wondering what I ~need~ and what I can really do without. For shield and armor..what do their stats mean ? are they basically hp of the shield? What is the diff in "role" between a star base, a defensive station and a space port? Is there a role the includes all tech since I'd rather have the AI building all-in-one research stations than individual specialists

[feelotraveller]

Cargo bays are useful for places that build things (spaceports/starbases and constructors), places that mine things (mining stations, mining ships and resupply ships) and ships that transport things (freighters). Additionally certain bases (research stations, e.g.) require them although they usually don't carry cargo. You will get a red warning in the design details screen if you need them and haven't included them and this warning won't let you finalise the design.

I'm not sure of the why of fuel cells, but think of them as backup if your other power sources (collectors) go down. One is usually more than enough on bases unless you have lots of weapons, assuming you supply your static needs from collectors.

Yes the figures are hp. Shields also have a recharge rate (how quickly they regenerate hp) and armour has a reactive rating (how many hp each attack is reduced by).

I generally stick at least one shield and one armour on although you don't have to. The question to ask is how much you want to protect the base/how likely it is to be attacked. If never attacked you could have done without. If attacked how durable do you want it to be. Remember it all costs.

[feelotraveller]

Woops, I think we crossed posts again.

Spaceports can only be built at planets and are anchored to them. They are generally preferable since they can later be refitted. Starbases can be built anywhere - basically you can make them anything you like, although they will not get research bonuses even if they have labs aboard. Defensive bases are built at planets too but are just weapons platforms generally.

There is no reason you cannot put all the different types tech labs on each specialist research station. I generally keep most of my tech labs at my main spaceport on the homeworld and only build reseach bases for the location bonuses. Now that we have scientist characters I can imagine situations where I will want to vary this.

[Evrett]

So I designed a star base (research based) but it wont show up in the build options at all of my planets (or construction ship) Any idea what I'm missing ?

[feelotraveller]

It won't show up at your planets as it can't be built there. Rename it to a spaceport and it can. You will have to right click on your existing spaceport if you have one and give a retrofit order as these are one per planet. Otherwise it should be in the planet build menu. It should show up in your constructor menu though. Try finding the spot you want your starbase built and centering the screen on it. Select the constructor from the constructor menu (hammer icon) and control right click on the spot you want it built. Select build (or build at) from the drop down menu and then your starbase design by name from the submenu. If your constructor is already busy you might have to wait for it to finish its current job before it will begin building this. The only reasons I can think of why you might not get the design in the submenu are a) its an obsolete design, but it shouldn't be if you just made it and didn't obsolete it or b) it's too big for your current size limit (690 at the start of the game) but you should have got a warning about this in the design details screen.

Note: if you are wanting to get a location bonus to your research you will need to make it a research station.

[Evrett]

I'd design it as a research station but I'm worried if I pick one of the types research roles (high tech, Industy, weapons) the AI wont build it as an "all in one" for research but only when it perceives we need that particular type of research.

I'm having another problem with ship designs. What do the types "escort" and "frigate" do? I decided due to similar maintenance costs I'd forgo smaller slightly cheaper ships and only build destroyers for my military but the AI keeps asking for these smaller designs. Am I missing something useful in these classes or if the AI just wanting to form fleets with 3 different types of ships just for the sake of diversity ? 

More qestions! What is the diff between in the purpose of a star base vs a space port ? What is the name of the base you can build anywhere not just on a colonized world? I still dont understand armor..when does the 10 "somethings" it adds take effect...I assume the absurb stat takes 2 away from each shot ? If 100 armor costs 10 and 100 shield costs 40 why am I putting shields on ?

[Bingeling]

If you make custom research station, I suggest you keep them obsolete and only build them yourself (unobsolete them as you order). If you want to optimize you are better off putting single huge stacks of one type on one station to optimize a single minded scientist, or having only a single lab at the best research site.

I have some single minded guys happy on an energy lab, and some generalists most happy on a huge site with all kinds of labs.

Escort, frigate are just labels. The a uses them for a bit different tasks, I think. Frigates more for guarding mining bases. The AI has some percentage goals for ship building seen in the empire policy screen. It think that you should have as many frigates as destroyers, so if you build destroyers, it wants frigates. Don't trust the AI to know how many ships you need...

I am not sure a starbase has much of a purpose. A spaceports helps docking, has constructors, provides defense, and boosts happiness at colonies. The last part means you want a small space port on basically all colonies above a certain minimum. Once economy is stable, that is.

Shields regenerate, armor does not do that until higher tech. There are also automatic retreat settings for shields, not armor. So once armor is damage you need to go back for repairs to get it fixed, and that is not very convenient. Once you have the robotic repairs you can start experimenting with huge amounts of armor only.

[feelotraveller]

I'm not sure how cluey the computer is about focusing on types of research (I don't generally play with automated constructors) but my suggestion would be to make all three of the research station types one design with at least one lab of each. That way they get their bonuses and you get your balance. You can make one design and then choose 'copy as new' and change the type from the pull down menu. I sometimes do that with freighters.

The types of ship mean nothing if you are controlling them. You can build massive escorts and tiny capital ships if you want. But if you have the ships on automation the computer will use Escorts to escort your civilian ships and patrol mining bases. Frigates it will do some of this with but I think it also adds them to fleets. Destroyers and above it uses in fleets. Personally I only build destroyers and above but the advantage of smaller ships is that they can be faster and there is more of them. I have lost mining bases from having one destroyer against two pirate ships (e.g. a frigate and an escort) in the past, since the destroyer can only shoot at one thing at a time.

A space port is 'attached' to the planet. A star base can be built anywhere.

The armour takes hits before any of the other components are affected, generally once the shields are down. The reactive rating takes that much away from each shot - it's 2 with starting technology.

I'm not sure you have the costs right. Generally armour costs a fair bit more for the amount of damage it can soak up. But really they are different forms of defence. Railguns partially bypass the shields but find it hard to penetrate armour whereas phasers are weak against shields but rip through the armour. Some of the features on the map disable or drain shields and one of the races can't build armour. I would advise using a bit of both, at least to start with.

[Evrett]

I don't generally play with automated constructors

Where do you find the option to figit with AI building of mining bases, research stations ect. friend ? I have all the AI settings to advise before building or chasing anything but the AI seems to still handle research stations, mining stations ect on its own.

[w1p]

The constructor is the ship that does the building. If it is automated (And the default setting is all ships start automated) then it will build on it's own accord. WHAT it builds depends on the designs available and your empires demands.

At the moment, AFAIK, there's no way to make it deal with certain things only, it's either let it build everything on its own (research, resorts, mining, gas, etc.) or select the constructors, remove the automated status and do it all yourself.

[balto]

Shields regenerate, armor does not do that until higher tech. There are also automatic retreat settings for shields, not armor. So once armor is damage you need to go back for repairs to get it fixed, and that is not very convenient. Once you have the robotic repairs you can start experimenting with huge amounts of armor only.

WHOA! Did not know Armor did not repair itself. That REALLY changes things and that really changes what I thought the Robotic Repair was for.., actually, I never thought about it much, I would just stick it on when I researched it.

Also, your experiment of huge amounts of armor. Not sure I get that. Shields are still good, right? If anything, I thought you would say that because of Robotic Repair, you do not need as much armor. Help me to understand, I think you are on too something with this mega-armor ship.

It would render some weapons useless!!! Wow, a lot to think about.., assuming you are correct that armor does not fix itself.

Thanks

[Bingeling]

As far as I know armor does not fix itself until you get the robotic repairs (or whatever enables self repair). Armor does of course have a purpose. It protects vital components when shields are down, improving survival against things that bypass shields. This is mostly rail guns and wildlife.

And when shields go down, they can go down fast. If you have retreat at say 20%, a good amount of armor may just give enough time for the ship to get away until something vital is ruined (like the hyperdrive). A bit of extra survival never hurts, and with the arrival of weapons bypassing shields it may be a good idea to replace some space used on shields with extra armor. Time will show.

[Evrett]

Is there a spreadsheet\build order that at least shows me which construction ship projects are currently qued up?

entry level Armor gives 10 somethings for a space of 1 while shields give 100 somethings for a space of 10..so in that regard they are even. 1 armor comp costs as much as 1 shield comp so cost wise shield seems much better (10x250) vs (1x250) for the same amount of protection. Yes shield regenerates but it also uses energy which comes from fuel and weapons. Also armor upgrades 80% in its effectiveness by the 2nd upgrade while shields only go up 20%. 

Honestly in my limited playing money has never been an issue and I am more concerned about space on the ship. And again in my limited playing ships either win or die in a time period where regenerating shields play little role so armor hp=shield hp. The flexibility of being able to put odd numbers of armor seems to be win the day along with the much greater return in investment of early research into the field. This all seems especially true for bases or in system craft that are easy to get a repair ship too. Perhaps a combat fleet would have its own repair ships assigned to it for that matter.

Has someone put together a Distant Worlds Wikia? It would be nice to be able to look at components and research and races ect ect without having to start up the game..which seems to take forever for some reason.

[feelotraveller]

I think constructors will only queue missions if you give the orders. On automatic I believe that they finish one project and then decide on another. Although there is no way short of controlling them yourself to stop them building certain things you can leave them on automatic and give them build orders. They will then queue these missions (if busy). Once your orders are done (you can give more than one at a time if you want) they return to selecting their own missions.

On armour/shield costs have a look at what the maintenance cost for 10 pieces of armour is compared to 1 shield. [:)] Also because they are 10 components it takes 10 times as long to build 100 armour protection vs. 100 shield protection. Shields won't really regenerate much in combat (although sometimes a little bit helps...) but then again armour has to be repaired which takes a lot of time/money.

But don't let me discourage you! I'd love to hear about the results you get with building some all armour/no shields ships. [:'(]

[Evrett]

Yer awesome feelo! Got another question - How does "Max energy weapon use per second" stat work ? If the number is greater than the reactor power output does that mean I get one shot then need to wait a few to recharge? Or is that what the energy storage stat is for? So if my MEW is 58 and my RPO is 60 is the ship storing extra energy per turn or does it get used in moving and shield and the like ?

[feelotraveller]

The reactor stores excess energy up to its storage capacity (105 starting reactor). This can be depleted, like a bank account, or added to if less than its maximum.

Your maximum energy needs are the greater of-

hyperdrive usage + static energy + shield recharge (if needed)
sprint drive usage + static energy + max weapons useage + shield recharge (if needed)

If you do not meet your energy needs and your reactor stores drop to zero your weapon fire rate slows (depending on how much energy your reactor is producing). Your movement rate can also suffer. If you look at the starting designs you will see that you do not get maximum hyperdrive speeds for this reason.

If you run out of fuel weapons will not fire and you move at one third speed.

p.s. Bingeling is right about stopping your constructors building research stations by obsoleting them. Missed that. I'll try playing with them automated one of these days... [:)]

[Evrett]

I found when I obsoleted them the AI just redesigned new ones

So some of my star ports I've ordered arnt getting build and I cant tell why..I fly construction ships to the planet and they fly off against to build a new gas mine or whatever..any way I can tell why these bases arnt being finished ?

I've also noted that when I send a fleet on an attack mission to attack a pirate base the ships behavior is odd. Sometimes they'll just all gather around the starbase while it shoots at them then 10+ secs in start shooting at it..recently I had my general take his ship and hyper back to our capital like 3-4 sec in to battle..whats going on

[Bingeling]

Because constructors has nothing to do with space port construction? That is a colony build