plot twist: Babyhedgehog is Gessie going crazy after editing over a hundred times
can relate
[ Distant Worlds 2 Advanced Guide ]
Moderator: MOD_DW2
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Nightskies
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thegreybetween
- Posts: 89
- Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2021 6:37 pm
Re: [ Distant Worlds 2 Advanced Guide ]
This was my theory as well.
Re: [ Distant Worlds 2 Advanced Guide ]
Damn, I've been discovered!
Seriously though, I wasn't absent during this debacle but chose not to post. I wrote an elaborate reply but stored it on my desktop, realizing I had just wasted my time and was soliciting a social media grade mud-slinging fest by replying.
Still, here it is, for anyone interested. I did use two of Babyhedgehog's criticisms to edit the guide, which you may find surprising (they're listed below).
Note that this was written before Return of the Shakturi's full release, which I'll play in the near future. Bellwright and Satisfactory 1.0 come first.
"So I waited for sometime now, because I thought somebody would actually criticize this "advanced" "guide". But nobody did, so here I am: This paper you wrote, is first: full of wrong and misleading information, second: full of beginner tips not worthy an "advanced" guide, third: full of bla bla that you can say about every other strategy game too ("progress is key", is by far my favourite) and last: full of exploits, that are not needed because the AI in this game is almost as dumb as the one from Civ6."
I can't know what prompted you to go on this ravenously hostile and condescending rant, followed by more of the same against more helpful posters. I'll reply forgivingly. First I'll clear up any confusion regarding your attitude.
Here are a few highlights, by no means exhaustive:
"Hmm, no, your prewarp guide sucks."
"Does not need any reasoning, it is obvious why this advice is horrible."
"Troop minmaxing is not needed at all in the game. Who cares."
"Ok, I finally learned something from your guide. Keep that up! If you want to know a new exploit that you didn't mention in your guide full of exploits"
"Whatever."
"Diplomacy is fucking boring. Play EU4 with humans if you want to have meaningful diplomacy."
"If you need or want to extort the private economy's cash, you are an absolute noob. Sorry, I can not say this less insulting."
"a. Whatever."
"c. Really? You are writing an "advanced" guide."
"Good attempt, you got me laughing."
"Also, bad people in strategy games always think"
"Oh yeah, please double down on the ranking with stupid stats thing. I get tears from laughing. This is so fucking funny."
"Sure, if you want to, I win the game and most of the fleet battles without ever looking at the DPS stat, but sure do as you please."
"Yeah, whatever."
I ask that you tone it down. I've no problems with never replying to your posts ever again, if fair, and it already would be. We're neither peers nor friends. I wouldn't be this forgiving if I knew you to be mentally stable and have a fortuitous life. I don't, which affords you some leeway.
That you're a contrarian is obvious, which is fine - I enjoy being challenged - but you'll need to become competent in rhetoric and thoughtful literacy for your post to accomplish anything. None of us feel intimidated or in awe. Certainly stop attacking other posters. They've done nothing to you and they're dramatically more helpful and collected than you've been. I get angry at the world too sometimes, but this isn't the place to vent your frustrations.
I'll summarily address the most common themes throughout your post for the sake of brevity, followed by a detailed retort:
- You use an oddly specific definition of "advanced" which you're not defining. This makes it impossible for anyone to argue with your claims, but it also makes those claims entirely tacit - we can't know what you're thinking. I define "advanced" simply as "whatever wasn't obvious to me until becoming an experienced player" combined with "what other posters repeatedly mention as needing inclusion" - subjective, yes, but I'm not defending that definition nor assaulting yours. We're in radically different rhetorical positions.
- You use an oddly specific definition of "exploit" which you're not defining but can confidently be induced to refer to "player-AI asymmetry" instead, which is something else entirely. I define "exploit" as a dramatically unrealistic or logically inconsistent mechanic (not even "unintended", as I don't care about devs' intentions when evaluating a mechanic). I listed many exploits in the accompanying suggestions thread, some of which you unknowingly agree with. They've been constructively discussed. What the AI does or does not do is however irrelevant. By that logic, playing on any difficulty besides normal is either an exploit or a reverse exploit, whatever that might be - that would be named an "asymmetry", which is an odd thing to complain about unless your intelligence equals that of a rudimentary AI.
- The modern epistemology is empiricism, with rationalism enslaved to it. This is the foundation of all reliable human knowledge, including science. Use it, now and in all future endeavors, lest you be branded a sophist. Ranting about mathematical proof only reveals a regressive epistemology, which also reflects badly on your university as they failed to teach the rudiments of truth (which to a philosopher isn't surprising).
- You've written a combination of opinions on DW2, suggestions for the developers, some trivia and criticism. I highly doubt the devs will read through every multi-page thread to see if anyone has a suggestion or two. Heck, I doubt a well-composed list like my own will be fruitful. No one cares about your trivia, and your criticism is obscured by the inclusion of everything else.
- You attempt to infantilize my writing yet your post is full of casual opinions, ceaseless beratement and "surfer bro" exclamations which are all uninteresting to the reader. Your writing has decades of improvement ahead of it, and behind mine.
"("progress is key", is by far my favourite)"
Fast progress is key. That's different. Unlike most games, the player should feel a constant sense of urgency if playing in a challenging universe. I haven't experienced that in almost a decade of gaming, except perhaps Kenshi and Everspace (both which I strongly recommend).
"a. Correct, but you did not point how you create stronger neighbours via the galaxy settings (higher starting tech level on AI would be an example)"
That's basic information. You use "advanced" inconsistently.
"b. Wrong, the player has an easier way of dealing with pirates (you can trade contact information for non-aggression treaties, something that the AI can not do (is an exploit); or you simply pay them off, something that the AI could, but does not do). Therefore stronger pirates make the game harder for the AI and easier for you."
You're right - fixed.
"c. Wrong, if the aggression would be only geared towards the human player, than an aggressive galaxy would make the game harder for you. But it is geared towards everybody equally, meaning it does never change difficulty. Although, it maybe is harder for those peacemonger players, that would fit better into a citybuilding game, than into an actual strategy game."
A good player's power arises primarily from controlling conflicts, which is an advantage needed to offset the asymmetries caused by high-challenge play. That's why an aggressive galaxy is more difficult: Avoiding conflict may become impossible, which is not the case on default aggression. That AI empires are also affected doesn't compare to the player's underdog situation, at least until technological supremacy is achieved (at which point the snowballing gets silly).
"d. Ok, if you are bored with the AI in this game then you can do "roleplaying" in dumb way, like playing a guy with intelligence 1 in Fallout: New Vegas. Sure."
I don't see how that opinion supports your contentions. Besides, F:NV was laughably easy, like most RPGs. Still an excellent game for other reasons, though.
"e. This only makes the game harder until you have a fleet that can destroy their spaceports. Once you have that achieved, the game actually becomes easier, because of all the technology that you get from the debris or capturing their ships. The pirates in this game right now offer no challenge beyond the immediate start of the game."
The point of pirates is to be an early-game threat, superseded by the Hive. That empires fail to keep pace with the player is a problem I've mentioned in my suggestions thread. The only lategame threats are empires with extreme advantages over the player. This may change, however. (Edit: This was an allusion to the RotS beta, which I was playing at the time, but under an NDA not to reveal its contents publicly.)
"f. Same as 2d"
You're right - fixed this.
"g. Sure, you can turn your brain off. I would argue, that this does not make the game harder, it allows you to not play the game, but rather simulate it in the background, while smoking some weed."
Does losing an arm make you less human? For your argument to work, you'll need to reason how various aspects of the game are required for its identity as an activity. Rephrased, you're arguing against the devs' decision to add in-depth difficulty settings. I've intentionally kept my suggestions on improving the game out of this guide, hence the suggestions thread.
And by the way, you can easily finish most games while smoking copious amounts of cannabis since they're ridiculously easy. Play a game of DW2 with every setting on its most difficult, without exceptions, then report back here on how it went - it's fantastic.
"Another piece of knowledge, that is not worth to be put into a "guide intended for maximum difficulty".
Let me give you an example of an "advanced" tip for an "advanced" guide: "Leaders have a chance to get the "Health oriented" trait, if you research a technology in the medical systems tree, while they have an unoccupied trait slot.""
You're confusing "advanced" with "specific". Specific is less advanced, as any philosopher will gladly explain. In addition, while you clearly don't use or appreciate compact writing, it's a hard requirement for any guide to be useful.
"Therefore if you are exterminating the race fully in your empire anyway it does not matter longterm."
That would be unpragmatic advice firmly in the realm of roleplaying. I've already mentioned RP enough, in my opinion, and even removed an RP tip from an earlier draft which I later added based on Nightskies' highly constructive criticism. You're lacking consistency as you criticize both too much and too little emphasis on RP.
"If you do not understand the game mechanics you should read a beginner guide, and not an advanced guide."
If you know everything, you shouldn't read at all. "Game mechanics" literally describes every interaction present within the game, except for the player - and even that might be included if you're a hardline non-compatibilist determinist. But, let's not have that discussion, as in your prose the result would be a few thousand pages long.
"I agree with first Early Warp into second Stable Warp. Research Labs is definitely not important at all. You can steal that easily from your first contact. For me, the third technology is always the better reactors ("Advanced Nuclear Fission"). The difference between the first 2 reactor types is so massive, it gives you something around 40% more range on your exploration/construction/colonizing/piratekilling efforts."
By controlling conflict, technological progress becomes paramount as that's the long-term metagame after short-term problems are solved. You could argue that more funds into exploration may increase tech advancement later on, but I've personally never moved past the pirates' technology without first bumping into other empires' borders even when prioritizing exploration, making that argument dubious (not flat-out wrong as the balance is certainly close). The second reactor can also be stolen, and yes - theft is a main source of technological progress at that stage, which I've mentioned.
Range is determined by hyperspeed, fuel capacity and fuel efficiency. Especially Haakonish fuel storage and Quameno Novacore reactors make a gigantic difference - also mentioned. With those two you can largely stop caring. Dhayut Hyperdrives would also be a huge improvement over Gerax, but I can never steal them in time to be worth prioritizing, for some reason (perhaps unlucky).
"a. Taxes to 0 was a nice tip in Distant Worlds Universe, now it sucks."
You misunderstand how taxes work and failed to present an argument. Setting taxes to 0 raises population growth and doesn't deplete any cash if you recover it from the private economy via other means. I've explained how to do just that. It's easy and fast, especially if you've kept your production queues unclogged.
"c. Agreed, but if you want to minmax you should also manipulate the building order on the planet from explorer -> construction ship -> spaceport -> freighter -> miner into spaceport second, construction third, before you unpause the game the first time. While your starting exploration ship flies around reaching and exploring your first target, you simply do not have the need for a construction ship, so the spaceport can be done second.
e. It is a 4X game. Building exploration units in a game where exploration matters is not worth a tip in an "advanced" guide."
Again you propose adding basic information and then complain about something being basic information. For an ordered list of anything to work, its components must be mentioned. Omitting the step would make the list incomplete, which you would then undoubtedly criticize with "No Explorers in an X4 game?!".
"f. Population growth is not so important, that it justifies dismising leaders constantly"
Population growth at the very early stage has significant impact on the player's income until either the first colony is maxed, or a highly profitable second colony is gained. It's simple exponential growth, meaning each moment is important to the next. Are you arguing that it's too much effort?
"No, early on, it is way more important to find access to as much luxuries as possible boosting your development rating, than boosting you happiness via low tax rate. So you need a shit ton of exploration ships (which cost money) and some construction ships (which cost money, too). Tax rate to 0 is really bad."
You can easily extract cash from the private economy.
"You can easily only crash research the first 2 warp techs, that we talked above. The rest can be stolen, analysed out of debris or disassembled from captured ships. Invest your money into exploration, expansion or warfare, but not research."
That would be good advice if not for resource limitations. I do have an ongoing internal debate on to which degree I should emphasize funds versus resources. If you've a constructive argument to offer I'll happily read it.
"Does not need any reasoning, it is obvious why this advice is horrible."
Consider reading the works of any philosopher who discussed rhetoric, from Aristotle to Popper, or to a lesser degree the work of any linguist, epistemologists or even anthropologists if you want the simplistic option.
"You call them "super" research options? Why?"
It's in the UI. I'm not a fan of the term either.
"Troop minmaxing is not needed at all in the game. Who cares."
People who read advanced guides.
"Diplomacy is fucking boring. Play EU4 with humans if you want to have meaningful diplomacy."
This thread regards DW2.
"a. No need to befriend everyone, no need to befriend anyone actually. Game is easy enough."
You can make the game impossible to win if you dare try.
"c. I rather build a ship than gift my money away"
That's an opinion, one which doesn't support your contentions. Cost efficiency-wise, purchasing peace is a bargain, especially since it tends to be permanent in DW2 unless the galaxy is highly aggressive. The Art of War is a good read by the way.
"e. Another exploit."
Indeed, that's an exploit. Fixing it is in my suggestions thread.
"No, if two empires declare a war, you are going to wait some time until a shit ton of each of their forces are distracted or destroyed. You do your backstab, when the amount of resistance, you face as third party, is minimal. Not immediately."
Do your wars last long enough for a fleet to retreat from a frontline, then cohesively engage your fleet in your target's core territory? The enemy will offer peace after you crush just a few major targets, so anything that takes longer than a quick thrust should be beyond your consideration. Unless, of course, you're roleplaying - which is fine but inconsistent with your other arguments.
"Those spaceports have a research "lab" not research "bonus" though. Is nitpicking, I know, but if you create a guide, do it better. I destroy those spaceports later, they are unimportant for the 20 research once you have 5000 or more research available from colony spaceports and actual research bases."
According to American Heritage Dictionary, "bonus" is defined as "Something given or paid in addition to what is usual or expected." I'm guessing you're entrenched in some trendy definitions, but you might be surprised to learn that gaming terminology changes every few years. I try to avoid trendy language as it's washed away tomorrow and renders anything you've written unrecognizable.
"Is an exploit, and not necessary. You can easily just "welcome" new races into your empire, via warfare, and use those races to extend you colonization efforts."
How could putting less passengers into a spaceships than it can hold, be an exploit? It still uses fuel. The ship is still lost on colonization. Real world airlines use lots of exploits but this isn't one of them.
"Practically you either exploit diplomacy by using it (and obviously doing it better than the AI) or you do not by ignoring diplomacy (almost) completely. That is the state of the diplomacy part of Distant Worlds 2."
Exactly: It's extremely important and I'd be insane not to include this information. I'm not getting your point.
"a. You can design dedicated capture ships on your own. Ship boarding is not a hard tech to get."
I've detailed this extensively further down in the guide.
"If you need or want to extort the private economy's cash, you are an absolute noob."
You've again switched definitions. The AI also "extorts" PEC, so it's not asymmetrical. Even if you used a conventional definition, selling to the private economy is not "extortion". What someone wants, furthermore, is not related to veterancy or "being a noob", in any aspect of life.
"Sorry, I can not say this less insulting."
Yes, you can and you didn't try. Just because you heard that phrase somewhere doesn't mean you should repeat it without subscribing to its meaning. Your hostility got vastly worse beyond this point.
"It is so horrible, you basically do not understand the purpose of the private economy at all."
"Same as above: You are an absolute noob if you do not understand the purpose of the private/state economy split. Why the developers allow the player to destroy freighters, miners or passenger ships is beyond my understanding."
What, then, is the "purpose" of the private economy? Who determined this "purpose" and why should anyone agree?
"b. Mining stations do not need anything, just rebuild them. One mining station being destroyed does not matter at all. The AI overvalues destroying mining/longrangesensor bases so much, it reminds me of the old quote "Attracted, like a fly to a cow pat". If you however only have one refuel/repair station in the region where you fight, than it is your fault as the strategic mind behind your wars."
Are you arguing that the player shouldn't plan for expanding their empire's resource economy...? And yes, when choosing targets I often invade a colony, then trade for all bases in the region after accepting peace. I wasn't sure if that was worth adding since it's implied in the tip on diplomatic trade.
"b. 25k for expansion bursts. Did you ever follow the private economy of this game? For example, when you introduce medium freighters to your empire, the private econonmy will spend literally millions in a short time to get enough of those. I can actually estimate how much money the private economy shoves into my state economy, when I do this. It depends massively on the size of the empire at that point though."
You're comparing the retrofit of a thousand freighters with building a few mining stations. I deliberately avoided doubling up on advice whenever I noticed myself doing it, and frequently substitute an elaborate nitpicky paragraph with a clear insinuation. Specificity is potentially infinite, which can lead to unreadable nonsense.
"Wrong. The production rate is definitely bugged. I can have -2000/s in caslon in this menu, with 400k caslon stored and 20 years later i have 2500k caslon stored, without building any caslon station in this period of time. So no, I never use the production rate as a measurement for my mining economy. The storage capacity and the storage position (meaning you do not need caslon on the other side of the galaxy, if the war is next to your homeplanet) is important for mining bases and nothing else."
Agreed, it certainly is bugged, which is why 10/s is a good aim instead of 2000/s. Even if 10/s realistically means 200/s, it's still a good target, particularly since some resources get gobbled up rapidly later on and any resource which you don't have excess income of can be conquered with severe consequences... unless you failed to make the universe challenging enough, that is.
"I just build tourist bases everywhere. Get 10k-20K per year out of it (as a boskara hive mind, rofl). Nice little side income."
"c. Really? You are writing an "advanced" guide."
"d. Maybe that works better than my approach, learned a second thing from your guide. Keep it up!"
You're only insulting yourself at this point. Describing suboptimal strategy > Insult > Admitting to using said suboptimal strategy and having learned from the guide. Come, now. Surely you see the irony. Go back and edit bad writing instead of posting both the error and the correction. Imagine if I'd done that in the guide.
"(in case you do not know that, or an "advanced" guide does not mention the difference between attacking and defending)"
That is descriptive terminology - the most basic and clear information possible in writing. How can you so casually switch between promoting the inclusion of bland basics and opposing the inclusion of the obscure?
"The laundry benefits from more detergent."
You've clearly never done laundry nor understand excess, which is the point. The player can't know how much is enough until empirically verifying what freighters are doing, and there's a lot to verify. How many mining engines? Passenger holds? Shields VS armor? Ion Defense? Which types of ships? If it's not intuitively obvious, I've done my best to list it, and that's from the perspective of a veteran gamer who understands that most devs make unrealistic and therefore unintuitive design decisions. To be fair, I think DW2 is surprisingly intuitive for such a small team designing so many novel mechanics - which, like compact writing, is a task you might vastly underestimate.
Oh, and too much detergent will mess up your laundry. Try it on a cheap sweater.
"By the way, you do not put passenger components on colony ships, you put more colony modules on it. "
Extremely wasteful as the ship is consumed, unless using the ship to manually ferry populations.
"However, like i mentioned in 2.16"
You forgot to number your quotations and/or replies. You can't expect others to cross-reference your post with my original numbering, nor would any personal criticism require a public post.
"e. Why the basic one? Did you mistype? First, this is probably race specific, second I never use a basic design, if I have the improved designs researched and third destroyers are better."
Empirical testing disproves that belief conclusively and this has been mentioned repeatedly throughout this thread, as well as Scott's, showcased in videos and more.
"f. Whatever. Race specific stuff should be in the race specific section or in separate race specific guide."
It's very simple math. All species have a dramatic increase when comparing Frigates to "Improved" Frigates, very similar to the Quameno. I mentioned them specifically to avoid vagueness - them being Quameno is not the point.
"g. A command frigate, sorry, I can not imagine that works."
The limits of your imagination are irrelevant. Try it.
"You told us in point 1.13. that you research a tier fully. So, when you have researched fleet targeting and countermeasures and also hyperdeny, you already have improved destroyers unlocked. So you have a command frigate around a bunch of destroyers."
Destroyers are worse for the command role. They don't get better sensor slots - the only limiting factor for the command role even for Frigates. They're far more expensive and are roughly just as defensive due to worse speed. Speed is crucial for Cautious or Evasive ships, which I dub "speed-tanking", and the command ship is unique in that it doesn't need to be in-range for its weapons - a perfect match.
"Then you set the command frigate to evade so it immediately warps out the battle and therefore denies the hyperdeny and the fleet sensors to the rest of the ships that are actually fighting the battle."
Evade has nothing to do with warp. You're thinking of the "Flee when" setting.
"a. You should mention that this only works until something gets a lucky hit onto your reactor/energy collector/fuelcell.
b. Exactly, again something for a beginner guide."
Radically inconsistent just one line apart. "Did you know that components can get damaged?"
"Let me ask you once: You wrote an advanced guide, why are there so many beginner tips? You are simply not an advanced player if you ignore the ship designer telling you that a medical center make sense on a troop transport."
List completeness. Not having to visit the Galactopedia.
"Defence fleets (with proper engagement range setting) operate close to your spaceports or construction ships, therefore they can easily be repaired or replaced, so "Never" is the correct setting."
No. As mentioned, overmatching the target is important. Losses are highly cash- and extremely resource-inefficient. Maintenance costs no resources nor takes up production queues.
"Absolut wrong! The Equinox drives are the worst, actually. They only give an advantage over Kaldos over medium and long distances, those distances you want to avoid in a war as much as possible."
You can make two designs in a test save and have them race. The speed difference is unbalanced, as mentioned in my suggestions thread, and this has been true since a much earlier version of Scott's guide.
"Occupying fleets want to have a fuel efficient Calista drive, because you need the fuel for fighting and staying inside an enemy system, not for just getting there."
Hyperspeed fuel-efficiency is but a portion of the fuel efficiency equation. Your thinking here is very myopic, partly determined by your unwillingness to use fuel tankers. I know, because I don't use them either, yet I still don't feel the need to use trash drives - there are many other workarounds, none of which require diminishing hyperspeed, the importance of which is paramount.
"However, somehow my economy is always so amazing, that I can afford fleets for each border instead of one warping back and forth."
Straw-man. No one's mentioned doing that.
"Also you will overlap a lot with those arrays."
You can freely decide where to place them, even move them at will; even without fuel. If you want overlap then that's your business.
"A good grid of monitoring bases around your empire is just better."
Extremely cost-inefficient and undynamic. A mobile detection net can be rearranged at will and is dirt-cheap. It's just annoying, which I'm guessing is your actual gripe.
"Also to crush a target you only need better weapon loadout than the AI, not necessarily more ships."
Everyone has better weapon loadout than the AI. You've already admitted to believing that Destroyers are better than Frigates, and strongly implied that you're not testing different approaches. You don't necessarily need more ships, nor a better weapon loadout - just play on Easy. It's up to you to create a challenging universe and I don't understand why you keep repeating this... unless the point is unsuccessful boasting.
"So, long story short"
Absolutely not. Reading all this superfluous meandering is exhausting. I'm proud of having gotten this far; a harsh test of my conviction. And I will finish.
"You forgot to mention the armor bypass and the ion defence in your list. Complicated topic"
The "list" regards HP, I did discuss both armor bypass and ion defense later and these aren't complicated topics.
"And you probably can also imagine, that countermeasures are only interesting on ships that have a shit ton of countermeasure weapons."
That's not what "countermeasures" refers to.
"Endgame threats are a lazy mechanic for lazy developers or understaffed development teams."
The Hive, an endgame threat? You can clear the Hive solo at T3. It's been my favorite test setup across dozens of tests. ~50 T3 Blaster Frigates turn a full Hive fleet into space junk. That's how I made the screenshot for Chapter 3! Those are regular Dhayut Frigates and they won.
"Use some different word like "melee" or "brawl", for what you describe here."
Blitzkrieg is precisely what I mean. Steamrolling; snowballing. In the 1940's it also referred to combined arms but that obviously doesn't apply here. "Melee" and "brawl" are perhaps popularized by Super Smash Bros or some British television I'm unaware of, but let's consult ADH again: "Melee: A confused struggle or fight at close quarters. synonym: brawl." There's no pugilism in DW2.
"Also using assault pods without ion weapons is just hilariously inefficient. You only need to kill the shields (and prevent the ship from fleeing and shooting), so maybe using the weapon, that excels at that, would be rather interesting."
Blasters do that and are radically imbalanced compared to all other weapon types, as mentioned in the suggestions thread. They also continue to wreck everything when the Pods are on cooldown. Ions are great, but you're being unnecessarily contrarian again.
"Calling this a golden rule is overexaggerated. Yes, you want weapons that fit your aggressive, neutral or cautious setting. There are however more important "rules" though."
List them.
"I could clarify that, but that would need at least a half hour video with a lot of boring math."
Five minutes of testing. Empiricism > Rationalism, but they work best when combined, with rationalism kept fully submissive to empiricism. Philosophers figured that out in the 18th century. Plus, brevity doesn't need to be the problem which you've turned it into.
"Sure, if you want to, I win the game and most of the fleet battles without ever looking at the DPS stat, but sure do as you please."
I like noodles. A lot. This isn't helpful to anyone and doesn't warrant discussion nor taking up anyone's time - except yours, to demonstrate the problem caused by droll impertinence.
"I am not testing that, because I do not need it to win at this game. So feel free to do it yourself. I just pick whatever fits still into my ship/base, in this case usually the medium version."
Then it wouldn't be useful for you to write a guide.
"It sounds like somebody made a simplified test with one point defense ship fighting one enemy weapon ship and than made a statistic how long the point defence ship survived depending on the point defence weapon chosen. That is not a realistic scenario too judge such things."
Extensive, varied testing. But, I'm sure you won't accept this, which is fine: Test it yourself, honestly and fairly, without presuming the conclusion.
"I made a text document with all the names, too."
And you've decided not to share it? Then you claim to know what our society's intellectual problems are, despite revealing no knowledge of intellectual matters during a multi-page essay which could be descriptively titled "you all dumdum, me genius, whatever"?
"2. I probably invested more time criticizing this post, than he actually invested time in making it."
You have no comprehension of succinct communication. You just wrote a giant wall of text expressing almost nothing of value, except your personal opinions and a slew of anti-empirical beliefs. Write just one competent paragraph, after a few dozen revisions, then return.
"As I stated, I did not want to be the bad guy here"
Not fooling anyone.
Seriously though, I wasn't absent during this debacle but chose not to post. I wrote an elaborate reply but stored it on my desktop, realizing I had just wasted my time and was soliciting a social media grade mud-slinging fest by replying.
Still, here it is, for anyone interested. I did use two of Babyhedgehog's criticisms to edit the guide, which you may find surprising (they're listed below).
Note that this was written before Return of the Shakturi's full release, which I'll play in the near future. Bellwright and Satisfactory 1.0 come first.
"So I waited for sometime now, because I thought somebody would actually criticize this "advanced" "guide". But nobody did, so here I am: This paper you wrote, is first: full of wrong and misleading information, second: full of beginner tips not worthy an "advanced" guide, third: full of bla bla that you can say about every other strategy game too ("progress is key", is by far my favourite) and last: full of exploits, that are not needed because the AI in this game is almost as dumb as the one from Civ6."
I can't know what prompted you to go on this ravenously hostile and condescending rant, followed by more of the same against more helpful posters. I'll reply forgivingly. First I'll clear up any confusion regarding your attitude.
Here are a few highlights, by no means exhaustive:
"Hmm, no, your prewarp guide sucks."
"Does not need any reasoning, it is obvious why this advice is horrible."
"Troop minmaxing is not needed at all in the game. Who cares."
"Ok, I finally learned something from your guide. Keep that up! If you want to know a new exploit that you didn't mention in your guide full of exploits"
"Whatever."
"Diplomacy is fucking boring. Play EU4 with humans if you want to have meaningful diplomacy."
"If you need or want to extort the private economy's cash, you are an absolute noob. Sorry, I can not say this less insulting."
"a. Whatever."
"c. Really? You are writing an "advanced" guide."
"Good attempt, you got me laughing."
"Also, bad people in strategy games always think"
"Oh yeah, please double down on the ranking with stupid stats thing. I get tears from laughing. This is so fucking funny."
"Sure, if you want to, I win the game and most of the fleet battles without ever looking at the DPS stat, but sure do as you please."
"Yeah, whatever."
I ask that you tone it down. I've no problems with never replying to your posts ever again, if fair, and it already would be. We're neither peers nor friends. I wouldn't be this forgiving if I knew you to be mentally stable and have a fortuitous life. I don't, which affords you some leeway.
That you're a contrarian is obvious, which is fine - I enjoy being challenged - but you'll need to become competent in rhetoric and thoughtful literacy for your post to accomplish anything. None of us feel intimidated or in awe. Certainly stop attacking other posters. They've done nothing to you and they're dramatically more helpful and collected than you've been. I get angry at the world too sometimes, but this isn't the place to vent your frustrations.
I'll summarily address the most common themes throughout your post for the sake of brevity, followed by a detailed retort:
- You use an oddly specific definition of "advanced" which you're not defining. This makes it impossible for anyone to argue with your claims, but it also makes those claims entirely tacit - we can't know what you're thinking. I define "advanced" simply as "whatever wasn't obvious to me until becoming an experienced player" combined with "what other posters repeatedly mention as needing inclusion" - subjective, yes, but I'm not defending that definition nor assaulting yours. We're in radically different rhetorical positions.
- You use an oddly specific definition of "exploit" which you're not defining but can confidently be induced to refer to "player-AI asymmetry" instead, which is something else entirely. I define "exploit" as a dramatically unrealistic or logically inconsistent mechanic (not even "unintended", as I don't care about devs' intentions when evaluating a mechanic). I listed many exploits in the accompanying suggestions thread, some of which you unknowingly agree with. They've been constructively discussed. What the AI does or does not do is however irrelevant. By that logic, playing on any difficulty besides normal is either an exploit or a reverse exploit, whatever that might be - that would be named an "asymmetry", which is an odd thing to complain about unless your intelligence equals that of a rudimentary AI.
- The modern epistemology is empiricism, with rationalism enslaved to it. This is the foundation of all reliable human knowledge, including science. Use it, now and in all future endeavors, lest you be branded a sophist. Ranting about mathematical proof only reveals a regressive epistemology, which also reflects badly on your university as they failed to teach the rudiments of truth (which to a philosopher isn't surprising).
- You've written a combination of opinions on DW2, suggestions for the developers, some trivia and criticism. I highly doubt the devs will read through every multi-page thread to see if anyone has a suggestion or two. Heck, I doubt a well-composed list like my own will be fruitful. No one cares about your trivia, and your criticism is obscured by the inclusion of everything else.
- You attempt to infantilize my writing yet your post is full of casual opinions, ceaseless beratement and "surfer bro" exclamations which are all uninteresting to the reader. Your writing has decades of improvement ahead of it, and behind mine.
"("progress is key", is by far my favourite)"
Fast progress is key. That's different. Unlike most games, the player should feel a constant sense of urgency if playing in a challenging universe. I haven't experienced that in almost a decade of gaming, except perhaps Kenshi and Everspace (both which I strongly recommend).
"a. Correct, but you did not point how you create stronger neighbours via the galaxy settings (higher starting tech level on AI would be an example)"
That's basic information. You use "advanced" inconsistently.
"b. Wrong, the player has an easier way of dealing with pirates (you can trade contact information for non-aggression treaties, something that the AI can not do (is an exploit); or you simply pay them off, something that the AI could, but does not do). Therefore stronger pirates make the game harder for the AI and easier for you."
You're right - fixed.
"c. Wrong, if the aggression would be only geared towards the human player, than an aggressive galaxy would make the game harder for you. But it is geared towards everybody equally, meaning it does never change difficulty. Although, it maybe is harder for those peacemonger players, that would fit better into a citybuilding game, than into an actual strategy game."
A good player's power arises primarily from controlling conflicts, which is an advantage needed to offset the asymmetries caused by high-challenge play. That's why an aggressive galaxy is more difficult: Avoiding conflict may become impossible, which is not the case on default aggression. That AI empires are also affected doesn't compare to the player's underdog situation, at least until technological supremacy is achieved (at which point the snowballing gets silly).
"d. Ok, if you are bored with the AI in this game then you can do "roleplaying" in dumb way, like playing a guy with intelligence 1 in Fallout: New Vegas. Sure."
I don't see how that opinion supports your contentions. Besides, F:NV was laughably easy, like most RPGs. Still an excellent game for other reasons, though.
"e. This only makes the game harder until you have a fleet that can destroy their spaceports. Once you have that achieved, the game actually becomes easier, because of all the technology that you get from the debris or capturing their ships. The pirates in this game right now offer no challenge beyond the immediate start of the game."
The point of pirates is to be an early-game threat, superseded by the Hive. That empires fail to keep pace with the player is a problem I've mentioned in my suggestions thread. The only lategame threats are empires with extreme advantages over the player. This may change, however. (Edit: This was an allusion to the RotS beta, which I was playing at the time, but under an NDA not to reveal its contents publicly.)
"f. Same as 2d"
You're right - fixed this.
"g. Sure, you can turn your brain off. I would argue, that this does not make the game harder, it allows you to not play the game, but rather simulate it in the background, while smoking some weed."
Does losing an arm make you less human? For your argument to work, you'll need to reason how various aspects of the game are required for its identity as an activity. Rephrased, you're arguing against the devs' decision to add in-depth difficulty settings. I've intentionally kept my suggestions on improving the game out of this guide, hence the suggestions thread.
And by the way, you can easily finish most games while smoking copious amounts of cannabis since they're ridiculously easy. Play a game of DW2 with every setting on its most difficult, without exceptions, then report back here on how it went - it's fantastic.
"Another piece of knowledge, that is not worth to be put into a "guide intended for maximum difficulty".
Let me give you an example of an "advanced" tip for an "advanced" guide: "Leaders have a chance to get the "Health oriented" trait, if you research a technology in the medical systems tree, while they have an unoccupied trait slot.""
You're confusing "advanced" with "specific". Specific is less advanced, as any philosopher will gladly explain. In addition, while you clearly don't use or appreciate compact writing, it's a hard requirement for any guide to be useful.
"Therefore if you are exterminating the race fully in your empire anyway it does not matter longterm."
That would be unpragmatic advice firmly in the realm of roleplaying. I've already mentioned RP enough, in my opinion, and even removed an RP tip from an earlier draft which I later added based on Nightskies' highly constructive criticism. You're lacking consistency as you criticize both too much and too little emphasis on RP.
"If you do not understand the game mechanics you should read a beginner guide, and not an advanced guide."
If you know everything, you shouldn't read at all. "Game mechanics" literally describes every interaction present within the game, except for the player - and even that might be included if you're a hardline non-compatibilist determinist. But, let's not have that discussion, as in your prose the result would be a few thousand pages long.
"I agree with first Early Warp into second Stable Warp. Research Labs is definitely not important at all. You can steal that easily from your first contact. For me, the third technology is always the better reactors ("Advanced Nuclear Fission"). The difference between the first 2 reactor types is so massive, it gives you something around 40% more range on your exploration/construction/colonizing/piratekilling efforts."
By controlling conflict, technological progress becomes paramount as that's the long-term metagame after short-term problems are solved. You could argue that more funds into exploration may increase tech advancement later on, but I've personally never moved past the pirates' technology without first bumping into other empires' borders even when prioritizing exploration, making that argument dubious (not flat-out wrong as the balance is certainly close). The second reactor can also be stolen, and yes - theft is a main source of technological progress at that stage, which I've mentioned.
Range is determined by hyperspeed, fuel capacity and fuel efficiency. Especially Haakonish fuel storage and Quameno Novacore reactors make a gigantic difference - also mentioned. With those two you can largely stop caring. Dhayut Hyperdrives would also be a huge improvement over Gerax, but I can never steal them in time to be worth prioritizing, for some reason (perhaps unlucky).
"a. Taxes to 0 was a nice tip in Distant Worlds Universe, now it sucks."
You misunderstand how taxes work and failed to present an argument. Setting taxes to 0 raises population growth and doesn't deplete any cash if you recover it from the private economy via other means. I've explained how to do just that. It's easy and fast, especially if you've kept your production queues unclogged.
"c. Agreed, but if you want to minmax you should also manipulate the building order on the planet from explorer -> construction ship -> spaceport -> freighter -> miner into spaceport second, construction third, before you unpause the game the first time. While your starting exploration ship flies around reaching and exploring your first target, you simply do not have the need for a construction ship, so the spaceport can be done second.
e. It is a 4X game. Building exploration units in a game where exploration matters is not worth a tip in an "advanced" guide."
Again you propose adding basic information and then complain about something being basic information. For an ordered list of anything to work, its components must be mentioned. Omitting the step would make the list incomplete, which you would then undoubtedly criticize with "No Explorers in an X4 game?!".
"f. Population growth is not so important, that it justifies dismising leaders constantly"
Population growth at the very early stage has significant impact on the player's income until either the first colony is maxed, or a highly profitable second colony is gained. It's simple exponential growth, meaning each moment is important to the next. Are you arguing that it's too much effort?
"No, early on, it is way more important to find access to as much luxuries as possible boosting your development rating, than boosting you happiness via low tax rate. So you need a shit ton of exploration ships (which cost money) and some construction ships (which cost money, too). Tax rate to 0 is really bad."
You can easily extract cash from the private economy.
"You can easily only crash research the first 2 warp techs, that we talked above. The rest can be stolen, analysed out of debris or disassembled from captured ships. Invest your money into exploration, expansion or warfare, but not research."
That would be good advice if not for resource limitations. I do have an ongoing internal debate on to which degree I should emphasize funds versus resources. If you've a constructive argument to offer I'll happily read it.
"Does not need any reasoning, it is obvious why this advice is horrible."
Consider reading the works of any philosopher who discussed rhetoric, from Aristotle to Popper, or to a lesser degree the work of any linguist, epistemologists or even anthropologists if you want the simplistic option.
"You call them "super" research options? Why?"
It's in the UI. I'm not a fan of the term either.
"Troop minmaxing is not needed at all in the game. Who cares."
People who read advanced guides.
"Diplomacy is fucking boring. Play EU4 with humans if you want to have meaningful diplomacy."
This thread regards DW2.
"a. No need to befriend everyone, no need to befriend anyone actually. Game is easy enough."
You can make the game impossible to win if you dare try.
"c. I rather build a ship than gift my money away"
That's an opinion, one which doesn't support your contentions. Cost efficiency-wise, purchasing peace is a bargain, especially since it tends to be permanent in DW2 unless the galaxy is highly aggressive. The Art of War is a good read by the way.
"e. Another exploit."
Indeed, that's an exploit. Fixing it is in my suggestions thread.
"No, if two empires declare a war, you are going to wait some time until a shit ton of each of their forces are distracted or destroyed. You do your backstab, when the amount of resistance, you face as third party, is minimal. Not immediately."
Do your wars last long enough for a fleet to retreat from a frontline, then cohesively engage your fleet in your target's core territory? The enemy will offer peace after you crush just a few major targets, so anything that takes longer than a quick thrust should be beyond your consideration. Unless, of course, you're roleplaying - which is fine but inconsistent with your other arguments.
"Those spaceports have a research "lab" not research "bonus" though. Is nitpicking, I know, but if you create a guide, do it better. I destroy those spaceports later, they are unimportant for the 20 research once you have 5000 or more research available from colony spaceports and actual research bases."
According to American Heritage Dictionary, "bonus" is defined as "Something given or paid in addition to what is usual or expected." I'm guessing you're entrenched in some trendy definitions, but you might be surprised to learn that gaming terminology changes every few years. I try to avoid trendy language as it's washed away tomorrow and renders anything you've written unrecognizable.
"Is an exploit, and not necessary. You can easily just "welcome" new races into your empire, via warfare, and use those races to extend you colonization efforts."
How could putting less passengers into a spaceships than it can hold, be an exploit? It still uses fuel. The ship is still lost on colonization. Real world airlines use lots of exploits but this isn't one of them.
"Practically you either exploit diplomacy by using it (and obviously doing it better than the AI) or you do not by ignoring diplomacy (almost) completely. That is the state of the diplomacy part of Distant Worlds 2."
Exactly: It's extremely important and I'd be insane not to include this information. I'm not getting your point.
"a. You can design dedicated capture ships on your own. Ship boarding is not a hard tech to get."
I've detailed this extensively further down in the guide.
"If you need or want to extort the private economy's cash, you are an absolute noob."
You've again switched definitions. The AI also "extorts" PEC, so it's not asymmetrical. Even if you used a conventional definition, selling to the private economy is not "extortion". What someone wants, furthermore, is not related to veterancy or "being a noob", in any aspect of life.
"Sorry, I can not say this less insulting."
Yes, you can and you didn't try. Just because you heard that phrase somewhere doesn't mean you should repeat it without subscribing to its meaning. Your hostility got vastly worse beyond this point.
"It is so horrible, you basically do not understand the purpose of the private economy at all."
"Same as above: You are an absolute noob if you do not understand the purpose of the private/state economy split. Why the developers allow the player to destroy freighters, miners or passenger ships is beyond my understanding."
What, then, is the "purpose" of the private economy? Who determined this "purpose" and why should anyone agree?
"b. Mining stations do not need anything, just rebuild them. One mining station being destroyed does not matter at all. The AI overvalues destroying mining/longrangesensor bases so much, it reminds me of the old quote "Attracted, like a fly to a cow pat". If you however only have one refuel/repair station in the region where you fight, than it is your fault as the strategic mind behind your wars."
Are you arguing that the player shouldn't plan for expanding their empire's resource economy...? And yes, when choosing targets I often invade a colony, then trade for all bases in the region after accepting peace. I wasn't sure if that was worth adding since it's implied in the tip on diplomatic trade.
"b. 25k for expansion bursts. Did you ever follow the private economy of this game? For example, when you introduce medium freighters to your empire, the private econonmy will spend literally millions in a short time to get enough of those. I can actually estimate how much money the private economy shoves into my state economy, when I do this. It depends massively on the size of the empire at that point though."
You're comparing the retrofit of a thousand freighters with building a few mining stations. I deliberately avoided doubling up on advice whenever I noticed myself doing it, and frequently substitute an elaborate nitpicky paragraph with a clear insinuation. Specificity is potentially infinite, which can lead to unreadable nonsense.
"Wrong. The production rate is definitely bugged. I can have -2000/s in caslon in this menu, with 400k caslon stored and 20 years later i have 2500k caslon stored, without building any caslon station in this period of time. So no, I never use the production rate as a measurement for my mining economy. The storage capacity and the storage position (meaning you do not need caslon on the other side of the galaxy, if the war is next to your homeplanet) is important for mining bases and nothing else."
Agreed, it certainly is bugged, which is why 10/s is a good aim instead of 2000/s. Even if 10/s realistically means 200/s, it's still a good target, particularly since some resources get gobbled up rapidly later on and any resource which you don't have excess income of can be conquered with severe consequences... unless you failed to make the universe challenging enough, that is.
"I just build tourist bases everywhere. Get 10k-20K per year out of it (as a boskara hive mind, rofl). Nice little side income."
"c. Really? You are writing an "advanced" guide."
"d. Maybe that works better than my approach, learned a second thing from your guide. Keep it up!"
You're only insulting yourself at this point. Describing suboptimal strategy > Insult > Admitting to using said suboptimal strategy and having learned from the guide. Come, now. Surely you see the irony. Go back and edit bad writing instead of posting both the error and the correction. Imagine if I'd done that in the guide.
"(in case you do not know that, or an "advanced" guide does not mention the difference between attacking and defending)"
That is descriptive terminology - the most basic and clear information possible in writing. How can you so casually switch between promoting the inclusion of bland basics and opposing the inclusion of the obscure?
"The laundry benefits from more detergent."
You've clearly never done laundry nor understand excess, which is the point. The player can't know how much is enough until empirically verifying what freighters are doing, and there's a lot to verify. How many mining engines? Passenger holds? Shields VS armor? Ion Defense? Which types of ships? If it's not intuitively obvious, I've done my best to list it, and that's from the perspective of a veteran gamer who understands that most devs make unrealistic and therefore unintuitive design decisions. To be fair, I think DW2 is surprisingly intuitive for such a small team designing so many novel mechanics - which, like compact writing, is a task you might vastly underestimate.
Oh, and too much detergent will mess up your laundry. Try it on a cheap sweater.
"By the way, you do not put passenger components on colony ships, you put more colony modules on it. "
Extremely wasteful as the ship is consumed, unless using the ship to manually ferry populations.
"However, like i mentioned in 2.16"
You forgot to number your quotations and/or replies. You can't expect others to cross-reference your post with my original numbering, nor would any personal criticism require a public post.
"e. Why the basic one? Did you mistype? First, this is probably race specific, second I never use a basic design, if I have the improved designs researched and third destroyers are better."
Empirical testing disproves that belief conclusively and this has been mentioned repeatedly throughout this thread, as well as Scott's, showcased in videos and more.
"f. Whatever. Race specific stuff should be in the race specific section or in separate race specific guide."
It's very simple math. All species have a dramatic increase when comparing Frigates to "Improved" Frigates, very similar to the Quameno. I mentioned them specifically to avoid vagueness - them being Quameno is not the point.
"g. A command frigate, sorry, I can not imagine that works."
The limits of your imagination are irrelevant. Try it.
"You told us in point 1.13. that you research a tier fully. So, when you have researched fleet targeting and countermeasures and also hyperdeny, you already have improved destroyers unlocked. So you have a command frigate around a bunch of destroyers."
Destroyers are worse for the command role. They don't get better sensor slots - the only limiting factor for the command role even for Frigates. They're far more expensive and are roughly just as defensive due to worse speed. Speed is crucial for Cautious or Evasive ships, which I dub "speed-tanking", and the command ship is unique in that it doesn't need to be in-range for its weapons - a perfect match.
"Then you set the command frigate to evade so it immediately warps out the battle and therefore denies the hyperdeny and the fleet sensors to the rest of the ships that are actually fighting the battle."
Evade has nothing to do with warp. You're thinking of the "Flee when" setting.
"a. You should mention that this only works until something gets a lucky hit onto your reactor/energy collector/fuelcell.
b. Exactly, again something for a beginner guide."
Radically inconsistent just one line apart. "Did you know that components can get damaged?"
"Let me ask you once: You wrote an advanced guide, why are there so many beginner tips? You are simply not an advanced player if you ignore the ship designer telling you that a medical center make sense on a troop transport."
List completeness. Not having to visit the Galactopedia.
"Defence fleets (with proper engagement range setting) operate close to your spaceports or construction ships, therefore they can easily be repaired or replaced, so "Never" is the correct setting."
No. As mentioned, overmatching the target is important. Losses are highly cash- and extremely resource-inefficient. Maintenance costs no resources nor takes up production queues.
"Absolut wrong! The Equinox drives are the worst, actually. They only give an advantage over Kaldos over medium and long distances, those distances you want to avoid in a war as much as possible."
You can make two designs in a test save and have them race. The speed difference is unbalanced, as mentioned in my suggestions thread, and this has been true since a much earlier version of Scott's guide.
"Occupying fleets want to have a fuel efficient Calista drive, because you need the fuel for fighting and staying inside an enemy system, not for just getting there."
Hyperspeed fuel-efficiency is but a portion of the fuel efficiency equation. Your thinking here is very myopic, partly determined by your unwillingness to use fuel tankers. I know, because I don't use them either, yet I still don't feel the need to use trash drives - there are many other workarounds, none of which require diminishing hyperspeed, the importance of which is paramount.
"However, somehow my economy is always so amazing, that I can afford fleets for each border instead of one warping back and forth."
Straw-man. No one's mentioned doing that.
"Also you will overlap a lot with those arrays."
You can freely decide where to place them, even move them at will; even without fuel. If you want overlap then that's your business.
"A good grid of monitoring bases around your empire is just better."
Extremely cost-inefficient and undynamic. A mobile detection net can be rearranged at will and is dirt-cheap. It's just annoying, which I'm guessing is your actual gripe.
"Also to crush a target you only need better weapon loadout than the AI, not necessarily more ships."
Everyone has better weapon loadout than the AI. You've already admitted to believing that Destroyers are better than Frigates, and strongly implied that you're not testing different approaches. You don't necessarily need more ships, nor a better weapon loadout - just play on Easy. It's up to you to create a challenging universe and I don't understand why you keep repeating this... unless the point is unsuccessful boasting.
"So, long story short"
Absolutely not. Reading all this superfluous meandering is exhausting. I'm proud of having gotten this far; a harsh test of my conviction. And I will finish.
"You forgot to mention the armor bypass and the ion defence in your list. Complicated topic"
The "list" regards HP, I did discuss both armor bypass and ion defense later and these aren't complicated topics.
"And you probably can also imagine, that countermeasures are only interesting on ships that have a shit ton of countermeasure weapons."
That's not what "countermeasures" refers to.
"Endgame threats are a lazy mechanic for lazy developers or understaffed development teams."
The Hive, an endgame threat? You can clear the Hive solo at T3. It's been my favorite test setup across dozens of tests. ~50 T3 Blaster Frigates turn a full Hive fleet into space junk. That's how I made the screenshot for Chapter 3! Those are regular Dhayut Frigates and they won.
"Use some different word like "melee" or "brawl", for what you describe here."
Blitzkrieg is precisely what I mean. Steamrolling; snowballing. In the 1940's it also referred to combined arms but that obviously doesn't apply here. "Melee" and "brawl" are perhaps popularized by Super Smash Bros or some British television I'm unaware of, but let's consult ADH again: "Melee: A confused struggle or fight at close quarters. synonym: brawl." There's no pugilism in DW2.
"Also using assault pods without ion weapons is just hilariously inefficient. You only need to kill the shields (and prevent the ship from fleeing and shooting), so maybe using the weapon, that excels at that, would be rather interesting."
Blasters do that and are radically imbalanced compared to all other weapon types, as mentioned in the suggestions thread. They also continue to wreck everything when the Pods are on cooldown. Ions are great, but you're being unnecessarily contrarian again.
"Calling this a golden rule is overexaggerated. Yes, you want weapons that fit your aggressive, neutral or cautious setting. There are however more important "rules" though."
List them.
"I could clarify that, but that would need at least a half hour video with a lot of boring math."
Five minutes of testing. Empiricism > Rationalism, but they work best when combined, with rationalism kept fully submissive to empiricism. Philosophers figured that out in the 18th century. Plus, brevity doesn't need to be the problem which you've turned it into.
"Sure, if you want to, I win the game and most of the fleet battles without ever looking at the DPS stat, but sure do as you please."
I like noodles. A lot. This isn't helpful to anyone and doesn't warrant discussion nor taking up anyone's time - except yours, to demonstrate the problem caused by droll impertinence.
"I am not testing that, because I do not need it to win at this game. So feel free to do it yourself. I just pick whatever fits still into my ship/base, in this case usually the medium version."
Then it wouldn't be useful for you to write a guide.
"It sounds like somebody made a simplified test with one point defense ship fighting one enemy weapon ship and than made a statistic how long the point defence ship survived depending on the point defence weapon chosen. That is not a realistic scenario too judge such things."
Extensive, varied testing. But, I'm sure you won't accept this, which is fine: Test it yourself, honestly and fairly, without presuming the conclusion.
"I made a text document with all the names, too."
And you've decided not to share it? Then you claim to know what our society's intellectual problems are, despite revealing no knowledge of intellectual matters during a multi-page essay which could be descriptively titled "you all dumdum, me genius, whatever"?
"2. I probably invested more time criticizing this post, than he actually invested time in making it."
You have no comprehension of succinct communication. You just wrote a giant wall of text expressing almost nothing of value, except your personal opinions and a slew of anti-empirical beliefs. Write just one competent paragraph, after a few dozen revisions, then return.
"As I stated, I did not want to be the bad guy here"
Not fooling anyone.