A New Era of Buccaneers(Distant Worlds: Universe)

[Brian Swartz]

Distant Worlds:Universe is considered by some to be very 'meh', and others to be the best 4X game in existence. None less than Rock, Paper, Shotgun, who I definitely respect the opinions of, is in the second group. I've never gotten into it before because of reports about poor AI among other things, but I've heard enough good things about it in recent years to make me take the plunge. This will be a semi-blind project; I've only done the very beginning of a couple of games(no further than a yeare in, which is next to nothing) to know what I'm letting myself in for. It's quite complex, almost certainly too much so for it's own good; I'm old-school enough to think the original Master of Orion has never been surpassed.

Critch had a promising dynasty around a year ago that I thought was quite interesting, but it was discontinued. That appears to be the only FOFC entrant. Hopefully I'll stick it out here and finish one now that the Stellaris campaign has concluded. The hook here is to do something that I've never seen the option for in any other similar game: play as a pirate faction. I won't be starting off as your typical 'build-from-scratch' space empire as in Stellaris and other games of this type. The goal is to sort-of evolve into that eventually, but at the start it's a completely space-based existence, no planets or colonies -- and therefore no initial reliable income -- under my control.

This will not be an interactive project; I don't think it really lends itself to that very well.

The Setting: Age of Shadows

Distant Worlds has a few different 'galactic ages'. As a pirate, we start in the second one of the following:

Ancient Galaxy
Age of Shadows
Classic Era
Return of the Shakturi
Legends

In the Age of Shadows, all major galactic civilizations have collapsed in the aftermath of some sort of cataclysmic war. I don't know any more of the backstory than that. In keeping with the mostly-blind approach, I'm not getting into a bunch of that stuff so that I can just take the game world as it comes. There are 'story events', though one arc can't be enabled for this type of game. All those that can be are enabled though.

Pirates vs. Rising Empires

The various groups that are grouped under the Pirate heading actually are the most advanced; criminal organizations of various stripes and focii that remain from the previous era. Traditional planet-based empires are rising again, but all begin in a pre-warp state whereas the Pirates have somewhat more advanced capabilities. However, they have citizens to tax, greater research capabilities, etc. Exploiting them and keeping them small is the only way we can succeed. It's a very unbalanced situation, and if I am not careful, imperial expansion and ambitions will overrun all pirate factions.

Game Settings

** All are on Standard/Normal unless otherwhise indicated.

** Difficulty: Hard. Options are Easy-Normal-Hard-Very Hard-Extreme, so this is the 'middle' setting. There will be some economic handicaps for me and similar bonuses for the AI factions, which are boosted on the more extreme settings. Combined with what appears to be weak AI and my lack of knowledge of the game, this will hopefully result in a reasonably competitive experience. If not, I gave it a shot.

** Galaxy Size: The biggest possible(15 x 15 sectors) with the most stars(1400). Because this kind of game must be epic, and nobody does epic like this game. It also may make it quite a bit more difficult, as I'll have no influence on much of the galaxy for a while.

** Mods: AI Improvement Mod, 1.4. It's recommended for use on at least Very Hard, but should still provide some benefit and I don't want to guarantee failure from the get-go. Other than that, everything is vanilla. There are other possibilities out there.

** Space Creatures: Off. I've always found them a bit silly, and more and more the modern 4x relies on them for reasons I'll never understand.

** Pirate Playstyle: Balanced. You can specialize in Smuggling, Raiding, or Mercenary approaches, but why not be flexible and adapt to what the galaxy presents?

** Race/Starting Location: Surprise me -- I have these randomized.

** Starting Empires: 11. The max for even this size of a galaxy is 19. Independent populations can form empires later on if they choose.

** Tech Trading: Off. Tends to break things badly in most 4Xs, and everything of the little I've heard about DW confirms this is the case.

[Critch]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Critch had a promising dynasty around a year ago that I thought was quite interesting, but it was discontinued.

Sorry about that, new laptop and I lost the saved game. Roundabout the time Stellaris came out too I think, so it distracted me for a while.

Good luck with the pirates. Tried it once, had no idea what to do, gave up. I'm sure you'll improve on that.

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by Critch

pirates. Tried it once, had no idea what to do, gave up. I'm sure you'll improve on that.

Hopefully not just by putting a lot of thought into it and getting run over by a freight train :P.

[Brian Swartz]

To start with, this is sort of a 'lay of the land' post. I have no intention of doing a whole tutorial or anything, but I always think it's worth explaining core stuff just so anyone who is reading and interested has a chance of figuring out what the heck it is I'm talking about.

It is the year 2100, the 30th day of the first month(2100.01.30). Thus begins the history of Sinister Security, our generated faction. Insert suggested alternate name here if you wish, and I'll change it. We 'sail' from Desperado Hideaway a small space port orbiting the gas giant Sastea Minor III. The game uses numbers instead of roman numerals, but I don't think they are as cool.




This is our current potentate of piracy, as it were, Danpo Jandirrosk. Quite a mouthful, and we really are ugly as can be, aren't we? Also, what on earth kind of pirate is a pacifist? Basically it'll take longer to build a fleet, but we can maintain it more cheaply. Not terrible but I've definitely seen better. There are also two available intelligence agents, Doktan Pazdaris and Xadry Yskllor. There's nothing for them to do at the moment but go on counter-intelligence duty. . Interestingly, characters are generated somewhat at random, but it also is apparently affected by game actions. I.e. building a lot of military ships makes it more likely for an Admiral to appear, and so on. In theory at least I very much like this concept. Will have to wait and see how it works itself out.

Our species is known as the Haakonish, and are biped reptiles. The weirdly shaped head houses highly developed nasal cavities, so our sense of smell is unrivaled. We can't see worth a darn though. Philosophically, we're quite arrogant and tend to be xenophobic, believing ourselves better than other races in the galaxy. The preferred environoment is the coastal areas of Continental and Swamp worlds, where we live in fully enclosed biospheres. Gravitic weaponry is preferred, and the racial tech specialty is in improved fuel cells, which we'll get into.

Bonuses/Penalties

** +10% spying
** -20% ship maintenance
** 20% more likely to get new intelligence agents/scientists characters, 20% less likely to get ambassadors. Diplomacy really isn't our thing.
** 1 extra intelligence agent -- normally at start there would only be a single one.
** +15% to military ship sizes




Here's our position in the galaxy; on the outer rim of the 'bottom' of things. The stars in yellow have been explored, with the one circled being a standard empire that we'll get to know soon. So we've got knowledge of a few dozen, but most of the galaxy we know only where they are and what type of star.




This is roughly the area we've explored closer in. One nice thing about this compared to some other games is you can zoom seamlessly from very close in to a large section of the galaxy. The purple circled system is us, with our pirate standard there in the blue and yellow. The grayish labeled areas are nebulas; we have a gas mine operating in each of them. Tarsont, nearby and below, is that empire we'll need to deal with. A bit hard to see near the top is Kestus, where there is an independent population. Not a very large one, but they are Harkoonish as well and friendly.




A couple things to point out here about our research. There are three fields, Weapons, Energy & Construction, and HighTech & Industrial. HighTech here kind of strangely doesn't refer to advanced technology but simply one of the three branches.

** Total Empire Research Potential -- 20k listed here. That's the most research we can do total from all three fields combined, based on our current population. By comparison, a standard empire with the same settings will have literally 20x that to start, with about 2.5 billion citizens to draw upon to fuel it. We do start off with better technology, but that will not last long.

** Total Research Capacity -- This is our 'infrastructure' limitation. 30k in each category here means we have the facilities to do a lot more research than we can actually achieve, which means this won't be a concern for us anytime soon.

** Actual Output -- As it appears, what we are actually getting. 7k per category.




Here's part of the current weapons tech tree. It's the same every game, with clearly marked paths from one research project leading to others, etc. With a few exceptions, the cost scales predictably from left to right. The initial techs cost 120k each at current settings, which doubles to 240k, then 480k, etc. as you move left to right. Standard empires only have the first tier in all categories. Highlighted ones are completed here, so we have Gravitic Weapons, Tractor Beams, and Torpedoes. We've also got Ship Boarding(assault pods for capturing enemy ships) and Armor Plating ... but don't actually have the starter techs for some of the other weapon fields.




To show something else, here's the next thing I'd really like to research in this path. What self-respecting pirate wouldn't do everything they could to improve their ability to capture enemy ships? It's going to be a long process. This is roughly a third better than standard ship boarding in assault strength, boarding range, speed, and shield penetration. Aside from being expensive it also requires Point Defense Weapons, which is part of the missile path. This happens in multiple areas in the tech tree; we've got to get some basics down in another aspect so that we can knock out the prerequisites for what we want. We'll end up adding a second weapons type here, starting with Missile Weapons which is just 120k. There is also a 'Crash Program' option where we can effectively buy research, and given our lack of scientific prowess I may look into that. Even this task costs quite a bit more than we have though.

In Energy & Construction, we've got the first two tiers of everything, and three in Construction. This allows us to build ships up to size 400 and bases up to 1200(base size is unlimited on colonies, but of course we don't have any). That's limited to 230 and 690 respectively for pre-warp empires, another significant edge we have. Other E&C toys that we have which they won't yet:

** Higher-capacity labs(also via construction): given our minimal potential this is a big who-cares, but theirs give 20k each as opposed to our 30k.
** Resupply ships(construction): Large, mobile bases that serve as strategic refueling points. They can directly mine gas and prevent ships from having to always refuel from a starport.
** Energy Collection: energy collectors work by utilizing various forms of radiation from the star in the current system. Bases or idling ships that utilize these can avoid burning fuel, saving on gas resources and refueling requirements.
** Enhanced Maneuvering: thrusters which are twice as powerful as the baseline version, allowing for quicker turns.
** Proton Thrusters: Improved primary engines, which are a little faster than the starting Ion Thrusters at cruise speed, but can reach speeds two-thirds higher in emergency situations.
** Gerax HyperDrive: A huge edge here, as these are more than 3x faster while using a little over half the energy of starting Warp Bubble Generators.
** Fission Reactor: A somewhat larger and slightly more efficient power source.
** Corvidian Shields: Baseline shield technology; pre-warp empires start with none.

There's lots of directions we could go here, but I'll grab Hyperjump Inhibiting(480k price). There's nothing cheaper available, and this device interferes with hyperdrives, preventing nearby ships from jumping. A very pirate-type thing if we want to snag some targets, preventing them from fleeing.

HighTech & Industrial provides some more stuff.

** Enhanced Exploration: Our Resource Profile Sensors, used on exploration ships to assess, have been improved with a range of 8k. The standard, entry-level version is only at 500, so this is truly a quantam leap.
** Transport Systems: We've developed the ability to transport troops(100 per) or passenger(1.2k per)
** Storage Systems: Somewhat higher-capacity fuel cells and cargo bays.
** Crew Systems: Life Support and Habitation systems can support 42% more crew.
** Medical Centers: Increase happiness of colonies that we don't have, and assist in rapid healing of troops on ships/bases.
** Recreation Centers: For colonies only, increasing happiness.

Colonization tech is in this branch, which we'll eventually need but is useless to us right now. Command and research infrastructure can be quite helpful but there are a lot of things that are more useful to a standard empire. Countermeasures, ship electronics, etc. are also interesting, as are some sensor techs. I don't think we can bypass this though:




This is our racial tech; each race has an advantage in being able to research something unique and far superior. As those things go, this isn't hugely valuable, but we'll go for it anyway. All fuel cells are the same size, but the current ones we have are at 65 capacity so this would more than double that. To the right are the better ones other races can get: Advanced comes in at 100 capacity(4x the effort), Optimized at 120(16x). So for a fraction of the price we can get more efficient fuel storage than other empires will be able to research, ever.




Really need to explain some economy and ship basics at this point. Here's our exploration ship, dubbed the EX-1 Surveyor. Starting in the upper-right with Energy, I'll run down some key facts about it.

** Energy Collection is 24, Static Energy Usage 9. If the static energy usage were higher, then we'd have to burn fuel to provide energy when idle. So this is good in terms of energy efficiency.
** Fuel Type = Caslon. There are different fuel sources possible, but all of ours run on Caslon right now. That's important to know. All of the early-game reactors are Caslon-based, making it extremely important.
** Below this in the Movement section, we can see range, acceleration, turn rate, and also four different modes of transport and the speed and energy requirements. I don't know when Impulse is used specifically; Cruise is standard in-system travel, Sprint for emergency situations, and Hyper obviously for hyperjumps between systems. The energy usage is important to look at: 78 for hyper travel is the highest, and still well below the 111 for Excess Energy Output. We'd have to consider Weapons also if this was a warship, but it appears that reactor power is plenty for anything this ship might use.
** We can ignore the Industry section as we don't have any of those components here. On to Defense in the lower right, where we are rated in Shields, Armor, and Boarding Defense. If you look at the Components list, highlighted in purple in the very middle, we've got a single shield and armor plating component on there. Barebones.

Elsewhere, we see a size of 220, purchase cost 1017, maintenance cost 211. We can build ships almost twice this size. We could change the calculus here by adding or removing fuel cells to change the range, engines to change the speed, etc. but this is a decent starting point I think. The price is only part of the cost though, we also need the materials. Distant Worlds has an obscene 41 different resources. 22 are luxury resources, which are valuable as trade goods or for making the people happy, boosting the economics of colonies, etc. The other 19 are strategic, which means they are directly used for industrial purposes. This ship needs 101 steel as the primary resource, and smaller amounts of eight other resources. If we don't have the required materials, we'll have to buy them.

The Surveyor design isn't bad, but I want to make some changes. No armor, a single shield just in case still, but also added a Gas Extractor. Reason being, it will be able to use less fuel cells and be completely independent of refuelinig stations, mining more gas for fuel whenever it is needed.

Size: 185(220 for previous design)
Cost: Purchase 825(was 1017), maintenance 187(211)
Speed: 3/25/45/6250. Cruising speed is lower than before, everything else is pretty much identical. Range only a little over half but it should be plenty.

I wouldn't want to have any ship aside from an explorer take this approach, but it will allow them to be essentially limitless in range.




This is 'home', the gas giant where our space port of Desperado Hideaway orbits.

** The ships with the dotted lines around them are private-sector ships, not under our control; two freighters, a gas miner, and a standard(ore) miner.
** For the others, there is a blue(due to my chosen colors, not the best for a blue planet in the background) shape around them. The type of shape is an indicator of their mission. For example the one with a square is the Daunting Deal, a construction ship. The 'diamonds' are the Sastea Minor Nightstar and the Aimless Jewel, exploration ships. Triangles are the Majestic Conquest and the Supreme Rampage, which are escorts; they are our only warships at the moment. The hexagon is our spaceport, the Desperado Hideaway as mentioned. This is our headquarters and base of operations for our faction. It doesn't have to stay that way, we can build more, but for right now this is it.




This nonsense shows our income, or lack thereof in this case. We've got almost 20k in the treasury ... but absolutely nothing coming in and are paying out 595 in maintenance. Standard empires will have tax income coming in, which doesn't require them to do anything to at least get something. Pirates are different, and require a more active playstyle here. Protection agreements, for example, are a key option but we don't have contact with any empires to extort. Another option is to mine resources and sell them, but again we need somebody to sell them to. So either way you slice it, we're going to lose money until we establish some galactic relationships.




Here's a rundown of what we know about the only empire we are in contact with, the nearby Harkoonish Syndicate. They have tax revenue, even if they don't make anything else, of 5k while we are making nothing. If we just sort of passively try to do whatever, they will probably dominate this region of the galaxy at our expense. Naturally we can't allow that to happen. Initially they just tell us how they have the finest culture and society in the galaxy(interestingly we feel the same way about our own), but that they will listen to our absurdly inferior ramblings.

That's it for the info dump: now it's time to decide what to do with all this, what steps to take initially. Then I can actually unpause the game :P