Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mahks]

Is there a difference in putting building as dormant "to be build" and planning it, other than that planned buildings can get automatic supply runs from other stars?

Dormant means there are no builders currently assigned. If the dormant project is below an active one in the queue, the builders will drop to the dormant  one once the active project is complete. Plans are not part of the build queue, see below

Will builders be automatically set once resources get avaiable, for both dormant building and planned building?

No, because there may be multiple plans at a star. You  must choose which one to activate once the resources are on site.

[mahks]

Is there a way to find out how many players are playing given game?

No, you can never tell "what is out there", there is a lot of fog in the game.

I thought maybe just that "Select game" screen could say something like "players playing this game: 3" for each of them.

By fog I meant there are many areas that you have limited knowledge. Most games let you know too much in my opinion.

The lack of information creates strategic dilemmas. For example that restricted space next to you, will that open up? or stay restricted? You can't depend on either.

In regards to the number of players, If one knew how many there were, one would know the balance (maybe) of force in the game. For example if your alliance had 6 players and there were 10 in the game, you would know you had the advantage and strategize on that info, without knowing the full count you are in the fog 

[Detros]

So I kept playing and I quite like it. It took me like three four days to get far enough, partly because of slower pace of game but mainly because of me trying to learn most of it fast at once, via reading manual and forum threads. After that period I have kept playing the training game so that I am able to try few more mechanics myself (like research, design of ships, special route orders, automatic domestic shipments, jumpgates...) in this sandbox setting. And I must say going through this training game really helps (even in the shorter form).

I got interested in two features of this game: resource distribution and diplomacy.

1)
Resources are not completely randomly distributed but rather appear in some zones. It seems the zone you start in can have just two three resource types in abundance and two three more in such low quantities it doesn't pay off to mine them there. So to get more types of ore in decent amounts you need to venture farther from your homeworld, to star system probably already claimed by other realms. Getting of other types of ore will then need either lot of diplomacy or firepower. If realms want to shine here they really can't play just around their domestic planets and need to contact other realms.

Note that having more types of ore in your refinery means you get more resources from the same overall input. And the difference can be really big: with refining of 6000 tones of one type of ore you get 6x 1000 nanobits while with refining of 1000 tones of 6 different types of ore gives you 6x 3500 nanobits, both during 6 turns.

2)
Diplomacy screen offers you to demand normal things like ores, workers or taxes but also resupplying and repairing of realm ships in return of various treaties together with turnly aid of some amount of credits. That part made me recall my times with Civilization IV. One of features that is not too often seen in other game is a chain of fealty: independent colonies ("indies") found through the space can be added as territories to player realm and players can have other players' realms as vasals or sovereigns. That in turn makes me think of Mount and Blade or Game of Thrones. These bonds than automatically generate few types of points that can be used instead of normal resources during ship building and so.

I have managed to get few indies as my territories during the training game and am looking forward to some PVP connections in "real" game. It seems it can be really interesting times.

[Detros]

I think the stream of reports of events throughout your realm can be sometimes a good inspiration for some sci-fi novel. Here is a little story of me meeting my first independent star system (indy).

Scout fleet of the Realm explored Fazih system and found an independent colony there, with few core buildings, planetary shield and a small fleet of patrolling ships. Diplomats of Realm from scout fleet soon signed a treaty: Fazih became a territory of the Realm for a weekly aid in credits.

As this was the first independent colony the Realm has contacted the amount of asked aid was seen as a decent price at first. But later they met other similar colonies that asked for as low as half of the Fazih's aid. Because of expenses raised by all the construction in newly found star systems (and also because tutorial really insisted on me trying to capture some indy) the continuation of Fazih treaty was thus deemed unbearable by the Realm.

In few weeks, Realm fleet appeared again at Fazih but this time much bigger than last time. The treaty was cancelled and Fazih was granted independence. Before their diplomats managed to figure out why they have been granted it so suddenly, the ships opened fire. Phasers from Realm cruiser and its accompanying destroyers annihilated Fazih only sloop in few minutes and their few fighters got soon swarmed by Realm fighters that emerged from one of Realm light carriers. Once all Fazih military ships were turned into scrap, their three freighters were captured and bombardement started.

Planetary shield, still not fully repaired from the last visit of raiders, didn't stay much chance either. One run of bombers got it under half capacity, halting production of a sloop. It started flying around Fazih as a derelict, got captured by Realm ships and later remanned and put to use in next missions. The second bomb run destroyed the shield completely and with it all other buildings at the star system. This turned Fazih into no man's land. But because there was the cruiser of Realm, a capital ship, the star system was claimed by it and again added to Realm domain, this time without any pesky weekly aid.

[Zazmio]

Yeah, it really is a pretty good game.  Things get even more interesting once your empire starts to get more self sufficient.

[Detros]

Yeah, it really is a pretty good game.  Things get even more interesting once your empire starts to get more self sufficient.

Are you using also your own disgned ships? The designing screen is bit confusing at first, but hey, you are trying to put together the right components so it can fly to other stars which is not an easy task. But after while I accustomed to its submenus and am looking forward to have most of my ships to be my own designed. I wonder, do you others mostly use standard designs or your own ones?

[Zazmio]

I've designed a few ships; but I have exactly zero experience fighting other players.  So I can't say for sure if they're good designs.

My impression is that we can design ships that are slightly more effective than the standard designs; for example, by sacrificing scanners and supply space for just a little more armor or extra firepower. 

[Zazmio]

Bored?

A new game of Starlords3K has just started.  If you haven't given this game a try yet, now's your chance to get in while the game is reasonably young. (Though you'll probably have to go through a longish tutorial first)

Get off the fence, and join.  We require fresh meat new opponents.

[mahks]

A new episode of the game has begun today. We could use a half dozen more testers.

[Sheb]

Yay, I was reading the OP, then going "Oh, this is, like, super old, no chance I can join". Yay! So how do I join?

[Hanzoku]

It's an interesting looking game, but I tend to do a lot of my browsing in the evenings on an iPad, and the website is 100% incompatible with Safari, from what I can see.

[mahks]

Yay, I was reading the OP, then going "Oh, this is, like, super old, no chance I can join". Yay! So how do I join?

Go to the website : www.starlords3K.com
Click the blue button "Request Account"

There will be a short tutorial with the basics,
Then a training game where your realm is protected.
If you survive that, you may join a real game 

[mahks]

It's an interesting looking game, but I tend to do a lot of my browsing in the evenings on an iPad, and the website is 100% incompatible with Safari, from what I can see.

Sorry about that.
The game was originally made to run only in Firefox (it was the only browser that supported the newer HTML tags like canvas).
The game is very complex for an HTML game and due to the inconsistencies in browsers is difficult to make cross-browser.
Since Chrome has gained the upper hand in market share I was forced to update the code to run within Chrome.

[Zazmio]

A new episode of the game has begun today. We could use a half dozen more testers.

Great!  I'll be joining in when I get off work this morning.

[QuakeIV]

This is looking pretty cool so far.  I haven't run into anyone yet, but I am already having to carefully mete out my resources in order to expand quickly (highly limited productive capacity to start).  Actual planning, woo!

There is no such thing as 'queue everything up and have resources to spare' like you see in a lot of games like this, you will actually have to forgo certain structures for others since construction (at least early on) eats up your materials far faster than you can produce them.