starting with more then one world

[Kregoth]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of starting with say 3 bonus ships on a new game? I am curious Because I would like to know what problems persist with having more then 1 starting bonus ship and world

I am sure the starting of the game is much harder do to having three fronts to watch when you have no ship or turrets placed so unless you build fast I can imagine they would be hard to maintain. I can also imagine the extra resource income will help with that but I never tried it and just would like the opinions of the forums member here and maybe x4000 (wink wink) on why and why not to take more then one starting position.

[x4000]

I don't tend to like starting with multiple worlds, honestly.  If you lose any of them, you lose them all -- unlike in multiplayer.  You do get buffed ship caps, and an extra bonus ship, but that turns it more into deathmatch mode in my opinion: and you're more likely to run into late-game performance issues (or even out of memory issues) if you try to parade around the galaxy with a fleet of 7000 ships, for example.  Some people absolutely love that feature, and I put it in there for them, but it's never been my thing.

[wyvern83]

I used to take multiple worlds routinely but I've since returned to just taking one because the late-game performance issues x4000 is talking about. If you like large battles and higher ship caps starting with multiple worlds can be quite fun, my system just doesn't take it very well after a point.

However the other big motivations for my switching back is that taking multiple worlds decreases the number of worlds with asteroids on them when you have a Spirecraft faction turned on and the Fallen Spire campaign event waves. (the size calculation uses # of homeworlds as a multiplier)  

[Kregoth]

Hmm interesting So you loose the game if just one of the home worlds is lost, that could be a bit of a pain. I guess if you had a small corner to entrench in 2 could be fine as long as they both don't have multiple worms holes in there system. I may try it for the added challenge and bonus ships and i think my machine can handle that just fine. Have you ever though about making it so the extra world you choose only get a command station and harvesters without them being home command station and no bonus ships? It would basically be the same as if you had just plopped down a command station in an empty system.

Maybe ill add it to mantis as a suggestion it would give the player an economic boost in the beginning as well as adding challenge because that world is pretty barren in defense. maybe you could do this at the cost of the starting game having and extra AIP tacked on.

I also have another question that been bugging me a ton. Why not add multiplayer support outside of LAN support. I can understand that added massive code unertaking to add a system like this but I would lvoe to see something like this, It is hard as hell to find people to play with.

thanks for the quick reply as always x4000 It wonderful to see a dev actually interact with the customers.

I used to take multiple worlds routinely but I've since returned to just taking one because the late-game performance issues x4000 is talking about. If you like large battles and higher ship caps starting with multiple worlds can be quite fun, my system just doesn't take it very well after a point.

However the other big motivations for my switching back is that taking multiple worlds decreases the number of worlds with asteroids on them when you have a Spirecraft faction turned on and the Fallen Spire campaign event waves. (the size calculation uses # of homeworlds as a multiplier) 

Hmm did not know that about the asteroids that's definitely a hard choice to make as I love the new spire ships. thanks for letting me know

[x4000]

The asteroids thing was actually not correct; that was just a bug in the current beta, but is fixed for the next one.

Regarding the resources, etc: the only way this is balanced is if you have home planet command stations on both.  You do get basically doubled economies, which means you're a freaking powerhouse.  Without added risk, it's basically just a cheat.

Regarding multiplayer support, it's not just lan support: direct-connection is also supported.  It's perfectly capable of playing over the Internet, but you'll want to arrange that in advance.  I've written about this at length elsewhere on the forums, but basically even if we had a server browser you'd likely not find many people.  Given all the time zones, and the length of the campaigns, most of the time people are playing, rather than looking for partners.  It's not just something where you sit down with folks for 20 or 30 minutes and then look for partners, like a pvp RTS.  That said, it's a feature we're considering for the future.  For now, there's a meeting ground subforum here, and IRC on the right sidebar of our website, which are great ways to meet people for a game.

[Echo35]

I don't tend to like starting with multiple worlds, honestly.  If you lose any of them, you lose them all -- unlike in multiplayer.  You do get buffed ship caps, and an extra bonus ship, but that turns it more into deathmatch mode in my opinion: and you're more likely to run into late-game performance issues (or even out of memory issues) if you try to parade around the galaxy with a fleet of 7000 ships, for example.  Some people absolutely love that feature, and I put it in there for them, but it's never been my thing.

Me either. Plus it's extra to manage on your own. Not as easy as when you have team mates to help

[wyvern83]

The asteroids thing was actually not correct; that was just a bug in the current beta, but is fixed for the next one.

Actually I had this in mind from the 4.041 prerelease notes when I wrote that:

When asteroids are seeded into a campaign, they are now seeded onto all non-homeworld worlds.

If you have more than one homeworld than you have that many less worlds that will have asteroids seeded on them. Unless of course if homeworld here is referring to AI Homeworlds, in which case I would be wrong. (Which I wouldn't mind as I like asteroids)  

[x4000]

Well, that is true: in that sense you get fewer asteroids.  But unless it's a tiny map, that's a really small amount fewer asteroids.

[PineappleSam]

I won't use them unless I want to try something out.

Defender mode on a snake map with vast numbers of player controlled homeworlds was interesting, but ran into the problem that I had too many unlocked ships... I couldn't access the build buttons for anything beyond the base game as the factories seem to have a limit to the number of ships that can be displayed!

Unless you choose a map specifically for choke points, I doubt that they'd be worth the extra hassle to protect, and if you choose a map for its choke points then you've just circumvented the drawback that balances them

Edit: After prompting from Winter Born, Mantis'd

[Winter Born]

Defender mode on a snake map with vast numbers of player controlled homeworlds was interesting, but ran into the problem that I had too many unlocked ships... I couldn't access the build buttons for anything beyond the base game as the factories seem to have a limit to the number of ships that can be displayed!

That is a bug that needs to go into mantis
see my sig if you need help.

[Lancefighter]

it used to be a 8 ship cap no matter what you did.. be lucky the window expands further than that nowadays