haphazard1 tries Dominus Galaxia

[haphazard1]

Dominus Galaxia is a 4x space strategy game with a lot of MOO influence in its DNA. The Kickstarter for the game has recently launched and there is a playable build available. Similar to RFS-81's Let's Play thread (before reality apparently intervened ), I am going to report on my initial attempt at the game. It looks promising, and maybe if there is enough interest we could get an SG going. Hopefully there will be enough people who find the game appealing to fund the project.

After a bit of adjustment of video settings and the like (ah, modern amenities, very nice ), I start a new game.

There are a number of options available for size and shape of galaxy, how densely spaced races are, and of course difficulty. I pick the 'Thick Ring' galaxy shape (one of 20 choices) and keep the suggested number of 65 stars. Normal game mode and average opponent spacing are fine, and for this first attempt I choose Veteran difficulty. I am new to Dominus Galaxia but have played a lot of MOO over the years, so hopefully I am not getting in over my head here. If new mechanics trip me up, well, hopefully it will at least be entertaining.

I pick Static AI, which according to the tool tip (the game has abundant tool tips, with lots of useful info) means the AI will play to that particular level regardless of my performance or lack thereof. Dynamic AI will apparently try to adjust the AI performance based on the player's to represent the selected level of challenge. There is also an option to set a blanket bonus to AI production; for this first game I leave that alone.

Next up is game options; I go to the advanced screen.

The drop down at the lower left has some pre-set choices such as classic rules for an experience closest to the original MOO or inclusive for the intended Dominus Galaxia experience. I go to the custom option which lets you pick and choose specific rules and mechanics. I mostly go with the suggested defaults, but I do change how expansion works to require colony ships to settle new worlds. By default population can be transported to new worlds once you have explored them (and if they are habitable with your tech), without needing a colony ship. I like the mechanic of needing a dedicated ship with special equipment to found a new colony, although I assume it will slow the game pace as the production required for colony ships will not be going into research or fleets.

Next is choosing your race. Presently there are two options available to play, Humans and Spixnih. I am a primate chauvinist so I go with Humans, who get a discount on fleet maintenance costs and are quite good at force fields and better than average at biology and propulsion. I do get a penalty at weapons; what sort of weird universe is this where humans are not good at developing ways to kill things?

The game generates the galaxy and here is our lovely homeworld Sol:

Lots of things to notice on this screen. First, we can not see the entire galaxy -- our long range scanners only extend perhaps a dozen parsecs. (Not sure exactly how far they reach.) Systems that are within long range scans show as generic points and we have no info other than that they exist and their distance. Systems closer to our controlled worlds show as an orb of the star's color; these colors appear to follow the familiar pattern from MOO as the tool tips indicate red stars have old worlds, blue stars are young and hot, etc.

Second, star lanes connect some systems. You can move between systems without a star lane but at a movement penalty. I am unsure of the star lanes idea but it should provide some interesting choices later in the game. And they can be turned off in the game options if desired.

Next, there is some info at the upper right on our existing treasury (we start with a nice pile of BCs) plus expenses and research (none started yet). The tool tip for our expenses is shown, and it breaks down where our money is going. We are spending a bit over 12 BC/turn on ships, with roughly two thirds of that being to support our starting colony ship. Remember that we are getting a break on maintenence as Humans, so this would be more costly for other races. (A bit more on our starting fleet in a moment.) Not shown is the tool tip for our treasury which provides a similar break down of our income. We are currently making about 10 BC/turn, half from our population and half from interest on our reserves. Nice to actually earn some money on our treasury balance. We are running a slight deficit, but with our starting cash this is not a problem. And once our colony ship is used to found a second world, our expenses will drop significantly and we will be running cash flow positive.

On the management window for our homeworld, there is a lot more info along with our control sliders. Note what is missing: no Eco slider. Spending to clean up pollution is automatic, and is represented by the "Waste" figure in the middle right. Roughly a third of our planet's output is going to pollution control, and this also impacts our pop growth rate -- we lose half the waste figure from our growth rate even though we are cleaning it up. (Not sure on this change, but that is how it seems to work.) Note that no Eco slider also means no way to force grow pop. Maybe this is possible later with better tech like cloning? I don't know yet. But for now our pop growth will be what it is, and we can not do much about it.

Each of the figures shown on the panel has a tool tip with more details. The tool tips are really nice in this game. The game also has a whole series of tutorial hints that pop up the first time you encounter a new feature; I have not screenshotted those but they have a lot of useful info. They can be dismissed individually or turned off entirely.

For the moment I have the homeworld build more factories. Note the cost per factory shown next to the slider -- this varies not just due to your tech but also by how many factories a planet already has. So the initial factories on a new colony are cheaper and then the cost continues to climb as the world industrializes, up to the factory controls limit for the population. I am not sure exactly what the formula for this is yet; total number of factories? Factories per pop? Other?

Also next to the factory slider is an "Adv" button for controlling your industry spending. It allows you to limit spending so the planet will not build more factories than you have pop available to work, or you can set cut off points based on cost so you do not spend on factories that won't have a rapid enough payback timeframe. Very useful.

Now that the homeworld is working away on industry, let's send out some ships and explore the galaxy. Here is our starting fleet:

The tool tip for each ship class gives a summary of that design. The Arrow is your basic small hull with a laser -- a standard start of game popgun fighter. The Interdictor and Iroquois are mediums, one with a pair of missile batteries and a couple lasers while the other has half a dozen lasers. (Can't remember which is which right now.) And the colony ship is your basic large hull with a colonization special. Pretty standard default designs. You can of course go and design your own ships, but these are what we have to begin the game.

Also, note that with ships selected the game highlights our logistics range with our color, making it obvious which systems can be reached. No need to check every system near the edge of your eyeball estimate of range to see if they are reachable or not. There does not appear to be any equivalent of extended fuel tanks or scout class ships. Your logistics range is a hard limit for all ships.

The obvious first target to explore is the yellow star to Sol's south, as the blue and red stars are not likely to have very good worlds. I could split up my ships and explore multiple systems, but Dominus Galaxia has independent forces guarding more attractive worlds. So I send the entire fleet to the yellow star, which at 7 parsecs away will take 4 turns. (Starting engines tech moves at warp 2 along star lanes.)

Sol grows a bit and adds some factories for three clicks of the turn button, then our fleet arrives at the Yellah system. It has a lovely Terran 95 with gold deposits but it is guarded by pirates:

I could hail the pirates and try to negotiate, perhaps buy them off. But I out-number them in war ships and also have the colony ship itself which is armed with a couple lasers and has lots of hit points for this early in the game. Let's try fighting. You can auto-resolve the battle with an option to set how aggressive you want your ships to be, or handle it manually. I have no idea if this is a good idea or not , but I take command myself.

Here is our tactical battle screen. Stacks move by initiative, with the upcoming order shown at the bottom, and things like flanking have a significant effect on chances to hit and potential for critical damage. Your ships have facing, and can expend movement points rotating as well as moving. The game highlights your movement range, and there are some asteroid fields and a couple bigger rocks to use for cover.

Battle scans appear to be automatic -- the lower right panel shows info on one of the enemy stacks. Note that the pirates will never retreat, and will have to be destroyed. We can retreat, but it will take three turns to prep our FTL drives first.

The pirate ships have proton guns (whatever those are, hopefully not too advanced) and the larger ships also have nuke missiles. I am faster and begin advancing, focusing my missiles on the smaller pirates to try to remove some of their weapons before they get a chance to close and fire.

Here is the scrum a few rounds later.

I have destroyed half the pirate ships (one medium and two of the smalls), while they have focused their fire on my colony ship which has taken about one quarter damage (74/100 from the info panel). Note that my FTL is now ready, so if I decided to retreat I could escape. But as long as the pirates focus on the colony ship I am fine; it is tough enough to take it. I am not sure if they want to prevent me from colonizing the system, or how the AI is choosing targets. But it is working to my benefit for now.

A few more rounds and I finish off the pirates, with the colony ship damaged but not in serious danger (about 40 hit points left).

With the pirates gone, I get the opportunity to colonize the system.

First, note the galactic map. Adding Yellah as a colony does not extend my logistics range -- I need to build a space port to do that. It does extend my long range scanners, however -- note that the star to the east of Yellah now shows a star lane that was not present before, and two of the "generic" stars now have their color shown. (Both blue in this case.)

For Yellah itself, note the cost per factory is only 5 BC each. That will increase as the planet industrializes, but it is nice to get that first bit of industry more cheaply. Also note the green stimulus slider at 100% as I boost my new world's production from my treasury. No more approximating how much money to transfer each turn, just set the percentage of the planet's output you want matched from your reserves. Nice.

The "Bolster Population" button allows me to send pop from the homeworld. It brings up this panel:

I only have the homeworld to send pop right now, but later you can choose from multiple worlds to supply pop based on distance or pop available. The panel gives you info on the size of the target world, cost to move the population, and how long it will take them to arrive. You can also choose safety vs. speed if there are multiple paths possible; right now it is just a single jump so no worries. I send 14 pop from Sol to get Yellah started, which should keep Sol in the prime part of the pop growth curve (assuming things work similarly to MOO).

The tool tip for the gold deposits indicates that population on Yellah will produce more revenue than normal. I am not sure what the formula is for that yet. The overall revenue tool tip said I was getting 5 BC/turn from pop when Sol had 50 pop, so maybe it is just per pop? Other things may affect this as well, probably tech later on. I don't know.

So that's the opening of my Dominus Galxia game. I fought some pirates and founded a colony. Next will be some exploration, developing my worlds, and maybe opening up research. I will try to get the next chunk of turns up tomorrow, life permitting. Hopefully this has been interesting.

--

[shallow_thought]

I remember Sullla doing a couple of YouTube vids on DG, and thinking it looked pretty good - and that was a while ago, so I imagine there's been some progress since. I hope to have time to look into this. In the meantime, reading with interest.

[Jeff Graw]

I remember Sullla doing a couple of YouTube vids on DG, and thinking it looked pretty good - and that was a while ago, so I imagine there's been some progress since. I hope to have time to look into this. In the meantime, reading with interest.

Lots of progress. I've been trying to (more like harassing) him to revisit it, especially now that the KS is active

[haphazard1]

After some rather busy opening turns fighting pirates and founding my first colony, the next ten turns were rather quiet. My homeworld and new colony were busy building factories while I sent my Arrow popgun fighters out to explore the local region. The resulting scouting reports revealed a mix of hostile planets and very dry but habitable worlds. The best of the lot was an arid 45 with more gold deposits. A smaller desert world and an ultra poor arid planet were also habitable but less attractive targets for future colonization. An inferno and a toxic with gemstones (greatly boosted revenue from population, nice) would have to wait for better tech.

One very useful thing from MOO that I have not found (maybe it exists and I am just overlooking it?) is a way to show the galactic level map with planetary environments highlighted. Maybe I am expected to get this info visually from the planet orbs shown for explored systems? But this is tough to do if you have the galaxy zoomed out enough to get a wider view -- those orbs are pretty small and my eyes are not what they used to be.

Another feature from MOO that I miss is the list of colonies showing the net change in population for each world. I frequently use this screen to monitor population growth rates and the arrival of transports without having to check individual worlds. Having population change info all in one place would be very helpful. Change in factories would also be nice; I often wished it was present in MOO.

Speaking of population growth rates, they feel slower. Here is my homeworld as the last scouting report came in:

At 61/100 pop Sol should be in the strongest part of the growth curve. But pop growth is slightly less than 2 per year. This may be perfectly normal for DG and I just need to adjust my expectations; I suspect the growth rate reduction of half the waste clean up figure explains part of this. But overall pop growth feels slow compared to MOO.

One really nice feature is the advanced control panel for factory construction. I have Sol set to not overbuild factories, and this turn the planet reached 2 factories/pop. The excess was automatically overflowed into research, opening the various fields. If I had another slider set at Sol such as ships or bases, the overflow would have automatically gone into that. Very handy.

Note that the default for excess spending is research, and not into your reserves. The tax slider can be set for the planet if you want to pump up your treasury. It looks like the whole excess industry spending getting halved but offset at rich and ultra rich planets is gone, so dedicating a rich world to feed the reserve is not useful. Just tax whichever planet(s) you feel can spare some capacity. It is nice that these kinds of workarounds are no longer needed.

Since the factory overflow opened research, here is a look at that screen:

Which techs I am currently researching are listed along with the RP going into each. Note the little arrows below the sliders for biology and propulsion. DG has a momentum mechanic for research spending where increases in funding take time to ramp up to the new level. (Decreases sadly but realistically take immediate effect.) So rapid and frequent shifts in your research allocations will produce losses as research adjusts to the new equilibrium.

The little arrows show that I am only getting about a third of the value of my current spending on biology and propulsion. These will build up to the full spending level over a number of turns; how long is apparently related to your overall research funding level.

I changed my mind after I took the screenshot, and shifted all funding into biology for the improved clean up. Since this was the first turn of funding I should not lose very much, and since I am planning to start building colony ships soon I do not want to commit to steady funding for more fields just yet.

As far as actual techs go, I had some decent options available. I am hoping the improved clean up will not just save some money, but also improve my pop growth rate by reducing the waste spending percentage. That would be a nice double win. More logistics range is an obvious choice so I can reach more worlds, but is not urgent as I have three habitable worlds within reach. Factory Automation for more factories per pop will also be very useful in the future, but not quite yet since I am not near my current limit. Class 2 deflectors is again more for the future than right now. The proton gun (which the pirates had ) is a shield-halving gun type weapon of the neutron pellet gun/mass driver school. Theoretical construction opens the next rung in that field, which does not happen automatically in DG.

Available in my tree but not chosen were initial terraforming options (which apparently work as a percentage of base planet size plus a fixed amount, rather than as just a fixed amount as in MOO), a better battle computer, a defensive spying upgrade computer tech (interesting), better scanners, personal defense shields, and improved missiles.

Here is the other half of my empire:

With the help of plenty of stimulus spending from reserves, Yellah has made excellent progress getting its industry built. Note the factory cost is just now reaching "standard" levels, while the more heavily industrialized homeworld is paying nearly twice the cost per factory at this point. Deciding where to stop building and shift spending is going to take some thought.

With the homeworld having reached 2 factories/pop, I set it to begin building a colony ship. I checked the design screen to see about possibly creating an unarmed colony ship to save a bit of money, and encounter another DG mechanic: new ship designs cost money and time to create. You can theorize freely, but to finalize a design you have to spend money and time. Rushing the process increases the cost, and apparently there is some randomness involved as well. Randomness can be minimized by investing in design quality, but this also costs money. Looks like that heavy laser armed starting design will see more use after all, even though I do not really need weapons on my col ship right now.

A pretty quiet session with just some exploration and opening research, but I had limited time today. Hopefully I can get another update tomorrow or the day after.

[haphazard1]

I found time to play some more turns, so here is another update. These 40 turns were a quiet period of development and expansion for the Terran Empire. The homeworld kept busy building colony ships while Yellah built up its industry, constructed a space port, and began a trickle of research funding.

Population growth is definintely slower than in MOO. Industrial development starts faster due to lower initial factory costs, but ends up being slower overall as the cost per factory climbs past the "default" cost from MOO. I am going to have to think a bit to decide how best to approach developing new planets, and when to shift spending away from more factories into other areas.

I built three colony ships at Sol and claimed an arid 40 with gold deposits at Zyse, a desert 35 at Farpoint, and an ultra poor arid 95 at Goralis. The homeworld provided seed pop for all three, as I discovered that in DG you can not send population transports from a planet that does not have a star port. Another good reason to get those built once your new worlds have enough production.

I do not expect Goralis to be worth much, and am not spending on anything but a slow trickle of research there at the moment. It will need to build a star port eventually for logistics range and so I can use the planet as a source of population, but that can be later once the population has grown larger.

Once Yellah reached two factories per pop I set the 'Do not overbuild' flag and had it dump excess BCs into research. I really like the way this works, as the planet will build just enough factories to keep up with pop growth while putting the rest of its production into whatever else you have set. Very useful, and a nice reduction in micro.

With some regular (if small) funding finally going into tech, I slowly made progress on improved eco. In 2247 it finally completed.

I like the art style in DG for the planets, ships, aliens, etc. But that scientist...her eyes are very creepy. Her right eye looks like she has cataracts. Anyway, improved eco reduced my waste clean up costs and also (as I had hoped) the pop growth penalty associated with them. A nice double boost, and giving significant extra value to all waste clean up related techs.

Since I had ramped up my biology research rate, I continued steady funding in the field and rapidly advanced through Terraforming II tech in about 6 turns. Terraforming techs in DG give a percentage of the planet's base size plus a fixed amount; in this case 10% plus 10. Here is my homeworld with terraforming in progress:

An additional slider appears for terraforming, with the cost per pop and how many pop you can expand the planet's max size shown. I have already boosted Sol by 4 of 21 here; note that the cost per pop is substantially higher than early MOO terraforming costs. I am not sure yet if the cost increases with more terraforming, similar to factory costs, but it would not surprise me.

You can also see the expanded Terran Empire on the galactic map. Massagetae and Starker came into logistics range when Yellah finished its star port and I sent Arrows to explore. Starker is an inferno, but Messagetae has another habitable planet and Yellah has begun another colony ship to claim it. The system appears to be a closed loop with systems I already control, which is interesting; star lanes add some tactical questions on fleet postioning and defense that do not exist in MOO.

Not knowing the entire galaxy from the start of the game certainly changes decision making and exploration priorities. I will need to build a star port at Farpoint soon so I can explore further in that direction. Niko is not habitable so more logistics range is going to be needed to learn what is in that direction.

I think a larger committment to research funding is next, along with setttling Messagetae and continuing the development of my colony worlds. The scaling costs in DG mean that my homeworld is not "maxed out" so I still have decisions to make there on just how much to spend on more factories vs. research or ships. Lots to think about and do, and I have not even seen an alien yet.

[haphazard1]

Brief update, as I have been busy and not had much time to play. I coloized Messagetae as planned and started putting some more funding into research of all fields. One result was increased logistics range which has allowed me to explore a few more stars. I found a minimal planet that I will try to colonize soon, but the big news was my first encounter with an alien race.

My scouting Arrow ran into a Xygob small and medium at Durandal, which has a very nice ocean 90 planet. The Xygob appear to be a sort of sentient fungus? They get a bonus to biology, waste clean up, pop growth, and spying while having a pernalty to weapons research. They were not interested in talking, so I retreated my Arrow. I will need to build some actual ships if I want to claim the system, as well as to protect my own systems.

Fortunately I have some research nearing completion to provide a bit better tech than my starting designs offer. I will have to create a new design or two with my new tech and build up my fleet strength. I also have inferno colonization in progress, which will allow me to settle two more systems. Lots to do, if I can find a bit more time to play.

[haphazard1]

Found time to play 35 more turns this morning. The big news at the end of my previous session was encountering my first alien race, the Xygob.

The Durandal system has a very nice ocean 90 that I would much prefer end up in my control rather than theirs. My Arrow reported back that the Xygob ships appeared to be starting designs very similar to my own. So I began construction of some mediums at Farpoint and began planning an expeditionary force to push the Xygob out of the system. I also began building a colony ship at Yellah to claim the planet. It would take a few turns for this plan to come together, however, so hopefully the Xygob would not be able to claim the planet before I could act.

A couple turns later I was contacted for the first time. I like the graphics for the call from the Xygob leader:

Not much to discuss just yet, but at least they are not immediately hostile. That's something, anyway. Here is what the info screen for the Xygob looks like in the Diplomacy window:

I do not yet have any spying active on the Xygob, so there is just basic info showing the default starting techs. Here is the embassy panel from a couple turns later, after they requested a research treaty:

Relations are neutral for now. The treaty is brand new so it is costing me cash while producing nothing, but that will improve with time. I tried requesting a trade treaty as well, but the Xygob refused any deal. Maybe later they will be more open to some trade.

The intelligence bureau gives a rough idea of the relative status of our empires. (It would be very helpful if this screen included the current turn/year, similar to kyrub's patch to MOO.):

Note the error bars on the info for the Xygob. Spying can reduce these as your agents provide more accurate information. I appear to have a larger empire, but a smaller fleet. I will have to work on my defenses, in case the Xygob get any ideas about expanding into my territory.

The next couple dozen turns pass mostly quietly. I sent an Arrow scouting further north, and found Xygob colony systems so I retreated. The aliens sent a couple ships to probe Farpoint, and I drove them off with missiles from my newly-constructed defense base. Xygob agents did steal Theoretical Construction I from me. The AI is not wasting any time spying against me. I put some funding into spies of my own, plus some counter-espionage.

The other big focus of this set of turns was building more colony ships. My research into Inferno Colonization tech finished, allowing me to grab two more systems. I also claimed the minimal world I had scouted earlier, and a very nice terran planet which I had to bribe some pirates to clear. The pirate fleet was a non-trivial force, with 4 mediums and 13 smalls, so I considered the 600 or so BCs as well worth it.

When my expeditionary force entered the Durandal system, the Xygob were out-matched and retreated. So I was able to colonize the ocean world and begin working to secure this frontier.

By 2288, my Terran Empire had grown to 11 systems :

You also get a peek at my ultra poor world of Goralis. I have not built anything here, just allowed the population to grow and contribute a small but steady trickle to research. The population also pays taxes, so it also produces steady revenue.

Five of my eleven worlds were brand new however, with their seed pop still in transit:

So I have a lot of development and growth ahead to consolidate my current position. Once my new worlds mature a bit, they will need to construct space ports so I can explore the next batch of stars. I am nearing completion of Sub-Light Drives research, so a new generation of faster ship designs is also going to be a priority. And of course I will need to keep a watchful eye on the Xygob....

I think there will be some interesting times ahead.