Distant Worlds Universe: Beginner Guide - Help and Tips

Distant Worlds Universe

This is a very basic introduction to a few concepts in Distant Worlds Universe. I am giving recommendations for beginners that are playing as humans, starting a pre-warp society without ships or bases to begin. This is where I recommend starting your DW experience.

Game: Distant Worlds Universe 1.9.5.4

Create a new game

This will give you a good basic game setup for beginners to learn Distant Worlds Universe from the ground up.

• Playstyle (page 1)
  • Custom game as standard empire
• The Galaxy
  • Make sure all is set to normal then edit the following
  • Pirates: none
  • Star Amount: Standard
  • Physical Size: Medium
  • Expansion: Pre-Warp
  • Aggression: Optional (peaceful for first time)
  • Difficulty: Optional (easy for first time)
• Colonization and Territory
  • Use defaults and recommended settings
• Race Screen
  • Human
• Your Empire Screen
  • Home System: Normal (excellent for first game)
  • Size: Starting
  • Tech level: Pre-Warp
  • Government: Republic
• Other Empires
  • Auto generate 10 empires
• Victory Conditions
  • Territory: 30%
  • Population: 30%
  • Economic: 30%
  • Allow race specific victory conditions

Buildings

Custom Designs

You do not need to use custom designs, but they will make you win harder.

• Baby Space Port (builds MUCH faster, good for new worlds)
  • Copy the design of a small space port
  • delete all weapons and armor
  • save as "baby space port"
  • When you get Medical Center and Recreation Center, include them in this design!

Planetary Wonders

Work in progress

Research Facilities

• Build 1 research facility to start- hightech or energy
• Build 1 of each type of research facility at your home planet before you colonize more
• Never build more than 1 type of each facility at your world
• Use the button on the left "Potential research locations" to find NEARBY planets to build stations at

Space Ports

• You can Retrofit any space port to a larger one by right clicking
• Start with a small space port to get your ships out fast, then retrofit to a larger space port

Ships

Construction Ships

• Build two construction ships immediately and send them to the closest worlds to build mining stations
• When you get hyperdrive technology finished researching build a third construction ship
• Build up to 1 construction ship per planet from now on, they will travel as needed

Exploration

• Send your first two ships to the planets in your system with 3 white squares near the icon then let them automate
  • The 3 squares indicates ruins and one of them contains hyperdrive technology (warp field precursors)
• After you have hyperdrive, ramp up to 8 exploration ships

Diplomacy

Pirates

• Pay off pirates at the beginning of the game, up until you colonize your second world
• The pirates will build pirate bases at your worlds eventually if you maintain protection arrangements

Research

I recommend a focus on these areas

Weapons Research

• Beam Weapons - good for stations and ships
• Fighters - good for defense bases and space stations

Energy Research

• Energy Collectors - First order of business, allows ships to collect energy bypassing reactors
• Space Construction - Do the first couple of these after hyperdrive
• Hyperdrive - Very very important or all your ships are slow

HighTech Research

• Medical Systems - For population growth
• Entertainment Systems - For population happiness (increases growth too)

Economy and Money

Tax Rate

• Tax rate is not for getting more money- it is to balance civilian vs state spending
• The lower the tax rate, the faster your population grows
• If you lower the tax rate, you still get that money when civilians spend it on ships
• Early Game: Tax rate balances civilian ship building with state ship building, you want it VERY low to get population
• Later Game: You use tax rate to force people to migrate to new worlds. High tax on homeworld and low tax on new worlds

External Links

• Matrix Games Forums Beginner Tips