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While the Shadows Rising expansion focusses a lot on pirates there are also many additions and improvements that relate to standard empire gameplay.
In Shadows Rising, your interaction with independent colonies as a standard planetary empire is now richer and more detailed. This includes the following areas:
Independent colonies post contracts to obtain precious artifacts or destroy threats
Independent colonies are often much harder to invade due to defending troops and facilities
Independent colonies can eventually become full planetary empires in their own right, expanding out into the stars by building their own bases and colonizing new planets.
Contracts are paid missions that are offered by one faction and carried out by another faction for a fee.
Practically anyone can offer contracts: independent colonies, pirate factions and Shadowports.
But planetary empires can also use the contract system to get pirates to work for them, as long as they can afford to pay them for their services.
As a planetary empire you can see the Available Contracts list (offered contracts) and the Accepted Contracts list (contracts that you have accepted and your contracts that others have accepted). These Contracts lists show in a new section at the far-right of the Control Center. These lists have several options for filtering and sorting the contracts.
As a standard empire you can create contracts that other factions can then accept and carry out for you.
This can include tasks like:
Destroying an enemy target, either a base or a specific ship
Capturing an enemy base or ship
Defending a location for 2 years
Clearing all space creatures from a location to make it safe for construction
Delivering resources to a base or colony. You define which resource and the amount required
To initiate the contract you select the target, e.g. an enemy base. You then use the ‘Create new Contract’ button under the Selection Panel to open the ‘Offer Contract’ screen where you can specify the details of the contract you want to create for that location and how much you are willing to pay for it, e.g. Destroy an enemy mining station for 500 credits.
Contracts also have an expiration date. If a contract is accepted but is not completed before the expiration date then no reward is paid, and there may even be a penalty of some kind, such as decreased diplomatic relations with the offerer.
Destroy and Capture contracts can be a very effective tool for harming an enemy without getting your own hands dirty, i.e. you get a 3rd-party pirate faction to carry out the attacks while maintaining deniability for yourself.
Resource Delivery contracts are a useful way to boost a colony with otherwise unobtainable luxury resources. They can also plug a gap in your resource mining network.
Privateering allows planetary empires to pay pirates to target their enemies by destroying the ships and stations of a particular faction. The pirates get paid immediately as they destroy a ship or base of the enemy.
A Privateering Report is viewable from the Diplomacy screen under the Status section. It shows the number of ships and bases destroyed and money spent for the current year and previous years.
Planetary empires can ask pirate factions to perform Privateering against another faction from the Diplomacy screen.
A privateering agreement can be cancelled at any time by either party. Planetary empires might choose to do this when they can no longer afford to pay for Privateering, or when their relations improve with the target faction.
Initiating a privateering agreement will add a bonus to relations. Cancelling a privateering agreement will slightly harm relations.
A key component of pirate economies is siphoning income from colonies that they influence. Thus pirates attempt to increase their influence at colonies by parking their ships nearby, by raiding the colony and ultimately by building hidden pirate facilities.
This happens at independent colonies, but it can also happen at empire-owned colonies. So as a planetary empire you must root out this pirate influence.
The first step in preventing pirate activity from taking hold is to chase away pirate ships from your colonies and prevent any raids against them.
If pirates do happen to take root on your colonies, you still have ways to remove them. When you detect a pirate facility at one of your colonies (based on your exploration level of the colony) you can initiate a ground battle to destroy it by selecting the facility and clicking the ‘Eliminate Pirate Influence’ button within the facilities tab on the Colony screen.
Cultivating good relations with pirates opens up trade options with them. They will be willing to trade more valuable items with you, including research, through the Diplomacy trade screen.
Although Shadowports are mainly focussed on helping pirates, they can also be useful to planetary empires if you make friends with them.
Once your relations become friendly, they will progressively trade more valuable items with you, including research, through the Diplomacy trade screen. These can be very expensive options, but allow you to obtain knowledge of special locations and some very high-level tech.
When you are friendly with Shadowports they will also avoid creating attack contracts against you for other pirates to carry out. Note that Shadowports are generally distrustful of empires, so will require more effort from empires to get on their good side.
Attacking a Shadowport or destroying one will earn you a major reputation and relationship penalty not just with other Shadowports but also with most Pirate factions. Shadowports are essential to the future of Pirates around the galaxy and thus they are not considered acceptable targets.
Shadows Rising also introduces several new types of Intelligence Missions. These are available to spies for both pirates and standard empires.
Capture Character – uses Sabotage skill
Rescue imprisoned Character – uses Sabotage skill
Steal Artifact – uses Espionage skill
Ship equipment are objects that can be carried onboard a ship to enhance its capabilities by providing various bonuses. Equipment is typically obtained from Shadowports and is a favourite of Lone Pirates.
However even ships from standard empires can use Equipment. A full list of all equipment in your empire can be seen in the Equipment screen in the Colonies section of the Control Center.
As a standard empire you would likely obtain equipment by capturing pirate ships that have them onboard. There is also salvageable equipment within some ancient debris fields.
Shadows Rising includes two new unique planet types: Algaic Forest and Rocky Desert Volcanic.
These new planet types are not especially hospitable and are not native for any existing alien population. But sometimes they may have a high enough quality to be habitable.
Algaic Forest planets are covered in a dense morass of fungal vegetation. Many of these fungii are red or orange, causing the distinctive red color of these planets. The shallow oceans are dominated by algae and fungal weed, making them also red.
These planets have two new resources:
Yuterre Fungal Spores which provide immense health benefits to most sentient species and temporarily increase mental capacity, often enabling amazing insights into advanced mathematics and geometry.
Karakulas Spider Venom which can be used as a potent antibiotic, reducing the severity of most plagues and infections.
Rocky Desert Volcanic planets are covered by vast deserts of dust and ash. Other regions are more active, with erupting volcanoes, lava lakes and deep canyons. Underground caverns and tunnels are common, often with molten rivers of lava flowing through them.
These planets also have two new resources:
Akridos Dragon Skin which is prized for its use in clothing of various kinds.
Ash Worm Pearls which are valued for their medicinal properties, reputedly slowing aging and extending lifespan.
While much of Shadows Rising focuses on pirate gameplay, there are still many improvements to gameplay as a standard planetary empire that should enrich the game for any player, whether they are taking their first steps into Distant Worlds 2 or are a returning veteran looking for new ways to explore and interact with the galaxy.
This concludes our series of Dev Diaries exploring the Shadows Rising expansion for Distant Worlds 2. We hope these have been informative and prepare you for the challenges ahead.
The Galaxy lives on…
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