Zedd
A New Beginning
Welcome!
I'll do a quick introduction for those of you who don't know much about DarkGalaxy yet. I am Zedd, one of the two creators of DarkGalaxy. I am the head programmer and jointly came up with all the concepts used in the game. My 'job' if you like, is to keep the main game itself running, balanced and bug-free!
Working alongside me on the game is Scan, who is essentially the 'Creative Director'. He designed most of the screens and graphics you see, as well as programming this portal and the in-game alliances section.
We've put a lot of effort into getting this version of DG ready and I am frankly amazed at the incredible response we've had since we released DarkGalaxy (V2) just a week and a half ago! People flooded in, and within days of release, we recorded record numbers of people visiting the site and joining.
I hope you enjoy playing DG as much as we enjoyed writing it, remember - it is still under constant development to ensure your gaming experience gets better and better. We intend to add new features, buildings and ships as the game progresses - just to add that little bit more that you don't get in other games.
If you are having trouble with the game, very shortly I will start writing articles to help you on your way in the game and to point out any useful strategies I've come across.
Thats all from me for now, enjoy the game!
Zedd (2002)
Speed Game (25/26th May)
Firstly i'd like to say a big thank you to all those who took part in the speed round this past weekend. The largest number of premium users took part, making it an enjoyable experience for all. This is my personal account of the events that took place that fateful weekend :)
We started off having a few teething problems with the new signups system Scan had spent time meticulously compiling days earlier. A few users were not in the list, and a few did not receive the emails in time, so we had to do a bit of manual entry before being able to begin the turns in earnest.
The turns were set to 20 seconds for the entirety of Saturday, and I'm sure everyone will agree it made the game trundle along quite nicely. At the speed it was going though, you had to be careful. If you missed just a few minutes, you could find yourself lagging quite far behind.
For a bit of fun i pulled the number of planets per system down to two, and limited the number of Sectors to four. This guaranteed conflict would occur frequently and make for a far more interesting game than previously (where there were a full 40 sectors in the galaxy!).
I decided to take a very active role in the game and created my own alliance. Skute named it "12 Monkeys" and we set about recruiting a small set of members. A late addition to the crowd was Lyza, who after some coaxing decided he'd join us. Cadavre was not pleased (as his was the alliance Lyza had been in), and it turned out that the loss would ultimitately be his alliance's downfall. Our main rival (from the previous game) was again AoGPS - Army of Green Plastic Soldiers.
When the game started, I followed the standard strategy, and got my ShipYard as soon as possible. After quickly colonising the second planet in my system, I set about the task of building the ShipYard Level 2 so I could move into sector three.
All credit to Sark, who managed the feat before me and indeed had colonised three planets to my first two. I set about getting a line of four planets, and decided to keep it clean and just use them. My strategy from that point on was simple. I was going to mine the four planets to death and produce combat ships constantly to fuel our alliance's war effort.
For the rest of Saturday, while our members where getting themselves ready, I shot to no. 1 in the rankings and ended up playing a game of cat and mouse with Sark in Sector three. I used my fleet to sweep through hostile systems wiping out any enemy ships i happened to come across. Being the largest player in that sector, most of the fleets I caught were Sark's.
On Sunday things really were hotting up. The two free Sectors (three & four) were virtually full by this point. I assisted Scan in taking a few of Sark's planets early on (he set himself up as a soldier factory) and along with Lyza cutting through the planets, 12 Monkeys had firmly established its superiority. With Skute, Ogre, Athris, Craig, Citrus and the other members starting to make their mark I pointed everyone to turn their attention to Sector four.
I realised almost too late that there were still a collection of Sark's planets producing in Sector three and spotted a gigantic fleet making its way from one planet to the next, growing in size as it picked up more ships. Having learned his lesson the day before Sark was being a lot more careful and not just flying around arbitrarily.
I noted that my fleet was simply not big enough to take his so set all my planets producing immediately, sending my fleet to pick up all the stragglers. Just in time, I sent my now huge fleet to his last known position. The two fleets clashed in what was for me the most epic battle of the game, and after the flames has subsided and the repair crews had been in to salvage the scrap, Sark's fleet lay in ruins amoung my surviving ships.
From this point i started taking less and less a role in the game leaving the now gigantic Lyza and our other members to wreak havoc in Sector four, supporting Craig and Scan in a couple of important invasions.
One of the late invasions I participated in with Scan is of most note. He scanned a world, spotting that it had a score 16Mil! This had to be due to fleets attached to the world (as it is very hard to breach the 5Mil mark with just structures/colonists). Heading straight for it, I expected to encounter stiff, if not fatal, resistance from the planet's defending fleet only to find none present. A turn or two later, Scan arrived and promptly massacred the planet's population to gain another victory for our side. Although Scan's score only bobbed up a little, Zerg (the planet's owner) was cast from the top ten with the loss of those massive fleets.
This is a very important rule for the players of the current game, keep all your most valuable ships in your homeworld fleets. When a world is invaded, all fleets attached to it are lost, and this can be avoided by using the uninvadable homeworld fleets.
With the game nearly over, Scan decided to try for a high spot and built like a daemon on his 14 planets! As the game closed he shot past me, finally settling for the number two spot below Lyza (firmly no.1 for a while).
Thank you again to all who played - and Cadavre, Skute, Infinity - try and play for more of the round next time eh guys ;) Less women/drink, more fightin! I'll do my best to cure all those little annoyances people had (radar/invasion) for next time.
I finish off with a battle report and the final rankings :D
SEE YOU ALL NEXT TIME!
Zedd
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Planet: Trader Marks
Coords: 1:3:21:2
Zedd's (losses):
Fighter 13,207 (4,956)
Bomber 6,969 (388)
Sark's (losses):
Fighter 9,809 (7,235)
Bomber 2,027 (1,362)
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1 Lyza 136,419,796
2 Scan 75,474,323
3 Bobs Cat 67,006,466
4 Athris 61,127,496
5 Zedd 59,196,007
6 Ogre 37,001,653
7 SpydeR 33,167,291
8 Citrus 30,003,976
9 Mythor 26,926,015
10 Angel 26,606,056
11 Zarg 23,046,691
12 Lord Vyron 22,348,940
13 Morfang 19,417,807
14 Gardener 18,008,863
15 evilbob 16,638,396
16 FRoGuLoX 15,356,560
17 Sark 14,177,002
18 ASHTAROTH 14,131,515
19 Cadavre 12,457,167
20 Baggins 12,343,074
Zedd (2002)