Random questions of Darwinia

Here you can ask your questions

1. How many levels does Darwinia have?

2. Does it give 'boss viruses'?

3. Why does the engineers look like the little battle ships in 'Tron'?

4. Is it normal that the 'Garden' level is so slow? I can play the first level very well, but the second not.

5. What should you do with the red souls? I know I can collect them with my engineer, but not more.

And congratulations to the maker(s) of the game.
I played it yesterday the first time and it looks very well.

This post has been edited by Frequency 245 : 02 June 2005 - 07:22 AM

  1. There are 10 levels with associated missions, plus 1 extra level.

  2. Much of the game's look was created to give the game a retro feel. For instance, the dudes that drop airstrikes are modelled on space invaders, much of the landscape is modelled on Tron (as well as the engineers), the squadies are straight out of Syndicate, &c.

  3. Umm... Garden is the first level. The second level is Containment. As to 'is it normal for it to be so slow', that depends. Darwinia seems to suffer from performance issues on the Mac, many of which are GPU dependant. If you are not using Tiger, that would be a good place to start, performace increases significantly (probably due to a better OpenGL implementation). Also, reduce your graphics settings, this should help a bit, too. There is a patch that will be out soon -- hopefully performance will be improved post-patch (as well as some other issues). Finally, the force field walls in Containment seem to be very GPU intensive, so some slowdown is not uncommon. You should expect greater slowdown in some of the later levels.

  4. You need to bring souls (red, green, and yellow) to an incubator to be processed. The first incubator is in Containment. If you create an engineer near the large tree, and move that engineer out of the containment field along the isthmus of land that connects it to the rest of the map, the first two buildings that you should encounter are a control tower and an incubator. Once you have captured the control tower with an engineer, you will be able to bring collected souls to the incubator. These souls are slowly recycled into DGs that are loyal to you. You will have to bring them to the tree to complete the mission.

  5. No. Minor Spoiler Alert.
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    Unless you count Soul Destroyers and Spam, in which case, yes. There are some things that are harder than others, and Temple could be seen as a boss level. Meh. shrugs

xander

This post has been edited by darwinian : 02 June 2005 - 10:24 AM

darwinian, on Jun 2 2005, 03:07 PM, said:

Spam
View Post

Giving a spoiler alert would be good, xander...

I've an Apple G4 2*450 Mhz computer, OS X and not Tiger. I perform all the riquirements, but don't perform the graphic settings since I have Darwinia.

In how many levels are force field walls? Only in Containment (I meant Containment, the first level worked perfectly)?

Frequency 245, on Jun 2 2005, 03:24 PM, said:

I've an Apple G4 2*450 Mhz computer, OS X and not Tiger. I perform all the riquirements, but don't perform the graphic settings since I have Darwinia.

In how many levels are force field walls? Only in Containment (I meant Containment, the first level worked perfectly)?
View Post

Containment is the only level with the force field walls. However, there is significant slowdown in later levels due to larger levels and more AIs running around. You did not post what kind of graphics card you are using, but I would expect to see serious performance issues in the last several levels. I am running the game on a 1 Ghz G4 PowerBook, and things became nealy unplayable by the end. Granted, your graphics card may be more powerful than the on board laptop card, but I would still expect framerates to drop through the floor by the end. Hopefully, the patch will clear this up. Also, I must once again strongly recommend that you upgrade to Tiger.

xander

I will look if the other levels slow down, too, but first I must do the Containment level.

6. I've killed the viruses in Containment but I've also made the most of the Darwinians to Officiers and the souls of the viruses disappeard. Must I start Containment again and how? What should I do now? Please help!

This post has been edited by Frequency 245 : 03 June 2005 - 08:49 AM

Frequency 245, on Jun 2 2005, 04:35 PM, said:

I will look if the other levels slow down, too, but first I must do the Containment level.

6. I've killed the viruses in Containment but I've also made the most of the Darwinians to Officiers and the souls of the viruses disappeard. Must I start Containment again and how? What should I do now? Please help!
View Post

  1. If you have killed off all of the virii, and do not have enough DGs under the tree, you will have to reset the level. Do this by pressing (ESC) and clicking on 'Reset Location'. This will take you out to the World Map and reset the level. Also, officers != DGs. An officer under the tree will not count towards the goal. It only takes a few officers to complete the level (it is possible to do it with only one, I tend to use four or five). Here is one way that you can do it:

First, promote a DG to an officer have him give goto orders to some point that is closer to the tree. As DGs can't swim, you will want to make sure that they can get to the goto point without going through any water. Now, create a second officer, and place him where the other officer is pointing. Have him give goto orders to a point even closer to the goal. &c. &c. This is an officer chain -- a kind of waypoint system. When a DG is hatched (produced? born?) from the incubator, the first officer will tell him to go to the second officer. The second officer will tell him to go to the third officer. &c. &c. until the DG gets to where he is going. At the end of the chain, it is good to have one last officer whose goto order is just under his feet. This will keep the DGs from wandering. To give him goto orders under his feet, make sure that he is not directly where you want him to be, give him the goto order, then move him to the location.

I realize that much of this is not terribly clear. Sorry. I am lazy and don't feel like trying to make it any more clear.

xander

I've now round 200 Darwinians, but don't know how to transport them from one isle to another.
I know I can use this transport-satellite-stations for it, but I don't know how to use them!
Where must the Darwinians be? Under the big tree?
Does the Darwinians at the start of the level aready matter? Must they go under the tree, too?

To use a Radar Dish, you must first capture it with an engineer. Once you have captured it, hit the spacebar to deselect any unit that you may have selected. Click on the Radar Dish to select it. A trageting reticule should appear. The dish will aim anywhere you click. If you click on another Rader Dish that is pointing at you (more or less), it will create a one-way connection to that dish. If an officer orders DGs to the dish, they will use it and be transported.

Let may make a few suggestions:

  1. You may want to use the search function. Many of the questions that you have asked have been covered on these forums before.

  2. Have a look at http://forums.introv....co.uk/darwinia . Search them, read through them, whatever. Even more of your questions have been answered there.

xander