Dark Nova uses some dramatic changes from stock SEIV. Some are geared around specific settings in the game as well as the empire selections.

****REQUIREMENTS****
Dark Nova is not a stand alone mod. For good or bad, it utilizes several other sources to fully develope the range of things that have come together.
-ImageMod- First and formost Dark Nova had the ImageMod incorperated early on in its creation. You NEED all the ImageMod packs to get all the images used in Dark Nova.

-FQM Deluxe- FQM Deluxe is a recent addition to Dark Nova and has enhanced the mod dramaticly since then. FQM Standard will work, but you won't get all the pretty system pics that FQM Deluxe provides.

-SoundMod- The SoundMod probably isn't totally nessesary as it only really affects some of the new weapons in Tactical Combat. If you are playing Multiplayer or don't have sounds on, it won't make a differance one way or the other. Some items may just not have a sound.

-Neo Standard shipssets?- Dark Nova does NOT use the Neo-standard shipset system. It has it's own. That said, most Neo-standard shipsets will work fine with Dark Nova as I have tried to overlap the names of as many ships sizes as possible. There are several Dark Nova compliant shipsets out there. See the included Excel file for the list that I am aware of. Standard Shipsets work just fine.

****GAME SETUP****
QUADRANT- DN4 uses FQM for quadrant selecion. The settings.txt has been adjusted for larger than standard galaxy sizes. Unless there are lots of players, suggestion is the play on a medium size map. Large maps will result in up to 255 systems. Also, DN4 has MANY unique ruins added. To get the most out of these ruins, Old and Ancient galaxies are primed to provide a substantial amount of ruins without putting in an over-abundance. Though DN4 will still work fine with any other galaxy setup using FQM.
Recommondation: Medium to Large size, Old to Ancient galaxy.

EVENTS- DN4 drastically changes the way that events work. When an event is triggered, SEIV looks through the events.txt file and picks an entry at random based on the Maximum Severity selected for the game. For each Catastrophic event entry there is 2 copies of each High events, 3 copies of each Medium events, and 4 copies of each Low events. Result: when an event happens there is a 10% chance that it will be Catastrophic, 20% High, 30% Medium, and 40% Low. What's more, DN4 also incorperates positive events!
Recommondation: Event Frequencey= High, Max Severity= Catastrophic. 

AI SETTINGS: DN4 includes modified TDM AI's. They function quite well except for a few small items. All in all, the AI's should still give a good run for their money.
Recommondation: none.

PLAYER SETTINGS: DN4 makes no changes to anything that may affect the settings for players. Totally up to you.

PLAYERS: DN4 does have TDM AI's that have been adjusted to work with the mod. If you are experianced with fighting TDM AI's then set the difficulty and such where you like. If not, try it first before setting the game too hard. The AI's do not like to trade colony techs very easily. Even with each other. While they will eventually develope other colony types from their own, they do so very slowly. 

VICTORY CONDITIONS: Whatever you feel like. Nothing in the Mod affects Victory Conditions.

GAME SETTINGS: The settings.txt file has been altered so that the default max number of ships and units in space is 20,000. Because the mod uses a very extensively altered tech tree, allowing view of entire tech tree is probably a good idea. The mod is also designed around trading techs through ships to be analyzed rather than simply gifting them to others, though not required, having tech gifts off tends to result in a better game experiance. Especially in a Multiplayer game. Ruins are a big part of this mod. With over 90 possible unique components/facilites available, turning this feature off would seriously hamper the overall game. v4.20 also added a new system for mounts on colony modules that makes it so that you can still trade your colony techs, but rock natives will always find it more difficult to colony an Ice or Gas colony and vise versa.
Recommondations: See entire Tech Tree, Do Not allow tech gifts, Ruins on, Colonize any planet type.

MECHANICS: Nothing in the mod affects the mechanics of the game process.

****EMPIRE SETUP****
There are only 2 aspects of Empire creation that really are altered in Dark Nova: Culture and Advanced Traits.
CULTURE: DN4 uses the balanced culture types from Journe's Highliner Mod. 

ADVANCED TRAITS: Dark Nova uses colony mounts to retain the value of colony ship hulls. Since v4.20 takes this a step further with Colony type Racial Traits (Rock Native, Ice Native, Gas Native). Unlike other mods where these racial types prevent trade of dis-similar colony types, DN4 simply uses colony type mounts to make ice and gas planets slightly more difficult to colonize for a rock native and vise versa. When choosing your Racial Traits, you MUST select one of these planet Native traits (all cost 0 racial points), but ONLY SELECT the ONE appropriate to your race selected home planet type.

Another minor aspect to the mod is that all the racial types (organic, temporal, etc) have had something added to them except for Psychic. Not because I don't like Psychic (which I don't) but simply because I could not think of something appropriate to add to them. If you have ideas, please let me know.  

Dark Nova v4.23 added something new to DN4: Research into Resupply will eventually grant Advanced Resupply System, which basicly adds repair ability to resupply bases but also has another aspect. Advanced Resupply Systems can also enhance Space Yard construction rates! Similar to other mods, what you will need to do to take advantage of these is to build a lower tech version of the Resupply facilities (Resupply Depot or Resupply Base), then upgrade them to an Advanced Supply System and it will provide the addition to your existing Space Yards. Two things to note: first, you Must have a Space Yard already built before you upgrade and second, you must remember to build a lower tech version next. As long as you keep building lower tech version, you can keep doing upgrades and further improve your build rate on that planet.

Beyond these recommondations/instructions the rest of the game/empire setup is totally up to you.

I hope you enjoy the mod and if you find any errors or have any suggestions, please let me know.

Nick (bearclaw)
pelldom@primus.ca