Quote
The critically acclaimed 4X space strategy epic Distant Worlds returns.
A brand new 64-bit engine, full 3D graphics and a state-of-the-art interface will take the franchise to the next level. Distant Worlds 2 releases later this year: the galaxy lives on.
Distant Worlds 2 is a vast, pausable real-time 4X space strategy game. Experience the full depth and detail of turn-based strategy, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. The Universe is Yours!
Huge galaxies with up to 2,000 star systems and tens of thousands of planets, moons, and asteroids are yours to explore and exploit, whether peacefully through mining and diplomacy or by conquest! The complex process of generating a galaxy ensures that every new game will be different and the many galaxy setup options ensure incredible replayability as well as the ability to have your game be just the way you like it.
Features:
Galaxies are so deep, fun and immersive that you won't want to finish the game. Choose from seven playable base game factions which cover a wide variety of playstyles. Build, expand and improve your empire while playing through the storylines, with victory conditions or in an open-ended sandbox mode.
Each galaxy is packed with life and activity. Encounter other empires, independent alien colonies, traders, pirates and space monsters. Explore star systems, asteroid fields, galactic storms and black holes. Discover evidence of civilizations long since past, uncovering secrets about the galaxy's troubled history.
Intelligent automation allows you to tailor the game to your preferred playstyle and scale. Decide how much you want to control and which gameplay areas suit you best. You can limit your focus to just one ship or expand it all the way up to everything in a vast galactic empire. Let your advisors and the intelligent automation handle the rest.
Extensive In-Game Help is included. Exhaustive, built-in, context-sensitive help is always only a single key-press away. Press F1 at any time for a detailed explanation of the current game screen, your currently selected item, and so on, or just browse the complete "Galactopedia".
Distant Worlds 2 gameplay areas cover the entirety
of what a 4X strategy game should include
Explore: Unique discoveries possible in many systems as well as special hidden locations throughout the galaxy, some connected to the storyline (if enabled). You are not the first to travel to the stars in the history of the galaxy and much of what remains from previous eras can be discovered. Everything from space creatures and lost planetary ruins to unique ancient ships, forgotten artifacts, and even old battlefields or hidden threats can be found for those who look long enough in the void.
Expand and Exploit: Colony ships will carry your people to the stars, once you have found planets that are habitable for them, or researched the technologies to make other planet types suitable for colonization. You can also build terraforming facilities to further improve your colonies. Construction ships will allow you to build Mining Stations, Mining Ships will mine where stations are lacking, there are even Resort Bases which allow for galactic tourism at scenic locations. Happy populations with good resource availability and welcoming migration policies (or migration treaties) will encourage more people to travel to your worlds on passenger ships.
Exterminate: If peaceful co-existence is impossible or just not what you were after anyway, there are many other options, ranging from sabotage and inciting rebellions to space battles between ships and fleets; the blockade of systems to full planetary invasions and conquest; or orbital bombardment, enslavement, and extermination of hostile populations and even actual destruction of planets.
Excellent...i guess it will be released this year.
Just take my money! :smitten:
Yes!!
https://www.twitch.tv/slitherinegroup
Distant Worlds 2 | Gameplay Reveal [Starting at 5pm GMT]
Stream starting in a few minutes.
Nice. Something I can use my MG anniversary coupon on next year. O0
I really liked the first one and I'm sure I'll like this too, but I'm ready for a new take on 4X games. I think Terra Invicta will scratch the itch for me. I'm kinda over the avian species, the humans, the more beautiful human empath/telepaths, the insectoids, the dinosaurs, the space bears and sentient seafood species that every space 4x comes with. And god help me if I have to start another space 4x with two FTL scouts and a colony ship while having to research infantry.
Quote from: hellfish6 on January 26, 2021, 02:02:36 PM
I really liked the first one and I'm sure I'll like this too, but I'm ready for a new take on 4X games. I think Terra Invicta will scratch the itch for me. I'm kinda over the avian species, the humans, the more beautiful human empath/telepaths, the insectoids, the dinosaurs, the space bears and sentient seafood species that every space 4x comes with. And god help me if I have to start another space 4x with two FTL scouts and a colony ship while having to research infantry.
Well said, ah, er, written....! edit: I checked out Terra Invicta on Steam and it looks quite promising/interesting.
Quote from: Rayfer on January 26, 2021, 02:30:23 PM
Quote from: hellfish6 on January 26, 2021, 02:02:36 PM
I really liked the first one and I'm sure I'll like this too, but I'm ready for a new take on 4X games. I think Terra Invicta will scratch the itch for me. I'm kinda over the avian species, the humans, the more beautiful human empath/telepaths, the insectoids, the dinosaurs, the space bears and sentient seafood species that every space 4x comes with. And god help me if I have to start another space 4x with two FTL scouts and a colony ship while having to research infantry.
Well said, ah, er, written....! edit: I checked out Terra Invicta on Steam and it looks quite promising/interesting.
ditto. Added it to my wish/watchlist. O0
Quote from: Rayfer on January 26, 2021, 02:30:23 PM
Quote from: hellfish6 on January 26, 2021, 02:02:36 PM
I really liked the first one and I'm sure I'll like this too, but I'm ready for a new take on 4X games. I think Terra Invicta will scratch the itch for me. I'm kinda over the avian species, the humans, the more beautiful human empath/telepaths, the insectoids, the dinosaurs, the space bears and sentient seafood species that every space 4x comes with. And god help me if I have to start another space 4x with two FTL scouts and a colony ship while having to research infantry.
Well said, ah, er, written....! edit: I checked out Terra Invicta on Steam and it looks quite promising/interesting.
I'll echo those sentiments. You'd think somebody could come up with something more creative after Sid Meier's original concept 35 years ago!
In all fairness to DWU, they actually did this: You started out with two scouts and one Constructor ship , ALL of them S(lower)TL!! And colony ships didn't happen for a while, nor did Starbases or defense platforms. The Mining Platforms and Science Stations were all available at the start, but when you built them in other star systems, they were obviously very subject to depredations from the much-stronger-than-you pirate warlords early on! :knuppel2:
DWU also introduced a nice wrinkle where there are a few major race factions in the game: Warm-blooded bipeds, cold-blooded bipeds, and insectoid species each like one another more than the other factions. It's not impossible to have allies (or even bring citizens into your Empire via migration) that spanned multiple factions and races, but it was a lot... more complicated. Nothing was worse than having a solid chunk of your own citizenry decide that they liked another Empire more than you! :timeout:
DWU is among my Top 5 all time favorite games. The only way I don't buy this is if the early previews scream bloody murder at how bad it is.
Wish I had the attention span to really get into 4x games.
Yeah, this will be a day 1 buy for me. What the last one brought to the table was pretty unique with the private sector resource management. Logistics was a huge, and well done part of the game, with a lack of proper materials bringing one's industries to a halt. Ship design, which was already highly customizable, would need to be planned around one's available resources and tech, and of course, what one's opponent was bringing to the table.
The real time play always felt right with DW, much like it does with the EU engine. The excitement of watching a fleet jump in and engage an enemy force was always awesome, and the fleet customization options available for managing huge defense fleets or offense fleets functioned great. Finding a remote pirate fleet hideout, after they had been blackmailing me and wasting my fleets and bases for many in game years was fun too. The ability to be able to play the pirate factions was an awesome addition to boot.
I can't wait to see what they can do with an updated engine and graphics.
WOW. :o
Day 1. For sure.
It's sounding really fantastic, but God damn, that UI is very cluttered and busy.
Well, you wanted Aurora-depth in a handsome package, so there you go!
Quote from: Yskonyn on January 27, 2021, 06:29:47 PM
Well, you wanted Aurora-depth in a handsome package, so there you go!
Remains to be seen whether it has Aurora depth, but I'm investigating.
UI doesn't really bother me yet upon viewing this. Maybe it'll feel different if/when I play. I like having micro sometimes, but I've never known what the line between good micro and bad micro is. Aurora has tons of micro, but once you know what you're doing (which is the real fight in that game) it kinda makes sense. Then in HOI4, which I hate and love in equal parts, I keep having to redraw fronts and battle lines whenever my troops encounter a lake.
Ehhh, sorry guys. As my above comments highlight, I'm a huge fan of Distant Worlds. But comparing DW to Aurora is like comparing Age of Wonders to Dominions 5.... Both are great games, and of the same genre, but I don't think there would be any argument as far as which is deeper. Which is fine, because that's not everyone's cup of tea.
I've got great hopes for DW2 as an awesome 4x, and it will excel in many ways that Aurora doesn't. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the depth to be anywhere near Aurora... they are almost 2 different animals.
Just finished watching the clip on the economy UI. Got to say, I'm pretty impressed so far.
I'm not always a fan of having information bars stuck on the side of the screen and needing to be scrolled a lot. I love the ability to be able to stick a screen front and center and expand or shrink it as I choose.
Once I got over that though, there appears to be a lot more transparency about what's cooking with the economy, which is a very welcome addition from the first game. Oftentimes, in the first DW, it seemed like I didn't really realize a problem until I started seeing backups at my stations, and then had to do some fishing around to see what the bottleneck was in the resource pipeline. The new system seems to show pretty quickly how much of a resource is available, what is currently running a deficit, how much a given resource is worth on the market. I think I even saw that stations can now reserve a stockpile of certain resources!!! That's an incredibly awesome and welcome feature.
Also, I think I noticed that weapons systems now have firing arcs in the ship design screen!?!
Very excited by what I saw from that first video. Please keep them coming!
Quote from: Dammit Carl! on January 26, 2021, 06:35:25 PM
Wish I had the attention span to really get into 4x games.
Checkout a boardgame called "Space Empires: 4X" - I do NOT have the attention span to play 4X PC games. The idea of loading up Civ and understanding all of the intricacies of tech, etc. makes me lightheaded.
But Space Empires: 4x? Plays like a 4X PC game in under 2 hours. There's even a solo module that has you playing against a bot/AI. It is LOADS of fun.
https://www.gmtgames.com/p-762-space-empires-4th-printing.aspx
Quote from: Myrmidon on January 27, 2021, 09:08:21 PM
Ehhh, sorry guys. As my above comments highlight, I'm a huge fan of Distant Worlds. But comparing DW to Aurora is like comparing Age of Wonders to Dominions 5.... Both are great games, and of the same genre, but I don't think there would be any argument as far as which is deeper. Which is fine, because that's not everyone's cup of tea.
I've got great hopes for DW2 as an awesome 4x, and it will excel in many ways that Aurora doesn't. I don't think it's reasonable to expect the depth to be anywhere near Aurora... they are almost 2 different animals.
True. I didn't mean it in the literal sense, though.
I don't think Aurora has an equal when it comes to depth and detail. If only it had more graphics and its patches wouldnt require a new game.
It's going to take some time to learn and master but this is going to be a fine game i intend to play for a long time...
I'm really digging the information that we are getting about DW2. I like what I see. I'm not put off by the UI. I think it is organized and they have done a great job at trying to manage the huge amount of information that a player will have to manage. I wonder though if adding the 3D graphics will slow down the modding community in getting out ship designs and other graphic mods. The ship design reminds me of GC3s ship design. I am really looking forward to diving into to this monster game!
Fleet combat looks leagues better over the first game...
If you visit the gamesite you can apply for beta testing!!
I applied for beta. The dev is on vacation right now and after that the first round of beta invites are supposed to go out.
Vacation? Where to? :DD
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on January 30, 2021, 09:14:19 AM
Fleet combat looks leagues better over the first game...
Yeah....i really like it and see myself playing lots of these battles. I expect some excellent Star Wars or Star Trek mode.
Wow.... all I can say is wow. The Fleet combat was exciting in the last game, but totally chaotic, and actually confusing at times with the 2d.
The enhancements here are real. The graphical enhancements are great. Combat roles now appear to really matter, this fleet engagement actually came across like something out of a sci-fi classic. The ships at some points seem to be selective in choosing which weapons to focus on different targets. Hull piercing weapons were being utilized on that escort when it's shields were knocked out, while using the shield breaking lasers on different ships that still had active shields.
Thanks for the heads up about the beta sign up. May go ahead and give it a go!
That does look promising. The largest problem I had with fleet engagements was that the ships were usually ignorant of other ships. I can't tell you how many times I'd be trying to demolish an enemy fleet and then blow up their outlying mining stations, leaving a core world in the solar system unmolested, when half my ships would spontaneously decide to attack the Orbital Weapons Platforms and the enemy Starbase that had 4x their firepower instead.
I do like the role of fighters, bombers (and I'm assuming missiles) and other elements of the screening force. In the absence of some rock-paper-scissors combos (e.g., the heaviest guns get a penalty firing at fast-moving ships), smaller ships quickly become throw-away ships and the easiest way to win is to send in a fleet of exclusively big ships and then retreat when they're all half-damaged.
Forgive the necro of this thread, but...
We have new footage! :D
You're being a good kind of necrophile. Which doesn't leave me cold, mind you!
Necro for game that hasn't been released yet and that everyone is waiting for is always good.... :notworthy:
Quote from: Yskonyn on May 18, 2021, 08:47:46 AM
You're being a good kind of necrophile. Which doesn't leave me cold, mind you!
:hug:
Matrix has confirmed they are shooting for a September/October release.
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #1 (https://www.matrixgames.com/news/distant-worlds-2-dev-diary-1)
Out of dumb curiosity, does anyone regularly play non-human races in space 4X games?
Quote from: hellfish6 on July 06, 2021, 01:00:44 PM
Out of dumb curiosity, does anyone regularly play non-human races in space 4X games?
I do sometimes, but only in Stellaris.
Quote from: hellfish6 on July 06, 2021, 01:00:44 PM
Out of dumb curiosity, does anyone regularly play non-human races in space 4X games?
I play regularly different races. Right now it's the space babes in Polaris Sector. I have a preference for diplomatic or scientific races but try other races as well.
Quote from: steve58 on July 06, 2021, 12:42:53 PM
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #1 (https://www.matrixgames.com/news/distant-worlds-2-dev-diary-1)
Man, there are some good games (fingers crossed) coming. Really looking forward to DW2, KSP2 and 3 from Microprose... The Mighty 8th, TF Admiral & Sea Power. Good times ahead!
Quote from: hellfish6 on July 06, 2021, 01:00:44 PM
Out of dumb curiosity, does anyone regularly play non-human races in space 4X games?
As I am of an age where I wake up feeling barely human playing an alien of dubious looks is anything but a big step... ::)
I will admit I tend to play humans. I don't know why. I just do.
I have thought about something different not human, maybe a variation - humanoid.
Distant Worlds Extended Universe has a LOT - of races to try out.
But with Distant Worlds 2, I am liking what I see I am willing to wait- because I want them to get this right.
Arg, just got my 16th or 17th? (the email/site seem to be in conflict) anniversary coupon from Matrix/Slitherine. Its gonna expire on Aug 28th. Hoping they release DW2 before it expires....but there always WarPlan Pacific as a backup...guess I'm going to wait this out til late August.
p.s. I think I've hit the MG discount ceiling. Current coupon is 50% off (not complaining!), but I think last years discount was also 50%. Anyone gotten more than 50% off? Again, not complaining (thanks MG!), just curious.
I've never had more than a 50% off coupon.
I play different races, although it varies a lot by game. In the original Master of Orion, I loved to play the Alkari (lots of little, indestructible ships made me dream of being an X-wing pilot) and the Ursoids (you gotta love BEARS!!!). I also play the geeky scientist races at least once in most games.
DW actually had different races that played differently, which was very nice. Not only did each race have its own buffs (like races have in all games since MoO), but they also had their own VICTORY CONDITIONS! Everybody got scored on some basic VPs, but each race had individual components that drove their VP calcs too (the Cetaceans got points for having the most BIG ships, while more battle-like races got points for winning more battles, and there was at least one breeder race who got a much larger share of their VPs strictly from population count). That was a simple but very effective way to promote different playing styles for different races, but made perfect sense to me.
Come to think of it, I'm reminded that I used to play as the Bulrathi in MOO and MOO 2.
I always liked playing the Psilons.
My goal was to tech up enough to put graviton beams on fighters and build swarms of them. That would typically take me to late game. Would still have to build some capital ships when repulsor beams came into play.
Since the conversion shifted to MOO, I highly recommend Remnants of the Precursors. Best of all, it's free.
Well I'll add the obligatory note that I am eagerly awaiting DW2.
Quote from: jamus34 on August 01, 2021, 09:14:06 AM
Well I'll add the obligatory note that I am eagerly awaiting DW2.
Ditto.
Quote from: CJReich46 on August 02, 2021, 09:41:06 PM
Quote from: jamus34 on August 01, 2021, 09:14:06 AM
Well I'll add the obligatory note that I am eagerly awaiting DW2.
Ditto.
Not so sure. Most sequels mess up what made the original good. It took DW several expansions to get it right the first time. I'd feel better about a new expansion than a whole new DW2.
They couldn't just expand it. Needs a new engine to run on modern systems.
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #2 (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5058767)
Quote from: steve58 on August 04, 2021, 11:50:43 AM
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #2 (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5058767)
:o Wow! That looks amazing, the new human frigate, etc. So..going to get this.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 03, 2021, 06:01:45 AM
They couldn't just expand it. Needs a new engine to run on modern systems.
I hope it's good. DW is my top one, two or three space empire games.
Quote from: solops on August 04, 2021, 04:49:50 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on August 03, 2021, 06:01:45 AM
They couldn't just expand it. Needs a new engine to run on modern systems.
I hope it's good. DW is my top one, two or three space empire games.
Amen. Me too.
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #3 (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5067484)
I didn't really give the Dev Diary #3 a good full read until just now. DW2 is going to be beautiful. Can't wait...
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #4 (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5075788)
Love the look of those ships. Very naval in character.
Oh yeah. I like the ship design. :smitten:
I even like Erik's explanation into the solution of "space terrain." that's well thought out. You can jump within range however you will be slowed by nebulae, sensors may not work, Shields may or may not be full strength and you will have to do multiple jumps, again I'm thinking fuel stations, refueling ships will be essential. I like what I see in this. Can't wait.
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #5: Exploration (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5084828)
^Thanks for the heads-up Steve. I've been following DW2 development and it looks encouraging... fingers crossed.
As long as we're discussing DW... I purchased Distant Worlds Universe ages ago, installed it, had a look and ran away from the complexity. I just didn't know where to start. After ignoring it for a year or so I decided that I was going to just put my head down and learn the game! As a result, I came across Tortuga Power's tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEFm0jxtzWs&list=PLuXzIAdwiCCzPk_REYjI2iVatlXVRD0qZ which I found to be an excellent series. Thanks to Tortuga DW is a game that is now one of my most played. Anyway if, like me, you shied away from the complexity give this series a try and you may end up hooked too. Since I've become barely competent, not good mind you, I feel pretty sure that I'll be able to tackle DW2 right out of the box and I'm looking forward to the prospect.
Quote from: steve58 on October 06, 2021, 10:05:35 AM
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #5: Exploration (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5084828)
Saw that. Thank you. ;)
Dev Diary 5 is out. I really like the exploration mechanic they describe. It remains to be seen how they integrate that mechanic into the overall game play, but I do love the notion of "exploring broad versus exploring deep" and it seems likely to lead to some harder strategic trade-off decisions mid game.
I also like the unique features that they're talking about adding to planets. I just hope they don't overdue it with unique, randomized buffs for every planet. My biggest complaint with DWU was brain-dead AI in fleet battles, but my second-biggest complaint was that sometimes I felt like I was playing Spreadsheets in Space. Still, adding some unique and interesting bonuses to individual planets could be a really interesting touch.
I also hope they reduce the number of resources slightly so that the supply chains are a bit more intuitive. I felt like a 33% haircut to the number of resources still would have left the economic system with enough complexity that it would have been satisfying from a gaming standpoint. Trying to keep straight whether I was lacking Argon or Xenon or Helium for a particular ship component got mind-numbing after a while.
I'm totally excited about this title. DWU is one of my Top 5 Ever 4x Games! Like many Matrix titles, it might take a little while to age on the vine.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5084829
Well, looks like release date now moved to some time Q1 2022...
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5088251&mpage=1&key=�
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on October 17, 2021, 09:34:18 AM
Well, looks like release date now moved to some time Q1 2022...
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5088251&mpage=1&key=�
Y'all did see this
vpart in that ^link, right? :timeout:
Quote
In the meantime, we invite you to join the new wave of beta testing that will open in the next few days
To sign up, head to Matrix's beta signup page and submit your application!
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #6: The Economy (https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=5096998)
Forgive this necro but:
WE HAVE A DATE! WE HAVE A DATE!!!
MARCH 10 2022!! DISTANT WORLDS 2!!
:smitten:
Interesting demo impressions from RPS:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/code-force-played-distant-worlds-2-for-us-and-the-signal-is-strong
If they've solved some of the interface and AI decision-making woes, I will be SO into this game. Shrinking the field of playable races from 20 to 7 seems a bit harsh, but I did find the 20 different races in the original a bit excessive.
It sounds like they're trying to simplify the interface and parts of the overall game play (e.g., simplifying ship design, settling on only one fuel resource). Hopefully they can do this without dumbing down the game. Games like Go or Settlers of Catan have done a great job of offering simplicity of mechanics while preserving complexity of game play.
If DWU2 manages something similar in a few places, I'll be thrilled. I LOVED the original game, but even after hundreds of hours playing and dozens of hours watching YouTube tutorial videos, I only felt like I'd mastered about 1/3 of the game.
I suspect that reducing the number of races will help make the AI more efficient. Fingers crossed...
https://www.twitch.tv/dastactic
Dastactic is streaming the Distant Worlds 2 preview version right now.
eXplorminate preview here:
I look forward to this... :bd:
I absolutely love the huge space opera vibe of this one watching the previews but it seems pretty intimidating for someone like me who never played DW1.
I know a lot of things can be automated but I do worry I will be overwhelmed given the fact it is real time pause rather than turn based, with notifications left right and centre like a Paradox EU4 game on steroids :)
I only recently got access to this so I'm still learning and exploring. There was a time when the original Distant Worlds was an obsession and one of my all time favorite games. Like it's predecessor, this sequel has all the elements to be a great classic, and it will almost certainly steal an unholy amount of your life before you even know it...but there are a few things I'd like to see improved if possible.
I dont really want to post piecemeal criticisms because I plan on doing a thorough and detailed review once the retail candidate is out, but most of the other press I've seen since the NDA lifted has been all praise and glowing. I haven't seen anyone else really mention any of the issues with the UI and camera. I personally have not found the map controls intuitive and ordering ships directly for some some reason, at times, seems more difficult than it should. When I want a ship to go to a specific location, sometimes it won't, and I'm not seeing feedback as to why. This game seems to want players to rely more on automation than direct control of spacecraft. With respect to the camera, even though the is supposedly fully 3D, it's not clear to me whether it can be freely rotated. There are about 4 set map views, like top down, high angle, low angle, etc. But for some reason, I am unable to rotate the map on a vertical plane or z-axis.
The graphics are ok, but they aren't going to win any awards. They are definitely behind by a few generations, but with a game of this scale and scope, it is understandable. I overall like the look and scale of ships and planets and these are the focus of the game.
Finally, not thrilled about the scale back on races. There are only a handful compared to what was in the original game. Whether this decision was based on the need to make each race unique and more fleshed out, or if it was seen as an opportunity for future dlc, I do not know. Regardless, the fewer races is very obvious to fans of the original title.
In any event, overall, I am really liking it and once I really learn and understand it, maybe some of my frustrations will fade. I'll try to post more details and impressions as I get them.
Some of the guys around here have had access through the beta program for longer than me. Now that the NDA is lifted maybe they will chime in too.
...one other thing I wanted to add. I installed it on my old workhorse. A 5th generation i7 with a 1080 and 32GB Ram and the game runs ok, but it does chug at times. I will probably end up installing it on my newer rig.
So, just beware that the game may struggle on older systems.
Thanks for your comments Jar :bd:
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on January 27, 2022, 09:39:28 AM
...one other thing I wanted to add. I installed it on my old workhorse. A 5th generation i7 with a 1080 and 32GB Ram and the game runs ok, but it does chug at times. I will probably end up installing it on my newer rig.
So, just beware that the game may struggle on older systems.
Well that doesn't bode well for my 1660 Super then. Hopefully bottleneck was somewhere else than GPU.
Looking at old save files, it looks like I haven't played DW1 since 2014!
I have been a tester for some time now.
It's definitely more Distant Worlds.
I am not sold on the move to 3D. As JH said, the graphics look dated and most of the game is played at some level of zoom. And the 3D models are not visible in that case.
The 'strategic overlay' is much better this time around; the UI has scale settings and therefore make the game's UI much easier on the eyes on high resolutions.
Some clever scaling of the overlay when zooming out further helps with situational awareness.
The automation is still VERY customizable, just like we've grown accustomed to from DW1. Default settings have the game's AI helping you with almost all aspects of play. The advisor will offer sensible things to do and you just have to click yes or no and your empire basically runs itself.
Of course you can also make it a much more hands-on experience, or a hybrid. Whatever you prefer.
The two biggest criticisms of DW1 was its UI (and font size) and combat always ending in a big blob of sprites.
I already wrote that the former has been resolved neatly in DW2. Combat is more of a mixed bag in my experience.
The fleets do try to keep some semblance of formation and fleets can be scripted in various ways to limit them to standoff ranges or close combat. A mix of tactics for different ships is also possible, but I still find that combat is pretty 'blobby'. Better than DW1, but still not very tactical or wargame like as a whole. More akin to the classic RTS way of combat like Command and Conquer and its ilk.
In general its safe to say that if you liked DW1 you will also like DW2. It's an evolution of the series for sure. Not a revolution.
Performance is decent on my humble laptop (i5, 8GB RAM and GTX 1050Ti). The game is CPU bound more than GPU bound, so a modest graphics card will be less of a problem than a slower 'less cores' CPU.
Quote from: Yskonyn on January 27, 2022, 03:29:48 PM
Performance is decent on my humble laptop (i5, 8GB RAM and GTX 1050Ti). The game is CPU bound more than GPU bound, so a modest graphics card will be less of a problem than a slower 'less cores' CPU.
That is really interesting. Why the heck is it huffing and puffing on my i7-5820K, 3.30GHz with 32 GB Ram?
Don't know man.
I am not talking about huge empire stuff though. Havent got that far yet.
But a few systems worth of units are no prob.
So one of the technical problems I was having was caused by DPI settings. The game looked surprisingly bad in all resolutions and the UI was at times difficult to decipher, no matter what size I made it...so, I started looking into the DPI settings and would you believe overriding the high scale DPI settings fixed it. I'm shocked that on a modern game being made in this day and age, that is still necessary. I typically only have to do this on games that are decades old. Bizarre.
Like everyone else I've been patiently waiting for this to release. I had to stop playing DW1 a few years back because I just couldn't read the font any longer, even with reading glasses. Regardless it's one of my all time favorites. I'm kind of bummed that the race selection is so limited. I'm sure everyone has their favored race, mine was the Kiadians.
I'm wondering if Slitherine is starting to follow Paradox's lead on releasing a major title with fewer assets so they can put out lots of DLC addons down the road.
Well to be fair DW 1 received 2 expansions, so I expect DW2 to get one or two as well. Nothing new here.
True, but I was thinking more along the lines of them releasing smaller DLCs of new races, kinda like what they do in the Civilization and Stellaris series.
Quote from: steve58 on January 28, 2022, 12:38:20 PM
True, but I was thinking more along the lines of them releasing smaller DLCs of new races, kinda like what they do in the Civilization and Stellaris series.
I think I read there will be two DLC's with each finishing out the original DW races with 7 each...
Sounds like pre orders might be coming Feb 10...wonder what kind of pricing might come...premium or something in the 40-50 range.
Based on everything said here so far I'm chomping at the bit for this one to come out. Ok I'll add it to my Steam wishlist.
Quote from: steve58 on January 28, 2022, 12:38:20 PM
True, but I was thinking more along the lines of them releasing smaller DLCs of new races, kinda like what they do in the Civilization and Stellaris series.
This quote from Erik Rutkins confirms that races missing from the game at launch will eventually be added back into the game as DLCs/expansions. :clap:
Quote
The 7 factions in DW2 took us much, much more time than the 20 in DW1. We tried to pick a representative sample of the DW2 factions that would give a wide variety of playstyles. We plan to add more of the DW2 factions in post-release DLCs/Expansions as time allows, eventually getting all back in. Those that are not currently playable are still in as independents and if you add them to your empire and they grow to a large enough population, you can also benefit from their bonuses and their troop/colonization types.
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/fb.asp?m=5139256
Never a doubt they would be dlc:). No issue with that
Pre order up, $44.99...seems fair.
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-2
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 10, 2022, 11:59:29 AM
Pre order up, $44.99...seems fair.
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-2
I paid more for the first one.
Quote from: Pete Dero on February 10, 2022, 12:11:19 PM
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 10, 2022, 11:59:29 AM
Pre order up, $44.99...seems fair.
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-2
I paid more for the first one.
Yep, I was a little surprised it wasn't more, maybe because of less factions included and supports having more DLC afterwards or just a sign of changing times...either way, no issue with it myself.
:D
Wooohoo! I have my anniversary coupon + the 10% already on the pre-order and I'll pay less than I did when I bought Distant Worlds 1.
Done! 26.00!
^Yes, there is a pre-order discount of 10% that everybody should take advantage of! O0
Just be aware that the Matrix price, even with the 10% duscount is still 10% more expensive than the Steam preorder price which is just over 29 UK pounds and a great price in my opinion.
Quote from: devoncop on February 10, 2022, 02:17:42 PM
Just be aware that the Matrix price, even with the 10% duscount is still 10% more expensive than the Steam preorder price which is just over 29 UK pounds and a great price in my opinion.
I think that may be a reflection of the dollar exchange rate. They are the same price here in the US
Finally bought it from Fanatical at a great 20% off ...so just over £26 in Sterling.
Very happy with that as expected the price to be double that.
Now the impatient wzit until release on 10th March......
I just bought my first pre-ordered game since Galactic Civilizations 2 back in the early 2000s! Got it on Steam at 10% off due to their Slytherine sale for $44.95.
I'd really prefer to preorder that stuff directly from Matrix and cut out the middle man, but due to the crappy timing and quick expiration of my anniversary coupon, I decided to betray my beliefs and buy on Steam. That, and the separate Matrix launcher that won't even close when I activate the main app is just annoying.
First world problems for sure! I'm almost tempted not to play it for a month or two, just to let them work out the bugs and nerf stuff. Lord knows DW I benefitted from A LOT of polishing before becoming the gem that it was.
Why did I pre-order it then? I guess I just felt like making a Leap of Faith!
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on February 11, 2022, 12:28:43 PM
I'd really prefer to preorder that stuff directly from Matrix and cut out the middle man, but due to the crappy timing and quick expiration of my anniversary coupon, I decided to betray my beliefs and buy on Steam. That, and the separate Matrix launcher that won't even close when I activate the main app is just annoying.
h!
if you buy from Matrix, you get both a Matrix key and Steam key...Matrix also had the same price. I actually already received my Steam key and was able to activate it...of course can't play yet. Therefore, best of both worlds but if you never plan to play the non-Steam version, then probably doesn't make a difference.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 11, 2022, 12:35:03 PM
Quote from: FarAway Sooner on February 11, 2022, 12:28:43 PM
I'd really prefer to preorder that stuff directly from Matrix and cut out the middle man, but due to the crappy timing and quick expiration of my anniversary coupon, I decided to betray my beliefs and buy on Steam. That, and the separate Matrix launcher that won't even close when I activate the main app is just annoying.
h!
if you buy from Matrix, you get both a Matrix key and Steam key...Matrix also had the same price. I actually already received my Steam key and was able to activate it...of course can't play yet. Therefore, best of both worlds but if you never plan to play the non-Steam version, then probably doesn't make a difference.
Something is wrong with currency conversion for € : Pre-order price on Steam = 37,79 € / Pre-order on Matrix = 42,29 € (regular price = 47 € or $ 53.74) ?
P.S. : https://www.gamebillet.com/distant-worlds-2-pre-order
31,90 €
Actually, I was just now trying to preorder on Gamebillet. I even signed up since their price was $37.95.
Got to checkout and the price was $39.8?something due to the currency conversion (I believe it was showing pounds, not euros). So I said 'dongle', canceled the order :tickedoff: and preordered over on Fanatical (whom I have history with) instead for $39.99. :bd:
$36 at greenman
https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/distant-worlds-2-pc/
Ho-lee crap. I just pre-ordered Elden Ring from them a few weeks ago for like $20 off as well. How do they keep getting away with this!?
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 11, 2022, 07:16:53 PM
$36 at greenman
https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/distant-worlds-2-pc/
gaaaahhh
(https://media2.giphy.com/media/QQcBFlNA4HKkh3A02N/giphy.gif?cid=ecf05e472y8zfsch1t62nlixzj61isnxbt7qwv0wb3jx78f1&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
The currency conversionns are weird.
It looks like Green Man Gaming is the cheapest I have seen so far if you are in the US whilst in the UK the best I have seen is the £26.39 from Fanatical.
Gotta shop around I guess.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on February 11, 2022, 07:16:53 PM
$36 at greenman
https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/distant-worlds-2-pc/
GMG price : 37,79€ becomes 30,23€ (-28% !) when I log in :o. (must have something to do with being silver or gold member)
GMG shows $44.99 in USA when I clicked the link at bottom of previous page.
Quote from: bobarossa on February 12, 2022, 08:08:55 AM
GMG shows $44.99 in USA when I clicked the link at bottom of previous page.
It likely depends on your membership status....mine is a gold status (based on past purchases) so my price is $36 (28% off).
8 days to go...
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FDPYNr1mXJTilMrPbx9%2Fgiphy.gif&hash=5aeafb12e10f265f06f3d5722b2b031c2f977847)
^Can't wait!
Not to be a Debbie Downer though but hopefully we'll all still be here by then. What with the war and all.
Quote from: W8taminute on March 02, 2022, 02:48:03 PM
^Can't wait!
Not to be a Debbie Downer though but hopefully we'll all still be here by then. What with the war and all.
If I get nuked before then I will be doubly cheesed off as I pre-orderd :pullhair:
As much as I'd like to see us start shooting at the Russians for shelling civilians, sleepy joe will never step up and do it. He's going to sit on his hands and make us watch it happen, mean while we'll all be playing distant worlds 2 for the next year until Putin is embolden enough to attack Estonia or Poland.
Come on skoop. Please keep the politics out of this.
Thanks.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 03, 2022, 01:05:44 PM
Come on skoop. Please keep the politics out of this.
Thanks.
Agreed.
Pre-ordered this and can't wait.
I preordered as well because of the low price but no idea if I'll ever get into it. ???
Quote from: al_infierno on March 03, 2022, 06:23:45 PM
I preordered as well because of the low price but no idea if I'll ever get into it. ???
Pre-ordered and looking forward to it. ;D
Need a new screen background? Some goodies from the matrixgames forums. ^-^
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10151&p=4968819&sid=9942c32be17c3528042030af271e5fe4#p4968819
Nice 👍
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 03, 2022, 01:05:44 PM
Come on skoop. Please keep the politics out of this.
Preordered.
I'm gonnna Make the Milky Way Great Again. :D
Quote from: SirAndrewD on March 07, 2022, 05:17:46 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 03, 2022, 01:05:44 PM
Come on skoop. Please keep the politics out of this.
Preordered.
I'm gonnna Make the Milky Way Great Again. :D
Haha! Nice.
Manual is out! O0
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-2
Quote from: W8taminute on March 08, 2022, 08:20:23 AM
Haha! Nice.
We're going to build a Dyson Sphere and make the Glorzbax pay for it!
Ok, I'll stop.
Seriously though, I've been looking forward to this one. I'm hoping this is finally the modern 4X game that scratches my itch.
Quote from: SirAndrewD on March 07, 2022, 05:17:46 PM
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 03, 2022, 01:05:44 PM
Come on skoop. Please keep the politics out of this.
Preordered.
I'm gonnna Make the Milky Way Great Again. :D
:DD
Quote from: CJReich46 on March 08, 2022, 11:59:21 AM
Manual is out! O0
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-2
Only 106 pages...don't think this will enough! Let's start to read :nerd:
Only another 24 hours guys :bd:
Quote from: devoncop on March 09, 2022, 11:18:08 AM
Only another 24 hours guys :bd:
I know :) I can't wait. I work tonight, but I have off tomorrow and Friday.
Just got a notification on my phone that DW2 is out!!
Just got my email. Downloading now. 4.8 GB!
edit: and now North America 1 server has 64 out of 20 available download streams used! I'm still running full speed but I'm on NA 2 server.
Barely runs on my gaming computer.... :(
I'm not a big 4x Sci-fi guy, but how does distant worlds compare to stellaris ? I ask because I own stellaris, but is DW far better, or is it apples vs oranges ?
Quote from: Anguille on March 10, 2022, 12:26:18 PM
Barely runs on my gaming computer.... :(
Oh no this is not good news. I have had some concerns that this game might not run good on my gaming rig either.
Quote from: Anguille on March 10, 2022, 12:26:18 PM
Barely runs on my gaming computer.... :(
It looks like a few folk have had issues but many like myself have had no problems at all. Apparently a hotfix is coming out in the next 24/48 hours that should sort out your issues. It seems that as long as your specs are okay then it is related to Windows 11 or playing on those high falutin 4K/ Widescreen monitors that some of you techies love !
As someone who barely played DWU after picking it up very late because of the horrible UI and outdated look this one is a revelation. Great UI from my point of view and the tooltips are amazing.
For info my graphics card is a pretty old 1050 on an
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7600K CPU @ 3.80GHz 3.79 GHz
Haven't looked at it enough yet, but on my 4k monitor, things still looked a little small and blurry in a number of cases. Maybe there is a setting I haven't explored yet, but those were the types of issues I had with the prior version so hoping it doesn't turn out to be a big deal.
i had to disable scaling and DPI settings in the properties tab in order to get the game to display properly.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 10, 2022, 02:00:39 PM
i had to disable scaling and DPI settings in the properties tab in order to get the game to display properly.
Thanks for the info. Turns out there are UI scaling options in the game so those worked for me.
Ok..meetings are done for the day....
Where do I get my Death Star?
Erik has a recent (January) thread about the fonts and UI.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10151&t=378590
Thanks for all the helpful tips guys. My rig is just slightly inferior to devoncop's setup so I think I should be able to run this game fine.
Now I need to run to Target and get me some STEAM cards. LOL!
Quote from: devoncop on March 10, 2022, 01:25:55 PM
Quote from: Anguille on March 10, 2022, 12:26:18 PM
Barely runs on my gaming computer.... :(
It seems that as long as your specs are okay then it is related to Windows 11 or playing on those high falutin 4K/ Widescreen monitors that some of you techies love !
None of this for me unfortunately. I am always on the low-end because i can't afford the latest tech. The game even messed up my graphic card (greyed out) and just had to update it to make it run properly again...my laptop has an AMD Ryzen 7 Radeon card, guess it's not enough to run the game. A shame cos i won't be able to buy anything new before the next 5 years i guess...
Have fun with it guys, see ya in 5 years.
Quote from: Anguille on March 10, 2022, 04:19:05 PM
Quote from: devoncop on March 10, 2022, 01:25:55 PM
Quote from: Anguille on March 10, 2022, 12:26:18 PM
Barely runs on my gaming computer.... :(
It seems that as long as your specs are okay then it is related to Windows 11 or playing on those high falutin 4K/ Widescreen monitors that some of you techies love !
None of this for me unfortunately. I am always on the low-end because i can't afford the latest tech. The game even messed up my graphic card (greyed out) and just had to update it to make it run properly again...my laptop has an AMD Ryzen 7 Radeon card, guess it's not enough to run the game. A shame cos i won't be able to buy anything new before the next 5 years i guess...
Have fun with it guys, see ya in 5 years.
Don't give up so easily. I bet you can get around it.
Just finished downloading. Now I have DW2 and TW Warhammer 3 waiting for me to finish Shadow Empire, which just got updated again!
$39.99 at Fanatical (https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/distant-worlds-2) for the next 6.6 days
running fine on my rig but I'm playing on a small circular galaxy with only 200 planets so we'll see what happens when space starts filling up with ships from every race.
The tech support forums (both official/steam) have been very active with various issues being reported, seems most appear to be tech related. Not unique with new releases and appears they did release a manual hotfix to start tackling them.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11896&t=380602
According to the Matrix forum, the ETA on the hotfix will be in about 3-4 hours. Apparently, they pulled the hotfix, and will be reissuing it as "a proper update".
OK So I am a glutton for punishment on games and went ahead and bought.
Its been years since I played DW1 - Any suggestions where to start?
FYI I fired up DW2 - started a game clicked on some things and then lost morale and decided to quit since I was hopelessly confused- If I recall thats how I ended up playing/leaving DW1 as well.
Someone over on the MG forums has written a guide for New Users. Looks like its getting good reviews, so maybe start with that. (that's what I'm going to do when I get some time to play).
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10151&t=380441
Anyone else disappointed with the changes to ship design? The old system was not perfect, but heck. I am not sure I would recommend DW2 in its current form. DW1 is still great. I have to admit, I never had much of a problem with the DW1 UI.
It is good that it sounds like a positive release. Not a first day buy for me, but maybe on the sales.
Official Tutorials
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQrYLOdjwRhReM_nhGqiuP4bgRgpIyK1u
Yeah, I'm going to need to take some time on this one.
Not sure if I got the RNG gods mad, but my first run was starting to get somewhere, building mining bases in my home system and I even had my first military ships, and then....boom, four pirate factions popped up with massive starfleets demanding more money than I had for "protection" from the others.
Pretty quick end from there. I guess pirates are a real terror.
Going to stay at it though. This looks pretty deep and potentially rewarding if you get things going.
I'd suggest turning them down or off for first couple games. I turned them down but still got two pirates in succession just as I researched frigates.
Yeah I turned off pirates and space monsters in the game I started.
I like to just concentrate on empire building without the added stress of pirates and monsters.
Yeah, next start will be with them reduced, then off if it's bad again.
I guess I underestimated the Pirate concept. I thought they'd be a nuisance and a way to get my first combat experience, not facing down the Borg. :arr:
My early comments.
- the pre-warp start leaves you the ability to scan/mine your home planet's vicinity (asteroids and moon). I might have been able to reach it's Mars equivalent when it was close.
- your first warp drive gives you the ability to scan the whole system but beware trying to do two outer planets in one try. Your fuel will run out and I can't find any way to make a tanker
- I think it's your second warp drive advancement that lets you reach neighboring systems. I didn't get to find out as I had multiple pirates arrive right after discovery and decided to restart.
- don't see much benefit to the 3D models as it's still a flat system/galaxy. Just seems to boost GPU usage (81% GPU on my NVIDA 1660 super overclock). CPU usage is low.
- need to find out how to manage those popups!!!! The pirate warnings were buried under a bunch of useless crap (advisor messages, yet more scientists, etc).
I've found that starting a game in the pre-warp era or even the early warp era leaves very little to do in the early game and I've found it to be exceptionally boring overall. I either need to speed up research in the game creation options or just start with this technology already unlocked.
Still playing my first game and its going well.
Paid off 2 of the first 3 pirate factions and have managed through gifts and accepting minor trades to get non aggression with one of them and a military refuelling treaty with another both of which cancel the payments I was making. Repaired a bad ass Cruiser which is now the pride of my First Fleet and trying to win over the Ackdarian indy colony I have come across but being the Cat Folk this is not easy.
Some minor victories in space battles so far but nothing major but I enjoy seeing them play out. My top notch shields are a huge help.
Just a Human Empire visible to me so far and they are surly bastards so I can see issues ahead :-)
By no means on top of everything and STILL can't find any bloody Silicon sources but I am having a hoot.
Hotfix is out
http://ftp.us.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWorlds2/DistantWorlds2-UpdateComp-v1.0.1.6.zip
Quote from: Con on March 11, 2022, 10:08:06 AM
Its been years since I played DW1 - Any suggestions where to start?
These four guys are all DW aficionados with tons of experience. They were beta testers for DW2 and received the release version a few days prior to release for the rest of us. They successfully got me into DWU and so far, so good with DW2. Check 'em out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOs9jzjQ6uc
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSgMOSrhbsUZDxrueQihlZFJeV6PgiFYk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeXicFqtQvo
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzEZx9zuF9_4A73QcBvN5hvdce2f2EM8s
Quote from: SirAndrewD on March 11, 2022, 02:48:58 PM
Yeah, next start will be with them reduced, then off if it's bad again.
I guess I underestimated the Pirate concept. I thought they'd be a nuisance and a way to get my first combat experience, not facing down the Borg. :arr:
LOL! Yeah I don't want to face the Borg.
Although playing with pre-warp techs at start may be boring at least it's giving me time to focus on reading all of the help text associated with the different screens. Maybe next game I play I'll try early warp tech start. We'll see.
Yeah. Assuming it plays like the pre-Warp start in DWU, the pirates are OP at the beginning of the game. They are much less likely to be able to keep pace with a growing star empire, but that doesn't mean that they won't seriously screw you at the start.
A good way to wrap your brain around the game is to set everything on full auto the first time you play and just watch. Think of yourself more as a fan of that empire than as the Emperor! <:-)
Pirates is really a misnomer in DW2 and I'm not sure why they held on to the title. They've been somewhat reworked in DW2 and rather than a band of listless renegades, they are more like independent spacefaring empires that can actually be beneficial to befriend through diplomacy. They can possess advanced technology that the colony/planet based Civilizations lack. I gather they are a much more significant presence and force this time around.
Seems the game is working better on my older Acer Nitro gaming laptop so i may explore it tonight. But now i don't see anything on my newer Acer Nitro 5 with Radeon graphic card.
Strange but good to hear you can at least start to explore the game Anguille. Let us know how the game runs on your older system.
So have been looking at this game - and a few comments about it being Aurora with graphics. And also the wargamers 4x space game. So things like fuel / supply etc more "realistic" would interest me if thats the case but what are these elements ?
Quote from: Zulu1966 on March 13, 2022, 07:55:46 AM
So have been looking at this game - and a few comments about it being Aurora with graphics. And also the wargamers 4x space game. So things like fuel / supply etc more "realistic" would interest me if thats the case but what are these elements ?
This is NOT Aurora with graphics. Not even close. In fact, this game has actually been making me want to play aurora. DW has some of the same core components, but none of them have anything approaching the same depth and complexity. This could be a good or bad thing, depending on one's preference.
I generally don't jump in on new release games as I prefer for the kinks to get worked out first, so I didn't buy DW2 (yet).
But I just noticed on Matrix Games that DW1 Universe is on sale for $3!!! For that price, I just might have to add it to my collection....
https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-universe (https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-universe)
The kinks are definitely worked out in DW1. With 2D graphics and very small font it has its limitations. Obviously one of our favorite games though in its time. I have a hard time playing DW1 now days because even with reading glasses I just can't see. Hmm, maybe stronger glasses? Worth a try for such a good game.
Another patch! 1.0.1.8
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10151&t=380646
There's a 1.0.1.9 patch that dropped today - no need to download from the site it's in the updater. Fixing a lot of stuff it seems. I did a run through got "The Ghost Fleet" base event, and the cool part is the ships are styled like the ships in Chris Foss' paintings! I'll post a screenie when I can.
Am I correct in my assumption that this is essentially Distant world's 3D? Not saying that's a bad thing, quite on the contrary. Always thought it was interesting but couldn't get past the interface. I'm definitely interested in this and I'm going to have some free time in the next few months so the timing is perfect
Quote from: Marod on March 14, 2022, 04:43:14 PM
Am I correct in my assumption that this is essentially Distant world's 3D? Not saying that's a bad thing, quite on the contrary. Always thought it was interesting but couldn't get past the interface. I'm definitely interested in this and I'm going to have some free time in the next few months so the timing is perfect
Hey Marod...welcome to the forum.
It is really early in my play-through to state with meaningful specificity as to how DW2 differs from DW1 at its core. Conceptually, it is very similar. If you liked DW1 or if it appeals to you, DW2 is worth a close look. I don't find the "3d" element to be that distinguishing as it doesn't feel like true 3d to me. It is more adjustable to various isometric angles, but its not as if you can rotate the camera freely at all angles in the X, Y, Z axes. This is a pretty big disappointment to me.
The UI is also different, and although it takes getting used to, it is very thought out and attempts to display varying contextual degrees of information based upon view and player interactions, so in that regard, it is a very smart UI.
Otherwise, pretty much all the core elements of DW1 are present in DW2 with varying degrees of focus and complexity. Diplomacy, research, ship design, leaders, exploration, resource management, fleet based and ground combat...it is all still here.
I intend to write a very detailed review of DW2 for our website and try to compare it to DW1 where possible. it will be awhile before I can give the review the treatment I feel it deserves though.
Apparently, a new update (1.0.1.9) was released yesterday. Here are the notes from Matrix:
This build will reset the game's settings. Unfortunately this is required while we continue troubleshooting issues that are preventing some players from being able to play Distant Worlds 2. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Download Link:
https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWorlds2/DistantWorlds2-UpdateComp-v1.0.1.9.zip
Latest Troubleshooting FAQ here:
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 6&t=380844
IMPORTANT NOTE: There is now a new startup log in the /data/logs sub-folder of the Distant Worlds 2 installation.
This is also where any crash logs are located. If you are experiencing an issue, please post these logs for us along with the issue report.
IMPORTANT NOTE: There is a new GameSettingsOverride.txt in the /data sub-folder of the Distant Worlds 2 installation.
The settings here may help some players experiencing a black screen on load issue.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are experiencing performance issues use the key combination Shift + ~ to enable an overlay on the top left which will confirm for us which GPU DW2 is using on your system as well as other performance parameters.
GENERAL NOTES: We hope that the content streaming memory fix and the improved rendering memory management could fix some of the reported crashes and help with performance dropping over time for some players.
Unfortunately we cannot duplicate the black screen, frequent crashing or unusually bad performance issues on our systems, but we are working to continue investigating them and addressing all possible causes through this and future updates.
Changes in the 1.0.1.9 Build:
DISPLAY AND RENDERING
- fixed faulty display resolution detection at game start
- improved resolution of correct display adapter when specific adapter requested
- disabled fixed timestep updates (higher FPS)
- allow toggling on-screen FPS and other rendering data using shift-Tilde (top-left corner of most keyboards), which allows seeing which display adapter is being used
Two new updates dropped - use the updater to get them.
So far I managed 6 hours on new patch, new game and no issues that I can tell. Crossing fingers
I've had no problems running it. However it feels like I'm just playing DW1 with a better UI and much slower play (pre warp start takes forever with only 4x max speed).
Quote from: bobarossa on March 18, 2022, 04:54:03 PM
I've had no problems running it. However it feels like I'm just playing DW1 with a better UI and much slower play (pre warp start takes forever with only 4x max speed).
Yes. The pre-warp game is boring as hell. I don't see the point, particularly with only 4x speed.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on March 18, 2022, 04:56:49 PM
Quote from: bobarossa on March 18, 2022, 04:54:03 PM
I've had no problems running it. However it feels like I'm just playing DW1 with a better UI and much slower play (pre warp start takes forever with only 4x max speed).
Yes. The pre-warp game is boring as hell. I don't see the point, particularly with only 4x speed.
Yeah, my next try won't be pre-warp. But I've decided to start playing DC Ardennes that I got at 2 months ago. Be back to DW2 after a few more patches.
Changes in the 1.0.2.1 build:
CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when rendering empire territory
- fixed rare crash when scrapping advanced ship with tech bonus, but your empire has not yet researched a relevant project
- fixed rare crash when calculating military ship strength
- fixed rare crash when evaluating threats to a ship
RENDERING CRASH HANDLING
- more graceful recovery when texture or vertex buffer creation fails due to display adapter crash, reset, or change in performance mode. This should greatly reduce the number of DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED crashes
DIPLOMACY
- improved diplomacy so that relations now more likely to rise to higher levels (top-level treaties) when you work at improving relations with a faction. Remember that you can directly set diplomatic strategy per faction, which will also help improve relations (Befriend, Ally, Close Ally)
FLEETS AND SHIPS
- fixed bug where ships and fleets could sometimes teleport to edge of galaxy when assigned a mission while already jumping
- fleet jump speed coordination now applies to all fleet missions, not just attack missions (ships travel at same jump speed)
- Fuel Tankers no longer use fleet jump speed when part of a fleet
OTHER
- now properly review maximum colony population level as tech improves (colonization modifiers) and planet quality changes (terraforming, etc). This fixes issues with migration missions sometimes not completing
- ensure that player's per-role ship design automation settings are reset between each game (not remembered from previous games)
- Fleet Template screen no longer generates empty fleet when do not have enough money to build
- ensure scroll position in Empire Policy screen is reset to top when open again (previously settings were sometimes not appearing until scrolled up)
- reduced estimated resource demand for fuel so that more accurately aligns with actual usage
- changed default game start settings for research to fixed paths and colonization range limit to 300M
- Data fixes and changes to correct resource costs for some components/hulls with no resource costs or incorrect costs
- Added missing fallback paths for some armor techs
- Fixes for some story event issues
- Extended range for dedicated bombardment weapons
- Simplified main menu scene to assist with consistent startup crash troubleshooting
Changes in the 1.0.2.0 Build:
DISPLAY AND RENDERING
• Reduced asset streaming memory budget to allow more memory for other rendering
• Fixed bugs when auto-detecting display mode with highest refresh rate
• Reenabled fixed timestep updates
• Added more logging to data/SessionLog.txt file: display adapter selection (including primary monitor detected), display modes, galaxy settings
• Added new setting to GameSettingsOverride.txt: GraphicsStreamingMemoryBudget allows specifying video memory in Mb allocated for asset streaming
• Added new setting to GameSettingsOverride.txt: DisableFixedTimeStep: when set to true allows disabling fixed time step (higher FPS, but also higher GPU temperatures and power usage)
CRASH FIXES
• Fixed crash when determining attack targets
• Fixed rare crash when sorting some lists in Control Center
• Fixed rare crash when opening Research screen
• Fixed rare crash when determining locations for new monitoring stations
• Fixed rare crash when changing map overlays
INTELLIGENCE MISSIONS
• Increased difficulty of some intelligence missions, especially steal tech when targeting higher level research projects
• Altered how intelligence mission success chance is calculated so that always a chance of failure (even without counter-intelligence)
• Slightly increased effectiveness of counter intelligence missions (more likely to intercept enemy spy missions)
OTHER
• Fixed bug where default keyboard settings were sometimes not being generated at game startup
• Fixed bug where ships would avoid bombarding a colony that had imprisoned characters
• Fixed bug where invading characters that were killed at a colony were sometimes not removed from the colony
• Avoid executing advisor messages twice when automation is set to Suggest and Execute, e.g. building planetary facilities
• Data fixes to various events, facilities, research projects, ship hulls and artifacts (only available with a new game)
If you're not a fan of the pre-Warp start, the game lets you very simply select out of that. I think it makes a good starting point for the first play-through, as it gives you a chance to familiarize yourself with what's going on. It also gives me the time to savor stuff happening in the early game, such that it makes it more of an immersive role-playing experience for me.
For folks who want to jump right through it, the game gives you that option readily. The customization options at start-up are rich. I'm enjoying it so far, although I've only played an hour or two. The slow pre-warp starts feels much more plausible to me than the "sprint out of the gate to explore your solar system and move beyond" pacing of most such games.
For my first play-through, I'm pretty much automating everything and just observing. I feel more like I'm cheering for my civilization than actually governing them! <:-)
1.0.2.2 is out:
Changes in the 1.0.2.2 build:
CRASH FIXES
- fixed some further DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED errors
- fixed crash when calculating population defend strength at a colony
- fixed crash in Abandoned Ship and Bases list when use sort 'Distance from Spaceport'
- fixed rare hang when ship attack mission gets stuck
RENDERING
- IMPORTANT CHANGE: Changed default back buffer format to use Standard Range rendering. This may help some who are experiencing black screens at startup, but it will also reduce the quality of some visuals. If you were not previously having problems with black screens or crashes then you can revert to High Dynamic Range rendering in the in-game Game Settings to restore the visuals to their previous quality.
- improved performance when long range scanner map overlay enabled
TROOPS
- changed meaning of colony automation setting 'Automate Infantry Recruitment and Garrison' to now include all troop types, i.e. 'Automate Troop Recruitment and Garrison'
- lowered attack troop recruitment levels, especially for large empires
- added automation icons to Selection Panel to indicate colony automation status for troop recruitment and resource stock levels
HIVE AND PLANET DESTROYER
- added diplomatic incident and reputation impact from using planet destroyer against colonies
- improved movement of planet destroyer ship to better avoid clipping planet surfaces
- capped maximum bonus levels for Hive ships when salvage debris or raid colonies and bases
OTHER
- improved calculation of optimal attack range against targets based on weapon ranges (ship/base attacks and bombarding colonies)
- reviewed policy setting for intelligence mission caution so that aligns with revised mission difficulties. Tooltip explains success chance per level
- empire systems no longer start inside nebulae
- fixed occasional faulty ETA display for transferring artifacts
- fixed population policy window not scrolling with mouse wheel when colony detail panel also open
- fixed blank or incorrect startup colony and base stock levels when colony stock level automation is manually controlled
- Additional data fixes for a few missing weapon sounds, certain missing component/hull resource costs, a few event fixes
Just for info...as part of the solution for the folk who have been getting crashes (I still haven't had one) the default settings now disable HDR so graphical quality will be lower but it can be restored by going into game settings if like me you jave had no crashing issues.
Thankfully I've had no crashes so far.
I'm really digging this game but find I can only play it in small chunks at a time. I started a pre-warp game and for the first 4 hours or so there wasn't too much to do. I'm playing with everything set to automatic. However I just discovered my first colonization module and colonized two worlds now. Things are starting to pick up and I'm slowly turning off some of the automanaged stuff so that I can get a more hands on experience.
I think this game has great potential and will stay on my hard drive for some time.
This game is my nomination for "Disappointment of the Year." Every game I play ends the same way - about four hours in, when the third tier of tech is just starting to be researched, the game shuts down and reboots my PC, even after reinstallation and updates. My machine is also updated and trouble free. Every other game runs fine, including TW Warhammer 3. Big, big disappointment.
^It's a shame but I agree with you solops. Quite frankly I never made to the stage where the game crashed on me because I stopped playing it after being bored to tears beyond recognition.
Perhaps someday, I'll revisit this game again, especially if it gets support from the devs to work out the bugs.
Quote from: W8taminute on April 30, 2022, 08:52:45 PM
^It's a shame but I agree with you solops. Quite frankly I never made to the stage where the game crashed on me because I stopped playing it after being bored to tears beyond recognition.
Perhaps someday, I'll revisit this game again, especially if it gets support from the devs to work out the bugs.
Regretfully, I feel the same. The only tech issue I had was having to mess with the dpi settings in order to get it to run in 4k. The bigger problem for me was that it just wasn't all that good. It did not grab me like the original did. I struggle with the UI and game mechanics and it just wasn't enjoyable enough to want to make me suffer long enough to learn what is supposed to be a refined system.
I'm sure I'll pick it up again and maybe I'll end up liking it, but for now...also, very disappointed. Was probably my most anticipated release in years.
Quote from: Jarhead0331 on April 30, 2022, 09:46:33 PM
Quote from: W8taminute on April 30, 2022, 08:52:45 PM
^It's a shame but I agree with you solops. Quite frankly I never made to the stage where the game crashed on me because I stopped playing it after being bored to tears beyond recognition.
Perhaps someday, I'll revisit this game again, especially if it gets support from the devs to work out the bugs.
Regretfully, I feel the same. The only tech issue I had was having to mess with the dpi settings in order to get it to run in 4k. The bigger problem for me was that it just wasn't all that good. It did not grab me like the original did. I struggle with the UI and game mechanics and it just wasn't enjoyable enough to want to make me suffer long enough to learn what is supposed to be a refined system.
I'm sure I'll pick it up again and maybe I'll end up liking it, but for now...also, very disappointed. Was probably my most anticipated release in years.
+1
I didnt mind the UI which I thought was a big improvement on the first game but it was basically released unfinished which something I associate with Paradox rather than Matrix so very disappointed.
More races,fleshed out mechanics and better AI behaviour for things like fuel tankers, player fleets etc may get me back but for now I am out.
I have high hopes for the Steam release of Old World and maybe Wartales to brighten up my summer so fingers crossed.
Quote from: solops on April 30, 2022, 09:06:29 AM
This game is my nomination for "Disappointment of the Year." Every game I play ends the same way - about four hours in, when the third tier of tech is just starting to be researched, the game shuts down and reboots my PC, even after reinstallation and updates. My machine is also updated and trouble free. Every other game runs fine, including TW Warhammer 3. Big, big disappointment.
Something is very wrong here and I think Matrix needs to know about it. Any app that causes system instability is a liability.
Quote from: Ian C on May 01, 2022, 01:33:41 PM
Quote from: solops on April 30, 2022, 09:06:29 AM
This game is my nomination for "Disappointment of the Year." Every game I play ends the same way - about four hours in, when the third tier of tech is just starting to be researched, the game shuts down and reboots my PC, even after reinstallation and updates. My machine is also updated and trouble free. Every other game runs fine, including TW Warhammer 3. Big, big disappointment.
Something is very wrong here and I think Matrix needs to know about it. Any app that causes system instability is a liability.
Oh yeah. I've been screaming about it for several patches. Even posted a save game and dxdiag and a game session log in a dedicated Matrix thread. No substantial reply.
Maybe they should have just released it as early access.
I didn't have any of the crashing problems that some people experience but it might be that I never played to far into the game. It simply felt like a reskinned DW:U with a better UI. Quit after a week.
Quote from: bobarossa on May 02, 2022, 03:30:45 PM
I didn't have any of the crashing problems that some people experience but it might be that I never played to far into the game. It simply felt like a reskinned DW:U with a better UI. Quit after a week.
Same experience for me, only 10 hours in, but no crashes and I'm bored. It has been a few years, maybe more, since I played DW, but this really feels like the same game, whatever game play changes were made are lost to me since I end up automating so much stuff to keep from getting information overload.
I'll keep checking in on it, but maybe this style of 4x just isn't for me anymore. Interstellar Space: Genesis, while not at all perfect, has been the most fun for me recently and I see they have a new DLC in the works.
I am getting the game to run, but it has taken a bit to figure out (again) how to play. I remember DW1 had a "fun" problem on release. It took them a while to get that ironed out. Most of that is, I think, already in DW2, but I am having to rediscover how to play. For some reason, the MM seems a bit heavier than I remember. I also have figured out that you REALLY want to start "later", i.e. NO to Pre-Warp. Starting with a bit of tech and even more than one planet really does help get past the early thumb-twiddling of building up to the point that you can actually DO something.
I am not as down on the game as some of you. I'm being very patient with it, and took a break for a few weeks to let them work out a few issues. I think expecting a game this complex to be ready to handle like an Italian sports car straight out of release is, errrr, optimistic.
It's not a home run, and at this stage, it is quite representative of the old game. That said, the only reason that I stopped playing the old game was because of UI challenges and an AI that was frustratingly brain-dead on occasion. The verdict on this one as a finished work is still months away (or years, if you're comparing it to the end state of DW:U after numerous expansions and DLC).
I'll be curious to see where they take the game from here.
New massive update was released yesterday. By the sounds of it, they redesigned many core systems in the game based on player feedback. Maybe time to jump back in and give it a second chance?
Patch notes too big for one post.
Quote
Detailed Changes in 1.0.8.3 (November 1st, 2022):
CRASH FIXES
- fixed game not starting for some players who had other software that improperly mapped the wrong versions of shared files (freetype.dll)
- fixed rare crash when determining jump path time to destination star system
- fixed rare crash when determining docking bay parking spot
- fixed rare crash when calculating docking position offset
- fixed rare crash when inserting ship into docking wait queue
- fixed crash that sometimes occurred when declaring war
- fixed crash when drawing ship weapon summary
- fixed crash when ship assigns exploration mission
- fixed crash when rendering background room for character
- fixed rare crash when drawing ship health summary
- fixed rare crash when unloading troops at colony
- fixed rare crash when fleet checks whether should invade colony
- fixed rare crash when displaying trade offer with independent colony locations
- fixed crash when determining random docking position for ship
- fixed crash when drawing empire economy
- fixed crash when showing some tour screens
START NEW GAME SCREEN
- in Start New Game screen added warning borders and tooltips to indicate when the largest galaxy sizes may cause performance issues on some systems, especially if played into the late game or without victory conditions.
- ensure player starting relation level for other empires (Start New Game screen) excludes pirate protection and selects correct trade treaty (RTA, LTA, FTA)
PERFORMANCE AND MEMORY MANAGEMENT
- significant performance improvements, especially for large late-game galaxies
- improved general memory management
- improved memory management when rendering character animations
- galaxy-level star drawing and some other rendering now uses instancing, improving rendering performance
- further improved rendering performance in Control Center lists, especially in large late-games
SOUND DESIGN
- Thanks to generous work by Jeff Dodson of rainfall.tv, we have added new significantly improved and rebalanced sound effects for most components and weapons, explosions, etc. Jeff's trailer sound design work is heard in small projects like "Star Wars" and should help spice up combat among other things.
DIPLOMACY AND REPUTATION
This area has had a comprehensive overhaul, both to fix reported issues but also to rebalance reputation and relationship modifiers (including the penalties for being stronger than your neighbors), how reputation interacts with relationship and colony happiness and how much reputation affects how empires see each other and how your people see their own empire.
We've also added the missing Subjugated Vassal relationship and expanded the role and feedback related to Ambassadors, which are needed for the more advanced treaty types and also improve the rate of improvement for positive long-term relations and accelerate the decay of negative relations when assigned to an empire.
Finally, a lot of work went into fixing issues related to how wars end and how willing the AI was to negotiate the ends of wars correctly. All of this should make Diplomacy more rewarding as a playstyle, but also significantly decrease problems related to diplomacy and reputation for more warlike factions.
Subjugated Vassals:
- empires that are losing war now much more likely to be willing to end the war, and even to become your subjugated vassal when losing badly
- added Subjugated Vassal diplomatic relation type (see Galactopedia for details: Game Concepts > Diplomacy - Treaty Types)
- clarified description of treaty trade item for Subjugated Vassal in Diplomacy Trade screen ('Offer to become Subjugated Vassal')
- tooltips on Peace and Subjugation trade items in diplomacy trade screen now include indication of value of extra incentive required when other faction wants additional inducement to end war
- ensure vassal tribute income properly shown in Projected column of Annual Income section in Economy screen
Diplomatic Strategy:
- high-level diplomatic strategy now pays more attention to overall situation for faction, not just one-on-one relations. Thus more likely to seek out allies against threatening neighbors, even when would not normally otherwise ally with faction.
- diplomatic strategy now also affects empire evaluation of neighboring strength. Concern about strength will be greater if their diplomatic strategy towards you is a negative one.
- preserve existing diplomatic treaty when matches current strategy for faction, even when evaluation drops below typical level for the treaty (e.g. advisor suggestions)
- now force immediate update of each faction's diplomatic strategy whenever conclude trade, change treaty, etc in diplomatic conversation screen
Pirate Wars:
- fixed bug where wars would start with pirate factions when they raid your colonies
- ensure capturing pirate base eliminates pirate faction (not just when destroy pirate base)
Diplomatic Reputation:
- capped maximum and minimum reputation levels
- adjusted soft cap to impact of reputation in diplomacy
- high reputation now also reduces envy factor from other empires ('We are envious of your huge strength and power')
- reputation impact from events is halved when above or below high or low thresholds, meaning that extreme reputation levels, once achieved, are slower to shift
- reputation factors on average now decay much more slowly, especially if your reputation is strongly positive or negative
- less concern over others' reputations when you and other faction both have positive or negative reputation levels, i.e. more concerned when other faction has opposite reputation to you as well as a significant reputation gap
- you can now gain positive reputation from additional actions such as releasing prisoners, signing new treaties, researching diplomacy techs, destroying hive ships and planet destroyers
- rebalanced all reputation impacts and decay rates
- no negative reputation impact from espionage against pirates
- diplomacy trend values update faster than previously. Reputation trend values update much faster than previously. This means that as your relationship or reputation change, it will take less time for other empires to notice and reflect that change in their relationship with you.
- honoring defense treaty by declaring war on aggressor no longer incurs war justification penalty or war grace period penalty ('too soon since last war')
- fixed bug when modifying empire reputation near minimum or maximum limits
- updated Empire Reputation Galactopedia article to include explanation of Slavery and Extermination colony population policies
- reduced overall impact of very good or very poor reputation on colony happiness
- once empire reputation goes over +10 or below -10 then has diminished impact on colony happiness
Diplomatic Relationships:
- updated values for long-term diplomacy effects for some treaty types to better balance diplomatic progress
- capped display of diplomacy trend values so that do not show misleadingly high or low values even when have fast-moving trend (trend magnitude never larger than target value)
- ensure clear some positive diplomacy values with other faction when they bombard, invade or destroy one of your colonies
- lowered soft cap for some diplomacy factors: relationship and beneficial treaties with friends and enemies
- fixed buggy display of diplomatic relation incident trend values when transition from positive to negative or vice versa
- ensure cancel treaties with other faction when they bombard, invade or destroy one of your colonies
- adjusted soft cap for some diplomatic factors: relationship with friends, relationship with enemies
Ambassadors:
- some high-level treaty types now require an ambassador to be assigned to the foreign capital before they will be accepted
- ambassadors now properly apply diplomacy bonus to modify evaluation of your empire by assigned faction (when at faction capital)
- the diplomacy screen now correctly shows the consolidated effect of any assigned ambassadors and your leader on a given faction
Trade and Negotiation:
- diplomacy trade panel adds new functionality to move view to trade items that are visible to your faction. Click 'eye' icon at right side of trade item
- bases available for trade in diplomacy trade screen now show as 'Unknown Base' when not visible to player
- ensure all techs valued properly in trade deal screen (none should be zero unless truly worthless to other faction)
- fixed tech trading sometimes excluding research projects that you do not have access to (e.g. projects that your tech tree has no path to, even though other faction has researched the project). Note that tech trading does properly exclude projects based on your tech level in a research area, but this fix now deliberately includes projects that you may not have a path to (when appropriate for your tech level). Note that this fix also applies to some other situations where you can acquire tech, e.g. when conquering an enemy colony, when using spies to steal tech.
Diplomatic Techs and Assimilation:
- colony population assimilation rates for specific races now improved by researching diplomacy projects in tech tree at rate of 10% per improved relationship point
Treaty Fixes:
- ensure Intelligence Sharing treaty now properly shares results of espionage missions with partners
- ensure Research treaty properly gives bonuses to each factions research speed
War Resolution:
- lowered threshold from war losses where an empire will consider ending a war (more likely to end war when losing badly)
- empires now more willing to offer incentives to end unwanted wars
- unhappiness from war weariness now applied to colonies with race and govt mitigation factors (mainly based on war weariness reduction), so that aggressive factions now have less unhappiness from war weariness and thus less negative impact from wars
- empires now more likely to honor minimum interval between wars with same faction
- vassal empires now include minimum interval between wars with same faction when considering whether to rebel against parent empire
- fixed bug where diplomatic incidents were being applied to wrong empire when declare war while still have Defense or Non-Aggression treaty
- fixed bug where offers to end war sometimes cannot be accepted
RESEARCH
This is another area which benefited from a significant amount of development attention. Based on community feedback, we found that Random research in particular was not working as intended.
The intention was always that when choosing Random research, some techs or sub-trees could be missing from the research tree. This does not mean that they are absent from the game, but that they would need to be enabled through trade, espionage, exploration, salvage or conquest rather than just through research. We also found that some random paths were being incorrectly generated and thus required too many pre-requisites for some projects or made others available that should not have been. With this update, Random research issues should be resolved.
We also fixed a variety of other issues and began improving the research AI. More work in this area will come in the next series of updates.
- altered how research project prerequisites work: now often only require a subset of all the prerequisites for a project instead of all prerequisites as previously. This fixes the issue where race-specific techs added to the required prerequisite paths instead of just being a part of them.
- research project bonus requirement amounts now scale with galaxy size - larger galaxies have higher research bonus threshold requirements due to being easier to find the necessary research bonus locations
- fixed bug where research projects with fallback paths were sometimes not appearing on tech tree when should have
- now exclude race-specific tech from non-playable races when stealing or trading tech, or acquiring through other means (e.g. colony conquest)
- tweaked which research projects an empire can acquire through colony conquest
- tweaked which research projects are available for trade and stealing (spy missions): spies can now perform repeated steal tech missions for same project even when visible to their empire
- set default maximum concurrent research projects to 1 in empire policy
- fixed some research projects remaining invisible after steal tech spy mission or acquire through other non-standard means
- fixed bug where minimum path count for some research project prerequisites were defaulting to one, which was incorrectly reducing the number of prerequisites that needs to first be researched
- fixed research projects sometimes incorrectly showing up on tech tree when no parent paths (when using randomized research)
- fixed higher level research projects sometimes improperly being researchable even when have no path to them from base of tech tree
- fixed some research projects not generating with all required prerequisite paths
- ensure pirate factions exclude some research projects at game start that they value lower (colonization, facilities, diplomacy), thus not being available to trade or steal from them
- now allow AI to initiate research projects even when uses reserved spending (colony ships, wonders) when there are no projects in the queue and the project initiation cost is relatively low
- slightly reduced AI research priority for diplomacy techs
- slightly reduced AI research priority for some planetary facilities, especially research facilities
...
Part deux....
QuoteMIGRATION, COLONIZATION AND COLONY POPULATION POLICY
- ensure migrating populations honor colonization minimum suitability level from empire policy, i.e. race does not migrate to a colony unless suitability is +20 or better (default level)
- automated colony ship construction now considers preferred colonization race (suitability) and location of colonization target when determining where to build new colony ship (first choice is closest colony to target with preferred colonization race)
- added further improvements when selecting construction locations for automated colony ships, especially when handling multiple simultaneous manually-queued colonization targets
- fixed bug where colony ships could sometimes continually load and unload colonists but never colonize a target, especially when have many queued colonization targets and many colony ships
- reduced colonies constantly rebelling when using enslave or exterminate policy. However note that using these policies will increase unrest of affected races at your colonies, likely eventually leading to rebellion
- fixed issue where constantly rebelling colony with population set to exterminate would push population above 30 million, thus never completing extermination
- ensure colony is removed when all of its population is exterminated (population policy)
FLEETS AND SHIPS
- tweaked default fleet templates: larger Attack and Invade fleets
- ships added to fleets via topup now check whether have enough fuel to reach fleet, if not then first refuel at nearby location before proceeding to form-up with fleet
- automated generation of invasion fleets now also checks whether have enough existing troops or spare troop maintenance to supply troops from army template for new fleet
- when a ship changes fleets it now auto-cancels any escort missions for old fleet (escorting fleet capital ships)
- ensure ships that get stuck inside stars/planets/etc can always properly extricate themselves without other factors overriding that behavior
- automated construction ships now more willing to repair abandoned ships and bases when no other bases to build
- Capture ship missions now assigned and retained even when no assault pods currently available (cool down timer)
- now indicate unavailable assault pod status in Selection Panel and Weapons Report window when ship is assigned a Capture mission
- when a colony is invaded and conquered by another faction then non-military ships from the previous empire clear any missions at the colony (when two empires are still at war)
- fighters onboard carriers or bases no longer affected by location effects (storms, etc)
- ensure fleets that are manually assigned to attack enemy fleets at same location always carry out mission, even when not at war
- reduced default ratio of military ships not in fleets (empire policy)
- slightly reduced number of raid fleets for empire
- changed default engagement range for Invasion Fleets from 50% Fuel Range to Nearby
- mining ships now more careful to select mining targets within fuel range, including whether inside nebulae clouds
- troop transports in invasion fleets that are invading an enemy colony now attempt to better coordinate assault pod launch (troop drop) so that close together instead of piecemeal landing. Also indicate when waiting for extra invasion forces in mission description in Selection Panel
- fixed bug where a ships intercept weapons were sometimes incorrectly being used to bombard an enemy colony even when only assigned attack mission against colony (not bombard)
CONSTRUCTION AND SHIP DESIGN
- fixed Build Order screen sometimes building wrong design for role
- slightly adjusted construction balance for military ship types: generally fewer escorts and more larger ships
- increased military ship building levels
- ensured default design templates for defensive bases include Ion Defense components
- fixed ships not always being upgraded when research new tech
- ensure Energy To Fuel converter component works properly
UI IMPROVEMENTS
- added new button to Population Policy screen: apply policy to all colonies of this type (e.g. Marshy Swamp, Volcanic, Sandy Desert, etc)
- enabled shift-click to multi-select range of designs in Designs List screen
- Control Center now pauses list updates while hovering over list items (list items retain order) to avoid having to deal with list changes while trying to take a list action
- now immediately updates right-click mission for hovered item when select an item via hotkey (no need to move mouse), e.g. allow immediate right-click attack of hovered enemy target when select fleet via hotkey
- made it clearer in user interface when undertaking an action that will very negatively affect your reputation: Bombardment, Slavery and Extermination colony policies, declaring war in wrong situation (insufficient justification, too soon since last war, existing Non Aggression treaty, existing Defense treaty), invading independent colonies, invading colonies when not at war, destroying colonies
- now show fleet jump range for selected fleet in galaxy view as dashed orange circle (in addition to fuel range)
- ambassador contributions to diplomacy are now properly called out in the diplomacy tab
- indicate when characters drawn in list items are transferring to new location (transparent image with tooltip explanation)
- immediately update system view summary (bottom-middle of screen) when double-click item to change view
- added explanation in tooltip of action button when cannot build mining station or other base at location due to missing active design
- fixed mined and known locations amounts sometimes being out-of-date in Resources list
- fixed missing callout lines and tooltips in summary panel (bottom-middle of screen)
- fixed height of text panel in Tour screen sometimes being too short
- fixed some scrollable text panels missing their vertical scroll bar when text is higher than panel
- ensure empires have different colors and flags even when multiple empires of same race
- doubled the number of available empire flags
- fixed non-clipped rendering artifacts in Start New Game screen
- made galaxy nebula clouds more visible
- fixed some text problems with fullscreen messages
COLONY MANAGEMENT
- slightly adjusted planetary facility building levels, colony population and development should be larger before some facilities are built
- reduced population level for building a small spaceport at a colony in default policy settings
- increased target tax rate for medium-sized colonies to +20 (from +10) in default policy settings to encourage faster growth
- ensure colonies always have proper resource stock levels for building bases and ships
- avoid using reserved spending to build planetary facilities when automation is Suggest. Instead wait until have funds then suggest to player
EXPLORATION
- ensure range for discovering lost colony exceeds exploration range so that exploration ships always discover
- fixed new bug where exploration ships were sometimes stopping exploration beyond home system
- slightly reduced tech level of ships in most debris fields
- ensure abandoned ships and bases do not use excessive race-specific tech
GAME EVENTS
- ensure plagues and disasters do not strike same colony too often (no simultaneous plagues, minimum interval between)
- extended Game Events so that can have multiple filters for TriggerRaceIds and NonTriggerRaceIds
- moved AllConditionsMustBeMet flag on Game Event and Actions (no longer part of Conditions list)
- fixed minor text issue with some Hive threat messages
- fixed minor text layout issues for some ruin discovery messages
IN-GAME EDITOR
- changing a star name in game editor now also changes the corresponding system name on the galaxy map
MODDING SUPPORT
- now support overriding loaded data items by Id value for all XML file types (Races, Research Project Definitions, Ship Hulls, Troop Definitions, etc) based on additional data files that start with the same name (as a prefix). IDs should still be unique across all files.
OTHER
- fixed time to transfer character to new location sometimes being excessively long
- ensure message filter empire flag images are properly loaded
- ensure pre-expanded empire colonies (at game start) have good suitability levels
- added setting to Game Settings screen for opt-in/out of auto-sending anonymized error reporting
- auto-delete game settings to ensure new default policy settings are applied in new games
- ensure SavedGames folder exists before using Continue Game button
- enabled Sentry error reporting
- included all files in win-x64 folder that may fix freetype.dll error issues some had when launching 1.0.6.4
DATA
- various data file fixes, balance tweaks and updates, including some buffs for the Boskara and a fix for the Zenox starting with far too large a research bonus (the +20% was supposed to be only on their ancient homeworld, if you can find it)
- rebalanced some government modifiers to make certain government types less corrupt and unhappy to ease economic challenges
Very impressive
I am still po'd about matrix and the dev for not providing beta updates to direct buyers. Maybe I will try DW2 again someday when I tire of Shadow Empire (Vic treats his SE fans right!).
It's easy to forget that DWU was as polished as it was after 3 years and 4 expansions. And it's also easy to forget that, for all the charm and depth of the original, it drove like an Italian sports car that got a flat every 75 miles.
While the initial release of DW2 was bumpier than it should have been, Eric R. has been very transparent in admitting what happened and why. This level of improvement only a few months after the prior patch is impressive. It's too early to tell whether or not all the changes will work as well as hoped, but as I said, a game this complicated takes a lot of polishing.
The game is fun already, if far from perfect. I pick it up, play a few times until I run into something that annoys me, and then wait until a patch comes out that seeks to fix whatever annoyed me. This game will take a little while to age, I think.
They are even having a discord to explain modding- notably adding ship types and races.
So modding is opening up slowly.
Quote from: solops on November 03, 2022, 08:18:58 PM
I am still po'd about matrix and the dev for not providing beta updates to direct buyers. Maybe I will try DW2 again someday when I tire of Shadow Empire (Vic treats his SE fans right!).
Are you sure? I could have sworn I've heard Das talk about getting betas off of matrix version.
Quote from: joram on November 04, 2022, 09:56:12 PM
Quote from: solops on November 03, 2022, 08:18:58 PM
I am still po'd about matrix and the dev for not providing beta updates to direct buyers. Maybe I will try DW2 again someday when I tire of Shadow Empire (Vic treats his SE fans right!).
Are you sure? I could have sworn I've heard Das talk about getting betas off of matrix version.
To facilitate frequent beta iterations as needed, this beta is only available for now on Steam and GOG. All Matrix customers also have a free Steam key available (through your My Page) which can be activated if desired to install DW2 via Steam and test this Beta there.
https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=10151&t=389806&sid=e579f27e7813ff221a88e80fc1c7b89b
The Devs dropped another big patch yesterday, called "Hyperspeed." The link to changes is below...but performance with huge battles seems to have been a major goal.
https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWorlds2/whatsnew.pdf (https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWorlds2/whatsnew.pdf)
I really hadn't played much with the game since its release. I fired it up, and was pleasantly surprised by all of the good work they have done.
Early game, DW2 seems too automated and cold. I felt like the game just did not need me. Heck, it was better at playing my empire than I was.
However, mid-game, with about a dozen colonies, and hot and cold neighbors, the game and all of the automation really started to come into its own. It was then that I really started to enjoy it.
Once I had about a dozen colonies and hundreds of ships, it was nice to know that I could concentrate on hot-spots and the AI would competently run everything else.
For example, an adjoining empire attacked one of my mining stations in a system where we both had bases. I was thinking it was the start of a war, and I was not ready. When I zoomed in, I saw that one of my fleets had actually engaged one of theirs...and I was thinking bad thoughts about my prospects. But I checked diplomacy, and it turns out that they had not declared war...but it seemed that hot heads on both sides were sniping at each other... Since I did not want war, I was able to throw cash at the situation. Along with a substantial cash gift, they were willing to sell their bases in the contested system. I bought them out, their fleet retreated, and war was averted for now. But I am starting a massive naval build program...because the next time will not be so pretty. While I was doing all of this, the rest of my empire, hummed along, without me...brilliant!!
oops, double post
Quote from: ArizonaTank on May 27, 2023, 05:26:47 PMThe Devs dropped another big patch yesterday, called "Hyperspeed." The link to changes is below...but performance with huge battles seems to have been a major goal.
https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWorlds2/whatsnew.pdf (https://ftp.matrixgames.com/pub/DistantWorlds2/whatsnew.pdf)
I really hadn't played much with the game since its release. I fired it up, and was pleasantly surprised by all of the good work they have done.
Early game, DW2 seems too automated and cold. I felt like the game just did not need me. Heck, it was better at playing my empire than I was.
However, mid-game, with about a dozen colonies, and hot and cold neighbors, the game and all of the automation really started to come into its own. It was then that I really started to enjoy it.
Once I had about a dozen colonies and hundreds of ships, it was nice to know that I could concentrate on hot-spots and the AI would competently run everything else.
For example, an adjoining empire attacked one of my mining stations in a system where we both had bases. I was thinking it was the start of a war, and I was not ready. When I zoomed in, I saw that one of my fleets had actually engaged one of theirs...and I was thinking bad thoughts about my prospects. But I checked diplomacy, and it turns out that they had not declared war...but it seemed that hot heads on both sides were sniping at each other... Since I did not want war, I was able to throw cash at the situation. Along with a substantial cash gift, they were willing to sell their bases in the contested system. I bought them out, their fleet retreated, and war was averted for now. But I am starting a massive naval build program...because the next time will not be so pretty. While I was doing all of this, the rest of my empire, hummed along, without me...brilliant!!
Nice. DLC - Quameno and Gizureans possibly October this year. The expansion (no details yet) will include the Shakturi.
I did played it on beta and I liked the new changes, especially to the nebula and even the music and UI sounds. I might have to get in a game.