Is it worth struggling to learn the game? That's for you to decide. But I'll tell you why I continue to play, despite many frustrations with it. One reason is that it's a unique game, with unique features and gameplay. When the stars align and everything works as it's supposed to, it can be a lot ...

StormingKiwi wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 6:13 am
... A manual ship in a manuaL fleet with military attacks set to manual will still ENGAGE enemies within its enagement range.

Huh, then I have no idea how to solve OP's question.

[/quote]
This just happened again; lost two more destroyers. You would think that Manual would mean, uh, manual control. i changed tactics to "only engage if attacked".
[/quote]

Fleet vs Ship orders
There is an option (scroll down in while at "Set tactics" for a fleet) to prioritize ship orders ...

Some additional comments to OP.

You could spy the pirate's homebase by stealing their operational maps. If you are successful you can klick on the pirates home-base in the diplomacy screen.

IME you need both Large weapons to cut through armour damage reduction (because this is more effective ...

I prefer the Quackdarians and the game got awfully hard for pre-warp frogs. Thanks for helping out all green ones, your quick fix worked wonders.

Here's a thing that "solved" spying for me. :/ I use Lucky-wolf's mod DW2-XL and started a game where everybody got 2-4 planets and thus had all Tech lvl 1. The chance for a new spy to steal Tech lvl 2 is VERY low so the AI set all my spies to counterintelligence. They never got any Xp and so far ...

Huh, I never noticed that in my games. I think I would have noticed because I check new colonizable planets fairly often (as I don't trust the AI to do the colonization). I haven't got a clue what caused this.

Thank you for a very good mod!
I wish Matrix took all of your changes and implemented them. Your tech tree and game balancing is IMHO way better than the current release.
Cudos to you!

I also stopped doing spy missions because of the tedious scrolling. I can live with that but I dislike the flood of pop-up messages and IME it takes two klicks to close some of them.

I agree that the game is good and the improvements from open beta are big.
The thing I wish for most is better filtering of and closing down the pop-up messages. I do NOT care if a scout found hidden items that I cannot discover at the moment.

Did you find any notes what changed in beta 1.0.8.4?

"Can there at least be an option to turn this feature off?"
Click "SHIP CONSTRUCTION" and then "Ship Designs".
Set "Role Upgrade" to Manual for those ships you want to manually upgrade.
Remember to upgrade the ship when you research a new equipment that you want to use. Use the "Upgrade button" to ...

Thank you very much for a quality guide!!
Your guide and videos helped me understand the game and this made it MUCH more enjoyable.

How are borders formed?

My first colony seems to have a bigger area around it, compared to a new colony. I have explored the new colony's vicinity further outwards and found no alien influencing it /yet/. The new colony included 3 new stars into my territory but not 6 (explored to yellow and green ...

Thanks for the very large font (the biggest one)!
The game becomes much more enjoyable when I can read text easily.

Thanks for fair warning.

Earlier I fired one Scientist that gave -5% on all research (unless I completely misread it, I'm new to the game), that is "minus" five percent.
I don't know if that was the correct decision - because I don't understand if Scientist gives some sort of flat bonus (that was ...

Can you merge fleets or make existing fleets bigger (i.e. have more ships)?

I'm in early game and found the Defence fleets with mostly 3 Escorts or the latest fleets with 3 Frigates to be weak. I need to stack them in combat to minimize ship losses - so I'd like them to be bigger.

Thank you Elver for the best explanation and excellent advice. If I'd known that I might not have been so frustrated.

<r> Thanks Marchen for supportive words. I want a break first. <br/>
<br/>
I had hoped that Distant Worlds 2 would be the thing to bite deep into - but I'm also a realist and know the game might need a year or two to be bug corrected and balanced. For now I went back to reading Stoicism philosophy ...

<r> <I><s>[i]</s>Only solution is to drive the enemy back, hard and quickly. You can not delay<e>[/i]</e></I>. - I did not delay at all. Moving troops took 2-3 turns, then waiting for readiness took 1 turn.<br/>
<br/>
<I><s>[i]</s>attack from as many direcitons as possible.<e>[/i]</e></I> - I ...

<r> The minor regime had all its troops in the city. The numbers were high but when I read their hit points and attack/defence I was not impressed. I had no playable strat cards this early in the game.<br/>

<QUOTE><s>[quote]</s>The enemy is likely dug in<e>[/quote]</e></QUOTE>
I think this was ...