Distant Worlds 2 - State of the Game and Update Roadmap

[OrnluWolfjarl]

You know that this is sort of possible in the game right now... as long as you only have one of each class of ships in a specific fleet. I use this all the time. You can select which ship (of a specific class) in a fleet template should upgrade to and they do that automatically.

If this perhaps is enough for you or not I don't know, but this works good for me until they add a way to have multiple ships of the same class in a fleet at the same time, if they ever will.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really work well with the way I play. I particularly like using large numbers of destroyers of different designs, accompanied by a few larger ships, also with specialized designs. Building designs and fleets according to my plans and needs is half the fun for me. If I want to do that with fleet templates, I'll have to use a big bunch of really small and different fleets, and that's hell to manage. Or compromise and use "regular" fleets, which gets boring for me, hence why I'm taking a break from DW2 currently.

It's my hope they'll implement this change, because it seems a lot of players are feeling it's sorely missing. If they don't implement it soon, then I'll guess I'll have to adjust the way I play, but I feel it would be a shame.

I agree with you to a degree... it have limitations. Especially if you just want one big fleet. But even then you probably can find a design in each class to do what you want in that fleet for the most part unless you just want all of them to be destroyers for some reason.

I tend to run smaller fleets and view them more as small task-groups or squadrons than anything else and for me that works fine until they change this to become more dynamic and free.

Yeah, I can learn to live with it for now, but long-term I'd prefer if they changed how having different designs for each hull is handled.

[zgrssd]

Personally, I'm waiting until we can upgrade different designs of the same hull separately to dive back in, but I still find myself itching for more and coming back to play a few hours per week.

You know that this is sort of possible in the game right now... as long as you only have one of each class of ships in a specific fleet. I use this all the time. You can select which ship (of a specific class) in a fleet template should upgrade to and they do that automatically.

If this perhaps is enough for you or not I don't know, but this works good for me until they add a way to have multiple ships of the same class in a fleet at the same time, if they ever will.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really work well with the way I play. I particularly like using large numbers of destroyers of different designs, accompanied by a few larger ships, also with specialized designs. Building designs and fleets according to my plans and needs is half the fun for me. If I want to do that with fleet templates, I'll have to use a big bunch of really small and different fleets, and that's hell to manage. Or compromise and use "regular" fleets, which gets boring for me, hence why I'm taking a break from DW2 currently.

It's my hope they'll implement this change, because it seems a lot of players are feeling it's sorely missing. If they don't implement it soon, then I'll guess I'll have to adjust the way I play, but I feel it would be a shame.

With situations like this I can only wonder:
What kind of "Problem" are you trying to "fix" by having that many fleet and ship templates?
And would it be actually worth all the effort, even if the UI did fully support it?

The main thing is to make sure you set te designer filters to "Buildable Designs", not "Latest buildable designs". Because the later filter will only show one design per Role.

[AKicebear]

With situations like this I can only wonder:
What kind of "Problem" are you trying to "fix" by having that many fleet and ship templates?
And would it be actually worth all the effort, even if the UI did fully support it?

The main thing is to make sure you set te designer filters to "Buildable Designs", not "Latest buildable designs". Because the later filter will only show one design per Role.

I think it's fair to expect a Patrol Escort to automatically upgrade to the newer Patrol Escort, not the newer plain Escort. And so on.

I don't need infinite designs, but at least one design line per hull type is reasonable and expected by many. No need to gas light us by suggesting our intuition is wrong.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

With situations like this I can only wonder:
What kind of "Problem" are you trying to "fix" by having that many fleet and ship templates?
And would it be actually worth all the effort, even if the UI did fully support it?

The main thing is to make sure you set te designer filters to "Buildable Designs", not "Latest buildable designs". Because the later filter will only show one design per Role.

I think it's fair to expect a Patrol Escort to automatically upgrade to the newer Patrol Escort, not the newer plain Escort. And so on.

I don't need infinite designs, but at least one design line per hull type is reasonable and expected by many. No need to gas light us by suggesting our intuition is wrong.

Pretty much

[arvcran2]

In the early game when there are fewer Military hull ships available to the player, it is then that allowing for more variants in design would be beneficial.

I've designed many version of a basic escort to deal with different situations:

Some times you want PD weapons included and other times you want non PD and hence need fewer ships per destination.

Then there are situations where you want to standoff approach, as opposed to close range designs.

The fleet templates can handle this for the most part. It is somewhat tedious to micro mange the exact design of each 'concept design' upgrade.

Can anyone confirm if the non fleeted ships switch design concepts when there are multiple designs available per role?
I think this may still be a problem but I have not caught it recently.

[Jorgen_CAB]

In the early game when there are fewer Military hull ships available to the player, it is then that allowing for more variants in design would be beneficial.

I've designed many version of a basic escort to deal with different situations:

Some times you want PD weapons included and other times you want non PD and hence need fewer ships per destination.

Then there are situations where you want to standoff approach, as opposed to close range designs.

The fleet templates can handle this for the most part. It is somewhat tedious to micro mange the exact design of each 'concept design' upgrade.

Can anyone confirm if the non fleeted ships switch design concepts when there are multiple designs available per role?
I think this may still be a problem but I have not caught it recently.

Individual ships not in a fleet will upgrade to the "latest" design you did in that class. So you can in some way control it but it is fiddly. I don't ever use free ranging patrol ships, that is mainly a waste of resources to be honest. But I have allot of smaller fleets as well as some larger ones.
If I could somehow control those free ranging ships to patrol in specific zones of interest it might be useful, but if they disperse through my entire empire it makes very little sense to use them.

[maggiecow]

With situations like this I can only wonder:
What kind of "Problem" are you trying to "fix" by having that many fleet and ship templates?
And would it be actually worth all the effort, even if the UI did fully support it?

The main thing is to make sure you set te designer filters to "Buildable Designs", not "Latest buildable designs". Because the later filter will only show one design per Role.

I think it's fair to expect a Patrol Escort to automatically upgrade to the newer Patrol Escort, not the newer plain Escort. And so on.

I don't need infinite designs, but at least one design line per hull type is reasonable and expected by many. No need to gas light us by suggesting our intuition is wrong.

I don't get why anyone would argue against having more control over how sub-types are handled when it comes to fleet design and auto-refitting, in general.

I'm going to assign a different defence fleet to my main colony than I do to a contested mining station. The template will be different and likely the engagement ranges as well.

I have small invasion fleets for mopping up indies, that are very different to what I'm sending against Homeworlds.

I have small capture fleets (not sure if I should be setting these to "attack" or "raid" - can anyone clarify what's most likely to simply captures enemy ships and stations?) by the bucketload, harassing and tying up enemy fleets and fixtures.

While you don't NEED the perfect ship design or fleet template (cos the AI is woeful) it'd be nice to have the opportunity, and have the game respect the different sub-types that they on the one hand offer you, then render immaterial with the other hand.

Since the game is designed to be played hands-off, the more granular control you have over your fleet design the better.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I'm pretty sure they said that more settings for upgrade paths will be coming in the future. I'm sure this has just not been prioritized as it do work to some degree as it is. But I do agree that being able to automatically update a Patrol Escort to the latest designed Patrol Escort seem logical for most people and I even thin most expect it to work like that.

In addition to this I also think that fleet template should be able to accommodate more than one role from each class as well, I see no reason to restrict us to only one variant of Escort for example.

[AKicebear]

Hi Eric - curious if an updated roadmap is still on the near horizon? I recall it was maybe going to come out with the main branch update, but that has come and gone. Very curious what the priorities are for the next few months!

[Foraven]

With situations like this I can only wonder:
What kind of "Problem" are you trying to "fix" by having that many fleet and ship templates?
And would it be actually worth all the effort, even if the UI did fully support it?

The main thing is to make sure you set te designer filters to "Buildable Designs", not "Latest buildable designs". Because the later filter will only show one design per Role.

In my case, I like to be able to design more specialized ships for different purpose. A ship designed to capture other ships may not be appropriate to deal with space monsters, defend a system or bomb planets. I don't like having all my ships convert to a new design when I may only need a few ships using that loadout.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Eric - curious if an updated roadmap is still on the near horizon? I recall it was maybe going to come out with the main branch update, but that has come and gone. Very curious what the priorities are for the next few months!

Yes, it is coming, likely next week.

[zgrssd]

With situations like this I can only wonder:
What kind of "Problem" are you trying to "fix" by having that many fleet and ship templates?
And would it be actually worth all the effort, even if the UI did fully support it?

The main thing is to make sure you set te designer filters to "Buildable Designs", not "Latest buildable designs". Because the later filter will only show one design per Role.

In my case, I like to be able to design more specialized ships for different purpose. A ship designed to capture other ships may not be appropriate to deal with space monsters, defend a system or bomb planets. I don't like having all my ships convert to a new design when I may only need a few ships using that loadout.

I just build all-rounders. So I do not end up stuck with a Fleet of ships that can't do the job in the wrong system.

Rather be 90% efficient, then 100% efficient - half a galaxy away.

[Joram]

Anyone with any familiarity with how the US or any major navy works would appreciate the need for multiple types of frigates, destroyers etc... Erik has said it's working as designed and not a high priority and that's fine but it would be a huge improvement nonetheless in both functionality and immersion. Frankly, if you don't care about it, don't use it, no skin off your nose but many people have said it's important to them since pretty much launch. Here's hoping it makes it into a near future build.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

I just build all-rounders. So I do not end up stuck with a Fleet of ships that can't do the job in the wrong system.

Rather be 90% efficient, then 100% efficient - half a galaxy away.

That's as fine a playstyle as any. I don't understand why you needed to berate me (and many others) for wishing we could play differently, especially since the game is handing out to the player multiple specialized hulls for each ship type.

[zgrssd]

Anyone with any familiarity with how the US or any major navy works would appreciate the need for multiple types of frigates, destroyers etc...

Every Navy aims to have as few ship types as possible.
The only reason they don't have less, is that they can't retrofit ships to such a extreme degree as we can in the game:
https://youtu.be/gGDyS_JJ-MA

[Jorgen_CAB]

Anyone with any familiarity with how the US or any major navy works would appreciate the need for multiple types of frigates, destroyers etc...

Every Navy aims to have as few ship types as possible.
The only reason they don't have less, is that they can't retrofit ships to such a extreme degree as we can in the game:
https://youtu.be/gGDyS_JJ-MA

Yes... in the real world every navy, army or air force want as few platform as possible. This reduce costs, simplify logistics, training and pretty much every parameter you can find. There can be some cases made that having some extremely good high quality platforms increase the overall performance of a military, but you don't want an army, air-force or navy full of hundreds of different very specialized platforms... that simply is not feasible from pretty much any perspective.

If you look and military industry you see a pretty clear focus on modular or multi-role designs of all platforms... be it air-planes, vehicles or ships.

Games rarely reflect realistic conditions in these ways.

[MichaelJ007]

I too like to use different designs for different roles. I usually keep them in separate fleets so I can manage them via templates, but being able to have multiple designs in the same template would be nice. Hardly critical or game breaking though.

[Erik Rutins]

This has been replaced by a new State of the Game and Roadmap here:

https://www.matrixgames.com/forums/view ... 1&t=388488