Poll: First DW2 expansion?

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
Isn't that alrady in DW1?
No planets will produce every Luxury and Strategic Resource it needs for growth. But there is sure to be a planet or mining station that does. If it is a planet, you get interplanetary trade. And planets should be prefered, given that you might be able to transport something in both directions.

Maybe they could add some inherent tourism between planets? IIRC tourism in 1 was only towards places with bonus scenery (and propably a resort base), but there should be some tourism attraction for every planet. Especially if it is a different clime and as high quality/development.

Yes... the difference would then be that those goods have different uses and abilities and you ONLY find them no populated and industrialised planets you can't find them and mine them anywhere else. These resources still are part of planets development and should be able to change over time depending on the supply and demand of it's surrounding. A planet that are developing should be more likely to provide a good that there is a high demand of as that would earn the planet more income and a slightly higher development which means more goods produces.

Already developed worlds could change the good or the amount they produce but the more developed the world the slower the change should be. This would mean a world that once produced a very sought of good might later produce something that is not so hot anymore and as the world have a high development it is slow to change. Small developing colonies will change their production of goods much more rapidly as they are still able to change more quickly.

I would like such a system where large developed planets are more stagnant than small new developing colonies. It also would encourage more "trade" between planets without a complicated resource production system in place. It also wouldn't burden the player in other ways than providing the infrastructure and making sure you get trade agreement with other powers that have the goods that you want or can sell.

[Miletkir]

I know food is abstracted within the private sector, but I wonder if it wouldn't be worth adding as a limiting factor. Historically, it has always been a central element controlling the expansion of empires and the length of wars. On that note, to me, war weariness shouldn't be an abstracted penalty either. It should be a consequence of direct resource and maintenance costs increase.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Miletkir

I know food is abstracted within the private sector, but I wonder if it wouldn't be worth adding as a limiting factor. Historically, it has always been a central element controlling the expansion of empires and the length of wars. On that note, to me, war weariness shouldn't be an abstracted penalty either. It should be a consequence of direct resource and maintenance costs increase.

Food really have not been an issue for developed nations since before the industrial revolution and a galactic civilisation would only need basic minerals and energy (the stars) to provide all the food they need. I personally don't think food is realistically an important resource outside the means as a luxury resource.

I do agree on war weariness though... it would be nice if war weariness was hugely impacted on how disruptive it is to the civilian life in more direct ways such as falling development on planets, destruction of civilian assets etc...

[Raagun]

Weird that people mostly want things which add practically nothing to game.
Orbiting planets -> visual only. And shit ton of work on programming level.
Resources -> DW is not about resource management essentially. DW only cares about resources on strategic level. Except fuel which is really operational thing. So adding essentially resource management minigame will be bad for game overall I think.

Fight me!!

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Raagun

Weird that people mostly want things which add practically nothing to game.
Orbiting planets -> visual only. And shit ton of work on programming level.
Resources -> DW is not about resource management essentially. DW only cares about resources on strategic level. Except fuel which is really operational thing. So adding essentially resource management minigame will be bad for game overall I think.

Fight me!!

I agree, resource management is what the civilian part of the game take care of. The players role is to provide the infrastructure and security for the civilisation to thrive.

Any type of hands on resource system by the player would be counter productive and not in the spirit of what the player are suppose to be doing. We also should not be able to micro manage production of resources or control how they are produced.

[Raagun]

I see more in depth resource part as industry expansion. I see that as ships requiring maintenance and parts which require established industrial base. Basically extra layer on fuel management. But would require industrialized worlds, space ports and something else. This could be really interesting expansion. But it doesnt even require "manufactured resources" actually.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Raagun

I see more in depth resource part as industry expansion. I see that as ships requiring maintenance and parts which require established industrial base. Basically extra layer on fuel management. But would require industrialized worlds, space ports and something else. This could be really interesting expansion. But it doesnt even require "manufactured resources" actually.

In my case when I talk about "manufactured" goods it is basically unique resources only produced by planets and not something you can find and mine in space. A resource system that is only important to populated worlds and maybe some strategical resources to advanced ship components but mainly as a trade resource for colonies and developed worlds.

You don't interact with such a system as a player in more ways than you normally do, they just impact the games economy a bit different. I think some of this can be modded into the game though, but planets producing "manufactured" goods somewhat based on supply/demand you probably can't mod into the game.

[Whiskiz]

What i'd want for a first expansion isn't new or pretty bells-and-whistles added on, but more of what's already there.

A couple more races, a couple more creature types and behaviors/traits, maybe a couple more hull variants each size of hull, another size hull/ship up from the current largest, some new pieces of tech including weapons and say shields or armor that work differently, some new infrastructure etc.

Maybe more unique racial identity, like each has a unique structure - say Teekans better mining stations, a peaceful nation better defence battery, humans better tourism station, intelligent race better research station etc.

Maybe more world texture and interactivity like with Nebulae (Not that we know exactly what's done with Nebulae yet, but still)

More events and use of deadspace.

More sidegrades of existing techs.

Any number of any of that kind of thing.

[Raagun]

I think flagship/hero ship could be interesting mechanic for expansion. Add bit more RPG mechanic next to existing characters. Maybe add morale mechanic to fleets. Making fleet an institution with experience and mechanics adding them character. So ships in well established fleet would be drastically different from freelancing ships. And total fleet wipe out would be devastating.

I mean we will have brand new game. We can expand on formula with new interesting ideas.

[Miletkir]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

Food really have not been an issue for developed nations since before the industrial revolution and a galactic civilisation would only need basic minerals and energy (the stars) to provide all the food they need.

Really? There were terrible starvations in Russia and Europe during both world wars, and later into the first half of the 20th century. From the 50s, food has been massively wasted and unequally distributed globally, but by no means this is an issue of the past. Distant Worlds is at the scale of entire planets and solar systems. You still need land to have crops, even if science can turn a desert to be fertile (perhaps sustainably someday...). You can even have "agri-domes", sure, but you'd need pretty big ones to feed hundreds of millions of people. Not to mention the logistics.

Should the economy/management aspect of DW2 be expanded, I think food sould be an important factor to introduce for many reasons, one being the realism and "living" feel DW has shined for. Also because, at least in DWU, medical development was the only way to directly boost population growth (aside from ruins and character traits), and that was a bit weak for such a critical variable in the game.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Miletkir
Really? There were terrible starvations in Russia and Europe during both world wars, and later into the first half of the 20th century. From the 50s, food has been massively wasted and unequally distributed globally, but by no means this is an issue of the past. Distant Worlds is at the scale of entire planets and solar systems. You still need land to have crops, even if science can turn a desert to be fertile (perhaps sustainably someday...). You can even have "agri-domes", sure, but you'd need pretty big ones to feed hundreds of millions of people. Not to mention the logistics.

Should the economy/management aspect of DW2 be expanded, I think food sould be an important factor to introduce for many reasons, one being the realism and "living" feel DW has shined for. Also because, at least in DWU, medical development was the only way to directly boost population growth (aside from ruins and character traits), and that was a bit weak for such a critical variable in the game.

Yes... I think it is a none issue from a larger perspective... that conflict or social inequality will create resource shortages in effected regions is not a good argument for food being important on a galactic or planetary scale. Food only require basic minerals and energy found everywhere we can live. Delivering the minerals and growing the food you need being it vegetable to meat will be so easy it is just minerals and energy no different than any other important things we need in an advanced society. Land area for growing food will not be important, neither will it be on Earth in the future either. As long as the minerals and energy are available you have all the food you need.

[OnePercent]

ORIGINAL: Raagun

Weird that people mostly want things which add practically nothing to game.
Orbiting planets -> visual only. And shit ton of work on programming level.
Resources -> DW is not about resource management essentially. DW only cares about resources on strategic level. Except fuel which is really operational thing. So adding essentially resource management minigame will be bad for game overall I think.

Fight me!!

>Fight me

Sure, The original intent of the devs was to make Distant Worlds 1 but better, this was literally written on their announcement teaser 1 of DW2, in my opinion this means to include or eventually include all the features that made distant worlds 1 better than other 4X games, to not include orbiting solarsystems is devolving that original goal, and goes against the words of the devs themselves.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: OnePercent

ORIGINAL: Raagun

Weird that people mostly want things which add practically nothing to game.
Orbiting planets -> visual only. And shit ton of work on programming level.
Resources -> DW is not about resource management essentially. DW only cares about resources on strategic level. Except fuel which is really operational thing. So adding essentially resource management minigame will be bad for game overall I think.

Fight me!!

>Fight me

Sure, The original intent of the devs was to make Distant Worlds 1 but better, this was literally written on their announcement teaser 1 of DW2, in my opinion this means to include or eventually include all the features that made distant worlds 1 better than other 4X games, to not include orbiting solarsystems is devolving that original goal, and goes against the words of the devs themselves.

To be honest I'm more interested in good game performance than orbiting planets... why not have a 3D star-map while at it as that is more realistic?!?

No... I want to be able to play in bigger galaxies rather than adding minor things that make the game semi realistic. As long as it does not impact performance in any major way then sure... it is a nice thing to have.

Just my opinion.

[Raagun]

I would pick orbiting planet too. But explanation why they didnt shows it is not worth it instead of some new cool features.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

ORIGINAL: Raagun

I would pick orbiting planet too. But explanation why they didnt shows it is not worth it instead of some new cool features.

Will make for some interesting system configurations using the game editor. If you like to buff the AI with a better home system to give a more competitive game you should be able to cluster all the planets and moons it needs for a fast and efficient start so it doesn't stall out if the random seed was poor. Can't do that in DWU because they all eventually drift away from each other. It would really be handy if there were system templates that the map generator could pull from so each race can start with a custom home system or even seed out treasure systems filled with good planets and resources to make the lucrative to fight over. But thats not in the launch plan so hoping for it in an expansion. [8D]

[Miletkir]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

Food only require basic minerals and energy found everywhere we can live.

Actually, it requires rich soils and energy. That's a big difference.

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

Delivering the minerals and growing the food you need being it vegetable to meat will be so easy it is just minerals and energy no different than any other important things we need in an advanced society. Land area for growing food will not be important, neither will it be on Earth in the future either. As long as the minerals and energy are available you have all the food you need.

Are you by any chance a Star Trek fan? Food synthesizers are cool, but far from realistic. I don't want to bring in real examples that would be too political, but the crisis of our time is precisely about fertile land, because our soils are ruined. It's the exact opposite: fertile land area will be one of the major issues of Earth's future. Because of thermodynamic laws, even if you grow superfoods, you can't renew organic matter in a million bodies with a backyard garden. And that's even worse for secondary producers and meat. Although in that case you can still imagine it might be grown in factories...

[Miletkir]

Results at 150 votes:



Pirates are taking a beating [:D]

[Hazard151]

There's the hydroponics and aeroponics option for food production, and theoretically we could manufacture the required soil. It's not as if the chemical and physical structure of good soil is unknown to humanity these days.

It's just that doing that takes a lot of effort and infrastructure investment, and can come with unexpected side effects. Australia dammed a few rivers to shift their stream inland for irrigation purposes, but salt deposits beneath the soil have been slowly salinating the soil due to the changed water table. The Aral Sea is likewise drying up as a result of irrigation efforts. We could absolutely use massive desalination plants to provide water for agricultural purposes in the Sahara, and mining, refining and mixing the needed fertilizers is something we can definitely do.

It's going to be very expensive, but it's possible. It would even be possible to create indoor farms, supplying food from vast, multistory greenhouses, so long as the soil's deep enough before it runs into concrete. Keeping those soils fertile would, again, depend on fertilizers.

I would expect that early on, new colonies will be (partially) dependent on off-planet imports of food, until farming infrastructure and procedures specific to the planet are developed. After that planets will be effectively, or close enough, self sufficient on food.

[Miletkir]

Manufacturing soils would be a challenge because of the organic and microbacterial contents. As a matter of fact, soils renew themselves, but they need be used intelligently and sustainably.

The other limiting factor is indeed water, but, as you say, it's perhaps easier to imagine how to remedy water shortages in the future. So water may be abstracted within food.

And that's my point. Food can serve as an abstraction for a number of important things that are essential to the economy / society. Actually, food can be a very active part of colony happiness, growth and even trade.

The way I would grossly see a layered economy structured:



Of course, everything could be connected to trade, but luxury resources would have the strongest impact on it.

[LordMM]

ORIGINAL: Miletkir

Manufacturing soils would be a challenge because of the organic and microbacterial contents. As a matter of fact, soils renew themselves, but they need be used intelligently and sustainably.

The other limiting factor is indeed water, but, as you say, it's perhaps easier to imagine how to remedy water shortages in the future. So water may be abstracted within food.

And that's my point. Food can serve as an abstraction for a number of important things that are essential to the economy / society. Actually, food can be a very active part of colony happiness, growth and even trade.

The way I would grossly see a layered economy structured:



Of course, everything could be connected to trade, but luxury resources would have the strongest impact on it.

The processing facilities could be on planets instead of extra space facilities. This way you could build entire Industrial centers. Like one of those 40k Industrial worlds. That way you really would have worlds that have actual strategic value during war time.

I obsessed with the processing of raw materials far more than orbiting planets. Adding such a feature would simply be a strain on many low end systems.