Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time, 4X space strategy game which models a "living galaxy" with incredible options for replayability and customizability. Experience the full depth and detail of large turn-based strategy games, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. Now greatly enhanced with the new Universe release, which includes all four previous releases as well as the new Universe expansion!
End of the year? Only one more update? I'm very disappointed in Matrix and CodeForce. Why, your direct competition (SOTSII) gets a new patch every other day!!
[;)]
Steve
*facepalm*
Look at the release version of sots 2 and DW: legends and compare.
I'm personally willing to sacrifice some RPing diffrences so that AI empires get proper, effective ship designs. Woodmans suggested powerplay mode would be sweet indeed.
As long as the mode is optional, I'm fine...
(putting aside what Erik and Elliot think of it)
CRASH FIXES
- fixed occasional crash when AI reviewed system threats
- fixed rare crash when you lose the game (if your empire is wiped out)
FLEETS AND MILITARY SHIPS
- fixed fleets so that they properly unload troops at colonies when commanded from mouse right-click
- further improved ability of carriers to attack targets when have no weapons (only fighter bays)
- automated military ships will no longer escort civilian ships when in foreign systems without military refueling rights
- automated military ships will no longer patrol bases that are now in foreign territory
- limited the response range of automated military ships when responding to incursions in your empire's territory (must be within one sector of current location)
- limited the number of automated military ships sent in response to incursions in your empire's territory
- limited the range at which fleets will auto-respond to attacks - never more than two sectors from current location, must also be within defense range from home base for Defend fleets
SHIP BEHAVIOR
- exploration ships set to explore a sector/system will now properly flee from space creatures (or other threats) and then resume their exploration
- escaping ships now initiate hyperjump countdown immediately
- ships now less inclined to flee from space creatures when the creatures are not nearby in system
- fixed bug where manually controlled ships would sometimes have their orders changed inappropriately (e.g. Exploration ships fleeing from distant creatures not attacking them)
COLONIES
- ensured colonies have all resources bonuses immediately after loading a game
- reduced colony happiness penalty when at war with race of dominant colony population
- rebalanced independent colonies: population grows slower, slightly more prevalent, lower starting population size
- Resettling or Exterminating at colonies is now paused when total population amount is below 30 million (avoids losing colony when all population removed)
- increased troop levels that AI uses to invade colonies
DIPLOMACY
- honoring Mutual Defense Pacts or Protectorates through declaring war on attacking empire no longer cascades other wars with third-party empires
- reduced reputation bonus from giving gifts
- slightly increased reputation penalty when invade independent colony
- increased envy diplomacy modifier - large empires envied by smaller ones
- increased offense caused by enslaving populations at your colonies
- added small reputation bonus when destroy SilverMist space creature
- empires no longer give gifts of zero credits when max gift size set to zero in empire policy
EMPIRE TERRITORY
- fixed bug where could build mining stations in foreign territory using Expansion Planner
- AI now more careful about honoring empire territory when building new bases, especially when starting a new game with a pre-expanded empire
INTELLIGENCE MISSIONS
- slightly reduced the difficulty level of all intelligence missions
- slightly reduced the chance of intelligence agents being detected by counter espionage
DISPLAY AND USER INTERFACE
- fixed bug where long range scanners would sometimes be drawn at wrong location
- view now scrolls smoothly when move mouse to corners of screen
OTHER
- fixed bug where sometimes not enough private ships would be built in an empire
- fixed bug where invisible space creatures sometimes haunted debris fields
- fixed bug where repairer of planet destroyer or debris field ship sometimes did not obtain the ship when complete
Hi everyone,
Another update on this. We're planning to do one more public beta update (1.7.0.5) before the first official update, which we still expect to release this week. The number of issues that came up over the weekend, especially with ships and fleets, convinced us that we needed a bit more work before we could make the first update official.
The second update is still planned for release by the end of this year and will include some improvements in several areas as well as continued fixes for reported bugs and balance tweaks.
Regards,
- Erik
I am with Data; do you guys ever stop for a breath -- for your sake? But then I remember my days as a programmer after a major implementation... [8D]
Elliot, Erik, thank you for your work!
Remember that the evil which is now in the world will become yet more powerful, and that it is not evil which conquers evil, but only love -- Olga Romanov.
ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
- honoring Mutual Defense Pacts or Protectorates through declaring war on attacking empire no longer cascades other wars with third-party empires
How does this change affect things? I quite liked how a small conflict between two empires could ignite a powder keg if they were each members of opposing power blocs.
ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
- honoring Mutual Defense Pacts or Protectorates through declaring war on attacking empire no longer cascades other wars with third-party empires
How does this change affect things? I quite liked how a small conflict between two empires could ignite a powder keg if they were each members of opposing power blocs.
There should still be powder kegs, since the AI (when angry enough via modifiers) will not hesitate to attack someone with a mutual defense pact. But for the most part, this just means that if you have Mutual Defense Pacts with other empires, they probably won't jump in to help you beat down your two-planet neighbor empire.
We're pretty happy with the first official update (1.7.0.6) and the 1.7.0.7 public beta. We feel these both put the game in a pretty good place as far as addressing the vast majority of significant concerns since the release. There are still bugs to fix and tweaks to make to gameplay and balance, but we want the second official update to also include some improvements.
We've discussed some of the ship design improvements aimed at making manual ship design and a mix of manual and automated ship design much easier to manage, including being able to set ship classes to manual or automated control and to set some designs to not retrofit automatically, etc.. We're also planning to make a set of recommended designs external for each of the races, so that we can provide the ship design AI (which currently works from a combination of templates and complex rules that are internal) some optimized designs to use as well for each race. These will also be accessible to the player (and the modder) so that you can encourage the AI to use particular ship designs whenever its technology and resources allow.
These improvements will take a bit longer than planned though and with the loss of a week to the holidays, we are now targeting early January for the first build with these improvements.
In general, there will be a pause in the rapid release of builds as focus is put on making those improvements for the second official update and as the various team members start their holiday vacations. There may be one more public beta this week, after that I would expect the next build in early January with some of the discussed improvements.
We've discussed some of the ship design improvements aimed at making manual ship design and a mix of manual and automated ship design much easier to manage, including being able to set ship classes to manual or automated control and to set some designs to not retrofit automatically, etc.. We're also planning to make a set of recommended designs external for each of the races, so that we can provide the ship design AI (which currently works from a combination of templates and complex rules that are internal) some optimized designs to use as well for each race. These will also be accessible to the player (and the modder) so that you can encourage the AI to use particular ship designs whenever its technology and resources allow.
yes! i love that this is being addressed in the next patch
Great game!
