1.0.5 Update Plans

[Erik Rutins]

Hi everyone,

Here's a preview of what we are focusing on in 1.0.5, which will hopefully enter internal beta this week and public beta by mid-June. Note that these are the highlights of the improvements, we are also always working on additional bug fixes based on the reports in the tech support sub-forum.

Distant Worlds 1.0.5
• Improved target engagement
o Auto-engagement range: when attacked, nearby (2000), system, sector. Defaults by ship type/role as well as by fleet.
o Default empire range settings for mission types: patrol, escort, other
o Empire/Fleet overkill factor: 1:1, 1.5:1, 2:1, 3:1, 5:1
• More careful evaluation of targets – do not attack targets much larger than self
• Improved checking for other military ships of your empire nearby to respond to local emergencies.
• Ships that are members of fleets should either attack as entire fleet, in groups or not at all, this should be a fleet level setting
o Alter auto-engagement setting per ship/fleet/empire
• Display in brackets after mission description (InfoPanel)
o Manual attack mission assignment always sticks with assigned target until complete, damage/shield settings may still override, but others should not.
• Auto-refuel refinements
o Make exceptions for some mission types:
• drop troops / invade colony
• colonize
• Major Game Save/Load performance improvements, including 64-bit option
• Habitat quality, expanded use of "quality" level for planets
o Determines colony value: income and max population
o Quality below 50% depending on empire type and native world costs empire maintenance
o AI evaluates colonization desirability: considers quality, resources and strategic location
o Preponderance of quality planets can be altered with slider in galaxy settings at game start
o Home system favorability determines quality of home planet – planet type is determined by native planet type of race, no longer changes planet type, just quality
o Alter prevalence/balance of planet types: less continental and marshy swamp, slightly more ice and volcanic
• Add slider in game startup to alter level of corruption for player empire
• Fleet load troops command
o Improve logic to ensure fleets are loaded up with troops
• Only assign ships to fleet when they are full of troops
• Rebalance weapon components ranges/damage, torpedoes vs beams, etc. Increased torpedo size and energy cost, decreased torpedo rate of fire. Beam weapons increased damage, decreased rate of fire. Some individual weapon tweaks for specific balance issues.
• Change behavior of troops
o Higher deterrence of rebellion/defection at colonies, your troops resist rebellions rather than "switching sides".
• Independent worlds recruit troops
• Lower reputation hit from using planet destroyer and bombarding colonies, based on various factors relevant to the current faction/race relation, war status, previous bombardments, etc.
• Extra commands in Ships and Bases screen
o Refuel selected ships
o Retire selected ships
• Fix system/habitat indexing problems when use planet destroyer, or add/remove systems
• Alter target prioritization so that distance is more important, i.e. closer targets more preferred
o In wars, AI empires much more likely to attack border colonies, thus maintaining more coherent empire borders
• Updated Empire Summary screen
o Better readability: fonts bigger, better colors
o Layout Economy and Ships and Bases sections more clearly – show relationship of state and private costs better
• Update Design Detail screen
o Consolidate design components so that multiple components of same type listed as single entry (e.g. 5x)
• Change Galactopedia to use RTF format
• Update Galactopedia articles to reflect changes since release

Regards,

- Erik

[Igard]

Wow, loads of improvements. I wasn't expecting this much, so well done guys and thank you.

Best of all, Distant Worlds is going 64-bit!!![:)]

[Shark7]

OK, need a clarification:

o Empire/Fleet overkill factor: 1:1, 1.5:1, 2:1, 3:1, 5:1
• More careful evaluation of targets – do not attack targets much larger than self
• Improved checking for other military ships of your empire nearby to respond to local emergencies.
• Ships that are members of fleets should either attack as entire fleet, in groups or not at all, this should be a fleet level setting
o Alter auto-engagement setting per ship/fleet/empire
• Display in brackets after mission description (InfoPanel)

I understand that this will prevent escorts from attacking cruisers, but how is this going to effect ships on more 'defensive' type missions. For example I have 4 escorts defending planet X and a cruiser and 4 troop transports show up. Will the escorts automatically run, or will they attempt to defend the colony?

[Falokis]

Everything I could think of that I would want.

Awesome.

[Dadekster]

I will be looking forward to this one eagerly. Love to see-

Consolidate design components so that multiple components of same type listed as single entry (e.g. 5x)

in effect finally I had developed an aversion to scrolling in this game.

[Sark]

Looks like some really great changes in 1.0.5.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

• Rebalance weapon components ranges/damage, torpedoes vs beams, etc. Increased torpedo size and energy cost, decreased torpedo rate of fire. Beam weapons increased damage, decreased rate of fire. Some individual weapon tweaks for specific balance issues.

Along with the rebalance of weapons is there any chance we will see the racials techs moved/removed from the top of the tech list?

Most of the the racial techs are not the "best" techs and should probably be somewhere in the middle of the tech tree rather than at the end. This is readily apparent with shields when you lose 300 shield strength to gain .2 shield regeneration...

There are drawbacks to most of the racial techs and it really hamstrings the AI when it is using the highest but inferior tech.

[Kruos]

Yeah, big stuff coming!

Thank again for this impressive support!

[DarthPrincey]

Hi,

One improvement I has hoping for was increased control for the Popup message filters, specifically the "Under Attack" checkbox.

Let me explain my reasons, once my empire gets to a certain size I start getting spammed with these messages. 95% of them are a waste of time as it is a freighter under attack from a pirate escort or one of my exploration ships under attack from an enemy frigate. This effectively makes this feature useless as I find I ignore all messages or when it gets really bad I have to uncheck the checkbox and not get any. And I'm sure that is what many people will do and forget it. But I really do want to know if a pirate of destroyer or above is wiping out my freight lines or an enemy capital ship is attacking something as this could be much more serious.

There are many ways I can see this being fixed. A fairly simple one would be to include a sub menu with ship class checkboxes that you want to receive "Under Attack" messages about.

So for example I could check Escorts, Frigates, Exploration ships, Small, Medium and Large Freighters.

The attack messages are in two parts, the first being the ship that is under attack and the second being the ship that is performing the attack. I would see this working as, if both ships in the "Under Attack" popup message are checked then the message would be filtered out and not displayed.

some examples...
- Escort or Frigate attacks your Freighter - message is filtered out
- Escort or Frigate attacks your Exploration ship - message is filtered out
- Capital Ship attacks your Escort or Frigate - you get message
- Escort or Frigate attacks your Escort or Frigate - message is filtered out
- Escort or Frigate (or any ship) attacks you Colony Ship - you get message

This is not perfect and I can think of other ways such as create rules but I expect this would take much more work to put in and require more user knowledge to use. The above would provide a basic way to filter out many of the unwanted attack messages. The game encourages you to build and automate your small Escort and Frigate class ships to patrol and defend against other small threats yet I cannot filter out this activity from the popups so I can focus on the important issues such as a Pirate Destroyer/Cruiser wiping out my freight lines and mining bases.

Also one final note on "Under Attack" popups, it would be really helpful if you put the class in the working as well, e.g. "Exploration ship “Evil Eye” is under attack from Destroyer “Enemy of the State”. As at the moment i have to go through all my ships and add tags to them so I know what is under attack, for example EXP - Exploration ship, CST - Construction ship, COL - Colony Ship, etc. and yes it does get very time consuming as my empire grows!!

Apologies for the large post, I read all these forums but never get round to posting as I seem to be unable to make small posts, once I start they just snowball into essays.

[Falokis]

ORIGINAL: DarthPrincey

Hi,

One improvement I has hoping for was increased control for the Popup message filters, specifically the "Under Attack" checkbox.

God, please, yes. I forgot about this.

[Erik Rutins]

We're not planning to add any other major improvements to 1.0.5 at this point, there's enough to do just to make sure what's listed above is done and working properly. We do actively read the wish list though and posting your suggestions there will mean that they get read and are not lost in other forum threads.

[Yarasala]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

We're not planning to add any other major improvements to 1.0.5 at this point, there's enough to do just to make sure what's listed above is done and working properly. We do actively read the wish list though and posting your suggestions there will mean that they get read and are not lost in other forum threads.

Oh my, so many suggestions I made in other threads because they developed in the course of a discussion ... [:(]

I hope you read (or at least browse) all other threads as well ...

[RViener]

Erik, along with the proposed changes for 1.05, I think it would be good for you and Codeforce to give a short description of your overall plan for how the game should work and updating the manual as well as the Galactopedia (or should the new Galactopedia function as the "manual"?) Expectations of how the game should play will be a way for us to measure the outcome of your work and set the stage for future changes and additions. There is no perfection but the ideal should be the game performing as you expected. Looking back at the release 1.01 performance and fun have been markedly improved.
Bob Viener

[DiggyDad]

This all sounds really good Eric! Any idea on when it's going to be available?

[Athalian]

Yes when? Can we have it tomorrow? can we? can we?

[Bartje]

This is magnificent, thanks for your hard work [:)]
 
CodeForce Go!
 
[:D]

[Gertjan]

Incredible [&o]. I'd like to have some more detail on several things, but this is really more than I expected. Maybe it is fun to have a dev diary on this update, so as to explain the change and reasoning behind it, including some screenshots to illustrate things. Who supports this idea?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
Oh my, so many suggestions I made in other threads because they developed in the course of a discussion ... [:(]
I hope you read (or at least browse) all other threads as well ...

I do read almost every thread, but it's easy to lose track of a suggestion even if I've read it if it's not in an easily findable spot. So re-posting anything you haven't already to the wish list thread will help make sure that it is there for our long-term reference.

[Yarasala]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
Oh my, so many suggestions I made in other threads because they developed in the course of a discussion ... [:(]
I hope you read (or at least browse) all other threads as well ...

I do read almost every thread, but it's easy to lose track of a suggestion even if I've read it if it's not in an easily findable spot. So re-posting anything you haven't already to the wish list thread will help make sure that it is there for our long-term reference.

Ok, so I will see to take the time to check all my posts and put all suggestions in the wish-list thread ... especially since I got my credit card bill today and was a little bit shocked to see that the game cost me about 48 Euros with VAT and what not (which is about 60$ atm). So I'm really interested in having long-term fun [;)]

Edit: done.

[hewwo]

Fantastic list of updates [:)]

[Joram]

Looks really good but can you clarify a bit about the fleet behaviour. The biggest oversight for fleets is that a fleet doesn't move together and it doesn't appear addressed in your notes. Is that part of the plans or no?