Master Wishlist Thread

[playedabit]

I believe this game has lots of potential and some unique features and I'd like to thank the developers for creating such an interesting 4x space strategy. I also think, however, that this program is lacking in thoughtful design in an ergonomic sense. Even after a couple of minutes of play I became fond of this game but with a large number of ships fun deteriorates into tedious micro-management quickly, spending an hour to manually upgrade a 100 or so ships, etc. And while having the AI auto-manage things for you would be great, it just doesn't work well. It has never worked in any game I've ever seen for that matter, therefore it's critical to allow the gamer easy customisation of AI features and adding semi-automated features (such as explorer ships would refuel automatically even if their basic task to explore a sector was assigned manually).

My suggestion would be for the developers to look at other games in the genre: Sword of the Stars, Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civ and Space Empires aren't necessarily better or worse than DW, but I think there're a couple of ideas DW could borrow from them, especially regarding UI ergonomics.

Some of the items on my list were mentioned before in this thread but it'd be confusing to just write +1 many times. Things I consider essential to comfortable gameplay are in blue.

General
1. Expand the manual on hidden things currently not described well. E.g. when creating a game empires can be quite advanced if not created manually, if multiple commercial centres (trading centre or whatever they're called) have an additive effect, etc etc all those things we can only guess about now.
2. Jump to / search option for names. If I've got an ship heading to, say, KV445, currently I've got no easy way for finding it's destination if I don't remember where I sent it or if it's automated.
3. Clicking on the destination field in a ship's info panel should take me to the indicated location, this could be an alternative/additional solution to #2.
4. Visible paths for ships: a thin line showing where they're heading. Ideally an option to show all paths or just for selected ships.
5. Sometimes it's impossibly difficult to find a position where I can open the right click menu for selected ship(s). Zooming out might help, clicking on many different locations also helps sometimes. Generally there should be either a toolbar/panel with the same options appearing if ships are selected even without a right click, or a keyboard shortcut to force the menu to pop up.
6. Seamless zooming, or zooming with less levels. Currently I use the keyboard shortcuts for quick zooming because the mouse-wheel is too unpredictable and it's visually unpleasant to see how the screen jumps between zoom level.
7. More filters for ship types on the ship listing screen:
- Ship classes (escort, frigate, ... - there're to many in the "military" category)
- Ships under construction
- The option to exclude or make more visible ships under construction in other lists: different colour or an extra column indicating that. It's difficult to tell them from the others.
8. The ship list screen, colony screen and galaxy map (maybe others) should be more interactive with the normal game view, as in if I select a ship in the ships screen then that selection should be applied to the normal view and maintained if I close the ship list, or I could just interact in the normal view while the list is open. This would require either the list screens windows to be moveable and non-modal (I believe they're not) or just move them to one side by default.
9. Meaningful names for stellar bodies - how do I know what KV445 is? Include planet names into moon names or if you prefer to have cryptic names then add extra info or a pop-up box that indicates location: sector, solar system and planet. A search tool (#2) would alleviate this problem at least.
10. Solar system information showed in one location: either when I click on the star, or in a separate screen, I'd like to see hierarchical (tree) list of planets and moons, bases on them, ships present in the system, indicated in a visual way whether these are assigned for patrol or just passing through. For the latter the ships could be listed along the planets/bases they patrol, whereas fleets and other ships should have their individual branches. A windows explorer like tree would be nice solution.
11. A way to tell whether a planet has bases (preferably a list of bases) from the colony view screen. I'd like to see where to build where not.
12. A way to tell what happiness/development/etc bonuses from buildings a certain planet has or will have if these are under construction. Would help greatly to see where I should build them.
13. Quick links to ongoing battles.
14. Warning issued for stuck production - either indicating that there aren't enough resources when the production starts or after a while if there was no progress.
15. An option to select whether state-owned ships should start automated or not. Ideally this could be specified individually when purchasing a ship for production, e.g. through a checkbox beside the "purchase" button.

Ship Design and Editing
1. An option to stop this silly naming for ships - I prefer a <class name><id> naming scheme, such as frigate mk.2 001, explorer ship 001. It's difficult to remember ship class names (Windsor and alike), and it gets especially confusing in the case of completely unique names for explorer and constructor ships.
2. The design upgrade tool should keep the name I gave to the class and just append/increase a tailing number. Currently if I have, say 'research base', upgrading it will reset the name to the meaningless 'star base', whereas I'd prefer 'research base 2' or 'mk 2'. It works for already numbered class names (LSP-1 becomes LSP-2) but not for custom names and not for military class ships.
3. Filters for component classes in the design editing screen. Now all the available components are in one list making it difficult to see what's what. Filtering both available component and ship components lists to categories like engines, power, command and life support, research, manufacturing, etc would make manual editing tremendously easier and quicker, especially when a ship has a large number of components.
4. Give more screen space to available and ship component lists larger. With hundreds of components these tiny little confined windows are difficult to navigate.
5. (or #15, preferably both) Group identical components together and just indicate how many of them are present on the ship. This would make the component list much shorter and easier to handle.
6. The checkbox to list only recent designs should remember whether I selected it or not. Currently it always turns on if save a design (not if I cancel) and it's very annoying to have to press it again and again. Generally windows should keep a better track of how I use them and remain in that condition.
7. Upgradable off-planet bases. Just drop the upgraded components, rename the class and let the base be repaired by a constructor. Ideally constructors should be able to be assigned to retrofitting duty, performing retrofitting repair on bases that need them.
8. An easy way to retrofit a large number of ships: the possibility to select a group of ships belonging to the same build class (identical retrofit targets) and issue a retrofit command for all of them. Should work from the right-click menu and from the ship listing screen.

Ship behaviour and control
1. "Go to location and engage enemies" command for ships to attack a group of enemies instead of having to click on each enemy individually for non-automated ships.
2. Non-automated ships should also auto-engage nearby enemies (seem to do it very reluctantly now). In addition to the "when to flee" option there should be an aggressiveness option too: actively engage, defend if attacked, etc.
3. Better way for organising escorts / patrols. I've got loads of automated frigates and escorts yet many of my mines have never seen a single patrolling ship. I believe patrolling should be moved to a system level, meaning a group (numbers preferably dynamically scaled to local threat level) of patrol ships should be assigned to a system and respond as a group to threats. There's really no need to have ships at individual stations, rather have a group per system. Also a group is much stronger than stray individuals. I believe the AI could do a very good job at keeping a number of patrol ships per system and direct them to deal with incoming threats. You can, of course, do all of this manually even now, but the program doesn't offer you any help at all for managing this and it gets very complicated to handle with a large number of systems.
4. A screen where I could see and customise how the AI organises patrols would be grand. I'm thinking along the lines of seeing how many ships are assigned to which system (with system based patrolling) and possibly assigning priority levels to areas/systems. Ideally I should be able to assign ships to systems from a pool of ships assigned to patrol duty.
5. 'Explore this sector' option when right clicking on a sector other than the ship is in for explorer ships. Currently there's an option only for the sector they're located in.
6. Explorer ships should approach distant planets to discover available resources within the system they're assigned to explore. Automated explorers do that while manually commanded explorers only travel to the star.
7. Ships that should flee when an enemy is sighted should really do that, not just when the slow space slug has already munched off some if its components. Explorer ships should be able to outrun scorpions easily but they fall prey to them too often. (this might be a "bug" instead of a feature request?)
8. New command: repair damaged ships and refuel all ships at nearest yard. Currently only damaged ships go to shipyard, and I have to send the rest of the fleet after them with a separate command.

Fuel
1. Idling ships run out of fuel very fast. Decreasing idle energy need could help, for example by allowing solar panels to decrease/eliminate fuel consumption for idling ships, or a researchable energy-management component. The idea to have docking bay components to park ships is also very appealing, but this would only work in your own systems. Parked ships, of course, would be refuelled and would not consume energy. I believe both (solar panels AND docking bays) solutions would have a place in the game: ships that don't need to travel out of system (patrols) would just dock whereas other ships would have less issues with idling by design (with solar panels added). Idling ships should NOT have to return to base frequently for refuelling.
2. A checkbox for auto-refuel for manually controlled ships. E.g. patrol ships or explorers assigned to explore a sector would refuel when needed. This behaviour, if non-selectable, would disrupt combat manoeuvres so make it an option.

I do NOT think general fuel consumption (apart from idle) should be decreased from current levels. In other threads some describe that the AI can't plan for longer distance attacks properly, but it is the AI should be adjusted not the game. If overall consumption levels were decreased it'd make it too easy to conquer distant systems and the game would lose on complexity.

[Gertjan]

Diplomacy suggestion: please add the option to ask what the other empire wants in return for something. Now it is just a matter of guessing, trial and error, which I find annoying. Look how Civ4 and galciv2 do it. It is very handy!

[Krasny]

1. The ability to scrap fleets and entire classes of ship.

2. Accelerated scrolling.

3. Slower than light options either within systems or generally.

4. Blue Danube would be nice.

[Fideach]

New player here, really enjoying the game..
My biggest wish currently, is more control the private sector.
Not much control, just some control that as a government, I should have. Especially if I'm an evil dictator or something.
As to the private sector.. seriously; I understand the whole them being the private sector and not following orders.. but as the state, I could be able to black list certain solar systems, or even entire sectors as off limits for whatever reason.
It is annoying that the private sector thinks it is a smart investment to build a base orbiting the same planet as space monsters and a pirate base..
At the very least, I should be able to make bases like that black listed, illegal, etc to the state's point of view. So my ships don't go get themselves killed trying to protect such a stupid business investment by some private company. (If it isn't just some evil scheme by a foreign government to weaken me)
Would be interesting to see such bases have the chance of becoming a pirate base, or some black market space port.
I wouldn't mind actually seeing the private sector have actually companies forming that you have to deal with for internal politics. Maybe even seeing some of the larger ones become there own empire entity.

[pndrev]

- Smooth zooming, the current zoom function is really jerky
- Update ships mission display etc. while paused: Currently, a ship waits for the game to be unpaused until it shows the new mission. That makes it hard to find out which orders you've already given.

[elmo3]

Don't know if this has been suggested yet or not but being able to learn new technology from enemy ships that are defeated in combat would be a nice feature.&nbsp; Perhaps you would need a salvage component on one of your ships to have a chance at discovering the new tech.

[Mark Weston]

My experience from my first two games was that this was a really good game made difficult by a user interface that's sometimes hard to operate. There are some great UI improvement suggestions in this thread and my plea would be for you to work on that side of things as a priority.

One specific one that hasn't been mentioned;

There are a couple of pick-lists that reset or reload every time you pick an item. One example is the components list in ship design. It's frustrating that if you want to add, say, six of the same weapon you have to click then scroll back to the item before you can click again, instead of simply clicking six times. The "planets with useful resources" list in the expansion planning screen does the same thing.

[rhohltjr]

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hyfrydle

quote:

I would love to see a over all "War Room" for you to be able to give orders, assign objectives, etc to pool of ships. Instead of the AI just doing whatever it wants with automated ships.
For example, have different organizations that you could name. Each organization would have different responsibilities and objectives. One would be the internal patrol group, one the boarder patrol, etc.
Internal patrol would escort and protect ships inside the empire.
The boarder patrol would take care of defending the fringes.
Then have another organization that handles the assaults on other empire\pirate bases.

This is a fantastic idea I think a major problem in DW is not knowing what the automated ships are actually doing and with a large empire this gets a serious problem.


Don't stop there. If you could have a "War Department" you could have specialized departments for other areas in your empire. That opens the door for individual advisors which you could hire or fire. They would add special expertise to whatever department they are assigned according to their abilities.

[tgb]

I haven't read the whole thread, so others may have mentioned these,but:

An option to keep the game running when windows are open.

The ability to have more than one window open at a time (particularly helpful to have the galaxy map and the expansion planner opened side by side).

Different automation "personalities". If expansion is automated, for example, I would like a couple of different styles from conservative to hog-wild. Like wise for military automation, you could have a range from hawk to dove.

[HsojVvad]

I like how the game pauses when a window is open. So please make this an option then. Pause the game when a window is open or have the game run when the window is open. But if this happens that means more work has to be done, since for example, the construction screen will have to be updated as the game runs then.

Another wish I would like, is when I want to make a large space station or even a small explorer vessel, I would like to know, how long it would take to be made. In one game, when I erased everthing and I tried to make a construction ship, it took over 2 or 3 years to make, while a large star base takes about a few months. I thought the price of how much something costs is considered how long it takes to make, but that is not the case at all. So an indicator how long something takes to make would be great as well.

This way, if making a military ship, if I add more how much more time will it take to make, or if I leave this out, I can get this ship out sooner to defend myself agaisnt the upcoming invasion force.

[Banquet]

How about making the game dual monitor compatible, so we can open these windows and then move them off to a 2nd monitor and still see the main map

[incbob]

When you use the editor to rename a star it should rename the planets as well. For instance if the game has Sol then it has Sol 2. Currently if I rename Sol to Pinto then the star is Pinto and the planet is still Sol 2 instead of Pinto 2.

[Gertjan]

War experience system wide bonus: wouldn't it be interesting and useful to have an empire wide bonus depending on the extent to which you have gained experience in combat/war. So empires that fight a lot of wars gain more experience and get a modest bonus for it. In contrast, empires that dont fight a lot, lose their experience gradually over time.

[Barthheart]

I'd like an option to have the game NOT pause when I open some of the screens. I tend to open and study things like the colony planner or 'pedia or construction yards and wouldn't mind if the "universe" kept going. Sometimes I'd like to spend 5 or 10 minutes on these screen while wating for something to be built.

But this has to be a user selectable option.

[desecrate]

First off id like to say the game is great most fun iv had on a 4x in a long time. DW reminds me of my 2 favorite 4x games MOO2 and Pax Imperia 2 and Im sure ill be playing it for awhile that being said some thing id like to see are more variety in the weapons gfx i think it would be cool to have weapons such as missiles rail guns and mass drivers for early tech and also beams weapons that look somthin like you would see in babylon 5. Also i dont know if the tech allready exist as iv not been too far ingame yet is a nofuel needed tech for later in the game. A reactor that is beyond the need for fuel.

[Impact1986]

I wish for more moddability. The only things you can change are the graphics for the ships, and the sounds and music.

You cant edit techtree and add some new weapons or other technologies. I also find it strange that half of the game installation (~300 mb) consists of all the direct x and .net framework cab archives.

I dont think it is necessary to have them after you installed the game.

Where are the source files anyway? I only find the movies, sound effects, music, and graphic files...

[rickbdotcom]

Get rid of random moon names and use the name of the parent planet. Like Sol 3a would be the name of Earth's moon.

When you click on a ship if would be nice if it would show the path to its destination if you have ordered it to move.

[lordxorn]

In the ship design section instead of individual components listed, causing you to have to scroll the window up and down, can you consolidate them into something like Mesa Blaster x1 + - then have a plus or minus next to it to make it easier to adjust when your trying to cram components in a design. Much like Moo2 ship design.

[Pford]

Suggestion: eliminate multiple Saves within game. To the best of my recollection, GalCiv2 handles saves this way, iow, the player can only save the game once up to his current progress. Makes for a more honest and, yes, more engrossing campaign as well as opening the possibility of competitive scoring records among the community.

[Wade1000]

Let players cheat on themselves if they like. Distant Worlds does not have an online competition. If it ever did then, sure, I suppose that the developers would also include a save limitation.

If there was a limitation to help competitive screen shot postings or something well then skillful programmer players could just undo the limitation to cheat on themselves and post super great screen shots.

-I recommend an OPTION to limit saves and editor use at a game start setup like in Civilization 4 to keep a player from being TEMPTED to cheat on himself. It could be used to post as a current game screen shot to show you have not cheated on your self to prove a screen shot authenticity when showing off screen shots.

*Nevermind, skillful programmer players could also fake a screen shot that shows that authenticity mark.