Distant Worlds 1.0.4 Public Beta 4 Now Available!

[Rustyallan]

Regarding corruption/inefficiency/social/government services, I think the biggest issue is that it's called "corruption" which as you already guessed, locks the way people think of it. Renaming it and giving a breakout of what it is would be better. Government Overhead or something similar might help get the concept across better. Or just Government if you want to keep it to one-word.

Observations while playing 1.0.4b4:

1400 system galaxy (I like grand empires.[:D]), playing as Quameno Democracy, 11 AI players, slow research, friendly relations, and I think normal everything else.

I didn't spiral 100-200k into the red right off the start as I did in 1.0.3 and 1.0.4b2 which was a very good thing. I've also changed my playstyle some as I learn the game more so that's probably had some effect. In previous games, I couldn't not spiral into the red so something seems to be working.

I'm generally maintaining a decent surplus. Enough to colonize and build a small space port at every planet as fast as I could build ships until I hit around 30-40 colonies and had to start expanding my fleet.

I like the change so that colony ships are built at faster planets, not just the closest. I missed that in the notes and was manually building ships for a while which led to an odd observation. If I had an unassigned colony ship being built, I could assign it to colonize an ocean planet at the expansion builder while it was still in the build queue, but I could not assign it to a continental planet. Also, when I had basic colonization (CL-100) ships I built on my home race's worlds could also colonize continental planets, but ships built on a Zenox world I found could only colonize continentals. I like the mechanic, but it's somewhat confusing to discover and don't recall reading that in the race notes. Perhaps that should be added as a characteristic for each race that does something similar. It's mentioned offhand in the description.

I was tired and did something reaaaaaally stupid. I had just had an autosave so figured I'd just reload. The reload failed, I got an error that there wasn't enough memory for the working set. Exiting the game and restarting allowed me to load the savegame though. I've found that I can't reload after running a game this size at all, I must first exit completely. Even exiting to the game menu gives the memory error. (XP 32-bit, 4[3.25 usable)GB RAM, 4GB, pagefile) I have not gotten to try this with any smaller games.

Mid-game lag at the galaxy level is mostly gone with not showing commercial ships. I can even see the galaxy instead of a multi-colored blob! [&o]

Auto-design is not using my racial tech. I've only just realized this fairly late, but none of my vessels are getting the NovaCore NX-700. I first noticed when reviewing some bases and noticed a warning that it didn't have enough power, then saw it was using researched tech for the reactor and not the NX-700 on any vessel. Clicking "Upgrade Selected" does use the NX-700. Of course, the drive is reverted with the next auto-design pass.

As was previously mentioned by others, construction ships sent to refit get stuck and don't do anything except clog the planet's queue. I realized after sending them all for a refit and not having any construction ships for several game years...[:@]

I'm now at year 2779 with 115 colonies in 83 systems. I have a total of 60 military vessels. 30 of which I just queued to build when I realized I was at war... (I missed the declaration popup!?)[&:] (War and Sanctions is set to manual) Ship building is set to suggest, and it probably should have suggested a few more ships, especially since I've got a consistent decent surplus of cashflow. Even more so since I'm at war and the other empire has 5x the military strength.

I was prompted 3 times to build a resupply ship. I finally allowed it to do so, and the dang thing is sitting there where it was built doing nothing. For the past 10 years. Why was I prompted to build such a beast if it wasn't going to be used? In previous games, they were sent out and used right away.

Overall, much improved. By improved, I mean a smoother game. The economy's not jumping all over the place from -200k to +1m and back with me just sitting here watching. Culture levels seem to be stable. I have two just over 100, many at 100, and the rest are climbing. 1.0.3 and 1.0.4b2 had a few planets well over 100 (150-180) and the rest bouncing from 5-60. More experienced players could certainly use some adjustments to make cashflow a bit tighter, but for a new player to jump in and consistently go deep in the red for several game years and not be able to do a thing no matter how they played at the start... that needed fixed and I'm glad to see it was done.

And just to add a thought on late-game cashflow drain, implement a minimum troop level per planet as garrison/militia forces. One reason I've had such good cashflow is playing nice with everyone and recruiting no new troops.

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Vedric

I have a constructor ship stuck in retrofit. 1.0.4.4 Client. I read that this was thought to be fixed with a previous version. My Capital planet ES128. Retrofitting to a Zeus MK4 constructor ship. All resources available.

If you want the savegame let me know. I tried to upload it but it said the file type wasn't supported. Do I just rename it to .txt? Anyway, let me know.

This means they are missing a specific resource needed to build one of the new component... eventually a freighter will bring it the resource it needs and it will finish.

[Rustyallan]

So not long after I made that last post, the game just suddenly froze on me.  Thinking that maybe one of my planets was being attacked by the guy I'm at war with, I let it run for an hour or so to see what happened.  It did continue running in the background and even ran an auto-save while otherwise frozen.   I finally got tired of it and killed the game.  After restarting and loading the save that occurred during the lockup, I found I went from +250k cash and +120k cashflow to -200k cast and -100k cashflow during the time.  Cashflow very quickly went positive, but I'm still not sure what happened during the time.  I'm reverting to the previous save and will continue from there.  I did archive all saves from that set in case they're needed later.  Of course, I had to exit completely before it would let me load the older savegame since the 990mb working set was too large.

[Gertjan]

Thanks again for the new update. I'm really looking forward to playing the final release of this one. I like the fact that economy has become a bit easier again and the fact that larger empires still are more economically powerful than weaker ones.

Given all the changes, do you plan to update the galactopedia and the manual? New players to this game would need to have easy access to all these changes. Another suggestion is to have a thread on this forum or somewhere else (game website) with all the major changes compared to the 1st version of the game.

[RViener]

Gertjen,
With each update, beta or official, there is an accompanying "What's New" pdf. which reiterates all changes from release version sequentially. But I do agree that changes to the Galactopedia to reflect these changes would be approproaite and update of the manual would also be extremely helpful.
 

[DasTactic]

Bug???: I built a mining station on a moon but even before it was finished the orbits moved the moon away leaving the station floating in space. The Constructor was under attack from pirates during the construction.

[TheSAguy]

My game on 1.0.4.4 is also hanging once i start my 1st planet attack.
It hangs for me once I destroy a planetary base.

I have a save just before it happens, not sure how to upload.

Really sucks, I was having so much fun

[Vedric]

ORIGINAL: taltamir

ORIGINAL: Vedric

I have a constructor ship stuck in retrofit. 1.0.4.4 Client. I read that this was thought to be fixed with a previous version. My Capital planet ES128. Retrofitting to a Zeus MK4 constructor ship. All resources available.

If you want the savegame let me know. I tried to upload it but it said the file type wasn't supported. Do I just rename it to .txt? Anyway, let me know.

This means they are missing a specific resource needed to build one of the new component... eventually a freighter will bring it the resource it needs and it will finish.

Way to not read the post champ! I put it in bold for you. That's a stuck ship with all resources available and in stock. No, the resources aren't reserved. Next time please read the whole thing. Thx.

The save game file is waiting if needed. I have one with 1.0.3 and 1.0.4.4.

[Erik Rutins]

Please do upload the 1.0.4 Beta 4 save file and post a note for us in the tech support sub-forum. Much appreciated.

[Vedric]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Please do upload the 1.0.4 Beta 4 save file and post a note for us in the tech support sub-forum. Much appreciated.

Will do Erik. However I tried uploading it in my first post and got an error saying "filetype not supported". Do I just convert it to .txt? Do you want it uploaded in the tech support forum or here?

Thanks

EDIT: I found the upload FAQ in the tech support forum. I will upload and make a post there.

[HsojVvad]

ORIGINAL: TheSAguy

My game on 1.0.4.4 is also hanging once i start my 1st planet attack.
It hangs for me once I destroy a planetary base.

I have a save just before it happens, not sure how to upload.

Really sucks, I was having so much fun

This seems to be happening to a few of us, you are not alone. You need to upload to their file server. I use FileZillaClient to upload my saves to them. I can't remember where the link is, to show how to do it. I think if you go to the tech support sections you will find it there.

[HsojVvad]

tm.asp?m=2415085 go here to read on how to upload saves for CodeForce and Matrix to see.

[Vedric]

Yeah I found it. Thanks Davor

[RViener]

Erik, I've run 2 complete games for 15 years with 1400 stars 19 auto empires, scattered alien life, slow research, normal creatures and pirates, normal home system, basic tech, spiral galaxy. No crashes, hiccups or slowdowns. The game was run on total AI. Pursuit of pirates AOK. My empire, Humans, lost twice but I did not run retrofit or create new designs other than provided by the AI. Financials OK. End screen announced my loss but there is some question as to the real winner because I did not encounter more than 5 other empires and the winner of one game was not among them. In the other game insectoid, Sluken, announced as winner but the empire screen had the Dhayats Empire as the winner, ?.
Next I plan to try to create new designs and test the retrofit part of the program running hands off otherwise. 

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Vedric

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

If you click on the fleet name or the general display area once the fleet is selected, does it not center on the fleet for you? Or do you mean something else?

No it doesn't. This is exactly what is going on. I have a small fleet hotkeyed to "1". I click "1" to select my fleet. Clicking the display area in the lower left does nothing. Clicking backspace does nothing. Clicking the "zoom to selected item" button does nothing. If I select a single ship from the fleet in the lower left corner, then the zoom to selected functionality works fine.

I think this might have something to do with setting up a hotkey with ctrl+#. As I mentioned above I can't patrol a system with a fleet. When I hover over the star with my cursor I get no patrol icon, when I right click I get a menu with no patrol option. I'll go play with this some more.

Update edit: I closed the client and restarted, no change. Fleet or no fleet it doesn't matter. When I select multiple ships I can't patrol anything. With a single ship selected, I can hover my cursor over a base or star and get the patrol icon. Right clicking sends it on patrol. For planets, hovering my cursor does not give the patrol icon but a right click will give the menu with the patrol option. None of this happens when I have multiple ships selected. Everything is fine with a single ship both for patrol functionality and for "zoom to selected" functionality.

From your description Vedric, it sound like you don't actually have a proper fleet selected, just a group of ships that you've multi-selected. To make a fleet you need to assign multiple ships to the fleet (right-click, assign to fleet) and then double-click one of the ships to select the fleet itself. With an actual fleet selected you'll be able to zoom to the fleet (Backspace key) and do system patrolling.

[hewwo]

Just wanted to say I've had 1.0.4.4 eventually crash on my every single time I played. Unfortunately no internet on my gaming pc, so can't show screenshots of the errorscreen!

Otherwise I have no commentary on gamebalance improvements, since I just bought the game and started playing with beta 4 right of the bat [:D]

[Kushan04]

How are armed freighters supposed to work? Mine keep being attacked by other empires as soon as they enter a system. Is the AI trying to provoke me, or is it not happy that my freighters are armed?

Kushan

[ductape]

on the expansion planner screen, the resources have percentages by them, what does this relate to? I scanned the thread here and cant seem to find it. Was it from beta 3?

[HsojVvad]

ORIGINAL: Kushan

How are armed freighters supposed to work? Mine keep being attacked by other empires as soon as they enter a system. Is the AI trying to provoke me, or is it not happy that my freighters are armed?

Kushan

How many weapons do you have on them? If there is only one weapon, then it shouldn't effect anything, but 2 or more weapons, I believe the AI considers them amred and dangerous ships. Funny thing is, how can the AI know this? We don't know the armerment of thier ships, how can they know ours then?

[taltamir]

ORIGINAL: Davor

ORIGINAL: Kushan

How are armed freighters supposed to work? Mine keep being attacked by other empires as soon as they enter a system. Is the AI trying to provoke me, or is it not happy that my freighters are armed?

Kushan

How many weapons do you have on them? If there is only one weapon, then it shouldn't effect anything, but 2 or more weapons, I believe the AI considers them amred and dangerous ships. Funny thing is, how can the AI know this? We don't know the armerment of thier ships, how can they know ours then?

I thought it was impossible to design a freighter with more then 1 gun starting with version 1.04. which is also the version where the AI started ignoring armed freighters