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!
Let me put this out there, I am totally and completely happy with the state of DW. Patches are coming out at an unprecedented rate, and the game is fun in it's current state.
Is the game perfect, definitely no! What game is.
I would rather have the game right now in it's current state, then say not having the game at all and still waiting for release so the devs can continue to perfect the game.
One thing to remember, what Codeforce has accomplished is something simply amazing for a first release. The original Master of Orion was technically a second design, and even still needed many further improvements which eventually became MOO2. (I will not talk about SEV lol)
I believe the issue with research is something that can be resolved in a patch, not an expansion. Remember what Erik said (Davor you should know this more than others) that they want to smash all the bugs before adding new stuff from the wishlist. So make sure you address your desires there.
The research issue is not a bug, and frankly I don't understand what all the hoopla is about. The research is as straight forward as it gets. That is my opinion and I by no means want to offend everyone. We all interpret data differently.
Oh you are right, I love having the game now, as is, while Codeforce is making new addtions and tweaks. I would hate to wait for it to be perfect.
We are here to give our opnions. Just because I don't like it, dosn't mean that it needs to be changed. I am just voicing my opnion. Maybe lots of people like it the way it is, and then that is great, but for some reason, I don't like it. Just like music Some love Rap, I dislike it. I like rock while others hate it. Yes we all interpret data differently that is for shure.[;)]
I'd just like more fluff in the descriptions myself. I mean like some others have said, of course enhanced facilities are better....but how much better is what I always wonder. Until lordxorn posted that info I had no idea that it was done on a diminishing scale of return. Now I can make an informed decision if I want to upgrade them. Some people might have figured that out and I am sure E&E know it, but I had no clue. [:o]
I'm also in the camp that I'd like to have a bit more control over my R&D in a more granular fashion. The way it is setup is fine and it does the job although I find having to build stations to serve the equivelent of sliders a bit unusual, but I guess it makes sense. Hard to convert a biological lab in RL into a world collider by just abstractly 'sliding' more cash into the respective department is the idea maybe. What I would think would be cool would be that local space phenomenom (black holes, neutron stars, asteriod belts and maybe certain planets, etc) would give boosts to certain fields instead of everything in general. Take out the whole crashing concept and use those instead to give smaller boosts which would scale by upgrades to keep pace with increasing tech costs. To me it provides another casus belli in say for example you are lacking in the field of Energy research and your neighbor has a juicy neutron star providing a nice boost to his Energy department. Once again, no idea how numbers would pan out by switching from a general increase to a field specific system nor how the AI would handle it.
***
Like to add that I find the game highly fun as it is, just throwing ideas out in the spirit of the forums.
All in All I really like this game!
I Thank you Matrix/Code Force for it![&o]
R&D
I for one would love to see Sliders &/or Number[%]^|v Box For the different R&D subjects = Weapons,High Tech,Industry,Energy .
I under stand the Research Lab Build aspect but that makes me spend money on construction & upkeep. Why not just have as stated ( ^^SEE above) saves me cash and gives me a little more control over What I feel are my research priority's.
But as many of our thoughts & request(Wish's/hopes/) is this even possible for the game to do??...
WM
Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.
Sorry if I did not explain myself enough. I am not good with my words when I try to explain things. Ok, I will give it a try.
While I hate in Civilization and Moo2 you can only research one thing at a time, I love being able to research many things at once. I think MOO got it right, 6 different research categories. At first when I saw that in DW I can research 17, different things at once, i went great. But I see, at least in my current game, 3 are W, 5 are E, 4 are I, 4 are HT. While I like the randomeness from game to game, it seems the same to me. At least in MOO you never get the same tech in every game, but you had options. By research 17 things at once, my options are not really there. Do I really need to be researching 4 different weapons at one time?
See get rid of the 4 weapons being researched at once, and let me pick wich one I want to research. Do I want better armour or weapons? Offence or deffence? Let me choose. Right now I can't really choose its done for me. I like how in MOO the first one, you can pick from a list of what you want to research. Hear you can't. I guess some people like it, for me it dosn't work. It takes the fun our of researching if the decisions are done for me what is next being researched.
At least in Civ IV, while it's one at a time, I can pick what route I want to go down the research tree. In DW, hell I don't even know what the research tree is. I have no feeling of acomplishment of how far ahead I am. Am I level 1, 2 or more? Am I at the begining middle or end of the tree?
I love the idea, if I want my weapon research to go faster I need to build more weapon research bases. That is great, I love it. Here is what I hate. I want my construction to go faster so I can have Enhanced ship yards SY -200. So I build say 5 Industrial research bases.
WTF!? my extractors, manufactuerer and storages is going up but not my construction. I don't want more storage capacity, I would just rather build an extra storage box right now. Right now I want Constrution no manufacturer, extractor and storage going up while construction is basically doing nothing. I think it would be a better idea, just having one Industrial path, and put all the extractors, manufacturer, storage and construction all into that one path, and then I pick and choose what should be researched then. This way if I want to avoid all the others except construction, I can. But say I want that enhanced shipy yard SY 600, I should be able to go through it. But if I go straight for it, it would take a very very long time do to so. But if I go through say enhanced ship yard 200, then research storage then extractors, all in the Industrial path, I would be able to get SY 600 sooner then say by going straight at it.
I can't remember the point costs so I will make up numbers. So I want to have SY 600. So lets say I research SY 200, for 5K. then I don't have SY 300 but I do have SY 400, it will cost me 10K and then 15K to get SY 600.
But if I do SY 200 for 5K, then research extractors, for 2K that should give me a bit of a bonus to go onto something else. then I research manufacturer for 7K wich would then let me research SY 400 for 7.5K. See it takes me a bit longer to research it, but it's cheaper to get it. I can't remember what game it was. It could have been MOO1, I forget, but you can research the higher techs, but it's easier if you research the lower techs first before going onto the higher. The thing is, I have options, I can choose. Do I put all my eggs or research points in one field and neglect the others or do I spread them out evenly. Do I choose to go down this path, instead of that path? See in DW, I can't go down this path or that path. With researching 17 different things at once, what path is there to choose? It's all there. Or almost all there I should say.
Then when something is researched, I don't care. Unless it's the enhanced Ship Yards. Do I actaully care, if I researched extractors, and now my mines mine faster? No I don't. Why should I care. I can't control the public fleet to tell it what to transport and ferry over to where. So to me, things will be extracted with level one just as good as level 10. So to me that is a non issue. Whipee do dah day. My mines extract faster, but if no fleet picks it up it just sits there in storage waiting to be picked up, so I don't need faster extraction, since I don't have no involvemnt with it.
Same goes for weapons right now. Why do I need new weapons? My level one beam weapon seems just as good as the others. I just might have to add a few more. I can't remember now but why bother with Concussion Beams? They just look like maxos blasters, or are they actually different? See I don't remember now since I just stick with maxos blaster. I don't see no difference in range. I see no difference in recharge times. I really see no difference in them, so why bother researching more better beam weapons? I just add more maxos blasters seem to do the trick.
If I don't have torpedoes, I will research it. But again, once I have it, why should I bother having better ones? I just don't see the difference. Now if I researched new torpedoes, I should have the option, of saying either take the new stronger ones, or should I stick with the older ones, but now they are small and cheaper. Yes I have less powerful torpedoes now, but at least my maintence costs shouldn't be going up higher for them, but cheaper if I make new ships with them.
The game birth of the federation, where you have no options in what to discover. It's always the same thing in the same order every time. But at least I can prioritze one filed over the other if I wanted to.
So if I want better weapons I put say 50% into weapons and the rest at 10%. In DW you can't do that. Yes I can make more weapon research bases, but what if once I get what I want, I don't want to spend that much money on research anymore, so what do I do? Destroy the research bases then? Dosn't research bases cost maintence costs? So if I don't want them no more, I should have an option to shut down and not disband, but shut down so no maintence costs are being used. And later if I need more weapons again, I turn them on then.
too much game time is take away right now, but basiclly 17 things being researched is too much, I rather stick to 6 or hell ONE, as long as I can choose what is next. I can understand things being randomized from game to next game, but still, let me pick with what I have to choose with. Right now there is nothing to really choose from.
You mean that we should be able to pick certain fields of research to sponsor within the provided 4 broad categories. That might work if there if enough tech to warrant such a solution.
Also keep in mind the AI would have to be able to use it as well; which means it has to have research strategies. It becomes a bit more complicated by adding this complexity.
Replying to Davor with have to quote that wall of text [8|]
I could see having check boxes next to each component being researched. You could leave them unchecked and research would continue as normal. Check a box next to a component, and research is doubled for that one and all other research IN THAT AREA (E, W, I or HT) would be halved. It isn't as radical as crach research, but not as unguided as normal. And it would seem to be an easy thing to program without changing much. BTW - and ETA would be nice too.
Replying to Davor with have to quote that wall of text [8|]
I could see having check boxes next to each component being researched. You could leave them unchecked and research would continue as normal. Check a box next to a component, and research is doubled for that one and all other research IN THAT AREA (E, W, I or HT) would be halved. It isn't as radical as crach research, but not as unguided as normal. And it would seem to be an easy thing to program without changing much. BTW - and ETA would be nice too.
What do ya think?
I love the idea. The biggest thing that I don't like, is there is no choices to make. What do we have, build more bases wich we might not need later and costing maintence points, and crash research.
I love the idea of the check boxes. It's not a radical desgin overhaul, so people who like it as is, can leave it, and it gives us choices on what we would like.
I could see having check boxes next to each component being researched. You could leave them unchecked and research would continue as normal. Check a box next to a component, and research is doubled for that one and all other research IN THAT AREA (E, W, I or HT) would be halved. It isn't as radical as crach research, but not as unguided as normal. And it would seem to be an easy thing to program without changing much. BTW - and ETA would be nice too.
What do ya think?
Interesting idea.
I was thinking something similar : you choose an area (E, W, I or HT) and each researchs of that area are boosted whereas others others area researchs are slowed. It is less guided, but I think it is easier for the IA to handle it, so in my opinion it is preferable.
I mean, the more you give player ability to control research and make choice, the more you increase the difficulty to program a competitive IA, able to handle all the possiblities. From an IA point of vue, "the simpler the better" (translation of a french dicton, I dont know if it means anything in english ^^).
I could see having check boxes next to each component being researched. You could leave them unchecked and research would continue as normal. Check a box next to a component, and research is doubled for that one and all other research IN THAT AREA (E, W, I or HT) would be halved. It isn't as radical as crach research, but not as unguided as normal. And it would seem to be an easy thing to program without changing much. BTW - and ETA would be nice too.
What do ya think?
Interesting idea.
I was thinking something similar : you choose an area (E, W, I or HT) and each researchs of that area are boosted whereas others others area researchs are slowed. It is less guided, but I think it is easier for the IA to handle it, so in my opinion it is preferable.
I mean, the more you give player ability to control research and make choice, the more you increase the difficulty to program a competitive IA, able to handle all the possiblities. From an IA point of vue, "the simpler the better" (translation of a french dicton, I dont know if it means anything in english ^^).
Hey, how about both! hehe.
as for the "the simpler the better" - it is said all the time in english as well. Another version of it is call the "KISS" system. (Keep It Simple, Stupid).
I'm not sure I understand what the problem is. I mean I get that some people want specific numbers, but the in-game Galactopedia has simple and straight-forward descriptions of components. There are a few details which I wish I could clear up (mostly just what kind of rate does a single plant transform resources into components), but by and large the component section was one of the parts I liked best because it was mostly clear and concise.
Or... did no one look at the component section of the Galactopedia?
Edit:
Plus the tech names are fairly sequential. Its pretty obvious to tell what is the most advanced component.
You bring up exactly what I was thinking but didn't want to say.
so, aside from the in game documentation of exactly what each tech gives you being sparse and more a few too many clicks away... what is exactly the problem?
The one complaint I registered is that some people would like more control then just crashing, but I actually really like the current approach... in most game you only research one item, here you research one item if you pay for it, or you research all of them at once... I like it.
And... what else?
Its not that I am trying to be dismissive of the complaints, I am just not sure I even understand what the problem is with research.
Again,I agree totally with this as well........and frankly I also like the current system as is regarding research.Though I would lower the research rates to extend research times!
One major rather unpalatable truth about research that isn't well represented in games is that a great deal of research results in failure to achieve expected/desired goals.If I research a system tech that gets me a component that is suboptimal I don't use it.I continue my research and hope for a better result down the line.But this does kinda down and dirty simulate the waste represented by some research.Try looking at it that way people.
This game is just starting out,its going to evolve,expand and improve.In that process I for one hope it doesn't loose some of the quirks that I find interesting to watch unfold.The problem with all "friction of war"lets say being removed and this being a strictly by the known numbers gets you X result kinda game........makes it the same as a myriad other 4x games on my shelf and probably yours as well.
About the info about the techs, yes, it could indeed be quite a bit more informative. I also always like the small blurbs and story connections you get with some games (SMAC is probably the best ever in this regard. The Fall from Heaven 2 mod for Civ4 is also top notch). On the other hand, I can see how it got a somewhat low priority with such a a small dev team.
One idea, probably not for a patch though, for making it possible to focus research a bit more could be to have neutral corporations with research stations that you could grant money to. The corporations could have different tech areas they focused in, and the AI and player could get into a bidding war for contracting them for x amount of time. Any research from these would be outside your population limits, and of course you could just target their research stations (with a high risk of getting a horrible reputation among the remaining corps and maybe other empires as well) if someone just signed a beefy 4 year contract with one of them.
I love the idea. The biggest thing that I don't like, is there is no choices to make. What do we have, build more bases wich we might not need later and costing maintence points, and crash research.
Pssh, the maintenance cost of bases is about 3 or 4 orders of magnitude lower than crash research. Crash research is like 100-250K a tech on average. Base maintenance is like $900.
I love the idea. The biggest thing that I don't like, is there is no choices to make. What do we have, build more bases wich we might not need later and costing maintence points, and crash research.
Pssh, the maintenance cost of bases is about 3 or 4 orders of magnitude lower than crash research. Crash research is like 100-250K a tech on average. Base maintenance is like $900.
Did you custimize your bases? I just use the default AI bases, and it's over 1300, but I see what you mena.
I think the issue with research is two-fold. One is it's very hands-off. I mean, i don't even build research stations most of the time, I just let the AI do it. Even so, spaceports are the majority of my research generators. I'll add one here or there certainly but I don't need to do any of that and I can still stay competitive. Second is that the results of research are pretty uninteresting. This has the downstream affect of making ship and base design pretty uninteresting too. While I wouldn't say I hate the research part of the game, I do think it adds little value to the feel of the game.
That's a good way of putting it Joram. I want hands on. The private sector I love is hands off. Research should be hands on, well at least for me. I guess we need an option for hands on and hands off, for people who like hands off. The results are unitresting because alot of the tech is for the private sector wich is 'hands off' so since you don't have any interaction with it, it is unintresting.
I am curious, how many people upgrade their star bases and mines when they discover new techs, like labs, manufacturers etc etc. I always forget to upgrade them in the desgin screen. The only time I remember to do it, is when I discover new shields or armour, then I go to the design screen and click on upgrade. But then sometimes I forget to go to the star bases themselves and upgrade them from there.
The problem with all "friction of war"lets say being removed and this being a strictly by the known numbers gets you X result kinda game........makes it the same as a myriad other 4x games on my shelf and probably yours as well.
I agree. But the fact is DW's research IS TO PREDICTABLE and unchangeable.
I'd even accept having new components be hidden and randomly generated until research was complete. But once in hand, I want to know what it does. And I want to guide my research. I am not saying the system in place now is bad. I always thought that games where you researched ONE thing at a time were stupid.
I am saying we need interaction with the research in the game. We need to be able to influence it. I don't want control over the outcome so much, just control over the effort.
I never liked the "random chance of being available" type of research...
You might want it but I don't.
I also don't find the current research boring. its all practical tech. I guess it could have some more "epic" research projects such as planetary shields or terraforming, etc... but it doesn't need to, and its fairly neat playing a somewhat "lower" tech game.
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
I did not mean to stray away from DAVOR'S original POST.
I under stand what he is saying as to the Lack of Item info.
I was just putting in my thoughts of the R&D aspect of the game.
It's apparent that we all like/love the game and are just making suggestions as to what we feel will make the game better and more immersing and captivating.
Some would like to see more Detailed Info about the different ITEMS in the R&D to be researched.? Yes But again does this really matter .? - I MEAN > For we can not make a choice in the R&D development as of Right Now & each Item is Researched one after the other. It has been preset. So with the current R&D system & if you use Manual Ship build You can choose to use the new item or not >> That's your only choice..
Some of us would like to make some choices &/or increase one area of R&D over another with out having to build extra Space Ports or R&D stations or use Cash.? For me Yes I would like to see the above.
But then again can the AI handle these changes.?
This is a good post ACE'S Up to DAVOR.
WM
Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.
