POLL - What 8 things would you like to see next in Distant Worlds?

[Data]

Aye....oldies but goodies.

[Zakhal]

Bigger map sizes

[EaglePryde]

That's true. It was very good made. What concerns me is the difference in size.

Hmm..i could see such a system to play best if it is for Fleets. You assign a Fleet Admiral (Hero Character) to a Fleet and gain some stats for the Fleet and improved performance.

Reminds me a bit of Sword of the Stars where you had command ships that determined how many ships could be in a Fleet. You also needed a command ship to actualy use Fleet Formations. Without a command ship you only had a bunch of ships flying together without special order. Maybe something similar would also work for DW.

Crew could also have it's purpose..if a ships crew is lost you'd have a derelict ship for salvage or take over. Captains could be the ones who gain levels and add a bit of added stats to their ships.

Hmm..maybe this could all work well afterall. If the AI has the same possibilities it wouldn't unbalance stuff and everyone would have the same chance.

There could be special training facilities be added to the tech tree and production line who turn population into crew/captains and admirals. Similar to what you had in Star Trek Armada. crew is being made the fastet similar to troops. Captains are slower to make and Admirals the slowest. Just an idea [:)]

[cookie monster]

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

Bigger map sizes

I agree, I mean come on what kind of galaxy has 1400 stars

Here's the Milky Way

It is agreed that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, although observations suggest that it is a barred spiral galaxy. It contains 100-400 billion stars and an estimated 50 billion planets, 500 million of which could be located in the habitable zone of their parent star.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way

Until I get my 100-400 billion stars I'm not gonna be a happy customer![:D]

God only knows what computer would be needed to run it.

At least my new desktop arrives tomorrow so I can load my ''small'' save of 60MB and continue ''Galactic Dominance''.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

ORIGINAL: Zakhal

Bigger map sizes

I agree, I mean come on what kind of galaxy has 1400 stars

Here's the Milky Way

It is agreed that the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, although observations suggest that it is a barred spiral galaxy. It contains 100-400 billion stars and an estimated 50 billion planets, 500 million of which could be located in the habitable zone of their parent star.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way

Until I get my 100-400 billion stars I'm not gonna be a happy customer![:D]

God only knows what computer would be needed to run it.

At least my new desktop arrives tomorrow so I can load my ''small'' save of 60MB and continue ''Galactic Dominance''.

Look, I had a bad day so I have to ask are you trolling or just blind? It was explained twice allready in this thread, but still you dont understand?

BIGGER MAP SIZES ARE NOT ABOUT THE NUMBER OF STARS, BUT THE DISTANCES BETWEEN THEM. Bigger board, the same number of pieces...

Did you get it now or do you need more repeating?[:'(]

[cookie monster]

Sorry mate I dont have a clue what your talking about.

Im just taking the piss, a 1400 star galaxy is kinda tiny when compared to whats in the universe thats all.

[Zakhal]

ORIGINAL: cookie monster

Sorry mate I dont have a clue what your talking about.

Im just taking the piss, a 1400 star galaxy is kinda tiny when compared to whats in the universe thats all.

Piss all you like just dont quote me on "wanting more stars", because thats not what I want. I want bigger map, not more stars!

[Data]

God only knows what computer would be needed to run it.

I think this clarifies this particular dispute quite nicely. We all know that if we had a huuge number of stars we could only stare at a screenshot of that game....and we'd need a server to take it [:)]

Even with fewer stars a bigger map would do wonders.

[cookie monster]

Thanks Data. Perhaps I should have quoted the light year diameter of the Milky Way to be more in keeping with ''Bigger Galaxy Map (Size not Stars)'' but I was speed typing.[;)]

I do wonder from a average persons perspective why the save games are so large, but then again there must be millions of items on a large map to save/reload.

I feel that save/reloading must be a problem for some people, although a Tech Support Forum thread would be the best place to discuss it.

I can say the expansion planner is very laggy on this laptop, it takes a loong time to load when selecting resources and queuing constructors.

I guess the game is as large as it can be to allow the average computer of 2010 to run it.

Enough derailing of the Poll thread though

[Igard]

I'd say it probably is as large as it can get for an average modern computer, but it would be nice to have the option to go larger for those with high end systems.

More stars would be good too, but I think we're satisfied with 1400, we'd just like to see a bit more space between them for a more epic feel. We can ask for more stars later.[;)]

[EaglePryde]

Very much true Igard. Such a game doesn't depend on the best graphics card or other high end stuff but is very CPU heavy. The gap between pc's in the middle and top high end systems isn't that big in such a game.

1400 star systems is a huge amount and believe me that even more won't be handled very good by even the best CPU out there. There is a similar game that allows for limitless star systems but even my I7 hexacore crawls if i try to go past 2000 star systems. Even though the other game is 3D this doesn't coun't because the data amount in both games that really kicks in is the data that runs over the CPU -> star systems...the vast amount of objects, AI routines on gigantic playfields.

What could be interessting would be a tweakable distance between star systems making the map bigger or smaller in size.

[Andrew Brown]

ORIGINAL: Igard
More stars would be good too, but I think we're satisfied with 1400, we'd just like to see a bit more space between them for a more epic feel. We can ask for more stars later.[;)]

Actually I would like to have the option of larger maps, and also more stars. However I would prefer that if the number of stars is increased that most of them would have no systems, or maybe just asteroids. So the total number of useful systems would not increase by a significant amount. This would help slow down expansion and cross-galactic movement. For me, that would make help give the game much more of an "epic" feel.

Andrew

[Igard]

Andrew, apologies, I shouldn't presume to speak for everyone. I tend to think that empty star systems would just slow down your exploration though, rather than expansion. To get through more systems, you'd just build more exploration ships.

@Eagle, I think RAM plays a huge part in Distant Worlds performance. My 4GB of OCZ DDR3 2000MHz comes in handy.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Data

You sound just like me when I'm sober [:)]

That happens?!?!?

[EaglePryde]

Could be very well true with RAM

I'm running 24GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 O.C. 2000. Something higher could be interessting regarding hardware performance [:D]

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: EaglePryde

Could be very well true with RAM

I'm running 24GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 O.C. 2000. Something higher could be interessting regarding hardware performance [:D]

I'd be surprised if anything higher than that makes too much difference. That's alot of RAM!

[EaglePryde]

Yes that's the tech freak in me. 4GB are very much everything you need for any game but i always try to keep my rig at max because of my little hobby side projects like realtime 3D rendering but i really s*** (am not very good) at this [:D]

[Bingeling]

But DW is not any game... I have 4GB, but 32 bit os (so 3.2GB in use, or something), and sure could use more...

[EaglePryde]

Are you runing vista? Most games run around 2GB usage.as always there are special cases.

DW sure is something special

Although i have a 64bit OS,many things utilize only 32bit.I also have to use 32bit Internet explorer because of plugins that are currently 32bit only. Don't be sad.32 bit is still very much sufficent

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: EaglePryde

Yes that's the tech freak in me. 4GB are very much everything you need for any game but i always try to keep my rig at max because of my little hobby side projects like realtime 3D rendering but i really s*** (am not very good) at this [:D]

Actually its not that uncommon anymore, gaming rigs have gotten much more powerful as of late. I'm personally running an I-7 Core 930 with 12 GB of RAM.

However, I get the feeling a lot of casual gamers enjoy DW, so making a game that requires a rig like mine is counter-productive.

So the game needs to be tailored so that low end machines still have a chance of running it, so 1400 stars is probably the limit (I'm guessing a machine with 4 GB of RAM probably handles 700 well).