Master Wishlist Thread

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!

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Awaras
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Awaras »

ORIGINAL: J HG T

Awaras, the scale-issue has been around since first space-strategy game, you just have to live with. It bothered me the most in the SR2, but finally I just accepted it.
But, I still agree with you. Little more zoom and slightly smaller ships and bases would look better and be easier to control.

Yes, I realize that the scale issue has been around forever, but it was mostly a technical issue. DW, with the ability to continuously zoom from the entire galaxy map down to a single ship is the single most impressive thing I have ever seen in a 4X game, and I believe that it would not take a lot of effort to allow us to zoom in just a little closer - I realize some planets might look blurry at this level of zoom, but hires pictures of planets are something we can already put into the game, so it would not be an issue. I just feel that planets and even moons should FEEL large and important, and that can be lost in DW. For example, when you colonise a small continental moon and build a large starbase over it, the starbase frequently covers most of the planet. Add in the traffic going in and out and it becomes impossible to click on the planet itself, LOL.
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cookie monster
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by cookie monster »

^ Your right it's not to scale.

The game can only get better I guess.
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Andrew Brown
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Andrew Brown »

ORIGINAL: Awaras
Yes, I realize that the scale issue has been around forever, but it was mostly a technical issue. DW, with the ability to continuously zoom from the entire galaxy map down to a single ship is the single most impressive thing I have ever seen in a 4X game, and I believe that it would not take a lot of effort to allow us to zoom in just a little closer - I realize some planets might look blurry at this level of zoom, but hires pictures of planets are something we can already put into the game, so it would not be an issue. I just feel that planets and even moons should FEEL large and important, and that can be lost in DW. For example, when you colonise a small continental moon and build a large starbase over it, the starbase frequently covers most of the planet. Add in the traffic going in and out and it becomes impossible to click on the planet itself, LOL.

+1

I have exactly the same view.

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Andrew Brown
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Andrew Brown »

Reposted from another thread:
I haven't played the game a great deal (time poor at the moment) but when I do, I use the maximum 999 setting for reseaech. I am very glad that this additional setting with the spinner is possible.

What I would love to see is additional sliders/spinners, or extensions to currently available ones, that allow the following changes should players choose. Admittedly these are all wish-list items:
[ol]
[*]Scarcity of good planets (allowing them to be made even rarer than is possible now).
[*]Number of stars.
[*]Map size (allowing for larger maps).
[*]Fuel consumption - make it higher at start so that ranges are smaller, but allowing it to grow due to tech advancement.
[*]Ship speed - slower at start but again able to grow more due to tech advancement.
[*]An extra step or two down in map scale, so that planets/moons can be larger and ships can be smaller in proportion.
[/ol]

While features like these would allow for a far larger range of playing styles and preferences, I assume that all of these would add a lot to the memory and processing requirements of the game, and so may not be practical.
My personal preference would be: more stars; fewer colonies (these two making the total number of colony locations balance out); larger map; shorter ship ranges; slower ship speeds; slower pop growth (moddable already); slower research speed (changeable already, which is great).

Andrew
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bertipa
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by bertipa »

For the pacifist imperialist:

After some years of protectorate there should be an option to propose your ally to be absorbed altogheter in your empire.
Or they can ask you for that as they are already giving you money by their own accord.
From the Regina subsector to the Sakaturi base... a long and fulfilling trip.
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MOO3 sitrep

Post by bertipa »

Preface:

OK I have to admit it, while not really a fan I quite liked MOO3 and one of the part of the user-interface that I felt potentially quite interesting was the SitRep.

SitRep in DW When & Why:

I would like to have a SitRep panel in DW because sometimes I feel overwhelmed by what is going on in the galaxy and one place where I can see all the info can be a very good idea.

A lot of the infodump that is spamming us can go there, in an well sorted fashion. There can go links to reply the latest engagement of the player fleets or other that the player have in his sensor range. Also pieces of the scenario History can find a place here (also the News agency could have a wiff that something rotten is going on in the Galaxy).

The player should be able to access it at any time leaving the game go on or pausing it as he see fit.

It would be perfect to use it when the player load a saved game to refresh himself about the last events.

The right kind of news should have embedded links to the relevant panels to let the player react immediately if needed.

The SitRep should be refreshed - post a new edition - every few minutes, with a visual alert (a color change of the interface place used to call it).



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cookie monster
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RE: MOO3 sitrep

Post by cookie monster »

I HATE the autosave![:@]

Could we have it so that it prompts for autosave?

Just as I'm about to add my super laser to my Death Star the game autosaves...

It's a beast on 1400 star galaxies and takes ages to save (5mins plus change), no matter if you have an SSD and 16GB's of RAM.

It reminds me of the Windows Update reminder which only went thru the desktop, it would shut down the computer for restart while you were in the middle of something.


typo
bertipa
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Leaders

Post by bertipa »

Maybe there should be leaders with their own character like in Civilization. I'm sure that Churchill and Stalin would run their star empire in a vastly different way.

There should be a few different one for each race and they can sometimes dies and being replaced.

At those time a couple at random will be presented to the player to choose the next one.

When this happens to another race the player and the other empire can back one candidate over the other for political and diplomatics gain.
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bertipa
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by bertipa »

There should be an option to make the game speed dynamic: when nothing is going on it should be able to go up with the speed one notch or two. When something like a war is starting, a lot of messages are coming, etc. It should slow down by himself.
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cookie monster
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by cookie monster »

ORIGINAL: bertipa

There should be an option to make the game speed dynamic: when nothing is going on it should be able to go up with the speed one notch or two. When something like a war is starting, a lot of messages are coming, etc. It should slow down by himself.

???

Cant you just press a key

What possible use would such a function be?
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J HG T
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by J HG T »

There are buttons for speed up and slow down. No dynamic game speed needed!
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bertipa
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by bertipa »

I specified that it should be an option and the idea came to me while playing it.

DW can become quite concitated at times. Maybe you are browsing your colony adding spaceports and bases, and then messages of money offers start to pile up and a giant kaltor choose that moment to attack the contruction ship who is reparing your world destroyer...

Point is that I'm more a turn based player and it feels not correct to be concitated, to have an arcade game feeling in a strategic game who span years and a galaxy when at the same time to stay in 0.25 speed is impossible.

Said that I'm not telling that DW should be TBSed, the feeling of a living galaxy is there and is an asset, a strenght of the game.

BTW maybe is a bit rude to as an answer tell 'What possible use would such a function be?', I would go with 'What an interesting idea, but are you sure that the effort to implement it will give us something so much better than just use the buttons?'
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bertipa
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by bertipa »

A more costumizable user interface with two or three default configurations for the most used diplay definitions.
My display is not enormous but at 24" 1920x1200 I would not mind to have more real-time informations on what is going on and at the same time I can imagine that if someone is playing on a portable would prefer be as much possible free of clutter.
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Lrfss
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Lrfss »

I for sure think that the research tree needs major tweeking to slow down R & D and as it stands now it's just way too easy in a very short time through various means to accelerate R & D to crazy levels.

Some things in particular like colonization is just nuts and IMHO takes much away from the game. This should be a heavy & difficult thing to accomplish and should require numerous advances in numerous fields to be able to colonize each specific planet enviroment, lets just do a brief RL reality check on this and go from there.

We need to be able if we choose:

A) Slow down the R & D by at least another 100% to 1000%.

B) Another thing that would improve things greatly in this respect would be expanding the R & D tree by at least four times if not more, additionally make more tech gaining dependent on other tech's being gained prior, etc.

C) Some if not most tech's gained by spying and reverse engineering should not be imediately gained though some don't happen right away, most do and way too quickly at that. Therefore make tech's gained outside your normal R & D to take a reasonable and much longer period of time to aquire and maybe even require other known or potentially known tech's first in order to implement the Alien tech depending on the level and race factor as well. Some Alien (other than your race...lol) techs may not even be usable to your race...

D) The other thing that would be tech's far more interesting is if there was more of an unknown factor to it. Of course there should be general idea's about future techs and be able to go in certain directions as there is now, however the outcome of certain or several completed researched techs should/could reveal prior unknown directions/branches to research. The whole Fog of War/Research thing.
E) Race specific Techs, more of them for sure would be a great thing.

F) The ability to option out of finding ships/wrecks, super weapons and other specials in the game in the start set up.

G) The ability to Mod more items within the game, the more the better as has many better than I Modders suggest.

This is a great game which has many years of potential, build up and expansions for this game, we don't want to see a DW2 anytime soon!
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by bertipa »

I like the Fog of War/Research thing.

Applied Technology incompatibility seems not simple but promising also.

+1
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The case against a border system

Post by bertipa »

More than a wish this in a unwish.

I'm not really hot for a border system.

While that kind of system is interesting, to an extent, for planet-based grand-strategic games I feel that it loses sense and realism in space, even in a 2D compressed space.

I point you to the Ian Banks Culture novels, where the Culture civilization did not had any border at all.

In one of the novel they go to war against a border lover civilization and the consequences made me a real no-border fan.

Can someone tell me what kind of technology (you can go also in science fantasy or even just fantasy) who can enforce a multi-light years border?


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Data
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RE: The case against a border system

Post by Data »

No tech for this, it's just a convention like the Neutral Zone in ST. In 4x games where this is used it does have a big impact: you can have an influence victory, turn enemy worlds to your side etc etc. As I said before, I'm 50-50 on this.
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bertipa
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RE: The case against a border system

Post by bertipa »

ORIGINAL: Data

No tech for this, it's just a convention like the Neutral Zone in ST. In 4x games where this is used it does have a big impact: you can have an influence victory, turn enemy worlds to your side etc etc. As I said before, I'm 50-50 on this.

Could be possible to have them but in a non obligatory way?

Like political stands when reality of the map is more confused.

The difference between theory and practice is that in theory there is no difference.
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Data
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RE: The case against a border system

Post by Data »

It depends on Elliot in the end, several of us requested this as an option actually....whoever wants them can check the borders option and whoever doesn't want it can leave it unchecked.
There are also several other requests with regard to how to implement this, if it will be implemented I'm sure Elliot will weigh all of them and decide how to do it.
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Rising-Sun
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RE: The case against a border system

Post by Rising-Sun »

Well i hope we will have more customize control over modding, since we cant change the UI, background theme and the worst part is the research tree. If this doesnt comes out next expansion, i doubt if i will ever buy it.

For some reasons, i change the UI, it doesnt kick in. So most of it is hardcoded :(
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