The 3 simple things you'd like to see in Distant Worlds

[elliotg]

Thanks for the feedback on this thread everyone!

Some really good suggestions here - we'll try and get as many of these as possible into the next expansion. Especially the Difficulty settings and other AI-related improvements.

I may be quiet on here at times, but I do follow what's going on, and we are working hard [:)]

Thanks again,
Elliot

[adamsolo]

Hi Elliot, great to hear from you again.

Please, don't forget about that "slider for strategic AND luxury resource abundance". Above all else that's what would spice things up for me, and I know I'm not alone I know it can be hard to balance such a thing but judging from what I've been watching I'm sure many people wouldn't mind to help you in that balance testing task.

Keep up the good work!

[Cauldyth]

Hi Elliot! Good to hear my favourite 4X game ever made is still going to get lots of love to come. [:)]

[dejagore]

1. Better AI - More aggresive / playing according to win conditions
2. Private sector - exactly what RooksBailey suggested
3. Colonization - recently colonized planets (even those 50%+ quality) should have negative impact on player economy until colony is self sufficent. As for now I see colonization too easy and too shallow.

[Bleek]

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

Hi Elliot, great to hear from you again.

Please, don't forget about that "slider for strategic AND luxury resource abundance". Above all else that's what would spice things up for me, and I know I'm not alone I know it can be hard to balance such a thing but judging from what I've been watching I'm sure many people wouldn't mind to help you in that balance testing task.

Keep up the good work!

As I've been away a few months, can someone shed some light on this - is there a post outlining what the new expansion is about or is it hush-hush at the moment?

[adamsolo]

ORIGINAL: Bleek

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

Hi Elliot, great to hear from you again.

Please, don't forget about that "slider for strategic AND luxury resource abundance". Above all else that's what would spice things up for me, and I know I'm not alone I know it can be hard to balance such a thing but judging from what I've been watching I'm sure many people wouldn't mind to help you in that balance testing task.

Keep up the good work!

As I've been away a few months, can someone shed some light on this - is there a post outlining what the new expansion is about or is it hush-hush at the moment?

There's no outline (nothing actually yet) for the next expansion to my knowledge. We're just tossing "simple" things we'de like to see in the game The man isn't around much, we have to take advantage.

[adamsolo]

ORIGINAL: dejagore
3. Colonization - recently colonized planets (even those 50%+ quality) should have negative impact on player economy until colony is self sufficent. As for now I see colonization too easy and too shallow.

+1

[HectorOfTroy]

ORIGINAL: RooksBailey

1) Meaningful ship/star base classes: Each class should have a distinctive tech tree with unique equipment for that class. For example a destroyer should not be able to use battelship-sized lasers, and while a battleship could use the smaller equipment from a destroyer/cruiser, there should be some sort of efficiency penalty. This change would go a long way in making ship design (and research) far more interesting with meaningful choices.

2) The private sector needs a voice: the AI-controlled private sector is the most fascinating aspect of DW, but it needs more development. For example, I would love to receive missions from various NPC corporations along the lines of designing a special freighter for them, or patrolling a hostile sector to keep cor[ ships safe from pirates, or even a request to go to war with a particular alien empire so as to get access to its luxury resources. Failure to complete these missions would have a negative impact on the players economy, and could even result in a strike or work stoppage, setting off a potential civil war even?

3) When ships are added to fleets, they need to be grouped together into one unit. In other words, I am tired of fleets arriving in combat by drips and drabs. Rather, all ships in a fleet should move as a single unit in a specified formation (with speed set according to the slowest ship class).

Bonus Suggestion 4: see here: tm.asp?m=3130727 for suggestions on creating a more living universe. [:D]

These three suggestions sound perfect. Private sector missions would be a great addition, but as long as we can toggle them on and off.

I mentioned long time ago fleet formations. I would love to have them in this game since large scale battles become such a mess.

Maybe they could introduce custom formations in which you could assign positions to ships: eg. keep carriers in the back with large, slow but long range capitals; then in middle have damage soaking, heavily shielded/armoured tanks; and up front have smaller, fast hit and run ships which would harras enemies.
Of course you could make up number of other formations to suit your playstyle.

Also, I don't know if this would be too difficult, but maybe Elliot could make more use of firing arcs on weapons. This way flanking and turning cirlces would have more importance.

[Fideach]

ORIGINAL: RooksBailey

1) Meaningful ship/star base classes: Each class should have a distinctive tech tree with unique equipment for that class. For example a destroyer should not be able to use battelship-sized lasers, and while a battleship could use the smaller equipment from a destroyer/cruiser, there should be some sort of efficiency penalty. This change would go a long way in making ship design (and research) far more interesting with meaningful choices.

2) The private sector needs a voice: the AI-controlled private sector is the most fascinating aspect of DW, but it needs more development. For example, I would love to receive missions from various NPC corporations along the lines of designing a special freighter for them, or patrolling a hostile sector to keep cor[ ships safe from pirates, or even a request to go to war with a particular alien empire so as to get access to its luxury resources. Failure to complete these missions would have a negative impact on the players economy, and could even result in a strike or work stoppage, setting off a potential civil war even?

3) When ships are added to fleets, they need to be grouped together into one unit. In other words, I am tired of fleets arriving in combat by drips and drabs. Rather, all ships in a fleet should move as a single unit in a specified formation (with speed set according to the slowest ship class).

Bonus Suggestion 4: see here: tm.asp?m=3130727 for suggestions on creating a more living universe. [:D]

I like these suggestions myself!

On number 3 though, with fleets arriving in "drips and drabs", that happens I always thought due to the inaccuracies of hyperdrive. Be nice to see tech and components that allow you to increase the fleet cohesion when jumping from point to point. Or even the ability to order them to jump to a specific location, form up, than move with in the solar system to another point in formation to attack.

[Shark7]

My list:

1. More in depth diplomacy options.

2. More complex manufacturing system (IE Raw Materials to refined materials to widgets).

3. Farming/food production system.

[scotten_usa]

ORIGINAL: onomastikon

OK

1. Nuclear powered starship fellatio.
2. Insta-win sugar-coated martian phaser cereal.
3. Feedback from Elliot.

We just got #3, I'd like #1 next! [:D]

[Haree78]

Simple things....ok....

1) Externalise more stuff so themes/mods can include stuff like weapon graphics, sounds, flag shapes. It can't be a big ask... [:(]

2) Subtle diplomacy changes could really improve the game and the challenge the AI poses. Some examples:
Start trading techs to AI (A), then AI (X), (Y) and (Z) dislike you more because you are making their enemy stronger. If you start trading techs the AI who hate you but don't dislike each other should start trading techs.
Every action like imposing trade sanctions as part of a trade or going to war due to MDP should cause a massive reputation hit if you pull out quickly. Each should have it's own timer.

3) Make locations strategic. Right now it's only the very rare resources which mean anything. This was attempted in closed beta builds but there needs to be an overhaul in the resources management for this to work. A bottle neck is too hard to spot and to remedy. I would suggest the ability to buy key strategic resources off the pirates for double the Galaxy price (independent freighters hang around Pirate bases meant to be smugglers or something) and then a slider to ramp down the amount of resources in the Galaxy. Then as long as we could get a good picture of where resources are needed and what each build is waiting for things would be more interesting. Of course buying off the black market would fund and encourage piracy too

[jpwrunyan]

Yep, the resources on a planet should range 1-100% on a geometric scale or something (eg 1% iron worlds should be 10 times more common than 10% which are 10 times more common than 100% or something similar).

Also asteroids should be depletable. Its an asteroid.

[WiZz]

ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan
Also asteroids should be depletable. Its an asteroid.

All resource sources must be depletable.

[Noble713]

ORIGINAL: RooksBailey

1) Meaningful ship/star base classes: Each class should have a distinctive tech tree with unique equipment for that class. For example a destroyer should not be able to use battelship-sized lasers, and while a battleship could use the smaller equipment from a destroyer/cruiser, there should be some sort of efficiency penalty. This change would go a long way in making ship design (and research) far more interesting with meaningful choices.

I am always totally opposed to any sort of class-based restrictions on research and component employment. Maybe I like my destroyers to have one gigantic weapon system similar to a "spinal mount". Or maybe I like having a battleship design armed with small point-defense weapons that you would normally find on an escort. Right now we have the design freedom to do so.

That said, I will agree that we need a larger variety of weapon systems. All of the current beam weapons are 4-5 spaces with reload times of roughly 1 second. Where's the "big gun" that takes up 10+ spaces, has a 2-3second recharge, but does massive damage? Or has twice the "normal" range? It's a unique tech so you might not ever get to use it. Likewise, there aren't enough checks & balances between the different components. There's very little reason to use Maxos Blasters or Shatterforce Lasers on a ship of *ANY* size once you've got Titan Beams, for example.

[Beag]

There are good suggestions here, but people should think about one thing - what about the scale if complexity is increased?

Yes, resources and ship/fleet building could use some complexity, but is it worth it if the extra complexity means more things on automatic management? I think to some players the appeal of the game is being able to play on galaxies with 1000 or more stars, and increasing the management would overwhelm some people. And if a feature is in the background and only the AI "plays" with it, that doesn´t mean a better game. It only increases lag, chance of bugs etc.

IMO any increase in complexity requires a smaller galaxy size to serve as a basis for balance.

[feelotraveller]

ORIGINAL: WiZz

ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan
Also asteroids should be depletable. Its an asteroid.

All resource sources must be depletable.

I disagree.

A gas giant running out of hydrogen? [:D] Remember that game takes place over a few years/decades. If asteroids were easily depletable we would have mobile mining bases. [;)]

[WiZz]

Forgot about gas giants [:D]

[WoodMan]

Mining bases that deplete would be rather annoying. I'd like to see a change to the way resources work in the game because at the moment Loros, Spice and Zentabia Fluid are the only things that have any real value due to everything else being so readily available, but I think depletion isn't the way to go.

[Cauldyth]

Agreed, I wouldn't like depleting resources either. If a game runs long enough, you could find it grinding to a halt as the entire galaxy runs out of resources.

Having fleets consume resources as maintenance is sufficient to make it necessary that you always have sources for them. The resources just need to be made rare enough that those sources become a strategic consideration.