Distant Worlds: Shadows

[Bleek]

ORIGINAL: Hawawaa

Early preview of Shadows- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-1fKmz4MdY

Thanks for sharing! [8D]

[Simulation01]

Awesome preview screens and, I loved Das' video!


One question I have though.... how long does the "pre-warp" phase last? What I mean is...is hyperspace like one of the first tech's available or is it a ways down the tech tree? Also, is it possible to travel to other star systems while in pre-warp? Can we mod the game so that we can remain in pre-warp permanently or, at least modify the speed variables related to warp engines so that we could slow warp down? Stardrive had this and when I first heard about pre-warp in DW I was thinking along those lines.

[Dracus]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

The much requested updated ground combat screen, taking community feedback into account. This is one from a Mortalen homeworld planet with lots of troops. You'll see the armor units in the front row, infantry behind, planetary defense units behind them. The population of the planet is in the back along with characters and facilities. The facilities in this case are from top to bottom an Armor Factory, Military Academy and Science Academy. You can also see the Small Space port in the orbit area.

Should enemies invade, they will first transit from the orbit area to the ground in assault pods. The space port and planetary defense units will be firing at them during that stage and they hit pretty hard, especially once your planetary defense units are upgraded. Those that survive will then engage the ground forces. There are a series of calculations that compare the relative forces on each side and list the bonuses above. I'll show that in another screen shortly.

You can watch the combat unfold, maximize it, minimize it, do other stuff and select other units while the combat screen remains open, etc. While combat unfolds you can see the units shooting at each other and who is taking damage. You can mouse over each unit to see its information and current strength.

Much better, I can live with this one

[Dracus]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Ok, one last battle screen, this one of a pirate raid, and I need to get back to work. Still a lot of final production tasks to finish and not much time left...

(Oh, also we replaced the official attack alarm sound [8D])

Also, before you all get too worried, I should note that the above pirate faction is an extreme example, more like the "Legendary Pirates" before they left hte galaxy for a while and my test game was specifically setup to create pirates like that.

Now that is more like it. I can work with this.

[lancer]

.
Hi Eric,

Primarily one huge change. Every planet uses a base level of strategic resources now (they don't just get bonuses for the key resources, or consume resources when building something, they use resources now just to exist and keep the planet growing). If they lose access to the supply network and run out of resources, their growth slows or stops and the people get unhappy. That was a pretty massive change for us to balance to make resources more important and we also had to make sure the AI could handle it, which it now can.

Thanks for your reply.

I'd also agree that the new ground combat screen is looking good.

Cheers,
Lancer

[Cauldyth]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
When is the ETA? Sounds close.[:)]

Last word was May 21st.

[Erik Rutins]

In case you all missed it:

http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2013/05 ... s-preview/

[Plant]

Very nice preview there; I feel that preview has given out more information on Shadows than Matrix has, especially on what raider, mercenary and smuggler factions actually entails.

[Buio]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
In case you all missed it:
http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2013/05 ... s-preview/

ORIGINAL: Hawawaa
Early preview of Shadows- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-1fKmz4MdY

Thanks! Now I got some previewing to do for some time.

Finished watching Das video, and saw that he just put up part 2.
Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yioscyOI5xo

[Kobracan]

This is really great. The video and the screen look superb. I can't wait to play this. However, I can't help but agreeing with Ashbery76. He brought up some great points.

Especially:

* War weariness: This is low hanging fruit. The game already ticks up war weariness when in war. You just need to implement a ticking down war weariness when not in war (and teach the AI about it). As it is this is a useless mechanic as you can immediately get rid of all war weariness in an instant and re-declare war.
* Subjugation: This should also be fixed very easily. It's just a rule change.
* Reputation: To easy to game (raise by destroying pirates etc.) and not enough penalties/discouragement for bad reputation in my opinion.

I know Erik said diplomacy wasn't the focus for this expansion but we are not talking about a complete overhaul of the diplomatic system here. Just a few fixes / improvements. These are really some glaring long-standing problems that should be addressed (hopefully in a patch after the Shadows release).

That being said, Shadows looks great. Looking forward to it!

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

achievements and awards

Sweet.

Is war wariness relevant? The old get peace and DOW exploit kills the mechanic.

Is subjugation relevant? Putting the work into destroying an empire to get this treaty only to have the other empires get it too makes it not.It should be a treaty only one race should get with subjugated empire in question.Mopping up the whole empire is the only sensible option atm.

Are alliances and bribing empires to attack relevant? Bride100,000 to get an empire to DOW and 5 mins later they are at peace again.Wut.

I cannot ask the military access or miing rights.Silly,silly,silly.

Spies and A.I.Not relevant in legends.

I hope some long term issues are fixed along with the new awesome.

[jpwrunyan]

ditto on fixing the subjugation/declare war thing.

If an AI empire declares war on me, just hard-code a minimum amount of time before they will accept an offer of subjugation from me (Currently it is like less than 5 minutes on normal play speed). On the flip side, if I become a subjugated empire, there should be a minimum amount of time before I can break my subjugation by declaring war. This is not an end-all solution, but it would go a long ways toward making the diplomacy of subjugation/annihilation less stoopid.

[Mad Igor]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
If Shadows does not, then I don't know what will!

DW2 or new expansion.

[Starfry]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

In case you all missed it:

http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2013/05 ... s-preview/

I'm interested with the "Difficulty Scales while Player nears Victory."

Does that mean the preselected difficulty scale will move up higher before you achieve a runaway victory?

[Mansen]

ORIGINAL: Starfry


Does that mean the preselected difficulty scale will move up higher before you achieve a runaway victory?

As far as I understand it, the game will ramp up the AI's income (which is what difficult slider does) if you get ahead of the other species and is near victory (like 80% of total required)

[Erik Rutins]

No, that's the old difficulty slider - the new difficulty slider is much more comprehensive and yes, that means the effective difficulty will increase as you get close to victory, giving your opponents more of a chance to prevent a runaway victory if you're doing very well.

Regards,

- Erik

[Mansen]

Oh the difficulty slider has more depth now? Neat

[Bleek]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

No, that's the old difficulty slider - the new difficulty slider is much more comprehensive and yes, that means the effective difficulty will increase as you get close to victory, giving your opponents more of a chance to prevent a runaway victory if you're doing very well.

Regards,

- Erik

That's a unique and clever idea.

Typically in 4X if you start to dominate then it becomes a breeze, makes the end game a bit of a walk to the line - that is true of most RTS games too.

Hopefully it won't just be giving the AI artificial boosts, hopefully you guys are making them more shrewd than that for example they form alliances against you.

Big empire stomps over the galaxy, smaller factions put their pasts behind them and start to rise up united.

[Fishers of Men]

I believe I will like the difficulty slider in Shadows. Like a snowball rolling downhill, as an empire expands getting larger and picks up speed, which causes it to increase in size, crushing everything in it's path. There will now be some resistance to this. MoO3 had a similar feature where the dislike of the other empires increased against the dominate one. I will be interested to see how this new feature works out.

[Kobracan]

How does the mechanic exactly work? Is it like other empires band together (even though they may normally hate each other) to defeat you or are they just getting progressively more cheat bonuses?

I personally prefer the former.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Kobracan
I personally prefer the former.

To Matrix's credit, it's optional. If you prefer the old method, just un-check the box.