Distant Worlds v1.9.5.5 Public Beta Update Available!

[Erik Rutins]

Hello Everyone,

The Distant Worlds 1.9.5.5 Beta Update is now available for testing. You may download it from Here.

This build will hopefully be available an official update next Tuesday.

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.4:

CRASH FIXES
- added extra safeguards to help prevent crashes when using faulty themes

BUG FIXES
- now cancel intelligence missions when target colony or base conquered, destroyed, etc
- fixed bug where sometimes getting tech bonuses from disassembling ships without advanced tech
- Ion Defense and Tractor Beams no longer counted as weapons when checking civilian designs in Ship Design editor
- ensure never load pirate raider troops when loading troops onto transports (e.g. loading troops from own colony while attacking pirate base)
- ensure custom planetmaps getting loaded ('other' folder)
- ensure mouse scroll wheel retains focus when Character and Empire Policy screens are closed
- ensure colonies only appear once in Top Colonies screen, even when controlled by pirates

MODDING
- NEW MODDING FEATURE: defined Research path. Optionally allow specifying project order for a race for each tech tree (see new entries in race files: WeaponsResearchProjectOrder, EnergyResearchProjectOrder, HighTechResearchProjectOrder)
- reverted file loading for certain files to be encoding neutral, i.e. does not matter whether ANSI or UTF-8 (resources.txt, components.txt, research.txt)
- increased maximum government amount to 60 (governments.txt)
- increased maximum planetary facility amount to 100 (facilities.txt)
- increased maximum fighter amount to 50 (fighters.txt)

USER INTERFACE
- increased font sizes for main menu items when screen resolution is greater than 1920x1080
- increased font size for Galactopedia topic index
- increased font size of hover panel at bottom-middle of screen
- increased font size in Game Options screens
- slightly increased font size in main view for system names, nebula names, etc
- increased font size of tradeable items in Diplomacy trade screen
- increased font size in hover tech descriptions in Diplomacy trade screen
- increased font size in Component Guide screen (Design Detail screen and Research screen)
- ensure correct empire remains selected in Diplomacy screen when conclude trade deal

GAME BALANCE AND AI
- further improved AI ship design: no longer add too many extra reactors, nor remove too many shield components, when attempting to shrink a new design to fit within construction size limits
- increased chance of counterintelligence missions successfully intercepting enemy intelligence missions, especially for agents with high counterintelligence skill levels
- random government selection more balanced (no longer frequently choosing Military Dictatorship)
- initial home system ruins (Age of Shadows) now never contain system map bonuses
- reduced number of spaceports empire builds when has low population
- increased maximum fleet count. Now relates to overall number of ships and bases, up to maximum of 100 fleets
- AI empires now check whether colony is safe to build at prior to initiating research station construction (e.g. check for nearby pirates)

PIRATES
- ensure pirate smuggling freighters repair at pirate base when damaged
- ensure pirate smuggling freighters retrofit when necessary and able
- empire will not detect and attack pirate smugglers when they are smuggling resources for that empire
- ensure that pirate-owned colonies are included when checking for wonder completion
- pirate factions now get research bonuses from scientists at their bases
- pirate factions can now change their home base to any space port in their empire by selecting new option in right-click pop-up menu

OTHER
- ensure that new settings and savegame folder locations are properly created (My Documents\My Games\Distant Worlds Universe)

[Franky007]

i don't see the WeaponsResearchProjectOrder in the races.txt file!

Silly me, they are in each of the races files...

[Gelatinous Cube]

Ah, cool. Font improvements! [&o]

[Efaferal]

5o fighter types! Bless you. Now racially specific fighters!

[Gelatinous Cube]

I notice the steam overlay still doesn't work. Any chance that will ever change, or is it just one of those things?

[Tcby]

Holy moly, another great list of changes.

[Buio]

ORIGINAL: Gelatinous Cube
I notice the steam overlay still doesn't work. Any chance that will ever change, or is it just one of those things?

I can get it to appear, but it goes below DW UI parts. What hotkey do you use? Seems to be sensitive of that. Doesn't like modkey + key that DW uses, like f.e. Ctrl+F10.

[spiralaxis]

Wait, wait, does this mean each race can now have a unique research tree?

If so, I'm not sure if this will make Locarnus dance or despair....

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: spiralaxis

Wait, wait, does this mean each race can now have a unique research tree?

If so, I'm not sure if this will make Locarnus dance or despair....

I don't see anything about that in the patch notes. But races can have a specified order of research.

[Osito]

What happens when the research orders for a tree are complete? Does the race start to research any techs that weren't in the research orders? If not, then I guess you could have a unique tree for a race.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: spiralaxis
Wait, wait, does this mean each race can now have a unique research tree?

The changes in 1954 and 1955 should allow this in theory.

Regards,

- Erik

[DeadlyShoe]

Very cool, guys!

Research project order makes modding some races way easier.

[Burocktr]

Very nice update,erik hope your team can help also about it on this threat and others in tech section also thanks.
Regards.

[pkoko]

Just another quick and easy UI improvement. In the selection panel, can you possibly add the selected ship location? I mean add the name of the system if the ship is stationed there.

[Unforeseen]

Can we please have an option to turn independent races completely off?

[neem693]

it's cool. apply this patch at tommorow.

[Franky007]

And please make the UI remember the choice we made for each filter...

[:)]

[BigWolfChris]

ORIGINAL: Unforeseen

Can we please have an option to turn independent races completely off?

Yes please
And possibly something in the race files to prevent certain races being independant

[PsyKoSnake]

Counter intel seem to work, 1st game in 1.9.5 and lost my 2 agent on there first mission with 92% chance of succes.
Maybe it was realy bad luck.

[Tcby]

Yep, I just lost my agent with 102% espionage skill, performing a 91% chance mission. Made me very, very sad [:'(]