DW2 FAQ/QnA megathread - Ask your question here!

The Galaxy Lives On! Distant Worlds, the critically acclaimed 4X space strategy game is back with a brand new 64-bit engine, 3D graphics and a polished interface to begin an epic new Distant Worlds series with Distant Worlds 2. Distant Worlds 2 is a vast, pausable real-time 4X space strategy game. Experience the full depth and detail of turn-based strategy, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game.

Moderator: MOD_DW2

Post Reply
zgrssd
Posts: 5101
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2020 1:02 pm

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by zgrssd »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

I remembered a few questsions I wanted to ask:
1. With the Skip Drive being a much earlier technology, do you plan to expand on the content/descisions to do when all you got is the skip drive? Splitting the game into Pre-FTL, Skip Drive, Proper Interstellar FTL?
2. In DW1 we had to find the idea for Warpdrive theory in Ruins. Before that, we could not even start research. And given the limitation to STL travel, it could take consider able time for the Exploration ships to actually get to the ruins, wich could break a empires ability to go for the Stars. Will that still be the case? Will we only need this unlock to progress past skip drive?
3. As I understand it, prior to the spaceport being built the Colony can act as ship producer - albeit slower and only 1 Project at a time.
Will they become fully interchangeable once the Spaceport is there, meaning that the space port can do stuff like creation and Upgrades of Colony/Construction ships? Having the one Yard Bottleneck - in particular with a Colonyship needing years to build - was always a big issue with DW1.
4.Will a planet without Spaceport be able to build, repair and retrotfit combat ships (albeit slowly)? Or will it be limited to the Stations+Civil ships?
5.Will planets ever get additional Yards, say with high population?
6. What about a slighly "accelerated" Pre-interstellar start? Something where we start with the initial spaceport, initial Ships and Skip Drive unlocked/installed, so we can skip the pretty boring phase of waiting for the spaceport? Or is that phase less boring now?
Continuiation:
7. Will there be fuel tankers or towing ships?
The Fuel Ship could fix the question/issue 2 from kratt81.
While a towing ship would be additionally usefull to grab derelicts or ships with disabeled hyperdrives, to move them to a port.
8. Will the civil economy be smart enough to scrap/mothball unprofitable operations, like idle freighters?
9. Will the Civil economy be able to use their own funds/construction ships to add to the space mining infrastructure?
10. Can I build or charter a freighter for specific deliveries (I do not care what brings more profit, that base needs caslon. And it needs Caslon there now!). Of course the old "Smuggler Bounty" system works as well.
11. What about drafting transporters to turn into military ships? While they historically made terrible combat vessels, they can still carry military cargo. And the carrier role is the one transports can be good in.
12. What about a Convoy System? Q-Ships(Armed transports)?
13. Will we get a Indicator for "enemy ships in that system"? What about a "last I had sensor contact, there were enemies there"?
14. Given that stops will actually mater in DW2, is there a way to declare specific Systems "off limits" for automatic pathfinding?
User avatar
Miletkir
Posts: 654
Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:15 am
Location: Eastern Nebula

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Miletkir »

Man, slow down, I'll be spending nights on this FAQ [:'(]
Image
zgrssd
Posts: 5101
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2020 1:02 pm

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by zgrssd »

ORIGINAL: Miletkir

Man, slow down, I'll be spending nights on this FAQ [:'(]
Well, if I am the only one to ever ask, that does remove the Frequently out of FAQ, doesn't it?
User avatar
Miletkir
Posts: 654
Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2020 4:15 am
Location: Eastern Nebula

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Miletkir »

[8|] Point taken, though so far it's been more of an All Asked Questions.
Image
zgrssd
Posts: 5101
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2020 1:02 pm

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by zgrssd »

And a few more. Sorry, I just can not help myself.[:)]
ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

I remembered a few questsions I wanted to ask:
1. With the Skip Drive being a much earlier technology, do you plan to expand on the content/descisions to do when all you got is the skip drive? Splitting the game into Pre-FTL, Skip Drive, Proper Interstellar FTL?
2. In DW1 we had to find the idea for Warpdrive theory in Ruins. Before that, we could not even start research. And given the limitation to STL travel, it could take consider able time for the Exploration ships to actually get to the ruins, wich could break a empires ability to go for the Stars. Will that still be the case? Will we only need this unlock to progress past skip drive?
3. As I understand it, prior to the spaceport being built the Colony can act as ship producer - albeit slower and only 1 Project at a time.
Will they become fully interchangeable once the Spaceport is there, meaning that the space port can do stuff like creation and Upgrades of Colony/Construction ships? Having the one Yard Bottleneck - in particular with a Colonyship needing years to build - was always a big issue with DW1.
4.Will a planet without Spaceport be able to build, repair and retrotfit combat ships (albeit slowly)? Or will it be limited to the Stations+Civil ships?
5.Will planets ever get additional Yards, say with high population?
6. What about a slighly "accelerated" Pre-interstellar start? Something where we start with the initial spaceport, initial Ships and Skip Drive unlocked/installed, so we can skip the pretty boring phase of waiting for the spaceport? Or is that phase less boring now?
Continuiation:
7. Will there be fuel tankers or towing ships?
The Fuel Ship could fix the question/issue 2 from kratt81.
While a towing ship would be additionally usefull to grab derelicts or ships with disabeled hyperdrives, to move them to a port.
8. Will the civil economy be smart enough to scrap/mothball unprofitable operations, like idle freighters?
9. Will the Civil economy be able to use their own funds/construction ships to add to the space mining infrastructure?
10. Can I build or charter a freighter for specific deliveries (I do not care what brings more profit, that base needs caslon. And it needs Caslon there now!). Of course the old "Smuggler Bounty" system works as well.
11. What about drafting transporters to turn into military ships? While they historically made terrible combat vessels, they can still carry military cargo. And the carrier role is the one transports can be good in.
12. What about a Convoy System? Q-Ships(Armed transports)?
13. Will we get a Indicator for "enemy ships in that system"? What about a "last I had sensor contact, there were enemies there"?
14. Given that stops will actually mater in DW2, is there a way to declare specific Systems "off limits" for automatic pathfinding?
15. Will there be a warning for Spaceport congestion/automatic use of the planet if the docks are full? I just had a odd situation in DWU where one small spaceport had 30-40 ships in queue for docking, but I only saw it by accident to upgrade it.
I do not even know how much of my Private Freighter fleet was stopped there due to that congestion.
16. Any way to give the autodesigner some hints what to do?
For example, after some play I would love for my spaceport to include a FTL Inhibitor. And maybe add a lot of commerce boosting modules (unless there is a station for that now). Meanwhile at least the with the DW1 Research system, I could propably cut the research Modules out of anything but the largest Spaceports later.
Meanwhile only my biggest ships may have any use for Cago Bays or FTL inhibitors, if that.
With stuff like Fleet Modules even being limited to a special Fleet Flagship design.
A way to tell it not to put the latest techs in the Patrol ship classes? That that is both rather expensive and very vulnerable to being boarded and reverse-engineered.
17. The Advisor System that advises you to build ships: Is it is still there? And is there now a way to tell it "Stop suggesting Frigates" because they would die on a Patrol?
What about "please stop suggesting 20 Exporation ships, there is not a single unexplored system and I do not need that many spies"? Or does it auto-adjust to the number of unexplored Systems in travel range?
What about Construction ships?
A way to tell it wich ship sizes are for automated patroling duty? As tech develops anything smaler then a destroyer might become infeasible as a Automated Patrol.
Katarkus87
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 11:51 pm
Location: Switzerland

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Katarkus87 »


- Can we build Stations on larger Asteroids instead of just mining them with Ships? (f.E In the TV-Series The Expanse, Ceres has a permanent Population who mines the Ressources. Maybe higher Mining Rate that way?)


You could already do that in DWU.

Most of the asteroids were "duds" as far as resources are concerned, but the other ones were automatically build on. Never tried manual targetting, as there are too many and they are to small.

I meant it more like a very small Colony (compared to Planets), where you still can handle Population Politics etc. but with a increased Mining Output but much less Tax income.
I guess you mean something like Star Sectors "Lasting Damage"?
Or more like Star Trek Onlines "Wounds" you get from death in high difficulty, but wich can be removed?

It did not make sense for DWU.
And it only makes sense in Star Sector, because the Industrial base in said sector is to bad to actually build or repair those ships in a proper shipyard.

Yes exactly like in Starsector. Would be nice for Immersion, especially when the Spaceports are busy with the Private Sector, so that we would have a handful of flawed Ships in our Fleet who we must take to consideration when the said Fleet was drawn in to a Combat.
RogerBacon
Posts: 724
Joined: Wed May 17, 2000 8:00 am
Location: Miami, Florida, U.S.A.

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by RogerBacon »

ORIGINAL: Katarkus87

I meant it more like a very small Colony (compared to Planets), where you still can handle Population Politics etc. but with a increased Mining Output but much less Tax income.

I added asteroid colonies in my mod since someone requested them. They were a neat little feature but kinda useless really. They could extend the range of colonization if you were playing with colonization range limits but that was really their only appealing factor.

Maybe I should give them increased mining capability like you suggested.
BTC 14UURmC4rD762RStsufKmaUjfXQrBvahU1
ETH 0x7c65139BC82A0BDC5b11F92001D5c5a112219f08
User avatar
SirHoraceHarkness
Posts: 522
Joined: Sun May 17, 2015 5:29 pm

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by SirHoraceHarkness »

Seems to me a mining colony should give a bonus to all extractors in the system its in since it acts like a mini planet and would have docking bays like a space station. The bonus could be explained by having such a large local population to rotate the crew of the other stations to increase morale and productivity unlike some remote mining station out in the boonies. Would make uninhabitable systems more lucrative to develop and defend.
Intel i9 11900k all core oc@5.3 - 32gb Crucial Ballistix 3600 DDR4 CL16 - EVGA RTX 3090 24gb FTW3 Ultra - MSI Z490 A-PRO Mobo
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
In DW1, "war" was just a different state of relations between two empires. It could lead to strange behaviours like an ally of yours agreeing to go to war to defend you against an aggressor, but then quickly negotiating a separate peace with the enemy and dropping out of the war, without any consequences

War is more of a "thing" in DW2, but not to the degree of something like in EUIV. We track a lot more about a lot of things under the hood and war is one of them. That is used to inform both the player and the AI of how a war is going and war weariness. Wars are still in effect 1:1, meaning that your ally may still decide to pursue a separate peace, but it's unlikely unless they either start losing badly (which you can help to prevent) or their war weariness gets very high (which can have lots of bad effects).

Regards,

- Erik
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: Perry_Rhodan
So I guess there is some kind of UI feedback when you plan a long distance move, like seeing the legs of your trip in different colors? Or having a graphic symbol in between each leg?

Yes, you can see the jump path, but not in different colors but each leg is clear.
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: Perry_Rhodan
I'm wondering if Colonization in DW2 is akin to a wild 'grab the land' run or is more sedate? I would not like to expand like crazy just to prevent the AI from colonizing nearby me. This plagued Civilization in its early days, this was called 'Infinite City Sprawl' and now the game is smarter about that, with quality over quantity (also you can look at Endless Legend / Humankind 'regions', and Age of Wonders Planetfall approach to this issue).

Bottom line, the trend is about having mechanisms more about judicious placements and less about spamming colonies.

How DW2 is positioned on that?

Also, on the realism side of thing (but who cares? [:D] ), a new colony should not be profitable and produce a cruiser within 2 years of its colonization!

Pretty sure I already answered this one at length, but in short there is much less of a colony rush in DW2 and new colonies are more expensive, take longer to develop and require support. A quality colony location makes developing a good colony significantly easier.
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: Dagfinn
Is the Galaxy Map 2D or 3D?

It's 3D in terms of the graphics, but effectively on a 2D plane in that you're not traveling up and down between star systems.
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
1. With the Skip Drive being a much earlier technology, do you plan to expand on the content/descisions to do when all you got is the skip drive? Splitting the game into Pre-FTL, Skip Drive, Proper Interstellar FTL?

The current evolution by default is a very brief sub-light period (you find enough info to build the skip drive quickly in your ancestral ruins on your homeworld, once you can understand the tech), then a longer skip drive period exploring just your own system, then a warp bubble drive period where you can go to the nearest systems, perhaps 4-5 more, then the full on hyperdrive era with the Gerax Hyperdrive, at which point much of the galaxy opens up, especially as you colonize and expand refueling points. The Gerax Hyperdrive era usually brings the "early game" to an end as it leads to encounters with other major empires, beginning what I'd call the mid-game where you're focusing less on establishing your interstellar civilization and more on competing with other interstellar civilizations.

[quote2. In DW1 we had to find the idea for Warpdrive theory in Ruins. Before that, we could not even start research. And given the limitation to STL travel, it could take consider able time for the Exploration ships to actually get to the ruins, wich could break a empires ability to go for the Stars. Will that still be the case? Will we only need this unlock to progress past skip drive?[/quote]

By default, you now get a boost towards Skip Drive on your homeworld ruins, speeding up that initial process.
3. As I understand it, prior to the spaceport being built the Colony can act as ship producer - albeit slower and only 1 Project at a time.
Will they become fully interchangeable once the Spaceport is there, meaning that the space port can do stuff like creation and Upgrades of Colony/Construction ships? Having the one Yard Bottleneck - in particular with a Colonyship needing years to build - was always a big issue with DW1.

Colonies can build pretty much everything, but slower and with more cost. Once you build a spaceport, the AI is much better in DW2 at balancing the production load so that your overall production delays at all potential sites should be about even. I'll show this a bit more in future reveals. You can still of course manually queue production wherever you like.

Colony ships are huge endeavours, but the overall production queueing/balancing system is significantly better than in DW1 and we'll continue making the AI smarter in every area we can throughout beta.
4.Will a planet without Spaceport be able to build, repair and retrotfit combat ships (albeit slowly)? Or will it be limited to the Stations+Civil ships?

Yes, it can, just more slowly.
5.Will planets ever get additional Yards, say with high population?

The amount of population does affect the build rate, but spaceports are pretty much always going to be the fastest.
6. What about a slighly "accelerated" Pre-interstellar start? Something where we start with the initial spaceport, initial Ships and Skip Drive unlocked/installed, so we can skip the pretty boring phase of waiting for the spaceport? Or is that phase less boring now?

Sure, just pick a Tech Level 0 start instead of Pre-warp, but otherwise "starting".

You can really setup your start pretty much however you like.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
SirHoraceHarkness
Posts: 522
Joined: Sun May 17, 2015 5:29 pm

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by SirHoraceHarkness »

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: Dagfinn
Is the Galaxy Map 2D or 3D?

It's 3D in terms of the graphics, but effectively on a 2D plane in that you're not traveling up and down between star systems.

I think what he means is that can the view be rotated and tilted so you can view an object from any angle or is it stuck in an isometric or top down position?
Intel i9 11900k all core oc@5.3 - 32gb Crucial Ballistix 3600 DDR4 CL16 - EVGA RTX 3090 24gb FTW3 Ultra - MSI Z490 A-PRO Mobo
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: Katarkus87
- While in Combat, will it be possible to ram enemy Ships? (f.E Player orders outgunned Frigate, to ram the enemy Battleship or Station of some sort.)

Not at present. As long as you have assault pods, you can board enemy ships though, to damage or capture them, as in DW1.
-Is it possible to hide Ships from enemy Radars behind large Celestial Objects?(f.E Gas Giant - like in the upcoming 4X Game Falling Frontier)

I don't know anything about Falling Frontier. With that said, what you describe in terms of possibly not seeing a ship within the same solar system is mainly an early game thing. Once your sensors get a bit better, you will pretty much see everything within a system as in DW1 and the visibility question becomes more about how far outside your system you can see and where there are gaps in your long-range sensor coverage, or how good it is at identifying what it sees.

A lot of work went into making this less of a binary "you see it and know everything about it" vs. "you see and know nothing" to adding more levels of knowledge. You could know that something is there, or know that it's there and who it belongs to, or even its role, or even be able to see its exact design, etc. The interaction of other components such as stealth components, trace jammers, etc. play into this and the power of sensors to detect may vary from their power to unmask empire or role.

Good long range sensors can also give you some information on even previously unexplored systems within their range. Larger ships and stations are also easier to detect than smaller ones.
- Will Ships take damage when they are to close to a Star? (They didnt in DWU)

I haven't directly tried to fly a ship into a star, but I'm pretty sure the ships will not accept that order and thus not take damage.
- Can we build Stations on larger Asteroids instead of just mining them with Ships? (f.E In the TV-Series The Expanse, Ceres has a permanent Population who mines the Ressources. Maybe higher Mining Rate that way?)

Mining stations now have an asteroid mining range. You build a mining station, it will start mining all asteroids within its range. While individual asteroids usually have low resource abundance, a few well-situated mining stations can make a good asteroid field quite valuable.
- Are you considering adding Ground Troops Techs in future Expansions? (f.E Better Stormrifles for Infantry or better Armor for Tank Divisions)

I suppose it's possible, though there's already a tech tree for improving the various ground combat capabilities. We want to see how the changes we already made to ground combat shake out during beta and post-release before deciding on any future changes.
- In the Bacon Mod, Shipcrews can gain Experience. Are there any Plans to integrate this Mechanic?

Not in this release, but allowing ships to gain experience like troops makes sense as something to do in the future. We nearly did that in DW1, but ended up going with Ship Captains instead (which did not make the cut for DW2).
- Is there a possibility that some Colonies can revolt against Player/AI because of Government Type? (f.E Colony X wants to brake off from Mortalen Dictatorship because they want Democracy.)

Don't think so at present. We added an assimilation resistance to various factions in DW2 and this has a direct role to play in how happy a conquered colony will be and how long it will take for it to be more accepting of its new owner. At the same time, there are biases between the various species which can lead to some being happier than others within a particular empire, especially if your empire is trying to exterminate or enslave them otherwise. Espionage also is a significant external catalyst for revolts and rebellions. Finally, your own policy choices and how they effect a given colony's happiness as well as the updated corruption system and its interaction with the reach of government through administration facilities have a lot to do with it as well.
- Can heavy battered Ships be recovered by Construction Ships after a battle like in DWU? If yes, are they getting any malus from that? (f.E defective Radars: -20% on Weapons accuracy)

Yes, badly damaged ships can be repaired by Construction Ships. Damaged is now a separate state for components and does cause penalties vs. being undamaged. Destroyed is of course just that component is entirely gone.
- Can we rob Cargo from Freighters that belongs to Empires we are at War with, rather then just destroying them? (like the German Navy did in World War I and a reason to add Cargo Bays to Warships [:)] )

You can board them and take them as well as their cargo. You can also raid for resources and money.
- Can we order Spies to abduct Scientists from other Empires to hinder their Research progress? (abducting enemy characters was possible in Star Wars Rebellion)

Not yet, though this area is still a bit in development. You can assassinate them though. :-)
- in DWU there was a limit in the Editor for Celestial Objects we could place in a Solar System. Is it still the same?

Haven't tried this yet, will have to ask Elliot when he returns.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: kratt81
1. For the first point, when I said army/military only drag, i was referring to the military ships, not the ground armies which I know are assigned to a planet. In DWU which I am playing right now, when I drag-select my military ships like frigates and destroyers, if non-military ships like construction ships and exploration ships are in that drag-select, they will also be included and sent to where I am sending my military ships, usually to battle. In a lot of other RTS and 4X games, the drag-select is usually default or at the very least, is toggleable in the options menu. Including this will help reduce micro-bloat as currently, I have to constantly individually remove them from my drag-select which is often hard to do as I sometimes, I cant tell their non-military ships by the pictures.

Understood completely now, thanks. Not yet, but it makes sense to add this and we will if possible.
2. In regards to the fuel issue, what I meant was that (after testing as well) lets say in a fleet of 20 ships, 5 of them run out of fuel while the other 15 still have half fuel, what happens is that the other 15 ships move at their full speed while the other 5 ships in the fleet that have no fuel move at a reduced speed which makes sense and is realistic, my issue is that lets say I want to continue sending those 15 ships to where they are going and those 5 ships to the nearest refueling station, I don't have that option and I have to manually select all those fuel empty ships and send them to a refueling station, when it comes to micro, this feels extremely inefficient and I feel that a option like "refuel all EMPTY fuel ships" would make gameplay a lot better and reduce micro-bloat rather than the current only option of "refuel ALL ships" which will send all the ships to a refueling station when I only wanted to send the completely fuel empty ships to refuel.

Understood. I haven't seen this case happen in DW2. We are also still working on the fleet coordination AI though and it's not perfect yet so I've seen other issues that we still have to resolve. The new fuel tankers are also intended to help with fleet (and other ship) refueling, but especially for fleets.
3. Continuing from that, another quality of life improvement I think would be to allow ctrl alt selecting, as currently in DWU, if I want to select certain ships from a group of 20 ships, i.e. the 5 fuel empty ships so I can specifically select those to send to refuel, I cannot do that. That is because after i drag select or select the fleet, if I try to click one of the ships, it will send me directly to that ship and exit out of the multiple ship fleet view on the bottom left of the screen, I think that including the option to ctrl select so when you do that, the screen doesnt change to that specific ship and you can continue selecting ships so that you select the ones you want (ex. empty fuel ships) will make this game much better and reduce micro-bloat, a lot of RTS games and other 4X games have that function of ctrl selecting so that fleet management is a lot easier, thank you.

Thanks for the suggestion, will consider this as well.
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: EmperorKirk
One thing I loved in DW1 was that troop numbers where believable like you needed between 150k-500k to take small to medium planets, if you wanted to take high population colonies or a homeworld you need between 1m-5m troops. These numbers are a hell of a lot better than other 4x, where example in Galciv2 you took billions of your people from a planet forced them on a troop transport and attacked an enemy world which is very silly, or like Stellaris where it does not tell you numbers at all. So, my questions are will troop numbers be as believable as in DW1 and will be able to see casualties after a battle?

I think they are more believable, similar to DW1, but we'll have to see what folks think during beta.
Also, will war be as free as in DW1, I hate the restrictive and timed wars in Stellaris?( one of the reasons I don't play it much, even compared to other paradox games it's a bad war system) Don't misunderstand me I still want warexhaustion, angry populations and possibly rebellions if I push my people to far, but I hate when wars just end due to random ticking down time that I have no control over, wars should end when either I choose to start peace talks or when the enemy does( which means you could also have very limited wars which was very cool). The one thing hope is not the same is how much you could abuse war and diplomacy when talking to other races, like you could keep sending and breaking treaties( getting loads of techs or get out of wars), there should be some cooldowns on some diplomatic actions.

There's no enforced end time for a war, but if you are playing a faction that is prone to war weariness, the effects of this over time become quite serious, especially if you don't take other measures to keep your people happy to compensate for it (which can otherwise lead to rebellions and even civil war).

The improved diplomatic system does have enforced cooldowns to avoid exactly the type of issue you were referring to in DW1 and I hope that as we keep testing it during beta, we'll iron out any remaining exploits or balance issues.

Regards,

- Erik
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
7. Will there be fuel tankers or towing ships?

There are fuel tankers now. There are not towing ships, but construction ships will go to repair damaged ships so that they can move themselves again.
8. Will the civil economy be smart enough to scrap/mothball unprofitable operations, like idle freighters?

Hopefully so. :-)
9. Will the Civil economy be able to use their own funds/construction ships to add to the space mining infrastructure?

Yes, mining stations are now build using private funds. The state effectively grants the license for a mining location, the private sector pays for the construction and maintenance.
10. Can I build or charter a freighter for specific deliveries (I do not care what brings more profit, that base needs caslon. And it needs Caslon there now!). Of course the old "Smuggler Bounty" system works as well.

No, but you can set your resource priorities at that location which will act to pull more Caslon there through the private sector system. As far as smuggling and such, independent freighters will also respond to demand, but a more full-featured smuggling system is something for an expansion.
11. What about drafting transporters to turn into military ships? While they historically made terrible combat vessels, they can still carry military cargo. And the carrier role is the one transports can be good in.

True, but building Troop Transports is the intended way to do that in DW2. We decided back in DW1 to keep a pretty clear separation in this area even though what you describe would be a bit more realistic. It's possible we may blur that line a bit in the future, but nothing in this release.
12. What about a Convoy System? Q-Ships(Armed transports)?

If you have enough military ships, per your policy settings some will not be in fleets. Those will generally if automated be assigned to protect mining stations, patrol systems and escort important shipments. The freighters do not "convoy up" but I could see that being an interesting idea to explore in the future when there are threats or war to consider if an enemy is causing significant losses to the private sector.
13. Will we get a Indicator for "enemy ships in that system"? What about a "last I had sensor contact, there were enemies there"?

You do get notifications when enemy ships are approaching or attacking. The notifications bring you to the location of that contact, whether it's still there or not (if it left your sensor range).
14. Given that stops will actually mater in DW2, is there a way to declare specific Systems "off limits" for automatic pathfinding?

The automatic system for avoiding threats is much better, but this type of manual declaration of a system as off-limits is something I'd like to add, if not in this release then in the future.

Regards,

- Erik

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
User avatar
Erik Rutins
Posts: 39652
Joined: Tue Mar 28, 2000 4:00 pm
Location: Vermont, USA
Contact:

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Erik Rutins »

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
15. Will there be a warning for Spaceport congestion/automatic use of the planet if the docks are full? I just had a odd situation in DWU where one small spaceport had 30-40 ships in queue for docking, but I only saw it by accident to upgrade it.

This should not be an issue in DW2, with any luck.
16. Any way to give the autodesigner some hints what to do?
For example, after some play I would love for my spaceport to include a FTL Inhibitor. And maybe add a lot of commerce boosting modules (unless there is a station for that now). Meanwhile at least the with the DW1 Research system, I could propably cut the research Modules out of anything but the largest Spaceports later.
Meanwhile only my biggest ships may have any use for Cago Bays or FTL inhibitors, if that.
With stuff like Fleet Modules even being limited to a special Fleet Flagship design.
A way to tell it not to put the latest techs in the Patrol ship classes? That that is both rather expensive and very vulnerable to being boarded and reverse-engineered.

Changing the design templates and faction preferences (data file editing) is the most powerful way to do this, though you can influence what's build through in-game policies as well. If you're running purely on auto-design, the default design templates and preferences reflect what that faction prefers lore-wise as well as what just makes the most general sense for each role. Mainly by researching better components would you influence the auto-designer to choose those if you're not editing your own template or preferences. Exposing more of these in-game is a good wish list item.
17. The Advisor System that advises you to build ships: Is it is still there? And is there now a way to tell it "Stop suggesting Frigates" because they would die on a Patrol?
What about "please stop suggesting 20 Exporation ships, there is not a single unexplored system and I do not need that many spies"? Or does it auto-adjust to the number of unexplored Systems in travel range?
What about Construction ships?
A way to tell it wich ship sizes are for automated patroling duty? As tech develops anything smaler then a destroyer might become infeasible as a Automated Patrol.

Yes, there are still construction advisors. You can adjust your policy settings in-game to tell them what you want prioritized and can even tell them that you do not want any escorts or frigates, for example, or set the priority of more exploration ships to very low. With that said, our hope is that by release, the advisors will be more intelligent than in DW1 (they already are in many cases, still need more work in others).

Defining your fleet templates for defense, attack and invasion will also help guide construction.
Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC


Image

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.
Katarkus87
Posts: 11
Joined: Fri Apr 20, 2018 11:51 pm
Location: Switzerland

RE: DW2 FAQ?

Post by Katarkus87 »

I haven't directly tried to fly a ship into a star, but I'm pretty sure the ships will not accept that order and thus not take damage.

In DW1 my Private Sector had build many Tourist Bases very close to a Neutron Star and automated Exploration Ships were flying right past beside a Main Yellow Star, without taking Radiation or Heat Damage. I also never ordered a Ship flying directly in to one. ;)


Thanks for finding some time to answer our Questions. [:)]
Post Reply

Return to “Distant Worlds 2”