DW2 FAQ/QnA megathread - Ask your question here!

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Is it still possible to find end game Government types in ruins?

[tebjan]

Which engine does DW2 use?
--> It's a significantly customized version of Xenko/Stride.

Hello, I'm from the Stride game engine open-source community and just found out about this. I think that's great news and if you are interested in mutual promotion like guest blog posts or such things please send me a DM or e-mail.

It would also be nice to backport interesting developments that you did for the engine while creating the game.

All the best for the launch,
t

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: tebjan
Which engine does DW2 use?
--> It's a significantly customized version of Xenko/Stride.

Hello, I'm from the Stride game engine open-source community and just found out about this. I think that's great news and if you are interested in mutual promotion like guest blog posts or such things please send me a DM or e-mail.

It would also be nice to backport interesting developments that you did for the engine while creating the game.

All the best for the launch,
t

Hi tebjan, I've responded to you directly in the Stride Discord server

Thanks

[sinbuster]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: tebjan
Which engine does DW2 use?
--> It's a significantly customized version of Xenko/Stride.

Hello, I'm from the Stride game engine open-source community and just found out about this. I think that's great news and if you are interested in mutual promotion like guest blog posts or such things please send me a DM or e-mail.

It would also be nice to backport interesting developments that you did for the engine while creating the game.

All the best for the launch,
t

Hi tebjan, I've responded to you directly in the Stride Discord server

Thanks

Elliot, thanks for everything you do my friend. DW is a superb franchise and you should be very proud. Now back to work!

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Perry_Rhodan
1. Solar systems. Can binary stars system (or tertiary, quaternary) exist? The most recent data indicate that at least half of the systems in the Milky way have 2+ suns.

Not at present, but this is definitely something we want to add in the future if possible.

2. Stealth. You spoke of various levels of intel on ships, depending of sensor coverage. It reminds me a bit of Stars!, a nerdy 4x game running in WEGO. Actual question now [:D] Do you get any feedback, as the stealth ship, to your stealth status?
In the real world you either detect objects with passive or active sensors. Active ones are much more powerful, and passive are limited to the speed of light. IRL, active too, but in a sci-fi game you usually ping a target with tachyon (FTL particles) to identify them.
Anyway, what I mean is that there is some ground on a feature where the target can know if it is detected or not... I guess DW2 provides no feedback on that, as I see it as a rather grognard feature. Yes/No?

No, not at present but it might make sense to add something like that. Stealth and sensors are more significant than in DW1 and having an all-Stealth fleet can make a big difference in the warning time your opponent gets, but I expect the full interplay between them will take some time to really emerge and polish, perhaps across future updates and expansions.

3. What about resources reserved by other empires you go to war with? Are they still gently kept on your planets or can you impound them? This was quite infuriating (yes, to this level [:)] ) in DW1 to see 40k steel units reserved by a nation you were at war with.

Not sure, I doubt it works the same as in DW1 as I recall this specifically being something we wanted to change, but will double-check.

4. How do you handle a ship stranded in space with destroyed (not damaged) engines? Can a construction ship tows the ship? Repair it? But you said only damaged components were repaired.

A construction ship can come and repair it, including destroyed components. Self-repair is best at repairing damaged components, not destroyed ones (with a few exceptions for higher self-repair techs).

5. I'm a bit worried about the lack of 'banned to travel' systems for the civilian sectors. I fear they will be destroyed regularly by some menaces in systems where you would prefer they don't transit into. And this can also works against the AI, where the player setup ambushes in barren systems which are used as a waypoint by enemy civilian ships.

It's much smarter about that in DW2, but as I said earlier we'd also like to add a manual way for players to declare systems as dangerous.

6. Privateers? Is there a way to hide your nationality to raid on civilian shipping?

Hm, only if you had very good stealth and the civilian freighter had very poor sensors, otherwise they'll figure it out. This won't necessarily lead to war though, but would give a diplomatic penalty.

In the future, it will be possible again to have more complex arrangements with pirates for plausible deniability.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Cubano
How many people are working on the game and what are their roles?

Well, we haven't put together the final credits, so I won't mention other names as I don't know yet how they'd like to be represented. However, for DW2 we have the following:

Elliot and I are the main team. Elliot is the developer and overall technical lead. We both work on the design together as well as the lore and story elements. I also act as an internal Producer and coordinate the larger team, communicate with the various contractors and coordinate testing and feedback to make sure Elliot's time is as efficiently spent as possible.

Richard Evans, our Art Director, is responsible for all the concept art and has given plenty of advice and counsel to the various artists working on DW2.

I have one "supertester" helping me greatly on the data side, when it comes to getting what's on the various design spreadsheets into the game files, helping me use my time more efficiently.

We have worked with five 3D modelers on this project so far as well as three animators (one specialized on the character animations), one special effects artist, two interface artists (one also an interface designer), one Character artist and Illustrator who is also becoming our new concept artist and has some 3D skills, and finally one composer to create some original music for DW2. I expect we may have a couple more contributors before we're all done.

For comparison, DW1's team was Elliot and me and one artist (sometimes a different artist for each release, but typically one) plus some help from Richard on illustrations and concept advice.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Raagun
I think this was one of most innovative (I think. Never saw this in other 4X) things in DW:U. It added extra diplomatic layer. And made possible to balance OP races indirectly (everyone hate bugs >:D)
I know that at start few races will be there, but modders and later expansions probably will drastically increase that. So having support for race groups is handy from start.

This is more fine-grained now, in that you have some biases down to the level of each alien race and also population policies down to that same level per location. This is also all still moddable.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Oneil19
And i don’t want to transpose some mechanics of another game here, but is there some form of galactic threat appearing in DW at some point (like crisis)?
Now it s Time for me to sink my head in DWU. Can t believe i missed it...

Welcome, we're glad you found us! Yes, DW has always had various threats and DW2 will be the same. The Pirates are obviously a very early threat, but there's more beyond that that I can't discuss at this time.

And btw, this place was pretty hard to find. Either lost in the many sections of the forum or i am blind. For ease of access, might want to put a link on the steam page. To get some exposure

I believe Steam doesn't really want us directly linking to our own site and forums, though customers are welcome to spread the word. [8D]

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Dd_01
1. I'm curious about the soundtrack - would it switch tracks randomly (as in the first part) or there's some kind of built-in music player to switch tracks manually if desired?

Too early for me to answer this, sorry.

2. Not sure if it was asked before, but would it be possible to have different ship types within the same class? I.e. Missile Frigate, Torpedo Frigate, Boarding Frigate (all available to upgrade and build) and so on?

Yes, but there's nothing that would restrict a specific weapon slot to missiles-only or torpedos-only in terms of your example, but you could setup a hull that would support that and have a design template and faction preferences that effectively create that end result. Slots can be restricted to a maximum size and components are defined with a size, so in that sense you might also be able to achieve that result through that route.

Our hull variants tend to focus on more weapons or more defenses or more speed or more general slots for various other needs, as well as adding more size to play with.

3. Would there be random disasters (i.e. sinkholes, huge sandstorms, plagues, economic crises)?

Yes.

4. Would there be a way to peacefully integrate vassalized empire?

We don't have that in the initial release.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Ranbir
I actually like you didn't put captains in since there were never enough captains for all those ships! Are Admirals still in? Characters at the higher levels of empire bureaucracy seem more fit for DW. Intelligence Agents, Governors, Ambassadors, Scientists. Any new additions?

Yes, Captains and Governors are out, at least for the initial release. Governors are likely to return, Captains probably not unless we come up with a better system for them. Admirals, Generals, Leaders, Ambassadors, Scientists and Agents are all in.

We have a lot of other ideas for where we want to go with characters and higher level leadership in the future, but those are for an expansion.

Would those freighters just switch to your empire's private sector and head to a port? Or does the state take control?

They should become part of your private sector.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Whiskiz
One and only actual question - Is there a way to track not just how a war is going, but the impact of War Weariness on your empire? Either a general "level" or the exact effects? It'd be nice to know to help in the decision making for example in how far you want to push things, what you may or may not need to do elsewhere to cope with it currently etc. Instead of just say happening to have lower colony happiness than usual. I'm guessing so but i just wanted to double check, also because:

Yes. The main effect is on your population's happiness, but that has cascading effects down the line as you need to mitigate that, which can be done through various means. One of those is to reduce taxation, which then ends up hurting your economy during war. Another is to build facilities/components to help, but those can cost more and there's a point where you won't be able to mitigate without economic effects.

You have top level summaries of colony happiness now as well as top level views of income and a summary of what level your war weariness has reached. However, this whole system is still being tested and has some bugs at present which we are working through.

It'd be great if you could also track your allies War Weariness too, to know where they're at at all times: if they need help, if they recently took a big hit, if they're about to peace out etc. Adding more depth to having friends and working and coordinating with them.

Agreed.

Maybe you could build sensor towers in systems for full sensor strength where you'd like to have that vision, especially in systems with structures so they of course can't be ambushed. The more you expand your empire the more full vision you can afford. Otherwise who knows what's lurking in a system with you, right around that planet or inside that gas cloud...

Typically by the time you're outside your own system, your sensors are good enough to cover a whole system once in-system (barring stealth tech and one particular space creature). It's at that point that long range sensors become more of a concern.

-I was actually going to leave a thread saying it'd be cool if Ship Captains were also a little more rare and meaningful, to then give them skills that work temporarily - like an ability to turn sharply, one to boost engines, one to increase firepower and/or shield regen, maybe one to enter complete stealth for a few seconds, one to drop some mines etc.

Either with separate cooldowns and unlocked at different levels/ranks - or a global resource meter that depletes as each is used with the size of the meter increasing with level/rank: So it's dynamic what you use in which situation. Bring some awesome RPG to your biggest most favorite ships, in your biggest fights.

We have a lot to consider for characters in the future. I expect one of the DW2 expansions, like Legends was for DW1, will have a character focus and add a lot more to what characters do for you.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: SilverCitadel
During my most recent playthrough I been thinking that it would be neat if there way to track major events or stats of named ships, afterall the game goes out of its way to give ships names , some based on where it was built. Would it be possible in DW2 to track stats or major events for characters or ships with long careers, or just event tracking in general like when a game of Civilizations 4 ends you can watch ingame events take place overtime.

We track far more than what we tracked in DW1. I'll see what's possible down to the individual ship level.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: SirHoraceHarkness
I can't think of any organized professional military that would allow captains with a bunch of negative modifiers to command a ship.

Well, to be fair, I can certainly think of a few. [8D] To properly explain this though, we'd need to add a "political favor" system where you accumulate new admirals and generals in peace time who have to be assigned based on their political favor, then in wartime their actual stats are revealed.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Drumline2
Is it still possible to find end game Government types in ruins?

Yes.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: tebjan
Which engine does DW2 use?
--> It's a significantly customized version of Xenko/Stride.

Hello, I'm from the Stride game engine open-source community and just found out about this. I think that's great news and if you are interested in mutual promotion like guest blog posts or such things please send me a DM or e-mail.

It would also be nice to backport interesting developments that you did for the engine while creating the game.

All the best for the launch,
t

Thanks for the good wishes and for stopping in here Tebjan. You should have already heard back from Elliot, but feel free to drop me a line as well if you have any questions.

[Jorgen_CAB]

It would be interesting to know if supply/demand and prices of resources have changed anything from DW1 to DW2. It always was a bit odd that prices were set on a galaxy scale when markets often were more local for the most part. As it can take quite the amount of time to get one resource from one end of the galaxy to the next then local price on supply and demand should effect the price where it is needed. So if one planet need a resource it would pay more for that resource to entice the market to send resources there even if it takes a longer trip to do so as it would pay more than sending it somewhere else.


So how does the price on resources vary, is it only on a galactic stage or can prices vary locally too depending on supply and demand?

[zgrssd]

Edit: Hit reply before writing my responses. Ups.

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: Raagun

Love additions you made to game. Really see how they can enrich strategies. Looking forward to my beta invite *wink* *wink* [:D]

Question:
Do you keep race groups?

I think this was one of most innovative (I think. Never saw this in other 4X) things in DW:U. It added extra diplomatic layer. And made possible to balance OP races indirectly (everyone hate bugs >:D)
I know that at start few races will be there, but modders and later expansions probably will drastically increase that. So having support for race groups is handy from start.

I felt in DW1 pop policies were mainly for roleplay.The min max way was always keeping pops assimilate.I hope this has expanded a bit.

[zgrssd]

quote:

ORIGINAL: Perry_Rhodan
1. Solar systems. Can binary stars system (or tertiary, quaternary) exist? The most recent data indicate that at least half of the systems in the Milky way have 2+ suns.



Not at present, but this is definitely something we want to add in the future if possible.

The main difference to conventional orbits, is that in binary Systems the Stars and all planetary bodies rotate around a shared Barycenter rather then each other.

Well, technically there always is a Barycenter - even between earth and any artificial sattelite. But as long as the Barycenter is inside the bigger object, we rarely care:
Luna and Earth have a particulary pronounced barycenter (pretty far from the planets core), but we still usually say "moon orbits the earth".

It is only when the barycenter ends up outside one of the bodies, that it starts to mater.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Whiskiz
One and only actual question - Is there a way to track not just how a war is going, but the impact of War Weariness on your empire? Either a general "level" or the exact effects? It'd be nice to know to help in the decision making for example in how far you want to push things, what you may or may not need to do elsewhere to cope with it currently etc. Instead of just say happening to have lower colony happiness than usual. I'm guessing so but i just wanted to double check, also because:



Yes. The main effect is on your population's happiness, but that has cascading effects down the line as you need to mitigate that, which can be done through various means. One of those is to reduce taxation, which then ends up hurting your economy during war. Another is to build facilities/components to help, but those can cost more and there's a point where you won't be able to mitigate without economic effects.

You have top level summaries of colony happiness now as well as top level views of income and a summary of what level your war weariness has reached. However, this whole system is still being tested and has some bugs at present which we are working through.

In practice, only lowering taxes would work. Stuff like the Modules of spaceports are a one-time investment that will increase the baseline.

But that gives me another question:
In Stellaris, they now have a system where pop Happiness and Stablity (roughly DW1 compliance) is only loosely tied. In a Xenophile Democracy, average Pop Happiness just about Equals Stability.
But a opressive regime can have very unhappy citizens - particulary slaves - that still comply. The downsdie would be the creation of Crime (roughly DW1 Corruption).

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: SirHoraceHarkness
I can't think of any organized professional military that would allow captains with a bunch of negative modifiers to command a ship.

Well, to be fair, I can certainly think of a few. [8D] To properly explain this though, we'd need to add a "political favor" system where you accumulate new admirals and generals in peace time who have to be assigned based on their political favor, then in wartime their actual stats are revealed.

Some games I can think off, if you are still looking for inspiration:
- In Shadow Empires, Factions that dislike you will demand that you hire a leader they propose (meaning Reserve pool payment at least, propably also giving them a job)
- In Imperator Rome, there are 3+ major Families (depending on Empire size). Each with a (not to large) pool of members - adoption of independant leaders is used in case they run to low.
And each of them demands a specific amount of posts to be given to their familiy members. Together with Troops becomming Loyal to their general over time, it is a major driving factor behind I:Rs sucession Crisis/Roman Civil war.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: SirHoraceHarkness
I can't think of any organized professional military that would allow captains with a bunch of negative modifiers to command a ship.

Well, to be fair, I can certainly think of a few. [8D] To properly explain this though, we'd need to add a "political favor" system where you accumulate new admirals and generals in peace time who have to be assigned based on their political favor, then in wartime their actual stats are revealed.

Hmm would be an interesting mechanic. Depending on type of government and current state of affairs certain leadership positions could be filled with incompetent social climbers and leeches. Welp without delving too deep into current politics I think I see where you are coming from. [:'(]