Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #5

[deMangler]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: deMangler
Wow! That worked a treat!

Erik, you are doing a very bad job of releasing the game today!

...closes eyes...

[:D]

Glad the joke was not mis-understood.
Its' a rare privilege these days, in commercial gaming especially, to witness a true labour-of-love develop. It's ready when it's ready.
Thanks to all involved.

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: deMangler

ORIGINAL: Tsar99

You are doing a very bad job at presenting your game when you use such low resolution images.
When you see only this images, without experience of the high resolution images that were released earlier, the game just looks very bad.

Wow! That worked a treat!

Erik, you are doing a very bad job of releasing the game today!

...closes eyes...

[:D]

[USSAmerica]

ORIGINAL: Tsar99

You are doing a very bad job at presenting your game when you use such low resolution images.
When you see only this images, without experience of the high resolution images that were released earlier, the game just looks very bad.

I actually very much appreciated the smaller images in the Dev Diary post so I don't have to constantly scroll my browser window to read each line of text. [&o]

Erik, thanks for posting the larger images separately. Perhaps the combination of the smaller images with the text followed by the larger images going forward is the way to have the best of both worlds. [8D]

[swappan]

Sounds great. I like that exploration takes longer, and is also important later in the game.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

So much the same system as before but no longer an instant resolution when your basic scout finds one. Definitely an improvement. So how moddable will this be? Just surface changes via xml or possibly some in depth access to the core mechanics?

[Wenla]

Good diary. Exploration is my favorite part of games where you can explore...

[Rising-Sun]

Glad you guys still working on this and gotta say those are nice screenshots, esp the space creature that look like a stingray.

[GHerr]

I see that this includes the same options not to investigate the ruin. Is there ever a good reason not to? I always just explored every single one.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: deMangler

Erik, you are doing a very bad job of releasing the game today!

...closes eyes...

Nice try

[ncc1701e]

Some planets are independent worlds, which even have their own populations and can engage in trade and diplomacy.

But the prime directive? If they are pre-warp, no contact!

Really interesting new features for exploration, thanks for the hard work. Can't wait to see what we can do in terms of diplomacy with these independent worlds.

Wondering if those guys could be assimilated in our collective.

[WiZz]

Do you plan to do something with usual player's abuse with ancient ships? You find full field of broken ancient ships, repair them and get fleet of advanced ships for free. Then you just steam roll any AI player.[:(] In worst cases even Guardians.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

Yeah you can do a constructor ship rush to a debris field and end the game quick if you did a prewarp start. This become less effective though as the starting tech for each empire is increased to the point they are of more use as a tech bonus. I tend to not do that though and instead use them for the tech bonus since I always prioritize plasma thunderbolt weapons and ignore everything else in that section past the very first armor tech. This always has me far outgunning the AI no matter what settings I run. Sure the ships are not quite as durable but early and mid game the AI typically doesn't have very large fleets to begin with so attrition tactics favor me.

[wetpig]

Looks good to me.

I like the idea of having scout ships do the initial first sweep of a system then having survey ships do the in depths scans, the change allows for a little more strategy when it comes to scout designs IMO.

edit: that was meant as general reply to thread not the above post.

[SirHoraceHarkness]

What would be fun is if the scout doesn't trigger a defensive attack or booby trap and it waits for the archeology ship to show up then the trap is sprung. Would mean you might want to escort it with a small to large fleet depending on how valuable the find is and stick around as it does its scans.

[Galaxy227]

Great diary. Really looking forward to exploring a newly generated, three-dimensional galaxy later this year [:D]

I had a thought while viewing the galaxy map in the above screenshots. Most would agree DW2 could greatly benefit from having multi-star systems. The galaxy would certainly feel more diverse, and there could even be some interesting mechanics tied into multi-star systems. Additionally, in our universe "...up to 85% of stars are in binary systems." (source). I'll admit upwards of 85% sounds exaggerative, but the complete lack of multi-star systems in DW2 still leaves me curious. Shouldn't it be much easier to implement binary & trinary star systems, considering objects no longer orbit stars in DW2? Are multi-star systems a possibility after launch? If not, would it be possible to mod in multi-star systems ourselves?

My questions aside, I'm glad to see DW2 chugging along closer to release. Looking forward to the next diary!

[RgZera]

I dont think i can wait much longer for this game. Im going crazy knowing all the fun things we will be able to do and we cant yet... Also i have so many ideas for mods already.

[Teyren]

ORIGINAL: Mantuvec

Exploration levels in the initial release go up to about 100. There’s clearly a lot of room for things to hide between 20 and 100 and as a result, some exploration will continue, even in already known areas, well into the game.

How do you raise the exploration level? Well, in Distant Worlds 2 there are a few ways to do this:

[*] An exploration ship with a planetary scanner (the most advanced types go up to around Exploration Level 50). Planetary scanners are the quickest way to explore a planet.
[*] An exploration ship with a planetary survey module (these can go up to the maximum exploration level). Surveys take longer to explore a planet, but can explore it more thoroughly.
[*] A mining station at the planet. Over time, a mining station can raise the exploration level up to around 30.
[*] A colony at the planet. Depending on population, a colony will increase the exploration level over time, eventually up to the maximum possible level.

A expansion of exploration mechanics is so exciting to hear. I do have questions regarding already though regarding exploration, when an exploration triggers discoveries does it record what made the discovery (such as whether it was a survey ship, mining station, etc.) It'd be interesting for modders to have the ability to make different results for who exactly is making the discovery, a mining team would likely find more direct and practical uses for a artifact than a survey team.

[Hanekem]

Very interesting.
I do have some questions how it will go operatively, I mean say an explorer with survey module and sensor jumps to system 4831
it does a cursory survey over the whole system and then goes to do detailed surveys of each planet? or goes to each planet and starts doing a max survey possible?
Could we configure how much scout(s) will survey a particular system? or planet?

(could we have a scout ship that is mostly about mapping planets and another class that is mostly a survey ship?)

[OnePercent]

I am in love with the new textures used for the galaxy map view, it's no longer "harsh" contrast between galaxy backdrop and the empire border colour and influence range!

Might I make a suggestion? would it not be possible for the background galaxy position of each star to be considered when generating the local nebula clouds when in system view? or even just having the same procedural nebula generator but also including a snapshot of the local galactic plane and relative position of where the star is.

The space game freelancer had a similar feature, whereby depending on where the player was on the world map, the skybox would change accordingly based on each instance within that world map depending on the location; so if there was a specific nebula to the west, and the player was on the east side of the world map approaching the west from instance to instance, the nebula would get noticeably larger until the player was inside that nebula and the whole skybox would change accordingly.

Why might I suggest this? I believe it would improve the aesthetics of the game, because it would add continuity to each star system, rather than having a random rainbow color for each systems nebula. (or the galactic dust if the system is not near a local nebula and you just see the galactic plain and core)

[Moltrey]

Great stuff Eric.
Thanks for the larger pics, they do convey quite a bit more.

Ahh... exploration. The cornerstone of 4x games. As Grandfather Sid Meier once said (paraphrasing): "Great game design is all about giving players interesting choices."
Couldn't agree more!

Can't wait guys.