Research in Distant Worlds 2

[Galaxy227]

So, another Wednesday with no developer's diary posted. I suppose to bring some life to these forums, I'll go ahead and share an article recently posted by eXplorminate, titled "Research in Distant Worlds 2." Neat article, goes over some things you may have already heard, and others you have not. This should suffice until the next diary is posted.

Edit:

If Erik or Elliot happen to read over this post, I have a question about an image shared in the article, uploaded below:



The image shows three destroyer hulls: a "Heavy" destroyer, "Fast" destroyer, and "Fleet" destroyer. The Fast destroyer clearly has a trade-off with the Heavy destroyer, where the Fast hull gets more engines at the cost of weapon slots. The Fleet destroyer, however, gets one more engine than the Heavy destroyer, but without any apparent drawbacks. They still share the same weapons, same cost, same size, etc. In other words, there seems to be absolutely zero drawback when comparing the Fleet destroyer to the Heavy destroyer. The Fleet destroyer is objectively better than its Heavy counterpart. And so essentially, I was wondering if this is an oversight of mine, or a mistake on Elliot's part.

Thanks!

[Erik Rutins]

Thanks, there is a bit of a gap in the information here which causes this question.

Balance-wise, the three hulls are meant to be close, but the Fleet Destroyer is the best all-around hull. The others are meant to be better specialized hulls. There is also some variation between the factions. These are Teekan Destroyers you're looking at above and these hulls are all upgrades from the basic "Destroyer" hull. What you can't see is that the Heavy destroyer also has one Medium size weapon bay, compared to the Fleet destroyer which has none. Here that's just shown as part of the 4 Standard weapons.

That extra Medium on the Heavy is also in a 270 degree arc, which gives it better potential all around firepower than the Fleet Destroyer can get. You could see all this on the Design screen but not in this brief Research tooltip summary.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

I think Ben did a great job writing up the discussion we had. FYI there should hopefully be more articles like this coming as I've given a couple more previews to some of the game press folks since the first one with eXplorminate.

Regards,

- Erik

[zgrssd]

Your question was: "Why is has the Fleet Destroyer one more Engine then the Fast, at no apparent tradeoff?"

The thing is, this is a summary. There are plenty of other properties you are not seeing. It might have less Range. Or require more crew. Or the sensors might be weaker.

I guess becaue the price is 135 Steel, you asume they are the same in all not-shown properties?
But prices can just conincide to be the same. +1 Engine but weaker Sensors and shorter range could easily end up at the same cost.

Or this might be a early build, where the UI only accounts for the Hull cost. It only costing Steel strongly indicates that not everything is accounted for.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
Your question was: "Why is has the Fleet Destroyer one more Engine then the Fast, at no apparent tradeoff?"

The Fast actually has more engine bays, as you might expect.

Regards,

- Erik

[Hazard151]

Will there be an advantage to using the different ship class layouts and does the game know and care about them?

I mean, if I design Fast, Fleet and Heavy Destroyers, will the game shift construction and fleet creation priorities as different opponents are best faced with certain qualities?

[Ranbir]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Your question was: "Why is has the Fleet Destroyer one more Engine then the Fast, at no apparent tradeoff?"

The thing is, this is a summary. There are plenty of other properties you are not seeing. It might have less Range. Or require more crew. Or the sensors might be weaker.

I guess becaue the price is 135 Steel, you asume they are the same in all not-shown properties?
But prices can just conincide to be the same. +1 Engine but weaker Sensors and shorter range could easily end up at the same cost.

Or this might be a early build, where the UI only accounts for the Hull cost. It only costing Steel strongly indicates that not everything is accounted for.

Perhaps the summary should focus on giving information that summarises the differences between the hulls. Majority of the information is saying they're all the same. You could pull out an entire section in the summary because they are just copy pasting each hull.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Hazard151
Will there be an advantage to using the different ship class layouts and does the game know and care about them?

I mean, if I design Fast, Fleet and Heavy Destroyers, will the game shift construction and fleet creation priorities as different opponents are best faced with certain qualities?

For the player, you can setup different designs with different hulls and pick and choose which to build and put in your fleets. The AI will generally choose the best all around hull (the Fleet in this case) and focus on that for each role.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Ranbir
Perhaps the summary should focus on giving information that summarises the differences between the hulls. Majority of the information is saying they're all the same. You could pull out an entire section in the summary because they are just copy pasting each hull.

The only difference not really shown there which we need to call out is the Medium size weapon bays.

Regards,

- Erik

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Ranbir

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Your question was: "Why is has the Fleet Destroyer one more Engine then the Fast, at no apparent tradeoff?"

The thing is, this is a summary. There are plenty of other properties you are not seeing. It might have less Range. Or require more crew. Or the sensors might be weaker.

I guess becaue the price is 135 Steel, you asume they are the same in all not-shown properties?
But prices can just conincide to be the same. +1 Engine but weaker Sensors and shorter range could easily end up at the same cost.

Or this might be a early build, where the UI only accounts for the Hull cost. It only costing Steel strongly indicates that not everything is accounted for.

Perhaps the summary should focus on giving information that summarises the differences between the hulls. Majority of the information is saying they're all the same. You could pull out an entire section in the summary because they are just copy pasting each hull.

Just because there wasn't a noticeable difference in this particular build, with this particulary small hull, in this early part of the game doesn't mean they will always be the same.

You are looking a version that propably failed at properly calculating the cost. And you expect the rest to be truly different?

[Hazard151]

Reading this, I am presuming that I will have to deactivate/obsolete designs I do not want to make use of right now and instruct the fleets to refit to the new standards.

Or, you know, accept that the first wave is going to get relatively hard hit and hope new builds are launched fast enough to turn the tide.

[zgrssd]

Reading this, I am presuming that I will have to deactivate/obsolete designs I do not want to make use of right now and instruct the fleets to refit to the new standards.

Or, you know, accept that the first wave is going to get relatively hard hit and hope new builds are launched fast enough to turn the tide.

DW1 had a auto-upgrade and auto-design function. That updates the designs on each new tech. And then the UI just tells you "Upgrade Availible" for any given ship.

I expect the asme.

[Sild]

I also have a question regarding research stations. I couldn't fully grasp what was the best way to expand your research speed via stations. I know that building more would have been redundant at some point and that much i could tell but overall i found the system confusing. Has it been changed or altered for the second game?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Sild

I also have a question regarding research stations. I couldn't fully grasp what was the best way to expand your research speed via stations. I know that building more would have been redundant at some point and that much i could tell but overall i found the system confusing. Has it been changed or altered for the second game?

Highlights as I understand them as non-beta player:
- you only have one research project active at a time. No more 3 in paralell.
- there is still categories and research statiosn mostly grant category specific bonuses
- you need a certain minimum bonus percentage before you can unlock higher tech. But it seems like generic science bonuses count for that
- the reserach links can be randomized as a game option. But there are supposed to be multipel links to any tech
- the research tree can be hidden (aside from the next steps) as a game option
- research costs resources

Edit: Here a example Image, from a recent review:
https://images.gamewatcherstatic.com/im ... W2__03.png

[PlacidDragon]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
- you only have one research project active at a time. No more 3 in paralell.

From the article :

"With enough research stations, the maximum concurrent research project limit is three: the player is left to choose whether to divide his research output equally between two or three projects simultaneously or throw it all into just one"

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: PlacidDragon

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
- you only have one research project active at a time. No more 3 in paralell.

From the article :

"With enough research stations, the maximum concurrent research project limit is three: the player is left to choose whether to divide his research output equally between two or three projects simultaneously or throw it all into just one"

Huh, I did not notice that.

I guess splitting extreme boni into a new slot was better then just accelerating projects further and further, until they become unrealistically short?

[PlacidDragon]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd
I guess splitting extreme boni into a new slot was better then just accelerating projects further and further, until they become unrealistically short?

yeah, if you are supposed to be able to do 3 projects simultaneously at anything even approaching "reasonable" speeds (like they are suggesting), then focusing it all into just one should make that really fast. Its good to have options, and it adds another strategic layer

[Jorgen_CAB]

If you can research three technologies at the same time I hope there is some benefit in doing so. Otherwise there is only benefit to research one at a time.

Example...
You research tech 1,2,3 all in 3 years... OR you research tech 1 in one year, tech 2 after two years and then tech 3 after three years... there are no benefit in splitting the tech research three of them at the same time.

[PlacidDragon]

Different research bonuses will probably make some difference in how you end up going about it, but yes, if its just a "flat" bonus, then doing them one by one is a no brainer