Noob Struggling...

[76mm]

Now I got this message. Totally unclear what the two buttons are for...are those supposed to be my guesses about the security code? If I'm basically flipping a coin, I don't think this mechanism adds much to the game. Or are the buttons for something else?

2022-12-05 (3).png (149.25 KiB) Viewed 1264 times

[Erik Rutins]

Your main fleet rallying out to kill pirates could be because the Fleet is set to raid targets within 50% of fuel range? Klick on the fleet, select the rightmost button under the fleet-info "Set Tactics" - to configure the fleet behaviour.

This just happened again; lost two more destroyers. You would think that Manual would mean, uh, manual control. i changed tactics to "only engage if attacked".

Fleets will follow their assigned tactics and engagement settings. It's a combination of those and the automation setting that determines behavior. This is one area that I understand can be confusing to new players and understanding it is quite important to getting your fleets and ships to do what you want, when you want.

[Erik Rutins]

If you use the menu at the top to assign it (Under Colonies -> New Colonies) does that work for you? Generally if there is a reason it can't be assigned, it will tell you there.

It shows the name of my colony ship. When I click on it for it to colonize this place, it starts doing so, and then stops with no notice or explanation.

Could you share a save file with me please so that I could try it here?

Just zip it up and post it as an attachment here. You can find them in your data/savedgames sub-folder of your installation.

Regards,

- Erik

[100thMonkey]

Now I got this message. Totally unclear what the two buttons are for...are those supposed to be my guesses about the security code? If I'm basically flipping a coin, I don't think this mechanism adds much to the game. Or are the buttons for something else?

That is also how I see this:

- totally unclear
- basically flipping a coin.

Either the implications of each choice are different and should be explained in the message, or it's a coin flip. One of the game design principles of Sid Meier (designer of the original Civilization game, among other things) is to constantly give the player "interesting" decisions to make. This isn't one of those.

[Erik Rutins]

Now I got this message. Totally unclear what the two buttons are for...are those supposed to be my guesses about the security code? If I'm basically flipping a coin, I don't think this mechanism adds much to the game. Or are the buttons for something else?

That's a choice of which code to send and yes, it's basically a coin flip. There is a clue elsewhere in the story as to which code might be more likely to work.

The design in this event is mainly a limitation of the current event system.

[TinyFrog]

[/quote]
This just happened again; lost two more destroyers. You would think that Manual would mean, uh, manual control. i changed tactics to "only engage if attacked".
[/quote]

Fleet vs Ship orders
There is an option (scroll down in while at "Set tactics" for a fleet) to prioritize ship orders OR fleet orders. Ship orders can be over-ridden by the Fleet-orders OR vice versa; ship orders take precedence over fleet orders. My only guess would be that your fleet is set to manual - but the SHIP ignores it because the Fleet tactics is "Use ship tactics instead of fleet tactics." AND the ship is set on automated attacks??? Try setting it to "Use Fleet tactics instead of ship tactics"?

I had the some of the behaviour as you experience when I started playing, e.g ships leaving during a fight to do something else than I ordered. I then experimented much with the orders and I got it to work so that all ships will follow a fleet order.

Policy setting
It may be that your automation setting for "Military" under "Policy settings" takes over what you manually order. I don't think this is the case - but if (?) you want 100% manual attacks you can set set "Military attacks" to manual. This should stop both individual ships and fleets from engaging on their own.

Individual ship's engagement range and fleeing condition (probably not relevant for your problem, but just in case you want to know)
I think you can change the individual ship orders in two ways;
1) When you create a ship by manual design. After you klick "Add New" or "Upgrade" a ship on the Design screen, you set the base behaviour for all those ships in the top left corner (just above "Components"). The first option is to set "Engagement range:" to Do not Engage, Engage when attacked, Nearby, Same location or Same system. I use Nearby and Same location - otherwise some ships could depart across the star system to another planet.
2) You click on a ship and manually set its engagement and fleeing conditions. This is actually useful to set your admiral's ship to flee as quickly as possible (WHEN having the "Follow ship orders" on) so he survives and gets Xp. Or you can "Apply these tactical changes to all ships in the Fleet".

The positive thing is; when you get all fleet/ship orders right for your taste - you will never need to change them.

[76mm]

Guys, thanks much for all of the info, still trying to digest all of it. Sorry if I'm coming across as negative, but I'm a bit overwhelmed Eric, I will post a save tomorrow when I have some time.

Four other questions:
1) there are all sorts of symbols, rings, flashing things on the map, but I have no idea what they mean. Where is the best place to find that? Some systems seem to have various color flashing rings and icons around them, would be nice to know what that means!
2) As mentioned before, I've had a few scouts just stop responding to commands. No reason given. As it turns out, I think that all of them are near "disturbances" (whatever those are). Would be nice to get some kind of indication why the ships aren't responding. Moreover, I can't do anything with them--can't scuttle them, etc.--so they are just sitting there cluttering up my list. If they are going to remain completely unresponsive, at least have them self-destruct or something.
3) I really don't like how the tech tree is presented...each research option has a ton of detail, but NOTHING about what the resulting tech DOES. I have absolutely no idea what ANY of these tech options do. Why not include a sentence for each tech option summarizing what its for? Like "Increase jump range..." or "Provide more power for weapons and engines." Whatever, just some brief indication of what the hell the tech does? This is really frustrating for me as a new player not very familiar with this genre.
4) I've found ZERO habitable planets, so it is difficult for me to expand. I followed whatever setting Scott suggested, I think that made habitable planets "rare," but I didn't realize that "rare" would mean NONE. Is this normal?

Are there any up-to-date video or text training materials? I read Scott's DW2 guide and while it's fine for general guidance, it doesn't get into any detail at all.

[StormingKiwi]

This just happened again; lost two more destroyers. You would think that Manual would mean, uh, manual control. i changed tactics to "only engage if attacked".

Fleet vs Ship orders
There is an option (scroll down in while at "Set tactics" for a fleet) to prioritize ship orders OR fleet orders. Ship orders can be over-ridden by the Fleet-orders OR vice versa; ship orders take precedence over fleet orders. My only guess would be that your fleet is set to manual - but the SHIP ignores it because the Fleet tactics is "Use ship tactics instead of fleet tactics." AND the ship is set on automated attacks??? Try setting it to "Use Fleet tactics instead of ship tactics"?

I had the some of the behaviour as you experience when I started playing, e.g ships leaving during a fight to do something else than I ordered. I then experimented much with the orders and I got it to work so that all ships will follow a fleet order.

Policy setting
It may be that your automation setting for "Military" under "Policy settings" takes over what you manually order. I don't think this is the case - but if (?) you want 100% manual attacks you can set set "Military attacks" to manual. This should stop both individual ships and fleets from engaging on their own.

Individual ship's engagement range and fleeing condition (probably not relevant for your problem, but just in case you want to know)
I think you can change the individual ship orders in two ways;
1) When you create a ship by manual design. After you klick "Add New" or "Upgrade" a ship on the Design screen, you set the base behaviour for all those ships in the top left corner (just above "Components"). The first option is to set "Engagement range:" to Do not Engage, Engage when attacked, Nearby, Same location or Same system. I use Nearby and Same location - otherwise some ships could depart across the star system to another planet.
2) You click on a ship and manually set its engagement and fleeing conditions. This is actually useful to set your admiral's ship to flee as quickly as possible (WHEN having the "Follow ship orders" on) so he survives and gets Xp. Or you can "Apply these tactical changes to all ships in the Fleet".

The positive thing is; when you get all fleet/ship orders right for your taste - you will never need to change them.

?

The problem is that manual ships will still engage enemies in their ship engagement range - which is almost certainly Same System.

Your comments about Fleet vs Ship orders and Policy Settings are entirely wrong. A manual ship in a manuaL fleet with military attacks set to manual will still ENGAGE enemies within its enagement range.

Guys, thanks much for all of the info, still trying to digest all of it. Sorry if I'm coming across as negative, but I'm a bit overwhelmed Eric, I will post a save tomorrow when I have some time.

Four other questions:
1) there are all sorts of symbols, rings, flashing things on the map, but I have no idea what they mean. Where is the best place to find that? Some systems seem to have various color flashing rings and icons around them, would be nice to know what that means!
2) As mentioned before, I've had a few scouts just stop responding to commands. No reason given. As it turns out, I think that all of them are near "disturbances" (whatever those are). Would be nice to get some kind of indication why the ships aren't responding. Moreover, I can't do anything with them--can't scuttle them, etc.--so they are just sitting there cluttering up my list. If they are going to remain completely unresponsive, at least have them self-destruct or something.
3) I really don't like how the tech tree is presented...each research option has a ton of detail, but NOTHING about what the resulting tech DOES. I have absolutely no idea what ANY of these tech options do. Why not include a sentence for each tech option summarizing what its for? Like "Increase jump range..." or "Provide more power for weapons and engines." Whatever, just some brief indication of what the hell the tech does? This is really frustrating for me as a new player not very familiar with this genre.
4) I've found ZERO habitable planets, so it is difficult for me to expand. I followed whatever setting Scott suggested, I think that made habitable planets "rare," but I didn't realize that "rare" would mean NONE. Is this normal?

Are there any up-to-date video or text training materials? I read Scott's DW2 guide and while it's fine for general guidance, it doesn't get into any detail at all.

Nebula permanently stunlock ships. One of the worst aspects of the game's design.

Their fee is not that punitive really. Each protection deal costs you about 1-3% of your starting budget.

Starting taxation is 2000c per annum, protection deals cost 1500c per annum.

[TinyFrog]

... A manual ship in a manuaL fleet with military attacks set to manual will still ENGAGE enemies within its enagement range.

Huh, then I have no idea how to solve OP's question.

[Erik Rutins]

The explanations in the 1.0.4.8 section of the change list may help:

Fleet Engagement Range vs. Engagement Range

There is now Fleet Engagement Range (re-named) at the fleet level and Engagement Range at the ship level.

When a ship is in a fleet, the Fleet Engagement Range will override the ship's Engagement Range. The ship will only use its own Engagement Range when it is not in a Fleet.

The Fleet Engagement Range determines at a strategic level what missions/targets the fleet is in range of taking on. Previously, there was a gap at the system level where fleet and ship engagement ranges could conflict or override each other, which would result in the most restrictive of the two being used. That has been resolved. Now, if there is a target in the system and there is a fleet in the system with Fleet Engagement Range that would allow attacking within that system, the fleet will go attack that target as a fleet even if the individual ship settings would not allow individual ships to respond.

Manual Fleets and Military Attack Policies

It's important to note that a Manual fleet will not automatically respond outside of its own system. DW2 assumes that a Manual fleet is fully under manual orders for anything out of system. If you would like a fleet to automatically respond outside of its own system, it needs to be set to one of the Automatic fleet roles (for example, Attack or Defend) and its Fleet Engagement Range must allow it.

Also, if you have your Military Attacks Policy in the Military section of your policies set to Manual, then no fleets of any kind will respond or attack outside their own systems without being manually ordered to do so.

In order to have fleets fully responding outside their systems, you need to have:

1. Fleet Engagement Ranges set to allow it
2. Each Fleet needs to be set to one of the Automatic roles
3. The Military Attacks policy cannot be set to Manual

By default, all these things are true, but if you have changed these settings please be aware of their intended interactions and results.

Fleet Attack Stance

This was no longer performing any necessary function given the other settings and their capabilities. It was however adding confusion for players, so it was removed.

Fleet Retreat Strategy

There was an issue preventing this working as intended, which should now be resolved. It should also be noted that this has a different function than the Retreat When setting at the ship level. It was therefore renamed to Fleet Retreat Strategy to avoid confusion.
Fleet Retreat Strategy affects when the entire fleet will consider changing orders to escape a location based on overall strength comparison at that location. Individual ships will still follow their Retreat When setting in terms of responding to damage caused to that ship.

Note that Manual fleets will not at this time retreat as a fleet unless ordered to do so by the player. This is working as intended, as we generally lean towards manual meaning that the player has full control and gets to decide when the fleet retreats. All automated fleets will respect the Fleet Retreat Strategy.

Position within Fleet

We realized that the previous UI terminology used "Role" in two different instances. Role now refers only to the general type of ship (i.e. Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser).

The position of a ship in a fleet within the fleet formation is now more intuitively called "Position within Fleet" in the ship's tactical settings. The previous "Attack" has been renamed to "Core" to make it more clear that this position is in the center of the fleet, whereas "Close Escort" is the inner ring and "Picket" is the outer ring of the formation. In most cases, we recommend placing your point defense-oriented ships in the Picket or Close Escort positions and keeping your most valuable Capital ships and long-range standoff ships in the Core.

Ship Tactical Setting Apply Buttons

We recognized that the importance of the tactical settings at the ship level was not matched by the UI in terms of the ease of adjusting them post-construction. There are now three new buttons available for any ship in a fleet:
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships of this design in the fleet
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships of this role in the fleet
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships of this position in the fleet
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships in the fleet
This only affects the ship level tactical setting. You can see these by selecting a ship that is in a fleet and looking at its tactical settings.

[76mm]

Could you share a save file with me please so that I could try it here?

Erik,

See attached. If you go to the new colony page, you'll see the independent colony which wants us to colonize them...

[acarney]

Hopefully someone will correct me if I'm mistaken... but in my experience if you click colonize from the colony itself, it kicks off the process from scratch (i.e., a new colony ship is built and sent when possible). I believe any existing colony ships you've already constructed are ignored.

Certain I tried this after the AI tried to colonize one of the Sluken planets, but I stopped it & sent the colony ship back to the home world. Had to manually give the ship the 'Colonize' order for a planet that I wanted colonized.

Good news is that after I gave it the colonize order, the AI didn't build a new ship, it used my existing ship.

BTW, in the same shoes as 76mm. Have < 18 hours logged in my first game, and very much overwhelmed by what's happening.

[madasgardian]

3) I really don't like how the tech tree is presented...each research option has a ton of detail, but NOTHING about what the resulting tech DOES.

If you check the Components in the Galactopedia ("?" icon) I think it has more of the detail you're looking for ("Hyperdrives enable hyperspace travel, high-speed travel between star systems, etc."). There's more room for text there. Obviously some concepts take some time to learn, like engine tech vs hyperspace tech and how those help expand your range. Or why you would want to research assault pods. But most of it is comparing those details, which is why they're the focus of the tree view.

It might be nice if you could click off from a tech tree entry directly to the corresponding Galactopedia entry for more details.

For starters you might just want to rely on the "queue suggested project" button to get a feel for what you should be researching.

4) I've found ZERO habitable planets, so it is difficult for me to expand. I followed whatever setting Scott suggested, I think that made habitable planets "rare," but I didn't realize that "rare" would mean NONE. Is this normal?

If you set them to Rare there will fewer than Normal, yes. Give it some time to expand your warp range. If you literally don't find ANY there are options to help under the colonization research tree. And, as you incorporate other races into your empire via independent colonies, you can use them to colonize planets more suitable to their racial bonuses.

You also may need to think about colonizing a low quality planet or two, to help expand out toward better ones.

[acarney]

The explanations in the 1.0.4.8 section of the change list may help:

Fleet Engagement Range vs. Engagement Range

There is now Fleet Engagement Range (re-named) at the fleet level and Engagement Range at the ship level.

When a ship is in a fleet, the Fleet Engagement Range will override the ship's Engagement Range. The ship will only use its own Engagement Range when it is not in a Fleet.

The Fleet Engagement Range determines at a strategic level what missions/targets the fleet is in range of taking on. Previously, there was a gap at the system level where fleet and ship engagement ranges could conflict or override each other, which would result in the most restrictive of the two being used. That has been resolved. Now, if there is a target in the system and there is a fleet in the system with Fleet Engagement Range that would allow attacking within that system, the fleet will go attack that target as a fleet even if the individual ship settings would not allow individual ships to respond.

Manual Fleets and Military Attack Policies

It's important to note that a Manual fleet will not automatically respond outside of its own system. DW2 assumes that a Manual fleet is fully under manual orders for anything out of system. If you would like a fleet to automatically respond outside of its own system, it needs to be set to one of the Automatic fleet roles (for example, Attack or Defend) and its Fleet Engagement Range must allow it.

Also, if you have your Military Attacks Policy in the Military section of your policies set to Manual, then no fleets of any kind will respond or attack outside their own systems without being manually ordered to do so.

In order to have fleets fully responding outside their systems, you need to have:

1. Fleet Engagement Ranges set to allow it
2. Each Fleet needs to be set to one of the Automatic roles
3. The Military Attacks policy cannot be set to Manual

By default, all these things are true, but if you have changed these settings please be aware of their intended interactions and results.

Fleet Attack Stance

This was no longer performing any necessary function given the other settings and their capabilities. It was however adding confusion for players, so it was removed.

Fleet Retreat Strategy

There was an issue preventing this working as intended, which should now be resolved. It should also be noted that this has a different function than the Retreat When setting at the ship level. It was therefore renamed to Fleet Retreat Strategy to avoid confusion.
Fleet Retreat Strategy affects when the entire fleet will consider changing orders to escape a location based on overall strength comparison at that location. Individual ships will still follow their Retreat When setting in terms of responding to damage caused to that ship.

Note that Manual fleets will not at this time retreat as a fleet unless ordered to do so by the player. This is working as intended, as we generally lean towards manual meaning that the player has full control and gets to decide when the fleet retreats. All automated fleets will respect the Fleet Retreat Strategy.

Position within Fleet

We realized that the previous UI terminology used "Role" in two different instances. Role now refers only to the general type of ship (i.e. Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser).

The position of a ship in a fleet within the fleet formation is now more intuitively called "Position within Fleet" in the ship's tactical settings. The previous "Attack" has been renamed to "Core" to make it more clear that this position is in the center of the fleet, whereas "Close Escort" is the inner ring and "Picket" is the outer ring of the formation. In most cases, we recommend placing your point defense-oriented ships in the Picket or Close Escort positions and keeping your most valuable Capital ships and long-range standoff ships in the Core.

Ship Tactical Setting Apply Buttons

We recognized that the importance of the tactical settings at the ship level was not matched by the UI in terms of the ease of adjusting them post-construction. There are now three new buttons available for any ship in a fleet:
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships of this design in the fleet
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships of this role in the fleet
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships of this position in the fleet
• Apply these tactical settings to all ships in the fleet
This only affects the ship level tactical setting. You can see these by selecting a ship that is in a fleet and looking at its tactical settings.

Erik, this is really good stuff! Scott did a video explaining ship vs. fleet tactics, when the game came out, and the fuzziness of how this worked, made my head spin. This is very helpful, and makes lots of sense ... will mention it to Scott so maybe he can update his video.

Definitely have to squirrel this away somewhere, so that I don't loose it.

[76mm]

It might be nice if you could click off from a tech tree entry directly to the corresponding Galactopedia entry for more details.

For starters you might just want to rely on the "queue suggested project" button to get a feel for what you should be researching.

Thanks much for your tips. I find it really inconvenient to go back and forth between the Galactopedia and the game to decipher tech entries. Honestly I don't see why they couldn't put just one line in the tech entry in game for a basic explanation of what the tech is for... Maybe no big deal for veteran players, but as a noob I literally have no idea what some of this stuff does... If nothing else, I'd rather have a pdf explaining the tech tree so that I could keep it open on my iPad while figuring out what to research...hopefully I'll find that on this site or somewhere.

If you set them to Rare there will fewer than Normal, yes. Give it some time to expand your warp range. If you literally don't find ANY there are options to help under the colonization research tree.
You also may need to think about colonizing a low quality planet or two, to help expand out toward better ones.

Sure, of course I understand that setting it to rare will result in fewer than normal, but so far (after exploring about 20-25 systems), there have been none. I've tried to colonize a couple of low-rated planets, but my colonization requests are accepted and then...are just canceled, for no apparent reason. I can see accepting the colonization and having it fail because it was a poor environment, or not allowing me to even choose to colonize the place because of lack of tech, etc, but what is happening is totally opaque and pretty frustrating.

[76mm]

I'm totally mystified by ship design. I tried to use the "ship design tour" and it crashed the game. Three times; I guess that's not going to work. Not sure how to go about learning how to design ships?

I couldn't find any documents describing the tech tree in any way. The Galactopedia is organized backwards from what would be helpful: it shows the dozens/hundreds of discrete tech targets, but doesn't answer the question "What tech do I need to do x?". How do I extend my ships' range? What are those dotted lines I see on the maps of all of my neighboring empires? Presumably some kind of jump routes, but what are they called? What exactly do they do? How do I build them?

[arvcran2]

I'm totally mystified by ship design. I tried to use the "ship design tour" and it crashed the game. Three times; I guess that's not going to work. Not sure how to go about learning how to design ships?

I'm not seeing any crash issues with the ship design tour. I'm not trying to actually use the designer while I read the various pages and navigate through them though. Maybe that is the difference.

What do you do that causes it to crash?

I couldn't find any documents describing the tech tree in any way. The Galactopedia is organized backwards from what would be helpful: it shows the dozens/hundreds of discrete tech targets, but doesn't answer the question "What tech do I need to do x?". How do I extend my ships' range? What are those dotted lines I see on the maps of all of my neighboring empires? Presumably some kind of jump routes, but what are they called? What exactly do they do? How do I build them?

The Galactopedia is more of a reference than a guide. You could peek at the Steam pages to see if any in the community have written anything you feel you could benefit from. Erik is better suited to answering this if he is able to direct his attention back here to it.

You can deduce what categories will help you, then you need to put your 'grease monkey' hat on and determine based on the specs what techs to pursue. If you are playing the 'only next tech visible' game setting, or random tech tree then there will be some extra 'guestimation's needed.

The dotted lines are somewhat of a mystery to me as well they have something to do with connecting spaceports/colonies within an empire and the private sector inter-port trade. It may be documented somewhere in the manual or the Galactopedia. They are more of a virtual path than a real path if that makes any sense; like drawing constellation lines in the night sky. They help the player associate who's colonies are who's ultimately.

[100thMonkey]

I couldn't find any documents describing the tech tree in any way.

As far as I know, there isn't any.

The Galactopedia is organized backwards from what would be helpful: it shows the dozens/hundreds of discrete tech targets, but doesn't answer the question "What tech do I need to do x?".

True. It would be much better, and much more "new player friendly" if it did. A search function for the Galactopedia and the galaxy map is supposed to be in the works. It doesn't address your question, but it might help a little when it becomes available.

How do I extend my ships' range?

You either add more fuel cells to your ships (with the ship designer). Or you obtain better fuel cells trough research, and then add them to your ships. More fuel efficient reactors (also obtained through research) would also extend your ships' ranges, because they consume less fuel per unit of energy they produce.

What are those dotted lines I see on the maps of all of my neighboring empires? Presumably some kind of jump routes, but what are they called? What exactly do they do? How do I build them?

I've asked that question in the forum a while back, and nobody really knew for sure. Nor do we know their name (or even if they have a name!). You can pretty much ignore them. You don't need to build them. They establish themselves between systems with colonies, and sometimes "adjust" themselves during games (according to what exactly? I don't know). From what I've read, what seems to make the most sense to me is that they're indicative of where trade tends to circulate. If you set your game options so you see private ships (freighters) on the map, you'll see that they tend to circulate along those lines.

I'm totally mystified by ship design. I tried to use the "ship design tour" and it crashed the game. Three times; I guess that's not going to work. Not sure how to go about learning how to design ships?

Scott has made a video on ship design. You probably should watch it If you haven't already. It's not an exhaustive tutorial covering all aspects of ship designs, but it should help you get started. Here's the link for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UiFZnGE04E.

While ship designs is one of the most complex and challenging aspects of DW2, it's also one of the most important. And it can be very satisfying when you get it right and demolish an enemy fleet because of the right decisions you took while designing your ships.

I'm still learning though, and I sometimes struggle with the process. One of the reason being that, like you, I'd prefer that the specificity of each component would be explained with text, even if briefly (as long as it's meaningful). Rather than discovered after comparing series of stats. Often without knowing what many of those stats mean precisely, or what their implications are.

For some of those stats, the meaning and the implications are obvious, or can be deduced. But for others, it's much less the case. Sometimes it's even counter-intuitive. Maybe partly because, like you, I don't have much experience with space games and lore (the only other space game I've played is DW Universe (DW:U), that I only played for a short period of time, because I just couldn't deal with the interface anymore).

Some people like to get their information through numbers, others would rather get theirs in text-form. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the "number people" are better served by the game than the "text people". And are probably happier with the game than the "text people". I would also add (and maybe I'm not 100% percent objective ), that text is more "new player friendly" than series of numbers.

You've stated in a previous post that you felt overwhelmed. As a new player it's probably unavoidable. For one thing, DW2 is a fairly complex game, with a lot of moving parts (literally and figuratively). And even though DW2's interface is improved in many ways compared to DW:U (but worst in some), it is obvious to me that the game isn't "newbie" friendly in its current state.

Your posts seem to confirm my "hypothesis" .

Is it worth struggling to learn the game? That's for you to decide. But I'll tell you why I continue to play, despite many frustrations with it. One reason is that it's a unique game, with unique features and gameplay. When the stars align and everything works as it's supposed to, it can be a lot of fun. Also, the response to the community I've seen from "the Devs" (ie: Erik and Elliot) gives me hope that the game will continue to improve, in part in accordance with the community feedback, its wishes and suggestions.

[TinyFrog]

Is it worth struggling to learn the game? That's for you to decide. But I'll tell you why I continue to play, despite many frustrations with it. One reason is that it's a unique game, with unique features and gameplay. When the stars align and everything works as it's supposed to, it can be a lot of fun. Also, the response to the community I've seen from "the Devs" (ie: Erik and Elliot) gives me hope that the game will continue to improve, in part in accordance with the wishes of the community.

Signed! My reason for getting over the first hard threshold is; DW2 rewards you when you learn its mechanics. Is it a struggle? Yes, definitely not newbie-friendly. Is it for gamers that want more than a one-way rail road game type? Yes, it's much more open (meaning you can tweak settings to make your game play rewarding) and having a good immersion if you like space 4X games.

[madasgardian]

I’m a strategy noob more or less, especially at this level of complexity. I won my first game a few nights ago after several attempts, and I’m still pretty fuzzy on some aspects.

While incredibly intricate, the nice thing about this game is you don’t have to learn it all in one go. I did a little bit of ship designing, but mostly allowed the AI to handle it. I mostly let the fleets design themselves, and usually just sent them where the AI suggested unless I was managing a big battle.

What worked for me was not expecting to win my first game, I started several and learned a little bit more each time, or focused on one aspect of the game. Or watching the AI do something and think about how I’d do it differently, like choosing ship weapons.

If you’re really interested in ship design I’d still set it to auto, and then maybe pick one or two ship types you’d like to switch to manual design. Click the Upgrade or Add button and the AI will choose what it thinks best, then you can tweak if you need to. You’ll start to learn which components are necessary. Focus on a few weapon types, preferably one your race gets a head start with. I would not start from a blank ship template if you’re frustrated.

There’s just too much to learn in one game. I would suggest you watch some YouTube tutorials if you haven’t already.