Distant Worlds 2 - Official "Discovery" Update v1.1.6.5

[MaximKI]

Hello everyone!

A new official update for Distant Worlds 2, v1.1.6.5, is now live. v1.1.4.4, is now the legacy build for the game. You can download it by clicking HERE

You can see the full changelog HERE

v1.1.6.5 “Discovery” – 22nd August 2023

Please note that for best results, we recommend starting a new game with 1.1.6.5 due to the number
of fixes and improvements that won't take full effect without a new start.

CRASH FIXES
• Fixed crash when updating research with repeatable techs
• Fixed crash when retrieving current build order
• Fixed rare crash when starting new game
• Fixed crash when finding mining target within range
• Fixed crash when updating research
• Fixed crash when fleet ship assigns escort mission
• Fixed crash when rendering colony in Selection Panel that gets removed
• Fixed crash when assigning exploration mission to ship
• Fixed crash when repeatable research project contains improved component values for missing
component
• Fixed some rare crashes in the Stride engine
• Fixed rare crash when generating ship design name
• Fixed crash when determining whether an empire is a vassal
• Fixed crash when adding items to a location
• Fixed crash when rendering system badges
• Fixed crash when generating galaxy
• Fixed crash when updating research for independents
• Fixed crash in Music System when some audio components are missing
• Fixed crash when loading images
• Fixed crash when determining items in current view
• Fixed Stride bug relating to missing materials when rendering under heavy threading contention
• Fixed rare startup bug relating to dxgi.dll
• Fixed rare startup bug relating to missing CPU core affinity groups
• Fixed rare crash when using Build Order system badges
• Fixed rare crash when loading game
• Fixed rare crash when adding weapon effects to scene

GAME ENGINE
• Upgraded Stride engine to version 4.2.0.1, which means a slight rendering performance
improvement and likely fixes some rare crashes
• Fixed game sometimes not starting on some systems with 32 or more CPU cores
• Fixed rare bug when loading a savegame

GRAPHICS IMPROVEMENTS
• Added additional game settings for color adjustment which may help with HDR mode brightness
(gamma, brightness, contrast, saturation)
• Fixed very dark HDR rendering mode on some systems
• Improved ambient lighting in Ship Design screen
• Improved display mode selection to prevent issues when using DXVK/Vulkan with multiple
monitors
• Improved HDR setup for some systems

HIVE THREAT
The expanded and re-worked Hive threat is now a scaling mid-game threat for all empires to deal
with. When the Hive first awakes, after it is encountered and realizes that the galaxy has enough
active worlds to sustain it, only the smaller ships will wake up initially and begin raiding and scouting,
but over time larger Hive ships will awake and eventually entire Hive Fleets will attempt to raid your
inhabited worlds for resources and sustenance.
• Reworked Hive threat to create a more interesting and gradually increasing threat
• Fixed rare situations where Hive threat could wake up earlier than intended
o Added smaller hive ships in addition to large carriers: there are now Hive frigates and
destroyers
o Hive ships when first discovered are dormant. They will begin to wake up starting with the
smallest ships. This is influenced by the discovering player's tech level.
o Once the first Hive ship has awoken then all other ships progressively wake up over a
period of several years
o Newly woken Hive ships will now band together in fleet to attack targets
o They will start by attacking pirates, then later faction bases, then finally raiding inhabited
worlds
o They will be placed nearer to empire starting locations
o The player will now receive periodic sighting messages in Galactic News as various
factions spot the Hive fleet
• Fixed The Hive faction showing up in places it should not (e.g. spy mission targets)
• Slowed jump speed of Hive hyperdrive component
• Hive hyperdrives can now be blocked by the first level of HyperDeny

PIRATES
The Pirates are now a bit smarter and better able to defend themselves against early game Empires
as well as the early Hive ships. They will no longer always offer Protection when encountered. Some
Pirate factions will be friendlier than others and some will need encouragement (gifts) to consider
Protection as they would prefer to raid. This makes the Pirates a bit less predictable but also a
potentially useful ally to have on your side against the Hive later on.
• Initial pirate first contact incident now decays higher to target value (i.e. reduces upwards towards
zero) over time, while still ultimately remaining negative. But makes it easier to get Protection
Agreements with pirate factions when have very negative initial encounter
• Implemented brand new pirate cruisers: appearance is dependent on pirate strength in game start
settings as outlined below:
o When Very Strong then some pirate factions may start with a cruiser
o When Normal or higher: when a non-pirate faction first attacks a pirate base then the
pirates will auto-spawn a mostly completed cruiser under construction at their base, which
will soon exit the hangar and respond to the attackers
o When Normal or higher: when have sufficient money, pirate faction may build new
cruisers (after initial attack on their base by non-pirates above)
• Decreased ship costs for pirates to encourage ship construction as they gain money from raids
• Changed Pirate Ambush event so that no longer switches abandoned ship to pirate faction with
whom the discovering empire already has a protection agreement (which would then be broken)

WEAPON RESEARCH FAMILIES AND AI GUIDANCE
The new preferred Weapon family policy options allow you to guide your automated research and
design in a more focused direction.
• Added weapon component families to allow better ship design upgrades and more focused
automated research and design. Can specify preferred weapon families for each weapon category
in empire policy in the Construction policy sub-section
• Setting your preferred component family for each weapon type will guide ship design automation
as well as automated research choices
• Altered some weapon component categories to better optimize AI research pathing
• Rebalanced some of the AI research pathing algorithms
• Added more variation to faction research and design choices via policy files
• Added support for alternate preferred component families per category. Can thus specify fallback
preferred families for each weapon category in empire policy
• Improved weapon component selection by preferred weapon families for research and design
(more focused on these)

RESEARCH
• Ensure research progress acquired through game events or conquest no longer selects research
projects that are not currently visible
• Ensure research breakthroughs always handle all aspects of project (e.g. diplomacy benefits),
even when acquired through non-standard means, e.g. salvaging debris, acquiring artifact

REPEATABLE TECHS
The new Repeatable Techs at the end of the tech tree allow you to keep improving the final
components in the tree, once you have researched them.
• Added minimum floor for repeatable tech values: cannot fall below 1% of original value (for
improvements that have reductive values, e.g. weapon fire rate, energy used)
• Repeatable techs now have repeat count inside top-level icon when already researched once or
more
• Project detail for repeatable techs now shows repeat count remaining when approaching limit,
when at limit now also properly show 'Final Values' instead of 'Improved Values' (i.e. no next
repeat)
• Default size multiplier for repeatable techs is now one, i.e. they do not increase in size/cost with
each repeat. Size multiplier value is configurable in ResearchProjectDefinitions.xml
• Fixed component values sometimes not immediately updating when use repeatable techs
• Fixed display values for Static Energy Used in repeatable research projects
• Fixed repeatable research projects to work properly when targets of Steal Tech espionage
missions
• Now show improved values (not current) for components/facilities/hulls in repeatable tech project
detail
• Fixed incorrect bonus values for Repeatable Ship Hull Techs
• Made all bonuses additive on Repeatable Techs (ShipHullValues.Bonuses,
PlanetaryFacilityValues.ItemBonuses, PlanetaryFacilityValues.EmpireBonuses)
• Fixed some display errors when showing project detail for some Repeatable Techs
• Added icon at top-right of research project to indicate that it is a Repeatable Tech
• Ensure that Repeatable Techs that are researched at game startup properly have their research
count set to 1
• Implemented Repeatable Techs in Research Screen: level 8 research projects that can be
repeatedly researched to improve various aspects of components, facilities and ship hulls
• Currently only have some sample research projects to test with: intercept range improvements to
Guardian Defense Grid, troop attack and defense bonuses from Titan Manufacturing Center
facility
• Ensure Repeatable Techs also add Weapon Damage Falloff when modifying range

ANCIENT GUARDIAN VAULTS
The new Ancient Guardian Vaults contain ancient knowledge archived by the Ancient Guardians.
While the Ancient Guardian story is most closely connected to the Quameno faction, all empires can
now discover these faults, figure out how to open them and recover this ancient knowledge and
certain ancient artifacts.
When the galaxy is generated, a variable number of Ancient Guardian Vault ruins will be scattered
throughout the galaxy. These require specific research projects to open, but have valuable research
bonuses and contain rare empire-boosting artifacts.

GALAXY SETUP AND GENERATION
• Added multiple options for toggling default events in Start New Game screen. Can enable/disable
various items: PreWarp Home system events, abandoned ships and bases, debris fields, gravitic
locations and major threats (e.g. Hive)
• Tweaked Caslon abundance levels when generating a new galaxy so that generally higher
• Fixed some government types altering home colony quality (too high) with PreWarp game start
(when build startup facility)
• Fixed startup problems due to incorrect GameStartSettings file
• Ensure Shakturi race does not accidentally show up for independent colonies, etc
• All independent colonies now automatically set appropriate suitability (quality) for populated race,
even when they are story-generated locations
• Fixed home colony quality sometimes too high when using Harsh homeworld game settings
• Reduced radius of story nebula and storm clouds to minimize chance of overlap with home
system locations

EMPIRE AI IMPROVEMENTS
• AI empires can now better detect and attempt to recover from excess maintenance costs that turn
cashflow negative (also applies to player empire with appropriate automation settings)
• This can often happen when an important colony is lost through conquest in a war, thus suddenly
removing a large portion of empire income
• Faction in this situation will attempt to retire or scrap excess military ships, fleets or troops until
cashflow recovers
• Rebalanced automated military ship building amounts to more closely consider current threats, i.e.
do not build too many military ships until face threats from other factions

UI IMPROVEMENTS
• Colony Event tooltips now also show end date for event (from Selection Panel and Main View
Header)
• Separated Empire Bonuses into their own list under Empire section in Control Center (next to
Government section)
• Fixed some empire bonuses sometimes falling off the end of list in Bonuses screen when have
race-specific bonuses, e.g. Gizurean population growth rate modifier
• Added new filtering and sorting options for Available Components list in Ship Design screen that
include new component families
• Added new filters to the Colonies list to show colonies that require terraforming (quality not at
maximum) or have reached maximum terraforming level and should have facility removed
• Disallowed research projects for a race no longer show disallowed race images in tech tree unless
they apply to the player race (less visual clutter)
• Ensure New Mining Locations list falls back to make proper use of colonies for build resources if
spaceports are missing resources (thus Queue Build buttons are made active)
• Ensure Mining Bonanza home system colony event has proper image
• Fixed some factions having mismatched colors from their selected flag (e.g. Gizurean)
• Empire bonuses are now shown in a separate tab in the empire menu
• Now force immediate update of all empire bonuses when switch government, including shipspecific bonuses like Maintenance Savings
• Added an icon for any active colony events in your empire to the header in the main view. Hover
for details of each, click to select colony with event
• Now display fleet targeting level in Selection Panel when have fleet selected
• Improved button text layout in various UI areas
• Fixed Show Me button sometimes not working on advisor messages
• Fixed Show Me button on messages often not working when related ship is in hyperjump
• Fixed repeated construction messages

POPULATION POLICIES
• Greatly reduced extermination rate of extermination population policy
• Colonies that are wiped out due to exterminate population policy (all population eliminated) now
automatically transfer any characters or troops of your empire to nearest colony
• Altered diplomatic and reputation impact from Extermination population policy: values are now
more immediate and predictable instead of being applied over time, similar to how Slavery policy
works

DIPLOMACY AND REPUTATION
• Fixed bug where very low empire reputation could sometimes result in other factions concern over
your reputation not being intense enough
• Diplomacy advisors will no longer suggest gifts to independent colonies while they are being
invaded (by any faction), even when your diplomatic strategy for them is set to 'Diplomacy leading
to peaceful integration'
• Honoring defense treaties no longer incurs reputation penalty from breaking any existing Non
Aggression or Defense treaties with war empire

SHIP DESIGN AND RETROFIT
• Fixed recent bug where auto-generated ship and base design names were not progressing (SSP1, RS-1, etc)
• Fixed ship and base designs not selecting higher levels of Armor (was always using Standard
Armor)
• Ship Design screen now shows comprehensive information on Bonuses from Hull and Empire that
are relevant to the current design. These bonuses are also included in all values, thus showing
current and accurate values for Weapon Range, Weapon Damage, Hyperjump Speed, Shield
Recharge Rate, Mining Rate, Maintenance Savings, etc
• When view Ship status by clicking on Design name in Selection Panel, the Ship Design detail
screen now properly shows ship values with current bonuses applied (from empire and ship), thus
with accurate weapon range, maintenance cost, etc
• Added some missing info to Energy and Defense sections of Ship Design Detail screen
• Fixed ship/base build costs showing differently in Designs List vs Ship Design screen
• Ensure pirate base designs use hull large enough to fit critical components, e.g. mining engine for
fuel extraction
• Adjusted ship model scaling to also include vertical size, not just horizontal dimensions

TROOPS AND TROOP GARRISONS
• Improved colony troop garrison logic so that more willing to garrison troops when have high unrest
(e.g. soon after colony conquest)
• Improved selection of race-specific fleet templates and army templates (now properly prefer racespecific templates over generic templates)

CONQUEST
• Ensure that when empire is destroyed (last colony conquered) by last colony becoming
independent (rebellion) that only freighters become independent ships, other ship and base types
removed
• Now clear any generic colony events when conquer a colony (e.g. race-specific events)

THREAT EVALUATION
• Improved strength evaluation and avoidance of dangerous locations with dormant pirate bases
SPACE COMBAT
• Fixed bug where Shields with high resistance could sometimes increase in value when struck by
weapons with low damage values (i.e. below resistance level)

ENEMY TARGETS AND THREATS
• Enemy Targets list now properly always shows known strength for targets
• Now include major threats in Enemy Targets list when visible (Hive, Planet Destroyer, etc)
• Fixed problem where dangerous locations were often not being removed after fleets investigated
and cleared threats
• Fixed Queue Attack button for Hive ships Now properly queues/un-queues attacks against each
hive ship
• Fixed Cancelling Queued Attacks against fleets in Enemy Targets list so that always works
properly

FLEET AND SHIP BEHAVIOR
• Automated fleets now more willing to auto-remove damaged ships from fleet when the ship is too
far from repair yard to reach in a timely manner (when Fleet Ship Management is automated)
• Fixed bulk transport freighter missions sometimes failing to load adequate cargo
• Ensure independent freighters do not travel too far when fulfilling resource orders
• Fixed high-end hyperdrives sometimes jumping too often, even for short range travel (low jump
accuracy values)
• Fixed Explore System ship mission sometimes ending before entire system explored
• Improved automated fleet formation and fleet ship topup so that more willing to add appropriate
ships to fleets while still attempting to maintain fleet cohesion by preferring nearby ships
• Fixed ships sometimes getting stuck at edge of galaxy

REFUELLING AND FUEL TANKERS
• Improved selection of refuelling and repair locations for ships: refuel or repair bases must have
docking bays, i.e. bases under construction do not qualify until sufficiently built
• Improved how fuel tankers refuel non-fleet ships: more careful to only refuel ships that are beyond
range of nearest refuelling point. So will not refuel ships that could otherwise reach refuelling point
on their own
• Fixed duplicate fleet names when rendering Fuel Tanker list
• Fixed bug where fuel tankers sometimes did not load fuel from a refuelling point
• Ensure ships do not attempt to auto-refuel if they have no fuel capacity (damaged), instead first
assign repair mission

FUEL AND RESOURCE LOGISTICS
• Ensure freighters and other ships properly preserve salvaged resources and offload them when
visit colony or spaceport
• Ensure bases not at colonies get their (manually set) resource stock levels fulfilled by cargo
deliveries (e.g. fuel) even when they are not mining stations
• Improved mining station construction so that do not overbuild when already met required rate for
specific resource. This will reduce the overall number of AI-built mining stations and freighters,
thus also lowering overall fuel usage
• Lowered required rate for construction resources to more accurately reflect actual usage
• Now indicate excessive oversupply for resources in New Mining Locations list, thus helping player
avoid overbuilding mining stations for resources where supply already meets demand

EXPLORATION
• Fixed exploration map pings sometimes not clearing when location is visited by ship

NEBULAE AND STORMS
• Some nebula effects no longer apply to ships or creatures while hyperjumping: all damage types,
shield drain, energy drain, sub-light speed modifier
• Fixed rare nebula pathing issues when assigning fleet missions to destinations inside nebulae

CHARACTERS
• Inspiring Presence and Demoralizing character traits now properly apply to all characters at a
location, even other characters with Inspiring Presence or Demoralizing trait when there are more
than one character with the trait at the location
• Ensure remove irrelevant character traits when an existing character becomes the new empire
leader
• Improved application of character appearance chance bonuses, so that even more likely to get
characters of desired roles

PLANETARY FACILITIES
• Significantly reduced costs for all planetary defense facilities
• Colonies will now upgrade planetary facilities when higher facility in same family is available, and
when planetary facility construction is automated and can afford
• Ensure Terraforming Facilities are built on colonies even when have no damage (when planetary
facility construction is automated)
• Improved management of automated facility funding level so that more likely to have spare
maintenance funding to build and upgrade facilities

COLONIZATION AND TERRAFORMING
• Now automatically clear queued colonization when another empire colonizes the target planet
• Reduced natural planet quality damage repair rate for uninhabited planets
• Prevent colony ships from fleeing enemy ships when under construction
• Ensure automated colony ships that need repair or construction completion assign repair mission

SHIP AND BASE CONSTRUCTION
• Improved evaluation of new mining locations so that accurately indicate when target is beyond
construction ship fuel range: targets that mine fuel now use extended fuel range (can refuel at
new mining station, thus can use full fuel range). Thus do not disable 'Queue Mining Station'
button when new target still within fuel range
• Now properly cancel construction ship mission when base being built is attacked and destroyed
(e.g. by pirates or space creatures), thus avoiding repeated cycle of rebuilds and consequent
drain on private economy
• Fixed faulty construction yard wait time when processing many retiring ships
• Fixed rendering for construction yard list: sometimes not showing all ships under construction in
list items
• Cancel construction action button no longer destroys ship waiting in construction queue if
retrofitting, repairing or retiring (only destroys ships when constructing anew)

MODDING SUPPORT
• Added support for static Characters (no animations, just a 2D image) defined in the file
Characters.xml
o Define name, race and role
o Include full set of skills and traits for the character
o Includes support for character images either from bundles or file paths, or can use full
Spine character animations
o Can specify appearance order so that a defined set of characters show up in expected
order
o Can specify AppearOnlyInFirstEmpireOfRace to ensure that player always gets this
character (not other factions of the same race)
• Improved construction ships repairing disabled ships
• Disabled ships that cannot travel for repairs now properly avoid assigning missions they cannot
complete
• Ensure fleets properly retrofit (use correct fleet template), even when formed using Create New
Fleet button

GAME EVENT FEATURES
• Added new Game Event condition types: EmpireIsNotPlayer, EmpireIsPirate, EmpireIsNotPirate
• Optionally allow some game event actions to suppress any messages (ResearchProgress,
ResearchBreakthrough, ResearchProjectEnable)

GAME EDITOR
• Fixed some values not updating in the Game Editor (e.g. Ship fuel levels)

GAME EVENT CHANGES
• Anchored Mortakosh battleship to starting location so that does not roam around the galaxy once
awoken
• Changed salvage bonus for Shakturi Debris Field from Firestorm Torpedo tech to system
exploration

IKKURO AND DHAYUT DLC
• Model bundle and data fixes for Ikkuro and Dhayut

Let us know what you think and happy gaming!

- The Matrix Games Team

[fruitgnome]

Nice update, but there are still many bugs and necessary improvements. I mean the main game concept has still problems like don't invade independent colonies because bad reputation can't be a desired concept.

[fruitgnome]

Fixed 1.1.7.3?

[jiuules2000]

Characters.xml is still missing from the game files. Any update on how long it will be before it gets added?

[MaximKI]

Characters.xml is still missing from the game files. Any update on how long it will be before it gets added?

Thanks for the report. We've recently released a new public beta. Have you had a chance to see if it resolves your issue?

[jiuules2000]

I checked the beta-v1.1.8.1, the latest beta available, and the file was not present.

[fruitgnome]

... I mean the main game concept has still problems like don't invade independent colonies because bad reputation can't be a desired concept.

push

[Erik Rutins]

Bad reputation is an intended consequence for invading an independent. However the effects of bad reputation vary depending on how aggressive and warlike your faction is. Peaceful ikkuro democracies will care much more about reputation than Mortalen military dictatorships. Conquest has a cost but is still often worthwhile,

[fruitgnome]

I always play human and the automated invasion fleets conquer independant colonies and I can do nothing against it, this cannot be how this game core concept should work.

[thegreybetween]

The issue isn't the reputation hit (which is fine). The issue is the non-configurable automation regarding independents.

It would be really nice if we could set an empire-wide policy preference for dealing with independent worlds. Currently, the automation will choose an invade/diplomacy stance based on factors such as the initial relationship level or the faction preference. But you need to manually alter the stance for each independent world.

So, for example, if I'm playing a Human empire and I generally want to be peaceful/diplomatic, I might ALWAYS prefer to deal with independents diplomatically and never invade them. But there is no global policy that lets me define this, so if I meet a Mortalen independent, the AI will almost certainly default to an "invade" stance and I have to manually change it (or deal with the consequences of an automated invasion if I forget).

A global policy for independents with options like:
- Always Diplomacy
- Always Invade
- Let Advisors Decide

would be very helpful, and make for a lot less micromanagement when you intend to run your empire with a specific default stance.

[fruitgnome]

Better explained than me, thx.