Early Access, Not Ready For Prime Time

[Omnius]

I have the latest 1.2.2.0 version of DW2 with both DLC's and after a few weeks I feel rather disappointed that this game that's been released for about two years really is still early access and definitely not ready for prime time. Glad I used an annual 41% discount but I feel let down. I've found and reported several bugs on the forum and feel disappointed that this game isn't as far along as I'd hoped. I had the original DW game which I loved but never got the DWU version since I knew DW2 was being worked on.

I've decided to not waste my time and become more frustrated with this game until it is closer to being finished. I've been waiting for the Shakturi for years and since that feature isn't yet in DW2 I'm going to put aside this game and wait until it is released and the game more polished. Aside from the Humans and Mortalen the other races are still rather pathetic so I'll wait until this game is more finished. I just have no interest in wasting time on unfinished games, no interest in paying to be a beta tester.

After wasting a little time and money on that stellaris garbage I've been looking forward to seeing DW2 become a finished product that will blow away the competition. Wake me up when the Shakturi return.

[MaximKI]

Sorry to hear about your frustrations with the game.

We have made significant improvements to the game over its lifetime and intend to keep improving and updating it as feasible. This means bug fixes, content expansions, faction reworks, and more. As a small dev team, we have to prioritize our efforts on areas of the game that fit our plan and vision, which inevitably means that some issues get missed, but we will eventually get to addressing major concerns with the game. However, we wouldn't be able to improve the game without valuable player feedback.

Could you please let us know what areas of the game have caused you the most frustration and where you noticed the most issues? If you have saves, screenshots, or videos for any of these situations that would be ideal as that would help more accurately track down issues and fix them.

[Omnius]

Maxim,
I've reported several bugs on the tech support forum here. I just tried to send you a saved game file via email but the file size is too big for my yahoo or MS Outlook email functions. I'm not going to add google drive ever nor some other one I've never heard of before just to send a couple of files.

My biggest frustration is this game isn't being shown on Steam as early access when it clearly is. From manually controlled fleets taking off on their own missions to scout ships acting dumb about waking up newly found ships right next to them but one from another system does when it should be scouting the system it's in to seeing money still being reserved for colonizing planets when I no longer have any designated as reserved because I manually colonized the previous reserved colony. Most of all is that this game just isn't as far along as I hoped it would be about two years after release and there's still no Shakturi.

I've wasted too much time spinning wheels with this unfinished game. I used to be a beta tester and scenario designer for Talonsoft long ago and enjoyed it but now I'm no longer interested in beta testing or wasting time writing up numerous bug reports. I just picked up A-Train All Aboard Tourism when it was finally on sale and that game is finished and worth me playing as I liked it's predecessor. Like I said wake me up when the Shakturi return, until then this game isn't worth playing for me. I've been waiting for many years to see the Shakturi and never wanted to waste money on DWU when I knew DW2 was being made.

[ChrisGb]

OP has not even understood the basics of DW2 mechanics and after playing only couple hours coming here whining and posting totally random complaint which is entirely based on his own lack of understanding.
For example: Manual ships/fleets will still engage on their own based on their engagement range and indiviual settings, only fleets set to "do not engange" will be truly manual but this has obvious downsides as they will not engange, so setting engagement range to location or system makes sure they defend whatever player wants to defend and only that.
Game could use couple of improvements for manual play and quality of life changes but is fully functional and working as intended.
This kind of entitled unfounded criticism is terrible behavior and should be called out as that.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Maxim,
I've reported several bugs on the tech support forum here. I just tried to send you a saved game file via email but the file size is too big for my yahoo or MS Outlook email functions. I'm not going to add google drive ever nor some other one I've never heard of before just to send a couple of files.

My biggest frustration is this game isn't being shown on Steam as early access when it clearly is. From manually controlled fleets taking off on their own missions to scout ships acting dumb about waking up newly found ships right next to them but one from another system does when it should be scouting the system it's in to seeing money still being reserved for colonizing planets when I no longer have any designated as reserved because I manually colonized the previous reserved colony. Most of all is that this game just isn't as far along as I hoped it would be about two years after release and there's still no Shakturi.

I've wasted too much time spinning wheels with this unfinished game. I used to be a beta tester and scenario designer for Talonsoft long ago and enjoyed it but now I'm no longer interested in beta testing or wasting time writing up numerous bug reports. I just picked up A-Train All Aboard Tourism when it was finally on sale and that game is finished and worth me playing as I liked it's predecessor. Like I said wake me up when the Shakturi return, until then this game isn't worth playing for me. I've been waiting for many years to see the Shakturi and never wanted to waste money on DWU when I knew DW2 was being made.

Your complaint of how manual fleet behave are just not warranted and you probably have not understood how the settings work. They work just fine in my game.

I also don't understand you complaint about colonizers and the economy. The AI only reserve money when I tell the game to do so, what are you doing wrong?!?

About the explorers there is a setting on the policies that you can force the AI to always report so you get to chose if they investigate or not use that if you don't want them to investigate automatically. I generally don't seem to have your issues in my game here either.

[StormingKiwi]

Maxim,
I've reported several bugs on the tech support forum here. I just tried to send you a saved game file via email but the file size is too big for my yahoo or MS Outlook email functions. I'm not going to add google drive ever nor some other one I've never heard of before just to send a couple of files.

My biggest frustration is this game isn't being shown on Steam as early access when it clearly is. From manually controlled fleets taking off on their own missions to scout ships acting dumb about waking up newly found ships right next to them but one from another system does when it should be scouting the system it's in to seeing money still being reserved for colonizing planets when I no longer have any designated as reserved because I manually colonized the previous reserved colony. Most of all is that this game just isn't as far along as I hoped it would be about two years after release and there's still no Shakturi.

I've wasted too much time spinning wheels with this unfinished game. I used to be a beta tester and scenario designer for Talonsoft long ago and enjoyed it but now I'm no longer interested in beta testing or wasting time writing up numerous bug reports. I just picked up A-Train All Aboard Tourism when it was finally on sale and that game is finished and worth me playing as I liked it's predecessor. Like I said wake me up when the Shakturi return, until then this game isn't worth playing for me. I've been waiting for many years to see the Shakturi and never wanted to waste money on DWU when I knew DW2 was being made.

Your complaint of how manual fleet behave are just not warranted and you probably have not understood how the settings work. They work just fine in my game.

I also don't understand you complaint about colonizers and the economy. The AI only reserve money when I tell the game to do so, what are you doing wrong?!?

About the explorers there is a setting on the policies that you can force the AI to always report so you get to chose if they investigate or not use that if you don't want them to investigate automatically. I generally don't seem to have your issues in my game here either.

Jorgen, I think you have misunderstood this post you have replied to.

The observation of manual fleets behaving unusually has been posted independently on Discord. What do you make of those posts? There are saves attached.

Colonisers reserving cash perpetually is an old bug. I think you have misunderstood the issue as described, and believe the accusatory "What are you doing wrong" attitude towards a frustrated fellow player is unhelpful and not conducive to a positive and encouraging community. It is unbecoming of you, given your experience in the community.

The explorers issue is better described by omnius below, if you haven't noticed it, that sounds like a perception or attention to detail error being made by you.

I found a fleet near a planet I was exploring with a scout ship set to fully automated. Instead of moving next to a ship of that fleet when it was done exploring that planet it moved on to that system's sun. Meanwhile another scout ship exploring another system on fully automated decided to disrupt it's planned exploration of the system it was in to go wake up those ships. Incredibly stupid automation! Please improve ship automation by making scout ships make more intelligent decisions. I had to put that second scout ship on manual control so I could have it explore the system it was in while also doing it for the first scout ship so that after it explored the sun fully it could then go back to move near those newly found ships in the system it was in.

Hope that helps.

[ChrisGb]

The observation of manual fleets behaving unusually has been posted independently on Discord. What do you make of those posts? There are saves attached.

Never seen this...wait...I had fleets go from here to there and do stupid things which were not ordered nor I wanted...
but....
on closer observation it was always an issue of the fleet or ship settings related to the engagement range
...and manual fleets will engage if within range and meeting the criteria.

"What are you doing wrong" attitude towards a frustrated fellow player is unhelpful and not conducive to a positive and encouraging community. It is unbecoming of you, given your experience in the community.

oh please, a quick scan of OP posting history reveals he is generally acting pretty entitled, rude and offensive in his posting.
Anyone who dishes it out must also be able to take it.

[StormingKiwi]

The observation of manual fleets behaving unusually has been posted independently on Discord. What do you make of those posts? There are saves attached.

Never seen this...wait...I had fleets go from here to there and do stupid things which were not ordered nor I wanted...
but....
on closer observation it was always an issue of the fleet or ship settings related to the engagement range
...and manual fleets will engage if within range and meeting the criteria.

What do you make of the posts on Discord?

[ChrisGb]

What do you make of the posts on Discord?

Nothing really.
Just couple more individuals who have not yet fully understood how it works.

I do admit though that the interaction between Policy Settings>Fleets & Fleet/Ship Tactical Settings - Engagement Range on manual fleets and what prevails over what is not fully documented.
In the last big patch some more settings for engagement range were added to help define better when and under which circumstances manual fleets engage on their own.

It has to be understood that "manual" is not 100% manual except you set fleets to: Do Not Engage (but then they will not even shoot back when attacked)

[Jorgen_CAB]

The explorers issue is better described by omnius below, if you haven't noticed it, that sounds like a perception or attention to detail error being made by you.

I found a fleet near a planet I was exploring with a scout ship set to fully automated. Instead of moving next to a ship of that fleet when it was done exploring that planet it moved on to that system's sun. Meanwhile another scout ship exploring another system on fully automated decided to disrupt it's planned exploration of the system it was in to go wake up those ships. Incredibly stupid automation! Please improve ship automation by making scout ships make more intelligent decisions. I had to put that second scout ship on manual control so I could have it explore the system it was in while also doing it for the first scout ship so that after it explored the sun fully it could then go back to move near those newly found ships in the system it was in.

Hope that helps.

From my experience there are some randomization as to where the explorers go which does not make them behave entirely efficient. I think this is intentional to be honest and not really a bug. For what reason they do it this way I don't know but I rarely find this to be particularly important.

The issue with the manual fleets are intentional as far as I can tell. They will engage enemies set at the range limit. The only way they will not engage is setting them to "Don't Engage". But as said above, now they will not even defend themselves and should be set to Evade if you do so. I still don't see how it is a bug or not working as intended.
The best way to have manual fleets not engage much of anything is the Nearby" setting. This will keep them not engaging unless enemies comes very close.

[ChrisGb]

The best way to have manual fleets not engage much of anything is the Nearby" setting. This will keep them not engaging unless enemies comes very close.

Also, with last big patch more precise options were added
- Same Location > around planet etc
- 5000 > distance
- Engage when attacked

Sector range renamed to 100M
New ranges: 50M range, 200M range, 300M range

Plenty options to cover most scenarios and fleets do not go astray when set up correctly

About fleet behavior last patch notes

FLEET AND SHIP BEHAVIORS
We added additional Fleet Engagement ranges and a new map overlay for engagement range visualization to help you plan your fleet home bases, engagement ranges and targets.
- added Fleet Engagement Areas as galaxy map overlay (shows circles of engagement centered on Home Base, and travel paths to Attack Points)
- added extra fleet map overlay settings: Selected Fleet. Only shows engagement range and attack vector for player's selected fleet. Also Defense Fleets, Attack Fleets, Raid Fleets, Invasion Fleets only show engagement ranges for fleets of those types.
- renamed Fleet Engagement Range 'Sector Range' to '100M range'
- added new Fleet Engagement Ranges: 50M range, 200M range, 300M range
- altered colors for fleet roles and attack point vectors in fleet engagement area map overlay so that better distinguished from selected fleet/ship travel vector
- lowered default engagement range for automated Defense fleets (Fleet Templates)
- individual fleet ships will now attack threats at same location even when rest of fleet is not nearby and cannot upgrade attack to a fleet mission. However this still requires all other engagement criteria to be met (range, etc)
- automated fleets now also check distance of target from fleet home base when evaluating whether to break off attack (fleet may be outside normal engagement area)
- ensure manually assigning a Guard mission to a fleet properly changes fleet role to Manual (not just ships)
- fleets now more willing to wait for Fuel Tankers when nearest refuelling point is outside current fuel range
- improved willingness of Fuel Tankers to refuel fleet ships outside systems
- ensure that Fuel Tankers do not improperly assign refuelling mission for ships that don't really need refuelling (avoid cycle of assign/cancel mission)
- ensure refuelling point selection always excludes nebula locations when ship cannot handle effects
- improved automated fleets honoring engagement range when far away from home base (not investigating dangerous locations outside engagement area)
- improved Fleet movement within nebula so that more likely to take direct single jumps to destinations when moving to coordinates instead of specific target

[Jorgen_CAB]

Yes... the difference with manual fleets and auto fleets are that Manual fleets will not engage above System engagement range even if you specify a higher range. But the game actually tell yo this when you set the range of the fleet so everyone playing the game should know this if they actually set the range of any of their fleets to begin with.

The "nearby" range are the same as the 5000 range and did exist before. It was renamed from Nearby to Nearby (5000) to be more clear in what nearby means. If your ships have weapons with a higher range than 5000 they probably should use same location instead. Same location will generally be a planet and their moons.

Fun fact... give all your freighters a missile or torpedo weapon and set them to engagement range of nearby with cautious/cautious stance and escape when shields down to 50 or any armour damage. That is all the patrol ships you ever need against pirates. Watch pirates be swarmed by angry bees every time they tries to attack any of you assets. They also work really well to delay pirate or even enemy raid fleets until your own defensive fleets can show up.
If only there was a way to change the default behaviour for AI designs I would mod the AI to use this on all their freighters too, but sadly this seems to be hardcoded and not moddable.

[StormingKiwi]

What do you make of the posts on Discord?

Nothing really.
Just couple more individuals who have not yet fully understood how it works.

I do admit though that the interaction between Policy Settings>Fleets & Fleet/Ship Tactical Settings - Engagement Range on manual fleets and what prevails over what is not fully documented.
In the last big patch some more settings for engagement range were added to help define better when and under which circumstances manual fleets engage on their own.

It has to be understood that "manual" is not 100% manual except you set fleets to: Do Not Engage (but then they will not even shoot back when attacked)

Your posts don't seem consistent with my understanding of the system either. What settings should have been applied to the fleet and ships in the Discord save to achieve this objective?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Maybe describe the issue here, I have no clue where it is on discord?!?

Perhaps we can find out what is done wrong or if there is a bug, not understanding how things work wanting it to work another way is not a bug though.

[Omnius]

I posted bug reports here on the tech support forum and they were acknowledged as such. I was even asked for saved game files but they were too big to upload. I don't feel version 1.2.2.0 is ready enough for my taste, that is my choice. Some think it is fine enough to play and that's their choice and I don't criticize them for it. Those who criticize me for my choice are the rude little fanboys who won' tolerate any criticism regardless of how valid it is. Grow up.

I loved the original DW but never got DWU since I knew DW2 was being worked on. My choice is to wait for the return of the Shakturi to come out before playing again, then the game will be more complete and have the one big element that is missing that I have been waiting for for many years. I know I'll enjoy the game once it's complete and more bugs are ironed out.

[StormingKiwi]

Maybe describe the issue here, I have no clue where it is on discord?!?

Perhaps we can find out what is done wrong or if there is a bug, not understanding how things work wanting it to work another way is not a bug though.

I thought you had jumped to that conclusion, thanks for confirming.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Maybe describe the issue here, I have no clue where it is on discord?!?

Perhaps we can find out what is done wrong or if there is a bug, not understanding how things work wanting it to work another way is not a bug though.

I thought you had jumped to that conclusion, thanks for confirming.

I have seen it done so many times that one sometimes become quite jaded eventually... I don't jump to that conclusion but often assume that is the case based on experience, especially with this game in particular.

[StormingKiwi]

Maybe describe the issue here, I have no clue where it is on discord?!?

Perhaps we can find out what is done wrong or if there is a bug, not understanding how things work wanting it to work another way is not a bug though.

I thought you had jumped to that conclusion, thanks for confirming.

I have seen it done so many times that one sometimes become quite jaded eventually... I don't jump to that conclusion but often assume that is the case based on experience, especially with this game in particular.

That's the definition of jumping to a conclusion:

Jumping to conclusions is a cognitive distortion involving making unwarranted assumptions based on limited information.

Honestly, I doubt your heuristic is based on sound experience. In this case, the PIBCAK accusation is unwarranted.

[Nightskies]

So... many... times.

"My fighters stopped attacking for no reason!" -> host ship is jumping out
"My defense fleet is leaving its home undefended!" -> fleet going for repairs/refuel
"My explorers aren't exploring!" -> all objects in fuel range from known refuel locations explored
"My ships aren't using assault pods!" -> wrong policy settings
"My ships won't retrofit, the game is broken!" -> faulty fleet settings
"I can't control my freighters!" -> Really?
"Spies are useless!" -> No. They're expendable.
"My fleet attacked something way stronger than it. They died!" -> Okay... you'll need better sensors and to be wary of such threats.
"Automated Invasions..." -> Okay. No. This is an unwarranted, but common, gripe. I've even seen Mordachai, the author of the XL mod, say that they are terrible with a save (to be fair, he says that about a lot of things). However, when I / the dev team load it up, they perform just fine. Let automated invasion fleets do their thing, give them the troops and time, and their failures will mostly be due to enemy actions against them. They're fine. Players are surely making manual orders and just throwing them back to automatic and thinking that is how to do it. Its not. Don't fight the automation!

"I have positive cashflow and I'm losing money!" -> Did they even look at the empire tab?!? How have there been so many with this specific query? A rudimentary understanding of budgeting is all that is needed to break that chart down with no tutorial required.

"Why are my ships getting close to the target when they have missiles?" -> Your fleet/ship is stronger than the target
"WHY ARE MY SHIPS GETTING CLOSE TO THE TARGET WITH CAUTIOUS/CAUTIOUS?" -> Your fleet/ship is much stronger than the target. And this is the default approach for fleets. Look at the bigger picture. Evade is how to avoid close combat.
"All the weapons are dumb, because Torpedoes are the best weapon on cruisers, change my mind." -> Actually...
"All the hulls are dumb, because Mortalen Blaster Frigates are the only ships worth building." -> ...Well, actually...

"This strategy invalidates the game's challenge. Invade immediately, as soon as possible. Game: Won. No challenge at all." -> Cheese aside, you could make game settings where that strategy wouldn't work very well...
"This game is easy, even the hardest difficulty setting is easy. Everyone naturally agrees with me on this." -> No, sir, you can make it hard...

"The Pirates beat me and stole my money. Sniffle." -> Here's how to not fight the pirates. Its really easy. And here's how to beat the pirates. Also, yes, they are stronger than you to start.
"The Hive beat me, leaving my desire to play in ruins like my spaceport. Sniffle." -> Here's how to beat the Hive.
"Dhayut are OP, grr." -> Well, strong, but here's what they're not good at.
"GIZUREANS ARE OP!" -> What is this, League of Legends? They're not that OP.

"A bug (not race) ruined my game!" -> Did you try the editor?
"A bug..." -> Did you restart the game?
"My game performs absolutely horrendously." -> Are you playing to the recommendations for your system? You don't know? Oh, you mean No?

"I encountered a bug." -> Yes. Was it game-breaking? Can I exploit it? How did you do it?
"My game performs poorly in late game." -> Yes.
"The automation does lots of questionable things." -> Yes.
"The automation is no match for a human." -> Not a mildly competitive one, at least. Yes. Were you expecting otherwise?

The full list would look like the notes for a major bug-squashing update. These are just some examples.

So, I pulled up Omnius' post history to see these reports. Looked over the Discord. There is at least SOME disingenuous intent in his words in this thread. For example, the 'acknowledgement' he got was asking for more info, which, if I didn't miss anything, he failed to provide, screenshot aside.

I get the feeling that attempting to help him specifically for these issues he's having with fleet control would be a wasted effort. Some of his complaints can be found in the above list pointing out misconceptions.

As for calling it early access or beta. Bring me a 4x game OR sim, and I will show you bugs and poor performance, likely including game-breaking ones- which DW2 is now largely free of. Last I remember, the devs talking about numbers... 95% of games played without a game-breaking event. And a majority of those that did crash the game was probably quickly reloaded and without a subsequent similar error.

The claims of memory leaks are also likely due to user actions... save scumming or the likes, I'd wager.

Criticism is one thing, but OP's opinion stinks. DWU is riddled with bugs and holes (as seen from someone who did an overhaul mod like XL), and he's okay with that, but not this?

[Jorgen_CAB]

Honestly, I doubt your heuristic is based on sound experience. In this case, the PIBCAK accusation is unwarranted.

Aside from what Nightskies just wrote.. .yes my experience is real as I have tried to actually help people by loading up their saves and play their games and then politely help them "fix" their misconceptions of the game... MANY times.

I actually try to be helpful but I also like to call out BS when I see it. Several of Omnius complaints IS a lack of understanding of how things work. Even if some of it is legit does make the ones that are not OK to portray as bug or incomplete game features, they are just lack of proper understanding. It then is better to explain what is not understod and will help others reading it too.