1.3.6.0 Public Beta Available

[SlizInez]

Hi everyone,

Please try this new beta and let us know if it helps your game. We encourage you to start a new game as there may be changes that only take effect upon starting a new game.

To facilitate frequent beta iterations as needed, this beta is only available for now on Steam and GOG. All Matrix customers also have a free Steam key available (through your My Page) which can be activated if desired to install DW2 via Steam and test this Beta there.

On Steam, you can switch to it by going to Distant Worlds 2 in your Steam Library, right-clicking on it, choosing Properties -> Betas -> then choosing the latest beta branch from the drop-down list and allowing Steam to update your game. If it updates correctly, you should see the latest beta version listed as your version in-game on the bottom right.

On GOG, you can switch to it by going to Distant Worlds 2 in your GOG Library, selecting Distant Worlds 2, then clicking on the button next to "Play" that looks like two horizontal lines with small offset circles, choosing Manage Installation -> Configure then picking the latest Beta from the Beta channels drop-down list and allowing GOG to update.

The Core game engine has been upgraded to use newer versions of Stride and .NET. We now include .NET in the game executable, so no additional external .NET redistributables are required.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you still experience crashes with 1.0.6.4 or later, especially crashes in battle, please try the new DXVK rendering option in the game settings. This can be found under "Rendering Mode", which can be switched from DirectX 11 to DXVK. DXVK is only guaranteed to work with the SDR (Standard Definition Rendering) option in your game settings. It may work with some HDR (High Definition Rendering) settings, but we do not advise trying those at this time. The DXVK option will likely resolve many issues caused by driver bugs or incompatibilities.

If you try this setting and the game does not launch, please note the command line option in the changes below to switch back to DirectX 11. (To force DirectX on launch, add --use-dx11 as a command-line argument to DistantWorlds2.exe).

Changes in 1.3.6.0 (June 25th , 2026):

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when generating contracts
- fixed rare crash when rendering weapon blasts
- fixed rare crash when speaking to independent colony in Diplomacy screen

SAVES
- fixed some savegames unable to load when storing a very high number of monetary transactions

USER INTERFACE
- added Hotkey items to main view header bar at top of screen. Thus can now quickly view, hover and click on these items in addition to using keyboard hotkeys

CONTRACTS
- removed all research breakthrough contract rewards, reduced level of research progress contract rewards (may reduce some empires racing research)
- will no longer offer colonization or outpost contracts until have valid Colony Ship design
- now more careful when checking whether artifact location is known to empire before offering 'Obtain Artifact' contracts
- ensure Defend Location contracts have clear potential threats, e.g. at war with another empire, have met hostile pirates, hostiles in same system
- ensure message sent to offering empire when one of their contracts is accepted by another faction
- Build Facility contracts that also have rewards to build a free facility now never give the same facility as a reward
- ensure do not offer Research Contracts with the same research project as existing contracts

ESPIONAGE
- increased difficulty level of some spy missions (e.g. Defect Character)

- ensure auto-cancel any Rescue Character missions when an imprisoned spy is recruited by their capturing empire or returned to their original empire (can no longer rescue the spy because they have joined the other empire or have been returned)

INDEPENDENT COLONIES
- somewhat slowed down independent colony growth rate

PLAGUES
- slightly increased chance of basic plagues appearing at colonies

DEBRIS
- ensure that old debris and other small items get properly expired

IKKURO
- no longer spam constant 'Respect for Life' messages when playing as Ikkuro and bombard an enemy colony

Changes in 1.3.5.8 (June 11 th , 2026):

INDEPENDENT COLONIES
- fixed independent colony diplomacy to properly include trade treaties
- fixed independent colonies that transition to full empires using wrong ship hulls
- story-generated independent colonies will no longer become a new empire once they reach population and development threshold, but will instead remain as independent colonies to allow faction story events to trigger appropriately

EMPIRE CONTRACTS
- ensure do not offer multiple identical contracts for building ships of same type (e.g. construction ships, exploration ships, military ships, etc)
- ensure do not offer contracts for building new bases unless have buildable design for the role
- ensure Give Character rewards work for Research Contracts
- ensure Research Progress contract rewards assign progress to research project of correct category
- pirate factions will no longer auto-accept intelligence mission contracts against a target empire when they have not yet met the empire (makes more understandable for target empire when mission succeeds against them)

PIRATES
- fixed missing ship thumbnail image for some pirate cruisers

ATUUK
- fixed Atuuk Great Direction events not working

ZENOX
- added missing Zenox event art

[IBender]

This has been a fun and unusual beta to play. I like the changes I see keep it up!

Just want to add, I have started a new game as zenox and the 25,000 for "Search the archives" does not seem to do anything. Just spends the money. I get nothing from it.

[Buio]

Short feedback after two games.

There seems to be a bug where the whole galaxy gets revealed, it happened in both games. First one around 2814 and in the second around 2825.

Galaxy map flags - I don't like it, makes the default map look worse and adds very little. I would instead improve the diplomacy view. The current one is not great, first of all it should remove all clutter from the map like the war view, and secondly it should display all empires clearly even when zoomed out. Today you can see an floating empire window, but only when zoomed in a lot. As soon as you zoom out, they dissapear and you basically see nothing except the glowing systems which isn't very useful.

Empire contracts - great addition, makes the early game more involved. Of course some contracts are not great for you, but you can just deny them.

[Xmudder]

Short feedback after two games.

There seems to be a bug where the whole galaxy gets revealed, it happened in both games. First one around 2814 and in the second around 2825.

Had that happen as well. No idea why. 2791 in my case.

[MaximKI]

Short feedback after two games.

There seems to be a bug where the whole galaxy gets revealed, it happened in both games. First one around 2814 and in the second around 2825.

Do you have a save from before and after you notice the situation you can share?

[MaximKI]

Short feedback after two games.

There seems to be a bug where the whole galaxy gets revealed, it happened in both games. First one around 2814 and in the second around 2825.

Had that happen as well. No idea why. 2791 in my case.

Do you also have a save you could share from before an after youy noticed this?

[Xmudder]

Short feedback after two games.

There seems to be a bug where the whole galaxy gets revealed, it happened in both games. First one around 2814 and in the second around 2825.

Had that happen as well. No idea why. 2791 in my case.

Do you also have a save you could share from before an after youy noticed this?

I have one from 7 years before, but it zips to over 10 mb. Autosave was reset to every 5 minutes, reduced it to every 3.

[MaximKI]

Can you reproduce the vision issue from the 7 year prior save?

[Buio]

I'll check the autosaves. But I set them to autosave seldom. I like to play big maps and the default 5 min save later in game is to often for me. My games almost never crash so I live with the risk. If not, I'll test the new beta and see if same thing happens.

[Xmudder]

Can you reproduce the vision issue from the 7 year prior save?

Didn't try, but I can say it did not happen (yet) in my new game under 1.3.5.8 as of 2798.

[Xmudder]

1.3.5.8 new game did not spawn with the same race pirates, no kill the hive mission tree. The hive now has a 30k fleet I did not know about. not sure what save game you might want.

edit: I also have not found my homeworld, constitution crystal, or got the research boosts for Fast Interceptors and Fast Bomber (Akdarian)

follow up: found my homeworld. Still no constitution crystal or fast fighters. When I killed the hive carrier, the other pirate factions joined me... and the remaining 4 now hate me for "you eliminated a pirate faction" -47, -75, -65, and -65

[Buio]

I don't know if this is the answer to galaxy getting revealed. But AI empires seem to be really happy to share galaxy map. The latest game I went into a deal with a single AI empire with map sharing and got to see a big map portion where their empire was but not all. Years later I suddenly got to see almost all map again. Could it be that this empire went into other galaxy map share deals, and as I had that deal with them I also got to see everything they saw after other deals?

It has happened to me in every beta game now.Next game I'll not accept any map sharing deals and see if stays more as before this beta. I think exploring and map mystery is a big part of this game, and something has changed in the beta that removes much of that part late early game to mid game.

[MaximKI]

I don't know if this is the answer to galaxy getting revealed. But AI empires seem to be really happy to share galaxy map. The latest game I went into a deal with a single AI empire with map sharing and got to see a big map portion where their empire was but not all. Years later I suddenly got to see almost all map again. Could it be that this empire went into other galaxy map share deals, and as I had that deal with them I also got to see everything they saw after other deals?

It has happened to me in every beta game now.Next game I'll not accept any map sharing deals and see if stays more as before this beta. I think exploring and map mystery is a big part of this game, and something has changed in the beta that removes much of that part late early game to mid game.

Do you have a save showing this situation at all + steps to reproduce?

[MaximKI]

1.3.5.8 new game did not spawn with the same race pirates, no kill the hive mission tree. The hive now has a 30k fleet I did not know about. not sure what save game you might want.

edit: I also have not found my homeworld, constitution crystal, or got the research boosts for Fast Interceptors and Fast Bomber (Akdarian)

follow up: found my homeworld. Still no constitution crystal or fast fighters. When I killed the hive carrier, the other pirate factions joined me... and the remaining 4 now hate me for "you eliminated a pirate faction" -47, -75, -65, and -65

What were your game settings? What do you mean by 'game did not spawn with the same race pirates'?

What do you mean 'no kill the hive mission tree' - do you mean pirates don't ping you for help against the Hive?

Was the Hive captured by pirates at all?

Regarding the tech bonuses - do you mean the starting tech bonuses the Ackdarians start with or that they get from finding their homeworld? It's possible some other empire got to the Ackdarian homeworld before you did.

[Xmudder]

1.3.5.8 new game did not spawn with the same race pirates, no kill the hive mission tree. The hive now has a 30k fleet I did not know about. not sure what save game you might want.

edit: I also have not found my homeworld, constitution crystal, or got the research boosts for Fast Interceptors and Fast Bomber (Akdarian)

follow up: found my homeworld. Still no constitution crystal or fast fighters. When I killed the hive carrier, the other pirate factions joined me... and the remaining 4 now hate me for "you eliminated a pirate faction" -47, -75, -65, and -65

What were your game settings? What do you mean by 'game did not spawn with the same race pirates'?

What do you mean 'no kill the hive mission tree' - do you mean pirates don't ping you for help against the Hive?

Was the Hive captured by pirates at all?

Regarding the tech bonuses - do you mean the starting tech bonuses the Ackdarians start with or that they get from finding their homeworld? It's possible some other empire got to the Ackdarian homeworld before you did.

Game settings were the same as always, although I had to change a few when the update rearranged them.

There were no Akdarian space pirates, period. And no, no pirates asked me to save them from the hive - no ping. The hive also did not attack any of the pirate bases I was aware of, they just hung around a gas giant.

No idea what "Was the Hive captured by pirates at all?" means

Possible about another faction getting to my homeworld first, as both the homeworld and the medium ancient Akdarian starbase were closer to my neighbor's capital than mine. No constitution crystal (I did get the Human one though), no "100k to sacrifice a scientist to get fast bombers and interceptors (skip / wave) / 20k only get 1 and keep the scientist." It's called "Former Akdarian Colony" and costs 20k to be safe, and 100k to get both techs. So yeah, the faction story events were only half there. I did get Ancient Ruined Mine, Crashed Research Station, Ancient Spaceport, and Ruined Shipyard events though.

[Buio]

I don't know if this is the answer to galaxy getting revealed. But AI empires seem to be really happy to share galaxy map. The latest game I went into a deal with a single AI empire with map sharing and got to see a big map portion where their empire was but not all. Years later I suddenly got to see almost all map again. Could it be that this empire went into other galaxy map share deals, and as I had that deal with them I also got to see everything they saw after other deals?

It has happened to me in every beta game now.Next game I'll not accept any map sharing deals and see if stays more as before this beta. I think exploring and map mystery is a big part of this game, and something has changed in the beta that removes much of that part late early game to mid game.

Do you have a save showing this situation at all + steps to reproduce?

I managed to use an older save with about 25% galaxy explored and no galaxy map sharing deals. I played it on fast until I got the map sharing deal from the friendly Ackdarian. I saved the game with the prompt. Then I exited and loaded that game. Accepting the galaxy map share I got what they saw at that moment, revealing about 50%. Then I played on fast doing nothing and less than 2 years game time later I got to see 100% of the map (probably Ackdarian entering other galaxy map sharing deals, so I got to see everything he saw which was everything.

I'll send it using the report form.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

I managed to use an older save with about 25% galaxy explored and no galaxy map sharing deals. I played it on fast until I got the map sharing deal from the friendly Ackdarian. I saved the game with the prompt. Then I exited and loaded that game. Accepting the galaxy map share I got what they saw at that moment, revealing about 50%. Then I played on fast doing nothing and less than 2 years game time later I got to see 100% of the map (probably Ackdarian entering other galaxy map sharing deals, so I got to see everything he saw which was everything.

I'll send it using the report form.

That sounds working as intended though? Unless galaxy sharing shouldn't work by proxy?

[Buio]

I managed to use an older save with about 25% galaxy explored and no galaxy map sharing deals. I played it on fast until I got the map sharing deal from the friendly Ackdarian. I saved the game with the prompt. Then I exited and loaded that game. Accepting the galaxy map share I got what they saw at that moment, revealing about 50%. Then I played on fast doing nothing and less than 2 years game time later I got to see 100% of the map (probably Ackdarian entering other galaxy map sharing deals, so I got to see everything he saw which was everything.

I'll send it using the report form.

That sounds working as intended though? Unless galaxy sharing shouldn't work by proxy?

It hasn't been like this in previous versions. In this beta I've suddenly without information gotten to see the whole galaxy fairly early which removes the fun of exploration and discovery.

[Buio]

That sounds working as intended though? Unless galaxy sharing shouldn't work by proxy?

I've gone back to relese version and is testing if it is similar. I've played a bit before the new beta but It can of course be coincidence due to happy AI giving the option to share the map more than earlier games.

[OrnluWolfjarl]

It could be a bug, but I remember similar situations in earlier versions. Not early game though. I usually start games with everyone prewarp and galaxy sharing treaties would reveal the whole galaxy by T4-T5. How early did it happen for you?

It's good that you test it though!