RE: Distant Worlds 1.0.4 Public Beta 4 Now Available!
Posted: Sat May 01, 2010 2:48 am
Regarding corruption/inefficiency/social/government services, I think the biggest issue is that it's called "corruption" which as you already guessed, locks the way people think of it. Renaming it and giving a breakout of what it is would be better. Government Overhead or something similar might help get the concept across better. Or just Government if you want to keep it to one-word.
Observations while playing 1.0.4b4:
1400 system galaxy (I like grand empires.[:D]), playing as Quameno Democracy, 11 AI players, slow research, friendly relations, and I think normal everything else.
I didn't spiral 100-200k into the red right off the start as I did in 1.0.3 and 1.0.4b2 which was a very good thing. I've also changed my playstyle some as I learn the game more so that's probably had some effect. In previous games, I couldn't not spiral into the red so something seems to be working.
I'm generally maintaining a decent surplus. Enough to colonize and build a small space port at every planet as fast as I could build ships until I hit around 30-40 colonies and had to start expanding my fleet.
I like the change so that colony ships are built at faster planets, not just the closest. I missed that in the notes and was manually building ships for a while which led to an odd observation. If I had an unassigned colony ship being built, I could assign it to colonize an ocean planet at the expansion builder while it was still in the build queue, but I could not assign it to a continental planet. Also, when I had basic colonization (CL-100) ships I built on my home race's worlds could also colonize continental planets, but ships built on a Zenox world I found could only colonize continentals. I like the mechanic, but it's somewhat confusing to discover and don't recall reading that in the race notes. Perhaps that should be added as a characteristic for each race that does something similar. It's mentioned offhand in the description.
I was tired and did something reaaaaaally stupid. I had just had an autosave so figured I'd just reload. The reload failed, I got an error that there wasn't enough memory for the working set. Exiting the game and restarting allowed me to load the savegame though. I've found that I can't reload after running a game this size at all, I must first exit completely. Even exiting to the game menu gives the memory error. (XP 32-bit, 4[3.25 usable)GB RAM, 4GB, pagefile) I have not gotten to try this with any smaller games.
Mid-game lag at the galaxy level is mostly gone with not showing commercial ships. I can even see the galaxy instead of a multi-colored blob! [&o]
Auto-design is not using my racial tech. I've only just realized this fairly late, but none of my vessels are getting the NovaCore NX-700. I first noticed when reviewing some bases and noticed a warning that it didn't have enough power, then saw it was using researched tech for the reactor and not the NX-700 on any vessel. Clicking "Upgrade Selected" does use the NX-700. Of course, the drive is reverted with the next auto-design pass.
As was previously mentioned by others, construction ships sent to refit get stuck and don't do anything except clog the planet's queue. I realized after sending them all for a refit and not having any construction ships for several game years...[:@]
I'm now at year 2779 with 115 colonies in 83 systems. I have a total of 60 military vessels. 30 of which I just queued to build when I realized I was at war... (I missed the declaration popup!?)[&:] (War and Sanctions is set to manual) Ship building is set to suggest, and it probably should have suggested a few more ships, especially since I've got a consistent decent surplus of cashflow. Even more so since I'm at war and the other empire has 5x the military strength.
I was prompted 3 times to build a resupply ship. I finally allowed it to do so, and the dang thing is sitting there where it was built doing nothing. For the past 10 years. Why was I prompted to build such a beast if it wasn't going to be used? In previous games, they were sent out and used right away.
Overall, much improved. By improved, I mean a smoother game. The economy's not jumping all over the place from -200k to +1m and back with me just sitting here watching. Culture levels seem to be stable. I have two just over 100, many at 100, and the rest are climbing. 1.0.3 and 1.0.4b2 had a few planets well over 100 (150-180) and the rest bouncing from 5-60. More experienced players could certainly use some adjustments to make cashflow a bit tighter, but for a new player to jump in and consistently go deep in the red for several game years and not be able to do a thing no matter how they played at the start... that needed fixed and I'm glad to see it was done.
And just to add a thought on late-game cashflow drain, implement a minimum troop level per planet as garrison/militia forces. One reason I've had such good cashflow is playing nice with everyone and recruiting no new troops.
Observations while playing 1.0.4b4:
1400 system galaxy (I like grand empires.[:D]), playing as Quameno Democracy, 11 AI players, slow research, friendly relations, and I think normal everything else.
I didn't spiral 100-200k into the red right off the start as I did in 1.0.3 and 1.0.4b2 which was a very good thing. I've also changed my playstyle some as I learn the game more so that's probably had some effect. In previous games, I couldn't not spiral into the red so something seems to be working.
I'm generally maintaining a decent surplus. Enough to colonize and build a small space port at every planet as fast as I could build ships until I hit around 30-40 colonies and had to start expanding my fleet.
I like the change so that colony ships are built at faster planets, not just the closest. I missed that in the notes and was manually building ships for a while which led to an odd observation. If I had an unassigned colony ship being built, I could assign it to colonize an ocean planet at the expansion builder while it was still in the build queue, but I could not assign it to a continental planet. Also, when I had basic colonization (CL-100) ships I built on my home race's worlds could also colonize continental planets, but ships built on a Zenox world I found could only colonize continentals. I like the mechanic, but it's somewhat confusing to discover and don't recall reading that in the race notes. Perhaps that should be added as a characteristic for each race that does something similar. It's mentioned offhand in the description.
I was tired and did something reaaaaaally stupid. I had just had an autosave so figured I'd just reload. The reload failed, I got an error that there wasn't enough memory for the working set. Exiting the game and restarting allowed me to load the savegame though. I've found that I can't reload after running a game this size at all, I must first exit completely. Even exiting to the game menu gives the memory error. (XP 32-bit, 4[3.25 usable)GB RAM, 4GB, pagefile) I have not gotten to try this with any smaller games.
Mid-game lag at the galaxy level is mostly gone with not showing commercial ships. I can even see the galaxy instead of a multi-colored blob! [&o]
Auto-design is not using my racial tech. I've only just realized this fairly late, but none of my vessels are getting the NovaCore NX-700. I first noticed when reviewing some bases and noticed a warning that it didn't have enough power, then saw it was using researched tech for the reactor and not the NX-700 on any vessel. Clicking "Upgrade Selected" does use the NX-700. Of course, the drive is reverted with the next auto-design pass.
As was previously mentioned by others, construction ships sent to refit get stuck and don't do anything except clog the planet's queue. I realized after sending them all for a refit and not having any construction ships for several game years...[:@]
I'm now at year 2779 with 115 colonies in 83 systems. I have a total of 60 military vessels. 30 of which I just queued to build when I realized I was at war... (I missed the declaration popup!?)[&:] (War and Sanctions is set to manual) Ship building is set to suggest, and it probably should have suggested a few more ships, especially since I've got a consistent decent surplus of cashflow. Even more so since I'm at war and the other empire has 5x the military strength.
I was prompted 3 times to build a resupply ship. I finally allowed it to do so, and the dang thing is sitting there where it was built doing nothing. For the past 10 years. Why was I prompted to build such a beast if it wasn't going to be used? In previous games, they were sent out and used right away.
Overall, much improved. By improved, I mean a smoother game. The economy's not jumping all over the place from -200k to +1m and back with me just sitting here watching. Culture levels seem to be stable. I have two just over 100, many at 100, and the rest are climbing. 1.0.3 and 1.0.4b2 had a few planets well over 100 (150-180) and the rest bouncing from 5-60. More experienced players could certainly use some adjustments to make cashflow a bit tighter, but for a new player to jump in and consistently go deep in the red for several game years and not be able to do a thing no matter how they played at the start... that needed fixed and I'm glad to see it was done.
And just to add a thought on late-game cashflow drain, implement a minimum troop level per planet as garrison/militia forces. One reason I've had such good cashflow is playing nice with everyone and recruiting no new troops.
