ORIGINAL: adamsolo
In my games I always feel the need to get a break of the game master-time to be able to manage my ships free from game master-time worries (pirates, ships ending missions, other events). It's a bit distracting. I know by fact that I'm not alone on this request however I agree that this would need to be weighted against other priorities and needs. It is by all means not a major issue, but it would definitely be nice to have.
When I'm playing in a larger galaxy and have most parts of the game set to my control, I often find myself running at 0.25x or 0.5x speed and pausing frequently. I like to watch large battles unfold at 0.25x, it's definitely more fun than having them flash by at 2x or 4x speed.
It's good to hear that blurriness will be addressed. Font sizes, well, I run a 1280x1024 resolution on a 17 inch LCD monitor. Not the best resolution i know, should use 1024x768, but 1280x1024 is still a good resolution for 17 inch Erik. But I'll try playing DW in 1024x768 to see if it helps.
It's not ideal as LCD monitors typically have one ideal resolution and things don't look great at other resolutions, but the only option to increase text size right now is a bigger monitor or a lower resolution. I play at 1920x1080 on a 23" screen and the text is fine for me, but I completely understand the desire to have larger text. We've actually tried to add more interface elements that rely less on text since the original release, but there's enough detail in the game that you can't get away from it.
That better fleet management and more intelligent fuel management should be enough. For instance right now on Shakturi you know that sometimes ships don't refuel in resupply ships. And they head to other places than to the resupply ship on their own fleet when we instruct them to refuel at nearest point (yes, re-supply ships are deployed). Regarding the need of a tanker, don't feel it here. That need did cross my mind once or twice I confess, but I do like the idea of having to establish re-supply stations in gas giants or stars.
We did improve on this, it's been one of my pet peeves as well. Hopefully you'll find the behavior better in Legends.
I think your DW resources (strategic and luxuries) are great. And the technology dependence on certain resources (components dependence on resources) is brilliant. However, in my view you don't take advantage of all that power. In my games I never feel any lack of resources (it's just a matter of time till freighters get them around). So, I was never not allowed to build whatever I wanted. This seems like fun because there are no restrictions, but in a strategy game it is in fact the opposite. Resources need to be scarcer and possibly spread unevenly throughout the galaxy. This would lead to more careful trading decisions and to war (and this is why in my opinion some people complain that DW is still too peaceful). So, in order to spice up the game and turn it even more strategically-rich the game should feature an option at game start to instruct the game how rare resources should be and possibly also how uneven they should be spread across the galaxy. If more-peaceful folks want it like it is now, then they would not need to tweak these options. I know this is not something that can be implemented over night. There's a ton of balancing that would need to be done to make it work. I guess this is something that could be considered for DW2.
As it happens, we agree and we decreased the mining rate pretty significantly as part of the design for Legends. We're still balancing and adjusting this, but I think resources will be a more significant part of gameplay than they were before. We also have the new faction-specific strategic resources that add bonuses to each faction if they are available.
Regards,
- Erik
