Distant Worlds 2 Christmas 2019 Sneak Peek!

[Jorgen_CAB]

I already consider Distant Worlds to be one of the ultimate classic space 4x games... all I have heard of DW2 so far just seems like this is going to be the best space 4x game out there on the market.

I will eagerly await more information on the other parts of the game but I think you already exceeded my expectations with what I heard and seen so far... keep up the good work.

[jezwhywhy]

- Erik

Thanks for the reply, Goodluck <3

[Kull]

I have a feeling that Erik is having a lot of fun playtesting DW2....... [:)]

[Drumline2]

Hey Erik! Just wanted to say thank you to the best Christmas present, announcing DW2 for all of us to enjoy and fan girl over.

Three quick questions for now. All graphical.

1) In DWU the shield graphics were a nice basic image showing shields were being hit and from what direction. Do you have plans, now that DW2 is running in a 3d engine,
to have the new shield graphic be a little more visually pleasing? I know its really specific but I loves me some nice shield animations. I find myself returning to MOO2
for their tactical combat just because of how pleasing they were to watch.

2) Now that hangars will have a visual place on a ships 3D model, will fighters exiting and entering the ship come from and return to the actual hangar on the vessel?

3) DWU has probably one of my favorite damage indication models in any game i've played. Will DW2 have some kind of iteration of this system that shows at a glance when a ship is starting to be in trouble?


Love your work on this fantastic game!!!

[Cauldyth]

ORIGINAL: Kull

I have a feeling that Erik is having a lot of fun playtesting DW2....... [:)]

Time to buy a telephoto lens and find out where Erik lives...

That's not creepy, right?

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: larrybush
With a 64 bit full 3D engine I suppose that infers the star maps are full 3D the tactical combat area are full 3D. This could be truly immersive.

I can't discuss combat yet, but we tried to strike a balance between allowing ships to move in 3D without causing too much confusion for the player.

Huh, considering how much alive is the DW1 map, how is that even possible ?!?

[BlueTemplar]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: tortugapower
In DW1 we put on weapons and they all fired in every direction from ship center (IIRC). With the 3-D layout of design slots, will the placement of a specific component affect its usage? For instance:
1. Will component placement matter with considerations for things like firing arcs?

Yes, we wanted to allow you to see your ships up close and far away, as in DW1, so this necessitated a solution that would work design-wise for gameplay and also visually. Weapon bays are at a specific point on the ship and you can see this in the design screen, along with the arc for that weapon bay. The arcs are usually fairly generous, but you do have a choice now when you design a ship based on which weapons bays you use which directions(s) you want to focus that ship's firepower.

2. How do the armor components work: will there be strong and weak points to the ship (where armor was/wasn't placed), or does adding any armor effectively act like an armor slider, where more armor slots increase armor everywhere? Or is it an internal slot that still takes damage first?

Armor goes in your defense bays and each armor component could be considered as the equivalent of many DW1 armor components in terms of its strength. Unless a weapon that hits your ship is capable of bypassing armor, the hit will go on the armor first and only if it blows through the reactive rating and the armor rating (or if you have no armor) will it potentially carry over to an internal component. With that said, final armor balance and function is one of the things we're still tinkering with and will continue to do so during testing. Armor bays do not cover only one portion of the ship. Any armor is considered to protect the entire ship.

Wait, I assumed from your previous answer that there was no such thing as firing arcs (tied to weapon position on the ship) ?!?
So, weapons are directional, but shields/armor(/components/hull) aren't ?

[Hanekem]

That sounds extremely disappointing Erik, I think the max hull size limitation was one of the best things of Distant worlds, now having hulls we have to research? Its incredibly bad, it is what all other games have always done and it is *restrictive*
Admittedly the interface needed rework, but this? sounds like going in the wrong direction

Same goes for the cheap 3D, I prefer a more pleasing 2D than something that looks out of, dunno 2005? that wouldn't have been out of place from Space Empires 5

[Webbco]

"...the max hull size limitation was one of the best things of Distant worlds."

Out of all the things about DW1, you would seriously say this is one of the best things?

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Kull
I have a feeling that Erik is having a lot of fun playtesting DW2....... [:)]

There's far less time for playing than you might think. [:)]

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Drumline2
1) In DWU the shield graphics were a nice basic image showing shields were being hit and from what direction. Do you have plans, now that DW2 is running in a 3d engine,
to have the new shield graphic be a little more visually pleasing? I know its really specific but I loves me some nice shield animations. I find myself returning to MOO2
for their tactical combat just because of how pleasing they were to watch.

The new shield effects effectively show a portion of the shield "sphere" around the ship when it takes a hit, in the location where the hit comes in, so I think it looks pretty cool. Effects are not final yet though, so you'll have to wait until we are ready to show some combat with non-placeholder effects to see all that stuff.

2) Now that hangars will have a visual place on a ships 3D model, will fighters exiting and entering the ship come from and return to the actual hangar on the vessel?

Yes indeed and with the new ship design system, if you don't put anything in the hangar design bay, the ship looks like there was never meant to be a hangar there. If you add it in, suddenly there's a nice hangar for your starfighters to enter and exit.

3) DWU has probably one of my favorite damage indication models in any game i've played. Will DW2 have some kind of iteration of this system that shows at a glance when a ship is starting to be in trouble?

Yes, but again we can't show any of that yet.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
Time to buy a telephoto lens and find out where Erik lives...
That's not creepy, right?

Arming my Titan Beam defenses... [;)]

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
Huh, considering how much alive is the DW1 map, how is that even possible ?!?

You're going to have to wait until we're ready to show it for me to elaborate further unfortunately.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Hanekem
That sounds extremely disappointing Erik, I think the max hull size limitation was one of the best things of Distant worlds, now having hulls we have to research? Its incredibly bad, it is what all other games have always done and it is *restrictive*
Admittedly the interface needed rework, but this? sounds like going in the wrong direction

I have to respectfully disagree, but you are certainly entitled to your opinion. I'm pretty sure that if you actually give it a try you will like it though. DW1 still had max size limitations, they just weren't connected to hulls. As I explained above, it's not actually that different in practice, you just can't call a Frigate-sized vessel a Battleship.

Same goes for the cheap 3D, I prefer a more pleasing 2D than something that looks out of, dunno 2005? that wouldn't have been out of place from Space Empires 5

Certainly, bad 3D can be much worse than good 2D, but that's not the case here at all in my opinion. To each his own but I find DW2 much more visually pleasing and informative than DW1. I'd just ask you to take a second look and give it a try hopefully. I understand the information you have is limited to what we've put out, but I hope we have also earned some benefit of the doubt on this and it is its own game. When all the graphical work is done, I'm also pretty darn sure it will look better than any sci-fi 4x games from 2005.

Regards,

- Erik

[tomassus]

Awsome work guys!! Can't wait for release - you have my money already

[Hanekem]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: Hanekem
That sounds extremely disappointing Erik, I think the max hull size limitation was one of the best things of Distant worlds, now having hulls we have to research? Its incredibly bad, it is what all other games have always done and it is *restrictive*
Admittedly the interface needed rework, but this? sounds like going in the wrong direction

I have to respectfully disagree, but you are certainly entitled to your opinion. I'm pretty sure that if you actually give it a try you will like it though. DW1 still had max size limitations, they just weren't connected to hulls. As I explained above, it's not actually that different in practice, you just can't call a Frigate-sized vessel a Battleship.

Same goes for the cheap 3D, I prefer a more pleasing 2D than something that looks out of, dunno 2005? that wouldn't have been out of place from Space Empires 5

Certainly, bad 3D can be much worse than good 2D, but that's not the case here at all in my opinion. To each his own but I find DW2 much more visually pleasing and informative than DW1. I'd just ask you to take a second look and give it a try hopefully. I understand the information you have is limited to what we've put out, but I hope we have also earned some benefit of the doubt on this and it is its own game. When all the graphical work is done, I'm also pretty darn sure it will look better than any sci-fi 4x games from 2005.

Regards,

- Erik

Why not? a frigate is a hull with a type of mission, as a game changes the mission might change, look at irw derstroyers! if we use rigid definitions those things are somewhere in the land of Cruisers by displacement if not by mission

I mean hull classification is something that *changes* and being able to do that in game was one of the joys of the game for me.
So a frigate could be for me a cheap patrol boat to be built in truly ridiculous numbers, but over time I could decide I could use the slot for a heavier type of combatant, maybe one for deep range raiding.

HEll, maybe my destroyers start balooning and end up eating up the cruisers or end up with two clases of ships of similar size but very different mission profiles (one heavy capital escort designed with point defense and EW warfare in mind to serve as escorts to my battlewagons and another that is more flexible generalist that isn't really meant for the battleline but in the direst of circumstances)

I mean that is how I used the five slots in the game.
I understand that having hulls might actually make easier, specially for the AI designer, and I could accept that but I at least hope we won't be having "fleet destroyer" or "escort destroyer" as hull names, at the most I 'd prefer "light ship type-a" or something as generic as that

As for the 3d, what I've seen hasn't wow me away, tbh doesn't look good, it might be better than something circa 2005, but feels inferior to the 2ds. but that is mostly my subjective interpretation I could very well be in a minority

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Hanekem

Why not? a frigate is a hull with a type of mission, as a game changes the mission might change, look at irw derstroyers! if we use rigid definitions those things are somewhere in the land of Cruisers by displacement if not by mission

I mean hull classification is something that *changes* and being able to do that in game was one of the joys of the game for me.
So a frigate could be for me a cheap patrol boat to be built in truly ridiculous numbers, but over time I could decide I could use the slot for a heavier type of combatant, maybe one for deep range raiding.

HEll, maybe my destroyers start balooning and end up eating up the cruisers or end up with two clases of ships of similar size but very different mission profiles (one heavy capital escort designed with point defense and EW warfare in mind to serve as escorts to my battlewagons and another that is more flexible generalist that isn't really meant for the battleline but in the direst of circumstances)

I mean that is how I used the five slots in the game.
I understand that having hulls might actually make easier, specially for the AI designer, and I could accept that but I at least hope we won't be having "fleet destroyer" or "escort destroyer" as hull names, at the most I 'd prefer "light ship type-a" or something as generic as that

As for the 3d, what I've seen hasn't wow me away, tbh doesn't look good, it might be better than something circa 2005, but feels inferior to the 2ds. but that is mostly my subjective interpretation I could very well be in a minority

I think we are all entitled to our opinion but I would also completely disagree with your viewpoint on this. First of we don't know how the mission system will be designed yet... you might very well be able to use a battleship hull as escorts for example. You might just going to be restricted on the hull type on what type of component you can put on them and in what ratios. You also have not yet seen the battle system, how it works and how smaller sized ships perhaps actually can be tactically effective now.

For example a small frigate probably can fit more engine components than a battleship in relation to its size. Making Frigates potentially faster and more manoeuvrable than a battleship hull.

Those are the kind of things I really are looking forward to.

In my opinion restriction is good because it actually give you more options not less, too many options is too difficult to balance and will usually reduce your "optimal" solutions to a few choices.

I mean... did you really build much of anything smaller than max size ships in DW1 (outside Bacon mod that is), if you did it was not really optimal. Perhaps somewhat smaller ships for escorts if you had them running all over the place escorting civilian ships.

[Hanekem]

ORIGINAL: Jorgen_CAB

ORIGINAL: Hanekem

Why not? a frigate is a hull with a type of mission, as a game changes the mission might change, look at irw derstroyers! if we use rigid definitions those things are somewhere in the land of Cruisers by displacement if not by mission

I mean hull classification is something that *changes* and being able to do that in game was one of the joys of the game for me.
So a frigate could be for me a cheap patrol boat to be built in truly ridiculous numbers, but over time I could decide I could use the slot for a heavier type of combatant, maybe one for deep range raiding.

HEll, maybe my destroyers start balooning and end up eating up the cruisers or end up with two clases of ships of similar size but very different mission profiles (one heavy capital escort designed with point defense and EW warfare in mind to serve as escorts to my battlewagons and another that is more flexible generalist that isn't really meant for the battleline but in the direst of circumstances)

I mean that is how I used the five slots in the game.
I understand that having hulls might actually make easier, specially for the AI designer, and I could accept that but I at least hope we won't be having "fleet destroyer" or "escort destroyer" as hull names, at the most I 'd prefer "light ship type-a" or something as generic as that

As for the 3d, what I've seen hasn't wow me away, tbh doesn't look good, it might be better than something circa 2005, but feels inferior to the 2ds. but that is mostly my subjective interpretation I could very well be in a minority

I think we are all entitled to our opinion but I would also completely disagree with your viewpoint on this. First of we don't know how the mission system will be designed yet... you might very well be able to use a battleship hull as escorts for example. You might just going to be restricted on the hull type on what type of component you can put on them and in what ratios. You also have not yet seen the battle system, how it works and how smaller sized ships perhaps actually can be tactically effective now.

For example a small frigate probably can fit more engine components than a battleship in relation to its size. Making Frigates potentially faster and more manoeuvrable than a battleship hull.

Those are the kind of things I really are looking forward to.

In my opinion restriction is good because it actually give you more options not less, too many options is too difficult to balance and will usually reduce your "optimal" solutions to a few choices.

I mean... did you really build much of anything smaller than max size ships in DW1 (outside Bacon mod that is), if you did it was not really optimal. Perhaps somewhat smaller ships for escorts if you had them running all over the place escorting civilian ships.

Given Erik's reply? I mean I invite you to read the part of "not being able to call a frigate sized ship a battleship"

I did use extensively light, cheap combatants to serve as patrol assets they were meant to be everywhere and take the edge of pirate attacks and also a point defense heavy ship for escorting max size battlewagons carriers and troopships

so, yeas I built a few designs well below the max size mostly looking at my bottom line and my needs, hell the idea of a long range raider type ship I also did from time to time, fast long legged and with boarding pods, meant to take stations or destroy them, those ships tended to pay for themsleves

Hell, I could have used some different heavy ship classes, maybe some sort of short ranged coastal battleship/monitor type for core world defense, but given the AI it was difficult to not have those ships half way to nowhere, sometihng I hope DW2 will improve, letting us have more control on patrol areas and what not

Because again, ship type names are flexible in the real world, look at the destroyer it was born as a "torpedo boat" destroyer (hence the name) to intercept fast boats that had torpedoes and could ruin a capital ships's day, then it started action as a torpedo boat of sorts, then they added the ASW mission to it and of course AA and now you have ships that we call destroyers, are as big as WWII cruisers and can do a wide array of missions, from anti sub, anti air, anti ship to shore bombardment


That is why I am asking not being limited to having frigates are between size x-y not only because as the game progresses the size of my "fleet escort" might balloon (and make it feel I am progressing) but because it opens options to what I want to field

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Hanekem,

I understand how you did things in DW1. I can only say that I don't think you will find the new ship design system in DW2 quite as limiting as you think. The name of the ship hull also does not define what you decide to name the design, it's just the name for research purposes. How you design a ship and what size you choose for it to be, within the bounds of your construction research and how you use it are still going to be up to you.

Regards,

- Erik

[Katarkus87]

As a long time Player of DW1 (2013) i must say that im very pleased with these Screenshots i saw. Still would i like to ask some Questions about this potential Masterpiece in the Making.


- Will there be new Components to increase Empire Influence over nearby Systems? (for Starbases)

- Any Plans for an Ammunition System (Railguns,Torpedoes,Missiles) to increase importance of Resupply Ships and Ammo Storage Components for Ships and Starbases?

- Will it be possible for Colonies to Revolt against Player or AI because of Government Type? (f.E Colony X wants a Socialist Revolution instead of living under a Monarchy of the Player/AI)

- Can Player/AI charge Fee for Trade with other Empires to steer Relations in a Economic Way? (f.E as Ackdarian set 5% on Humans and 20% on Gizurean in Empire Policies)

- Can Player/AI enslave Minorities (or worse) in the Empire to Boost Construction Speed in General or field cheap Slave Armies? (Would be a nice Mechanic for a Evil Race like Dhayut or Boskara)