Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Cauldyth
1) Can we see a screenshot of what's in Show Event History for a character?
2) Do you mind if I name my firstborn Kweeki Woppit?

Sure, I'll post one for you later today.

No objection at all, but I'd love to see the birth certificate. [:D]

Regards,

- Erik

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

ORIGINAL: LoBaron
Only thing I hope is that late game the Character part doesn´t end in a micro management clickfest and can be automated as well
as the rest of DW.

The AI and Automation does know how to handle all the new features including characters, so if you don't want to handle this it will manage them for you and assign them to logical positions, etc.

Regards,

- Erik

Thats great news Erik!
Thank you!

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller
There are some nice looking new icons above the mini-map. Care to fill us in on their function?

Sure. From left to right:

Show Fleet Postures, Show Travel Vectors, Show Potential Colonies, Show Scenic Locations, Show Research Locations, Show Long Range Scanners, Show Empire Influence.

Regards,

- Erik

Hei Erik, think there's any chance of seeing more gameplay sliders or editable config files with some settings in this expansion or one of its patches/updates? I'd really love to have the ability to scale up/down the pace/speed of different stuff like hypersengines, regular engines, spaceship construction, fuel usage, etc. Kinda like how the research slider works now.

This would help control the pace of the game for those of us who would like some aspects of the game to be slower/faster.

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

The lag issue is often caused by capturing video at the same time as playing the game, but I think the lag in the original videos will not show up in the new Legends video thanks to better hardware and better game performance.

Regards,

- Erik

I used Fraps to make my video for the Archer Era Mod. http://www.youtube.com/user/igard81?feature=mhee#p/u/1/na9FSN1XoFw

Came out very smooth on an older release. I had to change a setting to get to work though. I had to check monitor desktop aero.

Hi everyone,

A few answers from Elliot on the previous questions:

But can I ask, are we limited on the number of character images we can have in game, or is it as open as the characters themselves?

There is no limit on the number of predefined characters in the files in characters folder, and they can all have unique images. So no limit on custom character images.

It's simply the case that one my Core2Duo E8400 using carriers is not really feasible currently, because once they launch their 100+ fighters (which isn't so much for a proper carrier fleet) and they all start to shoot in a larger game, the game slows down to a crawl until it is nearly unplayable. I'd suspect that computing the position deltas could be perfectly parallelized (for example on a per-sector basis) without running too much into synchronity problems and I guess that this alone represents quite bit of processing load in this game. What do you think?

We've done a lot of work on performance in Legends. Performance on your system should be much better, especially in battles.

Regards,

- Erik

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

But can I ask, are we limited on the number of character images we can have in game, or is it as open as the characters themselves?

There is no limit on the number of predefined characters in the files in characters folder, and they can all have unique images. So no limit on custom character images.

Now that sounds way cool. I can think of a few folks I intend have!
This is going to be very neat!

Thanks Eric! Man you guys know how to treat your customers right! [&o] 

G'day Eric,

Leaders implementation is looking very good. Great that you and Elliot are having a shot at tweaking the resources side as well.

There is no limit on the number of predefined characters in the files in characters folder, and they can all have unique images. So no limit on custom character images.

A couple of questions regarding the ability to mod / predefine leaders.

1. If you predefine a leaders I assume that you'd have to specify his characteristics, eg. colony approval rating +6%.

You've indicated that new characters turn up in the game with unknown characteristics. Is there a way to predefine characters and provide some measure of randomisation so that you, the player, don't know before hand that, for example, 'Admiral Flash Gordon' is always going to be Fleet countermeasures +20% every time he turns up in a game because that is the way he has been predefined?

2. Along the same lines you've mentioned that characters can have a mix of good and bad characteristics. Is there some means of selectively randomising the good / bad mix with predefined characters so that good 'ole Admiral Flash isn't always defect free?

3. This one isn't a question, more of thought bubble on randomising predefined leaders.

If it was a totally random then there wouldn't be much point in predefining leaders apart from providing a name and image (although both are good reasons in themselves) but perhaps there is - or will be - a mechanism where you could weight the randomisation algorithims in a certain direction?


Cheers,
Lancer

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Show Fleet Postures, Show Travel Vectors, Show Potential Colonies, Show Scenic Locations, Show Research Locations, Show Long Range Scanners, Show Empire Influence.

Regards,

- Erik

All without leaving the main interface . And then I can tell them to begone.

^ Agreed. Small, but extremely useful switches.

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

ORIGINAL: lancer

G'day,

@AdamSolo & Evil Steve - As a player I too would like a more challenging resource distribution. I think the problem comes from the ... computer... not having the capacity to deal with this. If it comes down to a slight challenge for me versus a massive handicap for the computer I'll want to stick with the way it is.

I'll also put my hand up for a more challenging resource distribution.

I really don't think it would be that hard to implement. Leave everything - resource wise - as is and provide a slider for the player to adjust at the start of the game.

Tweaking the slider simply provides a multiplier to all your resource costs. A higher setting would have everything cost twice or three times as much (eg. instead of needing 3 lead for a component you now need 6 or even 9). All of a sudden resources mean something and you'd probably find yourself hitting shortages.

Doesn't affect the AI at all. Same amount of resources are still on the map and their costs haven't changed, only the players.

Just a thought.

Cheers,
Lancer

Although your resource multiplier proposal (e.g. 6 carbon instead of 3) would turn resources less abundant alright, and it would probably be simple to implement, it would however only lead the player to feel the need to build more mining stations and invest more in faster mining techs. Although that would require the player to invest more on resources extraction that was not my point.

Resources should be spread unevenly across the galaxy and some of them should be made rarer to find. This would put more emphasis on eXploration and eXpansion phases and the player would be forced to make more challenging decisions (like building a colony very far away from the rest of the empire, or inside the heart of their not-so-friendly race borders). So, in order to use some advanced components, more advanced bases and ships you would be forced to expand more carefully, seek trade, and if you'd need a particular resource badly then your only choice would be war.

So, it's not a question of making it harder to extract resources in your empire only, it is about forcing the player to seek resources outside their borders. Maybe some resources could be obtained through trade with a particular race, but if the race is not willing to do trade with you maybe they would understand your reasons better through other means ... Now this would be my idea of fun.

+1 as well.

I also like the like this idea of having the ability to change the resource distribution and making some resources significantly more rare. It would definitely add a very interesting strategic dimension. Decreasing the speed in which resources are produced brings us 60% of the way there in my opinion, so this is a great new feature.

Right? In comparison to other forums, companies and people, Eric has been downright... angelic.

Eric, about the planets, as an example from this forum, Igards' Planet Textures come to mind http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2537349. Also, it would be nice to see them more alive, mobile with clouds... But that would hit performance, wouldn't it?

+10 to the comments on Eric being angelic here. For me this also rationalizes the non-sale pricing policy of matrix. As valve recently put it, it's not about the price, it's about the service. The service here is that there is direct communication with the devs. Cool. Where else can I get that for a few euros?

Regarding the multi-threading support - that sounds really cool. At the same time it's really one of those areas where going a bit more easy on the distribution of source code could help. I am sure there would be people who could, after signing an NDA and stuff, help out a bit with optimization things. Or with AI. I would have liked to do (both of) it (when I was less swamped with work - currently it's a bit on the extreme side, unfortunately).

But anyway, kudos both to the developers and matrix for doing this game, continuing to develop it, and for distributing it! I hope there will be more expansions, and eventually a Distant Worlds 2. But please, don't go 3D, stick to sprites (or 2D-polygons) and concentrate on the actual gameplay and modability!

+100 to everything YourConscience said [:D]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

The new Ship Vectors, when turned on, allow you to see the destination of all of your ships in transit. I find this increases your awareness of what's going on in your empire significantly and I now play with this overlay on all the time. Other new overlays include Fleet Postures, Potential Colonies, Scenic Locations, Research Locations, Long Range Scanners and Sphere of Influence. You can have all, some or none of these turned on. With these new overlays, we are making it possible to do more on the main game map without extra clicks or the need to drill down into some of the more detailed screens and options.

This is awesome stuff. So, apparently it will be possible now to better track where fleets are (in all that swarm of ships). Ship vectors are nice, sometimes I feel the need to know where ships are going (moving to Y496, X597 it's not nice Potential colonies right there in the main map is key for late expansion. Good one.

Regarding spheres of influence, what exactly are their purpose? The odds for foreign colonies to flip? Is that all? Or do they also mark space as regions where military ships should not enter without affecting relations with aggressive races, like neutral zones? Thanks.

ORIGINAL: adamsolo

This is awesome stuff. So, apparently it will be possible now to better track where fleets are (in all that swarm of ships). Ship vectors are nice, sometimes I feel the need to know where ships are going (moving to Y496, X597 it's not nice Potential colonies right there in the main map is key for late expansion. Good one.

Actually, this bring up an idea. Many ship vectors can be very confusing to keep track on. Could you please make it so that larger ships/fleets get brighter vectors? so that traders or other insignificant ships get barely visible vectors, but your three main fleets, or those of the enemy, get fat, a brightly visible ones?

@YourConscience

If you check the pics on the first page you can see that ship vectors for civilian ships only show when you zoom in enough, like you currently would zoom in to see civ ships.  So, civ ship vectors won't probably show at "normal" zoom levels. Only military ships, explorers, resupply ships etc. vectors are seen always.

Are you kidding me?

This company gets an A+ from me. When I worked in a 'business environment', I did not see anything like this... and they had thousands of dollars at stake...
AND what is more, I am convinced this is a little ma and pa company, which makes this even more amazing.

If we ever do have a DW get-together -- not likely since we are all over the globe -- I would happily by several rounds of drinks to Eric and Elliot and most of the people on this forum...

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

Are you kidding me?

This company gets an A+ from me. When I worked in a 'business environment', I did not see anything like this... and they had thousands of dollars at stake...
AND what is more, I am convinced this is a little ma and pa company, which makes this even more amazing.

If we ever do have a DW get-together -- not likely since we are all over the globe -- I would happily by several rounds of drinks to Eric and Elliot and most of the people on this forum...

I'll second that TJ......

......as long as Han Solo is NOT sitting at my table!