Distant Worlds 2 Christmas 2019 Sneak Peek!

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Katarkus87
Did you think of it, to set up an official Distant Worlds Discord Server for General Interaction with the Community?
You could reach more People nowadays and stuff like Bug Reports, Mod Discussions and Patch Notes could be handled over there.

I'm sure we will as we get closer to release, but for now we're looking to keep things on the forum. With that said, if you all want to setup an unofficial community discord feel free.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: larrybush
Erik, can you talk about the reveal schedule with us? maybe in terms of what systems design features will be discussed/revealed in the first quarter of 2020, second, third etc.?

Not yet, but I expect we'll be able to give you a better idea of what's coming in the new year. We're not really in the marketing cycle yet as far as having a constant drumbeat of promotion, there's still too much development and testing to do fora that, but we wanted to be sure to give you a sneak peek and let you know that we will be done sometime in 2020.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: larrybush
One other little thing Erik - I think your on holiday but I'll ask anyway!
Should I continue to master DW Universe modding to give me an edge when DW2 comes out - or will DW universe be totally superseded and I'm wasting my time?

While DW2's files are quite different in most cases, understanding the different pieces of the game and how they fit together is certainly of value. Knowing the exact file structure will not be all that helpful but understanding all the pieces will.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: OnePercent
The designs I've currently seen are nice, are all the 3D designs inspired by the 2D art from DW:U of the specific race designs for stations and starships, in order to keep with the DW aesthetic? I'm not familiar with Mortalan or Akdarian 2D designs so maybe other posters could weigh in on what we've aready seen. [8D]

In some respects they are influenced by it. For DW2 we did go back to the drawing board quite literally and with the help of Richard, our Art Director, decided on a general style and theme for each of the DW2 factions pretty early on. Then as we worked with the 3D modelers and character artist these became more fleshed out over time. I think folks who were very familiar with a faction in DW1 will find that the spirit and theme of that faction is intact in DW2, but they hopefully look much better and more unique and are more fully realized than in DW1.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Yoda3131

Hello Erik and everyone,
Thanks a lot for the work and the dream: DWU is the best game I've ever played. Ever. (Despite the interface...)

Thank you! [8D]

I'm glad with everything I've just read. The size of the ships' hull is the only thing I'm disappointed with. For example, the idea that my own imagination was the only limit to the size development of my stellar bases was so tremendous and exceptional in a video game. I understood why you decided to develop this new game option, but I have two questions about the size of the hulls:
- Will the updates allow us to upgrade the size of the last ships' hulls we will have researched?

I'm not entirely sure I understand the question, but in general the way it works is that as in DW1 your progression in Construction research allows you access to larger hulls for both ships and stations, as well as new hulls and in effect new roles. You can increase/retrofit previous ships and stations within certain limits as you go.

- Will there be some megastructures ready for the players to obtain as soon as the game is released ("deathstar", "armed moon", etc.)?

I can't comment on these yet, unfortunately.

Thanks again for everything and Merry Christmas!

To you and yours as well!

[Erik Rutins]

Hi everyone,

I may not be posting much more until I am officially "back to work" on January 6th, but I wanted to leave you with a few more points regarding ship design and ship hulls, as there are a number of reasons that influenced our decision design-wise to go with ship hulls in DW2.

We believe the current system still allows for a lot of design flexibility, especially in the larger ships, but it is certainly a limitation compared to DW1's "no limits but size" ship design. The DW1 system also had some issues though.

The first consideration we had was balance, which is not a huge concern in a single-player game, but it does have an effect especially where the AI is concerned. The AI in DW2 is significantly smarter than the AI in DW1, but it's still not a human player. "Extreme" designs in DW1 were certainly one of the major weak points for the AI as it could not always correctly assess the strength of such designs or make good use of them itself. Allowing ship hulls and a more meaningful and realistic system of hulls and roles helps the AI be able to compete better with human ship design and in general in space combat. Balance is also a consideration should DW2 at any point in the future support multi-player and this system will help there as well.

A second consideration was the 3D side. We wanted to have a nice 3D environment with nice 3D ships that you could look at both far away and up close. The investment in 3D simply doesn't make sense if everything is going to shoot its weapons from a central point through the hull. As soon as you look at that from any relatively close distance, it's going to look bad. So you need some way to have external points for weapons and once you specify those, you need some kind of weapon mount or turret and ideally it should be able to rotate and fire in a way that looks realistic and cool. Then you need specific places for engines, maybe also things like defenses and sensors, etc. The end result of all this guides you towards a system that allows for the external visualization of component choices, which in turn guides you to component slots or design bays.

A third consideration is increasing the number of meaningful design choices for the player. This is something that differentiation between hulls and roles and specialization choices within those hulls and roles helps to enable. We wanted Escorts, Frigates, Destroyers, etc. to have a purpose in the mid and late game as well both on their own and within the context of a fleet. We also wanted you to have some choices to make within each hull and role about how to best achieve your design goals, without limiting you too strictly. One of the things we haven't discussed much yet are the changes in some component category sizes, resulting in components such as reactors, engines and shields among others realistically taking up a bit more space, as well as weapons coming in a larger variety of sizes, ranging from fighter and point defense weapons to standard weapons, medium weapons and heavy weapons. There's also variation in that each faction's hulls are somewhat different and each faction also has more unique technologies than in DW1 (more on that when we discuss research). For most hulls and ship roles, once you have a good bit of research done, there are a lot of choices to be made within each design bay category, within each hull and within each role about what you want your ships to do and whether a design is better suited to operate independently or is design to fill a particular role within a fleet.

Finally, while it's too early to discuss or commit to exactly what will be moddable for the initial release, our hope is as always that within our design there will be a combination of choices and options that will allow your preferred playstyle to be possible. If at the end of the day you still disagree with the direction we've taken, we're expect over the course of time to make more and more modding possible as well to allow DW2 to match everyone's wishes in the end.

Regards,

- Erik

[btd64]

Merry Christmas Elliot and Erik....GP

[Anonymous]

[Deleted by Admins]

[Webbco]

Nice! Cheeky Christmas Eve post before your break for holiday...thank you, Erik!

[LordMM]

The ship designs and art work is amazing. My only little concern is if my little old computer will be able to handle it.

[stuart3]

Thanks for the response Erik. Merry Christmas to all.

[Retreat1970]

Balance is also a consideration should DW2 at any point in the future support multi-player and this system will help there as well.

Sad yet hopeful.

I like the external points for features (guns), but I still foresee blobs of ships fighting blobs of ships like DWU.

[Cauldyth]

Thanks for the Christmas Eve gift, Erik. Happy holidays!

[OnePercent]

The concept art and the differences between various equipped hulls is awesome!!! as a long time SOTS fan this is exactly up my ally for a 4x ship management concept, so excited [&o]

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

Balance is also a consideration should DW2 at any point in the future support multi-player and this system will help there as well.

Sad yet hopeful.

I like the external points for features (guns), but I still foresee blobs of ships fighting blobs of ships like DWU.

I would think that an unprovoked mention of multiplayer would raise your hope quite a bit. At least it has been in their mind when creating the foundations of the game

[swizzlewizzle]

Looks absolutely wonderful.

Two small questions - will ships, especially the larger ones, be able to target multiple targets at the same time and split their fire? It would look quite silly to see a mega dreadnaught with 1000 weapons on it being forced to focus fire on a tiny corvette, for example.

Additionally, will we have the ability to set up target prioritizations for turrets in the design menu, or is that something that would need to be added after launch? Ie. Ability to set a flak cannon to prioritize shooting missiles and then fighters second - this would be especially important for weapons that are more flexible.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Thanks for all the bits of information... I must say that I like all the things I hear so far, they really speak to what I would like to see in DW2.

The Hull system really seem to be much more sound than the very free system in DW1. I certainly agree that something being free does not necessarily give you more actual options for design.

[Retreat1970]

I would think that an unprovoked mention of multiplayer would raise your hope quite a bit. At least it has been in their mind when creating the foundations of the game

It sort of does, but not being included at launch and possibly added as a patch doesn't bode well in my mind.

[Jorgen_CAB]

ORIGINAL: Retreat1970

I would think that an unprovoked mention of multiplayer would raise your hope quite a bit. At least it has been in their mind when creating the foundations of the game

It sort of does, but not being included at launch and possibly added as a patch doesn't bode well in my mind.

I'm more satisfied that the game is balanced as a single player game first. When a game become balanced for MP they often become boring to me as everything needs to be perfectly balanced and fine which remove allot of fun role-playing and means to play sub optimal factions for fun.

As long as MP does not turn the game into a competition set I don't mind MP being added.

[Retreat1970]

Yeah it's an old argument that I lost a long time ago (SP and MP).

I just want a challenge. SP will never challenge like a person. I won't bring it up again I Promise.