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Please allow me to set civilian ships to "flee when attacked" instead of an enforced setting of "flee when enemy military in sight" - I'm tired of dozens of civilian freighters jumping into warp all over the place at my starports and having my economy starve due to no incoming supply... just because a couple pirates regularly show up, which my starport can eliminate within seconds.

I would really like to see dual monitor support. That way the game can continue to run on monitor 1 while I have a chart or galaxy map open on monitor 2.

I'd also like the ability to set automated queues for more than just mines/resorts/colonies. For example, right click on an unexplored system or planet and choose the "explore" option and the nearest automated explorer will queue up an order to visit. Right click an enemy and choose "attack" or "capture" and a ship(s) will queue up the order. Right click any friendly target and choose "protect" to call in an escort. And I'm sure there are more actions that I'm forgetting. This would give a nice medium between micromanaging individual ships and setting all ships to automated.

Also, set rally points for star ports which would set all finished military ships to go to the specified location before performing any other actions.

ORIGINAL: BenLen

I would really like to see dual monitor support. That way the game can continue to run on monitor 1 while I have a chart or galaxy map open on monitor 2.

The game info is only in the main window, but I have no issues doing other stuff on a second monitor while the game runs. So depending on what your chart is, this could be possible.

ORIGINAL: BenLen

Also, set rally points for star ports which would set all finished military ships to go to the specified location before performing any other actions.

This is not so hard, as long as you build all the ships at the same time. Do your orders, open ship list and open/filter military ships on firepower. Your builds are on the top/bottom. Add them to a fleet. View the fleet and set the home base to wherever you want them to report, and disable the attack/wherever stances that are default to avoid them chasing something on AI initiative.

Finished ships will move to fleet leader, so make sure that the leader is at/near the home base to avoid silly moves early on. If you want to gather at a spaceport used for construction, just make sure one of the ships built there is fleet leader.

A good thing about renaming all "proper" fleets, is that temporary fleets like these are clearly separate form the "active ones".

To be able to "queue nearest explorer to explore this system" would be nice on system level. On a planet level it would possibly clutter things a bit.

Hello dear People, hello Mr. Rutins,

first of all, nice game!
Now I bought Shadows very quick because it sounds awesome and I am playing when time allows.

Here is my wishlist:

- With SHIFT queue move commands and any commands.

-With Control+ALT+Number save Screen Positions, with Alt+Number go there.

-In Shadows we have ships that are not showing where they are heading (showing the vector). It would be nice if we have lines here, indicating where they are heading (in sublight speed there is no vector).

-An Option to allow when zooming out, to zoom out from mouse position and not from the middle.

-Slider Bar to allow to set the time how long an Pop-Up Window stays. OR all Messages go smaller and stack up or move upwards and are smaller. So I do not to have to respond (kicl or read) the message instantly. Even when we pause the game, the Window disappears before it can be read all.

- A better Info box or at least a text info where the ship is now heading.
For instance a freighter is just saying what he is doing. Would be nice to read there also where it is hauling the cargo to.

- That everything is queueable- lets say telling a constructor ship to repair an dead ship.

- A filter where we can select the ship/base graphics easier. Lets say for instance some pictures are better suited for frigates than for bases..

- When we have fleets what is happening to the stance button that every ship has itself? is it ignored or not? it is hard to understand how fleets and ships behave. And the stance that is inactivated for ships that are in a fleet should be greyed out then..

- the option to change the way, ships are selected when they overlap.
It could be changed in the way that with the first click, one ships is selected. with a second click the next is selected and so on. this way one click is saved. and the first object selected should be always the biggest ship or station.

- in the quick menues at the bottom left, it would be nice to have the option to select the nearest idle ship. or say the button next idle ship is always selecting the nearest ship from the camera center position.

- enable to select multiple ships ALSO when they are only private. or only enemy. i wuld like to select them and then go through them in the window to the bottom left.

- when in the selection panel, having selected multiple ships or a fleet, to open the design screen with a right mouseclick (i look so many times in the design sheet that this would be a nice shortcut)

- a rightclick in the message panel (at the top) just selects the ship instead of jumping there. when for instance the ship is retrofitted and we are with our view at a specific place, this way we can select the produced or retrofitted or refueled ship and give it a command like to protect the target we look right at. for now we have to click at the message, the camera goes there, then go again back to where we want to have the ship (zoom out etc.) and then click there.

- ALSO, and in combination with the above, it would be nice, when a right click in the selection box, while a different object is selected, it would behave the same as when we would right click the object in the main view.
this would help also to give commands easier.
OF COURSE this is only working when the selection panel is behaving different:

- make the selection panel work different: when going back in history, DO NOT select the ship. The ship can be selected when left clicking in the selection panel.
OR when you want to keep it the way it is, make it so that when pressing ALT, it is not even selecting the object. Then it is possible to do what i wished one point above.
Expand the function a way even more: When pressing CONTROL it is even with the main view going there.

That are many new possibilities here with some adjustments. that would be awesome!
Because one of the biggest flaws is the selecting and commanding in this game.

- let the mouse wheel zoom up to the closest view. when pressing the + icon, you can go even 3 view closer. i like that close up!

- when dragging up a selection box, in the greater zoomed out view, no selecion box is shown

- in the queued text info (selection panel and other menues) it is saying that a construction ship is assigned to upgrade or whatever. if i want to stop or cancel, it would be nice that another click on the tab cancel that or the text tells us, WHAT ship is assigned to that task.


Thanks for listening and have fun creating and playing in this universe!

edited: changing text to make it readable. added the shift-wish at the top (priority number one) else points are not sorted as a priority. the latter points are also a big wish of mine.
-added zoom wish
-added drag box wish
-addid wish to see what constructor is queued to a task

I am a fresh in the game, maybe with fresh look. I waited for shadows to buy all parts. Bellow a few of my ideas, some simple enough for path, others for expansion or next game. I will be keeping you informed with a new ideas. I am playing without automation (well, explorers only in the later game)

Simple, but can solve me some stupid manual work:
a)I would want to have a possibility of muliselect leaders in characters screen and give them a new location. If I have 10 generals or admirals it can be annoying to switch them to a new attack fleet.

b)muliselect of units in planetary troops and characters screen. Very annoying when I must set garrison or ungarrison, move to transport per single unit. After each action dialogue is refreshed and I once again on the top of list... Agh... please kill me

c)selection of possible transport in combobox MUST not be refreshed after transfer. It caused me some stupid transfer errors.

d)maybe possibility of transferring to transport with selected combined arms ratio not per one unit, additionally to multiselect option?

e)filtering by type of unit and strength (I am often searching needed type of unit (armor for instance) with highest experience...

Other:
f)possibility of creation of fleet from one ship only, why not?

g)some mechanism, additional to colonize range, conquest range. Additional conquest range selection in game conditions preparation screens. When not in allowed range one could not have a possibility to attack, or after attack some kind of looting would appear(similar as for pirates). For me is stupid that I've limited myself setting 1 sector colonize range and can easily workaround in with conquest.

Some leaders ideas:
h)limit admirals/generals/scientists/governors in one location.
admirals one per ship or one per 500 size, min from that
generals : one per 4 units ?
additional limits: only one MASTER skill should be on charge, skills should not stack. And negative of others in the same location ALWAYS should decrease it (wrong executors in lower in commands)
or probably harder to implement: manually choose one GREAT commander of stack(can by change with slight delay for stack),bonuses of others added only ~50%, their minuses although ~100% It could cause some great thinking not "put all to one box" thinking

i)I would like to see some more tactics in space fights not go and kill or get killed... Some rules to set per ship or FORMATION in fleet(leaders per formation?) from right click on ship? Possibility of change behaviour from design there and add some fancy staff like defend position, defend ship, defend other formation,attack biggest, attack smaller targets etc,But probably too big change for this game, maybe DW2?

j)Add some differentiations for frigate,escorts/carriers/capital ships: similar as for carriers or supply ships. escorts for instance with natural bonus to speed bot with 3/5 of max size. frigate less bonus of speed with 4/5 size and bonus for single type of weaponry focus. Some percentage on engines must be fulfil for design...
Capital ships 10% bigger size, small penalty to speed, must have some fleet area bonuses.

k)some interaction in ground fights would be extremely nice! I have impact during space fight, why not on the ground? Some moo3 kind of stuff(it was great idea there, but unfortunately not polished) with evasive, massive attack etc. orders. LONGER fights, in years? Then player could chose massive attack with some additional penalties and people killed. In some proportions of units(on both sides) some attacks can be better then others during different moments of fights. This way gamer would give it some attention with pleasure. At the moment is unload troops and forget kind of thing.

l)migration policy: all settings for race, some bonuses from diversity and minuses from "not like your face" behaviour. Similar as on diplomacy screen. Changed often (happiness, cash and grow penalty) when relation with race empire would be changed. Currently I don't have a reason to play with it, so I do nothing. Maybe similar behaviour is partially in and I do not know ?

BR,
RW

My wishes:
- add an option to remove/randomize weapons graphics so we cannot guess at what is being used against you just by watching the battle (keep muzzle flash, missiles and explosions though)
- leave wrecks behind for reclamation
- add a system of tech upgrades pretty much like M.A.X. (Mechanized Assault and Exploration) where tech parameters could be infinitely upgraded (cost and/or time to get it done would increase ridiculously the higher you went). Make it so that any given player cannot have/build it all to the max...ever
- make us play against improved versions of Skynet...make it kill us in the nest roguelike style if it has an opportunity to do so. I am seeing too many pirates flying capitals that will not attack my space port...and I know they know where it is
- make it harder to detect, fix and acquire abandoned capitals and other ships with early tech.

After playing for some time, I can't recall all the important locations in the game or where I wanted to strike next. So for my wishlist:

• Possobility to set your own location markers on the map and name them yourself, also being able to switch visibility on and off
• In-game markers indicating battles (also with an small number on top, showing how many enemys I'm up against)
  -I'm aware that the game shows me enemy fleets, but I would like to have an extra indicator that is more flashy and easy to spot on the map, showing me all fights even with enemy ships not in a fleet and space creatures (also an option to turn visibility on and off wont hurt)
• Possibility to make in-game notes aka your own log (I'm tired of writing everything down on a paper or pause the game and switch to word)

Hope you like my ideas.

I know that this idea will change the rules of the game. But, let see :

Beam vs Solid weapon :

Beam weapon is capable of penetrating armor easily, but they must surpass the shield; while solid weapon will bypass the shield completely and attack the armor.

Now, rather than use the current "easily broken" armor, the armor should be change so they can stand against weapon like the current shield; while the shield should be change too so they can feel like a energy shield. Because until now, I feel like that the armor is useless, and easily broken while the shield is act like the HP / armor for your ships.

Hello, I just got the game so apologies if I haven't read all 54 pages of this thread yet.

It would be great if the Ship Build Order screen allowed you to specify where you want your ships built. Instead of building ships at main starbases which has plenty of resources on hand, the AI likes to build a good chunk of your fleet at far flung starports which have to wait months or years for construction materials to arrive.

Also related to this, it would help if you could refund the unbuilt ships without losing half the cost of the ship. The 50% cost penalty is rather stiff if you just placed the order a second ago and want to change your mind (or the AI's mind) about where to build those ships.

ORIGINAL: invaderzim

Hello, I just got the game so apologies if I haven't read all 54 pages of this thread yet.

It would be great if the Ship Build Order screen allowed you to specify where you want your ships built. Instead of building ships at main starbases which has plenty of resources on hand, the AI likes to build a good chunk of your fleet at far flung starports which have to wait months or years for construction materials to arrive.

Also related to this, it would help if you could refund the unbuilt ships without losing half the cost of the ship. The 50% cost penalty is rather stiff if you just placed the order a second ago and want to change your mind (or the AI's mind) about where to build those ships.

You are in luck! You can use the Construction Yards menu instead of the build order to choose specific shipyards to order from. The interface isn't quite as sleek as the build order one but it does the job.

Example : http://peecee.dk/uploads/062013/2013-06-03_175216.jpg

Distant Worlds is such a complex game, I wish there was a text box somewhere in the ui where we could write notes,maybe in the Messages Screen. It could be linked to a hotkey to make it appear.

You are in luck! You can use the Construction Yards menu instead of the build order to choose specific shipyards to order from. The interface isn't quite as sleek as the build order one but it does the job.

Example : http://peecee.dk/uploads/062013/2013-06-03_175216.jpg

Thanks, it rather defeats the purpose of the build orders page, but it does do the trick.

Another unrelated wish: An option to call off my starfighters and bombers once a ship has been boarded by assault pods. An option to tell my ships to use less firepower when attempting to capture ships would also be nice since my ships tend to blow things up instead of capturing them half the time.

Ships or Bases with fighter bays have an option to recall fighters. There should be an icon in the lower left panel for fighters. Clicking on that has options to launch fighters if they aren't already, or recall them if they are.

Yes, you can recall the fighters and bombers, but how do you keep them from launching again? No matter what I do, including changing all my fleet engagement stances to "attack only when attacked", the fighters launch again and continue to shoot the boarded ship.

to choose what pirate types play, maybe its in the game editor though

ORIGINAL: invaderzim
Yes, you can recall the fighters and bombers, but how do you keep them from launching again? No matter what I do, including changing all my fleet engagement stances to "attack only when attacked", the fighters launch again and continue to shoot the boarded ship.

Good point. Not sure about that one.

Not sure if this is the correct place to put this but here it goes. I read a while back that after Shadows, Codeforce would make one more expansion pack that is centered around the modding community (and maybe more if Shadows and that do well) but they'd also start making DW2. I've been wondering after I read that whether they'd be moving onto 3D engine or make a more refined and better engine that is based on 2D graphics. So, what my actual wish is, is that if Codeforce should move to 3D graphics, please do so carefully. Too many good games have been reduced to ash after moving onto 3D because that eats so much more resources that other areas of the game might take a blow from that.

Again, this is propably too early for this, but I wanted to share my thoughts on this and hear what you guys have been thinking about this if anything.

E: Doubles for some reason.

Sometimes I wonder if 10 missile launchers will cost more than 20 maxos blasters. And what will give me more bang for the buck, etc.

I'd like a column that shows me how much parts on the ship will cost. One for the individual part and one column for the total cost. Something like this would be awesome.

To support the ship capture mechanic, shield depletion weapons look to be an important contribution. That, or some game logic that allows ships to scale down their firepower when on a ship capture mission to use minimal force. Ideally, I don't want to overwhelmingly damage the ship or base I'm trying to capture. A little damage is reasonable, but when my ships pummel it to destruction to knock out the last 50 shield points, or continually bash it even after boarding pods are landed, I become sad.

I'd like the ability to set the primary weapon on fighters, or have a setting on carriers/bases to tell them what kind of fighter(from an expanded list with different weapon loadouts) to keep on deck. Fighters are pretty straightforward, and I'm not too interested in micro-managing their entire design, but it would be nice to be able to swap out their primary weapon with either a shield depletion gun/missile as above, or maybe ion weaponry.