Matrix Games Forums

Hey,

I would like for the ship and research screens to remember the page you were looking at so that you could easily access the things you wanted while being able to quit out of the screen momentarily to, for instance, check on something else.

IE:

Open ship screen, use dropdown to show military ships only, fiddle about, close the ship screen, HERE i would like to be able to quickly access the military ships list again but instead, I have to redo the entire sequence from the beginning.

Same applies to research but it's not as annoying.

Thanks.

ComJak

ORIGINAL: Hyena Grin

I would love the option in the Fleet Menu to set fleets as 'invisible' to the quick-menu on the left side of the screen.

Basically, I want to be able to create dozens of small (three to five ship) fleets for defending planets or stations without them cluttering up the quick-menu and making it hard to find the fleets that I actually want to control.

I solved this problem by renaming fleets I don't want near the top of list to "Z" fleet name, by double clicking each selected fleet to be put to sleep and renaming it with a z prefix followed by space then old fleet name. Also it helps to name each fleet assigned to colony defense after the world it defends...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

Hi,

Here are some big wishes from me for the next update of DW.

1. Larger, deeper and bigger Techtrees. (For Example the possibility to research Miniaturization of components or range of weapons and scanners)
2. The Possibility to trade with colonys und the possibility to give a Colony to another empire
3. The Possibility to give a complete Fleet to another empire
4. Attack/defense/formation tacktics for fleets
5. More Race specific research
6. More ship components, military ship designs
7. More race specific events
8. More planetary Facilitys und MORE MICROMANAGEMENT
9. Tactical options for ground assault
and 10. More different Character Images

Sorry for my bad english but iam a german.

Thank yor very much

-There should be an editable list on research queues. it's quite a pain that you have queued some tech, when you need to re-order them, you must right click all the queued techs and re-left click for the new queque order.
-Research screen should be zoom-out-able
-List on discovered enemy planets in resource planner.
-List of *potentially* colonizable planets(planets that colonizable but you don't have the tech yet)
-Setting tax rate should instantly show potential growth rate
-Smaller row height on ship list, more filters.
-finally, Espionage screen and Ship Design Screen could be really improved

ORIGINAL: VorteeX

I approve this idea

I know this is a very late date to ask this...
Is there any hope of adding an agent swap for captured agents to the diplomacy screen?
Perhaps the price and so on could be evaluated by the key issues of espionage, sabotage, counterespionage...
That would be a way cool addition!

.

I have a small list I've been assembling for awhile..


DISLIKES

I don't like that I can trade a mining station I own to a rival empire, when it is about to be sacked by pirates, and still gain both profit and favor.

Mining stations are insanely overvalued.

I don't like that rivals will buy anything you want to sell upon request. I certainly don't!


WANTS

A percentage population breakdown by species at least on the empire summary, and the troop type and physical size listed on the troops screen.

I would *really* like a design image filter on the design screen, where I can filter by ship set or type. Or, a grid-view of this kind would also be very nice.

I would like a more detailed set of ship behavior options. For example,
Shields Below 50%: (Set to option) ---> Standoff
Shields Below 20%: ---> Evade
Armor Below 50%: ---> Escape
Etc. Something like this could greatly enhance the player's tactical design options.

I would also like to be able to pause and un-pause current ship / fleet missions without stopping them. It would be great to have a view for queued missions as well, editable?

One feature I frequently miss is a simple search on the Map.
An operations map may show you a Base, but only for a while then it vanishes from the players map. The Military Advisors seem to remember it was there. So if they were to recommend an attack offer to the pirates I would like to send a fleet of my own there.
BUT! Finding the "YM261 Gas Cloud" can be quite the chore.

Adding a basic text search for object name would simplify the task greatly.

I wish it would be possible to flag system as a no-fly zone. In my current game there is a strong pirate stronghold in one of my systems, and mining ships keep flying there and getting destroyed/captured. There doesn't seem to be a way to prevent that, short of destroying that stronghold which I can't do with my current strength.

I posted this in another thread, but ehsumrell1 suggested I copy it here too:

I would love to see a modification to the Shakturi's arrival, to make it a little more mysterious and a little less predictable. Suppose once you trigger the beacon, 3-5 refugee races show up, claiming to be fleeing the great Shakturi menace. All but one of those races is actually telling the truth, and the remaining one is the real Shakturi race, which only reveals itself later. Keep the player guessing for a while!

The game could even plant some hints as to which one is the real Shakturi, which the player could uncover by espionage, exploration, etc.

ORIGINAL: Cauldyth

I posted this in another thread, but ehsumrell1 suggested I copy it here too:

I would love to see a modification to the Shakturi's arrival, to make it a little more mysterious and a little less predictable. Suppose once you trigger the beacon, 3-5 refugee races show up, claiming to be fleeing the great Shakturi menace. All but one of those races is actually telling the truth, and the remaining one is the real Shakturi race, which only reveals itself later. Keep the player guessing for a while!

The game could even plant some hints as to which one is the real Shakturi, which the player could uncover by espionage, exploration, etc.

+1

ORIGINAL: VorteeX

I wanna this, like in Space Empires 5. So you can still design fast or slow/armored frigate but you can't make Death Star Frigate like now So huls get they meaning.

+1 on this so hard. There are a couple of 4x space games that handle ship design like this and it really is fantastic. Too late for Universe maybe but please consider for a DW 2!

It's probably too late to get my wishes in, but my things:

Diplomacy
-----------
Ability to gift ship designs, specific ships

Agents
--------
Steal money mission type

Design
-------
Ability to create custom ship classes per race
Ability to create specific ship name lists per race
Ability to start a race with specific tech. So for example, I could have a TOS Romulan Empire start with plasma torpedoes, cloaking device, and low warp tech.

Ability to design your own space monsters, including all attributes, behavior and stats.

Research
----------
Ability to improve upon an existing component by a 'component enhancement' research.

For example, you could research your existing maxxos blasters. The outcome is a random improvement in:
- range
- damage
- energy use
- size

You also get to name this new blaster type, trade it, sell it, ect... This will greatly improve the flavour of the different races.

You can already give ships to other empires in Shadows.

Choose the ship, right click on it, then use the 'give to' option to assign what empire to give it to, and it instantly changes ownership.

Well, that was certainly buried in the help, never heard of it!

What I mean is the ability to add this to the trading screen. Just as you can transfer ownership of bases, you should be able to request a gift of specific ships, be offered that by AI races instead of money sometimes, and also ask for a ship design template.

For example, the Romulans gifted the Bird of Prey ship design to the Klingons during their brief military alliance. This allowed the Klingons to build the design themselves. This is common today, the Israelies based the excellent Kfir class fighter on the French Dassault Mirage, and the Indians have several types of Russian fighters, both stock and modded by themselves. You would not get the components along with this, just the ability to build those ships, perhaps with a premium, with those components it came with, in your own shipyards. The pirates freely have the ability to steal these designs now, so why not give it to the major powers?

I would make them more like the Shadows from Bab 5. They show up as mysterious unidentified ships you see occasionally, they mess with races, seem to act almost random but there is a hidden agenda. Finally they are found, and burst forth in full glory, and have to be defeated. Until then they are hidden. They should be a 'super-race' like the Antarians from MOO2, they do not need much territory or resources, they are invaders to this galaxy.

Some other items I'd add:

- Fleets AI still needs work. It's funny... it seems the computer AI get's the better AI than I do, and my fleets are just dumb. They will fly off by themselves when not told, refuel their ships when not needed, even when under attack, and they seem to ignore the 'patrol system' order, they just fly to the system's sun and park.

- It would be good to have a construction routing order, common in other games, to rally ships to a point, system, ect, rather than have to park the fleet flagship there and join the ships to the fleet. Should be able to just give a starbase orders to send all military ships built to such and such coordinates until further notice type order?

- Would be nice to be able to give troopships an order to 'keep bringing troops to this planet battle until told otherwise' which would cause them to fly off after dropping troops, to the nearest colony that can fully load them up, and return with more troops. Manually coordinating large invasions like this is an administrative nightmare.

- And again, mentioned before, something has to be done about elapsed time for combat and fueling. It's ridiculous that it takes months to refuel a large fleet, and also ridiculous that battles take months to complete. This gives the computer AI a huge advantage, as it can monitor all it's ships simultaneously in several battles at once, while the human player must hope and flit from one battle to another micro-managing his ships to ensure they aren't doing something stupid like picking their nose in orbit while a major battle rages around them. I would suggest a setting to expand time in battles so that minutes pass, not days. This may be difficult though as it seems the underlying code seems to run real-time in all places at all times.

- Finally, what is with bases ignoring enemies until they are shot at???
Bases should immediately launch all fighters as soon as a single enemy ship or pirate are detected in the system, and begin firing long range weapons immediately at them when in range.

As mentioned above, ALL

This design screen seems lifted right from Space Empires V, the other excellent 4X fully modifiable game out there.

I"d only add this to this game if the component placement meant something. IE, instead of all your weapons firing from a central location, define arcs for weapons. I never liked how my capital ships can fire off all their heavy weapons from the rear, weapons are typically not 360 unless you have a dorsal or ventral 360 turret installed for it.

Define 4 quadrants for incoming damage and arcs for weapon components. MOO 2 did an excellent system where you could add arcs to individual weapons but it increased their size. You could also define light, medium, heavy and massive weapon mounts as in Space Empires V.

If doing this you would need to make armour even smaller, so you could get enough coverage for it.

ORIGINAL: Antarian

Some other items I'd add:

- Fleets AI still needs work. It's funny... it seems the computer AI get's the better AI than I do, and my fleets are just dumb. They will fly off by themselves when not told, refuel their ships when not needed, even when under attack, and they seem to ignore the 'patrol system' order, they just fly to the system's sun and park.

So true. I issue Patrol orders the fleet gets there, fights once, and stops dead in space with "no mission". Next thing I know the fleet flies off to refuel and parks at the refueling station. The Fleet MUST be able to have persistent orders set.

ORIGINAL: Antarian
- It would be good to have a construction routing order, common in other games, to rally ships to a point, system, ect, rather than have to park the fleet flagship there and join the ships to the fleet. Should be able to just give a starbase orders to send all military ships built to such and such coordinates until further notice type order?

Dear Gods, yes. Rallying a fleet can be an exercise in futility. I should be able to assign an order, enmasse, to any base to build the ships at said base. Failing that, let me set a Home point that all new construction will head to. By default the Fleets Home location that currently means almost nothing?
Especially if something happens when the fleet is only partly built, the ships still in queue never seem to coordinate properly.
As well, a 'Fleet Warp' type command so the fleet jumps together and doesn't get strung out over half a sector right from the start.

Somewhat related, when a fleet refuels, it seems that the ships need to dock in some fixed order to check their fuel status. Issue a refuel order, and ship1 docks - nope already full and undocks, ship2 docks and undocks, etc... finally ship8 the only ship still needing fuel gets a turn and refuels. REALLY!!!??!?

ORIGINAL: Antarian
- Finally, what is with bases ignoring enemies until they are shot at???
Bases should immediately launch all fighters as soon as a single enemy ship or pirate are detected in the system, and begin firing long range weapons immediately at them when in range.

As mentioned above, ALL

I cannot agree enough. Put at least a single Fighter Bay on the base and prelaunch the Fighters. THEY actually engage at range and will wake up the sleeping base crews to "OH! you mean we are actually supposed to fire these guns?!?"

The main upgrade needed in Distant Worlds is the AI. And due to the sheer amount of time taken by the player to do Exploration micro properly as compared to other micro, the number 1 AI issue in my opinion is Exploration.

There are some improvements that can be made that are not algorithmically complex i.e. that will not slow the game down due to excessive computation.

1. Change the AI to change exploration targets when the resource is discovered (i.e. with Proximity Arrays). At the moment the AI will waste a huge amount of time going to the centre of the target and only then change targets. When a planet has ruins that need investigating this maybe needed but otherwise it should change missions as soon as the resources are revealed.

2. The AI does not prioritise exploration targets. Early game in nearby systems I may want to explore everything. But after that I focus on exploring planets with ruins, storyline targets (e.g. debris fields, supply outposts etc), planets that may have Super Luxuries (i.e. always certain types) and perhaps also colonisable planets. To improve this we could have an automation window that allows us to turn on or off AI exploration targets by category. This way time is not wasted exploring every useless ball of rock and gas giant in existence.

Those two suggestions alone would massively decrease the time required by the AI to explore and find targets of strategic interest. Some Human Players would be more inclined to automate while the AI Empires would also be more competitive.