Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Drumline2
Do mining stations also have upgrades to their hulls? So they can have some limited defenses in terms of shields, weapon hardpoints and such.

They have two hulls by default, one smaller and a larger higher tech hull. The larger hull definitely allows them to maximize their defenses better if they wish but they're nowhere near as strong as the spaceport.

In DWU, the different upgrades to engines would change the exhaust color so you could see at a glance what level of engines a ship was using. Is this still present in DW2 and do shields, now that shields when hit have a color, also have color differences? (Btw, a while back I had asked about the visual gfx for shields and the system in place is gorgeous and so pleasing to watch!)

I believe so, but actually haven't checked on this lately as we've had the engine and shield effects in for quite a while.

Is Terraforming still in the game and, if so, is the planetary percentage scale still in place. Can we Terraform planets into our races preferred type or does it stay the same type and only heal the percentage as in DWU. If I remember right, planets had a hard cap I think? Like you couldnt terraform all the planets up to 100% quality if im remembering that right.

Terraforming and terraforming facilities are in, but still being balanced. We are aiming for allowing terraforming to switch planet types if you terraform enough, but it's possible that actually "upgrading" planets may not make it into the initial release. If not, it will be in an expansion.

Do planets have planetary shields available as a building to help defend against bombardment? If the building is available, can you see a gfx projected around the planet to know at a glance whether a planet is protected or not?

Yes, and don't recall off the top of my head.

Ok last question for now and I have an inkling that you wont answer this one as in depth haha
Are there massive construction projects in the game or possible for a future DLC? Things like a massive class ship above the Battleships or shipyard rings around planets that increase ship construction speed and have a lot of construction slots but take massive resource investment.

The biggest ships and stations are pretty darn big, but there are no "mega-projects" you can research and build at release, though there is one that still exists.

Regards,

- Erik

ORIGINAL: Drumline2
Oh actually have one for the fleet combat. Is it possible to set distance engagement for the ships so that they keep a certain distance from whatever they are engaging? In the fleet battle video, they all just seemed to rush in at each other. With the Ackdarians having superiority at range, would be helpful to set the ships to want to keep their distance, even if its just getting in range and then stopping to allow faster ships to close the gap but let the bigger ships sit at a distance and blast away

Yes, there are a ton of settings both at the ship design, individual ship and fleet level that can change the behavior. We had them both set pretty aggressively to make sure we got a bit of a furball of a battle, but with different settings the Ackdarians would have tried to maintain range (and eventually failed as the Mortalen were faster in this case) but they would have tried. Long range combined with faster speed can be a potent combination.

Regards,

- Erik