Matrix Games Forums

Philoponus wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 7:06 am You can purchase as many ships as you can afford and then the production is automatically queued. Or did I miss somesthing here?

This question has nothing to do with building ships. It's about giving ships orders.

Now i hoped it were implemented , and for sure this will someday come, that those queues are at least working as in dw1.
Plus, i was sure about that, it is easier to see from the first view, bottom left PLUS you see more than five queued position/tasks.
This realized in the way, that if you hover ofter the text, saying next mission, the help pop up would show all queued stops.
As well as acting as a link to a properties page, where it would be possible to delete and rearrange all given/queued orders.
And at least less complicated than in space empires 5 regarding build queues.

But i really don't expect this being implemented in the first day of publication.
I meam, who of you knows the X series? Who knows how dw1 started?

Please keep calm and relax, there jsno need to be upsset.
This game in this state is a really nice product. Great job! I expected much less! I am happy it runs so flawless on my win7 system.
I wonder why the 6gb crom the geforce 1060 are not used and only 2gb of the card are used, but who knows..
Time will tell.
I am glad it runs that giod!

Spidey wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 5:14 pm
From my (very limited) level of experience, it seems like manual scouting wasn't really a big concern. It's there as an option, much like taking the stairs to the 14th floor is also "an option". Manual notes of what is and is not scouted is seemingly flat out not intended, be it in-game or offline on paper, as there is no way to reference particular ingame areas. There is also no "explore area" or "explore system" order, as far as I can tell. No "explore sector" either.

Don't know if I get you wrong but I think this is in the game. You have to right-click and hold the right mouse button (or press ctrl + rtm) and then there will be an explore system option. You can also tell where to build a space station by this way.

Erik Rutins wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 3:23 pm We're also considering adding individual ship queues back in for those who prefer to micro-manage their ships and play more manually.

Hi Eric, I have been a super-fan for years now. Super excited, pre-ordered and am really enjoy it so far.

But I am a manual player, I really really really really hope ship order queuing is made some form of priority (outside of the bugs). It will make the game so much more fun.

Congrats on the release and it looks like its doing well on steam!

Idris

James80 wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 5:45 pm

Spidey wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 5:14 pm
From my (very limited) level of experience, it seems like manual scouting wasn't really a big concern. It's there as an option, much like taking the stairs to the 14th floor is also "an option". Manual notes of what is and is not scouted is seemingly flat out not intended, be it in-game or offline on paper, as there is no way to reference particular ingame areas. There is also no "explore area" or "explore system" order, as far as I can tell. No "explore sector" either.

Don't know if I get you wrong but I think this is in the game. You have to right-click and hold the right mouse button (or press ctrl + rtm) and then there will be an explore system option. You can also tell where to build a space station by this way.

Holy cow. Yeah, that does work, at least for system exploration. Thank you very much for telling, I did miss that completely. But for manual space station positioning, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Erik Rutins wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 3:23 pm The new global queues and the menus to interact with them are the intended way to queue things in DW2, which allow better management at the empire level.

We're also considering adding individual ship queues back in for those who prefer to micro-manage their ships and play more manually.

Having gotten a decent chunk into the game (performance issues aside even on an AMD 5800x paired with a RADEON 6800xt), I will say that the new automation policies management systems are VERY powerful.

However.... there are times, particularly in the early game where the manual queuing of explorers and constructors can lead to snowballing gains on the AI. An example would be the order in which I wanted to recover debris field ships (highest firepower first) or the order in which I queue an explorer to do stuff (ignoring asteroid fields for the juicy gas giant for example).

Erik Rutins wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 3:23 pm We're also considering adding individual ship queues back in for those who prefer to micro-manage their ships and play more manually.

I am officially voicing my support for adding individual ship queues back. At least for three orders.

Definitely another vote for queues, when I'm manually controlling a ship it would definitely be useful. Could also queue movement orders to have a fleet approach enemies from a certain angle without issuing every change heading command real-time.

Spidey wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 5:14 pm But here in DW2, and at this particular time, I just don't know what my job is supposed to be. Particularly not in the pre-warp stage.

Yes - I'm finding exactly the same issue.

The game doesn't seem to offer you the tools to micromanage things without it being a huge hassle (no notifications when orders are complete, no order queuing - so you're constantly cycling between three different menus to babysit your ships and give them new orders), but if you use the automation settings it feels like there's very little to do beyond choosing your research priorities and the size of your fleet.

Telling the game "Yes, i would like to build mining stations everywhere" feels like almost the full extent of my interaction with the economic side in the early game.

James80 wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 5:45 pm

Spidey wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 5:14 pm
From my (very limited) level of experience, it seems like manual scouting wasn't really a big concern. It's there as an option, much like taking the stairs to the 14th floor is also "an option". Manual notes of what is and is not scouted is seemingly flat out not intended, be it in-game or offline on paper, as there is no way to reference particular ingame areas. There is also no "explore area" or "explore system" order, as far as I can tell. No "explore sector" either.

Don't know if I get you wrong but I think this is in the game. You have to right-click and hold the right mouse button (or press ctrl + rtm) and then there will be an explore system option. You can also tell where to build a space station by this way.

Not sure how I missed this, but this might be the best tip I've gotten from the forum so far! Not only for exploring, but telling a Construction ship to build a research station instead of a mining station, refuel vs build something, etc. It's a lifesaver!

What it probably comes down to is design philosophy. DW2 prides itself with limitless automization. Hence the player is not meant to get involved with such specific tasks as telling an explorer which astroid to look at next. I think that is fine if it is properly communicated.
What compounds this problem is IMHO a woefully underdocumented game. The CTRL-click thing is indicative of the larger communication issue: I too had to dig through forum posts to find this intended way of interacting. Why rely on other players or streamers to pass on this essential knowledge?
But there are more issues here. There are tons of buttons of which I have no clue what they do. E.g. what does setting to automated-patrol do? I can guess, but would it not be more fun to be told outright?
The demand from players for micro management also stems from the fact that we are left pretty much in the dark what automation does or what it tries to achieve.

+1 for individual ship queues from me too. The early game is more fun when you feel you are directly involved with exploring new planets!

Also, not sure if I'm just missing the setting for it somewhere, but it would be nice to get a notification when an explorer set to manual has finished surveying, so that I know to send it to another object.

Short answer: You can't.

Longer answer: You can't and the ship control turns to manual, leading to the possibility of forgetting about the ship and it sitting idle for decades (especially if you have many ships on manual control).

Menzoberranzan wrote: Fri Mar 18, 2022 11:55 pm Short answer: You can't.

Longer answer: You can't and the ship control turns to manual, leading to the possibility of forgetting about the ship and it sitting idle for decades (especially if you have many ships on manual control).

Yeah, and this sucks big time. I actually have to manually control my explorers, because they try to fly to the orher side of the galaxy on automation instead of exploring the nearest system.

Also an right-click option I am missing.
Explore nearest system.

It is starting to feel like this game wants you to play mostly auto, and then im asking myself... why?

I loved the micro of DWU, this decision feels like a bit of a directed gut punch. I am a superfan of Codeforce, but yeah this has really hit my enthusiasm for the direction of DW2.

I really hope this issue is treated with high priority. Kind of tempted to just go back to DWU for a bit while I wait for this feature right now. pre-warp is so much less engaging, and it was my favourite bit of the first game.

duzzud wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:51 am What it probably comes down to is design philosophy. DW2 prides itself with limitless automization. Hence the player is not meant to get involved with such specific tasks as telling an explorer which astroid to look at next. I think that is fine if it is properly communicated.
What compounds this problem is IMHO a woefully underdocumented game. The CTRL-click thing is indicative of the larger communication issue: I too had to dig through forum post f which I have no clue what they do. E.g. what does setting to automated-patrol do? I can guess, but would it not be more fun to be told outright?
The demand from players for micro management also stems from the fact that we are left pretty much in the dark what automation does or what it tries to achieve.

In fairness, the Ctrl+click thing is documented in-game in the Galactopedia and the in-game tutorials. Albeit there's A LOT of info that gets dumped, so it's easy to miss. Could do with better tooltips and such. But you are right that there's other important information missing - especially on how the automation functions work.

Erik Rutins wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 3:23 pm The new global queues and the menus to interact with them are the intended way to queue things in DW2, which allow better management at the empire level

I have not found the ctrl-click action yet, I will investigate.

But back to Eriks post.
Where can I find the menu to interact with the global construction queue and indluence the Order in which things get built.

in extension, colorful overviews, like planetary, should have better indicators as to which picture actually opens a sub-menu.
At the moment I feel like I am solving a picture puzzle game, which rewards me with more ingame options

Erik Rutins wrote: Fri Mar 11, 2022 3:23 pm The new global queues and the menus to interact with them are the intended way to queue things in DW2, which allow better management at the empire level.

We're also considering adding individual ship queues back in for those who prefer to micro-manage their ships and play more manually.

This would be very desirable. The game engine doesn't seem to take time and distance into account when deciding which ship should pick up a task. eg if I want two mining stations built in the same asteroid belt, I'd like to be able to queue a construction ship to build one and then the other. As it is now, a second mining ship far away might pick up the next mining station from the empire queue, even though it has to first get resources and then travel a long way to make the station. In fact this can result in construction ships hopping past each other as the queue order has them alternatingly picking up build orders on opposite sides.

Psycho78 wrote: Sun Mar 13, 2022 2:32 am Definitely another vote for queues, when I'm manually controlling a ship it would definitely be useful. Could also queue movement orders to have a fleet approach enemies from a certain angle without issuing every change heading command real-time.

Second this example, move queuing is also something I'd consider critical.

In an environment where there are more un-played games, in the average PC gamer's collections, then there are days in the next year, devs need to be a lot less short sighted regarding their established customer bases expectations. Especially to sequels.

In one as complex as this, a simple command queue, isn't just important, it's bloody essential. Not implementing it, as if it's no big deal, just shows how out of touch they are from their customers. And doesn't surprise me considering how the last 2+ years have unfolded...