Question

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Anguille
Elliot...sometimes i get the feeling that you never sleep

[:'(]

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: elliotg
No, your ships don't bombard enemy troops or population.

When attacking/invading a colony your ships are focussed on clearing defensive forces present in orbit, i.e. they take out defensive bases or space ports and any defending military ships. Your troop transport ships then drop off your troops onto the planet to battle it out with the defenders.

So you are forced to have alien scum into your empire?

Maybe some sort of fleet bombarding could be in an expansion pack.I think it is needed personally as I think it would be the more realistic option than landing troops.

That's a fair point.

But you also get bonuses from having other races in your empire. Once you reach certain population thresholds for a race, you get some of their racial bonuses for your empire.

You might also be able to build colony ships at a planet with another race and thus be able to colonize a new type of planet - some races can colonize inhospitable planet types, which is extremely useful.

[JosEPhII]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: elliotg

No, your ships don't bombard enemy troops or population.

When attacking/invading a colony your ships are focussed on clearing defensive forces present in orbit, i.e. they take out defensive bases or space ports and any defending military ships. Your troop transport ships then drop off your troops onto the planet to battle it out with the defenders.

So you are forced to have alien scum into your empire?

Maybe some sort of fleet bombarding could be in an expansion pack.I think it is needed personally as I think it would be the more realistic option than landing troops.

Ash old buddy your Xenophobia is showing! Again! [:D]

JosEPh [;)]

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: JosEPh_II

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: elliotg

No, your ships don't bombard enemy troops or population.

When attacking/invading a colony your ships are focussed on clearing defensive forces present in orbit, i.e. they take out defensive bases or space ports and any defending military ships. Your troop transport ships then drop off your troops onto the planet to battle it out with the defenders.

So you are forced to have alien scum into your empire?

Maybe some sort of fleet bombarding could be in an expansion pack.I think it is needed personally as I think it would be the more realistic option than landing troops.

Ash old buddy your Xenophobia is showing! Again! [:D]

JosEPh [;)]

Yeah but really it is about roleplaying races.No Dalek is gonna take prisoners.

[LarryP]

ORIGINAL: Deomrve

ORIGINAL: LarryP

ORIGINAL: Deomrve

How do you conquer planets? Build troops then drop them on a planet, then have it automatically resolved or will there be some form of planetary tactical combat.

Conquer planets by military force or\and trade deals. There is not any micromanaged warfare other than directing your military ships.

What do mean by Military force?

By the timing of putting your military ships at the points where they are needed. A lot of things can happen in this game that catch you by surprise, at least it did me. Not so much now because I learned early to have military support at each planet. Pirates, alien races, and space scum (Giant Kaltors and Slugs) can hit you suddenly and your planetary control is gone if you are not supportive. It's a lot cheaper to build protective ships than it is to try and get a planet back. [;)]

[lwarmonger]

ORIGINAL: elliotg
That's a fair point.

But you also get bonuses from having other races in your empire. Once you reach certain population thresholds for a race, you get some of their racial bonuses for your empire.

You might also be able to build colony ships at a planet with another race and thus be able to colonize a new type of planet - some races can colonize inhospitable planet types, which is extremely useful.

Are alien races more difficult to control and/or keep happy?

If I have 6 worlds colonized, and then conquer 8 alien systems with an overall higher population than me, am I going to have significant difficulties keeping them from revolting to form their own nation?

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: lwarmonger
Are alien races more difficult to control and/or keep happy?

If I have 6 worlds colonized, and then conquer 8 alien systems with an overall higher population than me, am I going to have significant difficulties keeping them from revolting to form their own nation?

Not really. By design, once you colonize a planet, all the races there respond the same to your efforts to keep them happy. I thought it would make things too difficult to manage otherwise.

There is one exception to this: when you are at war with an empire of their race then those colonies (with the same dominant race as your enemy) will get upset. You can usually still keep them happy by lowering taxes and so forth, but they won't like you warring with their race.

[lwarmonger]

ORIGINAL: elliotg

ORIGINAL: lwarmonger
Are alien races more difficult to control and/or keep happy?

If I have 6 worlds colonized, and then conquer 8 alien systems with an overall higher population than me, am I going to have significant difficulties keeping them from revolting to form their own nation?

Not really. By design, once you colonize a planet, all the races there respond the same to your efforts to keep them happy. I thought it would make things too difficult to manage otherwise.

There is one exception to this: when you are at war with an empire of their race then those colonies (with the same dominant race as your enemy) will get upset. You can usually still keep them happy by lowering taxes and so forth, but they won't like you warring with their race.

That makes sense. Will we be able to modify the triggers for events and such (ie make it so having a different race effects happiness, and likelyhood to revolt)?

[Baleur]

A followup to lwarmonger's question, are there settings for essentially "nullifying" the individual Race traits and such? (such as some being completely agressive, some being passive)
I love individual races in any game, but in 4x games (galciv2 as an example) i usually dont like that 1 race is always agressive, or that if i want to play a race with a certain visual style, it is a race that's hard to play any way other than its intended role.
For example in that game, i almost never got to play with the Drengin or Korrath, because i hated how they were always predetermined to be ultra-agressive. Thats why i also never picked them as opponents.
In the same way, i also didnt like how the other empires were set to their specific roles either, once you knew what race they were you knew how the game would play out (macro-style).
Thanks

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: lwarmonger
That makes sense. Will we be able to modify the triggers for events and such (ie make it so having a different race effects happiness, and likelyhood to revolt)?

You can modify races and their personalities, but at this time you cannot modify this game mechanic.

Generally speaking, I'm happy to consider exposing various game settings as editable, as requested by players. But this would be later, in a patch.

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Baleur

A followup to lwarmonger's question, are there settings for essentially "nullifying" the individual Race traits and such? (such as some being completely agressive, some being passive)
I love individual races in any game, but in 4x games (galciv2 as an example) i usually dont like that 1 race is always agressive, or that if i want to play a race with a certain visual style, it is a race that's hard to play any way other than its intended role.
For example in that game, i almost never got to play with the Drengin or Korrath, because i hated how they were always predetermined to be ultra-agressive. Thats why i also never picked them as opponents.
In the same way, i also didnt like how the other empires were set to their specific roles either, once you knew what race they were you knew how the game would play out (macro-style).
Thanks

Yes, you can edit all of the races in a simple text file. You can change their personality and bonuses to completely alter how they play, even setting all races to the same basic personality if you prefer.

[elmo3]

The game looks finished.  What are we waiting for: the manual, Digital River to get their act together, the planets to align?

[tgb]

Yes. Some of us are real eager to sink our teeth into this.

[Baleur]

Maby they're waiting til next week to release it along with Mass Effect 2 [:'(] [:'(]

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: Baleur

Maby they're waiting til next week to release it along with Mass Effect 2 [:'(] [:'(]

I am very eager for ME2 but I want this more.[:)]

[Epsilon]

Most likely we're waiting for the game to hit retail shops, like gamestop.
Eventhough gamestop hates pc games, but... go figure

[Baleur]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

ORIGINAL: Baleur

Maby they're waiting til next week to release it along with Mass Effect 2 [:'(] [:'(]

I am very eager for ME2 but I want this more.[:)]

Same.. Maby its because with ME2 i know what to expect, this game is more of a potentially happy surprise =P

[gunnergoz]

I was very interested in the title until I saw it was real-time.  The video cinched it for me - particularly the battle sequences.  It is disappointing to see real-time games taking over this segment of the market.  Those of us who prefer turn based have to keep playing the old stand-bys but it would be nice to see some fresh blood in the genre.  After 50 or 60, click-fests and continuous action are the last thing you want to see in a game. 
I wish the game's design and production teams well and lots of commercial success, but at the same time I do hope that someone out there is listening...

[LarryP]

I feel the same way as you. I am a hard core TBS gamer too. [;)] However, Distant Worlds has a pause feature that allows you to do almost everything while stationary. It also has a speed control and you can slow the game down to a crawl. I have played DW at full speed (+4) and it still was not a clickfest for me. There were times that messages came in back to back at full speed, but other than that it was easily manageable.

Another item that allows for ease of management are the auto manage controls for several tasks. This lessens the micromanagement considerably, especially while learning the game. You can actually have everything set to auto and watch the game play itself pretty much, except when you need to answer alien races propositions of trade, threats, and deals.

I get overwhelmed with RTS games terribly. Even when I was in my 20's, I did not do so well with Pac-Man type games. I haven't changed much for the better either at 54. However, I never have felt overwhelmed with DW at all. It is a well balanced game I believe for RTS and TBS players alike. With proper adjustment of the managing controls, a player can get whatever they want.

[PJL1973]

ORIGINAL: LarryP

I feel the same way as you. I am a hard core TBS gamer too. [;)] However, Distant Worlds has a pause feature that allows you to do almost everything while stationary. It also has a speed control and you can slow the game down to a crawl. I have played DW at full speed (+2) and it still was not a clickfest for me. There were times that messages came in back to back at full speed, but other than that it was easily manageable.

Another item that allows for ease of management are the auto manage controls for several tasks. This lessens the micromanagement considerably, especially while learning the game. You can actually have everything set to auto and watch the game play itself pretty much, except when you need to answer alien races propositions of trade, threats, and deals.

I get overwhelmed with RTS games terribly. Even when I was in my 20's, I did not do so well with Pac-Man type games. I haven't changed much for the better either at 54. However, I never have felt overwhelmed with DW at all. It is a well balanced game I believe for RTS and TBS players alike. With proper adjustment of the managing controls, a player can get whatever they want.

That's good to hear, I'm not a fan of RTS games at all, unless is something like EU2, or the Setllers, so the fact you can do a lot when paused is great, not to mention the auto-features. Out of interest, what CAN'T you do while stationary?