POLL - What 8 things would you like to see next in Distant Worlds?

[Bingeling]

Yeah, Vista. And no reason to change that until DW started acting up [:D].

Nothing bad, just out of memory error if I try to reload after having played for a while. And I often pause the game for a long time, then restart, and such, which may make it a bit grumpy. It smell by some minor memory mismanagement.

My current game sits just about 1GB after having just been loaded to produce the galaxy map shot and spy on the Korabbian Spice situation. Never unpaused.

[Igard]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
(I'm guessing a machine with 4 GB of RAM probably handles 700 well).

It handles 1400 no problem. That's with the larger planet textures and the larger shipset mods.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Igard

ORIGINAL: Shark7
(I'm guessing a machine with 4 GB of RAM probably handles 700 well).

It handles 1400 no problem. That's with the larger planet textures and the larger shipset mods.

Well I went from a single core 2 GB RAM machine to this, so 400 was about all that thing could handle.

[EaglePryde]

I tought so. Vista alone sucks ~1GB RAM dry.

That's only one of those reasons i quickly hopped onto Windows 7.

With all my apps running from startup i have a ~1.2GB usage although i could reduce it even more. I hate programms running at startup and reserving memory.

[gsol69]

I completely agree with EaglePryde that a major missing feature is the lack of ship travel destination markers/lines and eta. It gets to be too confusing (espcially in maps this large) trying to easily determine what is going where (and when it will get there).

All of the other enhancements don't mean much too me if I'm not playing because
the user interface takes so much effort to determine basic info.

[Bingeling]

I want a general player feedback overhaul.

How to get a quick look at cargo of a ship (station) without having to open the rather sluggish ship list? Yes, the freighter is transporting steel, but how many units?

Then there are ships. Where are they coming from, where are they heading? If you hover an event, you get this pulsing yellow circle. What if you had a point in the ship selection box (the down left window) that made the destination blink? And the starting point (if that is stored in the info of the ship).

Then I could sit at Korabbia and watch where my transports are heading...

Some arrows hinting at travel is not bad either...

Where are my caslon sources? I can see them one by one in the expansion planner, but... The galaxy map! I have known resources. I want the same for my resources. It would help in discovering which strategic resources has a poor distribution of sources across a larger empire.

What are the surplus/demand situation of resources across systems? Give me an easy way to see who got fuel and who does not. And who got Loros fruit and who screams for more.

What if I could select a fleet, and quickly see how much fuel is missing from their tanks. Then click a fuel source (gas mine, space port, resupply ship) and quickly see how much fuel is in store?

A major project of user feedback improvements would be very welcome

[J HG T]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

How to get a quick look at cargo of a ship (station) without having to open the rather sluggish ship list? Yes, the freighter is transporting steel, but how many units?

Douple right-click the bottom left info-screen when something is selected. Helpful little trick that's quite unknown. Still, simpler command would be handy.

[Data]

If you double click on the name in the left info-screen it will take you to the design for that ship / station.

[J HG T]

Douple right-clicking empty space (not any texts) in the left info-screen should do it. At least it worked for me last time I played.

[EaglePryde]

This are some nice points. I would like to see such stuff.

[Bingeling]

I know of that shortcut. but it is still sluggish (not just quite as sluggish). The cargo list should be easily accessible, especially for freighters. Maybe one could expand the mission statement a bit?

Today it says something in the line of "Transporting steel and hydrogen". It could say "Transporting 300 steel and 184 hydrogen". Clicking it could just bring a small box saying the full line, in case the contents were chopped off due to being too long. Maybe a tiny mouse-over panel? Mouse over could also be a nice addition to the fuel symbols (to show the value).

[Data]

That would help in lots of places, indeed.

[tjhkkr]

I wish we could just save our designs one at a time instead over all of them in the design screen...
One has to delete the stuff that is already in your inventory...

Actaully, I hate to even say it because the game itself is soooo cool.[8D]

[Data]

Good idea on saving up time and micromanagement. Speak them freely, it a chance to make the game even cooler....or hoter? whatever sounds more cool [:)]

[Bingeling]

Imagine if...

Design was more like the build order screen?

Category - Item type - number

Shields - Corvidian - 6
Blasters - Maxos - 4
Combat computer - none - 0
Point defense - none - 0
...

Nicely ordered by weapons, gadgets, engineering, protection...

It would be easy to swap shield types. It would be easier to change numbers. It would be easier to notice the item you forgot to enter (oh, we researched point defense???)

What would be harder is to add for instance two different shields. And one would lose the build order aspect. I am not entire sure those are big losses, but one could also have some free spots down the bottom where the Category is selectable. Or category is always selectable, but those you already got in your list is bold, got a star, or something else to make them stand out.

Today you can view component info by clicking items in the left list. This would break here. One could of course drag items to the boxes instead of selecting from pulldown. Or find some other solution to view items in the design screen. I have noticed I don't view them much in design anyways, if I want to compare, I go to research...

[EaglePryde]

category

I think it would be easiest if you break down components into category's you mentioned and place them on a typical blueprint design (grid?) via drag and drop.

The components have a category naming but should also be in a true category and not all in the same list.

why not make "tab's" like [Armor],[Projectile Weapons],[Beam Weapons],[Defence],[Support],etc.... where you find the desired components in their logical category. You would switch between the tab's and only see what you want to see/searching for.

Imagine if the game get's that much expanded that in ever category would be atleast 100 components with a total sum of over 1000 components and you'd have to search for a specific weapon in a long list..that would cost you some time. The system i described is a system that lays a good foundation for future expanding while mantaining a good view. Would be also easier for new players because it was a bit irritating to see sortcuts like "WPN"etc. and there are more than 1 such shortcuts for weapons.

[Bingeling]

Many different things can work.

I don't however it is necessary to design the screen for much larger number of components than is currently available. That can be left for the day when it is designed to introduce such a huge number of components.

If you have a category for blasters, of course the list should only give blasters.
If you have much more categories, you may make a second level grouping different categories, into Armor, Shields, Electronic Gadgets... to make the lists more easily searchable.

Ship design is a bit of a chore currently, it could use some love. One thing is updating your capital ship when you just research new armor, new shield, new blasters, and new torpedoes (that is a lot of clicks). Another issue is easier ways in general to upgrade your designs, or the ability to leave just some designs on manual while the rest are automated. It is quite annoying to try use your own designs while the AI designer is running. You can obsolete the AI designs, and use retrofit orders and such, but it is not many seconds until the AI got a new design ready...

But then my own designs are usually better than the AI designs, so it is probably better to leave design to the AI, and just interfere a bit when stupid AI has a cruiser design that are 8 size points above your limit...

"Hm, why is 'Battle 6' struggling with this space port? <Check cruiser design> - Kufstein XVIII. NOOOOO [:@]"

[Shark7]

Actually, this isn't the first time we've asked for a designer to design the ships or blueprints not only for the player, but so that we can design the AI's ships to bolster their strength as well.

[tjhkkr]

I thought of something that might be useful...
Having different speeds for ship production: in the SW universe, the Empire would be able to produce ships faster than the Rebellion by a fair pace...
And that would place greater importance on sabotage and other covert activities...

Just a thought anyway. (I guess I still do like certain facets of Rebellion)

[Data]

That's a good source of inspiration. To continue the analogy I'd imagine that tech is tech no matter who has it; so the ship production speed is the same for both the Empire and the Rebellion but the Empire could produce a lot more.