Matrix Games Forums

Most or all major Dialogs in Distant Worlds usually pause the game when they are opened, and I like it that way. There are, however, issues with advisor and event popups in combination with these dialogs or on their own.

• Advisor popups seem to wait until a game dialog is opened to vie for the user's attention exactly then. It is the most disruptive way for them to intrude on me, because I open dialogs for a specific task, and it is also hard to understand as the game is supposed to be paused at this point. The same goes with many events, especially diplomatic requests by the AI empires.
• Some popups have the habit of toggling the paused-state of the game regardless of what state the game currently is at. This can lead to the Distant Worlds becoming unpaused during such an exchange while still running with the dialog window open. I cannot give specifics as to which popups have this effect, as I didn't take notes while playing the game (I am reluctant to alt-tab out of fullscreen applications as there are often problems with that, and with typically long time periods between saves I don't want to take unnecessary risks in Distant Wolds). I think that general care should be taken that any popup leaves the paused state the way it was encountered when the popup opened.
• Some stand-alone popups (Investigate Abandoned Ship, at least when it is invoked from the right-click menu) turn the paused state of the game off, regardless of what the state was before. I don't know whether other popups are also affected. In the case of the 'Investige Abandoned Ship' event, it makes sense that the game needs to run a bit, before the change, taking over that ship, is in effect. I still think that this change of state should always wait until the game is set unpaused by explicit user command.

I also noticed something when encountering abandoned bases. The game pauses when the popup arrives. When you click "investigate base" and there are abandoned ships present around the base, another popup will instantly arrive for these ships being discovered. Thereby overriding the discovery results of the base investigation. This leaves you unable to interract with the base further.

2 & 3 I've noticed quite often

Concerning alt-tab, DW is not a fullscreen game, so there are no side-effects to opening other windows (the screen won't minimize while using other windows either)

I agree, the paused state shouldn't be changed from what it was prior to the window opening If paused, leave it paused, if unpaused, then unpause it when the window is closed

ORIGINAL: BigWolf

Concerning alt-tab, DW is not a fullscreen game, so there are no side-effects to opening other windows (the screen won't minimize while using other windows either)

More importantly, it doesn't use a DirectX surface which may account for many of the Alt-Tab problems in games. I wonder what exactly the DirectX redistributable was included in the game for.

Yes, I am aware I am overly cautious, and I really ought to take notes while playing. There are too many issues I post nothing about here for fear of mixing things up from memory.

ORIGINAL: evildoer

[...] This leaves you unable to interract with the base further.

You can always use the right-click menu item 'Investigate Ship/Base' to have another go at it. When the right-click menu doesn't show up, i.e. with a warship you only get the attack icon (?), you either aren't in range for an investigation or the ship must typically be repaired, I think.

(Edit:) For clarification: the right-click should be on the abandoned ships while one of your ships in range is selected.

ORIGINAL: sbach2o

ORIGINAL: BigWolf

Concerning alt-tab, DW is not a fullscreen game, so there are no side-effects to opening other windows (the screen won't minimize while using other windows either)

More importantly, it doesn't use a DirectX surface which may account for many of the Alt-Tab problems in games. I wonder what exactly the DirectX redistributable was included in the game for.

I'm pretty sure DX is used by .NET for image rendering, but you'll need Elliot for say if he is using the DX side of .NET or just letting the OS handle image processing (I'm pretty sure it's DX or you shouldn't get slows down with large amounts of sprites on your screen)

You can always use the right-click menu item 'Investigate Ship/Base' to have another go at it. When the right-click menu doesn't show up, i.e. with a warship you only get the attack icon (?), you either aren't in range for an investigation or the ship must typically be repaired, I think.

(Edit:) For clarification: the right-click should be on the abandoned ships while one of your ships in range is selected.

< Message edited by sbach2o -- 4/12/2010 5:27:24 PM >

You're right, of course that would work. Not sure why I didn't think of it at the time. Now I just need to locate all the bases I missed this way and manually select investigate. [>:]