1.2.9.8 Public Beta Update Available

[MaximKI]

Hi everyone,

Please try this new beta and let us know if it helps your game. We encourage you to start a new game as there may be changes that only take effect upon starting a new game.

To facilitate frequent beta iterations as needed, this beta is only available for now on Steam and GOG. All Matrix customers also have a free Steam key available (through your My Page) which can be activated if desired to install DW2 via Steam and test this Beta there.

On Steam, you can switch to it by going to Distant Worlds 2 in your Steam Library, right-clicking on it, choosing Properties -> Betas -> then choosing the latest beta branch from the drop-down list and allowing Steam to update your game. If it updates correctly, you should see the latest beta version listed as your version in-game on the bottom right.

On GOG, you can switch to it by going to Distant Worlds 2 in your GOG Library, selecting Distant Worlds 2, then clicking on the button next to "Play" that looks like two horizontal lines with small offset circles, choosing Manage Installation -> Configure then picking the latest Beta from the Beta channels drop-down list and allowing GOG to update.

The Core game engine has been upgraded to use newer versions of Stride and .NET. We now include .NET in the game executable, so no additional external .NET redistributables are required.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you still experience crashes with 1.0.6.4 or later, especially crashes in battle, please try the new DXVK rendering option in the game settings. This can be found under "Rendering Mode", which can be switched from DirectX 11 to DXVK. DXVK is only guaranteed to work with the SDR (Standard Definition Rendering) option in your game settings. It may work with some HDR (High Definition Rendering) settings, but we do not advise trying those at this time. The DXVK option willl likely resolve many issues caused by driver bugs or incompatibilities.

If you try this setting and the game does not launch, please note the command line option in the changes below to switch back to DirectX 11. (To force DirectX on launch, add --use-dx11 as a command-line argument to DistantWorlds2.exe)

Changes in 1.2.9.8 (March 18th, 2025)

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when finding fastest construction yard for ship retrofit

GAME EVENTS
- fixed partially broken story event relating to planet Mikai

Changes in 1.2.9.7 (March 14th, 2025)

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when drawing facilities at a planet
- fixed rare crash when generating new ship design
- now prevent the game from crashing when mod bundle loading fails for any reason. Instead now add error message to Session Log

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
- improved performance when opening Research screen in large games with many Research Stations

SHIP AND FLEET BEHAVIOR
- improved Fleet retreat evaluation to better handle unusual situations where attack target starts at one location but then quickly moves to another well-defended location in same system, thus triggering a retreat from the attacking fleet
- fleets now prefer non-dangerous locations when refuelling, but will fallback to include dangerous locations if no other option (helps avoid Kasim and other dangerous locations)

PLANETARY FACILITIES
- extended criteria for determining planetary facility automation type so that Interstellar Trader's Bazaar and Holographic Network properly follow automation settings

STORY EVENTS
- prevent pirates from triggering EmpireRelationChange events for independent colonies
- fixed 'Return of the Ancient Guardians' story event missing message title and text
- fixed initial Ancient Guardian vault techs sometimes not unlocking for player
- fixed Kasim story event for Dhayut so that Exterminating or Enslaving the population now properly removes the colony instead of just reducing the population to zero
- fixed some facility and story images to use Crashed Ancient Ship
- improved some faction story events relating to independent colonies

SHIP MODELS
- fixed some minor issues in the Zenox small spaceport model
- updated Human ship and base models with fixed running light positions

GAME EDITOR
- allow changing color for any standard empire in Game Editor (Edit Empire > Primary Color). This affects the color of empire territory and ship/base symbols, among others
- improved overall lighting in Ship Design screen

Changes in 1.2.9.5 (March 7th, 2025)

CRASH FIXES
- fixed crash when transferring artifacts discovered in ruins
- fixed some rare crashes

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
- performance improvements, especially in large games with much ship debris
- improved performance when editing a ship design where there are already very many ships of the same role (e.g. fighters)

ZENOX AND BOSKARA FACTION UPGRADE
- integrated Boskara event art
- fixed incorrect research penalty amount in description of Zenox Predictive History event
- further updates to Zenox ship and base models

ECONOMY
- adjusted ratio of empire funding (Research + Colony Growth) down from 50% to 25% of total Research and total Growth, thus ensuring higher baseline research and growth rate even without full bonus funding

FLEET BEHAVIOR
- fixed rare issue where fleet undertaking invasion mission with staging point may become indefinitely stalled

BOARDING AND RAIDS
- slowed down boarding assault rate to improve Capture and Raid missions for ships and bases

UI IMPROVEMENTS
- hovering Fleet posture description in Selection Panel now previews Tactical Settings window, clicking the Fleet posture description opens Tactical Settings window

DOCKING
- refuelling and cargo load/unload are now much slower (10%) when ship is not docked inside a hangar bay at a base, i.e. when parked outside base, or when loading/unloading from a colony
- fixed bug where docking bay components were not working when they were the only hangar-style components in the external bays of a design

SHIP DESIGN
- ensure automated ship and base design always follows policy settings for Weapon preferences, even when evaluating weapon fallback options (when do not have a weapon of the desired category). This means avoiding selection of fallback weapons where policy specifies that particular weapon category should be 'Do Not Use'

CHARACTERS
- reduced amount of characters as empire grows larger, but with slightly higher amount at start of game
- added new sort options to Spies screen: sort by each spy skill type (Counter Espionage, Espionage, Sabotage, etc)
- fixed Prisoners list filters showing characters for wrong role
- automated Spies will now avoid selecting research projects to steal that are disallowed for their empire's race

DIPLOMACY
- Bases in diplomatic trade deals (e.g. Mining Stations) now also include the value of any cargo onboard (at 25% of normal price)

RESEARCH
- non-specific research progress and breakthroughs from story events, abandoned ships/bases and ruins will now try to avoid selecting projects that are explicitly disabled for the discoverer race, i.e. when disallowed for the faction on the tech tree

TROOPS
- ensure that Special Forces troops defending a colony are never invulnerable to attack

GALAXY SETUP
- made small improvement to empire color distribution (making each empire color different)

EMPIRE POLICIES
- added new empire policy settings to control whether your empire will auto-scrap military ships and troops when have serious economic shortfall. For player these are off by default

VISIBILITY
- adjusted visibility level when have direct presence at location (e.g. ship or base) so that high-level Stealth components do not make items completely invisible

USER INTERFACE
- hovering Fleet posture description in Selection Panel now previews Tactical Settings window, clicking the Fleet posture description opens Tactical Settings window
- improved mouse up/down operations in various areas to help avoid mistaken clicks: Population Policy screen no longer closes when click between policy settings buttons for each race, Research screen no longer registers mouse-up event on Queue Suggested Project button immediately after opening screen
- added new filter options to New Mining Locations list: Fuel Resources, Construction Resources, Luxury Resources
- added new sort option to New Mining Locations list: Safe Locations First (Dangerous Locations at bottom)

SHAKTURI CRISIS
- ensure Freedom Alliance forms without player after player rejects diplomatic story option to form Freedom Alliance themselves
- ensure Shakturi Beacon facility is properly removed after researching 'Destroy Shakturi Beacon' project

OTHER
- small updates to fix minor issues with some Ackdarian ship models

Changes in 1.2.9.3 (February 28th, 2025)

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash in Character screen
- fixed crash when generating XML schema
- fixed rare crash when loading game
- fixed rare crash when fleets check for threats

ZENOX FACTION UPGRADE
- further improvements to Zenox ship materials (removes 'mottled' appearance of some ships and bases)
- added Zenox event art (Wonders of the Past, Preserve the Ruins, etc)

BOSKARA FACTION UPGRADE
- added Boskara Core-Linked Weapons Mega Lab facility description to Special Features section of Boskara race description
- corrected Boskara War Spawning description to properly indicate -10% population losses
- Boskara race description now indicates that can only have one Warspawn at a time

FLEET BEHAVIOR
- automated fleets will no longer assign attack (clear defenses) or blockade missions against independent colonies
- automated 'Refuel and Attack' fleet missions will no longer use attack target for refuelling, e.g. when attacking/invading an independent colony
- improved automated fleet troop loading so that attempts to load larger groups of troops even when load colony is further away
- improved display of Fleet posture in Selection Panel, especially for Manually-controlled fleets, thus giving better visibility to when the fleet will auto-engage targets

DIPLOMACY
- Vassalized empires may now accept peace offers from other empires when their parent empire is not at war with the offerer
- fixed bug where advisor suggestions to offer diplomatic gifts could sometimes be implemented without player approval
- added totals to Offered Items section of Diplomacy trade screen

BONUSES
- fixed empire bonuses being applied twice to ships in a fleet

PLANETARY FACILITIES
- ensure planetary tractor beam facilities properly review stats on game load so that function properly

COLONIZATION
- further improvements to colonization target selection for Colony Ships, especially to avoid multiple colony ships targeting same planet

ARTIFACTS
- fixed artifact location transference so that always properly changes empire as needed

Changes in 1.2.9.2 (February 21st, 2025)

CRASH FIXES
- fixed rare crash when progressing Shakturi rift destabilization

ZENOX FACTION UPGRADE
This build includes the final updated features and mechanics for the Zenox faction. There is placeholder artwork for their events and facilities. We expect to update these in future builds.
- added Zenox Search the Archives event
- fixed some Zenox events allowing multiple instances of various colony events, leading to unusual situations (Wonders of the Past, Predictive History)
- fixed Zenox Planetary Shield facility having different family to base Planetary Shield facility (previously allowed 2 planetary shields at a colony)
- altered Zenox Wonders of the Past event to offer a +10% All Research bonus instead of improved scientist appearance and quality
- altered Zenox Predictive History penalty to All Research from -10% to -5%
- fixed incorrect image for expanded Zenox Crystal Sensor components
- made text corrections for various items

BOSKARA FACTION UPGRADE
This build includes the initial implementation of the new Boskara faction mechanics and features. There is placeholder artwork for their events and facilities. We expect to update these in future builds.
- initial implementation of Boskara faction upgrade. This adds several new gameplay mechanics for the Boskara. For details, see ‘Special Features’ section of the Boskara race description in Start New Game screen (or their Galactopedia topic)
- includes a number of changes to Boskara research projects and planetary facilities, including the new Core-linked Weapons Mega Lab.
- minor graphical updates to models and textures for Boskara ships and bases

MODDING SUPPORT
- added further improvements to zero-width character support for Chinese/Japanese/Korean character sets

GOVERNMENTS
- renamed 'War Spawning' event from Hive Mind government to 'War Hive'

Changes in 1.2.9.0 (February 14th, 2025)

ENGINE IMPROVEMENTS
- upgraded to latest version of .Net random number generator

ZENOX FACTION UPGRADE
This build has a partial first implementation of the upgraded Zenox faction. There is still one significant feature missing and there are some model issues and a bug with the new Predictive History feature. We expect to update the Zenox again in next week’s build to complete their features and fix these issues.
- initial implementation of Zenox faction upgrade. This adds several new gameplay mechanics for the Zenox. For details, see 'Special Features' section of the Zenox race description in Start New Game screen (or their Galactopedia topic)
- includes a number of changes to Zenox components, research projects and planetary facilities, including the new Megatron Planetary Shield facility, expanded Crystal Sensors and Star Beams.
- upgraded models and textures for Zenox ships and bases

UI IMPROVEMENTS
- added title to colony bonus tooltips in Selection Panel to clarify that Empire Bonuses listed in the colony selection dialog are *from* the colony (NOT a comprehensive list of all empire bonuses that apply to the colony – to see all empire bonuses that apply throughout your empire look at the Bonuses tab under the top left Empire overview)

ECONOMY
- fixed rare issue where empire cash on hand value becomes NaN

SHIP AND FLEET BEHAVIOR
- Defense fleets will now auto-attack fixed targets (i.e. bases) when needed, so that their behavior is better aligned with investigating Dangerous locations

GAME EVENTS
- extended message game event actions to allow forced aggregation of all message output for the event, even when the event has delayed execution
- added EmpireRelationChange game event trigger type for independent colonies to support various story events
- added new game event condition types to allow better story event options when have no available characters for a role

MODDING SUPPORT
- added improved support for zero-width characters for Chinese/Japanese/Korean character sets (now rendered with zero-width in long text with word-wrap)
- added Psychic Resistance to Empire Bonuses list with tooltip showing sources and amounts (e.g. race and any relevant artifacts)

Changes in 1.2.8.8 (January 31st, 2025)

PSYCHIC RESISTANCE
This is a new feature that will be used to support the next content expansion for DW2.
- Implemented Psychic Resistance value in various areas: intelligence missions, psychic weapons, psychic troop defection. Races with high Psychic Resistance (Shakturi) are less susceptible in these areas

WEAPON POLICIES
- A new weapon policy for shield enhancement components has been added. You can now set a priority level for your faction to use the shield enhancement component.

UI IMPROVEMENTS
- Main view header bar at the top of the screen will now automatically extend onto additional rows when content is too wide (e.g. lots of events and war scores)

EXPLORATION
- Pinged locations from galaxy map now show up in Special Locations list in Exploration section (until explored)

SHIP ORDERS
- Changed Stop command for automated ships and fleets so that pause before reassigning mission so that player can see the effects of their action

TARGETS LIST
- Fixed Enemy Targets list filter sometimes not working for some empires

COLONIZATION
- Automated Colony Ships now also check whether the system of a queued colonization target has subsequently become part of another empire's territory and thus can no longer be colonized (avoid load/unload passengers cycle)

AUTOMATION
- Tweaked AI evaluation of Outpost viability at a planet or moon so that give less priority to some lower-importance bonuses

GALAXY GENERATION
- Slightly increased some bonus values for randomly-generated ruins

SHIP DESIGN
- Capped maximum damage reduction for a ship from all sources to 90% (prevent invulnerable ships)

MODDING AND LOCALIZATION
- Added support for zero-width spaces (Unicode 200B) as valid line-breaks when rendering multi-line text. This better supports localization for some languages (e.g. Japanese)

Changes in 1.2.8.6 (January 17th, 2025)

UI IMPROVEMENTS
- fixed race bias display in Select Your Race screen so that includes zero-rated races

GOVERNMENTS
- fixed data bug in governments that allowed factions to exist with zero colonies, thus blocking empires from being removed when they lose their last colony

ESPIONAGE
- ensure target empire is still active (not wiped out) before auto-populating new spy mission from previous mission

COLONIZATION
- fixed bug where independent colonies with races with very poor bonuses would sometimes not appear in New Colonies list

Changes in 1.2.8.5 (January 10th, 2025)

CRASH FIXES
- fixed crash when applying Migration or Tourism settings while starting game

UI FIXES
- fixed combat icon in galaxy map sometimes failing to clear for a system

MODDING AND LOCALIZATION
- added new command line option to load a custom font bundle for localizing languages that use non-Latin character sets. Please see modding sub-forum for details.

QUEUED MISSIONS
Queued missions have been a long-requested feature and this is the first iteration. We hope the implementation of it will improve manual play and give more options for controlling fleets and ships.
- added queued missions for Ships and Fleets. To use, hold down Shift key while right-clicking on a target to queue a mission (instead of immediately assigning it). Use Shift key with hold-right-click to popup a menu of available missions that can be queued. When a ship or fleet has queued missions, the popup mission menu will also have an option to 'Clear Queued Missions'. Missions that subsequently become invalid will be automatically removed from the queue, just as already happens for the current mission, e.g. when an attack target is destroyed or changes ownership, when you end a war against another faction, etc. Note that the Distance measurement system is now activated using the Alt key instead of the Shift key
- Queuing most mission types also switches the ship or fleet to manual control, with the exception of Refuel, Repair and Retrofit missions (as with normal mission assignment). Stop button now also clears all queued missions (not just the current mission). Alternatively, the player can hold down the Shift key when clicking the Stop button to just clear the current mission and proceed to the next queued mission. Assigning a new mission to a ship or fleet will also clear all queued missions

EXPLORATION AND SEARCH
- added new screen to Exploration section: Known Stars, Planets and Moons. Can use various filters and sorts to find all known galactic locations
- added new screen to Exploration section: Search Known Items. Can search for any item by name. Type text to filter what is displayed in list. Will look for any known/visible stars, planets, moons, asteroids, ships, bases, ruins, facilities, characters, troop units and artifacts

GAME SETUP
- added new settings in Start New Game screen for Your Empire Starting Situation step: Homeworld Situation allows setting whether start at planet or moon. Home System Critical Resources allows setting whether all critical construction resources are ensured to be available in your home system

CHARACTERS
- made negative character traits from passive activity much less likely for Generals and Admirals (Drunk, Poor Recruiter)
- when Spies complete a mission to Steal Tech from another faction, they now remember the details of the last mission, allowing easy one-click reassignment to the same or similar mission (same target faction, same mission type, same research project if not already researched)

DATA
- Various minor spelling and event fixes

IKKURO AND DHAYUT DLC
- Added missing Artifact descriptions

Changes in 1.2.7.9 (December 6th, 2024)

CRASH FIXES
- fixed crash when fulfilling resource order
- fixed rare crash when selecting random ship component to damage when weapon strikes ship

UI IMPROVEMENTS
- added Resource Abundance sort option in New Mining Locations list. Sorts by total abundance and includes total abundance of all asteroids within mining range
- in Selection Panel, sub-selected facilities and troops at a colony can now be deselected by clicking on them again
- added section line dividers when displaying detailed stats for all components and planetary facilities
- fixed Migration and Tourism flow map overlays to show flow lines for correct selected race
- fixed very long lists sometimes being truncated, e.g. Ship Designs list
- added tooltips to relevant sections of Start New Game screen to explain how to completely disable pirates (e.g. story-related, etc)

RESEARCH AND SHIP DESIGN
- changed Upgrade Design button so that now selects best upgrade component for each existing component, retaining the same component family. Previously the Upgrade Design button simply selected the highest tech level component for the category. See button tooltip for more info
- rebalanced component selection logic so that automated research and designs much more strongly guided by preferred weapon families from empire policy, even when faction also has preferred weapon components
- ship and base designs are now refreshed much sooner when you change preferred component families in the Empire Policy screen (when Ship Design is automated)
- in Ship Design screen, left-clicking on an empty bay in the model in the main view will now popup a component selection list (same as left-clicking on an empty bay in the Design Bays list)
- rebalanced some component and research project scoring to improve research pathing and ship design for some factions (take better account of their preferred component families)

SHIP AND FLEET BEHAVIOR
- automated fleets now more careful to include other threats at location (e.g. other creatures) when evaluating attack against creature
- fleets now actively review lead ship while under construction, thus improving ability of fleet to move directly to new home base without first gathering to lead ship location while it is still under construction (which could be at a location different from the fleet home base)

FLEET TEMPLATES
- fixed Load/Save Fleet Templates functionality
- fixed missing tooltip for Fleet Templates button

COLONIZATION AND OUTPOSTS
- rebalanced priority values for Outpost targets so that automated Colonization does not establish Outposts at planets with empire bonus levels that are too low (e.g. roughly below 3%, depending on the specific bonus types)

PLANETARY FACILITIES
- Terraforming facilities now take into account planet damage when considering whether suitability is below buildable level, i.e. planet damage is excluded when calculating build suitability. This will allow building terraforming facilities on damaged planets that would otherwise be suitable for terraforming.
- further reworked how planetary facility construction automation categories relate to specific facilities. Galactic Wonders are now clearly indicated in all situations. Added further automation categories for facility building: Construction, Research, Recreation

DIPLOMACY
- in Alliance list, for each Alliance show all their wars with other alliances and empires
- fixed last diplomatic gift date rarely not being recorded, resulting in too frequent gifts

DATA
- changed Teekan Ion Bomb category to Ion Weapon instead of Area Weapon

[AKicebear]

- changed Upgrade Design button so that now selects best upgrade component for each existing component, retaining the same component family. Previously the Upgrade Design button simply selected the highest tech level component for the category. See button tooltip for more info

This is awesome - will be trying this out my next game. My longtime preference is to have fully manually designed ships (the first time), but I've long found updating them too cumbersome, especially as the game progresses and more designs are around. If this approach could be used an automatic update design setting (e.g. a toggle to update in this fashion, rather than redesign), that would be perfect.

[Erik Rutins]

Just a quick note to add that this will be the last public beta update for this year. Public beta updates will resume in January, 2025.

[rxnnxs]

Thank you for this nice update and have a nice christmas eve.

Meanwhile we have the time to play with a game that is better than ever.

[FirstPappy]

Christmas came early. Thanks for the update!

[fruitgnome]

I hope we get tomorrow a new beta.

[MaximKI]

A new public beta is live now! This one includes the first iteration of the long-awaited queue missions feature. See OP for details!

[fruitgnome]

Yeah!

[Neurobed]

A new public beta is live now! This one includes the first iteration of the long-awaited queue missions feature. See OP for details!

Tnk's

[FirstPappy]

Is 1.2.8.5 saved game compatible?

[rxnnxs]

Very very good. I will start a new game immediately.

Two things I want to wish right here:

When the queued missions are done, the ship should go back to its state it had before: auto, manual, or whatever it had before.
OR with shift, the automation state can be set (which then is set at the end accordingly).

Future wish:
save the close/open state of the settings-dropdown.

Right now, after closeing the settings menu, all open/close settings of the categoriers (audio, grafic, galaxy and so on).

Thank you for that fast update. I did not think you work that fast in the new year!!

[MaximKI]

Is 1.2.8.5 saved game compatible?

It should be. However, any data changes to the game (which there were some minor ones), will only take effect when starting a new game.

[FirstPappy]

Thank you

[Xmudder]

1.2.8.5 crashes every other time I play it. Sometimes it generates an error report, sometime not.

[MaximKI]

1.2.8.5 crashes every other time I play it. Sometimes it generates an error report, sometime not.

What platform are you playing on? Is it Steam? Have you verified files? Do you have any crash logs you can share with us? At one point during the game do you experience the crash?

[Xmudder]

1.2.8.5 crashes every other time I play it. Sometimes it generates an error report, sometime not.

What platform are you playing on? Is it Steam? Have you verified files? Do you have any crash logs you can share with us? At one point during the game do you experience the crash?

Steam. No crash logs but sometimes I get a "did not close properly, send logs y/n?" When I verified, there were three, which I am pretty sure are my changes to automation. Always happens when generating a new game, but not every time.

[MaximKI]

Have you tried changing rendering modes to see if that has any effect? What was the last version you played without these issues?

[Xmudder]

Have you tried changing rendering modes to see if that has any effect? What was the last version you played without these issues?

This is new with 1.2.8.5
I tried High Dynamic Range rendering, but I didn't like how dark it was.
I think the Verify Game integrity fixed it, the game looks different now.

[MaximKI]

A new public beta is live now! This one includes a critical data fix to how governments and factions work. As such, we strongly recommend starting a new game with this version. See OP for details!

[MaximKI]

A new public beta is live now! See OP for details.