Improving DW?

[Rising-Sun]

I would like to see better graphics and animations in DW, i downloaded StarDrive from Steam and it pretty good 4X Space game. Although the map is small on the epic size and wanted the galaxy size. The background galaxy on SD is really nice and need to see if i can transfer it over. I asked Zero the one made SD if he would make the map much larger scales, if not then i would like to transfer graphics over to Distand Worlds.

Too bad cant do much modding in DW, need much larger tech trees. The only problems is that they use .jpeg format, it wont be really that great and dont want to use .bmp they used up alot of space and much longer to load up.

The only things bother me the most is that the private sectors that handle the transports are rather dull. They dont pay much attention when needed fuels the most and runs out. Need more options to control the private sectors.

[Numdydar]

My question is why can't games like this do a better job of dispalying resoure information in a table format?

Where the Rows are locations and the columns are % available and Amount being mined (obviously 0 if no miner or colony present)

You could have another table where the rows were the Resources where the columns would be Amount being mined, Amount in transant, Amount used, +/- (shortage/gain), and Projected on hand for each resorce. Maybe add the current price at the end too so you could make sure you are actually mining the right stuff

Is there some adversion to using simple tables in these games? As this is not the only one with this issue [:(]

This way you could easily see where any shortages were and where you could go to improve the supply. If we have all this technology in the game, the governments should have a easy way to figure out what the hell they need and where to get it [:)]

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

My question is why can't games like this do a better job of dispalying resoure information in a table format?

Where the Rows are locations and the columns are % available and Amount being mined (obviously 0 if no miner or colony present)

You could have another table where the rows were the Resources where the columns would be Amount being mined, Amount in transant, Amount used, +/- (shortage/gain), and Projected on hand for each resorce. Maybe add the current price at the end too so you could make sure you are actually mining the right stuff

Is there some adversion to using simple tables in these games? As this is not the only one with this issue [:(]

This way you could easily see where any shortages were and where you could go to improve the supply. If we have all this technology in the game, the governments should have a easy way to figure out what the hell they need and where to get it [:)]

Building stuffs in forward areas, they transports will collect whatever they can and travel in straight lines to that destinations and its just stupid. Imagine a small freighters travel five clicks away to bring resources. Large freighters should have long range transportation while small have within two sectors. I usually make resupply ships to be able to harvest fuels and mine, get like 500 carsons and mine whatever you need, you will have to write down what resources is need to build whatever you making in front lines. Beside the private sectors is so dumb, its a huge drain on your fuel reserved.

I have played without freighters, its pain but i alot better handle resources and of course its not as fast as freighters handle their jobs.

[Plant]

That's strange, I've never had your private sector fuel problem. And I build exploration and military ships nearly constantly at the start of the game. As for the tech tree, what do you mean by needing much bigger tech trees?

Numdydar, if you open the Expansion Planner (F3) you can see your overall stocks and demand, as well as galactic stocks and demand, as well as the current price.

There is also Resource Targets by Your Empire Priorty where you canchoose the resource you want to look at and can queue nearest construction ship to build a mine there, and Your Empire resource Locations for those with your own mine or colonised world.

There is also the Galaxy Map Screen (G) where you change the view to known resources.

If you open up colonies or base screen, you can see how much resources are contained within as well.
Though since you seem to have a hard time finding these screens perhaps better documentation and presentation is required.

ORIGINAL: RisingSun
I have played without freighters, its pain but i alot better handle resources and of course its not as fast as freighters handle their jobs.

This sentence makes no sense.

[Mansen]

I'd also love to see Matrix take some pointers from Stardrive. The combination of ship design (with module placement) and the subtle animations would look great in DW.

It wouldn't be enough to warrant an expansion alone though.

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: Plant

That's strange, I've never had your private sector fuel problem. And I build exploration and military ships nearly constantly at the start of the game. As for the tech tree, what do you mean by needing much bigger tech trees?

Numdydar, if you open the Expansion Planner (F3) you can see your overall stocks and demand, as well as galactic stocks and demand, as well as the current price.

There is also Resource Targets by Your Empire Priorty where you canchoose the resource you want to look at and can queue nearest construction ship to build a mine there, and Your Empire resource Locations for those with your own mine or colonised world.

There is also the Galaxy Map Screen (G) where you change the view to known resources.

If you open up colonies or base screen, you can see how much resources are contained within as well.
Though since you seem to have a hard time finding these screens perhaps better documentation and presentation is required.

ORIGINAL: RisingSun
I have played without freighters, its pain but i alot better handle resources and of course its not as fast as freighters handle their jobs.

This sentence makes no sense.

If you know how to set it up. I can make a ten year explorer vessel without having to refuel again while exploring in a huge galaxy. Playing on a single planet is no problem with the private sectors, once you expand, you will start having problems regardless. Again sometimes the constructors doesnt do their job, they sit there do nothing. So i cancel their mission and try again, sometimes it still doesnt do it. So i scrap the base and redo it, it finally worked. I did checked to make sure the constructors had enough resources what they are building. The game still have problems though.

ORIGINAL: Mansen

I'd also love to see Matrix take some pointers from Stardrive. The combination of ship design (with module placement) and the subtle animations would look great in DW.

It wouldn't be enough to warrant an expansion alone though.

Yeah it would look alot better, i was hoping on that.

[shinobu]

I would like to see two things:

1) I'd like to be able to load a folder of random character pictures for the game to use when creating characters. As of now, if I use my own custom pics, I also have the same custom character values every time...

2) Improvements in diplomacy. The mid-game/end game constant state of everyone at war with everyone else needs addressed.

[Plant]

ORIGINAL: RisingSun

ORIGINAL: Plant

That's strange, I've never had your private sector fuel problem. And I build exploration and military ships nearly constantly at the start of the game. As for the tech tree, what do you mean by needing much bigger tech trees?

...

ORIGINAL: RisingSun
I have played without freighters, its pain but i alot better handle resources and of course its not as fast as freighters handle their jobs.

This sentence makes no sense.

If you know how to set it up. I can make a ten year explorer vessel without having to refuel again while exploring in a huge galaxy. Playing on a single planet is no problem with the private sectors, once you expand, you will start having problems regardless. Again sometimes the constructors doesnt do their job, they sit there do nothing. So i cancel their mission and try again, sometimes it still doesnt do it. So i scrap the base and redo it, it finally worked. I did checked to make sure the constructors had enough resources what they are building. The game still have problems though.

Your sentence still makes no sense. Why bother quoting it, if you aren't going to explain it?

...

If I know how to set what up?
Ten year explorer vessel exploring in a huge galaxy, you just written. Not sure why. Bears no connection to anything I have written. Explains why you run out of fuel though, since that one ship will require the fuel of thousands of freighter trips. Not sure how you have enough fuel tanks on a 230 size ship for ten years though. Not sure why you insist on my having problems with fuel. Like I said before, I don't have fuel problems, and I grab every colony as soon as I can find one, and research the colonisation techs as quickly as possible.

Never seen constructors not doing their jobs and having to cancel their mission and scrap base to try again, then it works, at least not since unpatched original Distant Worlds.

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: Plant

ORIGINAL: RisingSun

ORIGINAL: Plant

That's strange, I've never had your private sector fuel problem. And I build exploration and military ships nearly constantly at the start of the game. As for the tech tree, what do you mean by needing much bigger tech trees?

...

This sentence makes no sense.

If you know how to set it up. I can make a ten year explorer vessel without having to refuel again while exploring in a huge galaxy. Playing on a single planet is no problem with the private sectors, once you expand, you will start having problems regardless. Again sometimes the constructors doesnt do their job, they sit there do nothing. So i cancel their mission and try again, sometimes it still doesnt do it. So i scrap the base and redo it, it finally worked. I did checked to make sure the constructors had enough resources what they are building. The game still have problems though.

Your sentence still makes no sense. Why bother quoting it, if you aren't going to explain it?

...

If I know how to set what up?
Ten year explorer vessel exploring in a huge galaxy, you just written. Not sure why. Bears no connection to anything I have written. Explains why you run out of fuel though, since that one ship will require the fuel of thousands of freighter trips. Not sure how you have enough fuel tanks on a 230 size ship for ten years though. Not sure why you insist on my having problems with fuel. Like I said before, I don't have fuel problems, and I grab every colony as soon as I can find one, and research the colonisation techs as quickly as possible.

Never seen constructors not doing their jobs and having to cancel their mission and scrap base to try again, then it works, at least not since unpatched original Distant Worlds.

Well Plant, i dont really appreciate what you doing, esp flaming my thread. For one thing you dont seem to be vetern player here. If you have been around since first DW and reading most topics from veteran players, you may understand what i am talking about. Not sure where you are from, some countries have problems understand others. I am not trying to be rude and getting confusing between us.

Anyway for the ten years explorer ship (custom made), make a resupply ship and put couple gas mining engines along with 3-5k cargo holds. Once it complete look for a planet have decent fuel that matches your engines. Note dont mine off gas planet that have carsons and Hydrogen (not sure if i spell that right), the reasons it will mix it up and take up cargo holds. So if you stick with carsons that your ship is using carson engine, every time the fuel get low it will refuel it up automatically and you can keep exploring for very long time. Now in some points, sometimes when the fuels get low and your ship in orbit, it can reroute to nearest fuel station to refuel, so you have to pay attention. One more thing, make sure to add explorer probe device on that ship so you can read the details on those uncharted planets.

Commander Data, are you around, can you back me up here. This player doesnt understand what we do incase the private sector doesnt do their jobs well. I noticed you mention making a cruiser with mining engines to mine off important resources that needed most. I couldnt find that thread you mention. Any other feedbacks will be helpful and for other players as well.

[ceyan]

ORIGINAL: Mansen

I'd also love to see Matrix take some pointers from Stardrive. The combination of ship design (with module placement) and the subtle animations would look great in DW.

It wouldn't be enough to warrant an expansion alone though.

How much have you played Stardrive? The ship customization mechanic gets real old when you're designing the top 2 or 3 tiers of ships unless you always stick with a single weapon system and concept every game (and thus can save designs from one empire to the next). And then it gets even worse when you start playing another race and have to start from scratch.

[Mansen]

Well thankfully it is optional so you don't have to "become bored" if you don't want to. And by the time you've played a few games you've got a few specific designs you can easily retrofit for your combat style.

And if you don't want to design at all the game offers an extensive library of designs as is.

[Rising-Sun]

ORIGINAL: ceyan

ORIGINAL: Mansen

I'd also love to see Matrix take some pointers from Stardrive. The combination of ship design (with module placement) and the subtle animations would look great in DW.

It wouldn't be enough to warrant an expansion alone though.

How much have you played Stardrive? The ship customization mechanic gets real old when you're designing the top 2 or 3 tiers of ships unless you always stick with a single weapon system and concept every game (and thus can save designs from one empire to the next). And then it gets even worse when you start playing another race and have to start from scratch.

Or like GalCiv II, to pick out a jewel objects to make your own design would be nice. Guess some players like to take their times building their ships and others want fast pace or predesigns.

[ceyan]

ORIGINAL: Mansen

Well thankfully it is optional so you don't have to "become bored" if you don't want to. And by the time you've played a few games you've got a few specific designs you can easily retrofit for your combat style.

And if you don't want to design at all the game offers an extensive library of designs as is.

So essentially you haven't played to those levels at all. Most of the biggest ships either flat out don't have any pre-designed fits at all, or only a couple built around what made a halfway decent ship months/several patches ago. Hell, two of the races don't even have the hulls for their biggest ship in the game (note, haven't looked in the past three weeks, so may no longer be true).

I'm not intending on digging Stardrive here, it's a decent game that has great potential. But don't try and say that the style of customization it offers solves an age old problem or is universally better than another, especially when you willfully admit you haven't actually experienced what you're trying to talk about.

[Mansen]

Edited to stay on topic*

You are absolutely right that having a modular system where each race would require a unique layout adds to the amount of work involved in designing your ships - but it also adds a level of depth and complexity that I think is well worth it.

Ships would cease to shoot in all directions and would have to obey placement and firing arcs (90" versus 180" or even 360") as well as allow for combat tactics such as flanking due to having to place armour (either pre-defined per ship/race or fully customizable as in Stardrive).

It also makes modding a wee bit more involving/interesting - Custom skins will have to have their own hulls as well.

[Erik Rutins]

Let's please keep discussions about the merits of other games in the General Discussion forum. I don't mind folks suggesting things we could learn from other developers, but I don't want to have debates here on those other games. The General Discussion forum is intended for that.

Regards,

- Erik

[ASHBERY76]

In DW you actually need ships.In stardrive troop spam will win you an empire.[:D]

[Mansen]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

In DW you actually need ships.In stardrive troop spam will win you an empire.[:D]

I'd argue that Das has shown otherwise repeatedly - ignoring orbital defenses in favour of rushing in ground troops and taking over colonies quickly seems to be his forte. [:D]

[Fetrik]

ORIGINAL: Mansen

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

In DW you actually need ships.In stardrive troop spam will win you an empire.[:D]

I'd argue that Das has shown otherwise repeatedly - ignoring orbital defenses in favour of rushing in ground troops and taking over colonies quickly seems to be his forte. [:D]

Wasn't that the game where he pretty much was starved to death due to too many troops and inability to expand or protect his space assets.

[Plant]

ORIGINAL: RisingSun

ORIGINAL: Plant

ORIGINAL: RisingSun



If you know how to set it up. I can make a ten year explorer vessel without having to refuel again while exploring in a huge galaxy. Playing on a single planet is no problem with the private sectors, once you expand, you will start having problems regardless. Again sometimes the constructors doesnt do their job, they sit there do nothing. So i cancel their mission and try again, sometimes it still doesnt do it. So i scrap the base and redo it, it finally worked. I did checked to make sure the constructors had enough resources what they are building. The game still have problems though.

Your sentence still makes no sense. Why bother quoting it, if you aren't going to explain it?

...

If I know how to set what up?
Ten year explorer vessel exploring in a huge galaxy, you just written. Not sure why. Bears no connection to anything I have written. Explains why you run out of fuel though, since that one ship will require the fuel of thousands of freighter trips. Not sure how you have enough fuel tanks on a 230 size ship for ten years though. Not sure why you insist on my having problems with fuel. Like I said before, I don't have fuel problems, and I grab every colony as soon as I can find one, and research the colonisation techs as quickly as possible.

Never seen constructors not doing their jobs and having to cancel their mission and scrap base to try again, then it works, at least not since unpatched original Distant Worlds.

Well Plant, i dont really appreciate what you doing, esp flaming my thread. For one thing you dont seem to be vetern player here. If you have been around since first DW and reading most topics from veteran players, you may understand what i am talking about. Not sure where you are from, some countries have problems understand others. I am not trying to be rude and getting confusing between us.

Anyway for the ten years explorer ship (custom made), make a resupply ship and put couple gas mining engines along with 3-5k cargo holds. Once it complete look for a planet have decent fuel that matches your engines. Note dont mine off gas planet that have carsons and Hydrogen (not sure if i spell that right), the reasons it will mix it up and take up cargo holds. So if you stick with carsons that your ship is using carson engine, every time the fuel get low it will refuel it up automatically and you can keep exploring for very long time. Now in some points, sometimes when the fuels get low and your ship in orbit, it can reroute to nearest fuel station to refuel, so you have to pay attention. One more thing, make sure to add explorer probe device on that ship so you can read the details on those uncharted planets.

Commander Data, are you around, can you back me up here. This player doesnt understand what we do incase the private sector doesnt do their jobs well. I noticed you mention making a cruiser with mining engines to mine off important resources that needed most. I couldnt find that thread you mention. Any other feedbacks will be helpful and for other players as well.

It's your thread is it? You are the opening poster, so I have to dance to your fiddle is it? Sorry to rain on your parade, but I am not obliged to agree with anything you say. I have not insulted you, implied or otherwise, so you calling me a flamer to detract from the points I have raised about your nonsensical posting. As to being a veteran poster, or lack of it, up till now, I felt welcomed by the forum community despite the low post count, which was refreshing. I am sure everybody else will agree that a low post count, and in your case, a higher post count does not detract from one's reasoning and arguments that can be placed forth.

So I have to ask you again. For the third time. As someone who understands English; how do you play without freighters, you cannot disable them.

As for this 10 year explorator ship, and supply ships, and gas mining and cargo holds, I still have no idea why you have written it as bears no connection to anything I have written. Not to mention that it relies on a level 3 technology as well as building the infrastructure to set up. I say one thing, you say something totally unrelated. Then make a plea to a noninvolved third person and refer to me as this player.

Why don't you use your own self professed command of the English language to explain yourself, instead of disparaging pother's understanding of English and asking others to explain for you.

[Rising-Sun]

This Plant need get to sprayed! I am not going through this again with low intelligence lifeform that hasnt played or have much experience playing Distant Worlds. I already mention that you can and also stated ingame once you figured it out, it seem you havent yet. Make a new game, pause it and then delete all freighters or one type. After that goto ship design and delete that design(s) you should be able to get this message.

Anyway (IT) can be done, so dont argue about it. If you cant understand that, go find someone else to help you with this.