Distant Worlds: Shadows

[unclean]

ORIGINAL: Evrett
Erm..I have no interest in any of these features. How sad.

Unfortunate dude. I'm more excited for this than Legends!

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
- Improved AI and new comprehensive difficulty settings

I know there's no promises at this point, but I wonder is this is the much requested resource slider?

[tjhkkr]

ORIGINAL: Igard
I like the idea of having pre-hyperspace civilizations in the game. Pirates and smugglers sound good, but I've already had enough one smuggler, goes by the name of 'Data'. He has a liking for my Romulan Ale stash.[;)]

Data has been keeping a low profile of late... [:(][&:] I have told my guards to keep an eye out though.

ORIGINAL: Igard
Boarding parties, I wonder if I can mod this to become a transporter party, rather than an assault pod. Just thinking out loud here.[8|]

That is a good point. But IGard, you would know this better than I, would there not be some kind of transporter countermeasure during combat. To coin a phrase from one of our many Star Trek versus Star Wars battles...

ORIGINAL: Igard
Ground combat improvements sound ok. Gonna be a headache making tank images for my Trek mods. They don't seem to use much armour. I agree with Ash and Haree about nerfing the bombardment. Something needs to be done there.

I have found plenty of Klingon and Romulan armor, but seriously, never anything about Federation tanks...

[tjhkkr]

This was just a quick scan of the old FASA stuff...
This was from Termination Order 1456; that had a couple of other ground units as well.
FASA also produced a ground combat module as welll


This was a Klingon Tank...

[Simulation01]

"pre-hyperspace"

Does this mean that you will introduce alternative faster than light travel modes for the different races....like wormholes, jumpgates, and jumplanes?

Also, what about planetary construction, Dyson Sphere's, Ring World's...those are long sought after additions by me and others? Will those be introduced? I think they could really be integral when contemplating space based civilizations?

BTW..the expansion sounds very intriguing...keep at it and don't let the storm get ya down (though I know that's hard...I went through Hurricane Opal as a kid and spent a couple of weeks living in a third world state).

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

ORIGINAL: Igard
I like the idea of having pre-hyperspace civilizations in the game. Pirates and smugglers sound good, but I've already had enough one smuggler, goes by the name of 'Data'. He has a liking for my Romulan Ale stash.[;)]

Data has been keeping a low profile of late... [:(][&:] I have told my guards to keep an eye out though.

ORIGINAL: Igard
Boarding parties, I wonder if I can mod this to become a transporter party, rather than an assault pod. Just thinking out loud here.[8|]

That is a good point. But IGard, you would know this better than I, would there not be some kind of transporter countermeasure during combat. To coin a phrase from one of our many Star Trek versus Star Wars battles...

ORIGINAL: Igard
Ground combat improvements sound ok. Gonna be a headache making tank images for my Trek mods. They don't seem to use much armour. I agree with Ash and Haree about nerfing the bombardment. Something needs to be done there.

I have found plenty of Klingon and Romulan armor, but seriously, never anything about Federation tanks...

hehe, you do realize that beaming that photon torpedo will be problematic, being that ISDs have both ray and particle shielding that is always active, right? [;)]

Edit: Even with spellcheck and I still can't spell, LOL. [8|]

[feelotraveller]

So maybe smuggling Natarran Incense is back on the agenda.  [:D]
 
It all looks very interesting.  [:)]
 

[Ralzakark]

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller

It all looks very interesting.  [:)]

+1

I've played DW since its first release and each expansion has added to my enjoyment of the game. Looking forward to this one. The new ground rules will be welcome and the background sounds intriguing.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: feelotraveller

So maybe smuggling Natarran Incense is back on the agenda.  [:D]

Remember to save some for my upcoming Birthday Bash in December! [:D]

(Can't wait to see how the ship/station boarding activities work out!)

[solops]

I think the ground combat complication is a move in the wrong direction. The AI does a poor job now. Adding to the complexity will make it even less competitive as well as increasing player micromanagment. 
 
I realize I am in the minority on this. So, if this is going to be the implementation, I'd like to be able to mod the game or change it during setup so that bombardment does not damage reputation any more than invasions, or perhaps even disable invasions.
 
It is certainly easy to glass a planet. Hell, we can do that now without true spaceflight. Invasions don't make much sense unless the planet has the same species.
 
And yeah, I'll buy the expansion to get some of the improvements, but I'd like the option to configure the game to avoid some of what I consider to be the sillier parts or even just to vary the type of game I play.

[Raap]

I don't mind ground combat improvements per se, but it's such a small and frankly rather uninteresting part of the game that I'd much rather the development time be put elsewhere. So kinda meh at that feature.

The rest sounds great though. Can't wait to see how space-based factions play out. There's some real potential there, though it's all in the execution I think. Hopefully the AI will be able to cope with it too, both in terms of being a space-based faction and in terms of fighting against a space-based faction. Any hints as to how resource and cash management will be for those factions? I suppose the resource part could be kept mostly the same( with a heavy focus on cargo bays in the ship/base designs to compensate for lack of planetary storage), but unless you now allow ships and bases to have actual populations in them, I'm kinda interested in how you plan to replace tax income and the research aspects.

Also, can we have larger maps? And maybe a bit more game options( global hyperspace speed and fuel usage multipliers?).

[tjhkkr]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
- Assault pods and ship to ship or base boarding actions, including ship and base capture
- New expanded Ground Combat with new troop types and an animated ground battle resolution screen
---- Infantry, Armor/Mech, Special Forces, Planetary Defense Units (multi-layered)
---- Resolution of the multiple stages of a planetary assault
---- Expanded troop experience
---- New Ground Combat technology tree
- Expanded and improved Area Weapons

StarFighters and area weapons will become much more important with assault pods roaming all over the place.
Keeping lighter defended vessels like AWACs destroyers/Frigates away from the enemy will be all the more important. I have had to sacrifice troop modules and and the like to fit that bulky long range sensor pallet on a ship.
I forsee new tactics...

And Special Forces...
Embrace your destiny; Join delta squad. Four - oh, a simple uncomplicate soldier. Six two -- the Heart and soul of your unit. Oh seven -- the fiercest hunter of them all.
Excuse me... got a little carried away there...

[Kobracan]

Great news!

I have to be honest: independent races don't excite me much but detailed ground combat and AI improvements are exciting. I'll be buying it the day it comes out!

Even though I said independent races don't excite me much, you know what would be cool? If you could start as an independent race or pirate and after satisfying some conditions (after a lot of work) you could turn into an empire and continue the game as a regular empire. That would give a sense of accomplishment and extra incentive in playing these independent races. I hope that is possible.

Looking forward to the expansion!

[Darkspire]

A few questions that have not been asked or mentioned,

A. Is it an expansion needing the others to work, like Legends?
B. Or is it a stand alone exapansion with all the others included? (Not likely but thought I would ask)
C. What is the price range, same as Legends? Asking as I would like to get it and would like to start putting pennies aside.
D. Will the race portraits be updated? IMHO they should have been updated in Legends, a variant for each character type of the race, leader, general etc.

Darkspire

[Yskonyn]

Well this is a valid question/concern;
In order to make the game easier on the wallets of new players (which we obviously cannot have enough of!) it would make sense to make it available in some kind of bundle deal or in a standalone version (with perhaps a discount for those already having the game).
Nobody is going to shell out premium price for the base game and all its expansions in one go.

[Dracus]

I hope that the minor races are actually new races and not just minor parts of the existing races,

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Simulation01
Also, what about planetary construction, Dyson Sphere's, Ring World's...those are long sought after additions by me and others? Will those be introduced? I think they could really be integral when contemplating space based civilizations?

+1

[Bison36]

Really looking forward to this expansion. Impressive list of new features.

[tjhkkr]

Okay here is a big question?

Will we get a cool contest like last time?
I trully had fun reading all the cool ideas people had?

Maybe pirate faction names or get to name a new weapon... [:)]

[Rtwfreak]

Improved AI and new comprehensive difficulty settings

I want to know "exactly" what you did to "improve" the AI. It's all too easy to make a blanket statement like that and no real improvement even exists. So please in "detail" tell us how you improved the AI.

[Mad Igor]

ORIGINAL: Rtwfreak

Improved AI and new comprehensive difficulty settings

I want to know "exactly" what you did to "improve" the AI. It's all too easy to make a blanket statement like that and no real improvement even exists. So please in "detail" tell us how you improved the AI.

they grew tentacles.