Distant Worlds: Shadows

[tjhkkr]

You are just begging for Data to strike are you not?[:D][:)][8D][:'(]

[tjhkkr]

Well [:(], I was going to upload my Crystaline Entity - Kaltor replacement, but it is too large to be put on the website.  [:(]

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: tjhkkr

Well [:(], I was going to upload my Crystaline Entity - Kaltor replacement, but it is too large to be put on the website.  [:(]

You could always put on here. Ive used them for years, free and a good service as well.

Darkspire

[Kayoz]

Looking over the feature list of Shadows, I'm concerned over a few issues:

1. graphics
I hope not too much time has gone to improving graphics. DW could use some improvements to the efficiency of the graphics engine - but trying to make the game prettier is, in my opinion, a waste of time in a strategy game.

2. bling weapons
Please don't add weapons and expand the combat without making an equal improvement to the AI behind it. All the additions to the invasion mechanics or addition of boarding will mean nothing if the AI is not also improved.

3. technology tree
Please make sure that the AI tech decision isn't "everything" as it currently is. Inefficient use of tech research by AI further degrades the already weak AI.

4. multiple stages of a planetary assault
Please make sure that this also applies to pacification. Currently, it's "invade, load troops, invade next" - there's no need or benefit to pacify a planet - so you can easily steamroll an empire down to nothing in the matter of a few minutes. This does not seem to add to the game play.

5. new planetary facilities
Running costs. Please. Every planet with full shield, ion cannon and everything else is a bit boring. Adding a dozen more facilities I can build with my nigh limitless funds is a big yawn.

6. Pirates
More control or at least hiring of them to perform specific missions would be greatly appreciated. I don't want the pirates to simply suicide on mining stations - I want them to blow up a SPECIFIC mining station. And if they need ships, I want to be able to give them ships - not cash which they'll spend building a dozen useless escorts.

7. area weapons
Please make them hit fighters and possibly missiles/torpedoes. Area weapons are either useless or a detriment to any player that's daft enough to use them.

8. diplomacy
Blockade mechanics need a serious look over. Attacking ships that are blockading your planet should have little or no reputation hit. Also, the current implementation of diplomatic demands to remove military forces from my (player) system seems to go to NULL. There's no indication what's being done with diplomacy, but please FIX the existing problems before adding new ones!

9. difficulty settings
Grand news. More the better. Expose everything - even if it's in an ini file. Allowing players to tweak the game to suit their desires will only lengthen the life of the game. And for such a tiny dev cost as well!

10. memory management
Please please tell me that Elliot has implemented his own memory manager. The .net limit of 800-1200mb is ridiculous given modern PCs. It's purely a .net limit, which he can (hopefully) easily work around. Please please please tell me he's done this...

[jabbahutt]

Sounds great,

Personally I have two things that I would like changed and would make the game just about perfect:
1. Mechanical races (Borg anyone?)
2. Random tech trees - where not all techs always appear and the research time is semi-random.

My two cents.

[Haree78]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

Looking over the feature list of Shadows, I'm concerned over a few issues:

1. graphics
I hope not too much time has gone to improving graphics. DW could use some improvements to the efficiency of the graphics engine - but trying to make the game prettier is, in my opinion, a waste of time in a strategy game.

Can't say I agree.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
2. bling weapons
Please don't add weapons and expand the combat without making an equal improvement to the AI behind it. All the additions to the invasion mechanics or addition of boarding will mean nothing if the AI is not also improved.

I would be surprised if the AI doesn't get a lot of tweaks, I have posted a ton of issues and suggestions in dev forums and things rarely get ignored.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
3. technology tree
Please make sure that the AI tech decision isn't "everything" as it currently is. Inefficient use of tech research by AI further degrades the already weak AI.

Agreed, we need research orders modding too.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
4. multiple stages of a planetary assault
Please make sure that this also applies to pacification. Currently, it's "invade, load troops, invade next" - there's no need or benefit to pacify a planet - so you can easily steamroll an empire down to nothing in the matter of a few minutes. This does not seem to add to the game play.

That's a good idea. A certain level of troops required depending on race family that will change over time as local enforcement is set up.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
8. diplomacy
Blockade mechanics need a serious look over. Attacking ships that are blockading your planet should have little or no reputation hit. Also, the current implementation of diplomatic demands to remove military forces from my (player) system seems to go to NULL. There's no indication what's being done with diplomacy, but please FIX the existing problems before adding new ones!

Yeah blockading seems strange why can't I send a military fleet to counter a blockade, if they fire on freighters then shoot back.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
9. difficulty settings
Grand news. More the better. Expose everything - even if it's in an ini file. Allowing players to tweak the game to suit their desires will only lengthen the life of the game. And for such a tiny dev cost as well!

Agreed but we already have quite a few ways to alter difficulty. Starting system, the types of enemies we can have, money the AI gets, how big the AI starts off, what tech the AI starts on.
Difficulty needs to be enhanced by improving the AI mainly. Once you nearly catch up with the AI in economy or tech it's easy.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
10. memory management
Please please tell me that Elliot has implemented his own memory manager. The .net limit of 800-1200mb is ridiculous given modern PCs. It's purely a .net limit, which he can (hopefully) easily work around. Please please please tell me he's done this...

Oh please explain, used .NET plenty of times and had no idea there was some app memory limit?
Isn't using .NET and using your own memory manager the same as buying a car to push down the road?

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Haree78

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
Looking over the feature list of Shadows, I'm concerned over a few issues:

1. graphics
I hope not too much time has gone to improving graphics. DW could use some improvements to the efficiency of the graphics engine - but trying to make the game prettier is, in my opinion, a waste of time in a strategy game.

Can't say I agree.

I'd be happier with the graphics improvement left till the next version. Doing so in an expansion seems to be a waste of time, considering other places Elliot can focus his efforts. Improving the AI, for example, would appeal to me far more than eye candy.

ORIGINAL: Haree78

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
10. memory management
Please please tell me that Elliot has implemented his own memory manager. The .net limit of 800-1200mb is ridiculous given modern PCs. It's purely a .net limit, which he can (hopefully) easily work around. Please please please tell me he's done this...

Oh please explain, used .NET plenty of times and had no idea there was some app memory limit?
Isn't using .NET and using your own memory manager the same as buying a car to push down the road?

Bad wording of the issue - I mean memory pool.

DW seems to have serious issues with memory fragmentation. Memory pool might help.

[Bebop Cola]

I tend to agree with mot of Kayoz's suggestions, but to highlight:

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

4. multiple stages of a planetary assault
Please make sure that this also applies to pacification. Currently, it's "invade, load troops, invade next" - there's no need or benefit to pacify a planet - so you can easily steamroll an empire down to nothing in the matter of a few minutes. This does not seem to add to the game play.

5. new planetary facilities
Running costs. Please. Every planet with full shield, ion cannon and everything else is a bit boring. Adding a dozen more facilities I can build with my nigh limitless funds is a big yawn.

I'd like to emphasize both of these as well. As it is, I almost find colonization/conquering to be an inconvenient necessity. I don't place as much value on my acquisitions because they're virtually guaranteed assets. They don't cost much to obtain and hold, they chug out resources I honestly don't need in the long run, and the only real risk to them comes from another empire attacking them.

I think having some greater responsibility towards them would make them a bit more valued. They become an investment rather than a given. I'd like to see a bit more discontent within the population be that from simple unhappiness(grater impact from taxes and reputation, or more sources of potential discontent), disillusionment(more impact from being enamored with neighboring empires or simply because a lack of external threat breeds more desire for independence), or general lawlessness from corruption, pirate activity, and/or recent invasion.

I'd also like to see much more done with running costs. Not just raw cash, but resources as well. Large worlds need to be gluttons for resources and those resources need to disappear. Most times I feel like large stockpiles are just shuffled around currently.

In general, I suppose the economy itself is just my bugbear. I'm not sure why trade happens considering how cheap and easy it is to squat on a source of raw materials(strategic or luxury) and get it myself. I guess I have to defend the mining base and all, but I can almost get all the luxury resources I need in one or two systems. Certain strategic resources can be a bit more of a pain I guess, but nothing insurmountable. There seems to be a theme of trade in the new expansion, so it may already be in the works, but I'd just like to suggest trade goods once again. Manufactured goods that certain empires make either more efficiently or with higher quality, or goods that they make exclusively. Raw materials are bulk commodities. Manufactured goods are where the money is.

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

6. Pirates
More control or at least hiring of them to perform specific missions would be greatly appreciated. I don't want the pirates to simply suicide on mining stations - I want them to blow up a SPECIFIC mining station. And if they need ships, I want to be able to give them ships - not cash which they'll spend building a dozen useless escorts.

Definitely this, and it seems right up the alley for the expansion. That said, I don't want to nitpick on this too much until more details are posted for the new release. Just wanted to let it be known that this is very much desirable.

[Haree78]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
DW seems to have serious issues with memory fragmentation. Memory pool might help.

Oh I see. Well if you were to implement some kind of memory pool in a .NET app you are getting rid of some of the advantages of .NET. I imagine the memory manager deallocating memory as we zoom in and then zoom out away from close up graphics is some of the reason we can use so many ship sets etc. Although I agree it is probably partly to blame for some of the jerkiness as we zoom out etc.
I would surmise that a lot of the later game slow down isn't so much the memory issues as the amount of ships and decisions the game is making all the time. I would be surprised if the later game issues are mostly memory related. I don't get issues late game personally by the way.

I don't know though, never written anything like DW.

[Bingeling]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

1. graphics
I hope not too much time has gone to improving graphics. DW could use some improvements to the efficiency of the graphics engine - but trying to make the game prettier is, in my opinion, a waste of time in a strategy game.

I feel this is for a dw 2. A dw 2 could also be a nice tool to suck more money from oldtimers, and also allow a point of time for new players to obtain the game at a recent version and a reasonable price. It could be hard to pull off, though.

I think the game look perfectly OK (and I don't struggle with small text either, having good glasses, and "large" monitor).

2. bling weapons
Please don't add weapons and expand the combat without making an equal improvement to the AI behind it. All the additions to the invasion mechanics or addition of boarding will mean nothing if the AI is not also improved.

In general, don't add stuff that don't work well. The new weapons don't interest me much until I see them, as I am not sure their impact will be significant. I fail to see the huge leap forward by the previous addition of rail guns and phasers. More choices will if nothing is done make the AI worse, as there is even more for the AI to breadth-research before getting to useful stuff...

3. technology tree
Please make sure that the AI tech decision isn't "everything" as it currently is. Inefficient use of tech research by AI further degrades the already weak AI.

Research and design streamlining is an obvious point for AI improvement. Have the AI have an idea about what it wants, and work towards that idea, ignoring unnecessary stuff.

4. multiple stages of a planetary assault
Please make sure that this also applies to pacification. Currently, it's "invade, load troops, invade next" - there's no need or benefit to pacify a planet - so you can easily steamroll an empire down to nothing in the matter of a few minutes. This does not seem to add to the game play.

Pacifying sounds like a great idea, if implemented well. If the troop stuff is improved so that transports don't carry away troops where not wanted, adding some troops/roles to pacify would become a good option.

5. new planetary facilities
Running costs. Please. Every planet with full shield, ion cannon and everything else is a bit boring. Adding a dozen more facilities I can build with my nigh limitless funds is a big yawn.

For me, this is a seriously uninteresting part of the game, more annoying than fun (since there is not much fun in them at all). I tend to run infrastructure on suggest, and it is major PITA when basic stuff like shields and fortifications are researched. Either a chore to build at a lot of colonies, or en endless stream of single build suggestions, one at a time.

6. Pirates
More control or at least hiring of them to perform specific missions would be greatly appreciated. I don't want the pirates to simply suicide on mining stations - I want them to blow up a SPECIFIC mining station. And if they need ships, I want to be able to give them ships - not cash which they'll spend building a dozen useless escorts.

The current pirates (non legendary) are a nice early game challenge, a late game chore, and a cheesy way to tweak reputation. I am happy to see this area get some love, and I hope the changes are good. Your idea sounds nifty.

8. diplomacy
Blockade mechanics need a serious look over. Attacking ships that are blockading your planet should have little or no reputation hit. Also, the current implementation of diplomatic demands to remove military forces from my (player) system seems to go to NULL. There's no indication what's being done with diplomacy, but please FIX the existing problems before adding new ones!

Yes, blockades are stupid indeed.

9. difficulty settings
Grand news. More the better. Expose everything - even if it's in an ini file. Allowing players to tweak the game to suit their desires will only lengthen the life of the game. And for such a tiny dev cost as well!

And give export/import strings with settings for us to share on the forum. Random generated evil opponent setup would be great (like having some distant insects start with way of darkness, a zentiba source, and a few extra planets).

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Haree78
I would be surprised if the later game issues are mostly memory related. I don't get issues late game personally by the way.

There are a few threads in the tech support forum where people are playing on a large galaxy and unable to finish the game due memory limits.

I hope zooming doesn't require dynamic memory allocation - that would be horribly inefficient! That said, it's a small team developing it, so I don't expect his graphics implementation to be as slick as Skyrim. But nor will I deny the presence of abundant low-hanging-fruit where dramatic improvements could be made.

[Haree78]

Well there shouldn't be leaks that can't be solved by restarting and loading the save game. If that doesn't solve it then it isn't leaks.
Willing to concede there could be memory issues, but probably managing not hitting limits is the issue. I've never had it and I always play BIG games with my Extended mod.
I know before I reduced the size of the ships in the mod I was getting crashes so there is definitely issues there. A lot of the mods released increase the size of images used so undoubtedly some of the crashes are related to that.

[Shark7]

If folks are playing on a Win XP 32 bit system, then they can hit memory issues. On a 64 bit system, I have never had a memory issue.

In other words, the memory problem is Windows (especially 32 bit versions), since Windows essentially is a memory leak. [;)]

BTW, specs for those interested since I never have memory issues even on 1400 star galaxies with 30 AI empires:

Win 7 64 bit
Core I-7
16 GB RAM
Radeon 7770 Video 1 GB DDR3 Video RAM

So yes, I have a high end machine and no problems, but back when I ran a single core machine with Win XP 32 and only 2 of RAM, I hit memory issues on 1400 star galaxies (basically 700 was my limit on that old machine).

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Haree78

Well there shouldn't be leaks that can't be solved by restarting and loading the save game. If that doesn't solve it then it isn't leaks.

Memory fragmentation, not leak. Different things. I think Elliot has nailed most of the leaks - but fragmentation is how he's handling memory.

ORIGINAL: Shark7

If folks are playing on a Win XP 32 bit system, then they can hit memory issues. On a 64 bit system, I have never had a memory issue.

Doesn't matter. It's how it's compiled (32 v 64), not your OS. DW is compiled for 32-bit and doesn't take advantage of the larger memory address space of 64-bit memory addressing.

As a quick little experiment, I ask that you try to load Leon's tiny save game file.

[Haree78]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Haree78

Well there shouldn't be leaks that can't be solved by restarting and loading the save game. If that doesn't solve it then it isn't leaks.

Memory fragmentation, not leak. Different things. I think Elliot has nailed most of the leaks - but fragmentation is how he's handling memory.

ORIGINAL: Shark7

If folks are playing on a Win XP 32 bit system, then they can hit memory issues. On a 64 bit system, I have never had a memory issue.

Doesn't matter. It's how it's compiled (32 v 64), not your OS. DW is compiled for 32-bit and doesn't take advantage of the larger memory address space of 64-bit memory addressing.

As a quick little experiment, I ask that you try to load Leon's tiny save game file.

I'll try it at some point, off to watch some TV.

But what do you mean by fragmentation? What difference does that make in RAM?

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Haree78
But what do you mean by fragmentation? What difference does that make in RAM?

Every time your program requests memory from the heap, the operating system (hopefully) returns (a pointer to) that block of memory - till it's released, at which time it's returned to the heap and can be reused. Now, this seems fine and dandy if you need to allocate 10 blocks, use them and then free them - but if you're doing this 100 million times, it becomes troublesome because the operating system must find a contiguous block of memory of that size. You might have enough memory, but it's all chopped up into little bits smaller than the requested size because you've had a lot of little requests which haven't been released.

As an analogy, let's say you have a train that's 2/3 full. You're checking in with your wife and 2 kids - so you ask for 4 seats together. The conductor says no (out of memory) - there's no 4 seats together available on the tran. It's only 2/3 full, so there's far more than 4 seats - but because people have gotten on and off and the seat usage is as a result spread out.

A memory pool ameliorates this problem by pre-allocating the amount of expected memory usage and having requests go to that pool instead of the OS memory manager. The down-side of this is that it can be more processor intensive and will inevitably need some tweaking. If you've played Civilization, you'll notice that it blocks further unit builds at a certain point, so you have to disband a unit or destroy on opposing (not sure here - might be per-faction) if you want to make a new one. Leon's save-game file seems to indicate that DW doesn't use a pool, but just keeps allocating - till it goes bang because it's out of memory. My problems with fragmentation was from running a long game and being able to continue it after a crash that reported the process being out of memory.

This differs from a "memory leak" where the analogous seat is taken - then taken again and again and again. A passenger gets on and off - and each time he's given a new seat - and his old seat remains tagged as his. This happens when the programmer fails to free (for a variety of reasons) the allocated block of memory when he's done with it.

Apologies in advance for my crude explanation. Here's a link that can serve as a beginning if you're interested in reading up on it. As well, I can't be certain how much use a custom memory pool would be to DW - but given the memory problems, something I think Elliot should consider. But regardless of the "best solution" used, I think that the current method of DW crashing is a poor way of handling the memory problem. It can be more than a bit annoying to a player who's put several hours into that game.

[JosEPhII]

Looks to be another Fun addition to the DW family.

Gound Combat is a + for me.
Factions +
New background story +

Actually so far I don't see any - .

JosEPh [:)]

[Haree78]

Ah so I think you are saying that memory fragmentation might be causing inefficiency and filling up memory where a memory pool could be more efficient? Nothing to do with contiguous reading of RAM which I assumed you meant. Yes I see now, that might be the case.

I guess Elliot would know better than us whether that could be happening, I think I wouldn't recommend memory pools unless it definitely will solve anything. From my understanding you aren't advised to allocate huge chunks of memory on the heap in a managed environment.

PS Sorry I mentioned memory leaks, I could have sworn you said leaks, looking back I can't see you saying it.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Haree78
I guess Elliot would know better than us whether that could be happening, I think I wouldn't recommend memory pools unless it definitely will solve anything. From my understanding you aren't advised to allocate huge chunks of memory on the heap in a managed environment.

Elliot would know better?

Yup. It's a guess. Without running the code through a profiler, there's no way of telling if it will help or not. The basis for my recommending that he look into it is a complete wild arse guess backed by nothing more than a handful of anecdotal examples. I freely admit such... unlike some who claim to have "facts" which turn out to be as reliable as a Nostradamus prophecy.

But then again, I'd also suggest he rewrite it in Lisp. There's something gleefully wicked about a language where you can overload whitespace. Not all my suggestions, as you might guess, are all that great.

[Kayoz]

Missed two...

11. event messages
Please colour code them and allow the user to filter by type. For example, constructor messages in yellow, ignore all explorer messages, and all military ship messages in red. I really don't think there's anything to be gained from spamming the user with messages that his freighters are under attack. Surely allowing the player to have these messages not show up at all, would be a simple task in terms of code. Colour change to the text or an icon on the left per message - either would do.

12. contraband
Rare or produced resources that can, with risk of reputation and diplomatic hit, be sold at absurd profits to a neighbour. Columbia. Nuff said.