Master Wishlist Thread

Distant Worlds is a vast, pausable real-time, 4X space strategy game which models a "living galaxy" with incredible options for replayability and customizability. Experience the full depth and detail of large turn-based strategy games, but with the simplicity and ease of real-time, and on the scale of a massively-multiplayer online game. Now greatly enhanced with the new Universe release, which includes all four previous releases as well as the new Universe expansion!

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invaderzim
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by invaderzim »

I would be great if we change the colors of other empires. There's often more empires than colors so it would be ideal if we could change their colors during the game so we can focus on empires we have more contact with.

I wound up next to these two empires that look very similar, the Falin on the left side are bright red while the Morts on the right side are dark red. It's even worse when a faction gets the same color as you because it makes combat confusing, especially if they have the same ship sprites.

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Azuran
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Azuran »

Increase the number of Primary and Secondary colors, even if its just a lighter or darker shade is one of my wishes. Hopefully it could be a hex color editor so we could choose from 255 shades.
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elanaagain
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by elanaagain »

My priority of wishes:
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First, much easier ship/base designing window. (I design manual = 100%). A) [create an 'add one of currently selected component' to the design (right hand) pane.] Explanation: Design window has two panes. Bouncing from design pane back to component options pane is sometimes a pain. On the right pane, (actual design) add plus, minus buttons so user may choose to either add OR subtract one of that component. Its a pain , when in the ship pane, to be forced to leave the design pane when you are already 'on' the component you want to add more of to the design. To add more of the currently selected component user has to go over to left pane, (the 'all available components' pane) and click, move/drag/scroll up and down, etc. to find/select the component you just had selected in the design (right)pane. B) [allow customization of pane size (length), of design panes.] Explanation: make the panes longer, so user can see ALL possible components in window without click-scroll-ouch.
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Second, on galaxy (main) map, clicking on a moving ship/fleet, shows vector with ETA. Does not have to be exact to 3 decimal points, just a very close approximation.
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Third, thank you, lots.
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invaderzim
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by invaderzim »

I'd love an option to enter the numbers of each component manually like this. Also, the game warns us if we put two hyperdrives on a ship, it should also do the same for other components that only work once such as Command Centers, Medical Bays, Commerce Centers, etc.

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Second, on galaxy (main) map, clicking on a moving ship/fleet, shows vector with ETA. Does not have to be exact to 3 decimal points, just a very close approximation.

Yes, this would be very handy.

Keep up the great work guys!
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Tiberiumkyle
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Tiberiumkyle »

Been playing since shortly after Legends was released, and the one thing that remains my top wish, is opening up of the tech trees and components for modding. The game is decently fun as it is, and I know enough about programming to have at least some idea what's involved in providing such mod support, but I'm one of those people that has as much fun modding a game as actually playing it. So much we could do with more mod support, drives me nuts sometimes with how little we can actually do atm.
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SVWGiant
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by SVWGiant »

Now, we have 3 Addons with many fulfilled wishes. My wishes are only:
A Startyear between 2200 and 2400 AD and a completly translated game with all 3 Addons into German :)
solops
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by solops »

1. Shadows - I suggest that the AI be given a higher priority for commerce raiding. I would also like to see an automated commerce raiding button for the player, with a percentage of fleet number to be made available for the raiding.
2. An option to disable all wonders for all players in the game setup.
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jesuswhywhy
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by jesuswhywhy »

pre game options for ban weapons, tech etc
set all option for race specific starting options, ie all tech 1, all average.


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elanaagain
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by elanaagain »

I would definitely like to be able to assign fleets "movement AND" orders that repeat, (or cycle automatically). Example: <name> Fleet move to <location/planet/systemstar/starport/mine> AND patrol <number> turns; THEN move to <location/planet/systemstar/starport/mine> AND patrol <number> turns; THEN repeat (go back and do first movement AND... [AND ... options = [['patrol' from target of move order for <number> turns]], [[refuel]], [[repair and refuel]], [[wake (message that fleet has no orders)]]. Even setting simple way-points would help greatly, like telling a fleet to move back and forth between to locations, until told otherwise.
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Menzoberranzan
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Menzoberranzan »

I would love to see a detailed immigration policy screen. This would include the ability to set what planet types other races may settle (native only, specific types via check boxes, or any), whether a race or racial group may immigrate, ability to enslave by racial group or specific race, and ability to exterminate by racial group or specific race.

Since Shadows added a corruption rating, low corruption would enforce the policy better than high corruption (think sanctuary cities in the US).
Fenrisfil
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Fenrisfil »

Would be nice to have an option to restrict the exterminate/enslave policies so they don't activate (if default policy) until your races population reaches a certain level in a colony. This would be especially useful for races with a population growth bonus on exterminate (which doesn't really work when there is only a victim race at a colony).

Also, more tech focus options in the policy screen (like colonisation, group troops, research, etc) options for unfavoured tech in the race policy (so not totally restricted but given less focus by the ai).
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elanaagain
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by elanaagain »

ONE: On expansion planner, have filter for planet type
[[ - may be possible with future tech to colonize]], and / or [never possible to colonize this type of planet ]. Rationale: when i am planning which colonization tech paths to pursue, knowing what will open up is much easier if I can eliminate all the planets that never can be colonized - no matter what techs you learn.

TWO: when looking at planet/moon names in several displays [expansion planner mainly] place the name of the system planet - then the moon name. This makes sorting by name much better as the moons end up with the planets of same system, rather then scattered all over. Easiest way would be to add prefix to all moon names [prefix = name of planet the moon travels with].

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Chris McMahon
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Chris McMahon »

Here's some suggestions I'd like to see from playing a hundred hours or so of DW + all expansions and 20 years of playing 4x space games in general.

1. Make an option where I'm told the "class" of ship under attack, rather than the "name".
It's much more useful to me to know an "explorer" is under attack (which I can ignore), rather than the "Sleeply Weasel". Or "Large Freighter" is under attack, rather than the "Mouldy Crumpet" (again, which I ignore). Or say that a "Small Star Base" is under attack (which IS important).

At the moment I get around this by manually renaming all my ships to their class name, ie all explorer class ships are called "explorer", all freighters are called "Freighter" etc. But when you have 300+ military ships and several hundred civilian ships this gets annoying.

2. More options about what I'm told via the alert popups.
I just finished a game where I was getting 5+ alert popus per second! - It was a 1400 star map, max everything. Most popup alerts only slide in 1/5 of the way before another one replaced it, making me dig through the Message History screen (sometimes I'd get an entire page of alerts every 2 seconds of game time!)

I know about the options menu where you can click checkboxes for popups and scrolling messages, but the choices aren't detailed enough.

I'd like to turn off alerts about stalled construction (I get 20+ of these at once). I'd also like to turn off alerts about explorers and transports under attack, but keep alerts about military ships and bases under attack.

3. More control over automated military ship missions.
I'm playing a game now where I have 20 colonies, 40 escorts, 40 frigates, 20 destroyers. I'm manually controlling the destroyers as my attack fleets. The escorts and frigates are on auto.

Even with 80 escorts and frigate combined, and only 20 colonies, the AI leaves a lot of my colonies undefended. Of coarse the pirates always seem to come in and blow my 90% complete star ports to bits!

Make say an Empire Policy where you can assign ships to every colony, just like you do with ground forces. Say something like:

Assign patrol ships for each colony:
[ ] [0] Escorts
[X] [3] Frigates
[ ] [0] Destroyers
[ ] [0] Cruiser
[ ] [0] Capital

Then when each new colony comes into your empire, the nearest "X" number of "Y" class of ships (which are on auto) are automatically assigned to the new colony's defence. If you don't have enough available ships, a popup could warn the player that there aren't enough free ships and maybe open up the build menu with the suggested number entered, just like it does now with the empire-wide suggested build menu.

And ever better, have the colony patrol ships assigned to every new colony ship at time of construction. Then follow the colony ship to the planet and once colonised, immediately start their patrol. Or be able to build a "colony fleet" all at once (see next suggestion).

This could be improved even further by making the patrol fleets leave once the colony has a completed star port (ie can defend itself).

4. Create Fleet types and be able to build an entire fleet at once.
I'd like more control over fleets and fleet building. I want to design a fleet's makeup, just like a ship's design. You'd have a fleet "type" say "Assault". You could then make a design screen like:

Fleet Type Name [Assault]
This fleet will contain:
[1]x [Fleet Control Capital Ship Mk3]
[1]x [Fleet Interdictor Cruiser Mk4]
[1]x [Fleet Long Range Scanner Destroyer Mk9]
[4]x [Assault Cruiser Mk1]
[10]x [Missile Boat Destroyer Mk3]
[4]x [Large Troop Destroyer Mk8]
[Click here to add another ship class]

[Click here to create a fleet based on this design]
When created fleet will appear at [Colony Name][Click here to change]

Then the fleet will be assembled from either automated ships already built, or it will assign star ports to start building the individual ships (based on expected build speed, ie don't assign a capital ship to a small star port with 12 ships waiting to be built, when there's a large star port with no waiting) and send the finished ships to the requested colony, assign them to a fleet, and give the player a popup like "Assault Fleet [12] at [Home] Colony now ready".

Then it would be a simple matter to click "Build fleet [Assault]" three times to end up with 3 Assault fleets, each made up of 20 ships, each ship specifically designed to fill a specific roll.

Instead of now where you just get a collection of X number of random ships of various types and rolls. This means the player generally creates "jack-of-all-trades" ships that do everything, but nothing well.
Astax
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Astax »

I would love a button to launch all fighters on patrol! Launching them one by one is a pain!
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elanaagain
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by elanaagain »

Ability to create/build a military "class" of cargo/resource transport ships. Ability to put said STATE cargo transports into a 'convoy' fleet. Ability to give said ship and/or fleet transport [-e single ship or fleet of said ships] order to ~ " go to location with resources stored [star-port, mining station], collect resource present at said location, move to selected (different) star-port and unload resources. Rinse, repeat until ordered otherwise." Being able to select a specific resource, or, say up to three resources would be very handy.
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Bebop Cola
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Bebop Cola »

Migration and Race Policies
We're still missing granular migration and race policy tools. Call me an evil overlord, but I want to be able to manage where the various races live within my empire. It helps me manage access to race abilities and make most efficient use of planetary real estate(planets with non-native races have a lower population cap from what I've seen).

For example:
1. If I'm playing a human empire, I want to be able to set aside all desert worlds for Securan colonists and only Securan colonists. Not Securans and any humans that overflow my continental world.

2. If I have a continental world with Human, Kiadian, Ikkuro, and Atuuk residents, I want to be able to resettle the Humans to another continental world within my empire, keep the Kiadians where they are, exterminate the Ikkuro, and enslave the Atuuk.

3. If I have a world with Human, Sluken, Dhayut, Boskaran, and Gizureans, I want to be able to set a blanket policy for all bugs, or individual policies for each race. Maybe I'm allied with the Gizureans against the Dhayut, so I don't want to exterminate them. They're still creepy bugmen, however, so I don't want them in my empire. I want to be able to exterminate the Dhayut, Boskaran, and Sluken, but resettle the Gizureans out of my empire.

4. When I set a policy to resettle a race, I want them all to go. I want to me able to manage that last 1M that doggedly stick around unless I exterminate them. If I can round them all up for extermination, I should be able to round them all up for resettlement instead.

5. I would like for race migration between empires to be a diplomatic choice. That said, one cannot completely control people moving around, so the diplomatic choice should simply be a way to throttle the fire hose from an overpopulated empire to an underpopulated one(avoiding giving them access to new planet types as my people become the dominant population on one of their worlds).

6. Races should not migrate to empires who are only going to enslave/exterminate them in any case whatsoever. An empire's race policies should be a factor in push-pull calculations for cross-border migration.

7. Migration should not be queued for a planet at or near its population cap. I feel like I really can't overstate this. It really bothers me when my human planets overflow and everyone starts migrating to the desert world the next system over where I have a Securan colony. That colony's population is at the cap too, but for some reason the game is queuing migrants to go there. When the population transport arrives, the migrants are dumped on the planet, bumping it above the cap, and the Securan population is decreased to re-balance. This is outright irritating as it means, over time, my human population is displacing any alien races I have in my empire. This has been an issue across several versions and expansions. Maybe it's because the Securans are going on vacation at my resort bases and the game is queuing the migration in the brief moment the population dips below the cap, I don't know. It shouldn't be happening, though, and I have no tools to resettle the humans elsewhere. Once they're there, I can't get rid of them short of using the editor, but I can't get rid of the last 1M at all, leaving the door open for more migration and population growth at the expense of the Securan population. This really bothers me.

War and Territory Ownership
Empires should retain a sense of ownership over bases, ships, and planets lost to invasion, capture, or rebellion. These should be motivations for war(beyond simple diplomacy penalties) and goals of the war effort to re-capture or destroy. I would suggest the following:

1. Insofar as an opposing empire has control of another empire's property, the offending empire should incur a diplomatic penalty.

2. Insofar as an opposing empire has control of another empire's property, the injured party should benefit from a war weariness reduction.

3. This sense of ownership(and diplomatic penalty) can have a value that decreases over time, but likely never completely goes away. A colony that was just lost to invasion would likely be a much bigger focus than one that was lost 50 or 100 years ago. Still, that colony world nabbed from them a century ago is still their's by right and, while maybe no longer justification for hostilities, it should still be a primary target of acquisition if hostilities were to break out.

4. Empires whose colony worlds rebel to become a new empire in their own right should initially be at war and retain a basic level of animosity for generations. The parent empire should see all properties of the rebel empire as their own as above, including anything new built(the rebels, by right, should still be part of the parent empire). The rebel empire may well view the parent empire's properties as theirs in turn(they're the rightful claimants to the throne), or they may be content going their own path(they broke away from the parent).
Bebop Cola
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Bebop Cola »

ORIGINAL: elanaagain

Ability to create/build a military "class" of cargo/resource transport ships. Ability to put said STATE cargo transports into a 'convoy' fleet. Ability to give said ship and/or fleet transport [-e single ship or fleet of said ships] order to ~ " go to location with resources stored [star-port, mining station], collect resource present at said location, move to selected (different) star-port and unload resources. Rinse, repeat until ordered otherwise." Being able to select a specific resource, or, say up to three resources would be very handy.
I'd like to second this. I made a similar suggestion a while back.

At the core, I think we need a way to better manage resource distribution. Civilian freighters seem to get too caught up in random jobs so no consistent resource re-balancing schedule/route can be established. Ideally, resources would be balanced across all depot locations(I say depot because I would like to be able to establish a military depot to support a war effort). Of course, this is not a trivial endeavor, so it's just something to consider.

My preference would be for the different freighter types to be keyed to different roles. Large freighters, for example, would be dedicated to shuffling resources between depots as they would have the capacity to carry the large loads required for balancing. Small freighters would be tasked with in-system roles ferrying resources from local mines to local star ports. Medium freighters would be tasked with shuttling resources to remote construction/repair projects as necessary, visiting remote mines, and trade with other empires. Medium freighters, then, would be built in the largest numbers.

It would also be nice if freighters had some capacity to handle queued tasks. By all appearances, a freighter has a single task for the moment and, when complete, are left idle where that task ended. They then receive a new task that could well be far away. I'm not sure if the freighter queuing system includes a check for the closest idle freighter(I assume it does), but I sometimes wonder if freighters leaving the site of their last job could do better to pick something up to sell at their next location. I mean, in a real-life economy, you always want to have some sort of cargo in the hold to pay at least some of the cost of the trip. At least, insofar as it doesn't cost you more in additional fuel costs to carry it than you'd make to sell it. Empty freighters flying around, then, are inefficient. Then again, it would likely take a lot more oomph to calculate out whether a given freighter should buy steel here, to sell over there when it goes to pick up Hydrogen, or whathaveyou. Worth some thought, at least.

Absent all of that, of course, the State-controlled freighter would be a benefit. It would allow players to address freighter inefficiencies where necessary.
Chris21wen
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Chris21wen »

A combined luxury filter for Known Resources on the Galaxy map. Currently you can display the locations individually but finding the nearest luxury to you that you do not have and want to target is laborious.
Mad Igor
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by Mad Igor »

Here is my suggestion from my frustration:
my military ship constantly escaping battle.
his shield is 100%,he have only 2 damaged components and he is stronger that those who i send him to attack like x5 times,but he still escape as soon as he jump to them ! this is freaking annoying as hell ! he can go and die for all i care,but the mission MUST be completed !
i'd like to see option "never escape no matter what" or like "until last man standing" command for single ship or/and whole fleet.
oldones
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RE: Master Wishlist Thread

Post by oldones »

1. More In-Depth Economy
Only tax is stable and other major economics like spaceport or trading is too unstable.
It is due to the fact that there are only final product-ships which makes private sector running
But, people buy not only ships but also consumes electronics, foods, etc.
So even if mining ships or freighters don't get destroyed, people constantly consume resources and products from the facilities, so making trade network stable even in later games which empires have stable resource supplies.

And also, just making weapons directly from resources is not realistic.
Because you first have to make some basic components like crystal lens, supercapacitor, software, etc to make a single laser cannon.
So, making basic factories produce some basic components from resources, and some advanced factories produce advanced components from basic components, and final products are produced is more realistic.
It can also make trade network more stable I suppose.

Also, enable planets to have modules like factories, construction yards, weapons, farms so colonies aren't just tax and resource suppliers.

2. Make stations, ships to have actual population in it
In almost all science fictions, there are cities in giant spaceships or stations.
So, enable building specific living quarter modules in ships and stations to actually have population in it and you can get taxes from them.
It makes colonization not obligatory, and small empires can actually compete with large empires with well-developed space cities.
It also makes economy more stable because you can cut down maintenance costs for just allowing private people to live in.
Also, it can make pirate play more enjoyable because building pirate stations will not be painful to economy.

3. Improved leveling/naming system for ships and troops
I don't like current ship captain system because it allows multiple captains in a single ship.
So, allow all ships to have a captain, and all ships to level up as troops do.
Don't allow multiple captains on one single ship.
And also, each troops must have an officer which levels up.
Make all ships and troops to have unique names not like "ABC MK1 123"

I suppose we need a different characters menu because there might be so much captains or troop officers in later games
But, implementing these features can make players to enjoy RPG style gameplay.

4. Allow empires to build an ultimate capital ship
Just allow limited number of capital ship that has no size limit, and that can be built only in planet which has specific facility.
So, it can toe-to-toe with gigantic spaceport and makes a chance to win a losing war.
I suppose it will make later games more interesting, instead of overwhelming or being overwhelmed games.

5. Make more ship roles, and make all ships useful.
In later games, just a fleet with large group of battleships is capable of destroying everything and doesn't die.
Small ship sizes like escorts can barely scratch shield and get so much losses.
So, make more category of ships(Like Frigates divided into short range frigates, long range frigates, main battle frigates, electronic warfare frigates, repair frigates, special ops frigates.. etc)
It will make AI to design ships more effectively.

And also, weapons should be much more diverse. Researching a single laser cannon should enable players to build multiple types of laser weapon(like small, medium, large, super) Making large sized laser can barely hit a single escort, but small sized laser's hit will barely scratch cruiser's shield, will make combat more dynamic, not like a huge fleet of capital ships always wins.
Other modules like hyperdrives shields, or armors should also be diverse, so hyperdrive for capital ship cannot be same warp speed as escort.

6. Enable another fitting option - just assign a ship or station to fit
Current designing enables us to make just "standard" ship for empire, but If I want to make a ship or station to perform unique role, it is too difficult.
So, make another option to design a unique ship or station, so it should retrofit to latest unique design, not latest standard design.

7. Enable ships to battle in a deep space area.
When two fleets collide in one area, you must have a chance to fight, just go through, retreat.
So, you will have chance to cut enemy fleet before reaching your system.
And, in deep space, add some environmental factors like gas cloud, asteroid field, magnetic field to affect ship performance, so you can actually use those environment for advantage.

8. Warp gates?
In the distant world galaxy, even faster-than-light travel looks so slow.
Enclave colonies are vulnerable because your colony will be lost before main fleet reaches.
So, building an warpgate which enables traveling to distant system instantly is a significant strategic advantage.
With technology of faster-than-light, why not?
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