Space Sector Preview For Distant Worlds - Universe

[TanC]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling

As far as I understand it is the "Ultimate edition". With an upgrade path for those that own any piece from earlier.

So new players will only buy "Universe".

Thank you!

[Noble713]

ORIGINAL: Ares106

if you wish to see some impressive modding, you should check out the civilizations series, total war series, and mount&lade.

I personally think Distant worlds is the perfect platform for a comprehensive Star wars mod, that's probably what Erik would have wanted to do with distant worlds if he had the license.
....
By comprehensive mod I mean a total conversion, all the ship models, weapons tech trees races resources "authentic" ship combat, and sounds and music and UI, "authentic" custom made universe with all the preset planet names and locations, character portraits/skills, story line triggers and so on based on your favorite sci-fi universe. (not just some star trek ship models)

Now, this all depends on two things, How easy it is to mod the game which we will soon see and how many dedicated modders with a lot of free time actually exist, the latter is a direct function of how popular the game is right now.

I just found the Space Sector announcement today and practically jumped out of my seat. I haven't played DW in about 6 months b/c my personal Star Wars mod can't live up to my expectations (largely because of the DW tech tree....I really get into the weeds when it comes to "accurate" starship armaments). I've been fiddling with my Space Empires IV mod for the past 2 weeks until *that* game's overwhelming limitations also drove me nuts.

I intend to purchase DW: Universe solely off the *possibility* that I can finally create the Star Wars total conversion of my dreams. I own every DW release so far, but had already made up my mind that if this new expansion didn't have tech tree/component modding I wasn't buying it. I read that one blurb in the Space Sector article and immediately changed my mind.

As you pointed out, I too think the DW game engine was practically designed to be a Star Wars simulator (look at the system names, most of them are misspelled versions of Star Wars planet names, not to mention the hyperdrive mechanics and similarity to SW:Rebellion's agent missions) but without the license. Time to make it a reality.

On a side note, mods are pretty much the only reason many older games still have huge followings. Some personal examples of mods breathing life into my games:
Space Empires IV, 2000: I play Babylon 5 and Star Trek (TNG/DS9-era) mods, as well as my own Star Wars mod
Civilization 3, 2001: Occasionally I'll play Rise & Rule mod, with my mix of modern military flavor units.
Rome: Total War, 2004: I only stopped playing Rome Total Realism Platinum mod when I installed Total War:Rome 2 this fall.
Total War Rome 2, 2013: I stopped playing RTW2 in less than 2 weeks because the battles are terribly cartoony. Started playing again in December after finding the Divide et Impera mod which fixes the combat (among other things).
Medieval 2: Total War, 2006: I still play Stainless Steel mod. Just recently uninstalled the LOTR-themed Third Age mod after years of play.
Dominions 3, 2006: I have a bunch of Warhammer Fantasy nations installed. I probably won't pick up Dom4 until they get ported.

So yeah....mods are where it's at.

[Henzington]

Yeah the misspelling is most likely for copyright purposes so they don't get the butts sued by Lucas or now Disney.

[adecoy95]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi Wolfe,

I think you're mistaken on your assumption - I think the mods that Universe will unleash will benefit everyone, whether they are modders themselves or not. You can also be assured that general improvements to DW in many areas have been part of Universe development, as with all previous releases.

Regards,

- Erik

mods are great, i get it, and totally understand it. games like skyrim went from good games to legendary games due to the modding community (and support), but a game has to have a community. this game has some enthusiastic modders, dont get me wrong, but its still a pretty small community. the unusually large price point coupled with mostly superficial moddability has never been able to foster any large changes there. i am happy to see modding made much more available and thorough as a sort of final expansion, but to use it as its only real selling point does not really sit right with me at all. i only hope the price point matches the (new) content.

[Icemania]

The Star Trek Armada 3 mod for Sins of a Solar Empire has me completely hooked at the moment. And unlike Distant Words it's pretty easy to find a setting that represents a serious challenge. With all due respect to the efforts behind the limited mods that we have for Distant Worlds, I fear that the marketing effort from Matrix is so unbelievably bad, that it would require some super special efforts from our small community to get anything remotely as good going for Distant Worlds Universe.

[jesuswhywhy]

gagging for distant worlds universe [:)]

[ASHBERY76]

Dude shoud play SW Rebellion.If you can handle high micro,crappy UI the game is the ultimate Starwars simulation.

[Deathball]

So since this is scheduled for release in about a month has there been any new info anywhere?

[adecoy95]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Dude shoud play SW Rebellion.If you can handle high micro,crappy UI the game is the ultimate Starwars simulation.

i remember that game, i disliked that a fleet without a hero attached to it might as well have been paper replicas of actual space ships, still i think it had some pretty advanced features for its time

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Deathball
So since this is scheduled for release in about a month has there been any new info anywhere?

Ask Kayoz. According to him their Marketing is reasonable.

[Deathball]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

ORIGINAL: Deathball
So since this is scheduled for release in about a month has there been any new info anywhere?

Ask Kayoz. According to him their Marketing is reasonable.

Please don't carry your flamewar over from the other thread

[PipFromSlitherine]

ORIGINAL: Deathball

ORIGINAL: Icemania

ORIGINAL: Deathball
So since this is scheduled for release in about a month has there been any new info anywhere?

Ask Kayoz. According to him their Marketing is reasonable.

Please don't carry your flamewar over from the other thread

Indeed. The other thread is in danger of being locked, so keep things constructive and on-topic.

Cheers

Pip

[jesuswhywhy]

someone mentioned it in another thread, do u think race forgivefullness* will be made more harsh in universe, things like bombarding a planet etc really should be unforgivable, are races too greedy do they want trade too much lol, not too mention fleet defence of the home planet.. right now i think they are too raidy and offensive

p.s. stop being secritive about future developement of distant worlds lol

[Shark7]

Agreed that doing evil things should have more drastic repercussions than it does currently. Genocide on a mass scale (bombardments, planet destroyers, or extermination policies) should have the effect of being repulsive to other species as they would see themselves as the next potential victims.

[Osito]

ORIGINAL: jesuswhywhy

p.s. stop being secritive about future developement of distant worlds lol

Yup. All my spies are now totally dedicated to busting the secretive 'Matrix Conglomeration', and exposing their secrets. Sadly, DW doesn't seem to have a 'Hack my employer's server' option. And if it did, to use it would be amoral. Or immoral. Or some bloody vowel with a '[m]moral' suffix.

Osito

[Osito]

@Jesuswhywhy.

Bit OT, but shouldn't you have another y? I don't know why I think that, but I can't help thinking two why's bad, three why's (or even four - yes, yes!) good.

[jesuswhywhy]

lol i have/had two usernames on here theother is jezwhywhywhy

[Noble713]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76

Dude shoud play SW Rebellion.If you can handle high micro,crappy UI the game is the ultimate Starwars simulation.

I used to play it for years, then tried my hand at modding it...which was a nightmare. Some of the game's many problems from my perspective:

1. Inaccurate galaxy map (somewhat fixable via modding).
2. Terrible 3d ship models (replacing them can lead to inexplicable glitches....or work perfectly).
3. Goofy ship combat balance that heavily favored the Rebel Alliance (a fleet of small Rebel ships could go toe-to-toe with a Star Destroyer, even though their "actual" tonnage/reactor power/known armaments would never support such a scenario).
4. Limitations on how many ship designs can be included.
5. Treats the galaxy as only Imperials vs Rebels. No minor powers (Hutt Space, Corporate Sector Authority, etc.) and no pirates.


But my attempt at making a Clone Wars mod for it did supply me with a bunch of character images that should hopefully make it into my Distant Worlds mod. We'll see...

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Deathball

ORIGINAL: Icemania

ORIGINAL: Deathball
So since this is scheduled for release in about a month has there been any new info anywhere?

Ask Kayoz. According to him their Marketing is reasonable.

Please don't carry your flamewar over from the other thread

Fair enough. To answer your question: there is no new info anywhere.

[Cauldyth]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

Agreed that doing evil things should have more drastic repercussions than it does currently. Genocide on a mass scale (bombardments, planet destroyers, or extermination policies) should have the effect of being repulsive to other species as they would see themselves as the next potential victims.

The new starting point in Universe will be the original war against the Shakturi, and the Space Sector preview says that "you’ll have access to the tech required to build your own planet destroyers and research and deploy the Xaraktor virus." Hopefully with more genocide weapons available there'll also be some tweaking to the implications of using them.