Coming Back to DW After a LOOONNG Hiatus

[Anthropoid]

Howdy fellow spacefarers! I am a somewhat long-time member of Matrix, but have been distracted by myriad other games over the past couple years.

Here lately I got into Kerbal Space Program, which I truly love, but which I'm getting a bit topped up with. This has prompted me to do some 4X space Empire games, so naturally I thought of Distant Worlds.

I bought DW way back when it first came out. Was very impressed and enjoyed it except for one thing: I found the default screen resolution and fonts to be agonizingly small; a problem that was likely made worse by the nature of my "monitor" a 42" big screen plasma TV that uses default 1024 x 768 resolution (not to mention that 10 year old plasma screen TVs I guess don't have the highest resolution).

I was under the impression that DW would (maybe) eventually have more options as far as adjusting the font sizes and such. It was the small text that mainly gave me a headache if I recall.

Seems that DW is now into its penultimate if not final form in terms of expansions and addons. Soo! I was contemplating taking out a bank loan [:D] and taking the plunge on updating my game from the barebones very first vanilla incarnation of DW up to the most up-to-date version.

So am I likely to be equally as vexed by small fonts or is that something that has been 'fixed' or at least adjusted to allow for more settings?

[Shark7]

Most of the text fonts have been enlarged, and some portions of the UI can be 'magnified' (for lack of a better description) to get it to even bigger sizes. The biggest improvement in fonts is on the research screen where even I can now easily read the former tiny text describing the techs.

[Anthropoid]

Thanks Shark!

Sounds like I should go ahead with that bank loan [:)]

I wonder if the larger fonts is something I'll get from just the latest patch to the vanilla game or if I need to get the expansions?

[Shark7]

That I can't say for sure, I'm patched up to current on shadows.

[Anthropoid]

Looking at my members page, looks like I've got the latest patch of vanilla, so I'm gonna guess that the font and resolution enhancements you describe are in Shadows.

Not a problem. Matrix has always done me right, and I haven't bought one of their products for a long time. 'bout time to buy some I think!

Hmmph! Legends + Shadows DL only looks like about $50 which really isn't that bad.

ADDIT: BTW, any of you guys play Kerbal Space Program? If not, should check it out! LOT of fun.

[Anthropoid]

Wow that was sooo easy. Only hard part _might_ be when my wife sees $55 on the AMEX and says "Hey! I thought you weren't buying any new games until AFTER you finished your SAS certification exam!?" [:D]

Looking forward to some indepth 4x adventures!

[tylertoo]

Hey, welcome (back). Thanks for using 'myriad' correctly [:D], all too rare nowadays. I'm fortunate, my wife doesn't often look at the Amex bill [;)].

I am tempted by KSP but I think I'll be terrible at controlling ships. Is that part difficult to get the hang of?

[Anthropoid]

It is a little bit challenging. But once you get the hang of it, no problemo! There are a LOT of good tutorials out there. Some dude named Scott Manley has some really good ones. The one that really got me going was:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgPr4q5tj-Q

Also, the community on their forums is wonderful! My avatar there is Diche Bach.

[Icemania]

$55 on AMEX is the least of your problems Anthropoid. Before long the better half will complain you spend too much time on this game ... [:D]

[Anthropoid]

Oh she gave up complaining about that long ago!

[Erik Rutins]

Nice Sig. [8D]

[Anthropoid]

Hey Eric! Good to see ya

[Anthropoid]

This game has really 'come of age!' It is far more fun than I ever had with it.

[Shark7]

Just wait, soon you'll find that you too have stayed up till 5 in the morning playing even though you have to be at work at 8. [:-]

I've finally resorted to setting an alarm...not to wake me up, but to remind me to go to bed! [:D]

[Fishers of Men]

MOo3 had an alarm built into the game itself. It would remind you it was time to stop playing.

[MorningDew]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Nice Sig. [8D]

A classic album!

[Anthropoid]

Do additional "Plants" (Energy, High-Tech, Weapons) and/or additional Consruction Yards make a Construction ship do its build jobs faster?

[Jeeves]

No.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Anthropoid]

So I've done a couple of 'get the feel' play throughs and I'm hoping to get a great location and be off to a long-haul campaign here on my next start. Here are the settings I'm using:

1) Age of Shadows Empire.

2) 1400 (15x15) Spiral.

3) PreWarp, Restless, Normal Diff (Scaling), Expensive Tech (220), No Space Critters, Normal Pirates (Avg Distance) that do not respawn.

4) Normal Colony prevalence; Scattered Independent Alien Life, 100% Colony Influence, Enforce 1.86 Colonization range.

5) Human

6) Far Regions Agreeable home system, Starting, Pre-Warp, Low Corruption, Corporate Nationalism

7) Eight Rivals (all pre-warp size and Tech, except Kiadians who are pre-war size but starting tech)
Boskara, Excellent (home system), Distant
Ikkuro, Excellent, Distant
Ketarov, Agreeable, Random
Kiadian, Trying, Distant
Mortalen, Normal, Average
Quameno, Normal, Average
Wekkarus, Normal, Distant
Random, Random, Random

The intent of this setup is to afford a good long game (99 years till victory conditions kick in) with at least two rivals who are far off and likely to develop into big strong Empires (one evil one monkey).

What do you guys think?

ADDIT:Oh yes! Beautiful start this time!

Gizurea (Red Giant) 12 planets 16 moons in Sector F2. I'm even happy with the names! My home world is "Ossa" a moon of frozen gas giant Ossa 8 (I will go around and change the planet names to something more creative once I have my system all explored). Looks like I got 3 frozen gas giants, 3 gas giants, 1 desert planet, 1 marsh planet, 3 volcano planets, 1 ocean moon and an assortment of other moons.

Sweet! starting location, but being that far from center and not to mention my sector has a sum total of . . . 6 main sequence and 1 super giant stars . . . well it will be a long haul!

Seems like an excellent start for me to play it all the way through and see what this game is all about.

[Anthropoid]

Hope if I put new posts in this thread to ask questions it will get seen by forum regulars . . .

My first question:

My home system is Gizurea, and home planet is a continental moon around the 7th planet, a gas giant. I am in the early stages of interstellar travel (Gerax drive is about six months away). I have maps for a few of the nearby systems (all in the 0.5 to 0.75 sector range). I have built gas mining stations at Caslon sources in three or four of these remote stations (Mureshem, Shatoon, and Kamuri). None of these stations have a continental planet and I am a ways from being able to colonize any of the planets in these systems.

I've noticed that, when my construction ships have a build queue order like this:
1. Build Gas Mining Station at Planet Kamuri 7
2. Refuel at nearest source
3. Build Mining STation at marshy planet Kamuri 2 (nice source of carbon fibre)

What happens is the ship goes and builds the gas extractor at Kamuri 7, then refuels at the new gas extractor at Kamuri 7.

Then, instead of heading for the marshy planet Karmuri 2, it heads back all the way to my home Space Port at Gizurea. I'm guessing it does this to replenish its cargo of building materials, but I have not actually paid close enough attention to know that for certain.

If I want builders to be able to operate in one of these remote, non-colonizable systems (sometimes outside the boundary of my Empire influence) what should I do?

I'm guessing that if I design a defensive base (or any other base with a small enough size) with at least one: energy, high-tech, weapons plants; docking bay; and commerce center, that it will accumulate commodities and build components?