Wasn't there going to be an announcement in September?

[Nedrear]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

...singularity creation (though perhaps not in the way that you might expect).

There is only one kind of gravitational singularity and that is an object of zero volume and infinite weight in that point. It is an ideal object which even a black whole can not create since quantum effects keep it at a certain diameter per elementary particle.

And therefore since singularity is an ideal principle without natural occurence, we can not imagine what you might consider.

But since most screamed for it I guess you made a technology which under high cost of materials can be build and can create a wormhole between two spaceports or special wormhole stations. These wormholes actually just cut through the wrinkly third dimension to achieve a fourth dimension shortcut to an adjacent wrinkle. But that is no singularity...

Still I could accept wormholes as long as thy are expensive to create.

[Bingeling]

I don't think I have missed wormholes to abuse much after the early game. And I doubt they are available at that time. The worst I have suffered are troop transports being a bit at the wrong side if someone attack me once I prepare at a different front.

But since you went straight to wormholes, they are obviously used for something different

[Igard]

This game has been crying out for tractor beams for a long time now. Very happy to hear this news! Should add a nice mechanic to space combat and possible some logistical uses. Moving asteroids, herding space creatures? I've always felt that killing the space creatures on sight is a bit out of character for some races.

What I would think of first from singularity creation is some sort of energy source, but maybe that's just me thinking of Romulan Warbirds. Or perhaps to destroy stars? That would be insane! (but in a good way). I guess the most plausible is wormholes, but since that's probably what most of us expect, maybe it's too obvious.

Personally not bothered if the science is accurate, just as long as it makes some gaming sense.

[Erik Rutins]

Sorry Nedrear, I was indeed being too casual with the term "singularity". Let's perhaps just say "extreme gravity" and think about things like black holes.

Regards,

- Erik

[Bingeling]

Why bother building a world destroyer to clean out the nastie's home system with 3 juicy colonies, when you can instead build a cheap star destroyer, and just nuke the star?

Saves on the long term energy bill, for sure.

[adecoy95]

nuke their sun, its the only way to be completely sure

[Nedrear]

How do you want to nuke a nuclear fusion? You can also not increase the reaction time of the star fusion and by that reduce its life span. Only way would be to toss it into an already existing black whole... overkill much.
Well since Erik pointed out that our "sing-thing" is a black whole dependant feature the star destroyer still seems a bit off... but extrem gravity as a weapon to crush a shielded enemy under its own armor is really mean in general. Nothing to say I hate you rather than a graviton gun in the morning.

Well at least we can rule out a gravity well to pull people out of hyperspace... we got that already.

[adecoy95]

whoa there buddy, lol

i did not mean my statement to be taken so literally.

whatever these gravity weapons are, hopefully they will let you grab ships that are trying to kite you. should give my current military designs a reason to adapt.

[ehsumrell1]

ORIGINAL: adecoy95

whatever these gravity weapons are, hopefully they will let you grab ships that are trying to kite you. should give my current military designs a reason to adapt.

HOLD STILL DAMNIT!!!!!

[AminMaalouf]

tractors + transporters*
tractors + boarding parties**
...........................
Are we going to be able to board ships now?

*, ** not yet mentioned variables

[LiquidSky]

ORIGINAL: Nedrear

How do you want to nuke a nuclear fusion? You can also not increase the reaction time of the star fusion and by that reduce its life span. Only way would be to toss it into an already existing black whole... overkill much.
Well since Erik pointed out that our "sing-thing" is a black whole dependant feature the star destroyer still seems a bit off... but extrem gravity as a weapon to crush a shielded enemy under its own armor is really mean in general. Nothing to say I hate you rather than a graviton gun in the morning.

Well at least we can rule out a gravity well to pull people out of hyperspace... we got that already.

Or perhaps just cause a 'super nova', which we can colourfully describe as 'nuking' the sun.

[Nedrear]

I already ruled that out Liquid. First you need a big star to get a supernova instead of a sun fart (about 10 suns). If we got such a big boy we could try to induce the gravity collaps by force. But for that we need a lot of gravitons to accumulate there, because they have to counter the immense pressure of a nuclear fusion. A star nova starts because the nuclear fusion dies down and can't lift up the mass of the star anymore crushing itself and producing a lot of heavy radioactive elements in the process.
Again you need to crush a nuclear fusion under its own weight by inducing a huge amount of gravity which will produce even more fusion which will need even more gravity. Just build 20 planet destroyers. Should be cheaper.

[Shark7]

You'll have to suspend your disbelief. If you want examples of Sci-Fi series that have weapons that do create super-novas, then I can refer you to

FreeSpace 2
Star Wars Expanded Universe (the Sun Crusher)

And those are just the 2 I can think of right now. Do I believe that it is possible? With current technology no I don't. Do I care since its science fiction? Again, no I don't.

[Erik Rutins]

It's probably worth a reminder that there are already things in Distant Worlds and most sci-fi games that fall a bit more on the "fiction" rather than "science" side, first because they are cool to imagine and second because what seems impossible to our current science may in fact be possible in the future. Something that always seems to be true is that we know less than we think we do.

With that said, no star-nuking, but tons of other cool stuff which we'll let you all know about as soon as we can. For now, imagine new technologies that can push or pull and also cause damage despite shields and armor. Imagine creating an area of gravity strong enough that all nearby ships are pulled towards it and even damaged or destroyed. And so on... [8D]

Regards,

- Erik

[Algoritm]

Disband fleet: Ship list. Sort on fleet. Not perfect, but nothing that bother me much.

Send a few ships to invade. Organize them in a fleet. Or multiselect from nearby ships with dragging a box shift/control clicking. I think I miss an option to multiselect ships this way and have fleet options (join) on right click.

Are you sure giving the "stop" order to a construction ship won't stop the current mission, but keep the rest of the queue? I don't have the game up, and I am not sure myself.

Thanks Bing, that will help, but it would be much more intuitive if a few small options were added such as:
1) Option to disband fleet through the right click menu when the fleet is selected, or in the menu below the selection panel or simply via a button in the fleet screen.

2) Option to order multiple ships to invade/blockade a planet through the right click menu.

3) Option to select one class of ships around a crowded planet either by a new shortcut key that selects all ships of the same type or, to allow even more control, by drag-selecting every ship and then being able to sort which ones you want to keep selected by shift-clicking on them in the selection panel.

The construction ship does stop it's current order with the 'stop' button, but sometimes instantly resumes it if you put it back on 'auto'. You then have to manually order it what to do.

It would be nice to have an option in the menu below the selection panel to make the construction ship skip to the next build oder in the building queue.

I really hope these minor adjustements are added as it would make overall ship control a LOT easier.

[Nedrear]

A gravity well as a zone of increased gravity to pull and damage ships inside. Well yeah instead of compressing a star that would be much easier.

I already got a plan:

Enemy fleet on the way to your planet.
You place a hyperdeny at the course and station a fleet with area weapons and gravity well cannons.
Enemy fleet gets pulled out, sucked together and torn to bits through area force.

A death trap the AI most likely wont be able to pull that easily.

[feelotraveller]

Any chance that the races will see some tinkering?
 
Maybe racial techs for the Ketarov (special stealth components) and Naxxilians (double capacity or half sized troop compartments)?

[bryanhbell]

For those who use reddit, I've been compiling Erik's comments about the upcoming expansion (with links to each) in this thread.

For more discussion, visit us over at the Distant Worlds subreddit.

[adecoy95]

i wouldent mind more race specific tech, weapons would probably not be all that interesting (or too interesting to want to choose), but i could see each race getting special planetary facilities.

[Mad Igor]

option for retrofiting deepspace stations will be there?