Wishlist Compilation

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Fishman
Posts: 795
Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2010 6:56 pm

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by Fishman »

ORIGINAL: shanicus

I don't see how millions of new citizens can be spawned onto planets within 1 game year.
I do. Clearly, they're being cloned.
DiggyDad
Posts: 45
Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:24 pm

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by DiggyDad »

I would like to have a slider in the game start menu for "amount of colonizable worlds"  Something like--rare-few-normal-abundant.  Current gameplay to me would be in the normal to abundant range.
David W. Burrows
taltamir
Posts: 1290
Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2010 2:51 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by taltamir »

ORIGINAL: Fishman
ORIGINAL: shanicus

I don't see how millions of new citizens can be spawned onto planets within 1 game year.
I do. Clearly, they're being cloned.

that would be an interesting way to go about it.
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
Fishman
Posts: 795
Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2010 6:56 pm

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by Fishman »

It's the only logical explanation. I mean, cloning isn't exactly high-tech for sci-fi anymore. At this point, it's now high-tech contemporary, which makes it low-tech sci-fi. If humans were to suddenly find themselves in a galactic colonization race where more people were suddenly needed in vast quantities, people would very much take to cloning technology. It's a lot less unpleasant than trying to put them out through your crotch. A growth rate still exists because society can only integrate new clones so fast. This is also why a colony with 15 million people living there can create a colony ship that has 50M more people in it somehow: They clone up some people, pack them into the colony ship, and send them off. Since these extra people are being sent offworld, there's no concern that they are going to negatively impact local society, what with being unemployed bums and all.
HUNMercenaries
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 28, 2010 11:44 am
Location: Magyarország (Hungary) Europe

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by HUNMercenaries »

Can i have a wish? [&o]

You developers of the game. Can you make a multiplayer mod for this very cool game? [:(] Pls...[:(]
martok
Posts: 845
Joined: Mon Aug 30, 2004 1:44 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by martok »

ORIGINAL: HUNMercenaries

Can i have a wish? [&o]

You developers of the game. Can you make a multiplayer mod for this very cool game? [:(] Pls...[:(]

Welcome, HUNMercenaries!


First of all, any multiplayer function would be added in an expansion pack. Second, given what elliotg and Erik Rutins have said, I highly doubt that Distant Worlds will ever have MP regardless.


"Evil is easy, and has infinite forms." -- Pascal

taltamir
Posts: 1290
Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2010 2:51 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by taltamir »

ORIGINAL: Fishman

It's the only logical explanation. I mean, cloning isn't exactly high-tech for sci-fi anymore. At this point, it's now high-tech contemporary, which makes it low-tech sci-fi. If humans were to suddenly find themselves in a galactic colonization race where more people were suddenly needed in vast quantities, people would very much take to cloning technology. It's a lot less unpleasant than trying to put them out through your crotch. A growth rate still exists because society can only integrate new clones so fast. This is also why a colony with 15 million people living there can create a colony ship that has 50M more people in it somehow: They clone up some people, pack them into the colony ship, and send them off. Since these extra people are being sent offworld, there's no concern that they are going to negatively impact local society, what with being unemployed bums and all.

the problem with that is that those 50M are breaking the "society can only integrate them so fast" rule. Who raises those 50M clones?
I am fine with cloning accelerated breeding, but those people still need to be educated, taught how to speak, read, write, social mores, and sciences.
Have you heard that term "Magic A is Magic A"? it basically means that in a work of fiction you need to be self consistent, it is ok to make unusual rules, you must follow them though. If 15M people can clone 50M people to build a colony ship in 3 months, then they should be able to do the same in order to fill their planet's capacity. And while cloning people for a ship, they cannot clone people for the planet, so growth ceases while building colony ships... a more sensible approach, and an internally self consistent one, is to explain that the ridiculously high growth rate does involve cloning, and when you build a ship simply remove said people from the planet. BTW. if that was the rules of the game, I would be ok with it... i have nothing against a colony going from 0 to max population in under a year due to massive scale cloning.

there is also the balance issue, because they are created when you build the ship, you are essentially using money to buy population, and population generates money. So the more you buy, the richer you get. thus colony spamming is overly valuable... note that with 1.0.5 you can still colony spam, its not as ridiculous as before, but it is still pretty useful. I find it nicely balanced now at 1.0.5. I can still colony spam, and its still very powerful, but not as crazy powerful as it was. And self consistency is nice.
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
Chris21wen
Posts: 6948
Joined: Thu Jan 17, 2002 10:00 am
Location: Cottesmore, Rutland

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by Chris21wen »

Could you somehow improve the visibilty of the red text on black particulariy on the finance screen. I find it extremely difficult to read. Actually I can't read it.
HUNMercenaries
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri May 28, 2010 11:44 am
Location: Magyarország (Hungary) Europe

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by HUNMercenaries »

Hello Martok. [:)]
DasTactic
Posts: 1339
Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 7:16 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by DasTactic »

ORIGINAL: Chris H

Could you somehow improve the visibilty of the red text on black particulariy on the finance screen. I find it extremely difficult to read. Actually I can't read it.

Yes please! I'm slightly colour blind and have a very difficult time with this screen.
victoRexach
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jul 26, 2010 2:30 pm

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by victoRexach »

I thought I could be heard better on this thread. Could the graphics be improved? Say by, 400%? Like ships/weapon/zoom improvement? Let's say more variety for ships/per race, better, "non-powerpointesque" ones?
Florestan
Posts: 227
Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2010 7:39 pm
Location: Montpellier, France

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by Florestan »

It's true that vector rendered ships and planet would have meant a nice zoom... But the game graphic engine is already slow as it is...
.NET is definitely a bad choice for such a demanding kind of game.
LeonTheNeon
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 10:26 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by LeonTheNeon »

First of all let me say, 1.0.6.0... awesome! I'm having a pile of fun playing this version. The record for any game that has kept me occupied the longest is Master of Orion 1 at four years, I played it right up until the day Master of Orion 2 came out. I still dust it off every now and then and play it. This game really could be a contender for that title. I keep telling my friends this game is exceptionally good, if they can just fix up a few things, especially some UI concerns I have.

My Suggestions

Ship List
1 - Make ships under construction show up orange all the way across the list, just like in the potential colonies screen. Same for red all the way across for damaged.

2 - Add the design name as a column. This will make refitting much much much (did I mention much) easier. Yes I know it listed in the box in the corner but you have to scroll through every ship to see what design it is.

3 - Some kind of indicator that a ship has an upgraded design available

Design List
1 - For the love of whatever you hold to be holy, let me shift/ctrl click designs and delete them.

2a - Please figure out some way to make it so that when I copy a design, I can auto-obsolete the one. Example, I research Damage Control. Yay me! Now I can't just go an upgrade my ships, it is a new component upgrade won't add it. I need to open up every single ship and base by using copy as new, add the new component, rename it, save it, open up the old ond and obsolute it.
2b - Alternatively, please add an obsolete button to the list. If I didn't have to open/close the design this would be a massive improvement

3 - Allow the construction of Q-Ships. I.e. a government owned "freighter" with a pile of guns for suckering pirates

Colony List
1 - Show what resources are produced at the colony

Game Setup
1 - Add a slider to lower resource production. I find that by mid game the entire galaxy is just swimming with resources. I'd like to play in a more resource scare galaxy. I'm thinking a slider that changes those percentages next to the resources is probably the easiest way to do this.

2 - A remove tech trading toggle.

3 - A slider for "special" stuff. Debris field, abandoned ships, etc. I know that it all ties into the story and most of them time I actually like that stuff, but sometimes I'd rather not have things that can wildly affect the balance of power so radically like the debris fields can.

Orders
1 - Add a refuel here command. I like that there is closest but sometimes I`d like my ships to refuel at a particular place, I can do this with a move and queue a refuel, but sometimes the ships do strange things that way. I've seen them fly to the system and then leave and go to another system. Bizarre.

2 - Add a repair here. Same thing, except this is to prevent one space port from being overloaded with ships needing repairs.

3 - Same for retrofit.

Balance
1 - Maybe there is just something with me and the Teekans but if I play them, I win, by a lot. The AI Teekans I find are routinely quite strong as well. The combination of colony income bonus, with mercantile guild is very very strong. And the miner boost on top of that is just gravy. Ì`m not sure what the answer is. To be honest I think it is more the mercantile guild than the Teekans themselves. +60% colony income is just enourmous.

2 - Debris fields can be an "I win" button. In one game I secured two debris fields. 6-7 cap ships, 4 cruisers, etc. Retired all the frigates and destroyers. Nobody could come close to touching me in terms of firepower. Yeah a little expensive but: a - these ships generally had less maintenance than my cruisers, b - it didn't matter when everybody else was dead. Just my opinion, but I'd reduce debris fields to maximum 0-1 cap ship, 0-2 cruiser, 1-2 destroyers, 1-3 frigates. Even if I secure just one debris the average increase in military might makes you all but untouchable for far too long.

Expansion Pack
1 - Something I'd love to see is some kind of collective government. A big huge death star size change but if you're thinking in terms of an EP.



**** I knew I would remember something else. A "rename" button. Currently if I build a frigate of the "ImAFrigate Mk2" design it gets named "ImAFrigate Mk2 001". This is fine, but when I upgrade it, it is still named ImAFrigate Mk2 001 even though it is now a Mk3, Mk4 etc. Yes I can manually rename them...but ugh... it be nice to have a "Rename" button which would cause it to take its current design as its name.
taltamir
Posts: 1290
Joined: Fri Apr 02, 2010 2:51 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by taltamir »

2a - Please figure out some way to make it so that when I copy a design, I can auto-obsolete the one. Example, I research Damage Control. Yay me! Now I can't just go an upgrade my ships, it is a new component upgrade won't add it. I need to open up every single ship and base by using copy as new, add the new component, rename it, save it, open up the old ond and obsolute it.
2b - Alternatively, please add an obsolete button to the list. If I didn't have to open/close the design this would be a massive improvement
there is an obsolete "check box" at the rightmost side of each design
I made the same request as you back in the day and then someone pointed it out to me :P
I do not have a superman complex; for I am God, not Superman.
LeonTheNeon
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 10:26 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by LeonTheNeon »

taltamir: Cool! Thanks for the info. :)

Upgrading

1 - So I recognize that this might be tricky to implement. Currently, I have the following designs

ES-Lgt Mk1 - Pure patrol craft
ES-Hvy Mk1 - Fast ship with still high firepower
SC-LRS Mk1 - Fast ship, little firepower, sensors
FF-Lgt Mk1 - Heavy patrol craft
FF-Hvy Mk1 - Basic warship
FF-LRS Mk1 - Warship with sensors and other support functions
FG-Hvy Mk1 - Torpedo/Bomber, high firepower, low defence
DD-Hvy Mk1 - Heavy warship, hyper deny
DG-Hvy Mk1 - Heavy torpedo/bomber, no hyper deny, pure firepower
Etc...

I have a fleet which is a mix of ships. I choose Refit To Latest... guess what happens? All those escort ships become whichever escort design was created last. So for example, if it was SC-LRS Mk1 (which was the case in my game) I ended up with a whole bunch of ships with Long Range Scanners... DOH!

Ideally, each ship on retrofitting would takes its current name ES-Lgt Mk1 and try to find the highest Mk with that name i.e. ES-Lgt Mk9... or whatever. A perfect solution? No it means the player is tied to the naming convention of the game.

The ideal solution is to split the the design into two variables "Design" and "Version". So a ship would be Design "ES-Lgt" and Version "1". Being a former programmer I know that it would be a beast, changing data models always is. But it sure would be nice. Currently, I need to go ship to ship (or shift/ctrl select some ships) and tell them what to retrofit too. Which is less fun than it might sound when you have a great many ships and a great many designs (the list above is just a small sample, I tend to build a great many designs for specific purposes). Which is why I suggested above adding the ship design to the ship list, this would allow me to at least sort by ship design and retrofit accordingly.

Florestan
Posts: 227
Joined: Sat Jun 05, 2010 7:39 pm
Location: Montpellier, France

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by Florestan »

A lot of very good things you point, Leon!
About the Teekan difficulty, I would say: did you try to use ocean colonizers ? You get so much more colonizable worlds in the beginning, you'll get an empire so much bigger...
The number of worlds types that are generated definitely need a rebalancing.
For the resources: As I stated in other posts, past the first few mines, if they are balanced building more is a loss of resources, especially for strategic resources. The production/consumption balance (and perhaps cargo hold capabilities to go along) really need some work.
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adecoy95
Posts: 420
Joined: Fri Mar 26, 2010 2:01 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by adecoy95 »

one feature i think would be neat is a carrier, or some sort of module that carries around smaller fighter class ships that launch about. it would also be really fun to mess around with on the ship design screen, say with 1/20th the maximum size of the ship size limit. at higher techs you could even give them micro warp drives or something to turn them into short range fighters... use them for hyperdeny, attacking nearby enemy planets with planetary bombs, use them as shuttles for troop invasions, the possibilities are endless [:D]
tedmc
Posts: 8
Joined: Wed Jun 16, 2010 10:56 pm

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by tedmc »

Greetings everyone,
I've been very impressed with the way this game has shaped up through the updates.  It's a lot of fun to play now!  I really like the empire options screen (not sure if that is the actual name of it - it's the one where you set the percentages of different ships to be created, target priority, tax level by population of planet, etc.)  It's a good tool but I'd like to see it with even more options/settings for the empire. 
 
One thing I'm thinking of is to allow more global control over the number of troops produced per planet.  I'd like to see a section where you could set the # of troops by the percentage of planetary GDP spent on troops, with different percentages for small, medium, large, extreme planetary populations.  If you want a race that holds on to everything they colonize tenatiously, then increase the % spent on troops.  I hope that makes sense to all of you, it's clear in my head but I may not be conveying it clearly.
 
Another suggestion for the empire options screen would be a more nuanced (sp?) ship design overview on the same form.  You can currently choose fast/agile, power, efficiency, and another option.  I'd like to see addtional options to control what type of damage control components should be included on the ships (when the technology becomes available) as well as a slider for beam/torpedo ratios and an option to choose more ranged items vs shorter range, harder hitting weapons and the percentage of total wieght that is set aside for these options (slow ships bristling with weapons or faster ships with fewer weapons).  There are many more options that could be included but these options would become the basis for what ships are designed by the computer for the empire when design is set to automatic.  There could also be an addtional option to the ship design section of 'automatic design using options' in addition to 'automatic design' and 'manual design'.  I'm basically looking for a third option in ship design because updating every ship class with every tech advance is kind of a pain.  I'll set up the game and let it continue running while I'm running errands, etc. and I'd like a little more control over the design without having to be there every minute, on the chance that a tech advance will come out.  Thanks for reading this and let me know your ideas on this. 
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Shark7
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RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by Shark7 »

24. *Ability to build ships in multiples: That is when I want to manually build ships, I get a simple screen that asks me 'How many would you like? with the empty box for me to enter a number. Having to build one at a time is click intensive. - Shark7

As far as I am concerned, this one was nicely solved with the new ROTS build queue (the hammer menu item). For my part, you can mark it as solved. [:)]

Edit: This under the In-Game Interface heading.
Distant Worlds Fan

'When in doubt...attack!'
Shuul
Posts: 133
Joined: Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:48 am

RE: Wishlist Compilation

Post by Shuul »

Sliverine, if you don't mind please add this: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2728587
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