Giving the game a more epic feel

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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Distant Worlds 1 Series >> Giving the game a more epic feel

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Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 6:17:11 AM

Awaras

Posts: 41
Joined: 4/12/2010
Status: offline

I have played every 4x game out there, my first being MOO1, and I have to say that DW feels the most epic of them all. There is just something about all the activity constantly going on around you no matter what you are doing. I love playing the game at 0.5 speed and just looking around, checking out what all the ships are doing. However, there are some things that I feel would increase the epic feeling of the game immensely:

1. I feel that the ships and bases are too large visually compared to the planets, but also compared to their speed and weapon ranges. What I would love to see would be an additional zoom level available greater than the max zoom that we have now. For example, I would like to be able to zoom in on a continental planet until it is as large on my screen as a gas giant is in the game now, filling most of the screen - and ships and bases made smaller so that they are their "normal" size at this zoom level. I would keep the speeds and weapon ranges of the ships the same as they are now, so this would be a cosmetic change only. It would make the ships seem a little faster when looking at them, since it always looked stupid to me when a ship is docking with a starbase and crawling one pixel at a time toward it at speed 3 while the base and the planet is moving away from the ship at speed 2, and battles would look less like WWI biplane dogfights. Also, you would not have starbases larger than their planets. :D

2. I would love to see a "pre-warp" setting for the starting technology level. IE, at the start, you don't have any ships or bases other than your spaceport maybe, and you don't even have hyperdrive yet. From my RP-ers perspective, I would even like to see starting from a tech level so low you even have trouble making an exploration ship with enough fuel to reach the next planet over in your own system. But that's just me, I guess. :D

Other than that here are my pet peeves with the game:

1. Shields are, IMHO, way overpowered. Ideally I would like to see shields as a mid game tech that you really have to work on to unlock. Also, except for the component size, nothing is keeping you from adding tons of shields which makes your ships almost indestructible. I believe shields should require substantial amounts of reactor power to stay up and recharge.
2. Conversely, armor is almost useless, as it costs a whole lot in maintenance but if a ship loses shields in a larger skirmish, it is dead in 90% of the cases. The only reason i ever put more than 4-5 armors on a ship is if I need a ship to kill kaltors. (on a related note, why don't shields work against space monsters? I searched the forum but couldn't find any explanation.) Also, there should be an easy way to tell how much armor a ship has left without looking at the ship component screen.

< Message edited by Awaras -- 4/11/2011 7:13:19 AM >

Post #: 1

RE: Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 7:14:50 AM

Data

Posts: 3909
Joined: 1/3/2011
Status: offline

Hi Awaras and welcome to the game and community. Most of these things were requested previously, we have both a wishlist for features and a modders wishlist for modding. If you feel up to it, you can try your luck with the mods in the modders section or come up with your own for some of these things.
Have fun.

_____________________________

...Igniting stellar cores....Recharging reactors...Recalibrating hyperdrives....

(in reply to Awaras)

Post #: 2

RE: Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 8:19:36 AM

Awaras

Posts: 41
Joined: 4/12/2010
Status: offline

Well, if these things have been discussed before i apologise. I have seen shield/armor complaints before
but as I said they are my pet peeves so I wanted to reiterate them. I tried searching for the other things i mentioned (zoom level, ship graphics size) and could not find anything. As you suggested I'll take a look and put these suggestions where they are supposed to go.

< Message edited by Awaras -- 4/11/2011 8:23:04 AM >

(in reply to Data)

Post #: 3

RE: Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 9:03:51 AM

Data

Posts: 3909
Joined: 1/3/2011
Status: offline

No need to apologise, I wanted to stress that there are a few of us requesting them so these things will get more votes. Yours is certainly welcomed as well.

_____________________________

...Igniting stellar cores....Recharging reactors...Recalibrating hyperdrives....

(in reply to Awaras)

Post #: 4

RE: Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 12:03:15 PM

Andrew Brown

Posts: 5007
Joined: 9/5/2000
From: Hex 82,170
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Data

No need to apologise, I wanted to stress that there are a few of us requesting them so these things will get more votes. Yours is certainly welcomed as well.

Very welcome. I would like to see the game changed so that it is flexible enough for those of us who would like a more "epic feel" to play the game that way. These ideas match some of my own, at least.

Andrew

(in reply to Data)

Post #: 5

RE: Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 12:19:10 PM

Webbco

Posts: 682
Joined: 2/6/2010
Status: offline

+2. I would also love to see VIP vessels and scientists visiting tech labs. There is minimal interaction with science labs once they are built which seems a shame...

Edit: I meant research labs....same thing

(in reply to Andrew Brown)

Post #: 6

RE: Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 1:00:42 PM

Igard

Posts: 2282
Joined: 3/29/2010
From: Scotland
Status: offline

I also agree, Awaras.

Ships and bases could be a bit smaller, yes. It's not that important to me, but it would make it easier to select objects that are below other objects.

I'd love to come across pre-warp civs in my game.

The shields and armour complaint has been made before, but for some reason no one's is very vocal about it. You're correct to bring it up. If I were to guesstimate, I'd say shields should be doubled in size and armour should be x3 more effective.

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(in reply to Webbco)

Post #: 7

RE: Giving the game a more epic feel - 4/11/2011 11:13:17 PM

Lrfss