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Sparviero -> RE: Distant Worlds 2 Sneak Peek #1 – Ship Design (12/20/2019 2:21:39 PM)
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Great job guys! Distant Worlds 2 already looks amazing!
Some answered questions from the other topic.
Ship’s Hulls and components
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: ArchMike
I understand that we have to research different kind of hulls. Are they named "Destroyer" and such ?
In the screenshot, there is a destroyer. Is it associated with a specific hull or linked to a role (like in DW1) ?
Yes, on the construction part of the tech tree, you research hulls as part of your research projects. These effectively allow you to build larger ships, but they also unlock particular hulls with somewhat different sizes and maximum component slot arrangements. For example, you can can research a basic Destroyer Hull at Tech Level 2, but at the next Tech Level in the Construction tree, you could research Heavy Destroyers, Fleet Destroyers and Fast Destroyers, each of which is a more advanced and larger destroyer hull, focused and balanced in a somewhat different way. The size matters the most if you are looking for a balanced design. The particular hull matters more if you are looking to focus your design in a particular direction, such as weapons, defenses, speed and maneuverability, sensors, etc.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
Actually I wanted to ask this in my previus post, but I lost my mind XD
I understood there is a lot of customization about ships design, but i'm still confused about the sized. Fixed hulls size sounds like a bit less freedom than in Distant Worlds. Or you can still have ships of every size and ship hulls are more about the new size and components limit tech? So we will probably still have ships of all kind of size becouse we will not use all the slots of a specific hull? I also didn't understand if there is some kind customization about slots number and type beside the ship hull.
The hull effectively defines the size limit and the characteristics of the hull. In DW1, you just increased your size limit and your components wffectively were your hull. In DW2 your hull is a separate idea which still increases your size limit but also has some characteristics of its own, including what number and size of each component category it can support.
Because ships have external components now and they are also 3D models, some components like engines and weapons are fully external and thus limited to those slots. This is somewhat limiting in that you can't have an unlimited number of weapons or engines, but at the same time these slot limits are typically on the generous side of realistic compared to DW1 designs so you typically won't be limited by them unless you are really trying to focus a ship in one particular area. That's where the more specialized and larger hulls come in handy, but you need to research those separately.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: OJsDad
Hmm, if I'm understanding you, then it's a little disappointing. One of the things I really liked about DW1 was that you could build ships to any size and didn't have to research ship hull size tech first.
In practice, it's not as limiting as you may be thinking. Keep in mind that in Distant Worlds 1, you could not build ships to any size. You started out with size limitations (for example, Size 160 for ships initially) and you had to research to increase your maximum buildable size. The roles were mostly just ways to organize your designs and to set certain component minimums, the size was the real limitation.
In Distant Worlds 2, the ship hulls are effectively the research projects that unlock greater sizes as well as different component limits. Within each ship hull, there is still a lot of design flexibility and I haven't had any trouble duplicating my designs from DW1 so far. Roles still establish certain component minimums, but hulls also establish certain realistic maximums. However, the roles are now also much more meaningful in an absolute sense and not just as an organizational tool. This will become even more apparent when we get to the point of discussing fleets.
Regards,
- Erik
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: BlueTemplar
I'm assuming that ships will be a single pointlike entity for targeting and damage purposes ?
That is correct, though certain weapons will cause damage that favors one component type over another. For example, some weapons partially or fully bypass shields or armor, others target components directly (ion weapons of various types).
Regards,
- Erik
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: darkriot
1. Will their be species specific hulls and component placements?
Yes, some ship hulls are common, but others have some variance by faction, mainly in number of slots of each type, weapon placement and weapon arcs.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: darkriot
Can you build more than one ship design in a class?
If you mean can you base more than one design on the same ship hull or role, then yes, absolutely!
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Thrake
What is the difference beetween components and design bays?
A design bay is effectively a "slot" in the ship that accepts a component. Each Design bay has a type and a maximum size. Some design bays are also external, meaning they have a 3D Mesh associated with them and when a component is placed in that design bay, it actually appears on the ship (the ship's 3D model changes to show it). External bays thus also have a specific position. In some cases, such as weapons, these external design bays also have an arc within which they can fire and when that weapon fires, you will see it actually firing from that particular place on the ship where you put it.
Design bays (I also call them component slots) are divided into the following general categories.
Weapons (pretty much everything from point defense to long range heavy weapons)
Defenses (shields, armor and other handy defensive components)
Engines (engines and maneuvering thrusters)
Sensors (small and large and of various kinds)
Hangars (from docking bays to starfighter hangars)
General (pretty much everything else, including your reactors, life support, crew quarters, cargo bays, fuel cells, etc.)
Regards,
- Erik
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
I'll mention one other thing as a bonus for you all. Most ship components now also have a fighter/bomber-sized version and in DW2, you not only can design your own ships and stations, but also your own fighters and bombers based on the technologies you have researched. Similar to ships, there are upgradable hulls and in some cases faction-unique hulls for fighters and bombers as well. [8D]
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Kingah
With the component slots, will it no longer be possible to build completely customized ship.
For example, will I be able to build a station with the bare minimum of components and then fill it with nuclear devastators (just because I can)?
You can still do that, but the number of nuclear devastators will be limited by your weapons slots (and your size). With that said, for stations especially there are a lot of design bays and I don't think it's going to realistically limit any design ideas, just perhaps limit the extremes to which you can take it.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Kingah
Will infinite sized bases at colonies still be possible?
Infinite size, no. Extremely large as long as you've maximized your research tree, yes.
Regards,
- Erik
Sensors
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
1) are sensors a only stations feature? If I'm correct they are present only in the screenshot about a station.
No, they exist on all ships and stations, but the slots can vary in number and size. For example, a small freighter will just support one small sensor, enough for it to navigate and see what's in its vicinity, whereas a Space Port or something like a Fleet Carrier will support many more sensor slots, some of them capable of support larger (like Long Range Sensors that can see across multiple systems or even an entire sector) and more specialized sensor components. Let's say you have a military ship with three sensor slots. Now it can have a short range sensor array, a targeting sensor array and a countermeasures array. Give it another sensor slot, perhaps it could now add on a trace scanner or a trace jammer. Give it a larger sensor slot and now you might add Fleet Targeting or Countermeasures Arrays. Typically the larger the ship or station, the more it can do sensor-wise to not only help itself but help those in its area.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
If I'm correct. We will have some sensors about fog of war that will let us see what is happening in their range, but ships/stations can also have components to hide from these sensors.
And another kind of sensors more battle related about targetting ?
I can't give much more detail about this at this point as far as going into more specifics about the fog of war system, but in general, every sensor has a counter and some sensor components are very much battle-related.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
Sensors info makes think that they will play a mayor role in this game. Stealth/surprising attack will be a important aspect of the game?
Hopefully more so than in DW1. [8D]
UI
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
The down corner left hexagon in the ship/station summary for example in the last screenshot....is it about shields?
Good question! The center is the remaining hull strength. The first hexagon around it is the remaining armor strength. The outermost hexagon is the remaining shield strength. These act as defense layers, similar to DW1, except that both shields and armor can have resistance now (a flat reduction like reactive armor rating in DW1) and shields can also "leak" meaning some damage may get through even when the shield is still "up". The hull now also has its own reactive armor rating and the components are summarized separately, something easily accessible at the top level from this selection dialog but which we haven't shown yet.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
Second screenshot, downside....what is "Generate Scene Fleet vs Fleet" ? Some kind of way to have a preview about the performance of the selected design?
That is purely for testing in our development build and will not be there in the final release.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
In the weapons summary there is a graphic. It looks like power of the weapons according to distance. Is this correct?
That's correct. The width indicates the amount of firepower for that weapon category, the length is the range.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
Boarding graphic show actually boarding defense and max boarding defence?
The two colors are the combination of Crew Strength and Boarding Assault Defense.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
The UI first scales fully to your resolution, then is also scalable by the player, it scales as a whole.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: swappan
But about ship UI:
Will there be an easy way to see the amount of stuff that is inside the cargo of a transportship? Preferably on the selected ship UI.
Besides going into the shipslist as it is in DW1, which is annoying. I know it says the name of the cargo but not the amount.
Yes! Actually one of our goals with the UI was to bring as much useful information as we could up to the top level, or at most one level down and try to eliminate the situations we had in DW1 where some useful and frequently accessed information was buried 2-3 levels into the interface and required an experienced player to find.
You can very easily from the top level now determine what each of your freighters is carrying. [8D]
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: larrybush
]I see the interface screen shown with the solar system, is this full 3D and scalable too?
The entire interface is scalable. The game will start out with a scale that it thinks suits your resolution, but you can scale it up and down from there. The interface scales as a whole.
Regards,
- Erik
Settings and technical aspects
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Larsenex
Thank you. Very nice stream! Will the game be 64bit? I believe you answered this but I just wanted to confirm.
Will we be able to zoom 'very far out' to see the entire galaxy and move around as before or limited based on host computer resources?
In some other games you can zoom way way out and conversely zoom way back in such as in these screen shots.
Yes, 64-bit and yes, you can zoom all the way out. This is not limited by system and there's seamless zoom out, zoom in from the individual ship/fighter level all they way to the full galaxy view.
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ORIGINAL: elliotg
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ORIGINAL: Larsenex
Erik,
Thank you. Very nice stream! Will the game be 64bit? I believe you answered this but I just wanted to confirm.
Will we be able to zoom 'very far out' to see the entire galaxy and move around as before or limited based on host computer resources?
In some other games you can zoom way way out and conversely zoom way back in such as in these screen shots.
Hi all
Long time, no speak ;) Glad you like what you've seen so far of DW2.
Thought I'd just add some more points about 64-bit: while the default build will be 64-bit, we'll probably also include a 32-bit version. Memory usage is much-improved over DW1, so 32-bit can actually handle most situations ok. It's just the really big galaxies where 64-bit works better. But if you only have 32-bit Windows, you'll still be able to play DW2.
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ORIGINAL: elliotg
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ORIGINAL: sinbuster
Has save game bloat been resolved?
Savegames are much smaller and much, much faster. Saving a game often takes less than a second, depending on galaxy size, etc.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: sinbuster
Has save game bloat been resolved?
Saves and loads are extremely quick in my experience with this new engine. Until we get through our final testing and optimization, it's hard to say for sure but I expect a major improvement in this area compared to DW1.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: btd64
Definitely love the scale of things....GP
I should also note that the scale of things is adjustable. So if you want the epic realistic space feel you see in the screenshots, you can have it. But if you want ships and stations to be bigger and a bit closer to DW1, that's also going to be possible. By default, we allow for some dynamic scaling so things don't get too small to see before the icons/symbols replace them. The new interface also helps a lot with keeping track of things vs. DW1, even with the epic scale.
The new engine of course also still allows small galaxy games, but it does also allow us to go larger than DW1 if you want an even more massive living galaxy to play in. [8D]
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: ArchMike
As you mention larger galaxies, DW1 had 1400 stars and 225 sectors (15x15). What would be the largest galaxy in DW2 ?
Well, I honestly can't tell you for sure yet as our final optimizations and performance tests are in the future. However, we've already tested 2000 stars with success in our non-optimized development build.
Regards,
- Erik
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: larrybush
I think by your post above there is no way to ask questions about the mod ability of the game at this point?
Like galaxy map editor and stuff like that.
It is too early to really discuss moddability, other than that it remains a priority for us, but I would welcome questions on the screenshots and content above. If you look through the ship design and main interface sneak peeks carefully, there's a lot that you may find to ask about.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Imrryran
What about the empire internal policies, factions, etc. Will it be more complex than in the first game?
Personally I like the new Empire Policy interface much more, but I can't share it with you just yet. As with DW1, there are quite a few policy settings and the policies allow you a finer level of control over the automation of your empire and allow you to set bounds or influence the decision-making of your automated advisors.
One thing I will mention is that when it comes to your automation, the top level settings are no longer just manual/automated/advise. There is now a fourth setting, which effectively means you have two different options on the advise side. These are called Suggest and Suggest & Execute. The first means they will suggest, but if you ignore the suggestion (these suggestions decay over time) they will not implement it. In effect, they will only do it if you intervene to grant permission. The second means they will suggest, but if you don't intervene to either approve it or cancel it, they will go ahead and do it once enough time has passed for you to review it. I find these to be a useful addition that allows one more level between "I'll do it all myself" and "Just do it, I don't want to hear about it."
Regards,
- Erik
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: drdru7029
Something I both loved and always wanted more of in DW1 was statistics, on everything from gross economic output per planet/system/station, to ships destroyed over time, to various aspects of trade etc. Will in-depth histogram statistics be available in the game?
Histogram I can't speak to at this point, but we're tracking more stats than we did in DW1.
Others
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Sparviero
4) This is a bit off topic, but I can't handle myself. Are planets still orbiting around stars and moons around planets? DW has one of my favourite visual looking despite the age for this feature.
Yes. [8D]
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: rollhax
The docking bays are very reminiscent of homeworld and X3/X4. Will we be able to see ships flying in and out of them to dock?
Yes, indeed. Though the largest ships will generally stop somewhere near the spaceport and use shuttles, but small to medium ships can fit inside.
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ORIGINAL: Webbco
My question is: How often will you be showing us other aspects of the game and when will you start?
Nothing more until 2020, but I expect we'll do at least some kind of sneak peek each month until the big reveal with the product page and such. As we get closer to release, we'll provide more details as well.
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ORIGINAL: Elliotg
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ORIGINAL: sinbuster
Has the spy system been changed at all? It was micro-heavy even for someone like me that plays with all the automation off.
One thing I'll say about characters is that we now have per-character automation, i.e. you can automate individual characters (location, missions) or not. Generally-speaking there is more fine-grained control over units with per-unit automation settings (in addition to advisors, etc).
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: WinzLer
This all looks great so far. My one question is about planet population control, in regard to race control can you say you don't want a certain race on your planets from migration rather than a race family only?
Too early to discuss these areas, sorry. Feel free to ask again when you see us start sharing some information about empire migration policies.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: drdru7029
1. The rich economic model and interplay with the private economy were some of the most enjoyable and immersive aspects of DW1. Can you give any information about the depth of the model in DW2?
Not yet, but suffice to say there is still a private economy.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: drdru7029
A huge draw for me while playing DW1 was being able to construct massive trade hubs and watch the activity around those hubs flourish. It was great to build massive centers of economic activity and see that activity be tangibly reflected both in space and in the trade income/output generated as a result. Will such features be present in DW2?
I don't see why not. [8D]
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: jezwhywhy
I fear DW2 wont be 1:1 with DW:U or that it will be barebones. That 4 years you guys refered too. That it could come out like X4 a husk, that will never surpass its predecessors for features and fun. Are there any assurances to people like me (people** like me are ultra loyal and i will through money at you, but also somewhat entitled to opine on validating my bumpy history with DS 1 and its ups and downs. If DW2 comes out bumpy will there be a strong road map of where its going)
Are we going to have a better launch this time?
Well, none of us can predict the future, but I'll give it my best shot. It will not be a husk at release. I think it's fair to say that in this initial release, we will already have the great majority of DWU's features and most of those will be improved in some significant way over DWU. For most, I think it will surpass DWU at launch. For some, depending on favorite features or content it may take longer, but I believe it will get there for all eventually.
The entire game is much better structured and cleaner under the hood than DW1 was and my experience so far during development has been that when we find issues, they are much easier and quicker to fix than they were in DW1. By the time we got to DWU and everything that had been added to that over time, it was frankly getting to be a bit of a bear for Elliot to work with. DW2 is also much more easily expandable and there is room for a lot of future plans that we could never have realistically done with DW1. I hope therefore that we will have a smoother launch and that we will be able to meet or exceed the expectations of community.
May it be so!
Regards,
- Erik
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: SelinaWebber
Will it be possible to design a constructor as a player controlled miner to boost a system with fuel? (repeat orders)
Or are we generally allowed to do such things?
Hm, I can't really get into the resource or economy system yet, but there are new ways to help prioritize and encourage development of certain resources.
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: Webbco
Will ships and bases interact with planets? If so, how?
With the new 3D engine will planetary interaction be dynamic or abstracted, as with DW1?
There are interactions between ships and bases and planets, but I'll have to wait until we're ready to talk about colonies, planets, economics, trade, invasions, ground combat, interception, etc. before I can really get into that unfortunately.
I'm not sure I entirely understood your second question, but if you mean will ships fly down to planets or such - that is abstracted and beyond our current scope.
Regards,
- Erik
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ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
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ORIGINAL: larrybush
With a 64 bit full 3D engine I suppose that infers the star maps are full 3D the tactical combat area are full 3D. This could be truly immersive.
I can't discuss combat yet, but we tried to strike a balance between allowing ships to move in 3D without causing too much confusion for the player.
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