Concerning DW 2..

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Concerning DW 2.. - 5/18/2014 3:52:50 PM

uberknight72

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I'm excited about how it's going to be improved from the first, hopefully building off all the features of DW: Universe instead of simply starting out as a more sleek, graphically improved version of the base DW with a few gimmicky new features not present in the first to allow you say its a new game while just slowly (and expensively) re-adding the rest of the features overtime.

In other wards im hoping its an advanced game, not one that simply does the moonwalk combined with a few flashy dancemoves backwards before taking another 5 years to build itself back up to the complexity of DW after about four, 20 dollar expansions later.

ALSO great mod support from the start. I know a lot of developers want their games to be played in the way or manner they intended it and they have every right to keep it that way, but one must face the fact that open modding support insures the survivibility of a game for YEARS. Some developers can look at that as a bad thing for why would a player want to buy their new game if the old one has been made better due to mods but look at it this way.. Easily on more circumstances than I could think of have I bought an old game that vanilla alone didn't appeal to me but it was because of what a mod did to it or improved it was why I decided it was worth the cash. (Third Age: Total War mod for Medieval 2: Total war is one example)

But beyond those fairly open requests.. No-matter what you decide to add, not add, or wait till an expansion to add.. Please... for the love of the holy cat and everything good PLEASE make planets, stars, astroids and other anomalies at least 5x larger across the board!! This is, to me, above everything else the biggest design mistake of the first. If I can't click on my home planet simply because my small fleet of destroyers is refueling there or because 200 freighters have made it into the equivalent if walmarts intergalactic parking lot the planet is TOO DAMN SMALL. Really, more than everything else that is the sole thing I hate most about this game, but I love just about every other aspect. I want huge space battles to have the appearance of it taking place in orbit of a planet instead of the planet looking like it's just the flagship of the defending fleet.

This really is the only thing I demand of the second one, everything else really don't matter other than just make another great and improved game :)

Post #: 1

RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/19/2014 2:17:38 PM

feygan

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If planetary bodies were 5x larger as you say they would take up so much screen real estate it would make the game look awful. You realise you can go to the planet/colony screen select the colony you wish from the and hit the button that switches focus to that body?

(in reply to uberknight72)

Post #: 2

RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/19/2014 3:36:46 PM

Deathball

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I think most developers don't integrate modding support because it's actually really hard to implement a sufficiently modular data system compared to just hardcoding things. I hope Elliot takes the experience he gained from DW1 and plans his code with modding in mind right away so as to allow for even easier and more in-depth modification of DW2.

(in reply to feygan)

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/19/2014 4:20:57 PM

ASHBERY76

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You really think planets 5x bigger would actually improve the game.Lol.That would be truly terrible.

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/20/2014 1:32:14 AM

Spidey

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You're quite right that things aren't to scale. The thing is, having planets and stars to scale would be ridiculously impractical. Consider that a ship might be 200 meters long whereas the diameter of the Earth is 12,700 km, the diameter of Jupiter is roughly 140,000 km, and the diameter of the sun is 1,391,000 km. That means the Earth needs to be 63,000 times bigger than the length of that ship, Jupiter needs to be 700,000 times bigger, and the Sun needs to be a ridiculous 7 million times bigger. In case that last one doesn't quite register to you, what it means is that when the ship is represented by a single pixel on the screen, the sun is 3622 screens wide, assuming a resulution of 1920 by 1080.

(in reply to ASHBERY76)

Post #: 5

RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/20/2014 2:35:40 AM

FingNewGuy

Posts: 183
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From: Boulder, CO
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Spidey

You're quite right that things aren't to scale. The thing is, having planets and stars to scale would be ridiculously impractical. Consider that a ship might be 200 meters long whereas the diameter of the Earth is 12,700 km, the diameter of Jupiter is roughly 140,000 km, and the diameter of the sun is 1,391,000 km. That means the Earth needs to be 63,000 times bigger than the length of that ship, Jupiter needs to be 700,000 times bigger, and the Sun needs to be a ridiculous 7 million times bigger. In case that last one doesn't quite register to you, what it means is that when the ship is represented by a single pixel on the screen, the sun is 3622 screens wide, assuming a resulution of 1920 by 1080.

Thank you for this, Spidey.

(in reply to Spidey)

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 11:36:24 AM

uberknight72

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Nowhere in my post did i say they needed to be to scale, that would be... Awful..

They just should be the largest body on the screen, even moon. Just for the sake of looking better and actually being clickable late game. Is that too much to ask for a planet? O-o

And if the planet is right there on the screen in front of me, why should i have to flip through a list of 30+ colonys just to select it because theres 3 carriors in the way? Very uninuitive.. which brings me to the further arguement as to how 5x planet size (hell, even 3x would be 100x better) would be so "terrible"? Playing the game right now i can see no way it would make selecting ships more difficult, or how it encompassing most of the screen would make the game look awful? Especially considering the game has very fluid zooming. Only thing that would need to be changed would be bigger planet textures, then id say the game wouod look rather beautiful.

And to stimulate more constructive arguements beyond spidys informative post, even though its arguing rather indepth against a point that i never suggested >.>
Please tell me why you all are against this sort of change beyond an apperent joy for scrolling through long menus and a love for the sight of carrier-sized planets swarmed by ships like a honey comb to giant interstellar bees. And why its not only dentrimental to the gameplay but would make the game look bad too?

< Message edited by uberknight72 -- 5/21/2014 12:45:01 PM >

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 12:13:47 PM

Raap

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Ye, the default planet/moon size could definitely be a bit larger. Though as long as you allow overlapping of ships and whatnot, it'll probably always end up being a bit difficult to select the planet/spacestation below your cluster of ships.

It would help if that list that pops up when you click somewhere where there's many objects would actually prioritize colonies/spacestations on top of the list. In fact, that would pretty much solve the problem entirely.

(in reply to uberknight72)

Post #: 8

RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 1:00:23 PM

feygan

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While I can see an aesthetic gain in larger system bodies, that is about all I can really see. If you have for example 20+ colonies to manage then your time on each is fairly limited and you have likely moved into the grand strategy macromanagment mode. In that case then switching system focus screens between lots of planets just isn't efficient, add to that if you have enough ships and stuff in orbit to block out the current zoom level of planets, then it is also likely each system switch when zoomed in is taking a second or two to process. Chuck on top of that much larger planet textures and folks who do not have the latest hardware could be seeing 4-5 seconds of delay between selecting a new planet and actually seeing it properly to take actions.

In these cases the colony list screen makes perfect sense, it lets you do everything you can do in the main system view (and a few extra things), and it does so without lag. Also it pauses the game so human minds can grasp things that they cannot normally think of all in one moment such as mass troop recruitments etc.

If DW gets made, and if (a huge if) the language used to program it happens to be so efficient that even average machines today will have spare cpu power when running it. Then yes I can see an argument for giving a better zoom magnification. But sadly I can think of at least three other things that would add more to game function.

(in reply to Raap)

Post #: 9

RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 1:05:32 PM

ReadeB

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Why wait? Couldn't the current planetary images be modded to be as large as desired?

Is there some scaling I'm not aware of?

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 1:38:22 PM

Raap

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No idea, though I'd assume there's either a set size that every picture is scaled to depending on the in-game 'classified size' of that planetoid or, at the very least, a maximum size that probably isn't much larger than the current largest 'picture'.

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 3:28:15 PM

Spidey

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The size of the planets is indeed arguably too far "off", but aside from the previously mentioned problem of making them scale remotely sensibly, there's also an issue of the space between the planets. Systems already looks weirdly cramped as it is and if we made all the planet and star images twice as big, we'd have the inner planets practically surfing on the surface of suns.

Think about this. The Earth is third in the orbit around the Sun and we're about 150 million kilometers from the Sun, which is about a hundred times the diameter of the Sun. Pluto is almost 40 times further away. The DW solar systems, if I were to make a rough guess, have their borders (the red circle around them) about 30-35 solar diameters from the center. So actually, what really should be done is that the stars and the planets are made smaller and the ships are made much, much smaller. But then we'd lose perspective on what's going on whenever we're zoomed far enough in that we can actually see the ships.

The point is, the universe is either going to look "weird" or it's going to be impractical for the purposes of playing a game. I actually agree about the problem but I don't think just making the planets bigger is a solution. A function that hides ships, leaving behind bases and planets, or making planets and bases part of the selection list whenever you click on top of them would probably solve the problem for me, and I imagine they're both easier than having to dramatically reconfigure the size of space across the in-game universe.

(in reply to Raap)

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 3:34:17 PM

ASHBERY76

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The universe expansion had a UI tweak where it says planet as well as ships when you click on that area.The old issues should be gone.

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 3:35:04 PM

FingNewGuy

Posts: 183
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From: Boulder, CO
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Raap

Ye, the default planet/moon size could definitely be a bit larger. Though as long as you allow overlapping of ships and whatnot, it'll probably always end up being a bit difficult to select the planet/spacestation below your cluster of ships.

It would help if that list that pops up when you click somewhere where there's many objects would actually prioritize colonies/spacestations on top of the list. In fact, that would pretty much solve the problem entirely.

Even in Shadows there is no need to scroll through a list of colonies. Do this: click within the circle denoting a system in question on the main Galaxy map- this displays that system in the bottom left mini-screen; left click on the planet in question within that mini-screen display; right click on the Zoom To Home icon on the bottom right mini-screen; the planet is selected for right click purposes. ALSO: Watch Episode 3 of Larry Monte's Extreme Survival Universe LP where he demonstrates that the planet is now selectable when you left click on the stack of units covering planets in system. My point is that this has been acceptably addressed without increasing planet/moon size.

(in reply to Raap)

Post #: 14

RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 3:41:43 PM

Spidey

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That sounds awesome, Ashbery.

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RE: Concerning DW 2.. - 5/21/2014 11:54:09 PM

uberknight72

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The star systems would have to be scaled along with the planets, as well as the distances between star systems. Though idk if scaling everything larger would decrease performance or not. But im sure that with proper optimization a larger scale galaxy in DW 2 should be achievable. But considering it's a sequel im sure the eye candy factor will be turned up. So I have faith he will have larger planary scale. Long as he doesnt let the asthetics dominate over the features idk how far he goes. I just really only ask for a little bit larger planets. A comfortable scale im thinking is moons are as big as regular planets are now and scale everything else accordingly. That seems to be a good middle ground. Like I think the average gas giant size should be the proper planet size.

(in reply to Spidey)

Post #: 16