http://www.matrixgames.com/products/379/details/Distant.Worlds
QuoteFeatures
* Truly Epic-Scale Galaxies: play in galaxies with up to 1400 star systems and 50,000 planets, moons and asteroids. Vast nebula clouds spiral out from the galactic core, shaping the distribution of star clusters in the galaxy
* Private Enterprise: the private citizens of your empire automatically take care of mundane tasks like mining resources, transporting cargo, migration between colonies, tourism and much more. This frees you from micro-management and instead allows you to focus on a macro-scale
* Intelligent Automation: automate the various tasks in your empire, so that you can focus on the areas that you enjoy most. Or have your advisors make suggestions in different areas like colonization, defence or diplomacy – helping you learn the best tactics and strategies
* Explore: explore the vast galaxy, discovering valuable resources, potential colonies for your empire and making contact with other empires. Uncover secrets that lift the veil on the galaxy's mysterious past...
* Colonize: send out colony ships to found new worlds for your empire. Develop your new colonies by keeping them well-supplied with a steady stream of valuable resources
* Defend: patrol the outlying areas of your empire to protect from raiding pirates or dangerous space monsters. Construct defensive bases at your colonies. Build up your fleets to defend against enemy empires. Recruit troops to invade enemy colonies and conquer the galaxy!
* Diplomacy: interact with other empires, discussing treaties, making trade offers or just giving them a piece of your mind. Talk to pirate factions, tapping into their underground information, or paying them to do your dirty work for you...
* Espionage: covertly seek out information about other empires, or even disrupt their progress with acts of sabotage
* Research: develop new technologies for use in building your own unique ships and star bases
* Build: design and build the ships and star bases in your empire. Construct mighty military ships at your space ports, or build mining stations, research installations or secret monitoring facilities at remote locations throughout the galaxy
* Built-in Game Editor: fine-tune your own galaxy, adding or removing star systems, planets, asteroid fields, ships, star bases, space monsters or anything else. Modify the attributes of any empire in your game
* Extensive Help: exhaustive, built-in, context-sensitive help is always only a single key-press away. Press F1 at any time for a detailed explanation of the current game screen, your currently selected item, etc
* Tutorials: in-game tutorials familiarize you with all of the game elements and tools
* Built-in Customization: modify all ship art, alien races, and much more. Switch between different customization sets with a couple of mouse clicks from the main game menu
Developer page:
http://www.codeforce.co.nz/
Screenies:
http://www.codeforce.co.nz/gallery.asp
I was just looking at this one. Seems very promising, with only a few concerns (such as how annoyingly private the "private citizens" self-management will be).
Looks interesting, wonder how retarded the private citizens are going to be :D
Incidentally, that Kiwi accent is barbarous :mad:
What the hell, why not?
Quote from: screenshotWe have found techology that advances our understanding of Computer, leading us to disco.
WTF
Hope the map doesn't suck
I've been reading the Chanur novels (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chanur_novels) lately and I'm hitching for some space action - to capture the thrill of a merchant ship plying the star lanes. This looks interesting.
G.
Two new gameplay videos.
http://www.codeforce.co.nz/videos.asp#exploration
Paused a number of times to catch the details not talked about. Looking quite promising.
Will it cost $70 and require 4 hours to play one turn?
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on January 23, 2010, 02:07:40 AM
Will it cost $70 and require 4 hours to play one turn?
Probably not. :sad:
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on January 23, 2010, 02:07:40 AM
Will it cost $70 and require 4 hours to play one turn?
:yuk:
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on January 23, 2010, 02:07:40 AM
Will it cost $70 and require 4 hours to play one turn?
Looks like RTS. :)
Assuming the AI isnt borked and you can leave the minutae to the comp I think this could be a winner.
Quote from: Cecil on January 23, 2010, 05:34:33 PM
Quote from: HisMajestyBOB on January 23, 2010, 02:07:40 AM
Will it cost $70 and require 4 hours to play one turn?
Looks like RTS. :)
Assuming the AI isnt borked and you can leave the minutae to the comp I think this could be a winner.
It's concept looks as good as Space Empires IV Gold. Shitty AI made that game a boring chore.
New video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWvxkud56K4
And a post by SoM over at Wargamer (he's in the beta team AFAIK).
QuoteDid you see my comments on the living world and the civilian economy? That is a really interesting aspect of the game and makes it a bit special. I think that was either on Matrix or Wargamer.com (as Son_of_Montfort, remember).
Here is what I will say, If you are looking for the below, you will probably like DW:
1. Something on the scope of Lost Empire: Immortals but with a much more detailed tech and economic system and with some automation to make that 1000 star universe more manageable. Further, there is more active diplomacy and research has more "life" than LE:I. But I would say DW takes the scope of LE:I and succeeds in the places where LE:I failed. LE:I was an ambitious game, one that could have been good had the studio been able to iron out the bugs and fully realize their vision. I think DW is MORE ambitious and actually realizes much of the vision of the developer.
2. If you want a 4X space game that has a living universe with NPC ships populating it. If you felt like Sword of the Stars or even MoO2 was overly abstracted, you will love DW. What other 4X space game has Luxury liner ships that travel to space resorts (you built) that overlook scenic areas like nebula or ring planets? What other game do you see space docks building civilian cargo ships to transport your mined resources from starbase to starbase? Sure, these things are simply graphical representations of number in the game (i.e. tourism profits, the movement of goods) but they serve more of a purpose than that - want to squelch an enemy's tourism cash flow - blow up luxury liners like a pirate. Want to cripple his supply of the rare vodka like drink that keeps his population happy and growing - destroy his cargo ships from that planet.
3. Are you looking for a sandbox game, then this one is certainly that. Strangely enough, I would say that DW is the "Dwarf Fortress" of 4X games. No - it isn't quite THAT deep, but what I mean is that the player gives macro-directives (build this here, send ships there) that are carried out by the unit AI. So a little like Tropico, even, set in space. Perhaps the best analogy would be Europa Universalis in space, which certainly is a bit apt, but even that doesn't encompass the whole thing. There is certainly a bit of a "laissez faire" aspect to the game - you can be contented simply watching your empire's engines hum without doing much of anything - so the management really depends on the player. I haven't yet put everything on full auto and simply set the game running and returned an hour later to see what had happened - but I imagine it would have built a pretty efficient empire without any input from me at all. Maybe this is a criticism of the game, but I'm not sure that it should be - what this means is - you tailor your own involvement to your comfort zone. If you want to play Space Opera Ant Farm - go at it - if you want to play Detail Oriented Perfectionist Emperor Sim - do it.
4. Going along with #4 - if you are looking for a MoO3 that actually works - then DW might just be it. The idea of macro-planning, macro-control is elegantly carried out here. The story is unobtrusive, and you work to build a huge empire and protect that empire from outside forces and internal inertia. So if you were excited by the larger scale planned for MoO3, but found the execution lacking, then you might love DW.
If you are looking for the below - then you might be disappointed:
1. MoO2. This ain't it. It ain't Galactic Civilizations 2 either. If you want pages of text describing each technological breakthrough, if you want to control what buildings your planets build, if you want to see the farming production of your agricultural worlds - then DW isn't going to cut it. Unlike EU the tech levels do have personality and names, but you are going to see more - red shield (Tech 1) is upgraded to blue shield (Tech 2), which is 5% better than red shield (although do note that some tech upgrades require different levels of resources to build, so there is a difference in function in that you have to be able to support building the upgrades). You can design ships, but I wouldn't say that you are going to see the weapon variety of Sword of the Stars or the intricate Min-Max of MoO2. There is some similarity to Imperium Galactica - but again, you aren't going to be zooming down to colonies to be a city planner (of course, with 30+ colonies being common and a smallish empire, would you want to).
2. Aurora with a better graphics engine. A while back, Wargamer.com was rocked by a little freeware 4X game (or excel spreadsheet that played like a game) called Aurora. I would say that it was the equivalent of the Harpoon CE series set in space. Some people saw DW and thought - hey, this may be something close. It isn't. You can control ships in real-time battles, but your strategic options are not going to be ultra detailed. You can flank, and move around enemy ships, and use higher range, but don't expect calculating parsecs and such. In fact, I would say that the default for combat is to let the AI units control handle it. You don't have to, and you can have a lot of fun controlling battles. Certainly there is a lot of detail in MACRO (see a trend here) level war planning - like setting up refueling bases or sending refueling ships to make sure your warships have the striking range needed. So, in some ways, war plays a little like WitP - you are more the logistics planning High Admiral of the Fleets than the Space General or captain of a vessel. That will excite some, and maybe be a disappointment to others - I just wanted to clear this up for people who were hoping for intricate battle control.
So I hope this helps. DW takes methods and ideas used in other games and fuses them into something unique. In many ways you can see the similarities to Imperium Galactica (agents, real-time, story that appears via exploration in space), Lost Empires: Immortals (HUGE universe, galactic emperor rather than city planner or hive mind controller of every action, abstracted tech - but not as abstracted as LE:I), MoO 3 (ship design, large scale decisions to support a grand empire, diplomacy that has several options for treaties, races that are fleshed out - hate certain other types of races from the get-go, have certain powers and bonuses, look like baby seals [j/k]), Gal Civ 2 (space tourism a money maker - albeit not abstracted in DW and using real ships, taxes the end-all-be-all, resources that give bonuses to growth), Stars! (ship components require certain minerals/resources, the mining and transport of minerals/resources will be a huge part of the game, did I mention that resources are on every planet and you will obsess over them to get them back to your star bases to fuel your war machine, oh yeah and minerals/resources are going to be a big factor - ed. note: if you never played Stars! this last "joke" will go over your head), and even Sword of the Stars (random encounters, exploration a major goal of the game, SPACE MONSTERS!!1!1!!).
That's my $0.02. If you are on the fence, then please, watch for other impressions. I really see a lot of people liking this one, but I know that certain people, who have certain expectations, might feel led astray. I hope this post clears that up.
I am very intrigued.
Quotethe best analogy would be Europa Universalis in space
I'll wait for the patched version of the post-"Complete" expansion.
It worries me that it is from Matrix... :(
Customization guide is available:
http://matrixgames.com/news/641/Customization.Guide.Released.for.Distant.Worlds
Quote from: Syt on February 26, 2010, 03:13:18 AM
Customization guide is available:
http://matrixgames.com/news/641/Customization.Guide.Released.for.Distant.Worlds (http://matrixgames.com/news/641/Customization.Guide.Released.for.Distant.Worlds)
I want a Star Trek mod and a Dune mod.
Quote from: citizen k on February 26, 2010, 11:22:40 PM
I want a Star Trek mod and a Dune mod.
LOL CAN I BE: IX? :P
I want a Star Trek versus Star Wars mod.
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on February 27, 2010, 06:48:06 AM
I want a Star Trek versus Star Wars mod.
Well, you can read about that matchup: http://www.grudge-match.com/History/ds-enterprise.shtml (http://www.grudge-match.com/History/ds-enterprise.shtml)
New screenshots (large, so I link to the thread)!
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2402878
This looks like a game that is going to try to be everything, and will end up not being anything interesting.
Quote from: Berkut on March 15, 2010, 11:13:01 AM
This looks like a game that is going to try to be everything, and will end up not being anything interesting.
Well, I think it's not a game that tries to be everything. You have limited ship design, limited influence on colony development and no tactical battles, for starters.
Wargamer had a good brief look at what the game is and what it isn't:
http://www.wargamer.com/article/2839/distant-worlds-early-look-part-1
Quote from: Syt on March 15, 2010, 11:16:13 AM
Quote from: Berkut on March 15, 2010, 11:13:01 AM
This looks like a game that is going to try to be everything, and will end up not being anything interesting.
Well, I think it's not a game that tries to be everything. You have limited ship design, limited influence on colony development and no tactical battles, for starters.
Wargamer had a good brief look at what the game is and what it isn't:
http://www.wargamer.com/article/2839/distant-worlds-early-look-part-1
Well, no, that is a promo piece from a "tester".
I hope you are right though, and I am wrong. but I've given up on hoping that someone would put out a well designed space 4x game. I don't really know why, but the genre has just been one failure after another for, well, decades.
too many developers, IMO, trying to do something amazing, and instead not getting the basics right.
QuoteFeatures
Truly Epic-Scale Galaxies: play in galaxies with up to 1400 star systems and 50,000 planets, moons and asteroids. Vast nebula clouds spiral out from the galactic core, shaping the distribution of star clusters in the galaxy
The more realistic one makes these space games, the less playable they become.
One will probably try to settle as many worlds as possible - size will probably be a critical factor - so I predict that, after we painstakingly create an Empire of about 100 colonized worlds that are a pain to manage and seem to be an immense span of map space, we'll find out that we only rule about 0.8% of the habitable planets in the galaxy.
Either that or, with a mid-sized Empire, we will STILL not be able to see, much less contact, a single "neighbour" by mid to late game.
Quote from: Berkut on March 15, 2010, 11:19:37 AM
I hope you are right though, and I am wrong.
Believe me, so do I.
I will surely not buy on release, though, since I have enough other things to do and play for the time being, but I'll keep watching how this goes post-release.
Quote from: Berkut on March 15, 2010, 11:19:37 AMbut I've given up on hoping that someone would put out a well designed space 4x game.
Well, I had good times with GalCiv2 and still fire it up now and then, but I understand not everyone enjoyed that game, which is ok.
Space Empires 4 was fun for a while, but a bit spreadsheet-ish. Aurora looks like "Harpoon meats Dwarf Fortress in Space", and it doesn't run on this laptop due to resolution issues. Couldn't get into Swords of the Stars, didn't try Sins of a Solar Empire (just doesn't tickle me) and Lost Empires: Immortals was a huge failure.
Quote from: grumbler on February 27, 2010, 03:26:28 PM
Quote from: Darth Wagtaros on February 27, 2010, 06:48:06 AM
I want a Star Trek versus Star Wars mod.
Well, you can read about that matchup: http://www.grudge-match.com/History/ds-enterprise.shtml (http://www.grudge-match.com/History/ds-enterprise.shtml)
Kewl.
Quote from: Berkut on March 15, 2010, 11:13:01 AM
This looks like a game that is going to try to be everything, and will end up not being anything interesting.
Yes, this looks like WitP, but in space.
Quote from: Syt on March 15, 2010, 11:25:46 AM
Quote from: Berkut on March 15, 2010, 11:19:37 AMbut I've given up on hoping that someone would put out a well designed space 4x game.
Space Empires 4 was fun for a while, but a bit spreadsheet-ish.
Not to mention the AI was dumber than a box of rocks. :(
Combat movie is out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQgeJML_tMw
Not exactly deep combat - build strong ships and swarm the enemy. Not much tactics (which is ok for me). I like the use of refueling stations to extend range, though I hope the AI knows how to use those, too and goes for yours, too.
And a preview AAR of ship design:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=2411040&mpage=1&key=%EF%BF%BD
Looks a bit like in Gratuitous Space Battles.
Apparently this has been released now.
Idi...ehm people with lots of spare money are welcome to give their views on if its a MoO1-2 or a MoO3.
I'll wait for a patch or two.
Looks good.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 25, 2010, 06:45:57 PM
I'll wait for a patch or two.
Looking at the website, there is, in fact, already a patch. :P
Quote from: Cecil on March 25, 2010, 06:42:48 PM
Apparently this has been released now.
Idi...ehm people with lots of spare money are welcome to give their views on if its a MoO1-2 or a MoO3.
A beta over at Wargamer (Son_of_Montfor) has stated that it's not a MoO contender. It seems more like a EU-type game in space. I'd try it this weekend, but that depends on whether or not I get my online payment code for my new credit card today (Austrian MC/VISA affiliate requires a verification password for many transactions).
Quote from: Syt on March 26, 2010, 12:01:09 AM
Quote from: Cecil on March 25, 2010, 06:42:48 PM
Apparently this has been released now.
Idi...ehm people with lots of spare money are welcome to give their views on if its a MoO1-2 or a MoO3.
A beta over at Wargamer (Son_of_Montfor) has stated that it's not a MoO contender. It seems more like a EU-type game in space. I'd try it this weekend, but that depends on whether or not I get my online payment code for my new credit card today (Austrian MC/VISA affiliate requires a verification password for many transactions).
I ment if it was good or a stinker. I know its hardly MoO. ;)
No multi-player. BO-RING.
Quote from: Berkut on March 26, 2010, 11:25:57 AM
No multi-player. BO-RING.
Multiplayer is for dependent acceptance seekers who require social interaction to re-affirm themselves.
I wouldn't mind hearing that this is decent.
I thought that there'd be some opinions over at Wargamer already, but for now it's mostly, "Err, guess I'll check the manual/tutorial first."
I'll try it out this weekend myself. Since I'm easily amused and don't need an über-AI to keep me entertained (I'm not such a supergood gamer myself, and I don't micromanage/numbercrunch my games to maximize my results) I would take any impressions from me with a grain of salt, though. :)
Thought it was pretty funny to read one report from the matrix forum about one player who on discovering a race got the advice from his advisors to go to war a crunch the others which he did. He promtly got pwned by he AI who obliterated his empire in about 10 minutes. :lol:
No MP is a deal breaker :(
Started my first real game and trying to get my bearings.
Just looking at my starting position. My starting system has 11 planets, plus 16 or so moons. And that's just one star system out of 700 (standard sized galaxy). My home planet is a large moon around a gas giant. I start with some mining stations set up in the system. Another planet in the system has an indiginous population that's the same race as me, I can colonize them later. Otherwise I'm currently a bit lost looking at stats, numbers and trying to figure out what to do. There seems to be ruins of an ancient advanced civilization's library on my planet which will help with research.
I have some luxury resources in my system (Vodkol and some down) that I'll go and mine. Otherwise I guess it's time to go and explore for colonizable worlds.
Looking a bit further I have two mining stations in a neighbouring system (and a pirate outpost - I bought protection for now while I have no or no big military). There's also some gas clouds that can be mined for, well, gas, and a supernova that gives 400% research bonus, so I guess I'll build a research base there some time.
At the moment it is a bit too easy to tank your economy as a noob, due to the private sector's priorities in trading luxury resources (they cause periods of serious luxury lack in your capital which in turn decreases your income significantly). There will be a patch tonight to fix this, altough testers swear if you know what you are doing this is not an issue.
But otherwise, FINALLY I have a 4X game where there is detail and a lively galaxy, without me having to personally move every single bit of it which is supposed to move. You are FINALLY a President not an accountant.
Uh oh. A seal of approval from Tamas is akin to a kiss of death. .
Quote from: Jaron on March 28, 2010, 06:30:54 AM
Uh oh. A seal of approval from Tamas is akin to a kiss of death. .
:rolleyes: on the contrary
And indeed, the economy seems to work just fine on semi-auto pilot. Just make sure to set agent and troop recruitment on manual because these are pretty expensive and quite unneeded unless at war.
Do you know why on the diplo screen my human republic has these small portraits of other races as well? I saw it with other empires and thought they conquered/colonized members of these races but I am pretty sure that I did not (I had the opportunity to colonize friendly aliens but this asshole other Empire took them. They are also blocking my way into the galactic core so they will soon be kicked).
Is there like inter-empire migration or something? :unsure:
interesting, so first impressions seem to be favourable.
If I buy this with my German address I have to pay VAT, if I buy it with my Singaporean address I don't have to pay VAT. Hmm.
It looks similar to what Stars Supernova Genesis would have been. *purchased*
Meh. The download will take 3-7 hours at the current varying download speeds. I guess I'll have a look at this tomorrow after work.
Quote from: frunk on March 28, 2010, 08:09:12 AM
It looks similar to what Stars Supernova Genesis would have been. *purchased*
I think it is what Lost Empire attempted to be
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2010, 07:34:56 AM
Is there like inter-empire migration or something? :unsure:
Seems so. I have 2 million humans living among 5.5 billion Kiadians on my second colony.
Still trying to figure out how to best keep control of my empire and filter the info for me. Dozens of resources (and planets can run dry, so you need to watch that, too). Loads of ships that require constant refueling, and sometimes aren't smart enough to do it themselves, it seems (Hey, you're patrolling a REFUELLING STATION! Gas up, already!). And much more.
Quote from: Syt on March 28, 2010, 09:27:27 AM
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2010, 07:34:56 AM
Is there like inter-empire migration or something? :unsure:
Seems so. I have 2 million humans living among 5.5 billion Kiadians on my second colony.
Still trying to figure out how to best keep control of my empire and filter the info for me. Dozens of resources (and planets can run dry, so you need to watch that, too). Loads of ships that require constant refueling, and sometimes aren't smart enough to do it themselves, it seems (Hey, you're patrolling a REFUELLING STATION! Gas up, already!). And much more.
It seems that my auto-controlled ships has no problem refueling.
As for empire management, the expansion planner is a must. What I do is check my demand and stock of resources, and where seems to be danger of shortage, I filter down on the resource in question, and send out the constructor ships to build mines. (btw I have this on manual control because I dont want to overspend). That has done the trick so far.
I couldn't sleep so I applied the beta patch and started a new game as that rodent race which are like the equvivalents of Jawas.
With the transport priority thing fixed and the rodents being good at colony income and mining (not to mention having the merchant guild government type which is a special one for a few selected races), plus being in the center of the galaxy, my economy has been booming from the start.
Especially since despite setting them to rare, the tight star density in the neighborhood allowed me to find and colonize a lot of independent planets of my race.
I have also found a derelict colony ship around a gas giant, with millions of cyroed aliens (one of them amphibian tech types), decided to not dismantle the ship for tech, but rather used it to settle a planet, thus introducing a second race to my empire.
Big investment was made into building various research stations near a black hole, since my rodents are quite bad at research, they can certainly use the +600% bonus.
There is an insect empire not too far from me who hate my guts, I used a spy to get their map, and now I am planning to just supervise the general development of my empire (confirming colony and ship building recommendations of the AI) while I manually build a big station near the bugs and use it to extend my 1st Fleet.
It's been a while that I can't get away from a 4X game. :) Looks very nice so far.
looks promising.
I want it...
I´ll get this when I finish my game of the witcher which has been on hold for a couple of years. I´m in act IV so I´m nearly there.
One last question though. Is the game a pure sandbox or is there some sort of victory condition to go for? I think I´ll be a bit bored if it is at least in the long run.
What I like is that if you incorporate other races into your empire you get a bonus for that. E.g. I had a large amount of reptilians settling in my boundaries and got a troop maintenance bonus (I presume they form the backbone of my ground forces), while humans gave me a bonus to covert actions.
So how would you compare it to Galactic Civs 2? I was kinda underwhelmed by that.
Quote from: Cecil on March 28, 2010, 10:26:42 PM
I´ll get this when I finish my game of the witcher which has been on hold for a couple of years. I´m in act IV so I´m nearly there.
One last question though. Is the game a pure sandbox or is there some sort of victory condition to go for? I think I´ll be a bit bored if it is at least in the long run.
You can set victory conditions like percentage of galaxy controlled, percentage of galaxy's total population, percentage of galaxy's total private sector owned.
Quote from: Syt on March 29, 2010, 01:24:57 AM
What I like is that if you incorporate other races into your empire you get a bonus for that. E.g. I had a large amount of reptilians settling in my boundaries and got a troop maintenance bonus (I presume they form the backbone of my ground forces), while humans gave me a bonus to covert actions.
Indeed. Altough either you have to have a colony where the aliens are majority, or there needs to be a given number of them because when my humans had like 5 kinds of immigrants neither of them gave any bonuses, unlike for example the amphibians I found in the colony ship who has given me research bonuses.
Stuff like this are so nice for immersion :) The industrious but dumb rodent species find 15 million smart-ass walking dolphins frozen on a colony ship, and decides to have them settle a planet inside the empire's boundaries, and with their superior intelligence they quickly become the scientific elite of the empire.
Quote from: Tamas on March 29, 2010, 01:41:49 AM
percentage of galaxy's total private sector owned.
:huh: Aren't you the government? How is it private if you own it?
Quote from: The Brain on March 29, 2010, 02:45:26 AM
Quote from: Tamas on March 29, 2010, 01:41:49 AM
percentage of galaxy's total private sector owned.
:huh: Aren't you the government? How is it private if you own it?
your race
your mom :mad:
I have no idea how this game actually works. I expand and build stuff, but I don't understand the interdependencies between my decisions really. And I am constantly in the red despite a very positive cashflow.
Quote from: Zanza on March 29, 2010, 07:56:39 AM
I have no idea how this game actually works. I expand and build stuff, but I don't understand the interdependencies between my decisions really. And I am constantly in the red despite a very positive cashflow.
Have you patched up to 1.0.2?
Zanza, ok then, make sure you have everything on "check for confirmation" in options, plus, try and turn off the automation of the starting construction ships you have (you open the ships window, there is a blue circling arrow thingie to the right of every auto-controlled ship, click on it to turn it off. I also do that to destroyers to form my main fleet which just sits around unless trashing a pirate base, so they dont burn fuel chasing individual pirate ships which is something frigates and escorts do okay).
And yes I have found there is inter-empire migration, and you get racial bonus once a race has 10 million people in your empire.
How's it looking tamas?
Quote from: Alcibiades on March 29, 2010, 07:21:38 PM
How's it looking tamas?
I did not have much time to play. Started a human game to see if its that easy with income post-patch like with my industrial rodents. It wasn't, altough I was far from red, at least initially. Unlucky for me I got next to berzerk insects again and we were so close and they had a bigger fleet (I set AI starting size as random so who knows exactly how big they were) so they first started harassing my bases then I declared war and they pwnd me.
Is it enjoyable? Too much micromanaging? Great amount of options? Good flow and immersion?
Quote from: Alcibiades on March 30, 2010, 01:16:40 AM
Is it enjoyable? Too much micromanaging? Great amount of options? Good flow and immersion?
Almost no micro compared to what is going on. There are like at least 20 resources, the bigger portion of them is used in ship components and (I think) fuel, plus maybe running your economy, not sure. The rest are luxury goods which are used to raise and maintain culture on your colonies which in turn determines how much tax you gain which in turn pays for your ships and bases.
But speaking of ships and bases, there is the private sector. Most of your industry is being run by them. They have mining ships, freighters and passenger ships (the latter for immigration and tourism).
Also due to pirates and space monsters there is a sort of minor rotation of your ships, not to mention the need for constantly expanding your defense forces. But that can be taken care of by having the AI recommend shipbuilding orders for you. The only part where you need to step in I think is if you want yourself a big invasion fleet or something.
And all of that goes with you being only an executive leader stearing it that way or the other if you feel like it. Very cool sometimes.
There are various stuff to be found by exploration ships alá Galciv (minus the alignment choices), 20 races (with independent colonies scattered around) lots of customization for a new game, etc.
I dont have a good idea about mid- and late game yet, but I love the concept and it seems they pulled it off. The RTS nature actually helps this concept, I dare to say, due to the macro nature of things.
My impression so far is that there is not enough micro. Everything seems to just run along. E.g. I don't really need to care for resources as my private citizens will build mining ships and mine those resources. In my games so far, I have not yet found game mechanics where I can actually influence the course of my empire a lot. I mean, I get events sometime (why would I ever not investigate something? Losing an exploration ship seems to be completely insubstantial) and I pick new colonies (even that can be automated), but other than that, I don't do very much... :hmm:
Uhh ohhh....
I havent had a big war yet but from the forums its appear you will have your hands full with warfare by mid and late game. :hmm:
Fuel is a major issue (and I like that). Basically it looks like they have aimed for a pacific naval war feel for the space wars. You either go planet-hopping to have refuel stations, or you need to have resupply ships, and station them at various gas giants or gas clouds and use them as refuel points.
Apparently though, there are multiple type of gases required as fuel depending on what kind of engines you have, so for an invasion fleet, it is probably wise to design ships with the same kind of engine, and then have a resupply ship design specialized for those.
All in all, right now I welcome the lack of micro because it was micro which killed all the other 4X games for me.
this post on that topic from the forums, especially the last part of it, showcases the "under the hood" complexity of the game very well:
QuoteYou know, after a couple of days of playing i was able to adapt to manual fleet control and manual refuelling. While i do not use resupply ships at all (they behave strange and always disobey my strict manual orders to deploy preferring to return to the nearest gas station instead) - i use a small support fleet of 3 constructors that travels alongside my fleets and establishes 1 gas mine and some times defence stations once the systems is cleared of all enemy presence. The spare constructors provide a in-field repair support to those ships that were badly damaged.
This is a complex tactic and it only works well when you carefully plan your invasion (picking systems with carson gas as high-priority targets). After such a resupply point is created it is much easier to conduct further invasions into enemy territories as you have already established a good base of operations within his empire.
The only thing that you should take into account is that you need to position your constructors close to your colonies and give constructor orders while remaining there. Your constructors might need to load required materials for your bases and will travel to the nearest space port even if they are already in their construction site`s system.
Sounds like it showcasess how you can exploit an idiot AI that would never work against a human player (they would of course target your refueling points, and would be smart enough to recognize that you MUST take systems with the proper kind of gas giant to continue your invasion, and hence defend those).
Which is always the problem with a game of any complexity - if it is complex enough to warrant complex tactics, there is no way the designers will be able to predict all the little things evil humans will figure out, and somehow manage to counter them in a rational manner.
lol I did not know there is a version of Death Star here. Topic was titled "world annihilator stuck at 43%"
QuoteMy constructor seems to have been stuck at 43.68% finished for quite a while now. Should I try canceling and give it the order to build again? Is it waiting for more resources? The constructor has already converted all the resources it was carrying into components it looks like. It was pretty cool to watch how the supply chain worked with this. My constructor loaded up all the resources it needed, except for dilithium, which my empire didn't have at the time and went off to build. I tracked down a freighter that was set to transport dilithium and watched it as it flew off to buy some in another empire's system then fly back to dock with the constructor and offload the dilithium. Neat!
BTW, this seems like it might blow up into a full interstellar incident. I first noticed some explorer ships snooping around and thought about blasting them before they got to close but decided against to not inflame things. However, a big fleet from another empire just park themselves right next to my escort fleet, so of course I had to send it more forces. I now have about half my fleets guarding the thing! Both fleets are just sitting there staring at each other. I wonder if they'll attack when it's finished.
As a negative thing, I am starting to think I liked the "bugged" economy better. Clearly the freshly fixed one is not as balanced. Since the fix I have to care MUCH less about the pace of my expansion, and in fact it is just the classic colony rush. :(
Starting my first game I felt like this game was a ball of yarn the size of my house and I couldnt find a loose thread. Where to start.... :hmm:
How is it graphically? Flashy and high spec or EU2?
I'm still on my laptop right now, computer of the future isn't coming for 2 or 3 months so....
I will have to read the manual / encyclopedia. What are the reqs for building bigger ships than destroyers, and to build troop transports? I had them in one game at a somewhat later stage than I am now with my humans but I would badly need them.
I am neighboring the T-Rex race and since I am in a corner of the galaxy I colonized a planet in one of their systems, our fleets were eyeing one another near it. Luckily, one of them insects who has been technically encircled by T-Rex systems declared war on them, so I am having a window of opportunity to backstab, but I dont have the ships to do it with. :glare: The T-Rex dudes worked hard to improve our relations since they are bogged down in that war, even agreed to sell me their planet in that shared system, for some money and a tech.
the t rex chases cheetos
So is this another GalCivII - i was bored by that hence I don't want to shell 60$ for a duplicate. A sure sign of a poorly designed space 4X game is when the first phase is nothing but a colonization rush.
G.
Quote from: Grallon on March 31, 2010, 06:36:40 AM
So is this another GalCivII - i was bored by that hence I don't want to shell 60$ for a duplicate. A sure sign of a poorly designed space 4X game is when the first phase is nothing but a colonization rush.
G.
Right now the pace of the initial rush is still slower than galciv's but as I said it is a bit too fast for my taste. When the luxury distribution was off it required much more attention to expand I liked that better.
I have cracked and bought this game, will matrix break their duck and thrill me :hmm: ?
Only time will tell..
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 31, 2010, 05:38:07 PM
I have cracked and bought this game, will matrix break their duck and thrill me :hmm: ?
Only time will tell..
I am manfully resisting temptation at the moment. I look forward to hearing how your opinion of the game.
Is it too pretty to be played on an Acer Timeline 1810TZ?
I can't figure out where the fuck I put my wallet or I would have likely bought this game as well.
Quote from: The Brain on April 01, 2010, 10:33:59 AM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on March 31, 2010, 05:38:07 PM
I have cracked and bought this game,
:huh: Why both?
He may not have been listing his activities in chronological order. He needed a copy to crack.
Quote from: Grallon on March 31, 2010, 06:36:40 AM
So is this another GalCivII - i was bored by that hence I don't want to shell 60$ for a duplicate. A sure sign of a poorly designed space 4X game is when the first phase is nothing but a colonization rush.
G.
It sucks but aren't most 4x games like that?
OK this is a really strange game.
Its odd to see a hands off indirect control game....Very odd...not sure how well it'd work.
Lots going on. Too much to keep track of. Which I suppose makes that its indirect good. If it was a traditional 4x then theres no way i'd be able to ever get anything done.
I've played the game for about 4 hours so far, first impressions are favourable.
You can automate just about everything, and the automation works reasonably well, the same as the AI empires I would guess. The scale is large, you have 100 ships after playing just 20 minutes and that rises rapidly.
I'm concerned that the automation is sufficiently good that there is little need for human intervention at all. However, there do seem to be areas where player interaction is positive and they are at a fairly high-level. It is possible to micro-manage more or less the entire game.......but that would be insane :P
For example, pirates are often an early problem......the AI will deal with them at some stage, but the player can jump in and prioritise their elimination. If anyone remembers MOO3 at all, this game looks like a much better attempt at that sort of game.
There are no degrees of difficulty as such. The difficulty seems to be set from the options selected at game setup. For my first game I chose an "aggreeable" starting system. After an hour or two I seemed to be doing too well, so I've started another game with a "normal" starting system.
I'm hoping there are hidden complexities that will give the game a long shelf-life. In the game previously mentioned I had a huge number of colony targets........but I'm fairly sure that if I'd ordered all of them to be colonised at once then military spacecraft production would have been minimal as a result. Whether the AI would have exploited that is yet to be seen, I'll see how it goes in the "normal" game.
My eldest son also played for 3 hours yesterday and is intrigued by the game as well. Another 13 hours of play and it will have earned it's keep IMO.
Military ships are constructed at space ports while colony ships are contructed on colonies.
There are still resource levels to take into account; but I take your point.
I am still at the stage where I miss the "bugged" economy of pre 1.02. For survival, there is no need to manual-steer your economy, that is only for optimization now.
Yeah, 1.02 was out when I started playing. I'm getting the impression they went too far the other way and money is too easy now.
Roll on 1.03 :P
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 02, 2010, 06:11:50 AM
Yeah, 1.02 was out when I started playing. I'm getting the impression they went too far the other way and money is too easy now.
Roll on 1.03 :P
Yeah maybe it was a bit too hard with 1.01 but it was manageable, and I liked the post-2-colonies expansion better there. ie. "Alright, monthly budget is in the green, check. No resources shortage. Check. Sufficient cash reserves, check. Send that ship." Whereas now it is "Not going to cause a diplomatic mess? Ok, send it, whatever".
Its pretty hard to control ships I've noticed.
Fleets like to dissapear without warning and ordering them to other star systems is a bit long and time consuming.
I'm beginning to like this though if I could figure it out right
Quote from: Tyr on April 02, 2010, 09:58:44 AM
Its pretty hard to control ships I've noticed.
Fleets like to dissapear without warning and ordering them to other star systems is a bit long and time consuming.
I'm beginning to like this though if I could figure it out right
The Japanese noticed the same fleet problem around 1942-1944. Though by 1945 they figured out where the fleets were going.
Quote from: Razgovory on April 02, 2010, 10:02:29 AM
The Japanese noticed the same fleet problem around 1942-1944. Though by 1945 they figured out where the fleets were going.
You usually get a message if ships are attacked.
Quote from: Tyr on April 02, 2010, 09:58:44 AM
Its pretty hard to control ships I've noticed.
Fleets like to dissapear without warning and ordering them to other star systems is a bit long and time consuming.
I'm beginning to like this though if I could figure it out right
I've acquired a sample version (v. 1.1 - looking for 1.2 fix) and I have the same initial impression. There's a *lot* of stuff going on and the private sector moving ships about is quite confusing too.
Due to my system limitations I can't play at greater scale than 700 star systems though.. Time I think of upgrading methinks.
G.
Quote from: Grallon on April 02, 2010, 11:03:01 AM
Quote from: Tyr on April 02, 2010, 09:58:44 AM
Its pretty hard to control ships I've noticed.
Fleets like to dissapear without warning and ordering them to other star systems is a bit long and time consuming.
I'm beginning to like this though if I could figure it out right
I've acquired a sample version (v. 1.1 - looking for 1.2 fix) and I have the same initial impression. There's a *lot* of stuff going on and the private sector moving ships about is quite confusing too.
Due to my system limitations I can't play at greater scale than 700 star systems though.. Time I think of upgrading methinks.
G.
One of the fixes I hope will be eventually introduced is an option to turn off the displaying of freighters on the map. They have their uses during early game (like know your chokepoints to defend from pirates and such) but when you rule half the galaxy, you really dont need to have all those merchants make all that chaos.
Played most of the afternoon, really enjoying the game :cool:
I think I can safely recommend the game to Languishites with reasonable income.
The impecunious should probably hold out, also those with old computers, the later game gobbles up resources.
So I played for a couple of hours. I chose the no pirates option and only 2 opponents 'far distant' from me to give me breathing space. So what exactly is there to do apart from sending out exploration ships and allowing or not the construction of whatever your advisors suggest? :hmm:
G.
I chose normal pirates and 19 other empires :D
As far as I can see breathing space is not a problem, choose a more challenging scenario.
I really really should turn colonisation automation off.
They do nothing at first but once you have 3 races they start just colonising at will- they prefer to want to colonise close in stars too rather than further out ones, this seems a bad idea to me.
The lack of terraforming really gets on my tits after a while.... :hmm:
Another thing getting to me...population management.
I'd really like a MOO2 sort of system. A easier way of moving people from one planet to another. Would really help colonies along and help me use my extra races better.
Quote from: Cecil on April 02, 2010, 03:06:33 PM
The lack of terraforming really gets on my tits after a while.... :hmm:
True. Its odd how it isn't in there.
Also what gets to me is the over-abundance of life bearing planets. And the way you often seem to get multiple ones per system if any.
Try incorporating other races into your empire, then you can colonize those at will.
Quote from: Alcibiades on April 02, 2010, 03:16:16 PM
Try incorporating other races into your empire, then you can colonize those at will.
Thats another thing I dont like. Getting other races only have huge benefits and virtually no downsides.
Sort of like Civ 4, then. I never understood why people should be more excited with each new religion.
So...worth it then? I need a space game that doesn't involve the internet. I was eyeballing the Sword of the Stars Ultimate Edition, or whatever it's called with the two expansions, but this looks nice too.
Edit: Oh sweet Matrix has the digital download + shipped box option.
I dunno MBM. I could probably write an A4 page full of things I would like to see changed and improved but even so its a damn fun game IMO. I have said several times that GalCiv is a game I should like yet somehow I dont, this feels like the inverse.
Best 4x game I've played since MOO2.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 02, 2010, 06:36:15 PM
Best 4x game I've played since MOO2.
That's not saying much :hmm:
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 02, 2010, 06:37:33 PM
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 02, 2010, 06:36:15 PM
Best 4x game I've played since MOO2.
That's not saying much :hmm:
Schizo much?
Anyway I agree with both statements. :hug:
Quote from: Cecil on April 02, 2010, 06:08:35 PM
I dunno MBM. I could probably write an A4 page full of things I would like to see changed and improved but even so its a damn fun game IMO. I have said several times that GalCiv is a game I should like yet somehow I dont, this feels like the inverse.
Works for me. I ended up buying it a few minutes before seeing your post here. ;) Installing now.
I don't think you will be disappointed, it's by no means perfect, but it is a level above the usual 4x micromanagement hell.
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 02, 2010, 06:54:31 PM
I don't think you will be disappointed, it's by no means perfect, but it is a level above the usual 4x micromanagement hell.
I just hope the devs resist all those calls for more micro stuff being put into the game. Sure it might be fun when you have 5 colonies but there is a reason most 4X games becomes unplayable when the scale goes up.
Diggin it so far, and I'm really glad the automation is there. I don't think my little two planet "empire" would be doing so well if it wasn't (although I did have to turn off taxation automation, since it was pissing off the population of my home planet with 30% taxes).
I'm going off the game. There's just not enough there in the long run.
After I reached a certain size things just became...bleh. I even started a war to relieve the bordom. I didn't need to though; living space is plentiful on a standard map with 19 empires. I've never had to worry about money or places to grow.
There's just nothing to do and one the initial novelty of exploration and getting your first colonies down wears off it shows.
Colonisation automation is annoying too. I'd like to have building colony ships utterly automated but I'd like to choose where to send them myself. Its all or nothing though.
Theres big potential here. There's many aspects of what I'd have considered a dream game a few years back. Though...I dunno. They overly complicated it with too many of the same simple tasks and left out much variety in what to do.
Quote from: Cecil on April 02, 2010, 04:52:11 PM
Thats another thing I dont like. Getting other races only have huge benefits and virtually no downsides.
It got really weird with me.
Continental worlds are rare as anything. Ice and ocean worlds...not so much.
So I've loads of colonies of my other races, of humans? Not so much.
Yeah that bugs me too. If we were talking traits from MOO2 here being a natural Volcanic/Ocean/Ice colonizer would be at least worth 10 picks if not 15. Better terraforming or colonizing tech is a required thing I think cause in my games its quickly apparent that those races with that advantage is doing much better.
While not entirely disagreeing with your general point, Tyr, colonization automation is not "all or nothing" if you have the AI ask for confirmation, you can open the expansion planner whenever, and queue colony ships to be built and sent to specific planets.
I went back to it today (hey, I get these irrational short term addictions) and played for 2 hours then it crashed :bleeding:
There goes my day.
I'm not understanding refuelling. I tell a fleet to refuel at the nearest station and it will often just sit around there without its fuel increasing...
QuoteWhile not entirely disagreeing with your general point, Tyr, colonization automation is not "all or nothing" if you have the AI ask for confirmation, you can open the expansion planner whenever, and queue colony ships to be built and sent to specific planets.
Yeah, but I like to have them building constantly and ready to be sent as soon as theres a planet. Its naff to have to build them specially when you decide to send them.
I think part of the problem is the dichotomy made between private and public sectors. I understand the rationale of alleviating the micromanagement by giving away the 'mindless' tasks of building up the infrastructure to the private sector. However it also deprives the player of a big chunk of what they used to do in previous titles of the genre. Not to mention the sense of immersion where your choices personalize your empire. That element is still there but abstracted and thus impersonal, superficial. The game feels like chess, a matter of positioning your pieces, and yet there's not the immediacy of chess... Perhaps on a smaller map?
G.
Quote from: Grallon on April 03, 2010, 09:53:58 AM
I think part of the problem is the dichotomy made between private and public sectors. I understand the rationale of alleviating the micromanagement by giving away the 'mindless' tasks of building up the infrastructure to the private sector. However it also deprives the player of a big chunk of what they used to do in previous titles of the genre. Not to mention the sense of immersion where your choices personalize your empire. That element is still there but abstracted and thus impersonal, superficial. The game feels like chess, a matter of positioning your pieces, and yet there's not the immediacy of chess... Perhaps on a smaller map?
G.
The focus on macro is what makes this game. Wether the fixes of the future will turn it into truly great, or ruin, will depend on wether the devs cave in to the microing crowd and brake the game, or stay with their vision.
Has anyone encountered the desolation moon yet?
I managed to salvage one of its escorts in the usual way but the others and the ship itself just float there- it says I need to repair it but theres no option for my construction ships to do anything with it. And why can't I get the other escorts...ancient ships are tasty.... Its all rather...hmm.....
Also- any idea whats up with the dead zone place that everyone always tells you about but its full of those space scorpion things? It seemed to be a trap/red herring/trick but its the place the story seems to want me to go next. Theres nothing there though but the animals.
I replaced the standard music by the entire 4th season soundtrack of Galactica - so much better for ambiance - but there's nothing to do except grab planets and churn out ships to protect them - improve your tech to have better ships and so forth.
I want to like this game dammit but I'm bored! <_<
G.
I managed to fix it. Blowing up planets is fun even though I then reloaded since everyone hated me.
So...I guess it means terraforming should be easy to incorporate since there's already something in there for changing a planet type!
But yeah, what Grallon says.
I am bored at work so here is some news update for you:
there is a new patch out, with autosave, and a "refuel ships" button for fleets, among other fixes.
Plus some interesting trivia from the matrix boards:
QuoteDid you know if you don't initially remove your military ships as requested by an Empire from their system they WILL assign a detailed escort to your ship for the time being, and if they think they can take you they will shoot it down. but if they are afraid of you they will just sit and wait but will follow you anywhere in the system.
Did you know independant colonies sometime contract Pirate allies to watch their ports?
Did you know Pirate alliances are beneficial but once the contract date limit arrives the Pirates will stop mid-battle, jump just outside the sytem they are attacking and wait for a renewal? and if they dont they simply leave.
did you know pirate alliences get a portion of your designs and technology to supplement them in their attacks? making them a ***** to kill later
QuoteDid you also know that the ships of the destroyed faction that arent killed change their allegences with another Faction? when I was worried about the montser I unleashed on an enemy empire 13-20 grids away I wanted them dead beacause they broke an empire of 1500 military strenght down to 90 with my tech. the empires surrounding this 2 system empire consisted less than 400 MS (military strenght) so I knew those guys were screwed should I leave the pirates unattended. so I looked for their base by tracking their ships with monitering bases and destroyed their outpost....the remaining ships left and joined another faction putting my tech into more hands..........so unless you know what your doing..DONT GIVE PIRATES ANYTHING..
Quoteif you kill pirate factions (meaning, ignore their ships and blow up their home base) your reputation will increase. increased reputation means other empires like you more, it also means your citizens have higher morale and are able to pay more in taxes
QuoteHas anyone noticed the independant smuggler ships as your empire grows? Not sure what there upto but they seem to always be very fast ships. Must be linked to piracy in some way.
Found my wallet! So is it worth buying now or should I wait for a patch?
Quote from: Razgovory on April 11, 2010, 05:19:55 PM
Found my wallet! So is it worth buying now or should I wait for a patch?
I´d wait for the next patch. The game is pretty decent and the last patch has made quite a few things easier but there is still a few annoyances that needs to be ironed out like mass uppgrading and partial automatization. Anyway I still have a lot of fun playing it but I take frequent breaks when these things get under my skin.
Fucking sweet. Next patch is about a week away and they are fixing all of my serious gripes....
:hug:
It seems to be following the EUII road.
I'm busy atm and expect to be so for some weeks; so I'm giving the game a rest and will return to it later on. It's a good game and the patches seem to be taking it in the right direction :cool:
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on April 14, 2010, 01:02:19 AM
I'm busy atm and expect to be so for some weeks; so I'm giving the game a rest and will return to it later on. It's a good game and the patches seem to be taking it in the right direction :cool:
Same here. I'm looking forward to being able to play it in a couple weeks.
Anybody played this with the expansion? Worth 60 euro?
Hmmm.........forgot I had this game........
:hmm:
I found the game overwhelming. A useful tutorial would have helped. Things were going on, and I had no idea why.
Quote from: Razgovory on September 05, 2011, 07:45:03 PM
I found the game overwhelming. A useful tutorial would have helped. Things were going on, and I had no idea why.
That`s this game overall really.
Yet nonetheless it is rather good. Its not a traditional strategy game so much as a virtual civilization, your control is entirely optional and best kept limited. But....yeah.
I did think it cool but the scale just got way too crazy eventually, the AI wasn`t very good and the story got samey and game ruining.
Preview of the upcoming expansion:
http://www.spacesector.com/blog/2013/05/distant-worlds-shadows-preview/
QuoteA short intro first, as this is a game's third expansion pack. Distant Worlds is a real-time space 4X strategy game by CodeForce, Matrix Games and Slitherine. The original game was released in March 2010. But, to be honest, it was quite a lackluster release. Nine months after, the first expansion, Return of the Shakturi, fixed the game and turned it into an enjoyable experience. Perhaps how it should have been released in the first place. Legends, the second expansion, came out in late 2011 and elevated the game to excellence. Distant Worlds: Legends is now one of the best, if not the best, space 4X experience money can buy at the moment.
So, I've been playing around with a Distant Worlds: Shadows beta preview build for the last few days, and I feel that I have already a good idea of what CodeForce and Matrix Games have been cooking for us with their third and latest Distant Worlds expansion.
Distant Worlds: Shadows is about offering players a new experience when playing Distant Worlds. A pirate life experience. More precisely, on the Shadows era, which, apparently, precedes the events of the "normal" Distant Worlds era. This is the big thing offered by this third expansion. Before, pirates where not playable, and the player only played with what this new expansion calls: "normal empires". But now, you can play as a (revamped) pirate faction and exploit the old empires which in the new setting are still in their early stages of development. However, you can still play on the normal Distant Worlds timeline, if you wish.
The other not so big, but still quite major changes and additions include an expanded ground combat mechanic, new weapons, a new extreme difficulty setting, better performance and promised improved AI. Matrix Games also announced that modding support has been kept to be inline with the new improvements.
The Life of a Pirate
"Take what you can, give nothing back." ~Pirates of the Caribbean
I think this quote summarizes pretty well how it feels to play as a pirate faction in the Distant Worlds: Shadows universe. I confess that the idea of leading and controlling a pirate nation didn't feel too appealing to me at first. After all, we're used to run big empires in 4X games, with lots of colonies and billions of people to manage. But, I must say that I'm finding this pirating experience quite a fun one so far. And, it surely is a 4X experience, only a slightly different one.
These new pirate factions expand their influence and wealth very differently from traditional empires. While the empires economy is based mostly on taxing the population, and from revenue obtained from trading and tourism, pirates gain their wealth by very different means. And, Shadows lets you play three distinct types of pirating experiences.
You can decide to be a Raider leader and expand your wealth and influence as a looter and as a terrorizer and controller of worlds. And to do that, you take advantage of Shadows' new raid system which lets you attack, sack and plunder bases and planets for loot. But, when you play as a Raider you not only go after easy prey but also try to establish control of planets by having war ships nearby, and fiercely compete with other pirate factions for control of such planets. The more you control a planet, and the more developed it is, the more wealth you can extract from it. To extend your control further you can build pirate bases and pirate fortresses on planets. Ultimately, you can even deploy a very special facility that will allow you to have full control of a planet like normal empires do. If you end up controlling a notable amount of colonies, you eliminate the most rival pirate factions and conduct the most successful raids in the galaxy, you win as a Raider pirate. Sounds fun to you?
Distant Worlds: Shadows - Raider pirates faction
But, if you find the need to control independent, or other empires' colonies boring, and the business of other pirate factions, or anybody else for that matter, don't interest you that much, you can decide to go full rogue and go all guns for hire. You're a Mercenary pirate, and your business is to take advantage of the new pirate attack and defense mission mechanics, which are missions requested by other factions for a price. But, while you find the Raider's need to control others people's lives boring, you still find a lot of fun on rising havoc and plunder on those poor innocents who just want to run an honest life. Bah, where's the fun on that anyway? :)
So, if you play as a Mercenary pirate, you will want to not only complete the most pirate attack and defense missions, but also undertake the most raids in the galaxy. In between, and as stealing can be much easier and more fun than building stuff, you will want to capture what you don't destroy, and so, you should try your best to use Shadows new boarding and capture mechanics to achieve just that.
Distant Worlds: Shadows - Base boarding and capture (base was still under construction)
Alternatively, if you find all that aggression unnecessary and just an inefficient use of resources, you can always decide to take a more reserved and low-profile pirate posture and act as the Galaxy's supplier and protector. The kind of people who can get you anything and whom you can "trust". Are you in need of a particular supply of resources? Don't despair. We are here all day to help you out in your needs and ventures, but not without asking you for an outrageous lump of money for the trouble. After all, these fresh supplies, which were exactly what you needed, were very hard to come by, and so, all we ask is a "small" compensation for our efforts.
This is the life of a smuggler pirate, and when you choose to be a smuggler lord, that means you're an information trafficker and you're also extremely resourceful. You prefer to avoid conflict if possible, but not without a price. So, you'll want to establish as many pirate fee, I mean, protection arrangements with other empires as possible, and you'll want to expand your influence by carrying out the most intelligence missions as well. Of course, knowledge is power, so you should also do your best to accomplish the most research in the galaxy.
Distant Worlds: Shadows - Smuggler Pirates faction
But, Shadows offers you a fourth pirate style option: a balanced approach. So, if you don't want to specialize and just want to experience a bit of everything the new pirate gameplay has to offer, you can decide to go with a "balanced" pirate style which combines all the other three pirate-style's victory conditions into a balanced mix.
As you can see, I let myself carry away pretty easily while describing the different types of Shadows pirate experiences, and the new mechanics that come along with them. And, I think that's proof that, while I'm still scratching the surface here, I think CodeForce has a done a great job on designing the different pirate gameplay styles. Time will tell how balanced and fun playing as the pirates really is, but in the period of time I played this beta preview build I did enjoy these different experiences. And, I don't usually fancy pirate stuff that much.
But, what if Pirating is really not your thing?
Ok, you find all that pirate thing quite fascinating, but you're really not into playing as a pirate but more as a control-seeking and ever expanding empire. The classical empire-building experience. So, what's in it for you in Shadows?
Even if you don't play as a pirate, but go with a "normal" empire like you always did up until now, you still have the new boarding and capturing mechanics to look for. But, you can't raid, that's reserved for pirates only. But, you can also use the new smuggling and pirate defense and attack missions as well, but, naturally, you use them the other way around. You are the one requesting the pirate attack and defense missions, and the smuggling missions, from the new Shadows' pirates around you.
Distant Worlds: Shadows - Pirate missions (attack, defend, smuggle)
But, if you're really not into the pirate thing, nor particularly interested on its associated new mechanics, you could look at the expanded ground combat mechanic, as the new major change that Shadows has to offer. Pirates can also use this new ground combat mechanic by the way, during raids, but there the goal is not to secure planets, as pirates usually don't do that, but to sack and plunder.
Previously, there was only one type of ground trooper available. You landed your troops on your rivals planets to try and invade their colonies and all you had to do next was to wait for the battle to end. The resolution was completely abstracted to you. You eventually got a warning saying if the invasion was successful or not. In Shadows, there's an entirely new tech tree devoted just for ground combat, offering different ground units, not only infantry now but also armor units and planetary defenses.
Distant Worlds: Shadows - Expanded ground combat
But, hold your horses if you think this is a Total War ground combat in space experience. It's not. It's animated ground combat, a resolution screen that can be opened and enlarged, and where you can see the progress of your invasion. There's also a series of modifiers depending on your generals' experience, if you have ships in orbit and other factors. Invasions are also done into two steps now. You first drop your assault pods, which carry your troops, but they can be shot at depending on your opponents ground tech level. Then, the battle takes place with the remaining troops. There's also different types of facilities that you can build to influence ground combat, like bunkers and others which provide combat modifiers.
So, while you don't have any direct control over ground combat whatsoever, you can still influence how that combat unfolds depending on the strategic decisions you make before the combat takes place. Still on the ground combat topic, there's also a new garrison feature now, which allows you to set a number of fixed troops that will not be picked up by troop transports, so that you avoid leaving planets depleted of troops in case you have some automation options on.
Besides the expanded ground combat, Shadows also comes with new weapons: gravitic weapons, which bypass both shields and armor; and tractor beams that could prove useful to ease boarding and capturing of ships, or to push foes away.
Distant Worlds: Shadows - New gravitic and tractor beam weapons
AI improvements were also promised, but it's too early to judge on that. One thing I can already confirm is that the also promised graphical engine improvement is indeed very noticeable. Previously, your system could easily start lagging when playing with larger galaxies, and in particular in late game. Now, the experience is much smoother, and you do notice it quite easily. So, the somewhat late game sluggishness was definitely improved. I didn't notice any significant improvements on the font issue front though, small and blurry at places in the previous expansions. \Edit: You can enlarge the ground combat and the "bottom left box" windows now, for more readability \endEdit, but, I'll reserve more on that for the review after the official release.
I almost forgot, but this is quite important also. You can also play in a "prewarp" era now, where hyperspace and colonization of other planets are still not possible. It's an interesting new gameplay possibility when you play as an empire (you can't play prewarp while playing with pirates though, they wouldn't have any real advantage over the other empires). So, you start only with your homeworld, and no ships or space ports or other bases of any kind. A really clean and humble start. You start by building a spaceport and then go from there. You explore your star system almost as you would explore the galaxy around you in the usual postwarp era. Eventually, you unlock hyperspace and can then venture into the stars. When you breakthrough the colonization tech you can start to expand. So, it's the true hardcore 4X experience, and one I'm particularly looking for to try next.
There's also a new difficulty setting: extreme. And, two new tutorials. One to explain how to play with pirates and another one on how to play in the prewarp era. There's also a new "destroyed pirates do not re-spawn" option, and a "difficulty scales as player nears victory" option, although I don't know yet for sure how this last one works.
Release date, pricing details and conclusion
Distant Worlds: Shadows requires ownership of the Distant Worlds base game and both the Return of the Shakturi and Legends expansions. It's a Windows PC game with a more or less firm release date set by Slitherine for May 21st. So, we should be less than a couple of weeks away from official release.
The price for this third expansion should be the same as for the previous two, around $20-$25, however I couldn't confirm this with Slitherine. But, Slitherine did confirm that there will be a sales going for all the installments (base game and expansions) of some sort (\Edit: reason for editing: Slitherine only confirmed that there will be a "launch promotion for Distant Worlds Shadows", details on if that includes the base game and the other expansions is still unknown\endEdit) when Shadows gets out. So, if you're new to the series you should have a somewhat smoother entry price. Matrix sales are typically around 35%.
Now, the big questions are: are Shadows new features enough to satisfy the expectations of veteran Distant Worlds gamers? Is there really enough new content provided for people who may be twisting their noses on the new pirating mechanics, which represent the bulk of this expansion? Should you just buy or keep playing up until the Legends expansion? Or, is the jump to Shadows really worth it? Find out the answers to these questions in our Distant Worlds: Shadows review to come out after the official release :)
I still fire the game up now and then, because it scratches that weird itch of playing it as involved (micromanaging as much as possible) or relatively casually (automate/advisorize areas of the game I don't want to focus much on), depending on mood.
Neat, may check it out, but I don't see myself buying it for just pirates.
It should provide an interesting diversion, but I don't see myself playing it more often than the normal mode. However, the start at pre-warp also sounds neat.
I could give this a try again. I just didn't get it last time.
DW - Universe is out. It's basically the bundle with all expansion and enhanced modding support.
For every previous product (full game, and each expansion) that you register at Matrixgames you get a $10.- discount, on top of the release discount. With all expansions that makes for a total of $50.
I paid about €10.- for this version, though the main reason I bought it at all: you get a Steam key (thought it's not out on Steam yet).
It's not a perfect game, but the space 4x I still enjoy the most (I use the enhanced mod that cranks up the number of races to close to 40).
It's also on Steam which means I don't have to fuck around with Matrix Games (whenever I buy from them, they charge me twice and I have to go to the bank to sort it out). On sale for only 50 bucks. Fucking sold.
Is this game worth playing?
Its more something you loosly interact with than play but its nice.
If you want to micro everything, then that option is there for you. Or you can automate everything and only guide one single ship. The key is finding the sweet spot in between that you enjoy the most.
I still find the game overwhelming.
Dad24680 has an ongoing tutorial series for DW: Universe:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGB6RkFB7ZmNxjw-XsdpbmTfYStObtNFc
(#7 isn't in the playlist yet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq5quRWQji0&list=UUHJM-Vd74Egk1xvGp4BHWBA)
Thanks, Syt. You are like the original "Good German".
Is there any multiplayer in this?
No.
I'm a few hours into a game as an aquatic race (I usually play random race and use the racial victory conditions to guide my play style). It's pretty peaceful so far. My neighbors are the same race on the one side, and complacent robots on the other (though we have some border tension - I don't want to go to war, though, as I have a few colonies of their kin from when I settled an independent colony of the 'bots ... dunno if they would remain loyal in case of war).
I was falling behind economically, when I realized that even though I had semi-automated base construction, that the AI didn't suggest any. So I built small and medium space ports in all my colonies. And now I'm running a deficit that's three times my income. :blush:
I've sold a few mining posts to my neighbors to aid my cash flow, but I feel I will have to dismantle at least one of my fleets and a few space ports to balance the budget.
Haven't sunk my teeth into this yet. I was have a game of Rome Total War 2 still going.
Here's another Let's Play, btw. :P
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzEZx9zuF9_4xZgd7xHhjKFZ34vezLKn4
I've played the game a bit. Stuff just sort of happens. I feel like a Space President who has people who has no idea what he's doing and is led around by space advisers.
I gave up my previous game. I had started pre-warp and expensive research. By the time I could get into space and claim colonies, pirate factions were so powerful that they kept kicking my ass and/or emptying my coffers. Other empires weren't doing much better. Having to hire troops on each colony to stomp out pirate bases didn't help. So I quit.
I'm currently playing the Haakonish Consortium (I always play random race), with story events (which I normally don't). The gist: the galaxy rises from the dark ages, but the Antarans Shadows Reapers Shakturi threaten to return and destroy the galaxy. It also creates a bunch of artifact sites around the galaxy to discover and exploit (at which the AI isn't very good, I think).
I always play with race victory conditions. For the Haakonish it means: conducting the most trade, doing the most intelligence missions, intercept the most intelligence missions, and controlling at least one of three unique resources in the galaxy. I control in my game the fleet compositions, ship building, diplomacy, research and warfare, though I have advisors turned on. I don't like messing with the ship design, because I'm too lazy to update designs every time I research new tech, and my understanding is that humans will, in general, be much more effective than the AI - the AI is programmed in part for flavor.
I started next to another Haakonish empire, the Alshat Syndicate (at least they didn't start in the same system as I as sometimes happens). I've tried playing peaceful mostly, but my trade income has snowballed to a point where I have by far the most powerful military, and thanks to tech trades I'm pretty much as high tech as I currently can be. So I've taken a few neighboring colonies when their owners were distracted, or one of my few allies was in a war against them. Or when pirates had taken over a foreign colony. The trick is to declare war, take a few colonies a.s.a.p. and then peace out - my species + government (mercantile guild) are not made for prolonged wars as it will make people unhappy.
I've also made the switch to assimilating aliens (default settings for Haakonish is to reject non-Haakonish and resettle aliens from outside our reptilian species group.
I'm playing on the largest map (1400 stars) in a spiral galaxy. I find that 25 empires might be too many, because this is what the map looks like after close to 40 years. If I hadn't set a colonizing range limit of 1.75 sectors it would probably look much worse. :P
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs30.postimg.org%2Fr4u1d9o9d%2F2014_06_11_16_58_37_Greenshot.jpg&hash=f72ae0ea5dade81f6a20c3e6d4bcf64fb3a0e3da)
I'm the red blob near the center with a few colonies in "the North", 38 total. To the South, in the slightly yellow/greenish hue is the Alshat Syndicate. We're in a mutual defense treaty. I managed to snag two colonies from them early on when they had a revolt problem and they flipped to me. I managed to take two more colonies from them when they lost them to the neighboring insectoid Pictoris Collective (yellow, East).
The white ones is the Helicon Corporation. They're Riktoh from the ursidian family, and pretty passive and reliable. Though they did snatch a colony from me when it was briefly taken over by pirates.
To the "North", the brown blob, is the United Ardo Technocracy, a Napoar mechanoid empire. They're also very passive, plus stupid and friendly.
The light blue blob at the bottom left is Ugnari Industries, a rodent Empire that has as its government form "Way of the Ancients" which is an über-government that can be discovered by exploration (its counterpart is "Way of Darkness", chosen by the rather insignificant dark brown Jintus, north of the Ugnari).
The light brown nieghbors of mine are Naxxilian reptiles, the Culroon Enclave. We're getting along fine (helped by both being reptiles), but I'm pretty annoyed that they colonized that one spot in the middle of my territory.
To my West is the Wekkarus Authority, a military dictatorship. They had an early bloom, but got cut down in size by their neighbors, including me:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs30.postimg.org%2Fyi9fc88b5%2F2014_06_11_17_10_50_Greenshot.jpg&hash=29d190245c432e40c484c3633dc85a97a5b8df29)
At one point they were down to two colonies, but with new colonization tech it seems they managed to claim a few worlds they couldn't previously live on. The two worlds on the left and the three at the bottom were originally taken by the (purple) Sluken Collective, an insectoid race next door. They're often tied down in wars, so it was easy to take those outliers from them.
The South is a bit of a mess, because the Alshat Syndicate and I had a bit of a scramble for colonies:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs30.postimg.org%2Feoxbjiuxd%2F2014_06_11_17_00_04_Greenshot.jpg&hash=fd05382274db248590d5d4f02ef9c3a643bcb387)
I originally only had Rana, Sharaf, Beta Reticuli, and Haako. Vistar and Rurik flipped early on during a period of unrest in the Syndicate. Farsloe and Mamuna were taken from Alshat by the Pictoris Collective, and then by me. Sharaf, as said, was taken by Helicon when pirates had taken it over.
My next war will be against the Helicon. They have no allies, and I have five fleets with ground troops standing by. Besides Sharaf, I will try to take their border worlds which are relatively low in development, with up to 500 million inhabitants each:
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs30.postimg.org%2Fftrdowhe9%2F2014_06_11_17_00_47_Greenshot.jpg&hash=905d4bb86753d324e4a01015b798a2f72a4cad04)
Additionally, I will attempt to take Atkoah, but not sure if this will work, because it's a system with 4 colonies, and close to 10 billion people, so I expect heavy resistance. Not in space - I will send 6 of my 12 fleets, and should have more than enough space power. Ground troops will be the real challenge. I expect I may need a million troops for Atkoah (and another million for the other worlds).
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fs30.postimg.org%2Fuqzupwump%2F2014_06_11_16_59_01_Greenshot.jpg&hash=0f6eb9a202fb48468630ac79c62821769669d6e9)
In the long run I will have to go for Ardo - they control two of the three unique resources (Korribian Spice and Megallos Nut). At the same time they have an ancient world devastator test site nearby, and in the tech trading screen I've seen that they've salvaged the technology from it, so not sure I want to go to war with them. :ph34r:
P.S.: I didn't notice when I took the screenshot, but they actually control ALL THREE unique resources - it's in Arabat, between the other two sources. That explains their astronomical trade revenue. I guess that monopoly requires breaking. :P
At the same time, I'm by now so rich and powerful, the only thing that could screw me over would be a prolonged war with several neighboring empires, the return of the Shakturi (possibly - haven't encountered them in game yet, as I normally play without them), building too many fleets/stations, or running out of critical resources (resources on planets can run out, but you can occasionally find new deposits). Even pirates are just a nuisance, and most colonies are defended by defense batteries that make quick work of the intruders.
What I would really like in the game, though, are a few more options:
1. Trading colonies (it would, e.g. be nice to return liberated colonies to the original owner, maybe a "core" system like in EU)
2. Option to block "tech brokering" - one of the earlier Civ games had the option that nations could only trade techs they had researched themselves, not ones they had acquired by trade. Tech trading is a bit too easy in DW, and you can only play with or without it, without middle ground.
There's been no major shake ups in my current game so far, mostly, because the game generated mostly relatively complacent empires (the extended mod has 40 races, this game started me with 24 in 25 empires, plus more in neutral/independent settlements), and even though I put galaxy aggression one level above normal, wars have been pretty limited so far.
I had to turn off pirates respawning, was just too much for me in my last game. Also turn off tech trading, it ends up just being annoying.
In regards to the Shakturi, they're a complete pain in the ass. Run around with really difficult fleets and planet destroyers which nuke your planets and often have the effect of nuking a fleet you have sitting near it before they can react.
So if they come in prepare for a surprise....
Yeah, I normally play without tech trading, but I keep respawning pirates. Unless you start pre-warp, then you can deal with them relatively easily later on (I also use intelligence agents to steal tech/blow up bases for them, and occasional merc contracts).
Btw, I've tried the Star Trek mod, but I don't think it's quite there yet (I tried 1.3.3).
And as I go to check its status I notice that the modder removed the mod, because the creator of the original mod for Shadows asked him to. Shame.
Quote from: Syt on June 11, 2014, 12:37:06 PM
Yeah, I normally play without tech trading, but I keep respawning pirates. Unless you start pre-warp, then you can deal with them relatively easily later on (I also use intelligence agents to steal tech/blow up bases for them, and occasional merc contracts).
I was pretty far into the game and pirates were just too much. On normal speed I was getting a pirate attack notification once a second, even with all known bases remotely near me destroyed. Was just too much.
You can hire mercs for protection. When you go to diplo screen it will tell you what type of pirates each group is (raider, smuggler, merc). Mercs will generally come to your aid when you're under attack (if they time it right).
You can also select a colony/base that's attacked/raided a lot, and in the bottom left corner there should be a button that lets you hire mercs to protect that place.
I got a question Syt, How do you get all those neat arrows on your screens? When I was doing AARs for CM all I could get was squiggly lines from MS paint.
In pain there's a panel "shapes". It's not as nifty as bezier curved ones you had in the old Paintshop Pro, but it gets the job done. And I suck doing them in Photoshop. :blush:
V2.0 of the Picard Era Star Trek mod for DW:Universe is out:
http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3794736
Quote30 TOTAL PLAYABLE STAR TREK RACES & 4 PIRATE GROUPINGS
(The Shakturi and Mechanoid DW Races are not playable but are available for non-canon DW play.)
23 PLAYABLE MAJOR STAR TREK RACES
ANDORIAN, BAJORAN, BENZITE, BORG, BREEN, CARDASSIAN, CHALNOTH, DOMINION, FEDERATION, FERENGI, GORN, HIROGEN, KAZON, KLINGON, KTARIAN, NAUSICAAN, REMAN, ROMULAN, SHELIAK, SON'A, TAMARIAN, THOLIAN & YRIDIAN
7 PLAYABLE BUT 'STATIC' (They will assault, but do not colonize) MINOR RACES
ACAMARIAN, ANTICAN, BYNARS, CALDONIAN, LURIAN, MALON & VIDIIAN
4 PLAYABLE PIRATE FACTIONS
THE ORION SYNDICATE, THE MAQUIS, THE 8472 BARBARIANS & THE KORGOTH PRIVATEERS
- Shipsets - 25 playable races have their own shipset. 5 playable, static minor races share a generic shipset. Pirate factions share 2 specific shipsets. The 8472 Barbarians have their own shipset.
- Characters - Currently 750+ character images, over 1500 characters (some share a generic image)
- Troop images - All races have their own set.
- Dialogue - All races have their own dialog.
- Flagshapes - All races have their own flag and color schemes.
- Music - 44 tracks from Star Trek The Next Generation's first 3 seasons composed by Ron Jones (Fair Use Respected), plus others.
- System names - Over 8,500 Star Trek and other astronomical system names can be generated for variety.
Over 1,000 Star Trek Milky Way Galaxy systems in the UFP map (Included in the 'maps' folder)
- Race files - Completed. Please report any major issues. Race files can be modified.
- Bias settings - Completed. Please report any issues. Race biases can be modified.
- Policy files - Completed. May require more balance tweaking, please report any issues.
- Victory conditions - Completed. Please report any issues. Race victory conditions can be modified.
- The Borg race shipset size-scaled to near-canon (at least closely!)
- New Governments included - Hegemony, Religious Unity (Race Specific ~ Bajoran only) and Federation (Race Specific ~ Federation (UFP) only)
{See Galactopedia article(s) for info}
- New Race Family: Biomechanical (Borg & Bynars)
- Star Trek Era plagues added {See Galactopedia article(s) for info}
- Each Race has their own specific Star Trek UI icons and graphics (located in the images\UI\chrome\[The Race Name]\folder)
UI icons and graphics can be modified. Das123 has created his "Das Chrome for Star Trek PE Mod v2.0" UI mod which is fully compatible and is the UI and graphics shown in his YouTube "Let's Play Star Trek The Picard Era" Version 1.0 and 2.0 mod recordings.
- Each Race may have their own specific diplomacy music (located in the Sounds\Effects\[The Race Name]\folder)
4 Files appropriately named: diplomacyMoodAngry ~ diplomacyMoodHappy ~ diplomacyMoodMenacing ~ diplomacyMoodNeutral
- Minimum garrisoned troop per colony set to 4 for defense against invasion or pirate raids.
- Rumors of Crystalline Entity sightings (replaces the Silvermist), see Galactopedia article for more info.
- Select Star Trek Resource images and Component additions. Galactopedia entries have been updated.
- 103 total New Planet Landscapes available for Game Editor use, including Star Trek specific 'Race Homeworld' Landscapes.
- Some weapon effect and sound replacements. More Star Trek 'Faction-Specific' Weapons and components added in the research tech trees.
- Message pop ups appear as Starfleet PADDs.
- Numerous Star Trek sound effects.
- Shakturi and Mechanoids are not overwritten so you can still play the story, just with your choice of the Star Trek races.
- Milky Way Galaxy 4 quadrant star map with Star Trek races' homeworld and owned system placements.
- Numerous Star Trek independent races and pirates spread throughout the galaxy (setting specific).
Looks pretty awesome, let me know how it is. Might try it out next week or so. :cheers:
So, if you're playing as pirates and you find a colony ship, what do you do with it?
I've never played as pirates, so I honestly don't know.