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Offline Asid

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Distant Worlds 2
« on: December 20, 2019, 11:08:24 PM »
Distant Worlds 2 Sneak Peek #1 – Ship Design
20 Dec 2019



A Teekan Spaceport in orbit around a planet

We’ve been working on Distant Worlds 2 for more than four years now and we thought it was time to start giving you a few peeks behind the curtain.  There is much more we’ll be showing over the coming months, but we’ll give you a first look today.

Please note that the screenshots included here are not from a final, polished release build so will in places include some unfinished areas and missing or placeholder art.  There is much that is still subject to change between our current development build and the release.

In general, our goal for Distant Worlds 2 was to make a better Distant Worlds 1, with a new and modern engine.  That is a pretty tall order given that by the time we got to the final Distant Worlds: Universe release, about nine years of development and design had gone into Distant Worlds 1.

Distant Worlds 2 is based on an entirely new 64-bit, multi-core capable 3D engine which provides us better performance and the ability to create even larger galaxies with more to explore, more stories to tell and even larger battles.   In addition, it allows us to support a fully scalable interface.


A Mortalen Spaceport with component slot markers turned on

For this first peek, we’d like to speak briefly about Ship Design.  In this screenshot, you can see the ship design interface and a view of a Mortalen Spaceport.

In Distant Worlds 1, ships were two dimensional units basically defined by their size.  Size determined how much could fit in a ship.  Each component that could fit in a ship had a size and while you needed some minimum components to get a ship to work, beyond that you could put in whatever you wanted, as long as you stayed within the maximum size.  Your size was also essentially your bag of hit points and any damage that wasn’t soaked up by your shields or your armor started destroying components.

In Distant Worlds 2, ships are a bit more interesting. 


A Mortalen Spaceport with component slot markers turned off

For one thing, they are now three dimensional models.  For another, ships now have a hull, which has its own armor rating and ability to take damage, as well as additional space that can fit components. 

That additional space is divided into slots, which are organized by the broad component category they are intended to fit.  When a ship takes a hit, assuming it gets past the shields (which now can allow some damage to “leak” through, but also can have some base resistance against small shots, similar to the reactive rating for armor) and the armor, it may hit the hull or it may hit a component. 

If your hull is too badly damaged, your ship will be destroyed.  If you lose the wrong components, you could also be effectively dead in space, but not necessarily destroyed.

When you are deciding how to build a ship now, you first research a hull, which defines the hull armor, hull size and the size and number of components it can fit.


This is a shot of an Ackdarian Construction Ship

Some of these component slots are external (for example, all the weapons and engine, the hangar, some of the defenses).  In the case of an external slot, adding a component there is actually reflected on the 3D model of the ship.  A ship with four weapons will have four visible weapons, whereas a ship with one will only have one.  A ship that has filled out all its possible engine slots to be as fast as possible will visible have more engines, and so on.

In many cases, this means that you can see significant differences in the ship model based on the design style chosen for a particular ship.  It’s worth noting that you almost never have enough available space in the hull to fill every possible slot.  As with Distant Worlds 1, you can choose to specialize a ship in one or a few areas, or to try to balance its capabilities across all areas.

Within the ship design interface, you can easily view the different categories of components, review the component slots in your selected hull and also see the visualization of the ship and the component slot locations in the center.  The right side allows you to see a summary of your ship’s capabilities in a variety of areas.

There’s more to say about ship design, but that’s all we will cover for now.  We’ll leave you with a few screenshots that show a bit more of the game.


This is an Ackdarian Spaceport in orbit around an Ocean Planet


This is view of the planet Sreloor 5 and its moons


This is view of a red gas giant with a mining station in orbit




This is a peek at the main interface, still work in progress, but showing a system view in the center, various main interface dialogs in the top left, including the Military one which is open, the selection dialog in the bottom left with some information regarding the selected Mortalen Destroyer, a summary of the planets, ships and stations in the system being viewed in the bottom center, map overlay toggles in the bottom right and victory, settings, message and speed controls in the top right.

We appreciate your interest in Distant Worlds 2 and we hope you enjoyed this preview of Ship Design!

Stay tuned for further information

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Offline Asid

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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #1 on: January 22, 2021, 03:54:59 AM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Showcase
21 Jan 2021




Live stream on Tuesday, January 26th on Slitherine
for a showcase entirely dedicated to Distant Worlds 2.


We will be sharing with you the latest news and showing you the first gameplay videos of the game.

So don't make plans for that day, Distant Worlds 2 isn't that "distant" anymore.


See the reveal teaser




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Offline Asid

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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #2 on: January 26, 2021, 03:24:30 PM »
Distant Worlds 2 || Ackdarians Trailer
Jan 26, 2021



« Last Edit: January 27, 2021, 12:43:46 AM by Asid »
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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2021, 01:08:26 AM »
Distant Worlds 2 Gameplay Reveal
26 jan 2021



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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2021, 11:56:06 PM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #1
Tue, 6 July 2021




Welcome dear reader and thank you for your interest in Distant Worlds 2.  This is the first of several Developer Diaries that we’ll be releasing roughly every two weeks from now until release to cover different parts of Distant Worlds 2 in some additional detail.

First, let me introduce who we are.  As you may be aware, Distant Worlds 2 has a fairly small development team, though it has grown since Distant Worlds: Universe.  The two core team members are Elliot Gibbs who is the one and only programmer and designer and Erik Rutins (that’s me) who is the producer and co-designer.  There are many additional and crucial team members who we work with every week: a “Supertester” and expert XML data wrangler and tools developer, several incredibly creative and dedicated 3D, 2D and UI artists who provide us with our models, characters, animations, effects, illustrations, interface elements and concept art, and a very talented music composer.  We have also been blessed to have the assistance of many dedicated and remarkably talented Distant Worlds volunteer testers and fans who have helped us in very important ways throughout Alpha and Beta testing with their feedback and suggestions.  Any acclaim should deservedly go to the whole team as Distant Worlds 2 has been a real team effort.

This initial diary will discuss a few of our key goals when we finished support on Distant Worlds: Universe and decided that making a new Distant Worlds game was what we wanted to do.

The pre-cursor to Distant Worlds 2, Distant Worlds: Universe is a very successful Sci-Fi 4x game, which while strongly influenced by many 4x and strategy games that came before it, also added some new innovations to the genre.   Some of the main innovations were the seamless “living galaxy” feel of the game, the very flexible automation and advisor settings that allowed you to tailor the game to your preferred playstyle, and the remarkable depth which allowed you to dive into your preferred gameplay areas with significantly less abstraction that many games allow.  The end result was a great deal of positive acclaim from players that focused on these innovations and the overall gameplay, while most of the negative feedback was related to the limitations of the underlying engine, including memory usage, performance, graphical quality and interface scaling.

Distant Worlds: Universe was unfortunately built on a 32-bit Windows engine with some very real limitations in what could be done in many of these problem areas while maintaining adequate performance within the scope of an always active “living galaxy”.  We were bumping up against these limits ourselves from the initial release and they became increasingly more difficult to deal with over time. 



By the time we released Distant Worlds: Universe, we knew that any future game would need a new engine that would not only allow us to make Distant Worlds look better, but would also allow it to perform better and expand what we could do in terms of gameplay choices.  Elliot spent a good deal of time researching this and in fact one year into the project we even went through the pain of switching engines, just to make sure we would be able to achieve all of our engine-related goals.  Distant Worlds 2 is now based on the Stride engine, is fully 64-bit and 3D and with a full dynamic scaling for all elements, including the interface.  I can’t overstate how much work and time it required of the entire team to make this leap, but we strongly feel the end result will be worthwhile and will allow us to continue to develop for Distant Worlds 2 for many years to come.

The second main goal relates to the interface.  In making the big jump to a new and modern engine, we knew we could address dynamic scalability, but there were also many comments from Distant Worlds: Universe players about the original interface being difficult to learn.  While it was quite functional once you learned it, the initial learning curve was harder than it should have been and partly because it evolved over multiple releases, the organization of information in some cases made things quite difficult for players to find.

A significant effort was put into a re-design of the interface, focused on providing players with easy top-level access to the most significant information both for better awareness and quicker decision-making.  The bottom-left area remains focused on information about whatever the player has selected, but the selection menus and buttons themselves have been reorganized as well as additional information added where it previously required diving into other menus or dialogs.  The bottom-middle now has a dynamic summary when in the system level of all significant “objects’ within the player’s current location or view. 



The top-left now has a series of major “headings” (in order from left to right, Empire Summary, Diplomacy, Colonies, Exploration, Resources, Construction, Research, Military and Civilian).  When the player hovers the mouse over any of these, a summary of key metric in that area is shown.  Moving the mouse down to the summary expands the menu further, allowing any of a series of sub-menus to be chosen that provide more information or detail.  Moving the mouse off this area, collapses them back to the top, but clicking anywhere in these menus “locks” them open for ongoing interaction.  Another click on the top “unlocks” them.

The top-right has a few basic piece of summary information – your current research projects, number of colonies and population, surplus income and cashflow and game date and speed.  Clicking any of these also jumps to the relevant dialog to manage them in more detail.   Below the speed controls are the victory conditions, game options and the message log.



The Message Log has had fillters added and can be opened at any time to review old messages.  Current messages appear on the right hand side below the log.  When they first appear, they are briefly expanded at first to allow the player at a glance to get a sense of what they are about, then they collapse back to a smaller color-coded message category icon.  Depending on the player’s chosen options, these many include advisor messages as well as other notifications or warnings.  If ignored, the vast majority “auto-expire” after a delay (a small line under the message icon shrinks as the message expires) and go to the message log.  Hovering the mouse over a message allows a quick glance at its expanded form.  A single left-click on the message will open and lock it so that any actions related to it may be decided on.  A double left-click will go to the message location.  A single right-click will immediately dismiss the message.



A third goal was to make it easier for the player to gain information at a glance from the map.  Part of this involved connecting up the User Interface to the map more directly.  For example, when you have a dialog open on the top left and are reviewing your colonies, or exploration ships, or fleets, or even a filtered list of freighters currently transporting Hexodorium, the relevant items will also be highlighted on the map and will “ping” as you mouse over them so that you can more quickly and easily see where everything is.  It also means that we added planetary and system “badges” which provide a summary of key assets, resources and capabilities at a given location.  These have a planetary system version and a galacitc version depending on how zoomed in you are.  There’s also additional information available when you mouse-over locations or objects.

In the view above, you can see that for the planet and moon on the right side of the system, I have found two ruins that are not yet fully explored.  I also know of two available resources that could be mined and the exploration indicator in yellow is tellng me the current exploration level and that exploration there is not yet completed.  The middle planetary group just has four resources.  The middle left has a star showing that it’s our capitol planet, what its population is, what its happiness is, that it has the capability for construction (both due to the planet and the spaceport) and that it is a location that can refuel ships.  Under that, it shows an explored ruin, the various explored resources and that we have 120 Troop Strength there.



Finally, in order to allow you to play the game your way, we’ve added a lot of policy, automation and advisor settings and grouped them all together in one convenient location to allow you to automate the parts you don’t want to deal with, turn on two different levels of advisors for areas you’d like to supervise, or set areas to full manual control when you really want to dive in.  This level of automation extends down from this top level to being able to automate or manually control planets, fleets and even individual state ships.

I hope this review of our goals in improving the engine and the user interface helped you see how far we’ve come from Distant Worlds: Universe.  I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a new Developer Diary for you all!


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Offline Asid

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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2021, 01:00:40 AM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #2
Thur 5th Aug



Welcome to our second Developer Diary and thank you for your interest in [link=http://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-2]Distant Worlds 2[/link].

We want to introduce this one with our brand new video about Mortalens




This diary will discuss some of the “story” behind the galaxy of Distant Worlds 2, an interesting place for you to explore.
   
One of the best parts of Distant Worlds is that the galaxy is present in full detail and “alive”.  There are always things going on almost everywhere you look.  Much less is abstracted away than in many other 4x games, where you may only see the ships in your military fleets, or a system may be represented just by a star and a few major planets, or where the galaxy really is just star systems, points if you will, connected by lines that determine where you can go.  In Distant Worlds 2, you have all of space, both the systems themselves and every bit of space within them, every planet, moon and asteroid, but also the space between systems, including nebulae, ion, radiation and gravitic storms.  Exploration, travel, battles and everything else can happen anywhere within that space.



We’ll get into some more of what exploration is like in a future diary, but in terms of story, this allows us a lot of room to work with to place all kinds of remnants of the “ancient galaxy” as well as unique characteristics and bonuses which separate one planet, moon, star or asteroid from another.  You may find ancient ruins, fragments of data revealing previously unknown locations, abandoned or partially destroyed ships, the remains of ancient fleet battles, a unique planetary feature, and so on and so forth.  All of this is present at the generation of the galaxy, but some things are much easier to find than others, some can only be found by the best explorers and some are much easier to find once you have the right clues to point you in the right direction.  Each generated Distant Worlds 2 galaxy is a truly huge playground with a great many hidden discoveries waiting to be found.



However, it’s not just these more static discoveries that await you in space.  First of all, you have what we call “Pirates”, though their full story is much more complex than that brief description or what first impressions will likely suggest.  They’ll challenge you initially, as they are used to having a monopoly on space.  You’ll likely have to repel their raids and decide whether to focus on destroying them or accepting their terms to some degree in order to negotiate a peace.  They do know more than you about the galaxy, if you’re willing to pay their price.



There are also creatures of unusual size and origin that exist in space and travel between the stars.  Their origins are for you to discover, but you will find them a significant obstacle to expansion in some systems and a navigational hazard in others.

Here we can make out a Gravillex in the distance which has just missed slicing open a fleeing Human Frigate with its energy beam weapon.  These are remarkably aggressive creatures that did not exist in the “Ancient” galaxy, but are now found in significant numbers, often feeding on stars for their energy.  The type of star they’ve been feeding on also has a significant effect on how dangerous a given Gravillex may be.



Here’s an Ardilus, normally a much more passive denizen of space that is usually found around gas giants.  Beware though, as it is quite territorial if you come too close as this Mortalen Escort just discovered.



There’s also the dreaded Vordikar, but it’s quite stealthy and the last three exploration ships we sent into the asteroids to find one for you never returned.  I promise we’ll show you one in a future diary.

Beyond all this though, we have an expanded “Main Story” as well as a “Faction Story” for each of our playable factions (Humans, Ackdarians, Mortalen, Haakonish, Zenox, Boskara and Teekan).  This is a major effort above and beyond anything that Distant Worlds: Universe had, involving the creation of a new story and event system which allows us to do much more than we could in the past, including event and story choices (and this is all also open to players and modders who wish to tinker and use the system for their own stories).

Each Faction in Distant Worlds 2 by default represents a certain playstyle.  For example, the Mortalen are “Disciplined Warriors” which means that their faction story and faction victory conditions will tend to reinforce that playstyle and reward playing them in that way.  While the Main Story will reveal some information about the Ancient galaxy and what happened in the past, each Faction Story will reveal more about the specific background and events that involved that faction, as well as giving the player a great chance to be the first to find some truly unique and rewarding locations.  By playing through all the faction stories, the most complete account of the Ancient galaxy can be pieced together.

As an example, here’s a shot taken in “cheat mode” showing a small selection of some placed main and faction story events across a section of a generated galaxy, on top of the normal hidden bonuses, ruins and discoveries.  Each of those little labels indicates either a single even or the initial trigger for an event chain.  Of course, you won’t have this cheat view to guide you in your own galaxy, but if you explore well and boldly, you should have plenty of good stories to tell!



As always, we want to let you play the game your way, so in the galaxy setup you can choose to enable or disable pirates, space creatures and the main and faction stories, as well as tailoring the amount and strength of pirates and space creatures.  You can also disable faction victory conditions and change the government and play your chosen faction in a different way.  We look at the galaxy as your sandbox and want to give you the tools to make sure it’s setup the way you would like it to be.

I hope this shed some light on the Distant Worlds 2 galaxy and what your own Distant Worlds story might be like.  I’ll be back in a couple of weeks with a new Developer Diary for you all!


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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2021, 11:24:03 PM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #3
Wed, 25 August 2021



Procedural Rendering in Distant Worlds 2

Hello to all. My name is Elliot Gibbs, and I am the developer for Distant Worlds 2. This article has a slightly different focus. It
will give you a behind-the-scenes look at a small slice of the game with an important on-screen role: the natural environment of the Distant Worlds galaxy.


While this article is more technical, it will help you see “under-the-hood.” It will give you insight into how we solved some of the unique problems faced in a game as vast as Distant Worlds 2.


 
Procedural Rendering versus Hand-made Art

What is procedural rendering? This refers to drawing various parts of the game without using hand-made art assets. In other words, an item is rendered on the screen without using any artist-created models or images. Instead the item is drawn using only software instructions – the item is rendered in code.

That might not sound very useful. Why would you bother writing a lot of software to draw something in code instead of just having an artist make a 3D model, or draw a 2D image?

That depends on what you are drawing and the number of different items that need to be drawn.


 
The old way: the Galactic Environment in DW1

As you probably appreciate, in Distant Worlds there is a vast galactic environment, filled with many items to explore and discover: stars, planets, moons, black holes, nebula clouds, and many others.

In Distant Worlds 1 (Universe and earlier) these items were mostly hand-drawn 2D images: there were a set of images for desert planets, another set of images for ocean planets, a set of images for nebula clouds, etc. In total there were about 250 images for planets alone. So there was a lot of hand-drawn art!



The advantage with static, hand-drawn art is that you can have very specific details in the art. For example you could have an image of the planet Earth in the game, complete with the continents, islands and oceans we know so well.

However there are some big drawbacks with static art:

•   2D images and textured models have a resolution limit that is constrained by memory, thus when zoomed in their appearance can become blurry or pixelated
•   you typically need to draw each image or texture by hand, limiting how many variations you can realistically have. Although tools can help automate the generation of some images, you still have to store them and load them in game, which can take a lot of memory and storage

Procedural rendering is an alternative to making a lot of hand-drawn art. It means writing software that knows how to draw a particular item. We can then draw as many variations of this item as needed, tweaking parameters to make changes to its appearance.


 
The new, better way in DW2

In Distant Worlds 2 nearly all of the galactic environment is procedurally rendered. That means that we use minimal hand-made art to draw the stars, planets, moons, black holes or nebula clouds in the game.

Instead there are a set of custom shader programs that know how to draw each of these items:

•   a star shader that can draw brightly glowing coronas of semi-transparent gas and plasma
•   several shaders that draw planets with solid surfaces: some with a lot of mountains, others with deep oceans, others with glowing lava lakes
•   a shader that draws planets with gaseous surfaces with colored bands and swirling storms
•   another shader draws black holes
•   other shaders draw nebula clouds



How does it work?

At the core of these shaders is a concept called fractal noise. Fractal noise refers to a set of special random values that are tuned for drawing a natural environment in a realistic manner.

Fractal noise is a huge subject, which I won’t go into detail about here. But if you want to learn more you should look it up. You’ll see terms like Perlin noise and Simplex noise, which are good starting points.

But how do these procedural shaders work? What process do they follow, and what do they allow us to do?

•   Firstly they use fractal noise to make a unique height map for each planet, allowing us to generate mountains, valleys, plains, coastlines and sub-oceanic terrain
•   applies shadowing from sun light on the mountains and hills to provide subtle realism to the terrain
•   if the planet is populated , adds city night lights that follow the natural geography of the planet, preferring low-lying and coastal areas (including underwater cities in shallow coastal regions)
•   provides light-emitting features like lava lakes and oceans
•   adds cloud layers with animated storm systems and shadows on the planet below
•   allows latitude-specific features: polar ice caps, equatorial jungle belts, deserts
•   allows altitude-specific terrain: snowy mountain tops, forested valleys, grassy plains and coastal areas, shallow underwater continental shelves, deep ocean basins



Thus procedural shaders provide a vast improvement when rendering the natural environment in Distant Worlds, giving us an incredible level of detail and variety. The advantages of procedural rendering directly address the weaknesses of static art that we had in DW1:

•   because the shader programs operate on each pixel on the screen, there is no resolution limit. You can keep zooming in closely to an item without blurriness or loss of quality
•   by varying the input parameters for each shader you can obtain nearly infinite variety for an item, thus every planet in DW2 is unique
•   because no static images or textures are needed, there is a dramatic reduction in memory and storage requirements



A Living, Animated Galaxy

Procedural rendering also enables another feature: animation. The fractal noise used in the shaders can be multi-dimensional, so you can use one of the dimensions to represent change over time. This allows you to smoothly animate things that you draw. For example, we have the following in Distant Worlds 2:

•   cloud layers on planets that move and change
•   star coronas with prominences that rise and fall
•   gas giant planets with animated cloud surfaces
•   nebula clouds that smoothly change over time
•   black holes with swirling vortexes of light and energy

Thus procedural rendering helps to bring the galaxy of Distant Worlds to life, with motion and activity even in the natural environment. It gives infinite variety and depth of appearance to all of the planets and stars.



Modding

You might be thinking: how does this affect modding? Can you easily mod new planet and star types into DW2? Or does this require special coding or shader skills?

The good news is that modders also have access to these same shaders to make their own unique planets and stars – no special skills are required. By simply adding a few values to a file you can have a completely new type of planet available in the game. Your planet will have all the same features as the built-in planet types: hyper-detailed height maps with shadowing, animated cloud layers, city night lights when populated, planetary rings, etc.




So how does procedural rendering improve the galactic environment in Distant Worlds?

•   provides infinite variety – no two planets in the galaxy are the same. They all have their own unique geographical features and coastlines
•   eliminates blurriness or pixelation. Everything remains sharp and clear even when zoomed in close
•   allows animation of features like star coronas, planetary clouds and nebula clouds
•   uses a lot less memory, thus freeing up resources for other rendering

I hope you enjoyed this look at the galactic environment of Distant Worlds. I’ll be back later with more behind-the-scenes information about other features in Distant Worlds 2.



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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #7 on: October 06, 2021, 11:44:46 PM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #4
Tue, 14 September 2021




Galactic Terrain in Distant Worlds 2

Welcome to a new Distant Worlds 2 Dev Diary
.
Before we start, check out PCGamesN's interview
with the developers.

This article focuses on a problem common to all space strategy games: how do you get terrain or ‘geography’ into a galactic map?


We explore how other games have approached this problem, how Distant Worlds 1 handled things, and how Distant Worlds 2 has a ‘best of both worlds’ solution to allow free movement while having natural barriers to movement.



Terrain in Strategy games

Most strategy games have a map. Many strategy games have a historical setting and thus their map has natural terrain like hills, mountains and oceans. These natural geographic features form barriers that define the shape of the map and how a player can travel across the map. So mountains and oceans can block travel or at least slow it down.

Space strategy games do not have such obvious natural terrain. Usually all of the game action occurs inside star systems, where planets are found. Space ships must travel between star systems, usually via some kind of hyperdrive or jumpdrive.



To provide natural terrain in a space game, developers often employ arbitrary restrictions on travel. The classic example of this is the idea of ‘star-lanes’ where each star system has a limited number of paths to other nearby star systems. To reach a distant system the player usually has to traverse multiple intermediate systems. These ‘star-lanes’ thus form the geography of the map or galaxy, often entirely preventing any other route to a destination.

Star-lanes definitely add shape and terrain to the map. But many players dislike them because they are very artificial and contrived.

Inter-system travel in Distant Worlds 1

Distant Worlds 1 took a different approach to inter-system travel. In DW1 you could jump to any point on the map that was within fuel range of your ship. You could even travel into deep space, far outside any star system. Many players liked this flexible approach. However there were some problems with this.



This free-movement approach, without star-lanes, meant that there wasn’t as much ‘geography’ to the galaxy. Star systems were less likely to appear in nebula clouds, so nebulae formed natural gaps between star systems. But really the only geographical constraint for movement was the varying distances between each star system.

Distant Worlds 2: Galactic Terrain without star-lanes

In Distant Worlds 2 we wanted to preserve the open travel mode of DW1. But we also wanted to add better galactic terrain: natural barriers that added interest and function to different parts of the galaxy.

The answer to this was to use nebula clouds as the natural barriers to travel. In DW2 nebula clouds dramatically slow hyperspace travel. The impact on travel time is so significant that it is usually faster to travel around the nebulae rather than through it. Thus nebulae effectively become the ‘mountain range’ analog of a terrestrial map.

In addition hyperdrive components work slightly differently in DW2. All hyperdrives have a defined jump range. This jump range limits how far a ship can travel in a single jump. Ships can still travel as far as their fuel allows them, but usually their fuel range exceeds their jump range.

The effect of these 2 new features (nebulae that slow hyperspace travel, limited jump ranges) is that ships often have to plot a path of multiple jumps between star systems to reach a destination. The precise path they choose is not fixed. It depends on their current location, their chosen destination, and their jump range.



Some star systems may thus be in naturally strategic locations, e.g. in a gap between nebulae that many ships will pass through. These locations may be good choke-points, or at least good monitoring points to keep an eye on traffic passing through the area.

Nebulae Effects
Nebula clouds can also have other effects on ships and bases. As in DW1, some nebula clouds are the locations of galactic storms that can cause damage to ships with inadequate defenses. However we have broadened the range of effects to include different types of damage to various ship components. Galactic storms can also have other effects like interfering with sensors or draining shield strength.



Some star systems can be found inside nebula clouds. You can still travel to these systems. But due to the impermeable nature of nebulae, these star systems can be some of the most remote parts of the galaxy.

Nebulae also affect long range scanners. Ships and bases are very difficult to detect when they are inside nebulae. In addition scanners cannot ‘see’ through nebulae. So you cannot scan objects on the other side of a nebula cloud. This can lead to ‘blind spots’ in scanner coverage.

Summary

Distant Worlds 2 preserves the free movement of Distant Worlds 1. You can travel to any part of the galaxy, even locations in deep space.

However you must now navigate around nebula clouds and perilous galactic storms, often jumping through multiple systems to reach your destination.

This new approach to galactic terrain and travel provides even more options for fun and strategy.



We hope you enjoyed this look at the galactic terrain of Distant Worlds.

We’ll be back later with more information about other features in Distant Worlds 2.

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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #8 on: November 05, 2021, 11:22:39 PM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #5
6 Oct 2021

Welcome to our fifth Distant Worlds 2 Developer Diary.

This diary will discuss exploration in more detail, including how it has changed since Distant Worlds: Universe.



Exploration and discovery have always been something Distant Worlds does well.  The procedurally generated “living galaxy” means that no two galaxies are the same and outside of any story events, there are plenty of unique locations and surprises awaiting you, which can make each game feel different from the last.  Some discoveries are relatively mundane, others are quite exciting while still others can be downright galaxy-changing and the same holds true in Distant Worlds 2.



In Distant Worlds: Universe, we had a wide variety of different ruins and ancient ships, ancient battlefields and such scattered around the galaxy from ages past.  That’s all still there in Distant Worlds 2, but we’ve added more and made finding everything a bit more interesting.  First, just because you’re in a system doesn’t mean you automatically see everything.  What you see, even within a system, now depends on the sensors on the ships and stations you have in that system, so even within the same system you won’t know everything just by jumping in and taking a quick look.  In addition, everything now has more layers of information than the binary system we had in Distant Worlds: Universe, where you either knew it was there or you didn’t.

We now provide the player with exploration cues on both the system badges and a separate exploration map overlay to let you easily see which systems have been fully explored and which still require further exploration.



Wiith regards to planets, asteroids and such, which are what you are mostly exploring, they now come with a range of exploration levels which look like this:

  • You know some kind of planet is there at a particular distance from the star (it’s within your sensor range)
  • You know what general type of planet it is (Exploration Level 1, normally achievable by having a ship with sensors enter the system for the first time)
  • You know its quality, basic resources, basic ruins and bonuses (Exploration Level 10+)
  • You start finding the better hidden bonuses, ruins and resource (Exploration Level 20+)


Exploration levels in the initial release go up to about 100.  There’s clearly a lot of room for things to hide between 20 and 100 and as a result, some exploration will continue, even in already known areas, well into the game.

How do you raise the exploration level?  Well, in Distant Worlds 2 there are a few ways to do this:

  • An exploration ship with a planetary scanner (the most advanced types go up to around Exploration Level 50).  Planetary scanners are the quickest way to explore a planet.
  • An exploration ship with a planetary survey module (these can go up to the maximum exploration level).  Surveys take longer to explore a planet, but can explore it more thoroughly.
  • A mining station at the planet.  Over time, a mining station can raise the exploration level up to around 30.
  • A colony at the planet.  Depending on population, a colony will increase the exploration level over time, eventually up to the maximum possible level.


Note that better scanners and survey modules become available through research (and sometimes discovery).



In terms of exploration, not including special story locations and events, what else can you discover?  Everything that you could in Distant Worlds: Universe, and more.

First, we’ve added new descriptive planetary bonuses which distinguish even planets of the same type from each other and can make a given location unique.   Some planets are independent worlds, which even have their own populations and can engage in trade and diplomacy.   



Ruins from ancient times can include a variety of discoveries and can also have multiple bonuses which could apply just to that location or even to your entire empire, if you control them.  Ruins can also contain many surprises, some not very positive.   



Rare construction and luxury resources can provide access to advanced technologies and ship hulls or boost the development and happiness of your worlds.   



Ancient ships and stations can be repaired and put back into service for your fleets, salvaged for unique technologies, or left alone (some are more dangerous than you may think).



Finally there are also artifacts, which represent special relics from past ages which when moved to one of your worlds can provide a variety of benefits.

All exploration also comes with some risk though and space creatures, such as the dreaded stealthy Vordikar, are among the dangers any intrepid explorer must face.  Pirates also know many secrets, if you can convince them to talk.



The new nebulas are also often worth exploring, though traveling through their ion, gravitic and radiation storms without sufficient shielding and repair can lead to the complete loss of your exploration ship.

We hope these additional layers of exploration and rewarding discoveries, along with the procedurally generated galaxies, will give you plenty to discover (or conquer)!

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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #9 on: December 18, 2021, 12:15:54 AM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Release Date Revealed
Fri, 17 December 2021


The release date of Distant Worlds 2 has been announced.




The next chapter in the critically acclaimed 4X space strategy game is almost ready.

Players will experience the full depth and detail of this real time strategy game starting from March 10th, 2022, on PC.

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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #10 on: January 23, 2022, 05:30:04 PM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Dev Diary #6
4 Nov 2021




Welcome to our sixth Developer Diary.

This diary is a big one as it discusses the economy in more detail. You’ll learn what makes the Distant Worlds economy unique and how you can make sure that your worlds are prosperous and your empire is strong.



In Distant Worlds 2, your economy is divided into two parts. The first is the state-controlled economy, over which you have full control. The second is the private or civilian economy, which is everything else. As the state, while you have a great deal of influence over how your private economy is structured, you do not control it and you also have the responsibility to protect it from disruption by pirates and other threats.

As with all areas in Distant Worlds 2, if you prefer to allow your advisors to fully run the state economy for you and focus on other areas of the game, that is possible through the automation settings. For those who enjoy some economic planning and optimization, you can choose how much you wish to intervene, right down to manually controlling all state economic decisions.

The state controls space exploration and construction, colony ships, military ships, stations and troops, spaceports, research stations and monitoring stations. The state is also in charge of setting tax rates, building economic facilitie and adjusting bonus funding.

The private economy controls mining ships, mining stations, freighters, passenger ships and resort bases. It pays for its own construction, maintenance and fuel costs, but also earns revenue from its activities, which it keeps (except for the portion paid to the state in construction or fuel fees or taxes).





This process starts with your state-controlled exploration ships discovering new systems and worlds. Some of these worlds will contain valuable resources. Those resource fit into three general categories:   

- Fuel, which is needed for all your space reactors and hyperdrives to function at peak efficiency (in other words, fuel is essential to just about everything in your space-faring economy)
- Construction Resources, which are required for your worlds to grow (they consume a variety of these on a regular basis), as well as to build or upgrade new ships, facilities and stations. Without these, nothing new really gets build and colony growth can be significantly slowed.
- Luxury Resources, which are required for your worlds to develop, though they also can offer other significant bonuses depending on the specific resource. Some of these are quite rare, or even unique and they come with much higher bonuses. Development is the difference between a relatively primitive frontier world eking out an existence with just enough technology to survive and a thriving core world which represents the pinnacle of your space civilization. Your population alone will increase development, but luxury resources help a great deal more.

Once you’ve found these resources, private Mining Ships (unless you’re playing as a Mercantile Guild, in which case you can also build and control these) can extract these resources for you. You may also effectively grant a license to the private economy to build a mining station at a particular location, using one of your state-controlled construction ships. These large mining stations are constructed by the state, but paid for and maintained by the private economy and are much faster at extracting resources, though they require private freighters to also pick up those resources and transport them to where they are needed.



This combination of state exploration and granting of mining rights combined with private resource extraction and transport is the most basic level of your economy. Keeping the flow of resources moving efficiently from your mining stations to where they are needed is up to the civilian stations and ships and you can watch them go about this business, while knowing that you don’t need to spend much time worrying about it once you’ve made sure the mining stations are where you want them.



The next most important pieces are your worlds and your spaceports. Your worlds have your population and your people will produce a certain level of productive output on their own, but without adequate Construction and Luxury resources, their potential will be greatly limited. If you supply them with abundant resources, you will find your worlds increasing much more quickly in population, development and happiness. That combination will also allow for higher tax rates and much more income from each world to flow into your state treasury. You can adjust the resource demands and the tax rate on each world if you so wish, or allow your advisors to automatically adjust these.

Spaceports are the largest state-controlled space stations and they are typically built at your populated worlds.  From an economy standpoint, they act as hubs for your economy. The freighters and mining ships will transport resources first to your spaceports and from there they will be distributed further to the worlds or stations that need them.



Spaceports are also the locations where most space construction happens, both for your state ships and the private economy’s ships. The private economy pays the state when it needs the use of these shipyards, which can result in additional bonus income for the state.

Once you have a good network of mining stations, worlds and spaceports setup, the economy will generally run itself quite well barring external disruptions, either due to general threats or due to war. In those cases, your state fleets and troops may be needed to restore peace and orderly economic activity.



You can also gain access to resources and resource trading income through diplomacy. In Distant Worlds 2, by default you do not begin with the ability to trade with another Empire, but you can sign one of three trade treaties to allow trade. Each treaty has varying degrees of resource availability balanced against tariffs charged. Restricted Trade charges the highest tariffs and makes available only the most abundant resources. Limited Trade is a balance. Free Trade allows full access to all resources without any tariffs. Commerce Centers on your Spaceports as well as trading bonuses from other sources can also increase the value of trade with other empires.



Once you discover some particularly scenic locations in the galaxy that are near your populated worlds, the civilian economy will also be looking to build some resort bases. When built at good scenic locations with easy access to large populations, these can earn some nice additional tourism income for your economy.



Corruption is also something that will become a larger issue as your new worlds are farther away from your capitol world  and as your worlds grow ever larger in population. This acts to reduce your taxable revenue from that world, but construction of planetary administration facilities can reduce the effects of corruption and ensure that the long arm of the law reaches across your empire.

In Distant Worlds 2, when you have a good positive cashflow as a result of a well functioning economy, you can invest those additional funds into the usual things like building new ships and stations, or new planetary facilities, or trying to “crash research” a particularly important research project. You can also invest it into bonus funding for research and colony growth. By default, this bonus funding is automatically funded once you’ve met your empire’s needs for maintenance and other expenses.



Without this funding, your research stations will roughly halve their output and your colony population will grow significantly more slowly. Under normal circumstances, this is not an issue, but when events occur that disrupt your economy, losing this bonus funding can result in significant penalties to your empire’s performance. If you build a robust economy and protect it well, hopefully you’ll never have to find out about that the hard way!

If you read through all of this, let us know if you have any questions regarding the economy in Distant Worlds 2.

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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #11 on: February 12, 2022, 12:00:50 AM »
Distant Worlds 2 is now available for pre-order
Fri, 11 February 2022

Distant Worlds 2 is now available for pre-orders at 10% discount.



Distant Worlds 2 will be released on March 10th
. The critically acclaimed 4X space strategy game returns with a brand new 64-bit engine, 3D graphics and a polished interface:

Explore
the vast galaxy with up to 2,000 star systems and tens of thousands of planets, discovering valuable resources, potential colonies for your empire.

Interact
with other empires, discussing treaties, making trade offers, or just giving them a piece of your mind.

Develop
new technologies for building your own unique ships and starbases and defend your empire.

Automate
the various tasks in your empire, so that you can focus on the areas that you enjoy most.

Distant Worlds 2, The Galaxy Lives on.

Pre-order here: https://www.matrixgames.com/game/distant-worlds-2
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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #12 on: February 25, 2022, 12:51:05 AM »
Ackdarians
24 Feb 2022




Ackdarians are highly industrious, semi-aquatic marine mammals. They have large webbed hands and feet, making them excellent swimmers. However their hands are also quite dexterous and they are equally happy living out of water.

Ackdarians are intelligent, peaceful and friendly. They have a rich culture that focuses on the hybrid nature of their living environment, encompassing both water and land.

They excel in building highly maintainable star ships. Their technology includes the advanced TurboThruster engine. This engine component is extremely fuel-efficient, allowing Ackdarian star ships to use less fuel and travel further.

Ackdarians are famous for cultivating Nepthys seaweed, from which they make Nepthys wine. Ackdarians grow enormous forests of the seaweed deep beneath the oceans. They regularly harvest it and then slowly ferment it into a superbly smooth wine.

They are also masters of underwater construction, building vast and elaborate underwater cities. These cities have many levels, some of which reach far down into the vast depths of the oceans they inhabit. At the deepest levels Ackdarians seek out precious resources like the rare Ucantium pearl.

Ackdarians also inhabit the small islands and shallow coastal areas of Ocean planets.



Mortalens


Mortalens are a fierce half mammal, half reptile race. They have extremely fast reflexes, an ability that can surprise those unfamiliar with them.

They are easily provoked by the slightest insult, and will pursue an enemy relentlessly until they get vengeance.

Mortalens are excellent warriors – a pursuit they spend much time perfecting. Their warrior code is highly developed. Mortalens consider defeating an enemy in battle as the highest possible achievement. They are widely recognized as almost certainly the best fighters in the galaxy.

They have developed a powerful vectoring engine, the Swift Vector. This advanced engine component gives Mortalen star ships unrivalled agility and maneuvering.

Mortalens enjoy a fairly simple life, following many ancient traditions. These traditions mainly focus on honor and risk-taking.

One particular tradition requires any male seeking tribal leadership to hunt and kill one of the fearsome Mortaks. Mortaks are terrifying large monsters that inhabit the vast sandy desert wastelands of the Mortalen homeworlds. The name Mortalen means “Slayer of the Mortak”.

Mortalens are normally found living in simple block dwellings in the scrub-covered canyon floors of Rocky Desert planets. They can also be found on Sandy Desert or Desert Savanna planets.



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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #13 on: March 04, 2022, 12:05:08 AM »
Distant Worlds 2 - Zenox, Teekans and Humans
Thu Mar 03






Zenox are an ancient feline race with thick golden fur.

They are very cautious and will not lightly enter into an agreement with others. Any new treaties they form usually involve an extremely lengthy period of negotiation, with a protracted review phase at every step of the discussions. Zenox ensure that they are absolutely clear on every last detail of the agreement before finally approving it.

Zenox take a particular interest in recording and preserving galactic history. They seek out items of historical significance from all over the galaxy.

They are also outstanding epic story-tellers. They draw upon their vast store of old myth and legend to produce unique and compelling tales. Zenox claim to be guardians of secret knowledge of galactic history, some of which they reveal in their stories.

In fact some of their historical research has led to unorthodox claims about the galaxy’s past. One of these stories asserts that all the Insectoid races once betrayed the rest of the galaxy to an outside invader. However most other alien races dismiss these conclusions as unproven fairy-tales.

Zenox technology includes an advanced shield component, the Megatron. These powerful shields impart a potent defense to Zenox star ships and bases.

Zenox inhabit the tundra wastelands of Ice Tundra, Ice or Frozen Ice planets. They typically build large cities deep underground in vast ice caves and tunnels.




TEEKANS


Teekans are a small furry rodent-like race with three eyes.

They see no value in washing regularly and thus tend to smell.

Teekans take special interest in hoarding all kinds of mechanical junk, disassembling and repairing items they collect. Teekans have very little technology that is truly original, but they can occasionally progress to the point of being space-faring.

Teekans are born traders, profitably selling their wares far and wide. They are also excellent miners, rapidly exploiting any natural resources they discover.

Despite being fairly insular they are very peaceful and make very loyal allies should you wish to befriend them.

Teekans are semi-nomadic; while some live in permanent settlements, many prefer to live in temporary camps, periodically migrating to new locations.

The nomadic Teekan tribes are obsessed with hunting the Bakdur, also known as the Sand Slug. As the herds of Bakdurs migrate across the sandy deserts, the Teekan camps follow them.

Teekans inhabit the vast desert wastelands of Sandy Desert, Rocky Desert and Desert Savanna planets.




HUMANS


Humans are tall, largely hairless, bipedal mammals.
   
They are intelligent, cunning and resourceful and have spread across the galaxy.

Humans are friendly by nature, but others sometimes view them as scheming and manipulative. Humans value political power and influence above all else. They revel in subtle maneuvering and intrigue as they accumulate greater political control. They have an amazing talent for recognizing opportunities for political advancement.

Their natural abilities make them excellent diplomats. Human negotiating skills are renowned – they can transform nearly any apparently hopeless situation to their advantage.

Humans have a natural curiosity that gives them an edge in scientific research. Their scientists and engineers are quick to see the application of new discoveries, inventing new technology based on this knowledge.

Humans have a mysterious past, cloaked in ambiguity. It is unclear where they originated from. Some say that they are actually immigrants from another galaxy. Humans themselves claim Sol as their home system.

Their preferred habitats are the lowland plains of Continental, Forest or Grasslands planets.



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Re: Distant Worlds 2
« Reply #14 on: March 08, 2022, 11:26:35 PM »
DISTANT WORLDS 2 - Pre-Release Stream and AMA
Tue 08 March



There are only a few days left until the release of Distant Worlds 2 and, for the occasion, we have planned two special events open to the whole community:

- Tuesday, March 8th: AMA with Erik Rutins and Elliot Gibbs, the main developers of DW2.
On this Reddit channel, at 7pm GMT / 2pm EST. They will answer all your questions about the game, its design, and its development.

- Wednesday, March 9th: Pre-Release stream with Erik Rutins. A live stream on the Slitherine Twitch channel at 6pm GMT / 1pm EST, where, for a few hours, he'll play DW2, giving advice to players and answering their questions.

Distant Worlds 2, the journey begins now.

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