SpaceSimCentral

DarkOne... I have been a space sim/strategy fanatic ever since StarFlight days. After seeing each of thefour instructional/example videos for DW on YouTube that Matrix games provided I was "almost" sold. Butlike you, I was wary due to the lack of a demo. But "unfortunately" , after acquiring information everywhere on the net about the game...I made a HUGE mistake in finding out that DW had a full blown,total conversion Star Trek mod and other "accessory" ST mods for it. Being the "Trekkie" I am ,after recovering from the shakes and chills of my discovery, I immediately grabbed my credit card and purchasedthe game. As mentioned in a previous post, I'm still immersed in not only the vast learning stages and tutorialof the game, but also anticipating the immense enjoyment ( and countless hours/days/weeks ) of running thesoon to be vast empire of the United Federation of Planets. Whew....sorry about the ranting! I got bored ofGalCiv2, and although i was about to go the way of Sins of a Solar Empire, I believe I have made an excellentchoice. I'll report back to you guys here in the Forum with some of my after action reports..... In the meantime,I'm off to Starfleet Academy to learn how to kick Cardassian butt and drink Romulan Ale at the diplomacy table!BTW DarkOne...... You are doing a FANTASTIC job here at SSCehsumrell1

Thanks ehsumrell1 and welcome to SSC.I am a huge trekkie myself and have been wanting to try nexus with that nice Star Trek mod. but haven't found the time to. I will probably leap into Distant Worlds when the price comes down a bit more. Since there is no demo and i have viewed most of the videos and there does seem to be a learning curve, i'm not too old yet that I cannot learn new things its just sometimes the attention span gets the best of me :DMost of the reviews that I have read on Distant Worlds have been above average. I am interested in the automation feature and how that works and can we automate many of the little things so you can do less management and more playing of the game. Guess I just don't want to spend most of my time managing the game, I like to play and have fun.

Darkone wrote:
Thanks ehsumrell1 and welcome to SSC.I am a huge trekkie myself and have been wanting to try nexus with that nice Star Trek mod. but haven't found the time to. I will probably leap into Distant Worlds when the price comes down a bit more. Since there is no demo and i have viewed most of the videos and there does seem to be a learning curve, i'm not too old yet that I cannot learn new things its just sometimes the attention span gets the best of me :DMost of the reviews that I have read on Distant Worlds have been above average. I am interested in the automation feature and how that works and can we automate many of the little things so you can do less management and more playing of the game. Guess I just don't want to spend most of my time managing the game, I like to play and have fun.
So far...it seems that one has a myriad of choices that dictates whether you macro or micro manage the game (as set initially in the game options at the onset). Similar to using "Govenors". What yet remains to be seen is how adept theAI will be as one grows their empire. Will get back to you on that one also. In addition...the games' forum users so farhave been providing a plethora of tips and info on how to set up the game for the best enjoyment and easiest learningcurve. I'm so far very pleased with this product.

I just started playing the game and its pretty awesome so far. Alot to learn but I like that.I'll post a better review once I've played it some more.

Greetings all! I've been a lurker here at SSC for awhile now but I was reading this thread and thought I'd register finally to chime in.I was in the same boat as many; disappointed that Distant Worlds did not have a demo. I am always wary of buying a game without a demo because it makes me feel like the developers are trying a bait and switch, promising awesome features and not delivering. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been burned by this behavior in the past. Having said that, I took a risk and went ahead and picked up Distant Worlds. After playing it, it made me even more disappointed there was no demo....but it had nothing to do with a bait and switch. This game is very, very good in my opinion and the fact that there is no demo is going to dissuade potential customers from buying it and giving it the success it deserves.I won't lie, before the latest patch, 1.0.6.0, the game was almost unplayable and there are still some irritating bugs.For example, construction ships can be used to repair ships which are badly damaged/stranded in space. However, if two automated construction ships are tasked to repair the same ship, and one arrives first and repairs the ship completely, the second construction ship will forever chase the previously damaged ship trying to catch up to it to provide repairs it no longer needs. This can be reversed by simply giving the second construction ship override orders and then setting it back to automated, but it can still be irritating. Also, there are some glaring holes in the diplomacy mechanics. For example, your relationship with another empire is rated between -100 (arch enemy) to +100 (best friend). I'll be at more than +70 with an empire and my "diplomats" (automated treaty feature) will suggest I prepare and deliver a pre-emptive strike on my "enemies" (my +70 friend).Those are two examples of bugs I consider minor. They can and will (I'm sure) be easily fixed in the near future. The gameplay it self is a blast though. At first, figuring out where the game places menus options, etc. can be odd because as mentioned before the UI isn't always intuitive. But once you've got the UI down (specifically in my case the "expansion planner" which helps determine where you're going to colonize) the game becomes a lot more manageable.You can send out exploration ships and colony ships that will eventually stumble onto planets that contain artifacts (structures) of lost civilizations that impart bonuses to your empire (think villages from Civilization). Also, you can find abandoned ships adrift in space that you can either add to your fleet and use or take back to a shipyard and and tear apart to reap technology bonuses from.That brings up what is, unfortunately, the most awful part of the game. The R&D design is utterly confounding to me. From what I understand of it, you basically build stations that have "labs" on them. There are 4 different types of labs (high tech, energy, weapons, industrial) that each contribute points towards several "subfields" in their area. For example, under energy is (shields, engines, hyperdrive, reactors, energy collectors ). The more "energy labs" you have the more points are contributed to those sub-fields, however, you don't get to choose where the points go, its random so you can only have a macro level influence on research. That in itself seems like an "okay" concept, but your rate of R&D is limited (apparently) by your population so that a really small empire can't build a bunch of labs and research rapidly. The mechanic is sound in theory, but there is no real way to tell (from my experience) how many more people I need to fully realize my R&D potential. Finally, the points are distributed at seemingly random intervals as well. This may seem realistic, but I can have an item sit at "99% researched for 2-3 game years and not complete which can be frustrating. And one more thing, the R&D trees are extremely linear. So much so that if you manage to use diplomacy to purchase/steal/threaten an advanced technology from another empire....you gain that technology and all preceding technologies in that area's tree as well even if they have nothing to do with the technology you gained from the empire. (I can gain a repair bot component from another empire, and I'll also gain a colonization module because it is between my current technology level and the repair bot's level I just gained).This may sound like a negative review of the game, however, I want to be sure I state the issues I perceive so its not an biased review either. I love the game to be honest. I'll be playing it a lot. There's an underlying (albeit thin) storyline you can discover as you find old, abandoned space stations that explains what happened to all the civilizations that came before yours. My most awesome time in the game so far is when I followed the storyline to a point that I found an old, abandoned, top secret space station that contained a precursor's money, technology, culture, and knowledge and overnight I went from the #3 empire to the #1 empire in my game, all because I took the time to explore and follow the clues the game gave.Anyhow, I'll end up summarizing a bit. This game is great. I've had a ton of fun with it and will undoubtedly be playing it for a long time to come. I wish it had multiplayer because that would have made it even better, but the single player game is plenty of fun to be a part of my game's library.

Thanks Bandus for this nice over view of your experiences so far with the game. I know the lack of the demo has been the largest road block as to why I haven't purchased the game. Yeah, I think there may be too much managing/micro-management gameplay for my taste. But I will probably give this game a purchase when I see it drop some more in price. But if they put out a demo and I like it I will buy at current price without issue.

Apparently there's an expansion on the horizon: Return of the ShakturiPromo vid screenshots herepromo vid for easy watching:

Well, I haven't played either DW or it's expansion yet but one of the main poitns raised in the review was the interface problems. However, the expansion appears to have significantly upgraded that:User Interface ImprovementsAction Buttons - One-click access to common tasks, enabling you to easily manage most of your empire directly from the main screenColonize planets, build mining stations and other basesConstruct new ships and bases at space ports and coloniesSelect enemy targets to attackEmpire Navigation Tool - Set of scrollable lists that provide quick access to everything in your empire: colonies, space ports, fleets, potential colonies, potential mining stations, etc.Hover over an item in the list to ping its location in the main viewClick an item in the list to select it, double-click an item to move to itEnemy Targets List - Shows all known enemy targetsClick a target to assign the nearest available fleet to attack itOr cycle your fleets to attack with the selected fleetBuild Orders - Mass-produce many new ships in one simple stepI wonder if he could be persuaded to take another look....

adamsolo wrote:


Quote:
I wonder if he could be persuaded to take another look....
Next time please reply to me directly and not as replying for some imaginary third person.But you could be right, looking at the expansion features you pasted here maybe the user interface is much better now. I noticed specially:- Action Buttons - One-click access to common tasks, enabling you to easily manage most of your empire directly from the main screen- Empire Navigation Tool - Set of scrollable lists that provide quick access to everything in your empire: colonies, space ports, fleets, potential colonies, potential mining stations, etc.With this maybe the game is now much better. But note that I reviewed Distant Worlds, not Distant Worlds: Return of the Shakturi.
Woah, kinda touchy there, fella, aintcha?? Ok, I didn't make the connection that this was your review. Sorry for that. And I apologise if referring to you in the third person touched some kind of weird nerve. It would have cost you nothing to simply point out your ownership, you know. 'twas an honest mistake.And yes, I am perfectly aware that your review centred on the main game only, thank you. I think you should take from my comments the fact that I was interested enough in your first opinion - which I re-read prior to commenting - to wonder how you'd receive this new expansion. Slightly less so now I feel like I've been put on the defensive simply for stating an innocent and genuine desire...but still you did some excellent analysis there. I didn't agree with every point, naturally, but I held off buying the main game because of it. It would be a shame to not build upon that sterling work with your opinion of the expansion. But please, don't put yourself out on my account.

Hey adamsoloThanks for the review for DW, i agree with most of the issues you pointed out.I took the plunge last year to purchase DW and I was frustrated with some of the short comings. But after understanding the mechanics of the game I started to enjoy the game immensely.I'll look forward to your review on the expansion pack. I'll make my decision on whether to purchase it or not.

Funny how AI pretends to be smart and automate things you don't want to do, but actually fails at simple tasks like exploring or colonizing. My explorers can stuck in same system for hours, trying to "explore" star itself or every damn rock in a system. Colony ships flying in enemy space while enemy colony ships trying to colonize systems in my empire. Automated fleet hunting harmless mosters and ignoring dangerous pirates... Oh yes, new research system featured in addon works better, but AI doesn't want to build any research labs and forces me to do it manually...

a few points i brought this game and expansion they seme reasonable but went to the forumsno dev interaction with player base , they seem to actively discourage discussion of the game unless youre a pro memberthe attitude is like well we know but we either dont have resources or dont care to actually work on it to make it a game u want to buy.Dunno its medicore but there seems to be no move on the game developers from new zealand tol actaully do anything with it. Quite a few crashes to so buyer beware on this one

I bought it but was massively disappointed. It has a few nice ideas and the sense of scale in this game is huge but it has way too many problems. Firstly you have only a tiny amount of control over your empire. You can't micromanage planets, control certain ships or even how your empire is meant to be ruled. Secondly, it's a huge mess. The interface is a nightmare, there are truckloads of redundant information scattered in the menus, the intelligence system is useless and designing your own ships isn't of much use either. It really feels like they had a ton of ideas (not necessarily good ones) and tried to fit them all in a single package. The result is a bit of a disaster. Armada is a much better game in every aspect.

I just played with the game with the shakturi expansion installed so I can't judge the base game.I also concur with most of the critiques offered before but I still am quite happy to have buyed it and spent a reasonable amount of time playing it.While really far from being perfect I recognize a bigger than usual level of originality and divergence from the 4X space game canon. The real-time aspect that single-handedly managed to let it stay unused for months in my hard disk before finding the will to honestly try it is well done and quite manageable. The Shakturi surprise is quite nice, at the least for the first three or four times.The private sector was an eye-opener, while basically a why to mask the various automations of the game this way to do it is consistent an feel more realistic than anything I have seen side of Sim City.Said that now I'm looking forward to the next expansion, let's hope that aside of something new they manage to solve also some of the old problems.

I do believe this game has a sequel, not too much up on 4x games as I don't play them but their appears to be plenty of vids on YouTube about it.