Distant Worlds 2, by developer Code Force and published by Matrix Games/Slitherine is the well-anticipated sequel to a title the staff at eXplorminate recently voted “The Best 4X Game Ever Made”, or words to that effect. Distant Worlds: Universe was an incredibly ambitious real-time space 4X game with a huge scope and a solid execution: it was not, however, perfect and remains one of the most discussed games among our community, with everybody and their dog seeming to have something different to praise or lament respectively.
Originally slated for a 2021 release, DW2 is now set to land in the first half of 2022. Slitherine very kindly allowed me to sit down with director and developer Erik Rutins to show off the evolution of one of space 4X’s most important mechanics: research.
Research in DW:U was fairly simple and rather solid: the player’s empire worked its way through three large static tech trees representing the fields of Weapons, Energy & Construction, and HighTech & Industrial. Research points were generated from dedicated station modules, with bonus points coming from points of interest in the galaxy, usually planetary and stellar anomalies helping to speed research times. The trees themselves were fully visible from the start of the game, and although their size was rather intimidating to a newcomer, much fun was to be had plotting your empire’s developmental path across each of them. DW2 iterates on this design with several changes and additions intended to make the research game more meaningful and inject the same kind of randomised, emergent gameplay that the original game displayed so well with its incredible economic simulation and excellent galaxy generation options.
Distant Worlds 2 includes the option for the tech tree to be randomised, ala Master of Orion and Sword of the Stars, ensuring that no two playthroughs will offer quite the same research trajectory through a campaign. Technologies have a chance of appearing on the tree after certain prerequisites are acquired, but are not guaranteed to appear immediately, and may have unexpected research routes necessary to reach them. The tree is partly hidden from the player: only the next available leaves on the tree are visible, allowing for the joy of exploration through the tech tree too. Furthermore, certain technologies now require a “Research Bonus” threshold in the relevant technological field to be met before they become eligible for acquisition. For example, researching Stealth might require a 20% research bonus in Sensor Research from research locations. Certain critical techs are rubber-banded to appear more consistently than others, and Erik stated that well-needed, missing leaves can often be found by researching “around” the other branches in the tree that might reasonably connect to it.
As in DW:U your empire generates research points and there are bonuses available to increase research speed. Examples include the aforementioned locations out in the galaxy, character perks, racial and governmental traits, and planetary facilities. These bonus generators are now even more critical than before: losing an Industrial Research bonus location might well throw a spanner into the works of your empire’s industrial machine, as a crucial tech locked behind a research bonus threshold, and required for advancement, is no longer available until the gap in that specific field of technological insight is plugged, perhaps by recapturing the location or building new dedicated research facilities.
Research output potential is based partly on population, stations, and research bonus funding. Empire economy is also a factor: maximum research output will not be met until a certain threshold of research funding is met as part of your empire’s budget. Under normal circumstances with a healthy empire economy this will generally be the case, but severe disruption to your income through warfare, piracy, or some other chain of events will cause a relative drop in research output. A negative bank balance will slow your technological progression, adding an additional layer of vulnerability to your expansion efforts.
The three research trees are now condensed down into one: more techs have been added and this single research tree is now larger than the previous three combined. With enough research stations, the maximum concurrent research project limit is three: the player is left to choose whether to divide his research output equally between two or three projects simultaneously or throw it all into just one. As before, projects can be crash funded, an expensive endeavour that doubles the speed of research.
The new techs are a little more interesting than just adding yet more weapons, modules, and star-drives: each alien race in the game now has a series of cultural and diplomatic technologies for the player to research, which facilitate a more understanding approach to victory for those who want more from their 4X than just “eXterminate” by allowing them to invest their economy into learning how to coexist and cooperate with their neighbours. Certain factions might start out very hostile and extensive diplomatic efforts will be required to bring them into line using the carrot rather than the stick.
Secondly, there are new planetary facilities for the player to build including a variety of defensive facilities and administration centres to manage galaxywide corruption, and these require an initial research unlock. I was excited to see that each weapon-type tree now has a planetary defence installation, from planetary fighter bases, huge Planetary Cannon Batteries, Missile Defences, Rail Guns, and more. This means that planetary defences are not restricted to orbiting stations and fleets. Finally, there are MoO-style repeatable techs at the end of each branch of the tech-tree which allows incremental improvements for further investment into that area, meaning that research itself never becomes redundant at the climax of a particularly long game and continually rewarding players that heavily focus on it. Finally, there are some rare techs that are hidden on the tech-tree until certain events are triggered in your adventures across the galaxy.
The changes to research in Distant Worlds 2 are looking promising: while not the most exciting system ever made, DW: U had a functional, solid research mechanic with a huge amount of technologies that, aside from some rather opaque rules regarding research potential vs. research output, worked well and gave the player plenty of options in building their empire towards whatever end they had in mind. The new partially blind, randomised tree looks to become to go-to way to play the game for those who enjoy less predictable content. Even without the randomised tree option, DW2 replaces this static, planned-trajectory approach with a more dynamic system requiring the player to build or conquer a range of bonus point generators to hit their targets, meshing this mechanic much more tightly into the economic and strategic simulation, an endeavour that will only increase immersion and depth of strategic choice available to the player. The addition of diplomatic techs for each race encountered ties research and diplomacy together nicely and allows a dedicated player the opportunity to placate and befriend those horrendous insectoid races before they come bearing the gift of spiders to your precious colonies without the need for a galaxy-wide nuclear cleansing. Erik told me that your opponents are somewhat more aggressive than in the previous game, meaning tough decisions will need to be made on who to befriend, and who to exterminate.
All in all, DW2’s research additions look to inject surprise, depth, and excitement into an already solid framework, and we at eXplorminate cannot wait to see the end results!
