March 28, 2024

First Impressions of Distant Worlds 2 by Matrix Games

Mike Orwick, 13 February 2022

Anticipated for, well, several years now (there are Dragoons with pre-orders over 2-1/2 years old), Distant Worlds 2 promised a variety of improvements, evolutions, and overhauls.  The interface alone was completely rebuilt as a 3D view instead of the previous 2D flat view.  So with a chance to get hands-on with a preview build, we dove right in.

click images to enlarge

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Starting planet with a number of moons around.

 

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Leader information screen.  A dropdown allows for filtering by leader type.  

 

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The colony information screen provides a lot of good information on the selected colony in a single, easy to read side bar.

 

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The Resources window also provides quick to find, and easy to read information on your resources, mining locations, mining ships, and fuel tankers. 

 

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Likewise, the Ship Construction information screen provide key information on construction projects.

 

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Game set allow for only being able to see the researched projects or the next available.  On the right hand side, is a summary and suggestions on what to research next.  Also, each area has a tour to walk you through the basics of the screen topic.  

 

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The Military screen show information on Ships, Fleets, Troops, Monitor Stations, Defense Stations, and Dangerous locations

 

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This is a huge galaxy (2,000) star systems, on a 10×10 grid map.  As you can see, it’s a galaxy oval and not a rectangle as in the original Distant Worlds game.  

 

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While in galaxy view, hovering over a system will product a popup with key system information.

 

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In the Ship Construction screen, ships are represented as 3D models.  Different component types are color coded.  In this case, red is for weapons.  Hovering over one of the Long Range Cannons will give you a popup with the LRCs statistics.  It will also highlight on the areas of the ship it is located on.  As you can see, this LRC is on the bow, and has a firing arc of 180 degrees.

 

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The ability to set empire policy is still available, and still very detailed.  However, it is now easier to breakdown and view only the area your interested in.

 

 


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Editor-in-chief at Armchair Dragoons

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