Scott's GAME MECHANICS for Distant Worlds 2: Episode 1: Shields, Armor, and Hull Damage

[@ClanHawkins]

Dude. It’s been 2 years since I’ve recorded this game on my channel and I’m wanting to play again! So of course here I am needing hours watching your details again to relearn to be a space captain again! Thanks for the schooling!

[@arumba]

Wanted mention that you *can* find the hull reactive rating in the design screen when hovering over the armor value in the defenses section of the ship details. I'm not sure why certain pieces of vital information are hidden inside tooltips, but in this case it can save you the time of checking a for the value on the new design page.

[@scottsspace5562]

Someone else pointed that out too. Thank you!

[@williamklett6660]

Repost: "You might also want to reference a system I consider critical. The 'Shield Boosters' the first adds 40 to the shield strength, but more importantly, it adds 2 to resistance. And that is all of t3(4?)" Edit: The final Quantum Capacitor adds 100 to the shields, and 6 to the Resistance, and it seems to allow more than one but I have not verified that they stack yet as with my DD's they resist 11,and regen 16/second so most damage doesn't even register

[@scottsspace5562]

Great point. So I'm going to do a Components/research video so I will definitely talk about that. Thanks for the tip!

[@3DiversionsDeep]

Thank you! I always considered the boosters to be useless because I didn't notice the resistance boost.

[@williamklett6660]

@@3DiversionsDeep Yes, when the top of the line normal shield has resistance 5, and the top booster adds +6, it is very relevant. LOL The resistance doesn't stack with multiple boosters, but the shield strength and regen rates stack fully. Seeing 'Shield Regen +32.33 per second is nothing to sneeze at....

[@shawnp6653]

Great stuff! I like the short format - still have to watch multiple times though! Thanks Scott.

[@patrickhall6253]

Great vid so far! I hope Ion weapons get a video next! Keep it up!

[@marshalldavout7541]

Great explanation. Video length was perfect to completely explain the concepts. Recommended watching for all players.

[@scottsspace5562]

Glad you liked it

[@Alex-tc4se]

Such a good video, very thorough and professional. After all the math is pulled out of the game by the community, a mod to the galactopedia to better explain all the mechanics would be great.

[@scottsspace5562]

Much appreciated!

[@unclemestor]

This is a very clear presentation of difficult (to grasp from the UI) data. Thank you for this and the effort that goes into the visualizations of the math.

[@scottsspace5562]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Munkeh102]

Looking forward to watching this series, thanks for the great content.

[@scottsspace5562]

Glad you enjoyed it! More to come!

[@kalbarnes2494]

Great video Scott! Thanks for making these and hope you keep them coming. One thing I would like to point out is that when designing a ship you can see your hull reactive rating my scrolling down the right hand portion of ship stats until you reach the defensive section. Where it shows shields and armor amounts, resistance/reactive rating. The hull points and reactive rating is lumped into the armor section if you hold the cursor over the armor bar. Not sure if that will work when looking at ship designs of other factions however.

[@scottsspace5562]

Great find! I've never tried to hover over that graphic!!! Thanks for sharing with everyone!

[@fred9za]

thank you for the time taken to make both this awesome guide and the vids

[@scottsspace5562]

Glad you like them!

[@maddog5458]

Slitherine and Code Force should hire Scott to explain their game. No better explanations out there. Two Questions: 1. I have Scott's manual 2.4 version and I don't see the first or second chart so I assume that it is coming with a manual update. 2. This has to be a stupid question but the word "sec" that I see following a number like 1.2/. Is this a game measurement that depicts real time at the normal speed of the game for something like for example in-game weapon travel time? I've never seen a notation like that in my other games. Thanks again Scott. Really great job.

[@scottsspace5562]

Thanks for the kind words! 1) Just uploaded V2.5. Check it out. 2) It's roughly normal time (Seconds) at normal speed - but it's not perfect. It's best used ONLY in comparison to other weapons.

[@maddog5458]

@@scottsspace5562 Thanks Scott. I already downloaded the new updated manual. And thanks for the explanation on "secs." That really had me confused since I've never seen anything like that. Look forward to all your work. David

[@williamklett6660]

​@@scottsspace5562 "1) Just uploaded V2.5. Check it out." Great Scott! :) Dashing over to DL BTW, you might want to link the guide in your video's description. Edit: You might see about getting the guide pinned on the Official Discord as Matrix did on their forums

[@GeekyGizmo007]

I would love if you go into what Stealth does as well as countermeasures/targetting.

[@scottsspace5562]

I will cover stealth in Episode 2 which is scanners/sensors. If you go to my combat video you'll see I talk about countermeasures and targeting

[@GeekyGizmo007]

@@scottsspace5562 awesome. I play espionage/stealth/covert heavy in all 4xes so I'm really interested in understanding the deep ins and outs of stealth. I play as the xenox and beeline straight for stealth tech then once I re-design all my ships to use stealth and trace jammers(if it can fit). I imagine to the NPCs most or all of my ships look like "independent" ships but not sure how that makes them act. I don't really get what it does for me right now. Can I attack/raid/invade without giving away who is doing it? If so that would be *awesome* and I can make a society of psuedo-pirates. Looking forward to the vids good work!

[@AotrsCommander]

Very slick, very helpful. I will be looking at the guide shortly (after I've watched a video or two more).

[@gaven9763]

Video was awesome and super well explained. Thank you!

[@petermaier3832]

....great content!

[@redkraken23]

Super helpful in clearing the ??? around all the numbers there!

[@archimaede]

Nice video Scott. I'd like to point out that the title screen says "Distance Worlds 2" :D

[@scottsspace5562]

I know. I was rushing out the door today and only saw it after I posted it. Lol.

[@ruxxolegend]

Love thisssss

[@autehin]

Tnx, it's a great explaining

[@scottsspace5562]

Glad it was helpful!

[@themacker894]

Please do a game mechanics video on fleet movement and engagement setings. There's a good thread on Steam about this. Thanks!

[@scottsspace5562]

On the list.

[@craphat1873]

Wow. Just found your content. Absolutely explains everything in an easy to understand format. Cheers bud, most grateful.

[@Rustygiz]

This is great help, ty

[@alphadash8861]

torps loosing damage with range while missiles don't seems strange - does anyone know why?

[@chadstacy]

i guess, flavor-wise, missiles just go until they run out of fuel and their energy is in their payload, where torpedos are energy-based weapons so they continuously lose energy as they travel

[@williamklett6660]

The concept has been around since Star Trek: TOS, Romulan plasma torpedoes lost cohesion and began to dispere with range. Logic or Physics be damned, Kirk did it that way LOL

[@renyaoqin]

Nova missile is another great weapon for testing, be sure to test against enemy with bad fire arc(Mortalen) so PD wouldn’t ruin the result.

[@renyaoqin]

Medical module also provide a decent DR which push it to 60%+ DR in total, it’s justifiable on larger ships

[@jannefock9337]

@@renyaoqin I calculated from the last techs that you can reach 70% DR with Medical Center(+10%), Command Module(+10%), Damage Control(+45%) and Crew quaters(+5%). I dont know if there are hidden techs that can increase this even more

[@williamklett6660]

@@jannefock9337 I haven't tracked all of them down, but my ships are at 52% DR without Medical, or an Admiral in that fleet

[@Xerxesjc28]

Can someone explain why are energy collectors needed, if your ships have reactors? Is it to provide power to the ship if you run out of fuel?

[@jannefock9337]

All components have passive and active power draw. The ship designer advises you to have more energy collection than passive power draw, so the ship doesnt burn fuel while idle. During warp and some other moments energy collectors dont work so all power is coming from reactors

[@Xerxesjc28]

@@jannefock9337 So you should try to place enough energy collectors to cover all passive power for a ship when idle? I guess this could explain why my ships keep running out of fuel, I sometimes take out energy collectors and leave only one. Thanks for the input !

[@MrJnice1983]

Amazing. Thanks

[@badwolf66]

I could never get to grips with the first game.

[@teambellavsteamalice]

These mechanics seem to favour bigger ships, assuming resources spend and maintenance cost is comparable. You agree? How many frigates vs how many destroyers are comparable (well build mid game ships). Higher damage per shot beats more shots if dps is similar. And nice to collect all the bonuses you can get from all these modules. Finally when soaking damage smaller ships will be knocked out or even destroyed sooner if damage is spread unevenly. Are there certain roles (killing fighters and PD?) that smaller ships are better in or give synergy when mixed? Maybe they can be made faster? (cautious long range missile ships?) Do bigger ships have weaknesses? A higher base hit chance iirc. Maybe lucky ion shots are nastier? Are cruisers something to rush towards early?

[@scottsspace5562]

Really big ships have penalties to countermeasures. See my new chart in the V2.5 of my guide.

[@williamklett6660]

@@scottsspace5562 Penalties to countermeasures, but increased shield regen and longer ranges make up for a lot of it. Also when a Destroyer runs around with 2156 points of non-leaky shields (Zenox Racials) that have 11 resistance, and armor with 15 reactive, two large weapons (Quantum Shard & Titan Blaster)... who needs that Cruiser... That thing one shots creatures and can solo most Pirate bases... /shudder A dozen of them did for the Hive Biggie

[@teambellavsteamalice]

@@williamklett6660 Wow, cool! Will such a ship be insanely expensive (resources and maintenance)? And how long to research those things?

[@williamklett6660]

@@teambellavsteamalice This NOT a cheap or early ship. Several techs are at or near the Cap, only 'Super' techs are better. 34K to build, 1.2K to maintain. I'll link pictures in the post below YT seems to be deleting posts with links. This is not the best version of this. The Zenox have a distinct lack of weapon hardpoints. But briefly: Strength 11,386 DPS 34.1 Range 5000. Shields 4440 Armor 360 Several techs have upgraded since I first mentioned it. Shields are at the Zenox tech maximum, with v3 Quantum Capacitors. Armor has 1 tech upgrade, Engines and Maneuver and such have a ways to go. Both weapons have the final upgrades left. BUT is there a need, LOL Currently designing the Fleet Cruiser version, Dreadnought techs will take a bit still, but I shudder at basically quadruple everything...

[@williamklett6660]

@@teambellavsteamalice Sorry YT deleted my post. If you have access to the Official DW2 Discord, the images are there in the Screens_video thread. I can link them directly if you have a safe email or chat link.

[@jchapon]

Excellent video, thanks Scott. Question - Hull "health" is given as a percentile, but do different hulls have different hit points? If not, is there any other factor that defines how many hits a hull can take other than the hull reactive rating?

[@scottsspace5562]

Good question - I'm 95% sure "hull size" is the damage it takes (if you go to the design screen, on the right panel, scroll down to "Defenses" - you'll see hull size listed there. I'm sure that is the damage it takes.

[@hotel_india]

I had an ion nebula and basically required to have all ships be given the EMP resistance armor. Is there some way to automate this?

[@scottsspace5562]

Not that I know of.

[@williamklett6660]

Eventually the Auto-designed civilian ships will add an Ion Shield, but never Ion Armor. For some reason Passenger ships you need to add it manually. State ships on auto will rarely add optional systems. Ion Shields, Quantum capacitors, etc, but once you add them manually even if you leave the design on auto it seems to maintain updating the optional systems

[@philoponusvienna]

Does Damage Repair also repair slowly a disabled ship?

[@williamklett6660]

Robotic Repair has a chance to restore a destroyed system, Simple Damage Control doesn't list that ability

[@scottsspace5562]

@@williamklett6660 Great question and answer. I thought they all do - but good find on the Galactopedia. This calls for some testing!

[@williamklett6660]

@@scottsspace5562 It might be hard as you'll need to be sure a system, and not the damage control, is destroyed and not simply damaged.

[@jannefock9337]

@@williamklett6660 You can see which components are damaged or broken by clicking on the ship and clicking on the type name(Cruiser v3 for example)

[@DorinBucata]

Do the PD apply dmg only to what is fired at the ship which has the PD or to whatever is fired (rockets/missiles/fighters etc.)?

[@scottsspace5562]

It can hit weapons fired at the defending ship, it can hit the thing (e.g. a fighter) that fired the weapon. It can even hit big ships if there are no weapons or fighters to fire at (albeit at a penalty)

[@DorinBucata]

@@scottsspace5562 Thank you for replying. So it only hits weapons fired at the defending ship but not weapons fired at another ship? For example, lets say I have a destroyer set as the attacking ship without any PD on it and two frigates set as a close guard with PD-es on them. If an enemy ship attacks the destroyer with rockets, lets say, will the PD from the frigates try to destroy those rockets?

[@williamklett6660]

@@DorinBucata Correct. i have never seen a ship firing PD at passing weapons, just fighters or ships. One interesting thing I have witnessed with Torpedoes, but not with Missiles, is misses curling around to attack again. PD seems to be ignoring these second passes. Not 100% on this as the conditions for it are too difficult to track without a lot more data than I have.

[@adamofblastworks1517]

How much of this is still accurate today?

[@strangerstranger8360]

As far as I know, it is still accurate. Just the components in the videos have been changed (up/down).

[@Ragatokk]

Low bypass seems kind of bad, for the shield resistance double dips. So seems like you either want high or none.

[@ilejovcevski79]

Did you mean hull reduced by 5% or 5 points? You seem to have used points most of the time, but at the end you mentioned percent? EDIT: sorry, i just noticed the errata in the description, it was points after all.

[@williamklett6660]

Hmm, my comment was deleted? :(

[@scottsspace5562]

😞Not by me (unless I did it by accident - I was using a new app for managing YT channel on my phone this afternoon). No - your excellent comments are always welcome on my channel! Please repost again if you don't mind. Humble apologies if I did it by accident somehow!

[@williamklett6660]

@@scottsspace5562 Turns out YT isn't allowing posts with links to non-YT sites. I was point to the Matrix forums and your guide