Left: Yes, the battle are quite stunning, but mostly in your imagination
There’s no magical movement of resources to a global pool. So that provides opportunities for space pirates to raid and loot freighters and bases as they travel around. Similarly, we like the idea of starting the game without faster than light travel and allowing the scope of play to gradually grow, so that exploring your original system feels like an accomplishment, then exploring the first system other than your own, then exploring beyond your section of the galaxy, etc.
WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN ABLE TO DO WITH DW2 VISUALLY THAT WASN’T POSSIBLE IN THE ORIGINAL GAME? EG: I was very interested in using procedural rendering to draw the galactic environment: the stars, planets and nebulae. Procedural rendering provides hyper-detailed drawing even when zoomed in close to an object. This allowed us to achieve our goal of vast scale while still having detailed visuals (non-pixelated). ER: Also, as the original game was 32-bit and 2D, the new 64-bit 3D engine allows us to do many things we never could have in the original just by virtue of moving to 3D and having the ability to properly use the GPU and modern CPUs. Just about everything from the user interface to the galaxy map and the individual stars and planets to the ships and stations benefited from this change. Pretty much everything is done differently from how it was in the original.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN THE USE OF PROCEDURAL RENDERING AND ITS BENEFITS? EG: Procedural rendering means using fractal ‘noise’ to render natural-looking objects entirely in code. So we have shaders that render stars, others that render various types of planets. The benefits are that you have infinite variety in your environment – no two planets are the same. As mentioned above, you also get very high detail at any view level. And it uses much less memory, because there are no textures required. And of course, you save on your art budget (though maybe you spend that on your rendering code budget!)
Below: Procedural techniques have been used to ensure that all the planets are distinct.
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