distant worlds new player question about scale in game

[Eater of Galaxys (OP)]

hello.
im new in this game (so please be patient and please dont take all what i say serious i really dont know too much about this game and i really want to learn how to make my way around in the game, and why not in the forums too).
i would like to ask the scale of this game i know nobody likes comparasion but there is this game call distant worlds.   
hxxp: www. matrixgames. com/products/379/details/Distant. Worlds
the scale is so huge that is mindblowing you are in a galaxy with more than 1400 star systems and 50,000 planets, moons and asteroids and you can play against 35 enemies at the same time with a mod call distant worlds extended and every race is so diferrent  that is just make the game even more rich and great and make the game so epic
so my question:
is this is this game more deep than that im talking about not only to fight and conquer 1 galaxy but multiple galaxys and how many enemies can you fight at the same time?
one question that came just now can i change the picture of the races i mean the image of a panda and animals kind of like i dont like.
thank for the answers. 

[Theodidactus]

Frankly it's a bit apples to oranges. It would be a bit like logging onto a dungeons and dragons forum and asking whether their game is "deeper" than skyrim. Aurora is, like D&D, a simulator used to rigorously flesh out a story in your head that you make up (usually). Distant worlds is a simulator for a story someone else has made up.

no, aurora does not simulate other galaxies. Usually, you don't want to fight more than 4-6 enemies at a time because the game will go quite slow. It can quite easily simulate more than 1400 systems, depending on the power of the PC you've got.

however, it has a depth of field in some areas that distant world does not. For instance, I can tell you the name, history, and skillset of every commander on every one of my ships, and the same thing about the research scientists that designed them. My enemy also has ships crewed by unique officers, so on, so forth. My biggest complaint with distant worlds was that, like Galactic Civilizations, the "Tech tree" was ponderous and very limited. Aurora's tech tree is infinite and you can design your own stuff endlessly.

Most importantly, there is no self-imposed story in aurora, and I think that's the reason why we play it. In Distant worlds there's this Shakturi race and all this lore around them yada yada yada...aurora randomly generates EVERYTHING such that you impose your own story on it.

[ShadowLop]

In terms of scale, I'd say Aurora has much greater potential.
Aurora could run a hundred thousand star systems, each with hundreds of planets and thousands of objects. Star systems including binary, trinary, dual-binary and everything else. Hundreds of races, duking it out on multiple fronts with tens of thousands of ships leaving billions dead in their wake.

Of course, you'd need to run it on some kind of demon supercomputer, but the potential is there.

Or you could make almost any scenario you can think of by mixing and setting up forces. Want a shootout between a heavy raider squad and a multi-million tonne mothership? Sure! SM them in and let 'em rip...or build them up yourself in-game.

What Theo said is also true. With the amount of data tracked about individuals and individual ships, coupled with the fact that there is no pre-set storyline, means that you could pull thousands of stories out of a single game. You could follow a ship and her captain all the way from her birth and first steps out into the stars, through a harrowing tale of action and adventure in distant systems amongst friendly (and not-so-friendly) races, until their final demise in flaming glory years later... or her quiet retirement and dissassembly after many years of faithful service, watched over until her last breath by her captain, who sheds a tear before moving on to his next command. (Some Role-play required)

Technology is also the most extensive, intricate, detailed tech tree I have ever seen in any sci-fi game, bar none.
Ship design is also the most free I've ever seen: No pre-determined designs or class sizes in THIS game! You want a hundred lasers on that warship? As long as you pay the price, you can have it!

Want to fight every enemy race in the game at once? Just like in real life, you can! and just like in real life, unless you're bigger than all of them combined, you'll lose!

Diplomacy is a little lacking though... but I haven't seen a really deep diplomacy system since MOO2...

As for the pandas:
Races folder in your game folder has all race portraits. Game picks a random one. Get rid of the ones you won't like, add in ones you feel lacking.

[MarcAFK]

As for the pandas:
Races folder in your game folder has all race portraits. Game picks a random one. Get rid of the ones you won't like, add in ones you feel lacking.

I've been thinking of adding them back into my race folder, something about 'space pandas' just seems awesome
Edit; I suggest using treebiter's race pack http://www.pentarch.org/eluken/TreebitersRacePack.rar
Just replace the contents of the race folder with it, if you want you can add back in pictures you liked from the old one, just name them similar to the old ones but with a higher number.

[Theodidactus]

the game didn't get fun for me until i got treebiter's race pack.

[SteelChicken]

Realistically, due to performance, Aurora doesn't scale well.  However, if you enjoy the details it provides, its a lot of fun.

[Jorgen_CAB]

If Aurora were ever updated to a new programming language and multi-threaded it would be the absolutely best 4x game by a mile (in my opinion). Now it is just simply the best out there despite some of it's flaws.

In a more serious note Aurora is more of a role-play game where you make up your own story as you go along. You perhaps even play several sides against each other as part of that story and write about it on the forum or just have fun with it.

Aurora is vastly different from almost all other 4x games on the market since Aurora are more dynamic and free. The detail put into the different systems is just plain awesome in most respect and the creator Steve always seems updating and expanding on the game.

The main areas that lack are as mentioned above in Diplomacy with the AI. Something I hope Steve will improve in the future. I can also feel there are some trouble with the snowball effect in some game mechanics, but far from all. Most other 4x games that I know of (Distant World included) are just plain linear from start to finish, more or less.

Distant worlds is a reasonably fun game. Although ship combat became a little lopsided where there were no real use for smaller hull types over larger and larger ships and that detracted from my experience of that game. The economic/trading model in Distant worlds is pretty fun and engaging.

[rawghi]

Aurora has a step learning curve but after you master it there is absolutely no other space 4x that can compete.

Every Aurora gamer is doomed to it, because it's difficult to switch from one of the deepest 4x game to any other title...

[Arwyn]

I would have to agree with Rawghi, once you have the basics down, the game expands dramatically. Once you learn how to be creative with the design systems, NOTHING else out there compares.

I have Distant Worlds, and wasnt sold on it. I have owned just about every 4x game made. Some of them have been decent, some not so much. Aurora really isnt in the same format.

The turning point for me was a game where I was getting clobbered by a higher tech NPR. Came up with a pretty nasty mine, and new minelayer design. Stopped them cold at the warp points. Then came up with a Thermal Seeking missile design, a stealthy destroyer design with box launchers, and built a quick squadron of them. Snuck into one of the NPR systems, launched a massive salvo of missiles at a waypoint right on top of where the NPR ships were holding position over a world, and BOOM. Pearl Harbor in space!

No other game comes close to letting you do things like that. 

[Icecoon]

I agree. Aurora is the deepest 4x game ever designed. The second deepest 4x game after aurora I played is Space Empires V, it is only half that complex though.

[Noble713]

If Aurora were ever updated to a new programming language and multi-threaded it would be the absolutely best 4x game by a mile (in my opinion).  Now it is just simply the best out there despite some of it's flaws.

This is why I'm highly interested in Pulsar 4X, the open-source port of Aurora.  I'd even contribute to the development (despite my mediocre programming skills) if necessary.  Waiting 2 minutes to process a 5-second combat phase in Aurora drives me nuts.

I love Distant Worlds, but pretty much stopped playing it when I discovered Aurora, largely because I find the tech tree lacking.  The final DW expansion, Distant Worlds Universe, slated for release soon, should partially rectify this by allowing tech and component modding.