Alright, the first article was so well received I thought we'd jump right into the second with a look at Research.  So here you go - the research screen!

As you can see, there are 17 areas currently in my research window, with progress bars showing how close I am to a new breakthrough. I've already discussed this in other threads and on other forums, but you don't get direct control over your research, at least not in the same way as Galactic Civilizations 2 or Master of Orion 2. Rather, you can set overall directives in three major ways:

1. You can build more Space Ports to increase the overall progress of research. As you can see at the top, by Zeust 5 Space Port is generating 24K research points in all 4 of the disciplines - Energy, High Tech, Industrial, and Weapons. Over to the side in the "Area" list - you can see which areas depend upon which discipline - beam weapons, area weapons, and armor all fall under the Weapons discipline, while shields, engines, hyper drives [Note: Engines move you about star systems, and hyper drives move you from star system to star system - so two types of propulsion - thus you can have super speedy solar fleets with poor star to star capabilities, depending on the levels of your research], reactors, and energy collectors are all under the energy field. Space Ports are "Jack of all Trades" research bases - giving smaller boosts across the board.

2. Build specialized research bases for certain disciplines. You can use your constructor ships (see above) to build research bases on uninhabited planets, around stars, and in other various places throughout the galaxy. These will only provide research points in one type of field, but they will grant far more than the Space Port in those fields (remember, the Space Port is also an economic and construction hub, so its focus is spread to other aspects than research - of course the flipside is true too, you CAN build research stations at inhabited planets, but they won't fulfill the construction and economic services needed by that planet). So building specialized bases will allow you to set research priorities on a macro level. Need new weapons pronto? Build a few weapons research bases in key locations (particularly at "special" places - like Neutron Stars - where you get a research bonus. Of course, if you don't like research bases that only have one specialty, feel free to design your own bases with two types of research labs, or even three - you'll just have to make sure you can build them and support them. Heck, you can even build specialized Space Ports - that have all the economic and infrastructure support of a regular Space Port, but that have only one or two types of labs. It's all up to you!

   
   

Most everything can be done by a right-click within the proper context. In this picture I have selected the planet (my homeworld) and I have right clicked to bring up the different types of stations I can build - including the research stations and defense platforms). Some of these can be built as orbital stations around the planet.

3. For a cost of money you can "prioritize" certain components using the little "lightning bolt" button besides the component. It isn't like Europa Universalis, where you can keep funneling money to increase the bar, rather it is a one time "get 'er done" button that tells your scientists to work faster by subsidizing their research.
   

4. There is a fourth way to tailor your research, by trading and buying research components from your unwitting rivals. Just remember, by doing that you give them access to your hard work or to your hard earned tax and tourism money.

   
   

Remember how I said that the Galactopedia was often just a click away? Well those underlined component names also act as hyperlinks to the Galactopedia to give you some information on the components you are researching. Here is an example of the beam weapon (note: this comes up as a smaller window on your screen, but I cropped it to give you better detail):

The arrows to the left and right show you what you have already researched and what you can look forward to in the future, past this component. Research is not done blindly, which is a good thing given the scope of this game. You really want to know where you are going so you can plan out your overall strategy - you'll think big picture first, then go back and line up your actions to make that picture real (or salvage a the ruins of your plans when pirates, space slugs, or aliens send flaming laser death at you).

Note the detail given to the weapon - damage, range, firing speed, energy use - and then under that box you see the resources needed to create the weapon. So it isn't always a clear case of "new component is always better than the previous component." You have to have the resources needed to build these components (your Space Ports manufacture them to put inside your ships), you might be able to fit more of an older weapon on a ship, or perhaps your reactor technology is not high enough to fully power a battery of the new weapons. Some of the more "grog" fans out there will literally salivate at the options here - there is a marked similarity in designing a ship in Distant Worlds to designing, say, a Battleship in a WWII naval game - you have to think about hull weight, speed, armor, power use, range, damage, fuel, crew support (life support, bridges, and living space) - it is a pretty deep system. If you want to fill a smaller ship with lighter, lower tech guns, fit it with super speedy in-galaxy engines, and armor it lightly to make a quick and up close raider - you can do it. Want to make an even lighter, fast, small, lower armored, but chock full of torpedo weapons space "PT Boat" - yup, space anchors away!

I'm going to take a moment to give a little "musing" about the game and how it's a little different and why this will appeal to some fans, and perhaps bring some new fans to the 4X space fold. I said this before, in a forum post somewhere, but Distant Worlds is a 4X space game that <feels> like it belongs with Matrix Games. Bear with me on that somewhat obtuse statement. What I mean is, there are some strategic choices, some opportunities for long range planning, and some of the underlying game design that remind me of some of Matrix's simulations of real world warfare. For example, the emphasis on logistics planning (i.e. fuel and refueling bases), the macro-level strategy, the ability to fully design ships/space ports/space stations/passenger liners/defense platforms/etc., the depth of the ship design process (i.e. hull weight, energy use, ship speed, etc.) really remind me of some of the design choices of games like Matrix's flagship (pun intended) - War in the Pacific - or like NWS's Supremacy at Sea (particularly the ship design feature). Now, before you non-grogs all go "AAAAGH! I'll never be able to play a game that deep!" - don't worry, neither can I, but I can play Distant Worlds just fine! Part of this comes from the helper AI, which allows you to automate nearly any aspect of play. In the beginning, you might want to keep a lot of automation on, to help you learn how to play the game. As you learn to play, you can slowly (and on the fly, btw) turn the automation off, or do what I do, turn it on to advisers that "suggest" different actions you might take. This works very well, and takes some of the pressure off of the new player, significantly reducing the learning curve of what would be a pretty steep curved game.

Here is a picture of the options menu, which shows you what can be automated. Note that I have most everything on "Suggest":

The advisers are really pretty neat. They suggest different colonies to look into, they will ask if you want to form a certain fleet to send against an enemy, they will offer new ship designs and propose new espionage missions. Here is a brief example of what a suggestion from the advisers ‘looks like - particularly telling me we need to expand the size of our fleet:

The automation level is really a huge boon, and I haven't yet shown you the sheer size of the galaxy. Remember, I picked the "standard" 700 star galaxy. 700 stars may sound like a small number (well, it sounds like less than 1000) - but let me show you how this looks in-game.

You will notice that my map isn't even fully zoomed out and there are several stars behind the upper and lower limits of the screen here! Every little dot can be explored. Every little dot can contain aliens, special sites, numerous planets, asteroids, moons, independent races, space monsters, pirates and pirate bases... it just keeps going. Some people were perhaps disappointed that you couldn't zoom to your planet and build structures on your colonies - not me! With the sheer NUMBER of stuff to go out and explore, it just wouldn't be feasible (well, if you intended to play any more than just one scenario within a year). The game is rather involved, and it provides you with hours and hours of play for each scenario you make as is - the addition of planetary developments would be overkill, IMHO.

Some people might say - "well, sure, the galaxy is big, but doesn't that mean it will just be generic star after generic star?" I would respond, "Heck no!" Galaxy size hasn't at least in past games, had much to do with how generic the systems are - there are games with 20-50 star systems that have very generic stars. But, specific to Distant Worlds - these stars have life! You never know when you are going to run into some neat piece of galactic history. Special sites and special locations (like particularly beautiful views that make great places for Resort bases, or scientifically notable spots that give research bonuses - as I mentioned above). Aliens are be literally teeming in the universe (depending on how you set your start up conditions) and you can expect to find independent worlds as well as other empires frequently. Further, the computer controlled civilian ships add a real feeling of life to the game, once your exploration ship find new locations, and your construction ships begin to build bases, the civilians will begin to flood to these spots all on their own. Additionally, planets, moons, gas giants, and other bodies all have different types of resources on them - so you never know when you are going to find a rare and highly demanded luxury good hidden at some remote star. If you like games based on exploration and mystery - Distant Worlds contains both to a high degree!

So, to end my musing, I'm not going to go so far as to claim that rabid fans of War in the Pacific will suddenly trade their bomber jackets for space suits, but I do think that some of the aspects of Distant Worlds will appeal to the hardcore crowd, but will be easily accessible to the more casual 4X gamer.

I'm going to wrap up this introductory pictorial with a few closer pictures of some mining operations, a pirate attack, and my fleet responding to the attack. I know this pictorial didn't answer every question out there, and it really wasn't meant to, but I hope that some of the stuff I said gives you a better idea of the options available when playing the game and the how the general design of the game translated into a unique player experience.

One way you can handle the large amount of stars and the ever growing number of ships and fleets is through the use of missions (which can be queued up). For example, you can direct your exploration ships to go to certain stars, fully explore certain system, or to just stop by to see the number and type of the planets. The missions are very neat, allowing you to give a broad directive but freeing you from having to manually tell the ship to go to each planet in the system to scan what resources each planet holds. When you are juggling other things, that sort of automation is a real boon. Missions can be given the different types of ships - for instance, military ships and fleets can be told to escort key economic ships, patrol certain areas, or destroy any enemies found in the given location.

An example of telling an exploration ship to queue up a new mission:

The galaxy is obviously hostile at times. Pirates, in particular, will prey upon your mining stations, your passenger liners, and your freighters. You can lessen some of these raids by paying pirate "protection money," but like the Mafia, this only gets more exorbitant as time goes on and the more you submit to their demands. In my opinion, the best thing you can pay a pirate is a explosive laser blast and the cold vacuum of space!

A single, and relatively weak, pirate attacks my gas mining facility on one of the gas giants in my starting systems:

In these pictures a pirate comes to attack a mining station on a volcanic planet. The resources mined by this station are key to my building projects, so I rapidly deploy a fleet to go and protect this station.

The pirate has no chance against such odds. Here I have a closer picture of my ships pelting the pirate with lasers! Make sure to notice that the pirate is nearly destroyed (he exploded in a satisfying ball of fire as the oxygen and fuel within his hull ignited in open space before the void extinguished it).

Well, it has always been my view that one should end on a picture of pirates being torn apart by laser beams. I hope you have enjoyed my brief pictorial, and that you are as excited as I am about the upcoming release of Distant Worlds! Thanks for reading!