I hate haveing to go past stars it's just a pain in the royal butt. More options for that could help.

In addition i've been asking for the longest on how to create my own custom civilization. I was able to in beta 2 but with the complications that were added to compress files i am no longer able to.

So the easiest thing to request is another civilization to play instead of tech it's getting boring.

Or you could atleast hint to us how to make the pirates selectable in single player.

I think he means the extreme gravity of stars.

Yep, exactly what I meant. Thanks

I like this idea quite a bit. Perhaps detailed empire info could be available when you over over the empire in the diplomacy screen. If they're your allies you would see all of their fleets, planets owned, incomes, etc. If they're your enemies, it would show what you currently have intel on (basically, compiling everything your scouts have visited, like it does now with a counter going on how long ago that was scouted).

good thinking, no reason why current intelligence collected by scouts and raiding parties shouldnt be compiled into a decent report or enemies too.

maybe apart from the items you mentioned, it could list minimum civilian and military tech level based on known research station. if you scout properly and regularly it could help keep track on what their fleet is theoretically capable of and possibly consisting of. tech level could also be infered from structures built, i.e. if a refinery is built then civ level is at least 5 and so on.

you could also start listing techs researched, based on observed ship characteristics, but that would get too complicated I would say. keep it fairly simple, an overview like a combination of the empire tree and the fleet cap composition and the bits of extra information.

I am aware this does dive a bit into espinage which was iirc not planed for the final release. but dont forget that a forgeign advisor is a typical tbs feature and very useful in a game of such proportions.

Some feedback gathered from my last several games, mentioned in pieces in other threads but I figure combining it into one post would be good.

Phase Jump Inhibitors:

Right now, the inhibitor stops preventing jumps into friendly territory as soon as the planet it's on is destroyed. I think it should be allowed to prevent jumps as long as the structure itself is still standing, since logically regardless of the state of the planet, the next jump in is a friendly system which is exactly what it's supposed to jam Plenty of this in Multi's 4-player FFA replay from Sunday morning.

Random maps and phase lanes:

Sunday evening's replay that Multi posted as well. I'm sure this is known and I imagine we're playing with a fairly limited selection of maps now, but still, the random generator really, really messes up phase lanes when it adds planets to a random map to accommodate more players. Our 9 player game had such weird phase lanes that my homeworld had a direct route from another part of the map, and there was quite a lot of very inconvenient criss crossing.

Larger maps that don't need to add planets should be fine, but there are no large maps with 1 star that 10 people can play, so the only option is to do random medium and open up the slots. I'm guessing that more maps will be added, but at the same time maybe something can be done to improve random generation, because other than the phase lanes, I had access to 4 terran planets all along 4 jumps in one direction..

I think in part that's the idea. Stars are meant to be more strategic points, not just another planet with a shinier texture. Since on a lot maps stars typically have access to the innards of empires, high gravity for them becomes more of a necessity, as it gives a player a chance to rally a defense before their homeworld is attacked, assuming they keep a close eye on the star (as everyone should).

I know what the idea is but it sucks lol, by the time i get out the gravity well i'm asleep. If technology was available in real life like that you probably wouldn't even go any where near the sun.

I just thought of a (semi) clever Lore reason for why ships need to be next to a star to jump to another star system. Perhaps Phase Drives need the extra Antimatter boost from being next to a star in order to have the power to jump all the way to a distant star.

Another technobabble reason could be that only stars provide a deep enough gravity well to be linked up by Phase Drives over those distances.

I think that was pretty much the reason decided on, once upon a time

Basically, to justify Phase Lanes, the fans came up with the idea that gravity wells of sufficient size could stress the fabric of local space between them, creating a "lane" where ships could travel using FTL drives. Stars, with their much larger gravity wells (their own, plus that of all orbiting planets) are the only objects capable of interstellar travel. Asteroids, asteroid belts, and the like, could be explained away as "remnant rifts" -- places where something else stressed the fabric of space to create the lanes. Some asteroids might have been a planet once, before getting blown up, or the plasma storms are actually an interference pattern where multiple lanes cross causing improbable and unpredictable shifts in physics.

I'd love the selling of resources

Which is why such things are hard. I'm going to guess that any such system would either have to be a really complex to handle increasing costs of given resources as you run lower on supplies, be annoying in that you have to indicate a given "minimum reserve"... that makes you miss out on deals you might have wanted, or (most likely IMO) be more like diplomatic trades: "I want 300 crystal, will pay 1000 credits"

crush the pathetic dissidents?