So to get the beta (after buying tokens) do I DL from TGN site? Stardock DL manager? or SOASE homepage? The DL manager thing has thrown me off a little bit as to who gives me what...


PS: thanks for all the help people! )

Make sure you check "Show pre-release versions" at the bottom, before you make too big a hole in your wall with your head

Most walls do! Just usually not with your head, but either a hefty sledgehammer, or someone else's head.

Hmm, it's been a while since I downloaded the thing, but first you need to register the beta serial code in SDC, and then if you have prerelease versions checked you'll be able to clicky the "install" or "download" (I forget what it's called) button when you click on Sins. It's also towards the bottom, I think.

Someone shoot me if I'm wrong

Oh and at this point the only way to get the beta serial code is to buy the game with the tokens. Normal preorders won't grant you access to the beta anymore, the deadline for that passed.

Yeah, it's emailed to you right away in the confirmation email.

It won't go out of its way to ask you, but there's a menu option to register a game code or somesuch

You can install SDC without preordering, so you can see how it looks

You can still get it with the TotalGaming tokens, just not by normal preorders, AFAIK.

standard progam folder. so, something like C:/programs/stardock/...
userfiles are somewhere else though, the FAQ thread says where. I think its Documents and Settings/Username/Application Data/Ironclad Games/ ...

no idea whether you can change it.

We need an in-game frame of reference -- so players can all rotate screens to the same direction, for example, and have north/south/east/west have meaning.

"Escort" controls are currently broken -- set flaks to follow a capitol, and have them set to hold position, and they'll wait untill something is in range, then "lock" themselves in place to attack it, even if the target, and the escortee, keeps moving out of range. If you set them to grav well, they don't even bother trying to stay with the unit they're supposed to be escorting. (Formations control will probably help with this, but situation exists...)

Pathfinding: If told to attack a mobile enemy unit, a vessel should calculate enemies trajectory to intercept, not just current positioning. I just had an enemy run in circles around the grav well -- I couldn't catch up without microing, which I'm not very good at.

Bomber swarms are overpowered -- 20 flaks, against 20 carriers, carriers still take out my capitol before I can do anything.

Trade ships need better hostile / friendly system calculation; as things stand they'll gladly go through "neutral" systems where the local militia will kill them, or "friendly" systems that are being demolished by enemies after having eliminated all friendly fleet presence.

Yea, it moves pretty smoothly now.

Yeah, it REALLY failed the stress test we gave it today.

inferface/ empire tree improvement idea:

I used to use the standard tree, but in larger games it gets too cluttered and since I cant find any particular order in there, I needed to scroll around and around which made the thing useless at some point.

I then switched to selection based view, with hotkeying my production planets and larger fleets. works pretty nicely, but for move orders I usually need to zoom around, which is sometimes a bit impractical.

the idea now is that in the standard view, you should be able to "sort" planets according to criteria. I don't mean filter aka display or don't but rank order planets to certain criteria, just like you would in excel tabels. one criterion could be planet type, so you have all terrans, then all desert, then all asteroids and so on. another criterion could be allegiance status, so you first have all your planets, then all your allies' then all your enemy's planets. I'm not sure if the present empire tree does it according to allegiance, I think only partially.

it could look something like this:

star
__terran
____terran 1
____terran 2
____terran 3
__desert
____desert 1
____desert 2
__asteroid (folded)
...

and the allegiance could be like

star
___yourself
_____planet 1
_____planet 2
_____...
____ally 1
_____planet 1
_____planet 2
_____planet 3
_____...
___ally 2 (folded)
___enemy 1
_____planet 1
_____planet 2
_____...
___enemy 2
_____...
___.... (more enemies)
___neutral
_____... nebulae, belts, not yet colonised, etc.

instead of those planet tag I wrote now you would of course have the proper name. as with the stars and planets, the individual categories are "foldable" with those arrows, so you have as little or as much as you want

the reason I give for the rework is that if you have such a strikt system you very quickly know where something is, and by for example having it via allegiance you can get a nice overview of your allies or enemies if you want it. we get a planet manager that makes it not soo pressing, but still, I think it goes a long way towards ordering units around and keeping an eye on things.

Also, Can anyone reccomend any stardock games that they really like. Heres some o my favorite games, I'm a stratagy geek....

C&C
HoM&M(5)
Civ4
Total War(mostly Rome)
Warlords(2)
AoE(2-3)-AoM
Galacti Civ(love it but Sins is slowly taking it's place already)

Oh and I tried EVE and hated it