General Pants

[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="627" id="3666999"] Hrm? I certainly don't consider the Zrenrakka a minor... shouldn't be any mention of them in my minor races, if that is what you meant? [/quote] Do you mean the Zrentak? I am confuzzled... Do they use a different name in the game?

[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="625" id="3666962"] Well based on my download rates, I think the audience that is active for GRM is about 250 to 300 people. Pretty sure I could have a lot more than that through Steam... but we need SD to support mods there, which I don't think they will do. [/quote] One option is to make "dummy" versions of some of the factions with whatever parts can be loaded up on Steam, and put in the comments that the 'real' versions are avail

[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="622" id="3666280"] as I may have to stop supporting GRM-A when it does depending on how the civ creator works. [/quote] It looks like a new skin on the same old .faction-type files (I'm sure they contain more now), so changing abilities should be do-able. Otherwise we won't ever be able to add more, and I think the people will want that eventually. I think everyone has at least one idea for an ability... If the new Civ Builder d

After looking at the new Civilization interface, I may try to do as many of these on Steam as I can. At least one (The Foresaken) will probably become a minor race. Unless they include a minor race interface, I feel those are more important than majors right now, since there won't be a good variety on steam (I want to reach maybe fifty, including Gauntlet's, the originals, the GCII minors, and my own. It gets old fast, coming up with reasons why a race is confined to one system.

Would it be possible to just add a check box, and if you check that box the civ is treated as a minor civ, and if you uncheck it, it is a major civ. That way, you could have a minor civ generator built in, and you could swap civs out from major to minor to boot! You would just have to prevent the majors from getting the special treats minors get, which would be a few error checks, I should think...

[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="16" id="3666834"] then give us like 20 more home systems of varying genericness (be nice to have an editor, [/quote] Maybe just allow us to pop in the .xml ourselves? That might be enough. I have home systems with special stars/ planets. Wouldn't be hard to just "drop in." Otherwise I'm going to want to put most of my factions on Nexus, where I can include all of the extras. </

I hope there will be some way to include custom home systems, preferably with custom star and planet files...

RE: racial traits, I can't wait to see how Carbon-based and Silicon-based work. Or synthetic and cybernetic. Should be interesting since you have to be one of the four... (well, carbon, silicon, or cybernetic). And, given the number of girlie-picture factions on Steam, maybe one of the options should be "Silicone..."

THE HARD WAY 1) Make a copy of the " Example Mod " folder in the Mod folder of your My Games Folder (where your Factions are). Rename this copy " Fixing Maps ," or whatever. 2) Copy this file: <sp

[quote who="erischild" reply="5" id="3666674"] I have "SenSurv" ships, basically a survey ship with lots of sensors, some range and engines. [/quote] Basically what I call a fleet scout. They can move with the fleet, but I usually end up stationing them in a pattern around my territory as a tripwire system. [quote who="erischild" reply="5" id="3666674"] couple of my very fast Transport ships to show up [/quote] Yup... fast transports!

[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="9" id="3666688"] Yeah. Something like that... and I replaced every one of them. [/quote] And for fun you can use Gauntlet's Mercs and the regular Mercs together. I've never felt like doing that, but I might someday. I can tell you who has better looking ships...

[quote who="charon2112" reply="25" id="3666643"] How is that mod? [/quote] I'd like to hear too... I have seen a lot of stuff for it, and it all looks great!

I just started a game with 98 factions on immense, using my own mod (too many asteroids, damnit!). So far, I'm expanding nicely.

[quote who="Larsenex" reply="15" id="3666612"] I am sure you can find the xml and simply mod how many you want per map. Done and Done. [/quote] IMHO you should mod the maps anyway. They do not transition smoothly in terms of features. For example, two maps have the same starting number of administrators. I changed these first thing...

[quote who="SilasOfBorg" reply="3" id="3666365"] First turn, progress is 0 so 5% of (2500-0) = 125 science is put towards the new colony. [/quote] I think my method only works, in theory and in practice, if this is a local phenomenon. LOCAL science must reach a certain level before positive science can come from the planet. Basically, you cannot import science. Or you can only import it very slowly. It is hard enough doing research on this planet... doing r

[quote who="Ascaloth" reply="8" id="3666381"] Kongo, Saratoga and Invincible respectively, after the WWII battlecruisers [/quote] WWI... by the time you get to WWII, two are carriers and one is a battleship. Sorry, anal-retentive! [quote who="Ascaloth" reply="8" id="3666381"] 'fuck it, whatever, I'll go along with it'. [/quote] I wholeheartedly agree. Just name them what you want, and don't sweat it. Enjoy the game and all that!

[quote who="GalCivius" reply="23" id="3666433"] Would it be an outrageous idea to make it much easier to swap hull sizes? [/quote] Proposed many times on many threads. There is a work-around, but it is time-consuming. I am hoping they will fix this in Crusade! [quote who="erischild" reply="21" id="3666431"] The Ship Designer can be very interesting if you let someone young coach you as you design. [/quote] I find looking at other people's wo

[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="18" id="3666403"] , I will disagree with many here, in that I think it is and should be, a low priority. [/quote] Yes, perhaps "the ship designer is the game" was a bit hyperbolic. And Stardock does need to focus on what will get the most buys. However, they WERE advertising the designer, so it seemed an appropriate time to reconsider some of the persistent problems in their well-advertised feature. I would be h

[quote who="Ascaloth" reply="6" id="3666356"] It's just that cruisers kind of... stop being a thing after the Ticonderoga-class. [/quote] Actually, the Ticonderoga is an anomaly, the classification 'cruiser' is retained primarily for tradition, and because the ship carries the group air defense commander. The Ticonderogas were built on destroyer hulls; the last large surface combatants produced were the Soviet Raketny Kreyser types, culminating in the Kirov cla

[quote who="SilasOfBorg" reply="1" id="3666323"] I'm thinking that the planet would track two numbers: total science cost and current progress. [/quote] Your implementation makes sense if resources are global, as they are said to be in Crusade. I would have said a colony just has to pay a science payment based on its: population: more people, more diseases and pandemics number of improvments: which need to be im

I just had an idea ...

I just had an idea ...

[quote who="SilasOfBorg" reply="36" id="3665835"] I think I'd just prefer both to require one. It's easier to grok conceptually, doesn't require any extra player interaction, takes time to set up (gotta actually build those starbases and modules), and can be shot down. I especially want that last bit. [/quote] It sounds a little like Crusade may be going the way I described, with 'people' who can be moved around t

Small scientific outposts aren't going to be able to contribute much to major civilization 'big science' efforts. Much of their time will be spent solving local problems, and doing basic local science. It will take a while to document the planet, and develop the local expertise to handle 'Big Science' projects. So established colonies will be more efective at research than new colonies. The best way to model this is by giving every planet a 'science cost,'

[quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="622" id="3666280"] a funny minor race primarily [/quote] Yes please! We need more minors desperately! If the majors get substantially better on Steam after Crusade, I think that will be where the modding may be needed! [quote who="Gauntlet03" reply="622" id="3666280"] I may have to stop supporting GRM-A when it does depending on how the civ creator works [/quote] I hope we won't lose modability in the process! I t