I know we're not there, but now I think would be a good time to start collecting ideas for the kind of Random Events we saw in GC2, because it's likely that some of them might require a non-trivial amount of work to implement. And, of course, this is one of the areas where having a Modding interface would be *really* nice. I'll start off with two suggestions: 1). Xenomorphs. Or, at least the idea of Xenomorphs. 
It's worth noting that in pretty much all media (TV, Film, Literature) in the SciFi genre, resource mining is done on either asteroids or low-gravity planetoids. Only in the SciFi/Fantasy genre (Star Wars, I'm looking at you here), do you see planet-based mining, and there it's almost always just fluff (i.e. cool setting to do something in, completely extraneous to the plot, etc.). Heck, the one big SciFi story that's actually pretty much ALL about mining (Battlefield Earth!)
I'd also say the graphics card is likely a bit underpowered by today's standards. I know that StarDock has said that any DX10.1 card will be playable, but the 560M is equivalent to the GeForce GT 450, which is a mid-range card THREE GENERATIONS back. I suspect you'll do better playing at a size below Full 1080p HD. Try 1680x1050 or the like.
From a "realistic" standpoint, harvesting resources from an asteroid in Zero G is vastly preferable to mining on a planet's surface, then having to blast the product back out of a gravity well. So much so, that the only reason to mine a planet after you've perfected asteroid mining is if you're after some incredibly rare element that isn't found in asteroids in any reasonable quantity - basically, the noble gases and several of the more highly-radioactiv
I just remembered something that was annoying in GC2, and tried it out in the GC3 Shipyard. Under GC2, there were two "misfeatures": 1) I created a ship as Race A and named it "Foo1". If, while playing as another Race B, I created a different ship, but named it the same thing (i.e. "Foo1"), GC2 would complain about duplicate names and overwrite Race A's ship if I wanted to save the design as the same name. This was a MAJOR inconvenience, because one tended to w
1) what do you mean? There's an auto-setting for the miners to go find new resource sources and start developing them, and mines automatically ship resources to the nearest friendly planet. What exactly are you looking for here? 2) Yup. Coming Real Soon Now. [e digicons]>_>[/e] 3) You're talking about Hypergates. Yeah, there's been some talk, but no commitment from StarDock so far. It's come up a number of times, but the level of enthusiasm seems m
Somebody's had a slow Friday. [e digicons];P[/e]
Only if the Difficulty level is HARDER than the one you're playing at. And, if the AI says something like "I just took a level in BadAss. Prepare to have your's handed to you!" [e digicons]B)[/e]
To be honest, this is best. I was seriously wondering how Stardock was going to have something "Playable" in a week. The current game isn't a game yet. I'd like to think that it doesn't go beta until it's about 90% feature complete. Not that the features can't be changed, but I think the Beta folks will be much happier with a game that has virtually all aspects of the "final" game already in place, even if there's significant tweaking to be done ye
There's a nice little heuristic that could be coded in for automatic placement: 1). Colony is not to be placed on a bonus tile (pretty sure the AI can be instructed to leave at least one tile as open during planet generation) 2.) do a quick scan of all non-bonus tiles, assembling the "worth" of each tile. Each tile has the following "worth index": A] +2 for every tile adjacent to the tile being assessed
Well, I don't know about you, but if I'm doing my job correctly, all my opponents will be significantly weaker than me by 2/3rds of the way through the game. [e digicons]}:)[/e]
And, frankly, I never saw the point of arming traders. It's hugely costly to do so (a decent attack/defense armament can triple or more the cost of the freighter). It's far cheaper to just build a bunch of extra traders, and send them out to destination worlds. When they get there, and you've already used all your Trade Routes, they can just sit. When another trader dies (often, due to the world changing hands, not "enemy action"), you've got routes all ready
[quote who="Cronocke" reply="19" id="3466652"] I have never understood the comparisons between the game "rock paper scissors" and the attack and defense types in these games. Have I been playing the wrong version of GC2? Or worse, is there a version of RPS where you use both hands, one for your defense type and one for your attack type, that I've been woefully ignorant of this whole time?[/quote] It's a reference to a circular dominance strategy common in
[quote who="EleventhStar" reply="7" id="3466408"] http://store.steampowered.com/app/204880/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/228260/ and that post from frogboy about dlc and expansion pricing. i THINK 5 dollar/euro [/quote] It's all speculation at this point, and I would expect that DLC has a varied price points, depending on what is included. For example, I'd expect that a single Minor
[quote who="EleventhStar" reply="4" id="3466391"] what's so special about that that it would require a DLC instead of just making a custom race? edit: 13:40 into the first stream talks abit about it but its not the snathi part.[/quote] GC3 will have custom tech trees for all playable races. So, yeah, you could play the Snathi as a "custom" race. But the DLC will have a new custom tech tree (and likely a c
Frankly, I think there are only really two major reasons why to purchase the Alpha over the Beta at this point: (1) if you're a GC addict, and absolutely want to have a (non-trivial) voice in what the feature set of the game will be. (2) if you're a GC groupie, and definitely plan to buy the game plus a bunch of the DLC and expansions over the next couple of years, it's a good deal now in terms of economics. But ONLY if you can commit yourself to saying you'll
Are we at a point in development where we can start talking about the abilities/restrictions/use of Minor races yet? I'd like to revisit their role vis a vis GC2, where they didn't colonize at all, didn't have influence, and were (frankly) part of the most broken thing about GC2 - the espionage setup.
We have fleet combat already, and until there's a real Tactical Combat mode, the combat will essentially be a statistical comparison. There's very few "special abilities" that I can think of that would make any difference in such a combat. And even fewer that would make the game more fun, and not bog us down in minutiae. It's like worrying about weapon placement on a ship, for consideration of arcs of fire, etc. It sounds real cool, and in a RTS game (such as
It's the same system used by pretty much all RTS games. Mine X, accumulate quantity Y, unit Z costs ABC of X to make. Remaining quantity: Y-ABC. I'd prefer the old Total Annihiliation method, where it wasn't X quantity of things, but rather the production RATE that was a concern. You produced X amount PER TURN, and to make a unit ABC, you needed Y amount, but it took Z turns to make. Different formula, same thing, but I think rate of pr
[quote who="WIllythemailboy" reply="6" id="3464165"] Quoting trims2u, reply 4 For DISTANCE, however, I'm definitely in favor of having the various lifesupport modules provide a fixed distance (hexes) away from the nearest supply post (starbase/planet). And that distance SHOULD NOT SCALE with the size of the map, nor should you get any inherent range bonus FOR EXISTING SHIPS simply by researching new Life Support tech. If you want more range, re-equip the ship
Yup, especially since whatever Hyperdrive is, we have no idea how it works, or any energy efficiency thereof. So there's no "realism" to model. I'm perfectly fine with the current systems for speed. For DISTANCE, however, I'm definitely in favor of having the various lifesupport modules provide a fixed distance (hexes) away from the nearest supply post (starbase/planet). And that distance SHOULD NOT SCALE with the size of the map, nor should you get an
It would certainly be nice to have a greater range of diplomatic options, including things like real trade embargoes, LIMITED time (and variable scope) economic and research treaties, and the aforementioned "chatter" communicating intentions. About the only thing I can think of off the time of my head, however, which will slow down the immediate colonization rush is to make colonization radically more expensive. The fact is, under GC2, after about the initial 25
[quote who="Wer900" reply="20" id="3463626"] Quoting trims2u, reply 18 And none of this addresses the issue that a flat surface map is superior in information presentation/density to a globe. Basically, a 3D globe gets you a whole lot of eye-candy, no features that can't be much more simply implemented on a flat surface, and a whole bunch of deficiencies the flat map doesn't have. I'm not against bling/eye-candy - heck, the whole "watch the ships
Heartbleed is NOT the kind of backdoor or compromise someone like the NSA would try to inject into an Open Source project like OpenSSL. The possibility of other spy agencies discovering it would be far too great, leading to not only the NSA being able to monitor things, but agencies the NSA doesn't like also being able to monitor stuff. An NSA-style attack would be one of two things: (1) discover a vulnerability that existed in the current codebase - whether du
[quote who="Wer900" reply="7" id="3463372"] Quoting econundrum1, reply 5 I would like to see ground battles played out stratigicly over multiple turns on the hex based planet maps e.g. troop movements, zone capture that sort of thing. Perhaps the 3D map idea suggested previously could form a part of this. It is unrealistic in terms of tactical planning to ignore the fact that planets are indeed spherical. Furthermore, the 3D map would allow for planets of a