erischild

I understand and agree with some of the OP points, but, to use the previous metaphor, this isn't a production car just yet. It is an early prototype released for early drivers, engineers, and testers to tinker with, to break. It is an opportunity to give back to the game and the community for the sake of a better game. If that is not your kind of motivation, then wait a while until a full release version and see if that works better for you. I expect there a

[quote who="Avatar137" reply="58" id="3532247"] I swear there must be some sort of conspiracy afoot... [e digicons];)[/e] [/quote] Nobody here is going to confess to being a part of the conspiracy. We're all victims, too. Honest. ;)

Specific answers: Minor races are not in yet. Glimpses from the dev streams are extremely encouraging on that subject. They talk about AI differentiation and they definitely are putting in hooks and tools for customization. If you are into that part of the game, you may be looking forward to some major time sink and enjoyment. It's not my area of interest in gaming, but I expect to take advantage of some pretty terrific mods based on the capabilities Stardock

I learned two very interesting things in this stream along with several other tidbits discussed elsewhwere. One was the inclusion of an invisible part option so I could hide the center cube, something that has turned out to be key to my designs for alternative ships. The other was that Paul is a sucker for peer pressure. He repeatedly said no to showing the Invasion Viewer, and then caved when the live chat kept begging. Something to keep in mind for the more manipulat

If there is progress on the AI, can you show us examples? Could you run a soak and show us things like improvement adjacencies on planets, starbase placement, fleet creation, or any other indicators of new behaviors?

I guess I am not using extended range properly. Something to explore!

I am hoping/expecting/requesting attention to details like this will keep happening. It adds to the overall polished feel of the game and the encouragement to explore the different races and other aspects of the game. It becomes part of those subjective things called "depth" and "immersion". You just can't do too much of it.

I followed this first part of the post and think the chained speed boost is quite clever. [quote who="Tohron" reply="16" id="3530688"] Meanwhile, give those starbases the three general military-boosting upgrades, and they'll each boost all weapons and defenses by +4. In the AoE of five such starbases, a Tiny ship would get +20 to all weapons and defenses. I'm not sure if this affects carrier fighters, but if it does, it's a very worthw

There are presently buildings that create Ideology points. Those seem to do what you are talking about. I am of the opinion that you should only be able to pick one of the three points-per-turn building choices. Also, you can build whatever one-time points buildings you choose, but you shouldn't be able 'to destroy them. But still, there are already "culture" buildings. The rest is some tuning and tweaking. For a small map and the way I play, I wo

Any particulate matter involved in an explosive event is going to scatter and scatter rapidly. All the energy levels involved will be very high and there will be very little left around to drift aimlessly or share orbits like a comet tail. Things would tend to go poof silently and disappear instantly, maybe with a moment's worth of fireball if you're lucky. Even large chunks of hull will disappear quick into the distance with the velocities involved.&nbsp

I can imagine having beefed up military starbases in order to support defense of a region, maybe around homeworld and major planets, maybe along my border with the Drengin. But often, when I voluntarily go to war, it is because I have a blitzkrieg force set up and I am going to push some battle line as far as I can get, maybe all the way to elimination. I can't say there is any one place in that invasion style that is key to the whole invasion. There could be an initial

[quote who="eviator" reply="13" id="3530151"] Am I the only one who is bored of space battles in the dev stream?\ [/quote] Maybe not the only one, but seeing the level of battles they can get to is interesting to me since I can't get that in my games yet. Also, I notice a lot of new names in the chat associated with the stream. New people are most likely going to want to see the bangs and flashes. After all, it is pretty. I think the economy stu

Lots of effects improvements in the Battle Viewer. Still being worked. Paul didn't want to show the Invasion Viewer, but there is something in place and will be in Beta 5.

I remember reference to "the Star Wars effect" in one of the conversations. I love the movies, but George Lucas ruined space battles forever. We will never, as a public, really accept realistic space battles. Last dev stream, I heard they are putting in lens flares. It sounded like they were saying the battle viewer was too "clean" and not like popular movies. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Good points. I use the commands so I can look at fleets in the battle viewer or take screenshots. Any files I have saved for that purpose are named spawntest1, etc. Stardock support would never see one of those files! Except through certain posted screenshots, of course.

Great use of the Altairian parts. It definitely suggests a unique sense of style and engineering. No real right angles is a nice trick.

[quote who="MacsenLP" reply="11" id="3529318"] Quoting Franco fx, I'd rather play a game that's not fundamentally flawed personally, [/quote] I think it is indeed your own personal opinion. I am expecting one per turn overflow. Personally, I don't find that fundamentally flawed. I hope that is okay and that I

I assume this works for ship building as well. If so, I can turn my shipyard into a money maker. I queue up cheap ships on a shipyard with multiple strong sponsor planets, and all the intentional overflow turns into cash.

The devs told me not to have fun with the first Alpha. Hah! for what the devs say.

It's like Michelangelo told the Pope, it'll be ready when it's ready. If the Pope could wait, so can we. Most of us. Some of us. Well, I can on good days,

I am getting into the mid 200s in turns. By then I have coddled my economy into a decent powerhouse and caught up in military then achieved military dominance. I beat up a few Drengin and lose the challenge factor. By then, I am also starting to experience the lag issues described above on my 8 gig system. As soon as the AI gets any kind of smarts, I will be in trouble. Then the turn count is likely to get much higher. I definitely need to think about addin

One more shot of the globe ship in battle. I know whoever did the shield algorithm couldn't have predicted this shape, but it comes out amazing. That is impressive. This is my current desktop. It is also pretty wild with the animated Spinner ships! <img src="http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/32987878438821830/949F1C33B84

It worked! My key problem was the spaces. Shoulda guessed. Tried quoting around the name, but that didn't work. So close. Anyway, now I can show off more battles!

I am trying to use the "spawn" command which I saw Paul using on the dev stream. It is asking for names for ship types and nothing I am trying is working. Anybody got any deeper insight into the command console? Anybody from Stardock want to give us Beta testers a couple tips here, please?

I already see a diplomatic factor that says it is a minus for having ships/starbases in their space without Open Borders. Is that what some people are asking for?