Lucky_Jack

Reply to keyboard and ship movement in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Gherardo, I am putting this here because I too, (and perhaps a lot of other people) may not realize that some (if not all) laptops and/or notebooks have their numeric keypads well hidden (not that they had much of a choice with the space restrictions they were faced with). I have an "i series ThinkPad" and it took me years to discover how to get the numberic keypad to work. Even now as I look at the keyboard on it I can't remember how I accidentally made it work

Reply to Web site design in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Since this forum is still in its beta, would it be possible later in its development to have it display the text line by line as it receives each line? This might quite possibly eliminate the "download delay" human factor problem. Cheers, Jack

Reply to Political Parties? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

They are not yet implemented. Some of the panels are there, but it is too early in the development process to see what they will do. Cheers, Jack

Reply to Movement: What do you guys think? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

How about two kinds of freighters, fast and slow. Not sure how the fast freight would be tied into technology (what tech enables them), but they should be available later than slow freighters and cost more (the rational being that they are more cost productive IF you have the tech and resources to build them). Cheers, Jack

Reply to Alpha 5 preview in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Alpha 5 in may? Wasn't the 4/2/02 build Alpha 5? Cheers, Jack

Reply to MOO3 problems in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Except, perhaps, that when you compare your openness and QS's secretiveness, QS is more exposed to this sort of thing than you are. Some people think that secrets are a challange just waiting to be exposed. Cheers, Jack

Reply to Shipyards and ship building in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Shipyards sound like orbital platforms where ships that can not fly in an atmosphere are built that require heavy technical support to build. While this seems reasonable for some heavy battle armor, such as dreadnaughts, it doesn't make sense for ships whose size might permit dual mode atmospheric/space operation. I think of space only craft as being unable to enter and function in atmospheres simply because their size prevents them from performing their function in an atmosphe

Reply to Population growth in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Petr, I think you just hit upon one of the problems with the code I have been seeing and talking about for some time. Every calculation I have exposed through use shows an alarming tendency to round down. Hence, you get cases where there is no growth at all when there should be followed by an attempt to compensate that causes excessive growth where it is not needed. As an example, if a planet has a population of 10 (just colonized) and a moral of 59% it will not gro

Reply to Defenders Don't in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

This sounds like one strategy. But will it fit all? Can someone give us a hint about what plans there are for battle detail - that is, what is in plan to allow us to control the flow of combat for a star? Cheers, Jack

Reply to Were the OS/2 version of the planet list and ship list more usable? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Yes, I know the pretty graphics have to be built from the ground up and that it will take time. What we have now has been very nice work that is very pleasing to the eye. If what we see now is just a temporary place holder or space filler until the real effort is done then perhaps it would be useful to express our responses now as a guide for the final effort. It is just that when I start thinking about the old lists we had and how easy it was to use them in making

Were the OS/2 version of the planet list and ship list more usable? in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The planet list and ship list is certainly prettier than the OS/2 version (which was simply a list), but the OS/2 version had characteristics that made it much more usable, plus a potential that would have made it more usable. The number of planets and ships viewable at one time was useful. The potential for having the lists sorted by fields (such as neme, class, population, social project in progress, military project in progress, solar resource allocation, etc.) would have

Reply to Autopilot in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I've confirmed that it can happen when you try to send a colony ship to a star that is in unexplored space. I started a game and the first thing I did was to try to line up my screen so that a star in an unexplored sector with stars showing in the minimap was as centered as I could get it, then used my mouse to try to send the colony ship to that spot. My alignment efforts were good. The colony ship went on autopilot and did not move at all. Then I used the scout to explor

Reply to Planetimage in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Another way of accomplishing the formula calculation I gave above is to use a table, something that can be done with the small number of classes in use by the game. It would have the potential benefit of using less processing power than the formula (I think). Cheers, Jack

Reply to AI in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Cari, Why are there two "prefs.ini" files? Does the one in the GalCiv directory have a use? Just curious. Cheers, Jack

Reply to Squeak, Squeak, Squeak, Squeak, Squ..... in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

It used to only give a new window with the user data without changing the original window. Does someone at Stardock wish to look into it? I am using Netscape Communicator 4.7. Cheers, Jack

Reply to Autopilot in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

And they still go onto autopilot? Fredrik, what kind of ships are you talking about? Cheers, Jack

Reply to Battleships in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

On its way. Jack

Reply to AI coding...oh the pain in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Maybe you can get some interviewer to ask about what you expect from the reviewers, perhaps something about how they seem to ignore the strength of the AIs in games. Then you can respond about how games whithout a good AI is so bland that noone wants to play it more than a couple of times ( before tossing it into the circular file). Cheers, Jack

Reply to AI coding...oh the pain in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Also, may I add that if you paint a picture of what to expect from GalCiv for the readers of the interviews that if the reviewers fail to review GalCiv with an eye to what you say in the interviews that the reviewers will loose credibility? Cheers, Jack

Field size for population in planet list is too small in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

The class 32 planets you get after completing the terra-forming improvement can reach populations over 20 billion. Some character combinations, like 21815, will show fine, but others, like 23826 only show the first 4 characters (2382). There is room for a second line of values in the planet list for each planet displayed, and there is a strong need for a full scroll bar. How about moving the resource field to the right slightly and putting the moral field on the next line? <br

Reply to AI coding...oh the pain in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

I have never played a game as good as the OS/2 version of GalCiv. I have played CIV, all of them (1-3), MOO2, AlphaCentauri, Age of Empire, Ceasar 2 & 3, WarCraft 2, SpaceCraft, and a few real time games. CIV and A/C come the closest to GalCiv, then MOO2 IMO. The others are so simple they are not worth playing more than a couple of times. And I will bet they don't have an AI that deserves the name. Keep playing up the re-playability aspect of GalCiv in the interviews and you

Reply to Planetimage in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

How about new_cl = (old_cl * 1.5) - (old_cl - 16) * 1.25. This gives a class 1 planet a new class of 18, a class 2 = 19, 3=20, 4=20, 5=20, 6=21, 7=21, 8=22, 9=22, 10=22, 11=22, 12=23, 13=23, 14=23, 15=23, 16=24, 17=24, 18=25, 19=25, 20=25, 21=25, 22=26, 23=26, 24=26, 25=26, 26=27, 27=27, 28=27, 29=27, 30=28, .... Obviously it becomes detrimental to use on any class over 28, but I have yet to see any planet over class 20 (before soil improvement) so far. In the OS/2 version

Reply to Battleships in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Dominic, I have a replacement GCTech.TECH from Stardock that fixes this problem. Would you like a copy? Cheers, Jack

Reply to GNN planet completions and GNN research completions combat for screen space. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

Will this fix be available to us before the Beta? Thanks, Jack

Reply to Naming 2 stars the same renders a game unrestartable. in Galactic Civilizations I Stardock Forums

One technique for the game's naming of stars would be to add a number after the duplicated name, such as Arcturas 2. Or, after the star names list is exhausted, how about something like the scientific naming system that produces those strange combination of letters and numbers we see for stars today, maybe "XYZ1532". Then if someone wants to manually name a star with a duplicate name, either warn him/her, or respond with a suggestion that adds a number after the name, like in "