Okay so I've narrowed it down to GC2Types.xml (just my luck) which means I'm not the only one who might see the weirdness with the beam weapons. Going to have to check and see what's going on with the file.
Well, it looks like there's something else wrong in the mod folder. I'm going to try disabling the new ship components, because that's the most likely place where I could screw something up. ;) If it's not that, at least I've eliminated that from what could be causing the problem.
Okay so it is a mod thing that's causing it, or at least seems to be. ;) Away to hunt and see what it could be... Well it turns out there was a modded weapon animation loose in the mod folder. I've stunned it and locked it away behind a forcefield for now. I don't think I put it in the upload, but I'll check anyway. Yep, all good. Now to test and make sure. *fingers crossed*
I had another look at the weapon animations. I'm like a dog with a bone, I know. :) So far as I can see it's nothing to do with having a small ship doing the firing, as I tried the same thing with battleships. What's interesting (not really) is that when I set a particular angle using Free Cam and then play the battle at different speeds, the weapon effects are more on-target at a low speed than at a high speed. I think I'll try running with
Be more specific about the sort of animations should be possible instead of citing an example like BSG. A computer game has dynamic elements (the player fleet and teh enemy fleet) whereas an episode of BSG with shooty bits follows a set storyboard. Therefore what is rendered has to be limited to work on the sort of hardware that the game is being targeted at, so that it can play right away. CGI scenes for TV on the other hand are done on more powerful hardware and can ta
You know, I've read the forums and looked at the site but I have to say I'm surprised that GalCiv III is being developed now. I was half-expecting to see something else being announced in its place. Though I guess I should have known, what with Stardock turning 20 (happy belated birthday!) that an oldie would make a comeback. :)
I'm fairly sure I don't get bent out of shape because a game is being released on another platform. Potentially it means more sales in the long term, which means I get to see more games I like being released, which also go on to be released on other platforms, and so on. I'm not saying the platform ports are easy but they have become more popular over the years. And frankly, Windows is pretty damn expensive here in Europe.
I think the key thing is to teach the AI the same tactics as the human player - to not overextend the economy so far by colony rushing that it is crippling for many turns to come. Hold onto colony ships until the ebbing of funds slows down, rather than sending them out right away. By all means plant a flag on an important world to get there first, but consider how the influence game is going to play out. If someone else wants to colonise that Class 5 rock nearby, let them
I think you have to consider that at the scales that units in tactical combat are animated at, it's questionable how much value is added with high quality animations - unless you have a cinematic cam for kill shots. Even Skyrim's combat animations are at times a bit crappy in an amusing kind of way, and there you almost always have an up close perspective. There's simply no way to have an individual animation for each possible enemy you'll be facing, the time and
The layout of the ship design files changed between expansions. That might account for the designs not coming out as expected.
I actually find it's more important to have a semi-contiguous empire rather than the most colonies. Your military can only be so many places at once. If you can't defend a planet that you've built all your infrastructure on, then it gets invaded and now the enemy has it.
Well I was going to vote, but apparently my GOG account got eaten.
If you actually go into the red (have negative bc) then it will reduce your approval. If you're just making a loss, keep an eye on how quickly you're losing money and what you have left. When you start making money, aim to spend it (on ships, ship upgrades, buildings that need to be done as soon as possible, and so on) to under 10000bc. When you over 10000bc you see, your trade income is halved, and over 20000bc you take a slight hit to your tax income as well.
[quote]Q: I rush to find a level 9+ planet and I colonise it. I then lose what little profit I was making. Am I doing the wrong thing here?[/quote] If you look at the initial colony tile you'll notice that it provides research output and that it costs maintenance. All research output is funded in a proportion according to the percentage you set on your taxes screen. So as you add colonies yo your empire, you will be funding more research and paying more maintenance.&
GalCiv3 Forums
That's fair enough though. Some people will have their reasons for not pre-ordering. Mine happens to be a lack of money to spend on games.
One of the things you would have to do though is make sure the AI isn't hampered by the tech tree arrangement. What is convenient and logical for humans isn't necessarily so for the AI.
In principle Steam isn't all that bad, it's the implementation which is a pain in the butt. Just for one example, I find its response to the mousewheel (ridiculously over-scrolling) really annoying. Can I adjust the scrolling anywhere? No. Thanks for that, Valve, you just alienated a customer with your one-size-fits-all philosophy.
GalCiv3 Forums
The problem with testing a game like GalCiv though is that some bugs are not obvious. I mean, we can look for things that can cause trouble for the AI in the tech tree, but it can take hours and hours of testing to see if they react properly, and even then there isn't always a clear-cut case where one tech was researched when another one should have been done first. Granted, we're all maybe a bit more vigilant for these things now, but I worry that too many people will s
The AI may be good at colony spamming but that's not an optimal strategy in the early game. It's impossible to do research, continually build colony ships and continually add new colonies without going into the red. The AI has to raise taxes and reduce its rate of production as it gets into a loss-making situation. The human player on the other hand can make more optimal choices, gaining fewer colonies but securing a good position and having less down time and havi
The problem with the card system in Endless Space is that there are plenty of researchable cards which are free and unlimited in use. So each battle is an annoying card spam. If cards were limited then you and the AI would have to use them sparingly. Personally, I'm not sure a card system would do it for GC3. The one thing you could say about the combat resolver in GC2 was that if you and the AI brought evenly-matched fleets it would be a fair fight. Of cou
Wow, that didn't take long. Basically the beam weapon animations don't line up as I would expect, so I'm going to try something else and see what happens. :) Edit: So far, not much. I think the problem is that the ships are too small and are therefore moving too fast and too far from the origin point of the beam. Or I have the wrong idea about the animation settings, starting to think they don't do very much. ;) Edit 2: Okay I think I'm go
Okay well, despite the fact that GC3 is on the way, there are a few things I still need to look at. Also, still need something to play until the beta starts. Sorry I've been a bit quiet but I've been feeling extra tired lately and I've been officially off sick for nearly a month so I haven't had much of a chance to work on the mod. But I have an idea what to try next so, there's that. ;)
GalCiv2 Forums
GC2 does just fine without mutliplayer. Would it have been nice if it were present? Sure. Short of a sweet DeLorean time machine there's not much that can be done to alter how the game's design played out. And just as with time travel, the issues faced in game development may very well change the fortunes of a studio. As far as multiplayer in Stardock's latest projects is concerned, we're waiting to hear that Stardock has hired an ace networki
Truth be told, I've only glanced at Tolmekian's tech trees. But I have been around long enough to have read about various stages of the development of the mod. Tolmekian has brought all the weapon tech trees for all races into line and from what I can remember, rebalanced some of the weapons. I've also rebalanced weapons, but I've allowed the different races to retain what they had on their weapon tech trees. I've looked critically at the last t
Actually, working on two games of the same genre isn't a bad thing. It doesn't mean they ill release on the same sort of schedule.