Pianodog

Reply to Reboot's manual in Space Rangers 2 Stardock Forums

I had been wandering around the internet trying to find something like that list. Great post! Some other changes not specifically mentioned: "New" ship types have bonuses to them, like +20 droid efficiency, +150 engine speed, etc. and don't typically fall into categories you'd expect (they don't have to be "Ideal" to have every slot open). I bought a 609 hull "Ideal" (which wasn't) with 5 base armor Peleng ship for 54,000cr. It should have been around 350,000

Reply to Mauna Roa Island in Space Rangers 2 Stardock Forums

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I just got into SR2 again and got Reboot. This was the very first map I had to tangle with after installing Reboot, and I was shocked to see it actually difficult. I had to restart once to beat it. Previously I'd just ride out the initial wave from the Dominators, determine where they were going to concentrate, bulk up there and then make a secondary force that slowly took over bases. Being free with "Manual Control" makes t

Reply to Value versions & registration? in Stardock Games Stardock Forums

A year goes by with no reply, but I'm in somewhat of the same bind. I want to ditch StarForce and make my copy 'legal' to StarDock/Impulse, but can't register it because the game doesn't come with a serial number or CD key I can send in. I recently bought the expansion (Reboot) and wanted to play it, but can't because I can't get Impulse to install the game in the right place. I get 4 files in my C: drive, and that's it - 2 3kb files and 2 2mb files. I download 860MB

Reply to Larger Hulls vs Miniturization in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

I suppose everyone's got a preference, I typically try to spread my research out to cover multiple bases, but tend to take larger hull designs later. Maybe a little slower getting there, but once it's done, it's hard to beat. Miniaturization doesn't do you any good if you haven't researched more efficient weapon and engine designs, IMO. A fleet of 4 Small fighters packing 15 damage (Last Phaser x3), speed 11 (Last Warp Engine x2), and 1.7 range works pretty dern good against any sin

Reply to Ship hardpoints, extra components. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The only drawback to using the flippers seems to be that they actually add height to a hardpoint. Even the smallest one can add (barely noticable) height to the parts you then add. I'd almost prefer them to be 'invisible', just used to turn the hardpoint around. If you're as attentive to detail as I am, it can throw the look of a ship off kilter. There also seems to be quite a few engines with 'glow' that faces forward by default, making these flippers essential for 'proper' engine

'Quality of Life' bits. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I was wondering how hard it would be to allow players to adjust the victory conditions when they're setting up a custom game. Right now, I can change the Prefs.ini file to turn off AITechVictory, TechVictory, CulturalVictory, and AlliedVictory - and they then show correctly in the game setup for 'Normal' as disabled. I'd like to be able to play an all-out slugfest without some other strange rules built in like you get with the premade scenarios. Custom races: T

Reply to Silent Surrenders? in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

And here I was assuming an alien race had surrendered themselves to me as a means of thumbing their collective noses at whoever else was trying to obliterate them. It'd be nice if they warned - or at least asked - before it happened. I'm also mildly annoyed when planets rebel and join my side without asking. Who are they to assume I want a boatload of undeveloped lands dropped in my lap? I'm gonna just start giving them back to whoever lost them instead of trying to overh

Reply to Destroying Colony Ships... in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

People, the ultimate expendable resource for any empire, simply turn into puffs of hydrogen when you destroy a colony ship. As long as the ship remains in orbit, you can't destroy it, so the juicy meatbags are safe. Tip: Slaughtering your own civilians was one of the keys to keeping them happy in GalCiv 1 ... and seems to also be around in GalCiv 2. Keys to galactic harmony: 1. Take a planet where everyone is whining about overpopulation and starvati

Ship hardpoints, extra components. in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I've run into - often - small inconsistancies with the attachment points on ships. Often, one side seems perfect, and on the other side of the ship, a couple points are buried just beneath the hull - still visible - but it throws the whole design slightly off-kilter. Last night I ran into a ship with one backwards hardpoint, where it was facing forward on the other side. I know it's purely asthetic, but I've actually scrapped designs and refused to use certain hulls because they jus

Reply to Beta 5: unbalancing events in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

Now that I think about it, it might have bumped them all by 16 - but it really was just two sectors. As I exploded colony ships onto the map, I couldn't find anything outside the stated radius. I only managed to nab 1/3 of the planets before AI colony ships came in in force. Thankfully, the only time I've seen this event, the AI triggered it 1 sector from my home world. I think it's a random chance from the wormhole anomalies.

Reply to Beta 5: diplo sliders in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

Since you can see where they would accept the agreement anyways, why not add a "minimal accepted" button to the slider window? The code already knows how much the AI wants, just make a button to tell the slider to stop at that amount... maybe?

Reply to tech question/suggestion in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

I kinda like the idea of making 'obsolete' techs cheaper, but to make them smaller, you'll need a more robust scale for abilities. Right now weapons seem to have three values: Damage, Cost, Size. That doesn't give much lateral growth for weapons. They just progress in a straight line. The description for Lasers says it's a 'long range' weapon, I think, but range isn't a factor I've seen yet. If you added "Range" and "Refire" you could make 'higher' tech items have better range, b

Reply to Beta 5: unbalancing events in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

True - This seems a bit excessive. It really seems to be a win-all/lose-all event. Maybe if the even triggered one massive world, it'd be easier to live through if you didn't get it first. Also, last time the even triggered, planets I had already discovered didn't update on the zoomed out map as being anything but dead husks, despite being very colonizable. New planets I discovered showed solid like they should, though. Not a major issue, just a quality of life thing.

Reply to Beta 5 - planet tile bonus icons have changed. in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

I actually like the changes, bug or not. I used to be confused about what Mining was good for, and it became Manufacturing. It'd be nice if each type of improved land had two icons to chose from. Right now Manufacturing has both the crystal formation icon and a polygon formation... I like that they're different images, but accomplish the same thing. A little variety never hurt, and as long as the variety stays minimal - two or three different icons for each impr

Reply to Beta 5 : Saving Design cursor not in name in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

I second this motion - also - this is a new bug that I didn't have in beta 4. The description cursor is also massive ... takes up the whole box. Windows XP Pro, AMD Athlon 64 3200, Radeon 9800 Pro.

Reply to Beta 5: taxe rates and unhappiness in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The last game I started, I got a home world with one tile that was +700% (!?!) manufacturing, and another that was +100% manufacturing. I 'bought' a factory on the 700 and my production took off like a rocket. I tweaked my spending to crank out 1 U-Haul per turn (modified colonization 'small' vessel with 40% miniaturization from my custom race). Even with 100% taxation, I was able to maintain 80% or higher approval by simply hurling 500 million people into space each turn... I also

Reply to Bug to allow gods? in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

Yeah ... That sums it up. Only you can also mix and match, too. Loading 6 completely different races will give you a vast array of beginning bonuses. Loading 6 completely different races multiple times leaves you with an absurdly powerful civilization when you start the game.

Bug to allow gods? in Bug Reports GalCiv2 Forums

I'm not sure if this bug has been discussed, I'm relatively new here, but I wanted to let you know all the same. Last night I was tinkering with saving and loading race profiles and discovered (on my laptop at least) that I could create an Uber Race simply by loading other saved races over and over. The game didn't remove the old techs and abilities before it loaded new ones. The effect was cumulative, too. I could load the same race over and over and keep boosting my stats. <

Reply to Ship Balancing in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

Ships do seem underpowered to me as well. Every time I decide to finally try and build a fighter craft, I equip one, but am usually dissatisfied with it and scrap it, hoping the next upgrade I research will make producing them worthwhile. In the end, I gave up and started mass producing junkers I wasn't happy with because they didn't feel powerful, but could spread out and get the job done. That's when I realized that the CPU was in the same predicament, and we went about