rls669

Reply to Alpha Centauri For GC2: TA in Modding Stardock Forums

Looks great. Thinking about SMAC give me an idea -- we need an equivalent of the Clean Reactor from SMAC to reduce ship maintenance. Wouldn't that be sweet . . .

Reply to Thoughts on invasion screen - not good in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

Yes, the static is way louder than any other game sound, I've been hitting the mute button when I invade.

Reply to Ship maintenance is killing me, where is all the new money again? in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I think the maintenance on unarmed ships needs to be reduced or eliminated. On a big map you could have dozens of them enroute to distant destinations and the maintenance is crippling.

Reply to Thoughts on invasion screen - not good in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I never thought it would be doable in the current game, it's just something I'd like to see, and probably something the majority of players wouldn't care about. Different strokes and all that . . . for example I don't spend more than 30 seconds in the ship builder, just clickety click on the components I want and wherever they end up is fine with me. I play zoomed out to icons almost all the time and only watch the play-by-play fleet battles when I want to see why one of my designs is getting

Reply to Thoughts on invasion screen - not good in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I like the old screen better because it's simple and clean. Ivasion is just a numbers game, once it's started there's nothing for me to do to influence the outcome so I don't see any point in sitting there looking at stuff while the numbers count down. It's a waste of time for me and I always skip it. Like I've said before, simple tactical combat like the land combat in Sid Meier's Pirates would make invasions something more than a cutscene that's about as worthwhile as watching paint

Reply to Economic Balance needed for Immense galaxies in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I'm playing Immense with abundant stars and uncommon habitable planets. I'm finding that scouting and only colonizing the highest quality planets during the initial rush helps a lot. Once those high class planets are running in the green and I've got a few techs or improvements to increase morale, I can raise taxes a bit have enough cash flow to start colonizing second tier planets. I guess what I'm saying is: on immense, it's very easy to overextend and screw yourself. One

Reply to ok time to start a list of bugs for beta 4 in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

[quote] Not sure if this is a bug or not, but the Jessuins have a colony established and the Dark Yor have a colony ship. I've never seen minors colonizing before. [/quote] Ok, there have been a lot of people campaigning for better minor race AI . . . I guess this is a case of "be careful what you wish for", because the Snathi are doing some empire building now :)

Reply to ok time to start a list of bugs for beta 4 in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

Not sure if this is a bug or not, but the Jessuins have a colony established and the Dark Yor have a colony ship. I've never seen minors colonizing before.

Reply to Thalians are weird (TA beta4) in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

[quote] Thalan Starbase modules didn't get into the beta. [/quote] Information that could have been brought to my attention [I]YESTERDAY![/I] But seriously, something this game breaking should have been in the release notes.

Reply to ok time to start a list of bugs for beta 4 in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

Looks like the components that are supposed to go with Hyperion either aren't done or aren't hooked up. One small typo: the Hyperion Hull Point module is listed in the research screen and ship builder as "HyperionHullPoint" -- like it hasn't been translated from programmer to English :D

Reply to New Invasion Screen in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

[quote] I have been playing with the new invasion screen, btw it looks nice, but everytime I attack only the enemy troops go down with their coloured bar.[/quote]They know, this is covered in the changelog.

Reply to Thalians are weird (TA beta4) in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I'm having some trouble with starbases. I've researched Defense Industries and Hyperion Starbases and I'm not seeing any offensive or defensive modules available. Are Thalan starbases supposed to be defenseless?

Reply to Betas up in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

After about 15 minutes with the new beta, I think the Thalans alone are worth the cost of the expansion. I've never used this adjective to describe a tech tree before, but I have say the new Thalan techs are[I] sexy.[/I] :D

Reply to The Exact Meaning of the Class of a Planet in Dark Avatar Stardock Forums

[quote] SDC isn't all that bad, it's rather convenient, believe it or not.[/quote]I've had bad experiences with Steam and Direct2Drive so I wasn't very keen on SDC. However I've found it to have a PITA factor near zero :D

Reply to Beta 4 coming out Jan 4 in Beta Reports Stardock Forums

I think they deliberately release Friday night just so they can see who has no social life. ;) Thus prompting conversations like this: Friend: Let's go see a movie tonight. Me: Can't, new TA beta just came out. Friend: What's TA? And . . . ummm . . . what's a beta? :LOL:

Reply to The Exact Meaning of the Class of a Planet in Dark Avatar Stardock Forums

[quote]I'm actually a bit reserved about the learning curve involved.[/quote] The learning curve isn't bad, it's more than offset by TA's sheer, unadultered [I]awesomeness.[/I]

Reply to Why is X race your favorite? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

The Torian homeworld isn't all that important because if you keep morale on the colonies at 100 you can very rapidly get to the point where homeworld population is negligible compared to the rest of your empire. The Central Mine is cheap to build and gives decent production so the colonies will be capable of sending out their own colony ships in short order. It can be tough at the start if you don't have a production bonus on Toria, then production of colonizers will bottleneck your early expa

Reply to The Exact Meaning of the Class of a Planet in Dark Avatar Stardock Forums

[quote] I haven't experienced all the mega-events related to class upgrades so there may be other variations. [/quote]There's also an event in which a Precursor artifact doubles the quality of a single planet.

Reply to Why is X race your favorite? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

I've found the Torians to be deceptively powerful. With morale at 100% (even if only on low-pop planets) the population grows fast enough that I can colony-rush indefinitely without crashing my economy. The economy also grows fast enough that I can pump quite a bit into espionage while running at a low enough deficit that anomaly cash can easily make up for it. I totally crippled the Terrans in my current game by putting agents on all their production facilities and grabbing most of their nea

Reply to The Exact Meaning of the Class of a Planet in Dark Avatar Stardock Forums

AFAIK only the green tiles are counted. So in your example the planet would be class 12, and increase to class 14 after you terraformed those 2 yellow and orange tiles. In DA, the Altarians' second planet Wisp starts out at Class 3, and become Class 18 when fully terraformed. At least it did for me, I'm not sure if there's a random element to the number of extra tiles that become available with terraforming techs.

Reply to How to conquer a Toxic World in Dark Avatar Stardock Forums

I almost alway play zoomed out to icons, so identifying ship types isn't a problem. :) One thing I did in my last game that proved useful was upgrading unused colony ships to surveyors. I always send out colony ships towards all other races' territory in hopes of grabbing a few worlds at their fringes for a range/influence foothold. Works very well, especially if I can drop a few agents on their production centers and slow down their colony rush. Anyway, if I don't find any habit

Reply to Why is X race your favorite? in Galactic Civilizations II Stardock Forums

[quote] However, considering how disfunctional they now are, I may end up playing a different civ, [/quote] I haven't found the Yor to be disfunctional at all. My first TA Yor game was crap until I got a handle on the new tech tree, after that I found them to be very powerful. Max out the efficiency techs early, keep pop and morale high to support the economy and don't go nuts with the industry and they're unstoppable.

Reply to Thalan and their technologies in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

Is the Mini Soldier even around anymore? I haven't seen them for a while. I still prefer Information Warfare over Tidal Disruption even on worlds where I'll lose the improvements no matter what; plunk down agents on the morale improvements and you can often end up with a decently large population on a freshly invaded world. Great for keeping the economy going when you're invading everyone in sight. Especially when you're evil and the invasion is free. I'll only use Tidal Disruption when I'm

Reply to Thalan and their technologies in GalCiv Journals GalCiv2 Forums

I don't think you can steal any tech that has the * in the trade screen. Losing the infrastructure does suck but OTOH it means you can often use the cheap effective Tidal Disruption invasion without adverse consequences.

Communication without Universal Translator in Bug Reports Stardock Forums

Not really a bug, more of an oversight. It doesn't seem right that I can take part in the United Planets and get notices from other races that they've been paid to eliminate me, when I can't talk to anyone under any other circumstances because I haven't researched the translator yet. I think it would be great to have the gibberish pre-translator communication screen pop up, and then just find myself under attack and have to quickly research the translator so I can ask what the bloody h