I think the rationale behind this is that they are receiving fire support from the planet's surface. Easier to shoot at the invading ships from the ground than to boost the shields or whatever of your defenders I suppose.

You're tough Tos... I was merely stating what I've seen seems to be the main focus in Brad's eyes, the AI. He speaks of it like it was one of his kids so this was where I was coming from. Do I 'know' what the AI is? Hell no, never claimed to. I've had my fair share of bitching over this game, more for reasons of crashes and system freeze and whatever else rears it's ugly head over the course of a game. Bitching over the 'stupid' stuff, not so much. To me it has been about just actually being able to play the game, not what the gameplay is like once I am playing, if this makes sense. So easy there big fella, I was merely sharing what I thought was the case for the lack of 'realism' or lack of 'things making sense'.

Actually, that was a legitimate question. What's an awesome idea for an AI? I'm curious, that's all.
Granted, the AI in this game is better than the AI for most comparable games. But it has a lot in its favor, like the simplified techtree. It doesn't need "tactical squad" coordination. It was considered excellent in DL, yet it managed to get a huge boost in DA with lots of player input. Its flaws are labeled as not really AI related. It doesn't have any kind of situational awareness, especially in trades and defense. I'm not saying it's easy to do, it's not, and yes, it's a WiP. It's the heart of a SP game, and I'm a SP man. Improving is paramount, I agree, but the game cannot be just AI IMO. There are other coders in the team too.

I am very thankful for the feature of being able to upgrade ships in space. Can you imagine upgrading a large number of ships by bringing them back to planets. Putting 10 of them at a time into port. Upgrade them, then re-launch. Move the next 10 in. So on and so forth. Nothing fun about that. The current time delay system seems like a darn reasonable compromise to me. I'll take smooth game flow over to realistic any day.

The upgrade system was discussed to death during the DL beta, and the current system is what was eventually settled on as a balance between cheese and gameplay convenience. Realism is always secondary to gameplay; just consider the extended upgrade time when away from a planet as transit time for unseen supply shuttles.



Right now, working on DA patches, two (Cari and CodeCritter), plus Brad doing AI/balance tweaks while he plays.

The all BHE was for scoring. High defense does raise your score, but you can't completely fill a ship with them with any of the stock hulls. There aren't enough places to mount them all...Plus they don't benefit from a free +25% boost when in orbit.

I didn't realize the focus was in the game before that time. Ah well, memory is the first to go! Hopefully one of the old GC Iers is around and remembers. I suppose I could grab my old disk and install it...

Some of the new super abilities are at least as powerful as first strike. Both the Torian and Thalan abilities tend to let you get off the mark much faster than you would be able to do otherwise. But yeah, the defense stuff is definitely a factor.

Hi!

I remember reading his post about sliders: he didn't want to change the way they work because of the AI's sake. Probably he'd need to change too much of the code from the GC-1 to make them "think" properly.

However we're slowly getting some progress with the way sliders work:
- In GC-1 ALL production from ANY empty queue was lost. So in the mid-game it was a mayor PITA to get an undeveloped planet, since social slider was set very low to avoid waste, ant there was no focus.
- Similar situation was in first version of GC-2, but now much bigger comunity became very vocal about that waste. So they introduced first the transfer of unused social spending in military queue (IIRC with 1.0x), and very soon after that also posibility to produce nothing in military queue, so the waste was practically eliminated. The focus was introduced as the last, but before version 1.2.

After writing all this down I realized that regarding sliders there was no progress done in last year or so. Maybe we shoud be more vocal about demands for separating production and reseach financing. Brad did not say the development of the game is over. Maybe in another expansion pack we coud finaly get it? Or at least in GC-3.

BR, Iztok

That it was a judgement call, there's no doubt. That doesn't mean I can't elaborate on my point of view, right? For that I don't need your judgement call sentence. I wasn't refuting it. So I don't see why I should mention it.



I think you should say "No, *I* don't know any 3 coders that could do that", which is completely different from what you actually said. You know, other people have different experiences than yours. There's a certain tendency to generalize here.
I can't really recall right now, but the DA credits seemed to me that had more than 3 coders listed.



Bacteria are hardly intelligent beings.



Machines don't reproduce. They may replicate at best. That would depend on manufacturing capacity basically. That's not an example. Going this way we could argue why the Yor have the same repro rate as humans, and even why they pay taxes.   



Maybe, maybe not. Intelligent life as we know it, it can only come to be on a very specific set of conditions. Repro rate depends on a lot of factors, not all of them biological.



I assume you're only guessing. Have they *asked* *you* to help them with the triage?



When you are cluttering a discussion of weird things with half-thought replies, that's a disservice too. Who told you that the list of weird stuff is not something they'll look into later? And who's claiming that they *must* be fixed? If I find something that I consider wrong, I'll point it out. I'll do it with the hopes that'll be fixed, of course. That's the whole point of posting bugs, whatever their priority. I guess you can understand that. That we have different priorities, that's another issue. But that's the way it works. And it's not you who defines priorities, last time I checked.



You do know that this discussion started at least more than one year ago, don't you?
The focus thing. What was changed in v1.2 was that the focus button was introduced in the Civ Management screen.



The way I recall it, focus has always diverted 25%(/50%) of the other production type to the focused type. Your example doesn't say much.



Have you ever considered that if he said *nothing*, that's because there's *nothing* to say?



I'm not going to waste my time looking for such a statement, though I would believe it exists.



Again, these are your words. It's not really a loophole, according to the game. Focus allows you to redirect production. You don't like it, I don't like it, a lot of people might not like it; some like it because it adds another way to play the game, some like it because they simply like exploits. If he ever intended it to work any other way, it'd have been changed long ago. You see, that's the problem with criticizing those who criticize things that don't make sense - eventually you'll get caught by it.
It's "fun", it's not game breaking, adds diversity, it's a game, who cares?

For what it's worth, I suspect that ArenaNet, which provides an online role-playing game with no subscription fee (Guild Wars), is one example that outdoes Stardock. But I don't like that game genre as much.

Sorry I had to force you into it   



You should start by reading things a little better. First, There are 40+ people in the office, not necessarily all coders. Kryo isn't for starters. Second, I mentioned the list of coders *in DA*. Third, when DA was being developed, those things weren't fixed, and supposedly all the DA coders were working *then*, don't you think? DUH!!



That's part of the "deal", isn't it?



Those that provide patches for their games.



Just like yours isn't, just like everybody else's isn't. Doesn't stop me from laying down my idea of better, right? Just like other players.



Then don't read *this* thread. Why are you reading it? Your eyes aren't everyone's eyes too BTW.
Go read the threads about *all* the game imbalances, and *those* do affect gameplay in a significant way. Have they been addressed? Most are in the simple to fix category too. But this thread went on a tangent about silly things, and that's what I posted *here*. So easy on your replies, and read things in context. You wouldn't want to look silly.



Is this the part where I say I couldn't care less what you think?



What I'm saying is that since there's *so much* that needs to be fixed (and only if you're blind don't you see that), and people will always turn to time constraints to explain the lack of fixes, wouldn't it be better *for the game* to capitalize on that time? It's *my* opinion. It's not yours, but should I care about that when I'm posting?



Yep, real champions. Unique, no doubt.



Good for you. But let others do what they think is appropriate. For them.



Take your own conclusions then. I assume Brad can edit xml files, any 9 year old can.



Good for you again. I'm sure you learned a lot from them. But can you accept that some people *might* think that the time could be better spent on balancing the game?

Purge brought that one up, and it is indeed strange if you analyse the numbers alone. Of course it's a game balance issue. But look at the flagship issue for example. That's not a balance issue. It *directly contradicts* the game rules. You don't have the techs, you can't build it. Period. And there are more in that category. Tell me you don't find that stupid (besides illegal).



Do you really think you'll save him any time whatsoever? In order for him to read your posts, he'll have to read the previous ones. Does he have you flagged as the triage man? Do you understand how silly what you're saying is? Kryo or anyone else in SD can think for themselves I'd say.



Neither did I. Purge went on a tangent (not pointing the finger at him, good thing he did) and I followed up on it. As for the OT, if it is in fact intentional, then it falls pretty much on the same category.



I've seen good players say it's fine in terms of gameplay, even if it is not intuitive. Like many other things about the game.

The point *you* don't seem to get is that different people have different experiences and interpretations. You talk about major developers, but you can't really compare. Else I'll point you to *freeware* sites, where developers work for *free*, on *free* games, with constant updates, and we're talking people that have *jobs* and code on their spare time - they're usually *very* small teams too. Their devotion is unprecedented, and I could even throw in my own experience with a small dev company, but I won't. So when I hear all this crap from people like you that don't seem to have a clue, I can only laugh. It's pathetic. Yes, there's a reason big developers don't interact with the community so much, and I'm sure that's not lost on SD. They're going that way, by their choice, and I'm sure they knew what they were getting into - they can't be too naive, contrary to players. Am I attacking their work ethic? When you sell a *space* *strategy* game, it's supposed to be about space, not civilization in disguise, and about strategy, not dumbed down choice. It's fine that they have their own views on sci-fi, but when they break their own rules in the game, that's not very ethical, is it? Their time management, I'm just counter-argumenting what *players* say about their time - did you read something else into it? I'll pick apart each and every post that uses stupid arguments to refute my opinions because the posters doesn't think before opening their mouths - err, attacking their keyboards. Take Dog of Justice for example, he's "triaging" posts here, but writing the *exact* same kind of posts in other threads - he needs a reality check, he just doesn't know it yet, he's too fired up to realise it. As for the "deal", major companies don't make such "deals", because they're smart. SD made that "deal", for business reasons clearly, so once they commit to it, they better uphold it or their credibility goes. That *you* think they should be given some slack, it's your opinion. It'd be mine too, if it worked even partially. It doesn't seem to, just like many other options, be them "business model" ones or not. These are matters of opinion, and individual confort. You can't please everyone, so you can't generalize either. What is awesome for one person (gfx, memory, non-drm) might be totally disastrous to another. There is no such thing as *one* galciv community. There are different people with different goals. None of this precludes having some real work done on basic issues with the game.

This thread is about *crazy* things in the game. I went with the spirit of it. Somewhere along the line (and not by *my* choice) it derailed. Champions of justice tend to have this effect. I'm not even sure why this discussion was distorted into looking like it was all about the upgrade thing, since it was just one item in two long lists. Sigh. Oh well. It's sad when a well spirited discussion ends up in a disputed debate.

Some one posted an interesting treatise on all labs being superior to all factories. I have discovered that all basic factories with starbases is superior to all labs because of additional undocumented bonus production which is free - resulting in a measured bonus of .8 free to .2 at cost. This results in significantly cheaper research (not greater) which can (in special circustances) be entirely funded by trade revenue if your using the Korx with special abilities. (In summary) Leaving players with having to spend like a devil to get rid of all that extra money before your penalized - ergo building lots of fleet to protect those extremely VALUABLE starbases. If that isn't a crazy exploit then neither is anything else discussed so far!!! What does this mean??? How about a PQ15 moon world with +384% starbase bonuses, a CEC, a starport, a SE, a FDC, a QPS and the rest basic factories. Think 7B pop, 119bc income, 19bc maintenance, 61bc spending with 299mp, 13iu, 11 tp at 60/20/20 with 100% industry, 100% approval, and 69% tax rate ... now think 9x9 sector galaxy with 22 worlds in Korx control with a minor civ in the cluster contributing 2k per turn in trade with 2 other worlds one a 384% starbase bonus world with no planetary poduction bonuses, and the other a 288% starbase bonus world and of course the minor civ. Understand that the Korx have a 170% trade bonus and you'll realize how 1 minor civ can support an entire empire. The bonuses aren't great - you wont see a 17K research planet, but you will see a 17K+ income from trade with 1 minor civ (as you add more worlds on larger maps) and if you have the Galatic Privateer acheivement no ones going to disrupt your trade unless you are militarily outgunned and they walk all over your empire. All it takes is 1 minor civ in a sector where it is possible to build 20 starbases - 4 inside and 16 around it - which becomes YOUR TRADE NEXUS. Tell me that isn't outrageous. Just don't forget to build your manufacturing capital and economic capitals on one of the high bonus worlds and give the same techs to your pet minor civ so your starbases can compound the interest daily ... in this senario the economic "focus" far overshadows all the rest