Why announce Dark Avatar before patch 1.3 ???

Why announce Dark Avatar before patch 1.3 ???

Because they wanted to. 1.3 is still in the works as well.

Because 1.3 has nothing new. It's always been told as bug fixes and AI improvements, no new features as such. Why would you even think that DA cancelled 1.3?

I can hardly wait for all the results

indeed, its nice to see suggestions being taken for enhancing the game. i had read about the different races all living on the same type of world. having different types of worlds on gigantic maps could prove interesting, as most planets would probably end up being habitable with the proper upgrades.

I'm not worried about patches to the normal galciv. there's still alot of bugs to fix and maybe a little option or two that could be added

One thing is certain, SD needs to work on the story for campaign mode as well. Even though you can make up your own stories on random maps or on metaverse, the campaign would certainly need a more interesting way of presenting the story. oh, and maybe an interactive tutorial. My comp sucks and for an unknown reason the sound skips on the tutorials. not that I need them anymore, but anyway. and also, an interactive tutorial makes it more fun. honestly, not everyone can watch that without being bored to tears . I can stand it(if they didnt have sound bugs...again, i blame my crappy computer)

Anyway, keep up the good work StarDock!

Because 1.3 wasn't announced with its bug fixes yet, isn't it obvious ??? besides on other game forums, they usually announce patches and their fixes before expansions ... that's why I posted this subject in the first place einstein

Because 1.3 wasn't announced with its bug fixes yet, isn't it obvious ??? besides on other game forums, they usually announce patches and their fixes before expansions ... that's why I posted this subject in the first place einstein

Oh, in that case do some damn research first. 1.3 has been public knowledge for a long time, and they're still working on it. You know 2 patches have been out already einstein?

Incidentally, multiple uses of unneeded punctuation is linked to low intelligence and gullibility. No really, it is.

With all these patches, what was the original version like?

The original version? It was a board game, it didn't even go electronic until 1.0X.

The expansion pack is unrelated to our update plans.

1.3 will likely get pushed back to August so that I have time to work on the computer AI.

But Dark Avatar is about new features, new game play, etc. 

Admittedly, 1.1 and 1.2 added a LOT of new features, but they weren't about changing the game that much, they were about enhancing the existing gameplay.  The expansion pack will significantly alter the game itself (in a very positive way I think).

The expansion pack will significantly alter the game itself (in a very positive way I think).

Optimism!, Captain Optimism!

if you think then murphy's laws will take hold of you and not release you from it's grip.


on a second note this is like them building a Rocket to go to the moon while still in production of Nukes using the same rocket type. they are the same thing for two different purposess.

The expansion pack will significantly alter the game itself (in a very positive way I think).

Hope GalCiv2 developers are listening. (Long post)

I'm actually one of those who did not purchase GalCiv2, after giving very careful consideration.

Main reason was overly simple ship design that requires almost no strategy. To risk being overly simplistic, just slap on the heaviest damage weapon, your attacking fleet fire first, and you win even with low defense.



I would *definitely* buy GalCiv2 Expansion, if the developers can implement something like below:

1. Ship designs with pre-defined component slots limitations.
Battleship would have more combat-oriented ship component slots (see 1a below), whereas transports would have more cargo component slots and a few "general" component slots that let players choose between putting in a few weapons, a fuel tank for better range, better armor/shield, or simply add in yet another cargo pod. (So no more cheesy morphing your transport into a respectable attacking vessels in a few turns, then attack the unsuspecting planet that it is orbiting...). Oh, and upgrading ships can only be done at starbases with the appropriate starbase component.

The key is the constraints on ship component slots that limit what you can do with it, but at the same time gives you enough choices to have several options/styles of fighting with the ship.



1a. Tech race between Targeting components vs. Targeting-jamming, and Engine Speed vs. manuovering jets.

eg: Battleship ship layout with component slots geared towards *multiple* targeting computers (with diminishing law of returns on), armor, shields, and of course weapons. Engine component slots are actually very limited, forcing players to choose between sacrificing the targeting computer slots for "maneuvering thrusters" that increase ship's speed for tactical advantage in battle. Targeting computers actually increase the missiles/laser's chance to hit, whereas Targeting-disrupting computers decrease their chances to hit.

Or alternatively, another player can put so many targeting-disrupting computers on their battleship that the opponent misses, and the player gets to land that first hit, thus greatly increasing their chances of winning (who first the first salvo is key to winning battleship battles).

1b. Tech race Cloaking ship components vs. Scanner ship components.
A race with built-in cloaking advantages can further capitalize on this by having a very high tech level Cloaking ship component (and sacrifice this slot to have less weapons/targeting-computers). The defending race can fight back by researching for high level scanner ship components, or research for higher-tech cloaking ship components themselves (blind fight agains the blind). Cloaking races with (espensive) fleet of ships attacking together, and defending play's ships are forced to spread out to try to find where the cloaking player's fleet is.

1c. Specialized mine ship hulls with many component slots that dispense mines (finally players cannot zip around at Warp 10 and side-stepping AI defenses). Attacking ships with specialized weapon components that sweep away mines, but can still attack other ships (albeit slightly weaker fire power--forcing you to sacrifice mine sweeping ability for weapon fire power).



2. Race specific ship hulls.
-Cloaking races get specialized cloaking ship hulls, with even more ship component slots geared towards cloaking should they choose to.

-War loving races get specialzed heavy battleship ship hulls that are cheaper to make and maintain per resource unit, much more weapon slots and more slots for targeting computer (to get that important first shot in), more built-in armour.

-Diplomatic races can have specialized ship hulls that follow this theme, you get the idea...



3. More race specific advantages.
eg: Cloaking races have built-in cloaking% that is added on top of the race's cloaking tech level!
eg: War loving races get to fire first, if both sides have the same number of targeting computer components.
eg: Races with built-in tera-forming capabilities that ultimately let them live in more planets in the long run.
eg: Races with very high growth races (and other disadvantages for balancing reasons)...


4. Huge worlds for those who want it--thousand of star systems.
4a. For this reason, I wish computer to settle individual battles automatically --I don't want to fight each and every battle myself (although others can do this if they wish--maybe it's an option for them).


5. Fog of war that prevents you from seeing where the stars are.
Personally, I'm not thrilled that I can see where all the stars are, right at the beginning of the game. Takes away that suspense:
-Will I find a star system?
-How habitable is the star system?
-Is another race already habiting the star system, or are they about to?

I would *definitely* buy GalCiv2 Expansion, if the developers can implement something like below:

1 (and and its subsections) : See the game Stars!.

2 eh...

3 Possibly Good, but quite difficult do well.

4 Other than performance issues, sure..
4a the game already does the battles automatically

5. This one, however, is blatantly ignorant. You don't know where the stars are? Did your race not develop telescopes? Humanity already knows the locations of essentially every star within a few thousand light years, and we haven't even made it out of the orbit of our home planet. There are star catalogs out there with over half a BILLION entries.

Concerning stars, there are two different considerations here.

1. We know where the stars are. You can't really miss them, even without a telecope. They are bright shiny things in the middle of light years of almost nothingness. It's not as though they can hide from you behind an asteriod or something.

2. What we don't know is whether the planetary system around a star has useful planets or not. Perhaps we need to go have a closer peek?

That thousands of systems thing, yeah... Pretty sure that if you put the number of stars to abundant and have the largest galaxy you can get a max of like 1000 systems, not to shabby. Especially if you consider that each of those systems can have up to five worlds, thats alot of planets.

Main reason was overly simple ship design that requires almost no strategy. To risk being overly simplistic, just slap on the heaviest damage weapon, your attacking fleet fire first, and you win even with low defense.

Wrong. Both ships fire at the same time now. Without defences you die.

Don't expect the system to change to become tactical though, thats what GC3 will most likely contain. But the fact of the matter is, it's not "get biggest weapon and win everything", especially when the AI researches faster than you.

All I wish for is a planet scanner that lets you see what bonus tiles there are. Someone did ask for this before. Thought I'd repeat it. Thanks.

heh, not knowing star locations... galactic mapping aside, all u need to do is point at one, and head in that direction...geez

Like "the dish" operators, when they lost all bearings...they pointed the dish towards the moon...

Just thought I would mention that, not only do we know where most of the stars in our galaxy are, we already know about a few planets too. Personally I think the current system is not only realistic but quite enjoyable. Sure, you know where the stars are and how many planets they have, but you don't have a clue where the habitable planets are, and whether you can find and colonise them before the other players. The only change I would make, would be to introduce an option so that you don't know where the other players are until you meet them.

Battleship would have more combat-oriented ship component slots (see 1a below), whereas transports would have more cargo component slots and a few "general" component slots that let players choose between putting in a few weapons, a fuel tank for better range, better armor/shield, or simply add in yet another cargo pod. (So no more cheesy morphing your transport into a respectable attacking vessels in a few turns, then attack the unsuspecting planet that it is orbiting...).

I dont see why you say this unless you just like cheating? If you play the game properly and role play it almost surely you can easily force yourself to only upgrade ships at your starbases and only use appropriate ship types for certain roles. No one is forcing you to cheat by finding loopholes! You are simly cheating yourself of fun at the end of the day, no?

Nats

Hmmm, gotta pick up on two things here:

@RAS1310

The only change I would make, would be to introduce an option so that you don't know where the other players are until you meet them.

You can already, the option is a tick box when you create a game "Hide start locations" something like that.

@zyphyr

and we haven't even made it out of the orbit of our home planet.

We landed on the moon! I know Americans love to call the moon landings fake (even though its THEIR OWN achievement!) but they arent. And on an unmanned note, Voyager1 and 2 are currently on their way out of our solar system, let alone orbit of the planet. Maybe you are refering to colonies... in which case then yeah.

We landed on the moon! I know Americans love to call the moon landings fake (even though its THEIR OWN achievement!) but they arent. And on an unmanned note, Voyager1 and 2 are currently on their way out of our solar system, let alone orbit of the planet. Maybe you are refering to colonies... in which case then yeah.

The moon is still within Earth orbit. As for Voyager, I meant manned missions, but yeah we do have a few outbound unmanned probes. It is really too bad that our space program at this point amounts to little more than a few 20 year old U-Haul trucks.