SY 100

You're sort of crazy DARCA, I like that.

But I have to disagree here; the "ice cream parlors" will significantly reduce map clutter, make the map more intuitive and reduce micromanagement. You should be defending your planets with mobile fleets regardless.

I'm a bit curious on #3 and #5 and whether those are meant to include asteroid mining bases as well (or if asteroid mining bases go to the planet first and thus only indirectly to the subject of SY100).

Durr ... I'm having difficulty figuring out what we are or aren't allowed to say and where.  Posting on the main forum in 'code' seems kinda silly and spammy to non-founders.

Stardock is built upon a citadel of lies and deceit, don't you know that? Everyone on Steam knows that.

Yes, I'm a bit surprised that we still don't have a place (private forum) where we can openly discuss these private things in detail without inadvertently spilling the beans. I've always had that with other software that I've beta tested before, gaming and general software. Anyway,I really like what I've read in the vault!

I don't know what not to say. Lol.

The change to produce shipyards is necessary for the big scale. If we are talking about creating maps that are enormous, players need the flexibility of producing ships across the map. How many stars with no planets will we encounter before we get to a viable enemy to take their planets. I do not necessarily want to travel 100 hexes just to get a ship to the front line, nor do I want to try and wait to upgrade an enemy planet to resupply my ship losses.

I like the proposed changes to the construction of ships. It forces the player to produce a vital target on the strategic map. It grants the ability to centralize all ship-building.

If they do move to the idea of shipyards in space, then we are talking about opening possibly new chains of upgrades on these shipyards. Who's to say that I cannot build a fabricator on a shipyard that instead of building one ship, it produces 2 ships at the cost of 10% of the "hull points". I can make many but cheaply. Or other possible upgrades along those lines.

I think these shipyards, give a good way of telling the AI or player... you lost. You cannot build ships and it is a matter of time until I wipe the rest of your wolds. Removes some tedium of the endgame in this way.

I get the impression of not so much secretive, but more not so definitive. There are so many things that can change from now until beta, and these topics read as more proposals rather than final design decisions.

1. IT NEVER HAS taken 100 tiles and most of the time 50, to reach the enemy.

2. YOU'VE SAID TO MUCH! Edit your post man!

DARCA.

Hi guys. You can say whatever you'd like. The only thing I ask is that you don't quote or post anything from the documents themselves.

Got it. Thanks for the clarification.

With the new map changes this could and most likely would happen. Unless you never venture beyond Small.

A sufficiently fertile pontificator such as yourself should appreciate the profusion of such literary work.

LOL

I find myself agreeing with parrottmath. One of the issues I have with games like these is how tedious things can get towards the end (ADHD sufferer ). This could help cut down on that issue. I for one welcome our new masters.

I have to find time to get online and finish my steam download tonight so I can associate it with my Stardock account and see what you are talking about. this is agonising..........

Just have to find away to do it with out admitting to my wife I spent £75.99 last night on a game that's still in aplha....

I first bought my wife a gift of simliar cost........

Might work, actually it's more the time I spend playing these games she tends to get annoyed about I can just not mention how much it cost. .

Actually I felt a bit odd about spending that much on a game. But how could I resist GC2 with all the expansions is probably just about my favourite game ever and I've been gaming 29 years .

This is now a real feedback forum. I have stuff that needs stuffing and questions that need...questioning.

1. Ironically. Star bases are are the primary defense and way to build ships in a "story" I'm writing, so the idea is realistic. However, I think there should be a limit* (I usually hate limits) on how close you can build them. One glitch or AI exception and your map is cluttered. A two tile radius for shipyards outside a star might be worth programming. Also it would be nice to have the right to build on planet still. Its not like the atmosphere of every world is toxic and unfit to make ships in.

2. I believe hidden in the licensing agreement upon purchase, there is a hidden founders perk. And it vaguely states that each founder gets three wishes. Each wish will be given at a time SD decides.* (*The previous statement may not be factual...but it should be!) So I WISH there was a in game editor like in civ, so I and others can lazily modd.

3. Just as important as the other stuff. I love being like the Yor. I love isolated empires in clusters. I love being David fighting Goliath, fighting a big empire and using tactics and diplomacy like the Drath. So it would be nice if having closed borders would stop Shipyard spam, and people colonizing worlds within my empire. (Krynn colonizing Mars comes to mind. That shouldn't happen.)

4. How will trade routes work? What determines the planet receives the fright.

5. Pragmatic civs should have to ability to convince other to make peace with other civs easier. Like altarian making peace with thalan. (that would be a odd war.)

6. This is quite a educational experience. The alpha has taught me alot. It's by far the best few hundred dollars I've ever spent, and the games still a more than a year from release! All I had to do was get a new laptop, faster internet, pay 99.99, and 6% to Maryland online purchase tax! Lol. It been wonderful seeing the game and your creative visions evolve.

Thanks SD!

DARCA.

DARCA, I do not understand your obsession with having the dual Queue exclusively on planets like in GalCiv 2. I really like the proposed Shipyard Starbase system.

Consider the following:  suppose you have 4 planets close by each building a Capital ship every 20 turns. With 4 different waypoints to update.

I would much prefer having one shipyard with the 4 planets linked producing a Capital Ship every 5 turns instead and only 1 waypoint to update. 

It certainly will result in a bit more stuff on the map, especially with those people who already spam StarBases everywhere :p   But I think It will not be too bad. It will be very flexible and innovative.

I'd like to see some tie-in with the the Ideology tree.

I think that it would make Benevolence tree a bit 'better', if it contained bonuses to reduce the penalty for extending resources to ShipYards. Like 'hey why do I need Influence I/II?' Oh wait influence means I can build my ShipYards out farther? well then that's actually something useful. Especially to counter Malevolent which has a ton of production and money bonuses. That way building out influence or culture has a practical impact.

I'm also concerned about how ShipYards would work in combat. Do you take them over? If you can take over ShipYards ports that seems very powerful and potentially game breaking. One way to allow ShipYards caputre but not have the game turn into Turn1-capture, Turn2-DEATH STAR, maybe have starports have 'levels'. Larger ships need a larger 'level' ShipYards made via either constructors, or by 'manufacturing' a module on the ShipYards iself. That would put in a buffer for the player to either take back the star port or at least have time to change strategies, before my DeathStar pops out of their ShipYards .

While I understand the concept to reduce the tedium of moving ships to the front line, how will you balance between the distance penalty, vs moving ships to the front line. if the penalty is very aggressive, then it makes almost no sense to project resources out to a remote shipyard. Yet if it's not aggressive enough, somehow a shipyard in the outer rim is churning out death stars eveyr other turn.

I would imagine trade routes would got to these shipyards, instead of planets. Each planet connected gets a bonus / number of planets connected...maybe distance factored in here somewhere.

That idea would be taken care of by setting a maximum number of connections. Increased through modules. Only connect a most 4 to start and move to a max of 20...

I think I like the idea of star bases and specialisation - this seems like it will add some nice strategic options while removing some build queue management, and there's no point in making gc2 again so fresh ideas are welcome.

I think though I might be inclined to say that non-combat ships can be built on any planet (colony, scouts specifically as well as the proposed constructor) with the aim that it would be possible to play and win using cultural effects rather than overt aggression (and so you never build a shipyard for example). 

r.

I've been assuming that SD will just have it similar to GC2 where you can't capture starbases but can only destroy them. We'll see what happens though.

I think StarBase capture is a bit over the top as far as gameplay is concerned.  I vote for simply destroy like in GalCiv 2. 

I wouldn't mind star-base capture, but it would have to be done by specialized marines and never easy... given the defenders might hit the self-destruct button than lose the station. Say a 5% chance of success, 20% chance of boom, and a 75% chance of failure.

Mining bases...

Mining Facilities

Asteroid Drillers

Extraction Facility

Mineral Extractor Facility

Mining Colony

Drill Facility

Asteroid Plumbers

Asteroid Refinery

Prospecting Base

Mining Infrastructure

Prospector Moot

Boring Facilities

Mining Conglomerate

...

I like the old two queue system because it's proven to be effective. I also believe in taking risks. I like the proposed idea too, alot of ideas look good. My reservations are because its still a unproven concept with issues and no know backups plan. I like backup plans, or any type of plan or idea. Alot is still unanswered.

If someone from SD were to say the galciv2 queue system and planet side ship building is impossible, isn't going to happen, or cost to much time and money, I would drop the subject, until then I believe everything should be considered, and when this system is implemented I would like to be able to build anything on any planet like before, if I want to suffer the one queue, let me. I see no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to, and it's not harming anyone.

you will have to set way points for your constructors anyway Max. Unless there will be a way to manage planets and waypoints in groups. I have about ten to twenty worlds tops on big maps and managing them will be easier to do if I build on planet since there are so few.

Optimism is sight for the ignorant. On paper, this idea looks good, so did the single queue when it was announced. We were optimistic. We can't do that anymore. We are alpha testers. We find grievances, report them, and suggests solutions and ideas. If we all assume something is right, who will you if your wrong?

Those problems are SDs not ours. We find they fix. Colony ships, trade ships, and being able to build ships anywhere just because we want too, are things they sort out. How they fix and create is up to them.

That just my opinion.

DARCA.

@devs: Did you come to these conclusions from in house testing, or was it a combination of in-house and players comments? (just curious)