Duckness, without seeing your laptop specs, I can't say anything for certain, but you might be able to get drivers that would let you play on your laptop here:

www.omegadrivers.net

Wh

I have been reading up on the idea of creating a star but I havent seen any post about creating a Dyson Sphere (no search feature that I can see).

What the heck is a Dyson Sphere?

qualifying the civilisation as a type II

Huh? Where did you guys come up with this stuff? Is this from Babylon 5 or Doctor Who or something?

Thanks Jack. I took a look and I get it now. Now that I know what the concept of a Dyson Sphere is, I don't think adding that to GalCiv 2 would make the game better.

For civilization types, see here: (ARGH! How do link tags work? The JScript stuff is broken and the url tags seem to end URLs un underscores! Just search Wikipedia for "Kardashev scale"). Basically, it's a scheme to classify how advanced a civilization is based on how good it is at mutilating space-time and expanding through the universe. Currently, we are awy pre-Type-I.

Having a Dyson sphere in the classical sense would make expansion somewhat useless since you'd get an inhabitable surface several orders of magnitude greater than what a bunch of planets could offer. Provided that you could guarantee the safety of such a structure, having one would mean a sudden superiority in almost all facets of universal domination, like population, production and logistics. All matters related to area coverage could be handled by military detachments without the need of colonies. All you'd need is a second star system rich on resources since you'll have used up everything in yours (including planets).

Perhaps there should be a sequal to GC that concentrates on type II civilizations. Call it "Type II Galactic Civilizations". Or how about "Universe Civilizations", after all, beyond exploring and exploiting the galaxy is exploring and exploiting the universe. The story line would start after the completion of the GC tech "final frontier".


Nnnaaahhh. It would have to be so super theoretical that most people would not be able to buy into it, and the game would not sell well.

I remember hearing about a type 2 civ from a physicist that was on tv. I think we are a type 1, type 2 I think is when planetary altering is possible by a civ.

I think what the problem is that there is no utalization of the star in this game. That can be a sore point to any true scifi fan I just love the ring worlds and sphere worlds of SE4

Personally I'd love the idea for a Dyson sphere/swarm/shell/ring what have you. As for implementing it, could you do something like this:

1. Create a sub branch of Starbase Conquest technology titled 'Dyson theory>Dyson swarm>Dyson ring>Dyson shell>Dyson sphere>Dysonian Conquest'
Give them HUGE research requirements on par with any other such game victories
{Option: the final tech in the chain 'Dysonian Conquest' could have relatively low requirements to research. This would give players the option to continue playing with their new toy, or just grab the victory they justly deserve}

2. Allow constructors to enter the same hex as a sun {as I am not a programmer I don't know how hard this would be to implement, after all suns don't have the same statistics as planets or resource nodes}. Allow the suns to be utilized as a resource {like the existing moral or economic mining stations, but again I haven't looked under the hood}.
With each additional constructor you give bonuses to things like manufacture and Influence {seeing as you are tapping more and more solar energy, and well it's rather impressive}, as well as create specific animations of the solar body as its becoming more and more occluded.


Some issues:
How the hell would you write in additional values for suns, so that it could still be stable with existing versions and third party mods? You might need to write this into an expansion pack.
An easier {but not ideal} route would be to make a new station {like the existing military/influence/economic stations in the game} and give it a large graphic taking up the whole hex. Or you could just reskin the existing stations to look more 'solar collector' like.
Yes I know none of this takes into account that the host system must be broken down to provide the base materials

Anyway I hope this idea will be looked at with some serious consideration, and in the spirit of sharing knowledge, I found some great pages on the wikipedia about the theories of Freeman Dyson, Dyson spheres, and other solar engines to spark the imagination:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_engine

Edit: Ya sucks to hyperlink, sucks to your auntie

That's an awful lot of effort to build something like a Dyson sphere or ringworld, when there's 300 billion stars in the galaxy, a good number of which probably have livable planets. By the time you built something like that, you probably could have colonized half the galaxy with near-light speed ships. Talking real world, not the GC2 world.

I think we are a type 1, type 2 I think is when planetary altering is possible by a civ.

Wrong, we aren't a type 1 yet. Type 1's can use all the energy on the planet, and we're pathetic at geothermal. Type 2 is where all the energy from the sun is harnessed, the Dyson Sphere is an array of solar- orbiting satelites that surround the sun, using every last particle of it's energy.

Galciv2 doesn't need energy since cold fusion provides it. Dyson Spheres are, therefore, useless.

Well, here's my Dyson Sphere and Ringworld thread...Link



-Wade