Once we can see the light planets are reflecting, we can examine the spectrum of light and that would indicate the presence of water and other molecules in the atmosphere.

Game aside, you are starting to scare me I almost don't know which I prefer - the thought that we scan the entire galaxy and find no planets capable of supporting life... or the opposite

I think you need to carefully think over what sort of game you want and why, pdifolco. You say reality has nothing to do how you want planet discovery to work, but then say you want defenses to be realistic. Definitely the closest thing to reality in the game is knowing where the planets and stars are, especially given the tech level the game assumes all the civilizations have.

I definitely have a difficulty to be understood : I have *no* problem with how discovery works currently in the game !!!
My point was that currently I don't have any means in the game to know where the good planets are (ie the non 0 PQ ones) before exploring, so exploration is necessary, and it's good as it is.
Dunno if it's realistic but knowing everything w/o exploration doesn't sound like a good game idea.
OTOH I don't want at all a MoM/Civ approach with everything black/hidden.

Maybe I was'nt clear, my idea is now to also reduce significantly the carrying capacity of Transport *and* Colony modules - to maybe 100 each.

As far as colony goes, most good players only load 100M people as is.

If anyone figures out how to hide stars on the minimap until they have been uncovered (TRUE fog of war), I'd love to hear it...

It's called "blind exploration" and is part of the current Beta

sure we do know where the stars are, and I don't understand how you can know the number or type of planets without exploring ?

It's called stellar cartography: Stellar mapping. If some of the newer telescopes in use on Earth today have started finding individual planets, some that might be "Earth" like, then in a couple hundred years we will have several portions of our galaxy mapped out to the planet. This is not a leap of faith, the game ability is based in the realm of actual possibility.

As for my tech mod, some more details : - I just want to cut the number of "useless" weapons : we just need a basic weapon with strength 1, then maybe an "advanced" str 1 version, then a str 2 weapon - not 6 types before gaining 1 point !!. Obviously the total cost for going up 1 point should stay fairly equal. In the end we just have a more readable/playable progress... - As for my defense ideas, we don't live in the same sensible world : AFAIK armor protects against *all* damage forms, ECM *only* vs guided missiles. As for shields, they don't exist, but I can rationalize my shields as stopping rays, make missiles detonate prematurely, but not stop hyper-velocity projectiles. BTW MD and Missiles have totally different demage type (kinetic vs explosive).

The wepons aren't useless. Each "useless" weapon represents a change; usually that the tech allows you to build the same weapon smaller, albeit a little more expensively. This way weapon tech follows the minituration tech and you slowly gain the ability to have multiple weapons, or add another support module, etc. If you notice, when weapons tech allows you to go up 1 point in damage, the size also goes up and the subsequent techs bring the size back down. The weapon tech tree, while labeled blandly, does follow simple logic.

ECM = Electronic Counter Measures
Exactly how do you expect weapons are aimed? You wan't reality? ECM should provide protection against all forms of attack because of its very nature. A weapon system still needs targeting, which ECM will thwart. A mass drive weapon will have some form of targeting on it, making course changes as needed. ECM is meant to throw off the readings, etc of those targeting sensors. Missles would use very similar technology. Beam weapons? Light is just as frequency based as radio and beam weapons are focused light engergy. Considering an airplane can be knocked out of the sky from 50 miles out, I would not be surprised if ECM evolved to be able to diffuse the light energy from a beam weapon, minimizing any damage. (actually, that will probably end up being "shields")

Shields
"...can rationalize my shields as stopping rays, make missiles detonate prematurely, but not stop hyper-velocity projectiles..."
Just how slow do you imagine missles moving? Ships in orbit are moving thousands of miles an hour, ships heading towards a destination are moving even faster and ships operating under combat conditions even more so. Missles would utilize the same engine technology used to power a ship and move/accelerate even faster because of the different weight-to-thrust ratios between a missle and a ship. Reality? a missle would probably start out slower than a mass drive weapon, but surpass it in speed long before reaching its target because of constant acceleration, which a mass drive weapon is incapable of duplicating.

Armor
Today we can essentially shoot a laser at an object and get a chemical breakdown. There's more to it than that, but that's the essence. In the future, beam weapons/sensors will probably utilize something similar and then change the frequency of the beam for best effect. Really, if you consider medieval knights were outmoded by crossbows, bullet proof vests are rendered useless by making a pointed HV round and tank armor just as useless by using depleted uranium rounds, then you begin to realize that armor is good only against low tech weapons. Yes, there are new composites made every year, but all you have to do is coat your missle with that same composite and it renders the armor obsolete..same with mass drive weapons. Armor has its uses, but not as a prime defense mechanism. In reality, ECM is your front line defense and armor is your last resort.

we don't live in the same sensible world

Really? You think?

Skelton42,
I understand the current tech tree, but it's not to my taste to have 22-23 tech levels for 4 weapons "types" on each of the 3 branches, with constant upgrades to get a ship 3% better than the last one. After some turns I just lose track of what designs I should use ...
Other techs have trees 3 times smaller, I'd prefer havinf that all over the board.

As for the attack/defense rationales, I was replying to someone calling it "unbalanced and not sensible". I can rationalize why it could work the way I propose, that's all.. Sure you can find other rationales for another way the system could work, but what's the point ? You can make another mod if you want .. Note that your reasoning also implicitly criticize the way it's done in vanilla GC2 !

Note that your reasoning also implicitly criticize the way it's done in vanilla GC2 !

Not really. My comments were made because your "sensible...rational" idea is delusional. GC2 is a game and the dev's have made no attempt to say anything is realistic. I accept GC2 as a game, but do have a problem with someone making wildly inaccurate statements.

At worst call it a case of "ignorance is bliss" and in this case i'm not completely ignorant (not an expert either).

I was merely pointing out some inaccuracies of your statement. Had Frogboy made the same statements, I'm not the only one that would have lept to the challenge. They avoided all that by saying this is how it works in this game...period; not this is how it works because it's realistic, sensible, rational, etc. It's how it works because that's how they programmed it to work.

In the end, the game on your computer is your game; you are free to mod it all you want and turn in into the game you wish you bought.