continuous space exploration!

Sounds good to me!

damn good ideas i was thinking about them randomly popping up from time to time but the idea of planets and sensers is good too.

good idea but would be a major redo.. maybe for a expansion they would do it

I definitely like that idea, it seems a shame that the anomaly searching is over in the early turns of a game. As an extension to your excellent ideas it would be cool if other certain techs were required to make use of/access an anomaly. Something like you need sensors mk II to do an initial exploration of the anomaly, at which point the survey ship states that to access what is in the anomaly you need a plasma weapon II to blast open the shield protecting it or need a starbase with particular modules to use it etc. It then makes anomalies not only smash and grab but riskier maybe forcing you to consider tech tree options you might not have considered as well as create potential flash points for war.

Just an idea.

EZ

AR

This is a great idea! It might even encourage players to build better survey ships. As stands now my exploration vessel tends to either get junked or sold by mid game (particularly once I have Eyes of the Universe).

An alternative idea is not to give you an exploration vessel in the beginning at all. If you notice, the exploration vessel has several technologies that you simply do not pocess at the beginning of a standard game. It might be interest to set up the game so you start with the most basic of space ships -- and build your way up to the technology required to construct such a vessel.

agree on what they said!!! anomalies must pop up time to time!

good one admiralZ. i wouldnt mind seeing this in an expansion or even in a future 1.x version

Totally agree

Yup, I agree with you and the other

Definitely need more anomalies. My biggest peev is the fact that wormholes are a "one-time only" kind of thing. I think that they should only collapse after a certain number of turns, have TWO ends, destablizing with each ship sent through, etc. This way you could add some extra strategic depth if the two ends are close to your homeworld and the homeworld of a war-like race like the Drengin. Changes the way you have to look at and interact with other races. Maybe a tri-attack (from behind AND the two sides). Only REALLY useful in a Large or bigger map.

I definitely like that idea, it seems a shame that the anomaly searching is over in the early turns of a game. As an extension to your excellent ideas it would be cool if other certain techs were required to make use of/access an anomaly. Something like you need sensors mk II to do an initial exploration of the anomaly, at which point the survey ship states that to access what is in the anomaly you need a plasma weapon II to blast open the shield protecting it or need a starbase with particular modules to use it etc. It then makes anomalies not only smash and grab but riskier maybe forcing you to consider tech tree options you might not have considered as well as create potential flash points for war.

This is really a great add-on-idea!

Great post and great idea, AdmiralZ!

I'd love to see something like this implemented as well... it always bums me out when the survey ship abruptly loses it's importance, due to all of the anomalies being gone. And in the great majority of games, the 'all ships can survey' planetary improvement has very, very little value. This kind of a change would make that improvement worth having.

Currently survey is worthless as is. Agreed.

Great Idea AdmiralZ, need to get GalCiv dev attention on this one!!

I love it. Shoot, even add a way you can send ships on discovery missions outside of the galaxy and they return in X time with results.

Excellent idea! Having anomolies pop up through out the game would be awesome!

Great Idea !

I would also like to see more negative anomalies, especially for the ones that you could discover later in the game...

Perhaps, (stealing shanmelessly from the Civ goody huts), once in a while you discover a Pirate Base, and a Skull n XBones fleet will appear.

Or you open a wormhole to the Scatttering and suddenly the galaxy is flooded by Honered Matre ships or something. (like the tiny fighters that appear when you assasinate an Ai leader.)

Or you unleash a Galactic plague and you must research a previously hidden medical tech to avaiod losing 75% of your population over a year.

Capital idea. I fully support every seguestion the author gave. Maybe in a mini downloadable expantion labeled something along the lines of "Boldy going where no one has gone before" or some cliche thing like that. The expantion would expand anomolies expontentialy. Requiring detail in how to handle 'advanced' or 'exotic' anomolys. For example you stumble upon a advanced anomoly which tells you that you require sensors mk 2 to survey. You research it upgrade your ship go back and study it, giving a slight 'story' or techno jargen to add feeling. Maybe you need to build a research starbase around the anomoly to take advantage of it. Once done the anomoly would give you something very powerful maybe more powerful then galactic resources. It might set a chain of events together that could alter the galaxy. Such as a temporal anomoly where you might accidently drag a precoursor battlefleet fighting a arnor fleet from the past. All of a sudden its chaos as two hugely power fleets appear out of nowhere fighting eachother and any one who gets in the way. This is of course a example of what could happen with advanced anomolies.

Or something more simple, such as a event pop up occuring when you 'roll' over a advanced anomoly. Like a random planetary colonizing event...but in space. Perhaps the same event above could be used as a possible outcome of a choice you would make. However personaly I like the intricate anomoly idea, it would add a sort of quasi-linear plot that you could start up at any time. Advanced anomolies, in a expantion could add randomized story elements that you could 'set off' in a chain reaction, like in imperium galactica 2. Like how if you conquored a pirate world the pirate leader offers you his daughter for marrage in exchange for peace. If you accept you have a tough general with her own ship and leadership abilities to increase other ships in the same fleet. You would then have a character, a plot item if you will that could lead into more intricate plots involving her. An event like this could be implimented if for example your survey ship surveyed a small moon or a class 0 planet with anomilas readings. It would be of course hard to do which is why I would call this a expantion pack. Heck I would be happy to see something like that in GalCiv 3. I could wait.

I think it would be cool if they added some new "anomaly events" where different things might happen when you encounter the anomaly depending on different things, like: ship equipment, empire attributes, ethics, governments, diplomacy level, etc... An entire expansion pack devoted to adding an deeper "exploration" portion the the game would be worthwhile IMHO. I wonder if something like this can be modded? I can't see them making an entire Ex-pack on it.

=$= Big J Money =$=

Actually the anomalies are suppose to reappear, and did in the release 1.0 version, and I think even in the 1.0d version as well. However, the upgrade to 1.0x and subsequent betas killed this functionality. I'm not sure if this was intended or not, but if it was, I can see why. When it did reappear, I would hunt down all the AI Survey ships and kill them, and thus assured myself sole possesion of all anomalies that would pop up (because the AI never builds survey or sensor ships). In essense, I would make a ton of money and get insane civilization bonuses from these anomalies, which... I suppose could be considered to be game breaking. I've asked around about this matter to see whether this was really the case or if it was just a bug, but have found no official reply on the matter. Maybe you guys will have more luck.

Personally I would have liked it if the AI started researching sensors and build survey/sensor ships and agressively pursue the reappearing anomalies like me as well, but I suppose that takes more work than just turning it off. Perhaps this can be worked back into the game in later versions.

I had an idea for expanded exploration too, but it involves actually expanding the map through exploration of the edges.
It is in this link;
Link