i voted yes but i dont want to have to buy it online because i dont like pay with credit crad.but i understand why they wouldnt want it to be in stores. it would have to have the same no copy protection that the games has. mabe copy protection but a number so you could download another one later. but theb people could just sell or dare is ay give it out for free? its a big prob. but it still would be cool and i would buy

I would by it, directly from Stardock too.

I personally am quite fond of the ship editor and would like some more variation. I also hope that work is put into giving each race their own ship designs. It would be nice to see a few more choices in the custom race menu.

I agree here, I'd definetly like to see some unique hull types for each race, makes the game more unique, plus the player will have more choices.

and even though the polls are leaning to 60/40, we should give this poll at least a week to get the amount of votes the last one got which was something around 900 I think, maybe 500 I forget exactly.

My vote is yes.

And could we get a right wing to match this left wing, also the hard points fixed?

I am interested in seeing additional art added (I enjoy designing my own ships for sure). However, I would rather see the same internal funds used on something more relevant to gameplay. If they can be used to further work on another spectacular game (i.e., Society instead of GCII), that's fine with me. This is not an easy call for me, as I can see both sides of the coin. The graphics in GCII are pretty, and I enjoy ship and jewelry variety as much as the next player. At the end of the day, however, it is only cosmetic. For me, "the play's the thing," and that is where I want to see development dollars spent.

I voted no. But if such a pack were made available, I might consider purchasing it.

would really depend on what is in there (quantity and quality), but as us guys working on the B5 ships/mod are going to use B5 ships only at one point Iam not all that interested in more art.

what I want are: more race-tags for hulls and ships (S6_, S7_, S8_), racial tech trees or more than 3 ethical alignments and tech trees to go along with them and the GC2 engine to not get all screwed up when you add in X-Files with animations (e.g. the auto scaling on the galaxy map doesnt work anymore).

Yes. Yes. A million times yes.

I read this thread and agree 100% with Frogboy.
I personally REFUSE to purchase a subscription game. I paid $50, let me play it for free please.

However, I am all about content expansion. I have chosen to NOT purchase extra content for Oblivion because even $2 for Horse Armor is not a redeeming bit of content.

$9 for (what I would hope would be several dozen) parts/new hulls/whatever, would be worth it because I value the Ship Builder. I draw, I write, I like ultimate customization within games, and GalCiv II delivered beautifully.

So please, follow through with this. Not everyone will buy, but I will. I promise.
I promise because I am a Computer Science student at University, and I enjoy Independent productions more than huge projects from EA or the like.

Would hate to have to have a credit card number for me to purchase this in the U.S.

I've seen this around quite a bit, and I'm rather confused by it, being an American.

Do banks in Europe (or other non-America places) not offer debit cards? You know, bank cards that can act as credit cards (deducting directly from your account rather than a credit account)? Because, ever since this wonderful invention, that's the only mechanism I use to pay for things. Except for my rent check (because aparentments tend not to be terribly high-tech).

I don't know how I could live without my debit card...

As to the substance of the poll, would I pay for a $10 jewelry pack? It depends. Does it involve better jewelry handling? Like main ship resizing. Or selecting which ship models to use as which (what a huge hull is, medium hull, etc)? Even just adding the ability to add XML handling to this, so that modders people can come up with specialized styles of hulls. Right now, the only way to do it is to directly add something into the ship parts, and make it a formal hull, rather than making a new set of hull types that can sit alongside the current choices (Human, Drengin, etc).

Also, if you're going to be expanding that structure list with 100+ pieces of jewelry, you've got to have better handling of it so that we can easily find what we're looking for. I don't bother with jewelry in ship construction, partially because I'm trying to play the game, but also because it's just too hard to find what I'm really looking for. Walking through a straight list of 50+ items just isn't fun, and doing it several dozen times doesn't help. How you adjust the menu, I have no idea. But it needs serious work.

Lastly, I want more structural parts that are like Lego. Something that doesn't really look like much, but can be connected together to form interesting stuff without a specific look to it. With the ability to rotate hardpoints and so forth, it only makes sense to go the whole "lego ship from the ground up" route. And the ability to save such designs as basic hulls (possibly saving them as whole .X file meshes that a mod could incorporate) would also be welcome.

Maybe the code stuff doesn't come out in a jewelry expansion, but as a revision, like 1.3. Either way, it needs to happen before the jewelry expansion is viable.

Whats the point to putting more time into designing cooler looking ships when nobody going to see them in action.

Winners forget they're in a race; they just love to run.

If you're doing it for the adulation of your peers, you're doing it for the wrong reason.

Just me dropping in to voice my 2cents...

I would buy any and all expansions or add-on packs regardless of content with the exception of one offering. I WOULD NOT purchase a multiplayer only expansion and if multiplayer IS in a pack coupled with other content, then the content that has nothing to do with multiplayer would have to be such that it would be worth the purchase. From what I hear, Multiplayer ( if offered ) would be a stand alone expansion, so hopefully no worries

Why should anybody have an issue with an optional cosmetic component that costs a little. If you don't like it or its not a market valuse for you, then don't pay.

Many updates that affect the UI, gameplay mechanics or fixes bugs has been FREE from the stardockies.

There is also a strong case for a major expansion that has to be budgeted for (ie. someone has to pay for the developers). Thats a major gamble on Frogboys part.

But is there is a great set of optional ship design designed by real artists out there, please please let me have it, I would gladly spend the 10 bucks. And anyone who doesn't want to spend the extra money should feel bad, because it is an optional component.

For, Chrissakes Make some money on us, or put up a tip jar so we can keep on having you guys improve this fantastic game.

I like the idea of small expansions too, but "visuals" - no way, I want to play a strategic game, not to view ships.

I voted "Yes" as I would be interested. I probably wouldn't just buy it if it only made a giant laundry list of ship parts / jewlery available however... What I would like to come with it is an upgraded (and if possible, separate) ship designer that would make it easier to use as it can already be a hassle looking through the pages of random bits and parts to find the piece you are looking for. Even if it has all the pieces you can possible want, it would be too much trouble if it takes you an hour to find it.

I voted yes.

But I would also like to see new graphics for planetary invasion. Should not be huge thing?

I voted yes but that yes depends on how much I will get for those 9 dollars.
I would also like to see all the wrong hardpoints fixed in a update. I don't know about the others but Yor have quite a few. Shouldn't take too long time for the art-people to do that.

I've seen this around quite a bit, and I'm rather confused by it, being an American.

I'm seriously confused by this as well, and I live in Sweden.

Frogboy, if this is in the works already then I am definitely looking forward to it. I would absolutely spend $8.95 on a hull pack, especially if it contains the new race-specific designs you mentioned in one of your articles. $9 is about £4.50, and I have mates who regularly spend more than that on beer every week. It's well worth it in my opinion.

It's true that credit cards aren't very popular here, but debit cards are. Anyone who uses a cash machine will have one. That's what I use to shop online all the time. An expansion pack, released as a boxed version will have other costs, that will effect the quality of the product and possibly the final price at release.

I quite like the idea of mini-expanions or 'packs' as it allows me to pick and choose features that I want, instead of buying one big expansion pack, which may be 'hit or miss' in terms of quality. I hope this trend continues. In fact I would like to see many more add-on packs like this.

I'd quite like to see a 'galaxy pack', with extra star names and planet textures, a map editor, some impassable terrain, and maybe wormholes. By that I mean have two seperate maps with several wormholes that link it to the other map. Ahem, sorry, back on topic.

I could see myself paying a little more than $8.95, depending on the quality of the release. It would be nice to have a bit more of a hint about what kind of things we could expect.

I've voted YES, esp. if each race had custom parts. Oh and because I can get lazy sometimes, can we have some more 'ready-made' ships!

I voted yes, I spend just about 40% of my gaming on GC2 in the ship design area. I am always tweaking this and that to find a more symetrical look at of the components that came with the CE addition. I have a pretty good looking set of ships for the Pryde now. Not quite the swan shaped ships of Star Trek, now quite the triangular ships of Star Wars or the tear drop shape of modern naval ships but a good mix. I have secondary sets of wings that I can use of swept effect (if only they would move on their own to the swept wing in the combat videos, now that would, could be cool).

So, given I am willing to pay for such a thing, I am also willing to put in a request for some animation of such things, for example:

X Wings split when entering combat >-< in combat, --- out of combat or in travel.

The swept wings that modern fighter aircraft employ would be cool. That nice antenna/feedhorn could rotate, lights could flash on and off. A host of little things that I am sure, once I get a nicer video card could supplement the engine trails and ship damage, providing an even more visually stimulating feel to an already cool game.

W/R
Suralle Straykat
Kat Lord @ Large

My real answer is, 'Probably, at some point' Sometimes I feel like really playing around with the ship designer, but sometimes I can't be bothered; especially in the later stages of a large game, it almost becomes like micromanagement. If it were easier to keep designs between games regardless of their names, I would care more about my designs. As it is, I usually delete everything in the ships folders between games.

Plus, as it is, the scrolling list of Extras in the ship designer is too big - I just don't feel like scrolling up and down that long list every time I want a part. If there were just some way to filter or sort that huge list, say by "Most recently used" or "Wings" or "Spherical components" or something, I might be more willing to pay to get a longer list of components.

I have nothing in theory against a cheap eye-candy based expansion. As has been mentioned, the price is very reasonable (about the same as a pc games magazine these days)!

Yet I have voted no because out of all the aspects of the game the ship design is the one which requires the LEAST graphical overhaul. Planetary invasion, ship combat, galaxy map - I would happily pay a negligable amount to see these spiced up a bit visually. I know ship design is (rightly) one of the most popular bits of the game, but it just seems odd to focus an eyecandy expansion on the most visually rich area of the existing game.

Also, if you're going to be expanding that structure list with 100+ pieces of jewelry, you've got to have better handling of it so that we can easily find what we're looking for. I don't bother with jewelry in ship construction, partially because I'm trying to play the game, but also because it's just too hard to find what I'm really looking for. Walking through a straight list of 50+ items just isn't fun, and doing it several dozen times doesn't help. How you adjust the menu, I have no idea. But it needs serious work.

One possibility is to have a sub-menu beside the main jewelry menu, that you could drag parts from one list to another list, for your ship building needs. And maybe an external .exe program, so that you can organize what jewelry GCII will load into the game.

Like the OP im from europe and don't have a credit card, so i don't even know how i could pay.
Furthermore I think that designing new ship components could be done by moders. The library has its own section for that. (Sadly its almost empty.) But seeing all those amazing new hulls and ships there, there should be a chance to see some new components.

I swear.... if you guys make the hardpoints on the ships uniform.... I would pay an extra $2 witht he ship/hull expansion pack......

How are these prices being arrived at? Why are ship hulls only $9 and multiplayer $20? I bet more people would've voted yes on the multiplayer if it was only $9 (and there's no way people would vote for a bunch of art at $20).

I prefer actual content for my money. I enjoyed the builder the first few times I played, but now I simply stick some parts on so it looks rather cool, and that's it. The ship builder is just difficult enough in usability to get it to do exactly what I want, that it isn't worth the time investment to fiddle for hours with it. I'd rather get on with it and play the game.

Now if you got it tweaked to the way it sounds like the creature designer works in Spore - that would be something.

-HM

Yes, absolutely I would pay a measly ten bucks for hulls and jewelry. I find the ship designer to be as much fun as the rest of the game. In fact, I think of this as two games for the price of one!

The same folks who want expansions for free just parrot what the rest of our society has learned--that they are entitled to have others labor for them for FREE. Get off your entitlement high horse people and cough up ten bucks for goodness sake. Support the few companies that cater to turn based strategy gamers.

Count me in

If you guys at Stardock are thinking of an additional graphics pack then i already know that the content would be good!! For that price i would buy it the day of release.

DG