Serious research texts

Is there some kind of file that you can edit for that? Like for the race abilities and descriptions and what not (in the mydocuments\games\galciv2 folder)?

If you can - it would be cool if someone would edit it to make it tell you what certain techs actually do and what not...

Although, I think I'm going to uninstall the game so, too late for me.

What are they going to say for something imaginary like a Graviton Gun or Level III Warp Drive? A joke or something dumb is probably better than a paragraph of meaningless technology words.

Try creating your own mod and changing the tech descriptions. The file can be found in %gameroot%\data\%language%\TechTree.xml

I agree. For instance, when you get a new level of lasers it should tell you how much the size decreased, etc.

I don't suggest removing the current text, but rather adding a small window with all the most relevant information.

What are they going to say for something imaginary like a Graviton Gun or Level III Warp Drive? A joke or something dumb is probably better than a paragraph of meaningless technology words.

How about what it does? I'll tell you the first time that I played, and a few times after - I had no idea what the improvements did...

"gives us laser technology"

yeah - great... how about you tell me exactly what these lasers do...

They don't describe anything.

It was never too hard for me to figure out what all the techs are. A laser is a weapon and every new laser tech is simply a better laser which is a better weapon. If you don't understand the techs the first time you play, don't feel bad. It takes time to learn the game.

However, a more detailed tech tree wouldn't be bad. Maybe it should go into the 1.4 version or the expansion.

just add something like:


Laser III:
Base Size 8 + 10%
Base Damage 2
Size Improvement 1+2% <-- (if Laser II had size 9 + 12%)
Damage Improvement 1 <-- (if Laser II had damage 1)

this could even be done with a small script (the base damage and size values have to be stored somewhere alrdy, just read them out and save them in the xml file) so there is no need to edit all files manually

The Galatopedia has a lot of good info in it. It would be nice if they had some printable files with the info organized. I ended up making my own notepad files with the data organized the way I like but that took a couple of days.

If Stardock doesn't want to do it maybe they could have a forum section for players to post their own guides -- think there are lots of players that would love to post guides.

I prefer the way it is.

Size Improvement 1+2% <-- (if Laser II had size 9 + 12%) this could even be done with a small script (the base damage and size values have to be stored somewhere alrdy, just read them out and save them in the xml file) so there is no need to edit all files manually

Now that's a capital idea!
Do not neglect cost..

The Tech-descriptions are another weakness in the game.
In this category belongs missing general information, using more serious and informative text.
(nothing against one joke, but after all this game is no joke or kid-game, so this aspect should not be exagerated)

This is also related to the general aspect of User Interaction.
While the AI received much attention and brought Artificial actions to a new level, the User Interaction with the game did not.

1) UI continuity
a) Tips on mouse-over (Tool-tips) not everywhere.
While even in MOO2 or Civ4 this is standard, the mouse over tooltips will not appear on every occasion in galciv2.
Starting with the creation of a game, countless items have no accessable information ingame.
Nor by tool-tip, nor by right clicking it.with continu

A good UI-help integration can be seen in MOO2.
Everything (Buttons, items) will react on a right mouse click with a help popup explaining the specific item.
Mouse-over tool tips are also present continously.

Civ4: everythign will bring up a tool-tip-information when you perform a mouse-over.

Scrolling
As mentioned in my UI bugs post: https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=274&aid=124827
the slider scrolling/pressing arrows operation is broken.
Usually in Galciv2 the mouse-wheel is working for scroll-operations.
However after a new turn begins, the summary window containing informations about what was produced, what battles were hold and such, can not even be scrolled by mouse-wheel.
This leaves the broken scroll operation by slider or arrows.


c) Confirm Button placement
As mentioned in my UI bugs post: https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=274&aid=124827

2) User Possibilities
Frogboy explained that it is easy to implement features in a game but hard to make the AI effectively making use of them.
Actually galciv2 is different also in this part:
a) AI can ask a player to remove a starbase
AI can ask a player to remove ships
These are operations the player can not perform towards the AI.
Even in MOO2 such options were available. (Stop spying, ships from orbit and such)

Tech-Tree
While it was often noticed that the Tech-Tree is very boring, the actual text surrounding it does not even tries to "sell" it to the user.
It is not real excitement to advance the tech tree just to receive the seventh version of something.
In fact also for gameply there is no difference from early start to future advances in the game. This makes advancement not really exciting. (Exceptions: bigger and faster ships, but this is nothing really different.)
If this tribute was made to the AI, than i personally (subjective note) would prefer a strong Multiplayer integration and further "AI improvement" with the time.


3) User as Co Developer / Commercial Products
While i understand the possibilites of offering Modification possibilities, the expecation is to receive a full working game.
I dont see any requirement to have the user fill out some "TechTree.xml" just because the original was filled out in haste.

The dropped Arguments ("than do it yourself") apply great for Open Source, but not for commercial software, especially when we do not talk about customizing.

Speaking of Commercial Products:
This should apply also to Build Management and the Test Department.

Personally i do not understand what the Q&A looks like. Are only the developer checking ? Because some of the UI problems found pre-1.3 and the ones still in game would be part of an Inhouse Test-Report.

Regarding the Beta Builds:
Its hard to understand why a CEO?/Chief Architect which receives a baby has to care in any way about the Build Management in order to release a version from a hospital.
While we applaud the personal effort, it makes more the impression of some open source project than of a commercial company with processes, and defined roles.


GC2 is a very nice product to spend free time on, but professionally it is hard to understand some aspects.

While i understand the possibilites of offering Modification possibilities, the expecation is to receive a full working game. I dont see any requirement to have the user fill out some "TechTree.xml" just because the original was filled out in haste.

The tech descriptions aren't broken just because you don't like corny/humorous descriptions. That was what the devs chose to do, and if you don't like it you are free to mod it. But again, don't claim that things are broken simply because you disagree with the choice they made.

Speaking of Commercial Products: This should apply also to Build Management and the Test Department. Personally i do not understand what the Q&A looks like. Are only the developer checking ? Because some of the UI problems found pre-1.3 and the ones still in game would be part of an Inhouse Test-Report.

You must understand that Stardock is a *very* small company. Prior to June, I don't think there was anyone assigned specifically to QA, so yes, the devs themselves were responsible for all in-house QA. When a new build is prepared, it is generally released to volunteer testers in the community. This is changing now though as Stardock begins to assemble a dedicated QA staff.

Its hard to understand why a CEO?/Chief Architect which receives a baby has to care in any way about the Build Management in order to release a version from a hospital. While we applaud the personal effort, it makes more the impression of some open source project than of a commercial company with processes, and defined roles.

Again, Stardock is a very small company. AFAIK, the current staff assigned to developing GC2 patches and Dark Avatar is about four or five people plus Brad. Brad codes the majority of the AI personally and coordinates things overall in addition to his CEO duties.

The tech descriptions aren't broken just because you don't like corny/humorous descriptions. That was what the devs chose to do, and if you don't like it you are free to mod it. But again, don't claim that things are broken simply because you disagree with the choice they made.

Fully agreed, but a problem may be not that easy to categorize.

The design may be ok, but there is a bug in the code: Problem.
The design is not ok, but there are no bugs in the code : Problem.

(under "design" we will understand for simplification purpose: general game mechanics, general code design, general ui design.)

Code bugs are relatively easy to understand as problems.
General code design/mechanics can be already harder to distinguish.
UI design is already harder to distingius for developers. (This is why they are usually not assigned to do UI specifications)

This means even when the devs chosed to implement it like this it can be still a design problem. Afterall they are implementing also all other bugs. In this case its just not an easy to notice code-bug where something either works as intended or not.

You must understand that Stardock is a *very* small company. Prior to June, I don't think there was anyone assigned specifically to QA, so yes, the devs themselves were responsible for all in-house QA. When a new build is prepared, it is generally released to volunteer testers in the community. This is changing now though as Stardock begins to assemble a dedicated QA staff.

Ok thanks for the information. I was not aware that the stardock team is that small. This explains of course some necessary improvization in the process.

Stardock's lack of QA aside (yes this does look like an open source project, and not a real companies product, but hey, even the big companies leave a tonne of crap in the game despite their QA)

parts of the tech tree I'd like fixed, which falls under fix not mod, is the parts about requirements for ships etc. Why exactly does the program believe I need both Sensors and Sensors IV for a Survey ship?

I design survey ships all the time with just having Sensors tech.

As side note:
Regarding the "if you dont like it fix it" i have a quite humorous quote from early Mozilla-Firefox days. Still very accurate of course. ;o)

In open source software development, the usual reply to any requests, suggestions, or criticisms is the classic refrain: “Where’s the patch!?” This reply is a (sometimes) polite way of saying, if you don’t like it, fix it. That’s how open source software development works. Therein lies its beauty.

Link to the full Article of how you become lead of a Visual Identity Team in Open Source
Article

In Gal Civ 1, when you researched something it would give you a decent, serious description of how the tech worked instead of the annoying wisecracks

Not always. Wasn't there a Britney Spears reference in one of the later influence type techs? I'm fairly sure there were a couple more "jokey" descriptions in there too.

I know what you mean though. I found the humour a lot more effective in GC1 because it was (relatively) rare. Kind of like an Easter Egg for working your way up the enormous tech tree. You'd go through a ton of the serious descriptions, then suddenly get some amusing Star Trek reference or similar. It was a lot more amusing than the GC2 tech tree. Sometimes I think that robot is going for some kind of stand up award. Guess that's why the key to all great comedy is timing...

I design survey ships all the time with just having Sensors tech.

I'm sure, but the list of required techs for a Survey Ship include both