Five gameplay balance tweaks I'd like to see added in expansion...

Don't missles take a but more space off ships? I think that's their downfall. If not, then it's the price. Anyway, the only one I can agree with you is the GGB which really needs to be fixed. The other one's I don't have that much experience to form an opinion yet (although the morale/population equation is not one that I like much).

2) Farms. They should provide a small morale bonus. Better food makes happier people. Also means people will want to build farms. They need to do something to get people to research advancing farming tech- right now that's a tech that I never research.

In the alternate reality mod (wich is one of the best mods in the library) one of the farming tech give a farm that gives food and morale boost.

The funny thing is I nealy always build mass-drivers now.

Mass Drivers are the best. They weigh less than missiles and cost less than lasers AND missiles. Plus, the AI almost never seems to build countermeasures/armor against Mass Drivers, while countermearsures for missiles are easy to research and don't weigh a lot.

Mass Drivers are great. Use Them.

I don't think farms should provide a morale bonus. Farms allow for a bigger population, which brings with it overpopulation and therefore lower morale. Adding a morale bonus to farms takes away the only downside.

In peacetime, the best reason to have a very populated planet is to rake in the tax dollars. Pop in a couple of Galactic Stock Exchanges and you've got even more money as well as your morale bonus.

Also, I don't see a way of fixing the Galactic Guide Book, I think it should be scrapped. Even if the GGB were available at the Stellar Cartography tech, all the anomalies are gone usually before the colonisation rush is over. No one would bother wasting a planet tile on something they can't use, and can't remove.

The top thing I'd like to see is a queue for each planet's ship construction screen. I can't think of any half-decent excuse for it not already being in the game.

The only thing i agrre with the op on is the planetary defenses -- think it could be tweaked to be a little better.

On the Galactic Guide Book -- if it worked like its description in Manual that came with the game, it'ld be worth it and maybe worth researching to right off. Description in manual i got says "any" ship can explore anomalies -- but in the game it just makes survey module cost nothing -- still takes up space and has to be put on ships. However, I can see where this might actually be way too powerful because not only can you explore an anomalie with say your colony ships but you can also put a lot more engines on your survey ships.

>>>Also, I don't see a way of fixing the Galactic Guide Book, I think it should be scrapped. Even if the GGB were available at the Stellar Cartography tech, all the anomalies are gone usually before the colonisation rush is over. No one would bother wasting a planet tile on something they can't use, and can't remove.<<<<

I agree with this sentiment... the guide book would come way too late no matter what. I find the anomoloies are gone before anything of substance can be built, and aside from saying "I built it", it serves no purpose at all. I liken it to the satellites tech in civ4, which comes almost at the end of the game with much fanfare and whose description brags " allows you to see the whole world (map) "... by this time I own most of it, I know what it looks like, thanks a heap. ?

The only way to make the GGB buildable at all would be to eliminate the "flagship", which in my mind is silly anyways. It has technologies I haven't researched yet. It's an anomoly all by itself. Where'd I get it? Was it a gift from the Vulcans??? It's wayyyy too fast. It can cover a huge distance way too quickly, and everybody gets one. It makes the first turns of the game a race to see who can click "auto survey" the fastest. Anomoly hunting is like the rotisserie oven by ronco... just set it, and forget it !

It would make a huge difference if the ship could barely get out of my solar system until i had researched drives, hulls and support. If I have to research the appropriate techs at the start of the game to get to where I can even build a ship capable of finding an anomoly, I then would have to choose between grabbing anomolies, planets or resources... Now the GGB becomes huge. The difference between having to purposely build Survey ships vs. Scout ships that can survey too would really open up some colony possibilities. Plus, because all the ships being built at that time are slow, limited in the distance they can travel etc. All of the races would get a few anomolies before they even met another race. Kinda like it would happen in the real world.

Now... if I can just get that Nuetral zone/get the heck outa my territory thingy....

Another way to give the guide book (and survey ships in general) a bit of usefulness after the initial anomaly rush would be to add an ability for survey modules to collect scraps from destroyed ships. Maybe a base scrap value of 20% of production price, reduced according to the types of weapons used against it, the more powerful weapon the less usable material available (a black hole generator of course leaves nothing to be scooped up). A ship would probably be more cleanly destroyed by beam weapons than missiles or mass drivers as well.

Have the survey ship return to any planet and it will boost the military production by 50% until the value of the scraps is used up. Or a choice to use a mini-freighter you can send off towards the planet you prefer, taking longer but allowing the survey ship to keep following the action.

add an ability for survey modules to collect scraps from destroyed ships

Sounds great, but complicated to implement..

Someone suggested in another thread that new anomalies could pop up during the game, that would make a GGB more useful.

Also, maybe, more powerful anomalies would be a good idea to make them more interesting. One of the mods has got this feature incorporated.

It could also be expanded so surveying would include checking out the upcomming asteroid belts... It would be very benificial to have the mining ship be able to also survey the field instead of having to send two ships....

id like to see tax income proportinal to tax payers, not to its square root
it just makes high pop totally useless

i second MegaVolt!
every population number should be taxed in gc2 - just like in germany

Mass Drivers are great. Use Them.

Exactly. (Unless you're going to go evil, then psy-beams = teh win!)

Someone suggested in another thread that new anomalies could pop up during the game, that would make a GGB more useful.

I still think this is a great idea, and it shouldn't have any implications for game balance, providing the rate is relatively low, say a 1% chance per sector per turn.

3) Mass Drivers- They need to be better- right now the AIs never use them. Why use them when you can use missiles instead- which give you a lot more firepower earlygame?

Actually, I think I have yet to see a game where at least one race didn't go for mass drivers. For whatever reason, I see mass drivers used about twice as often as missiles, and missiles twice as often as beams.

Well, early game, mass drivers are by far the worst. Missiles get to 2 attack very early, and in early game, Attack value is king. Maybe if armor tech was a lot more expensive in the early game it might be worth it.

Farms, I do see the point. However, I still don't think population counts for enough. Should give a boost to production and research more then it already does... I'd throw in an inefficiency penalty if you don't have enough people. (More people= more elites who are actually useful)

GGB- if anomalies regenerated like they did in GC1, it would be useful.

Other alternative- GGB gives free Sensor range to all ships...

Man why does everyone mistake missles to be so good early ? Ya, you get 2 power, but they're more than 2x bigger...

For me I like either lasers or mass drivers unless I'm the Yor or the Bugs to start out with. (Get decent miniturazation and can start with missles)

Then later in the game I ussually go down the missle path. Missles I think in the end are best simply because the AI doesn't utilize defense correctly. As pointed out, they're easy to defend against. (but the AI doesn't, hence why they're so good late in the game....)

Back to the OP,
1) Planetary defenses should be stronger, and do more stuff. (like give planet sensor bonus, or do the orbital fleet manager function)
2) GGB should be scraped.
3) Farms are ok, but the tax and morale equations are a bit extreme and force you into just a few choices of how to develop your planets. Nixing the square root would be a good start to fix this.

As a regular evil-doer its always beams first and the rest a long way behind... You can play most games with just psi beams... it certainly frees your research up for a long while.

Which together with the mind control centre is just way to powerful to turn down.

But I agree with the OP esp about planetarty def... so much dev effort has gone into something so useless. Id also liek to see something to boost the hp of starbases... Right now they just can't stand up to a bashing.

add an ability for survey modules to collect scraps from destroyed ships Sounds great, but complicated to implement.. Someone suggested in another thread that new anomalies could pop up during the game, that would make a GGB more useful.

i don't see why this is difficult to implement at all. Instead of the destroyed ships vanishing in a pixel cluster. A 'junked fleet' could be sitting there waiting to be scavenged. code it in as an anomoly, the old survey ship picks it up and cash is in the hand. don't you love recycling?

This would mean in the late part of the early game the survey ship is no longer obsolete and remains a valuable part of the game as a salvage vessel. Its a great idea.

1) Planetary Defenses needs to be upped.

Yes, because it's not working at all right now. Never build it until the next version! Stardock knows about this and it will be fixed to give a 25% bonus, either in the next 1.3 beta or the straight 1.3.

3) Mass Drivers- They need to be better- right now the AIs never use them. Why use them when you can use missiles instead- which give you a lot more firepower earlygame?

No, I play crippling and the AI uses MD more than anything else. In fact, I avoid it for that very reason. AI uses beam least for me, missles second. Interestingly, Drengin have been going for missles, and junky races like Korx for MD. Wonder why.

5) Spin control center- allow that to conceal the defenses on any 1 planet. This is something that has to be reworked I think- it isn't popular outside of exploits right now.

How's it used for exploits? It's actually very useful in the early and middle game when you're trying to avoid being attacked by appearing to have a huge military. Build one ship and you've essentially built 5. I might be wrong, but I think it has come in handy for me.

I prefer lasers. They are the smallest weapons and shields are the largest defense systems.