Ok, 1.3 beta players, what do you think are the biggest changes?

well for one the miniturization fix which makes it work better now, and there will be a whole lot of AI changes (read Draginol's/Frogboy's thread about 1.3 full, not sure where it is).

1st off -- Homeworld now starts at 8B pop with 20% morale.

Planetary buildings now have different build costs and capacities. Examples as of 1.3beta3X.
Basic Factory 50 build cost still but Production capacity is now 6 -- was 7
Basic Farm 40 build cost & 3 food was 50 build cost and 4 food
Market Center 30 build cost & +8%econ was 35 build cost & +10%econ
NLC build cost upped to 500 from 300
Note: these values will probably be changed in ther final update1.3 but will almost certainly be different than update1.2.

As for gameplay:

Maintenance Cost for the initial colony building was upped to 14bc/turn from 10bc/turn.
This will probably cause most players to have even more trouble getting their economy up and running.
Will probably also cause some problems in being able to just rush colonize 40+ planets. Prob even problems above 20 planets.

Morale Bonus is getting Nerfed above 100% -- 200% Morale is not twice the effect of 100% Morale.
Players will probably have morale problems with smaller populations.
Players who never built morale buildings before will probably start building them.
Getting a planet to 26B is gonna be a lot harder if not impossible.

Miniaturization Sizemod just uses the base size for a hull -- so "miniaturization bug" is gone. You'll be able to put more stuff on ships with more miniaturization.

The AI is much better -- if you've been winning at suicidal pretty easy -- my guess is you won't anymore -- you can still win but not always ( unless of course you are in a league well above me ).

Also I noticed a 14% or so drop in tax income with only 3B pop's on my planets in a 1.3beta3X game.

Also with the 1.3beta3Z build devs used, they had a 7500bc start but Frogboy does not mention that today in the dev joournal for 1.3 update.

For the most part they have left all the ship components, weapons, and armors the same. Small tweaks to some of the mid - upper mid Damage and Size values for beam and mass driver weapons.( 1.3beta3X)

There was an additional armor for mass drivers halfway thru the tech tree that was way overpowered in 1.3beta3X -- but my guess is that was just a mistake with the beta.

Sorry if this is a lot longer than you wanted but -- UPDATE1.3 will feel almost like a new game.

He probably just forgot to mention about the new 7500 BC start in the dev journal.

I took out the 7500bc and put it back. It was just too high.

oh, was the AI getting too much of an advantage?

Hmm...

If I don't like 1.3, I wonder how easy it will be to roll back to 1.2.
Can I do it without reinstalling the game?

Sorry if this is a lot longer than you wanted but -- UPDATE1.3 will feel almost like a new game.

I think this level of detail is excellent.

But it's the "almost like a new game" part of this that scares me. I love the game now. Will I love the new game? I don't know.

I've written about this pretty much everywhere that I've had the chance. Most of the changes are what I would call "tweaks" in that they don't dramatically alter the nature of the game. But IMHO the morale building / farm changes do dramatically change the game.

I agree that making changes that bring morale buildings into play at a lower population level add more flavor to the game and are a good thing. In v1.2 you could almost ignore morale buildings completely, that's not good. I also agree that building up high populations should be difficult, but on the other hand it shouldn't be impossible.

I think that the triple whammy effect that base morale has by being used directly and as a multiplier on the morale effect of buildings and a multiplier on the morale effect of civ ability and resource mining is the problem. This changes morale dramatically over a very narrow range of population. If, for example, the effect of morale buildings was used directly and not reduced by base morale you could have a much smoother function that you could tweak for morale to come into play at a lower population. You also wouldn't need an arbitrary abrupt limit at 26B (or whatever) so that 25B would be difficult, 50B even more difficult and so on in a more linear manner.

Just my 2 bc worth.

My 2bc

Actually the morale/farm changes are not that drastic to overall gameplay. Just causes slightly lower pops on planets and the possibility of positive uses for morale buildings ( I did not build them at all with update 1.2 )

As for 26B+ pops, most players believed it was not worth the effort before.
Now you'll prob get huge applauses if you can pull it off.

The biggest change will be the economy at the start of the game: the 14bc maintenance cost for the initial colony buildings adds up with colonies and time.
Also the 14% tax income hit starts before there is a positive cash flow ( at least it did for me ).
Don't be surprised if you play like you normally do and have ecomic problems -- ok -- be surprised.

Just finished reading thru some of the update 1.3 XML files.

Everything is pretty much the same as we saw it with the 1.3beta3X except
Morale buildings are nerfed even more: they go in + 5 morale increments to +25 morale with VRCs.
Research costs are doubled for the techs to get to stock markets.
Fully loaded mining starbase will now give a +39% bonus: 1st module +4% -- the rest all are +5%
Xeno Farm Construction II tech now costs only 1000RP to research -- use to be 2000RPs.
Logistic Techs cost more now: in order -- 150, 800, 2500, 3500, 5000 RPs

And of course the Homeworld now starts with 8B pop; 12B pop support; and also +20 morale

Looks good, actually I was sort of expecting even more tweaking from 1.3beta3X.

kblore, no need to read through xml files. Get the galactopedia - it does all the hard work for you.

http://www.kynosarges.de/Galactopedia.html

It's a very nifty little utility. Since it's reading the XML files itself rather than being a preconstructed database, it updates automatically.

Weird AI placement of influence starbases is still there. Miniturization appears to work fine. PQ doesn't always equal the avaliable tiles. AI IS smarter. The game feels different. Somekind of Nano robots = 10% research bonus (never seen that before). Game smotther, but feels a little bit slower (not sure why).