What the devil are you talking about? DA added tons of new stuff to build with. In my shipyard I have three tabs for non functional pieces, 'my style', 'generic' (or something like that... bad memory ), and 'other'... again, something along that line. In the 'generic' tab (the middle tab) there are attachment points, lights, insignia 'badges', flags, and other various pieces. If you went and messed with the files like you said, there may be some issues now. However, AFAIK the expansion pack added tons of cool new stuff to build with... as well as 'blank' hull designs, which basically means that you pick an attachment point as the hull and then you can actually use any building component as your hull. Pretty cool stuff in all and I think you might have missed something... what's that saying? "If it was a snake it would have bit you", yeah, that's the ticket. Hope this helps.

?????!!!!!!!! You mean to say that there are additional tabs that I haven't found yet?! I assure you that whatever kind of file swapping that I did was AFTER I discovered the "shortage" of pieces so it wasn't me, LOL. And I am a mac user (I have a 24 inch I-Mac with the ability to run both Mac and PC applications of all kinds) so I'm not up to date on windows games, cause I just recently purchased the XP software for it. Now I did notice that in DL that the pieces were all organized in visible, conspicious locations. But right when I clicked on the "extras" tab in DA, there were particular pieces missing. Thanks, dude for telling me about this... maybe I just didn't look hard enough for it... but I never do for anything most of the time, LOL. Now if for some reason I still can't find these other "generic" and "style" tabs, is there a different version that you guys are using that I'm not? When the game initially loads it says "DA V 1.50", do I need a version update? Anyway thanks, dude .

I just found it. Thanks, Evil Stormbringer. I only looked at the tabs themselves before. Yeah when I clicked on Extras there were 3 sub-tabs hidden in there. Holy crap, dude, there are tons of stuff here. WOW. Time to get my hands dirty!

Glad to help. Now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Make the random events when checking a planet more difficult to decide. As it is now it's basically Penalty=Good, small penalty-small bonus=Neutral and Bonus=Evil. Like the three examples given:

You find on the planet that an immortal monk lives on the planet's surface. He seems to be a famous activist for the side of good but doesn't like discussing how he became immortal. Good (Let him stay on the planet and do as he wishes)= ++Morale (on planet), +Income (from tourism). Neutral (Ask for any help he is willing to give and let him go on his way)= +Pop growth (people living longer), +Income (it used to be his home). Evil (Dissect him to figure out how he gained his longevity)= ++Pop Growth, -Relations from good races

Alternatively, you find a former military genius that had a tendency to randomly kill off scientists and other people throughout the galaxy just for fun. Good (hold him on trial for his crimes)= +Morale, +Research% (galaxy-wide) (no longer afraid of being randomly killed). Neutral (let him leave the planet after giving some tips for your soldiers)= +Soldering. Evil (Enlist him to your side to help teach your people how to fight)= +Soldering, +Military stat, -Research% (You are enlisting someone who does kill scientists for fun, remember.)

Or a generic event where one side=+Morale/Econ/Prod -PQ, the other side =+PQ -Morale/Econ/Prod and Neutral is do nothing.

How about this, If I pick a flag for my empire, or a color, the computer will pick a different flag and color for their minor races. I hate having a flag that a minor race is using, it's hard to tell which are my planets and which are the minor races planets.
How come play testers never noticed this????????????????????

One key thing to fix in my view is definately the colony rush. It makes the game too dependent on luck in the beginning and force you as a player only to focus on building colony ships. Make it more expensive with colony ships, add a few techs necessary even to build a first colony ship. And above all: there should be a way to threaten colonies even early in the game (e.g. bombing them). The game would then be more about empire building and less about getting lucky in grabbing the nice star systems in the face of the AIs.

As an option when setting up the game the player could be able to set how much money everyone starts with (for me 5000 is too much).

Why do you always get the best bonuses when choosing evil acts in reply to events? I think the three alignments should be neutral overall as regards the bonuses, and then the actual events in the galaxy and how you react to them will decide how much profit you can make out of it. As it is now you sometimes wonder why you should care to play the good guys if you regularly just get penalised for it.

Trade routes are a good ingredient but it can feel like micromanagement to set up and uphold all of them: would it be possible to include also some other ways for income (not having to build only stock exchanges on all your planets)?

I have to add one thing I forgot to post earlier: the resources are ok as regards the game mechanics, but please note that they break with the "feeling" of the game in the sense that they are just shown as (rather simple) symbols on the map and not even named as something real in the game universe. It should be fairly easy to make an econmy resource into e.g. a golden asteroid or whatever. For me it is just not credible that you have a game symbol saying "military resource" and not naming and depicting what it actually is in the game universe.

As a small side note it would be nice with the option to have resources on the maps focussed in "resource fields" so that you would have certain conflict zones that everyone will go after - just like in the real world ...

It would be a help if the ship presently selected was highlighted somehow. Maybe it flashes at fast speed or changes color. It is frustrating whem you think you have selected a ship but end up moving a different one.

I have also noticed that if I have atacked a planet with a ship and that ship runs out of steam, the system seems to automatically move some other ship in its place the next time I ask it to attack that planet again. This should not happen, it often disrupts my plans. Only the selected ship should attack. If it runs out of steam, the player should get some indication of this, so he can select an other ship if he whishes.

Note: If the above highlighting proposal is implemented, when the ship has moved its maximum distance, it should be de-selected.

two things i really like were just mentioned. First i compleatly agree about the begining credits. i think it would really add a nice dynamic to the colony rush to not have that initial pocket change. i think an additional begining option is in order to change the begining credits. and Second i have always been a little anoyed with the "symbols" of the resourses. i know its kinda being nit-picky but they do tend to pull you from the euphoria of being emmersed in the game, reminding you that you are infact actually playing a game and not really controlling a vast intergalactic empire... just a thought   

*I'd like to see the spy/espionage with both the DL and the spys together. Also, I think we should be able to espionage minor civs too using the DL version. They should be mutally exclusive, just added functionality.

*The galatic achievements that start with hyperion, dont always affect the entire empire, and ALL GALACTIC ACHIEVEMENTS should always affect the entire civ, otherwise they should be downgraded to civ achievements as appropriate.

*I've seen alot of remarks in different threads about starbase management, and having played a few starbase version games in DL on gigantic maps, I now realize a rally point management screen/ or handling constructors rally/civ rally points seperately would solve this problem. Although I personally favor a management screen where I can review which ships/planets have which ships assigned with ETAs.

*trade revenue should be modified by economic bonuses. Isn't trade the essence of economy anyways? And shouldn't trade and tourism be combined? I've always understood them as different mechanisms for the same thing(i.e. economy)? Therefore, any income regardless of the source should get the civ's economic bonuses applied.

*all military starbases should have a techtree for affecting ship speed (i.e. superisolationist ability) that only applies to the military starbase. Since the superisolationist ability applies to all planets and starbases this seems more balanced.

Evil doesn't always need to provide the best bonuses. The should all have 33.3% of being either the best, middle, or worst choice. To balance it out from everyone ending up neutral, you only get a the percent you are leaning. IF you are at 75% (Assuming 0% is neutral) good, then u choosing good option would give you 75% of the benefit. Choosing, evil would get you 0% of the benefit but move you substantially towards evil. (Could have base of 25% for completely opposit choice.) Something to spice this up.

How about giving:
Evil all the military/diplomatic bonuses,
Neutral all the economic/trade bonuses, and
Good all the moral/population bonuses

Opps! That was supposed to be morale (sorry)

Suggestions for making Espionage more strategic (glad you asked!)

Spies should not be revealed as soon as they are active. Isn't spying all about stealth? Races should have a passive chance to remove an active enemy spy and that chance should improve every turn so that eventually the spy is discovered and removed. The rate at which this chance increases should be dependant of the race's espionage bonus. A planet's approval should also contribute to this chance of finding a spy so a happy planet would be more active in disrupting spying attempts because people aren't as much permeable to bribes. Races with a high espionage bonus like the Krynn would be able to make their spies last longer of course, because they simply are better at espionage.

So the tech tree's counter-espionage branch would be dedicated to improving not only your passive chance of finding spies but also finding out who sent the spy in the first place. On the other hand, the espionage branch would be dedicated to improving espionage results on the various missions (information gathering, tech stealing, sabotage, subversion) as well as your spies's resilience not only to detection but to torture as well.

Bottom line is, make espionage meaningful. As it is, there's no real strategy in it.

*An option in the setup screen to disable spies.

*A map editor + perhaps scenario/campaign editor/builder. It just would be awesome to make my own campaigns and stories.

*A map even larger than gigantic, but not more planets or stars in it. Space is supposed to be very very big and empty.

*Supernova's, or the birth of a new starsystem..

*Economic bonus on planetary tiles

*Better diplomacy options, get out of my territory issue or pay me 10bc/week. Asking permission for trespassing other territories. Automatically enabling this issue for allied races.

*Diplomatical invitiations: invite the leader of another race for dinner, while improving your relations, the other race get's also an intelligence bonus.

*Do something about the tons of constructormodules you need to improve your starbases..perhaps constructors with multiple modules (more expensive and slower, but less ships needed and less micromanagement)

*Maybe something stupid but i like big fights, now we're just sending fleets to eachother, maybe some ability to deliver a message telling the other race the battle will take place at a certain starsystem. You and you're enemy send all available fleets(or only your strongest) there and when they've all arrived(and only then), the battle begins..that way the result of the war would be known within a few turns and not after a couple of hundred. I personally like this idea..or perhaps a less direct alternative. If you are at war the AI sends all it's fleets to the closest and least defended planet, intelligence information would tell you where exactly they're heading.

*As said before: more in depth information/options...concerning: culture, trade(what are we trading with them?), influence..

*perhaps designing starbases

*comets moving like ships but in certain trajectories (shown on map after researchng stellar cartography). A nice add could be to change the trajectory over time so that these comets are on a collision course with ships, stars or planets, destroing them, making them inhabitable..until you discover a new extreme colonization method, or you wait long enough until the natural environment of the planet is restored..(this would be a nice graphic and gameplay addition)

*an option to set your population on a planet to a certain value. For example when you've used a +300% food bonus, the population grows to match the value of you're food production, being difficult for morale to control...maybe if we could set population growth to a certain value, reducing morale problems on that planet to a minimum, people actually start using these bonuses.

These features would be nice addition for me as a fan of an already "superbe" game. I do not really expect you to add these ideas into the game. Just saying that if you choose to, it would make me a happy man.

Little things that might help the A.I. preform better:
1. Researching Xeno Ethics much sooner(It seems to wait toward the very end of the game on Suicidal difficulty before it does)
2. Escorting Troop Transports(The typically faster human controlled ships can slip behind the "front lines" and rip these unguarded sips to shreads)

Maybe attaching a points value to super abilities?
examples:
1. If super abilities are turned off additional points are given to select racial bonuses
2. Increasing the avaliable points for custom races then attaching a different cost to each super ability.

Thanks for your time! Always to know the designers are looking out for the players!

I would be nice if more options and realism, was added to the weapons.

1: One possibility would be to add a range limit to each weapon. This would allow ships to do battle with ships in other sectors instead of being right beside them. The further away you are from your opponent, the less damage a laser could do for example. Missiles would run out of power at a certain distance and loose accuracy the further they go. Mass weapons would loose speed and energy. Now there could actually be a bigger difference between laser 1 and 5 if range increase is added to the mix.

2: Ships should also be able to fire their weapons at planets to destroy improvements, and kill solders to support ground troops.

3: Military base stations should be able to attack enemy ships that pass within "X" distance from them instead of just being sitting ducks as they presently are. In fact, they are so easy to destroy that I don't waste time creating them anymore. They need more offensive power so they can stand up to a fleet of attackers. Right now it is not "if" but "when" they will be destroyed. When they are under attack, they should be able to ask for assistance from any surrounding ship.

4: Planets should have their own ground base laser and missile defence systems to shoot down attacking ships. They should have a range of one to 5 sectors. This could also serve as a defence against influence station that are poisoning your people. I think that this would increase the difficulty of interplanetary war and require a greater amount of strategic planing for invasions since your opponent could now wipe out your fleet with ground based weapons even if they have no ships in orbit. Intelligence and espionage would play a key part in assessing the enemies "ground to space" defensive capabilities. Maybe radar ships would be needed for ground survey operations.

LightVader, you have some good ideas. I particularly like the ranged weapons idea. however in my oppinion rather then changing the current weapons, i think it would be better, and easyer for the devs, if they instituted a 4th weapons type. Artillery these long rang weapons could bombard ships in ajoining sectors or even farther (with reduced effect). They would be very larg and rather worthless in close combat. I think artillery should not really be able to distory ships, unless they are small and weak, just sevearly criple them for a clean up attack with another fleet. Also these artillerys would be the only ships capable of bombarding planets. they would be able to distroy planetary improvments the way we are all wanting ships to be able to do.

the more i think about this idea the more i like it. Sadly though i realize this is probably somthing that wont be instituted till GC3... What do you guys think about Artillery??

What ever it is called, artillery, ranged weapons or long ranged weapons, I agree with you that they would be a new type of weapon or new weapon catagory. A ship could be equiped with the existing short range weapons as well as medium and long range weapons. For planetary ground attacks special space to ground weapons would be needed. This way the player would have to develop special ships for each task because "space to ground" and "long range" weapons would be bulky and expensive and would not yeald any improvements over standard weapons in close combat.

During battle if you choose to shoot at a ship in a far sector, you better hope that it,s weapons range are not better than yours or you are toast! Plus they always have the option of getting closer to you if they have hyperwarp capability. I love all the new battle scenarios that ranged weapons could add to the game.

Adding ranged weapons to planetary defence systems would also change the face of invasions. You would no longer be able to wait closeby with your transports, because the ground missile systems could shoot them down from many sectors away.

An other concept I would like to mention. Battle logistics! By introducing fuel cells or power reserves ships. Presently, an enemy ship can stay in orbit around your planet an shoot your ships down forever. But if the concept of fuel was added, that ship would have to go back to refuel at some point in time opening a window for you to get a fleet ready. The larger the map, the greather the impact of fuel management, hence, attack planning. Ships would require fuel cells. The more fuel cells, the greater the time you can fly between refills. But fuel cells take space. So do you add an other laser or an extra fuel cell to the ship design?

An other usefull thing to incorporate would be wormholes that could be used by all ships to move between two fixed locations. this would be useful for trade and to travel on huge maps. Random worm holes may be a surprize from time to time as well.

t would be great if we could build Battle stars. These would be able to carry a number of smaller an less expensive ships to battle. Like an airplane carrier. the battle star could travel at hyperwarp speeds but the fighters it carries could be slower but with stronger armements. Fighter could now be made much smaller since large engines are no longer required. The star ship would have long range weapons and super shields to keep the fighters protected until they reach the battle zone. Plus, having a single battle cruiser in your home sector would be an incredible deterent to attack. Th number of ships it carries would depend on the number of ship carrier modules are affixed to it.

In large galaxies building starbases across your empire is very time consuming. I think you should get rid of some of the micromangement of it. I wish you could put more then one construction module on a constructor so you don't need as many to fully equip a starbase. Increse the cost if you have to so it costs the same, but at least it will get rid of a little bit of micromangement.

I agree with Hirka. The number of constructors that must be created in this game is just to much. Why does a constructor ship dissapear after building something anyway? Is it magic?

Why not re-use the same ship as it is done with mining ships? Each new structure built could take "X" amount of time perhaps and vary in cost. You could pre-select "X" number of new modules for a base and the constructor would do the work without the need for further intervention. But the time frame to construct a base should not be reduced ortherwise it would be too easy to win an influence victory. The map would be poluted with base stations.

Maybe constructors could also be used to repair damaged bases and ships!

With the number of constructors presently required, it would be nice to have a controls that would allow you to send only constructors created from all or some ports to a location.

Once trade routes are established, I find it difficult to identify free freighters from those engaged in routes. This seems to depend on the zoom factor used.