The Space Between

I kind of like it. It makes wars in space require that much more planning and execution - it should take more effort to jump between 'spiral arms of the galaxy'

Personally, I really like the layout of the tight clusters immense galaxies. You almost certainly have some parts of the galaxy that are physically isolated until a high level of Range is researched.

This definitely gives the game a more epic feel, and an effort to invade someone on the other side of the galaxy becomes an appropriately massive undertaking.

just doesn't seem to be enough stars

Further then the Far-est place in the Galaxy...............Where no man as Gone Before..................SPACE BETWEEN YOUR EARS!!!!.........sorry all ways wanted to sat that LOL

I sort of like it that way

I like that it takes longer to get there

Nasty

I like it also. The Immense maps I've puttered with give me hope that a full post-RTM TA game will give a chance to do pretty signficant local development before serious conflict with a neighbor is even plausible. This opens possibilities for folks who've never loved the military wins.

Can anyone confirm if there is actually more stars in a Immense Galaxy than a Gigantic Galaxy on tight clusters, or is there just alot more empty space.

In DA on Gigantic, I would routinely get 800+ colonizable worlds. Then they supposedly nerfed the galaxy sizes. I'm just about finished with the colony rush on a loose cluster immense galaxy, and it's got about 450-500 colonizable worlds. However, I have been told that the size of the immense galaxy in beta is artificially capped and that the release version will have the cap removed.

I hope this is true, otherwise it just seems to me like the new immense is smaller than the old gigantic

lawl I too hope its only a beta thing also.

I've thought for a while that 'immense' didn't feel very immense.

I like how spaced out it is. I've found that if you can get even 2 clusters under your control you have a huge advantage (I managed to get 3 as altarians with a ton of buy now work, I grab a bunch of planets about 2 or 2 galactic grid sqaures before other races , talk about nerve racking). The bigger travel distance will give you a sense of security (think US with its two oceans) but if you dont branch out you are in big trouble. I find that it is often a major advantage to start in the middle since that way you will get tons of trade income. I will say that it does feel a bit empty. Maybe with the added efficiency we could go up to 25x25 with more planets, might make the super fast teching games last a bit longer (atm I almost always get to tech victory in some obscenely short amount of time, I actually won a game because I couldnt terminate my research treaties :x).

I have noticed it and was sorta hoping it would be like this. For me, at least, there is a point where I have too many planets in the bigger galaxies. It's nice to have lots of planets along with some breathing room.

I think it makes the galaxy more expansive this way.

It would be nice to have some eye candy in the void, like the odd quasar or nebula.

Sorry, but that kinda bugs me. I love large galaxy sizes. The bigger the better. If the game is promising me a BIGGER galaxy size (immense) then they need to make it actually bigger, not 60% of what the biggest size used to be. (in terms of colonizable planets, which is the only measurement that matters)

If you like the expansiveness, there are other settings in the galaxy menu that can make it more that way. I, meanwhile, continue to be dissatisfied with the current Immense size, and hope that it is indeed capped during beta.

SD have said that they are limiting the planets in Immense at the moment while they work on memory issues. The retail version will be immenser.

Good point from Crazy Karl, Nebulas would be nice. Perhaps even ones that slowed your travel down or destroyed ships etc.

Limiting PLANETS or SIZE?

Because I want a map so big that Life Support technologies are actually USEFUL. There's no reason for me to ever research past Level 2 life support, really.

More planets doesn't do much for me, because I hate having too many planets.

They can go hand-in-hand, sure, but I'm just wondering if the size is not going to change in lieu of cramming more planets in.

IMO having more than 15 'decent' planets begins to ruin the game.

Limiting Planets. If you want a larger map but lower planet numbers, play with tight clusters and habitable worlds set to the lowest level. I did this once on immense, and there were maybe 30 stars across the whole map.



Good thing you aren't the only one playing the game then, huh? They CAN and SHOULD design things so everyone can enjoy it. By altering the settings, you can get your 15 decent worlds, but to me, as is right now, Immense feels gimped.



And I feel that until my 'empire' hits 100 worlds, it doesn't justify the title. Until then I'm not building an empire, maybe I'm building a sub-division. Epic fleet battles is why I play. (and yes, I understand not everyone feels this way, but in-game settings exist to make the game more like what you want)

Besides, if you want to play in a galaxy with 15 decent plants...(9 of them being other races homeworlds, leaving only 6 free to colonize) an immense map might be a bit TOO big for that. (it might even be too big if you meant 15 decent planets per side (which is not what you said) which would be about 165 planets)

10 homeworlds, plus up to 8 minor races, plus a handful of unclaimed worlds that will probably not be close to you.

Everyone that likes large galaxies with a large number planets feels like immense is empty. Some people like everything spread out...some don't. Now when stardock puts the number of planets back to what it normally would be everyone should be happy because the sliders will adjust accordingly when setting up a Galaxy. Atleast thats what I hope.

Your be needing the map editor that comes with the retail version then.

I like having a lot of room between the tight clusters, mostly so the AI will leave me the hell alone while I am in my 100 turn economic crash. That said, the distribution, especially on immense, is crappy. Most of the clusters end up crammed together on 1/2 of the map, there's a little bit of stuff on 1/4, and 1/4 is just empty. If they were more evenly distributed, you'd still have a lot of space, but you wouldn't end up with 6 close neighbors. There's always one guy who ends up with half the stars to himself, and one poor bastard who gets stuck with three stars and then 20 sectors of empty space.

Ya, I've seen alot of this. In my current game (immense, tight clusters) 3 of the races only have about 3-4 stars and only about 8 colonizable planets. Some of their starts were even so crappy that I was able to nab some of their better planets LOL.

Don't forget the poor stupid AI who usually gets trapped in a corner with one other planet.

In many of my games though, colonizable planets is NOT the only thing that matters to me.



I'll buy this.

When on Immense vice Gigantic

As I alluded to, in this case colonizeable planets IS the only measurement that matters. If you want a galaxy with more space between the planets, you can adjust the settings to get that, and you are happy. When I set everything to give me as many colonizable planets as possible, to play in a galaxy that makes me happy, and I'm only getting 60% of what I got on the supposedly 'lower' mapsize, that's an issue that concerns me, and I've already done all I can to maximize it.

I do understand that it's supposedly capped right now.

And something else I thought of....I imagine I could edit a map to give me as many colonizable planets as I want, if it turns out it is not capped right now