Capn_Danger

[quote]I've got to admit that if I wanted to go to war with someone that's trading with me, the loss of of income wouldn't make me think twice about pulling the trigger.[/quote] I once had a DA game where the Jagged Knife took ALL the planets I was trading with. I couldn't go to war with them because I got most of my income through trade. I also had the speed limit event (on a gigantic map!), so it took a VERY long time to make new routes so I could declare war without murdering my econ

[quote]As to the jaggy edges, that's just a matter of turning antialiasing on, but a GF4MX is not likely able to sustain a very good framerate with AA of any sort enabled.[/quote] As far as picture quality goes you can often increase picture quality for less of a framerate hit if you turn up the resolution before you use AA. You'll still have jaggies, but the increased resolution makes them less severe.

What kind of graphic card do you have? If you're not seeing textures it could be an incompatible video card. There's a graphic level slider at the top left of the video page and the resolution selector, but beyond that most of the options for video are just little tweaks. Make sure you update all the drivers for your hardware as well(esp. video card)!

[quote]As far as automated starbase upgrading goes, I was thinking that if there was a slider that you could use to allocate some of your income to a pool, money for upgrades could first be taken out of the pool without needing to prompt the player.[/quote] That would be awesome. After the initial construction I wish I could just fund a starbase's ongoing expansion and let my underlings take care of the nitty gritty of upgrades. I'm a galactic emperor, not a cosmic Bob Villa!

MAJOR requests: The option to start at advanced tech levels. Battle of the Gods is fun, but I'd like to be able to start 1/4 or 1/2 way up the tech tree. Heck, maybe there could be a slider to determine how many tech points everyone starts with? An addition to AI behavior: if you're about to attack a planet, it would make a lot more sense for the AI to launch a bunch of ships, fleet them, and then try to intercept you on the turn before you'd reach the planet. They'd have to leave s

[quote]i simply continue to enjoy the fact that the people that called me the gauntlet of nerd/geek/dork etc. are still working in fast food or warehousing and i am at a major financial institution developing software. and i am happily married with a kid while they haven't be able to hold a relationship for more than a weekend.[/quote] Yeah, nerds definitely come out on top in the end. The nerdiest kid in my school growing up, who got picked on a lot, sold an OS he made in coll

Well, ship speed is measured in pc/week. A parsec is about 3.2 light years across! The listed ship speed reflects only how fast it's hyperspace or warp engines are, not how manouverable or fast it is on a small scale (thats why a huge ship can have the same speed as a tiny ship). The battle view doesn't really show ship-to-ship combat taking place at millions of miles per hour, they must drop out of warp to engage the enemy. Smaller ships would be harder to hit in combat, but adding man

I've only been building farms on my economy worlds. Maybe I'll try shoving one on all my planets and see how it works out. Does anyone know the formula for how population affects taxes?

Take at least the +30 economy and +10 morale picks until you get the hang of the Torians. Don't forget to take advantage of Super Breeder! Drop your tax rate so that you get %100 approval, you get a x4 boost to your population growth. The Torians are great at a massive colony rush because they can build up population on those new colonies so quickly and get the taxes rolling in.

Yeah, Newbyl. Factories generate both social output and military output. The budget sliders for mil and soc affect what portion of your factory's production goes to each. The upside is that any unused social production goes directly to military spending. I often rush-buy a factory or two on new colonies to get things moving.

[quote]Like having an Iconian Huge ship with 709hp with an insane repair rate? Yes, I'm insane and it was overkill....but man did it feel good.[/quote] Good grief Charlie Brown! It would take so much firepower to take that thing down. You wouldn't even need any armor on it.

[quote]I have actually been purchasing Research buildings from other tech races.[/quote] Tech trading is even more powerful in TA- every race has some weakness in its tech tree they can make up for with trading. I tend to go after AI techs that give civ-wide bonuses, and watch them stack and stack... :P

I like the Mega Events for just that reason, it totally shakes things up and keeps it interesting. The most carefully laid plans go awry; its definitely a challenge to be forced to abandon a strategy you've heavily invested in and shift to another avenue of victory. Of course, seeing the AI get totally ganked by a mega event that leaves you unscathed gives you the opportunity for a very smug "Ha ha, suckers!" type of victory.

Last time I upgraded my CPU I was in a rush (first mistake). I put my old CPU in my mom's computer, but somehow neglected to remember the principle of a ZIF socket. I didn't flip up the clamp bar on the socket, and while reattaching the fans bent several dozen pins (some quite severly) on both my old CPU and my new dual core. The thing is, I had installed CPUs before and supposedly knew what I was doing. I had just started studying for my technician certification, too! Ha. Ha. Ha. <

[quote]The invasion screen must have been a last minute quick change. This would explane the lack of effort and creativity. After all, it is seen hundreds of times per game, it should be dazzling. [/quote] Ah, you know what? I skipped the old combat screen most of the time anyways, since there isn't anything to do there except wait and watch. I say "meh!" either way.

They seem to do well, they don't get social projects for a while so they just tend to crank out ships. With their rather substantial innate bonus and powerful unique buildings they can grab colonies pretty fast. There was a recent thread on here about the Thalans frequently grabbing large portions of the galaxy and just badassing their way to industrial supremacy. I would like to see how the AI handles their economy, due to their ridiculous maintenance costs I bet you'd see a lot of unu

[quote]3. I agree 100% with prior posts about rally points and ship launching. Would be wonderful to just select a planet, then right-click on a point in space to auto-send the ships it builds to that point, without the hassle of having to set up individual rally points. Having an auto-launch new ships built feature is necessary.[/quote] If you didn't know already you can select a planet (or ship), hit the "T" key and a rally selection for that planet will pop up, sending all ships buil

[quote]he thalans are born and bred conquerors and that you will not need to build a lot of infrastructure to do so until your economy can handle it.[/quote] Thats true. They have a hugemongous amount of civ-wide bonuses to production. I usually do a major colony rush, fill my worlds with econ buildings and then add factories here and there as I can afford them, maybe devote the smaller worlds to labs. I don't even use +pop growth, I prefer taking +econ and +morale. With %100 a

Man, I hope they fix that. Trade is pretty irrelevant in TA, except for the diplomacy boost.

I filled all my worlds with econ buildings, then just added factories and labs as I could afford them- most worlds only had a few factories, a starport and a lot of econ buildings. I play them with industrialists and milk all their civ-wide production bonuses, so I didn't need to fill my worlds with factories to out-produce everyone else. Its easy to get an early lead in colonies which will see you through until you can reduce your maintenance costs. The Thalans' end-game is just obscene. <b

Yeah, lack of AI military makes the game pretty inane. Dogs with no teeth. They definitely need to fix that one as well.

I just started a game using the Thalans, and they're completely ridiculous. I didn't even need +pop growth, its pretty easy to keep %100 approval and yet stay competitve due their powerful unique buildings. You don't need very many production/research buildings because theyre so powerful, I just filled my planets with econ buildings. Once I got going it was just insane. However, their unique production/research building also provides food. If you stick it on your homeworld you're doomed

Bumping. I certainly hope this is fixed in the June patch, right after the technology cost bug! In DA trade could be a major part of your strategy: Korx could definitely generate a good amount (even most) of their income with trade and well-placed starbases. That it isn't a viable strategy anymore. Please fix it, SD folks! I'm jonesing to fill the galaxy with my valuable goods once again.

Thats one reason I've found the Drengin so much fun to play- black markets have no maintenance cost, so you can always fill tiles with those things. Makes it easier to support an early war machine. Also, I've heard that trade is broken- the route value doesn't increase the further the freighter is. Has anyone else seen that? Would explain why the Korx don't have the balls they used to.

I kinda miss the old screen myself. There was more to watch, and I liked seeing all the little mans exploding. It is nice to see what improvements are getting toasted, though.