Steven Landry

Regarding the three-dimensionality of space - galaxies are often "relatively" flat; that is, their shape is roughly in a plane. Of course on the scale of galaxies, that thickness of that plane is enormous, but it is small in comparison to radius. There are other galaxy shapes for which this is not true, however. Regarding what would happen if a colony became "isolated" by territory surrounding it - it would be like Berlin after the end of

I realize those are influence borders; territorial borders need not be the same. I also realize how big space is. That makes it *more* important that territory be established. Consider the Drengin - do you think they would sit by and watch an alien colonization ship head for a habitable planet a few sectors from their homeworld? No they wouldn't, they'd blast it out of existence. Yet the only option one has in that case is to declare w

As to the lucky rangers, if you add "luck" as one of your bonuses you get a bunch of these. They are very helpful in pushing up your military score early in the game. In one game I ended up with 12 of them, and they often came in pairs (one found one week, a second found the next week). By getting these I can usually avoid others declaring war on me.

I must say that I hate the fact that aliens can just trapse all over my territory. I've got Drengins and Altarians shooting it up right next to planets of mine because they are on opposite sides of my territory. I think that alien civilizations should not be able to send any ships into my territory unless we have made some kind of diplomatic agreement to that effect. Diplomatic relations should have levels which include the ability to send traders

I must say that I hate the fact that aliens can just trapse all over my territory. I've got Drengins and Altarians shooting it up right next to planets of mine because they are on opposite sides of my territory. I think that alien civilizations should not be able to send any ships into my territory unless we have made some kind of diplomatic agreement to that effect. Diplomatic relations should have levels which include the ability to send traders

I am using a Sony VAIO PCG-K23 with an Radeon IGP 345m and DirectX9.0c. I have had no problems running the game in beta mode. I downloaded the game, and it starts fine (no crashes). However, text is missing from buttons and windows. So, for example, the game starts up, I get the video and it plays fine, then the opening window comes up. The buttons along the right have no text in them, so I can't tell which is which, although they work when I click on them. I admit that I think ATI has a n