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Wonderful! Thanks, kryo.

Ah, I see, thanks. Well, that's interesting...unexpected, but still pretty interesting...and a neat idea. Needless to say I was a little shocked to find myself being contacted by Kain from the Brotherhood of Nod.

Anyone know if there's a way to just access the ship-design screen outside of a full-on game? I'd love to be able to create some premade ship designs that I can then quickly access when I hit the right tech-levels.

I played a game last night in which the computer randomly selected to use two of my previous custom races as computer-controlled factions. Apart from deleting the custom races (which I have no qualms about anyways), is there a way to force the computer to only select the original factions for the npc players?

Are you focused on the correct area, ie: if you are building planet upgrades/facilities, are you focused on social? Does your planet have enough factories? Is your spending properly allocated in the domestic screen? You may have everything set, but if you're spending percentage is too low you will never complete anything.

Wow...just...wow. I've got a lot of catching up to do in ship design, it seems. Quick question; when I design ships, I often go for the Robotech look (asymetrical, naval ship look)...what would you guys recommend as the best racial ship models to use?

I had a bit of trouble getting the dl from sdc as well...turns out it was my own mistake. For anyone else who's purchased the game but still had it show up in sdc as "purchase" rather than "install", you have to click on "tools" (in the top left corner) and then click on "register products...". Fill in the info, along with the serial number from your email, and viola, you're ready to dl. Although I have to say that little step should have been made a bit clearer in the email purchase receipt.

I'm planning on doing a direct dl from stardock, but could someone just let me know how big the dl is? My connection, although its high-speed, isn't always the most reliable. Thanks in advance.

I think you've hit on some great ideas. Some games out there already take into consideration unruly populations (the total war series springs to mind)...it would definately make capturing planets more of a challenge. You wouldn't be able to simply build an entertainment structure and walk away.

Oh, ok...Thanks a lot for the clarification...now I know who to turn to for any more of my noob questions!

Sorry, kryo, just to clarify, the pq-10 and the pq-4 are the default start system for all custom races then? Thanks.

Here's a question regarding custom races. I much prefer making my own custom races to play with - much more personal I find. The one thing that erks me is that everytime I start a new game with my custom race, my system is always made up of one pq-10 planet and one pq-4 planet. Is this a default setting? And if so, is there any way to change it from within the game menus? Thanks in advance.

Best I've managed was 100 % morale at 69 % tax-rate. I'd maxed out the entertainment research branch, and my influence was flooding the far corners.

BSG owns all, imho. My wife works as a playback artist on SG:SG1 and SG:A; its actually pretty funny, none of the people who work on the show like it or watch it.

Agreed...no need to by crabby about it. davecapt: congrats on your new gfx card. Azrune: future congrats on your drivers license. Now everybody's happy.

I generally play on large to huge maps, everything set to common and tight clusters, with 7-8 major factions...I usually get 2-4 minor races on average.

I often build extremely long-range and fast freighters, and occasionally slap a few sensor upgrades on 'em, so they can do a little recon on their way to the targetted trade planet...but I like the OP's idea, I think I'll give it a try next game.

Pardon my ignorance, but what does ctrl+n do?

I have a question that is slightly off-topic, but linked to planets. Every time I start a game, my starting location is always the same planet-wise; one 10 PQ planet and one 4 PQ planet. Is this locked into the game? It just seems odd to me, considering some of the AI race starter systems seem to have much better planet quality. Could this be linked to my settings? I usually play large maps, 7-8 races (I always create my own custom race), everything usually set to common, on medium difficul

I often sell the basic techs to the AI, both allies and, if I'm trying to make peace, with enemies. In times of war I often supply my allies with defense and offense techs to help 'em out with enemies; I just try to make sure that the techs I sell are relatively harmless should my allies decide to use them against me. I usually sell the minor races as many techs as I can, since they never seem to declare war on me, and I'm usually content to let them be (except for the Snathi, those furry litt

Congrats on the new tadpole, frogboy.

^good idea. My big ships tend to have more defenses than weapons anyway, because they are built for defense over offense.

By the time I research democracy and open up the elections, I've usually made sure that my planets have at least one nicely upgraded entertainment centre. So far I've never received less than 75% of the vote.

For good trashy sci-fi, I recommned Dietz's Legion of the Damned series; lots of battles, although most are ground forces battles. I just finished Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet: Dauntless ; it was fairly good as well.

Has anyone noticed any serious lag issues while using the algorithms option? If so (or maybe if not ), what are your system specs, so I can compare mine to see whether I have anything to worry about, lag-wise. My system, real quick, is a p4 2.6, 1 gig of ram, gf6800xt w/ 128 mb.