Mac2411

This is a long known discrepancy. The Peacekeepers do not work as they are described in the text description, but they are (from what I understand) working as intended.

JustInsane4, It is not my intent to insult you, but I don't think you've read my previous posts very closely. If you had, I believe you would realize you are mistaken in several respects. The whole point of this thread is that I believe the Arceans need a minor tweak or two to make them competitive. I've not stated they are "terribly underpowered." I base this not only on my own experience with them but also on my observations of the AI's experience with them. I've yet to see

Sounds good. Thanks for the post DSep.

[quote]If you are heavily relient on trade (and are not playing as the Korx), that may explain your problems.[/quote] While I appreciate your efforts, you missed the whole point. The only reliable way for the Arceans to overcome the debt spiral (in my experience) at the beginning of the game is to get to the Trade tech. The reliance is by necessity not by strategic choice. Moreover, given the heightened maintenance costs and the Arceans lack of any native economic bonus (something no

Having same download probles. Refreshed XML data and switched servers to no avail. It's odd there's no official announcement on this release.

Make that "evasive action" and "hardened armor."

Yeah, my experience is that Trade routes are quite profitable. This is further magnified with the game event that multiplies trade income, which happens probably one out of three games for me-maybe more. I almost always research straight to trade and then trade it away early game to other races. It is a valuable tech and they will give quite a bit to get it. With the Arceans, I can get valuable technology. With the Terrans and their diplomatic bonuses, I've actually received star

[quote]The problem with focusing just on the Arceans because "that is what this thread is about" is that several races suffer from the exact same problem. To "fix" just the Arceans still leaves a problem and inbalance for other races.[/quote] I agree that slow money is a problem early game for several races but that doesn't make other race's situations comparable. For example, the Iconians have access to very powerful (for early game) research modules that can get them to trade fairly

In the first place, this thread is about the Arceans, not the Iconians. That race has attributes and penalties the Arceans don't and I'm not sure that experiences with them are really applicable to the Arceans. My experience with the Arceans tells me that once one goes into debt sufficiently far, happiness starts to precipitously fall. That in turns shuts down population growth. I've even observed my population falling because of unhappiness. Without population growth, there is no way to gr

[quote]Really? That's not my experience at all... they seem ridiculously overpowered to me. I played on immense... I just 'pwned'. Perhaps it just fits my play style. I am not a fighter... I am a turtler. I had a ridiculously overpowered turtled empire. [/quote] My experience has been that the "turtling" strategy on upper difficulty levels will end in defeat unless you have more than a handfull of planets, which you can rarely get with the Arceans and avoid a fatal ec

I've been playing the Arceans in the last several games and my experience with them has been just plain bad. I've always noticed that they struggle as an AI player as well. They really never seem to recover from the initial economic crash and just struggle throughout every game I've played. Their slow ships only compound the problems they have. I don't know if they need "serious" help but I think a tweak or two would be in order such as (a) taking away the speed penalty-it is enough of a han

I've noticed a couple of techs that still don't have descriptions and don't offer a component or bonus: evasive maneuvering (anti missile)-I may not have the name exactly correct; and (b) hardened armor (mass driver defense).

Yeah I'm aware of the reload solution for invisible ships, but wanted to post on it one more time in light of the fact that we are getting close to final and I would rather not see this swept under the rug-it's been around for a LONG time. Further, reloading does not always take care of the problem. As for the economic problem, the Terrans do experience it but it can be overcome. Moreover, they have multiple ways of getting out of the crash given their tech and economic bonuses. I m

I've been playing both the Terrans and the Arceans in Beta 4c now and have a few observations. First, the invisible ship bug is far from fixed. The most notorious culprit, the Drengin invisible super dominators are still there in great numbers. Second, the Arcean ship designs generated by the AI look like a car that just got hit by a train-they are a mess with parts randomnly hanging at unsightly angles. This was not the case before, is it intentional? I would like to see that fixed before

I've never seen the Dread Lords surrender. Of course, in this latest beta it seems as though everyone surrenders too easily. This mechanic seems to be in need of repair.

As for the first but you report, it is a long standing and often reported bug that seemend to have been fixed a beta or two back, but that has now reappeared in this Beta.

I've seen this as well with just about every AI race not only in this Beta but in previous versions of the game, including non-beta versions.

To follow up, I noticed invisible Super Dominators in my latest Beta 4c game and tried an experiment. I saved, exited and then reloaded the game and the invisible ships reappeared in the game. I hope this bit of information is helpful in resolving this issue.

[quote]Now I've so far played the Humans, Arcean and Altarian all of whom play identically. It's not just the economy I'm finding the AI not suffering penalties from. They have superior Social and Military production and can pump out Conolly ships like no tomorrow.[/quote] I may be pointing out the obvious, so please bear with me. None of those entities listed in the quote above have any significant production bonuses. In fact, in Beta 4c, the Terrans have a military production [I]pen

Yes. It always increased influence has as far as I know. Also adds research points and increases the speed of ships that are constructed on the planet.

[quote]First, the Recruitment Center is one of the BEST early buildings. It is cheap to build, adds 10% econ, and more importantly adds 20% pop growth. Pop Growth is an important stat early that is largely overlooked. [/quote] Very true. I also try to get to Xeno Medicine as early as possible.

[quote]On a slightly sidewards note do you guys see blank sections in the ship list when you open up a stock ship in the designer? By this i mean the list of parts attached to the ship at the top of the right hand screen. I am wondering if the blank parts have something to do with it as i never get the issue with custom made ships.[/quote] Yes. This is also a recurring problem. I thought it was fixed at one time but reappeared in the last Beta from my observation. This can cause cras

I've been seeing this throughout every Beta of TA, including the ever invisible Drengin Super Dominators. In this Beta, I even had a ship disappearing in the Shipyard when I would try to upgrade a design. Every time I tried adding a Stinger III missile, the entire hull would disappear in the ship design screen. ONce I changed from trying to update an existing design and chose the same hull from my templates, the problem went a way. I had never seen that one before. While not game breaking

I always play on "painful" level or above as Terrans. Now, the Terrans do get a pretty good economic bonus, so you can take my comments for what their worth, but I have just not had the problems to the extent the OP describes (and I note he is playing Terrans as well if the post is accurate). The economy must be more carefully managed now and I think that is a good thing. First off, one needs to increase taxes early on from the base 33% level. I run taxes at 49% early on and slowly

From what I've observed (and it has not been careful observation let alone anything remotely scientific), Neutral choices move one little if at all. Thus, multiple Neutral choices are not likely to move one from the depth of Evil at which the Korx typically start (without modification). Moreover, Evil choices tend to move one down the Ethical line at a greater rate than Good choices.