GC2 rocks. It really really rocks. I still play that game often and enjoy the crap out of it. But it has a few issues that really shouldn't return in the sequel. These aren't bugs per say, just poor implementation. Annoyances that can't be modded out well. I don't know if they will be relevant to GC3 but if they are or could be I hope to draw some attention to them. All of these annoyed me enough that I had serious thoughts about asking stardock for the source code. Ignoring the fact that they would probably say no, I don't have any way to compile them if they used studio 2005. I still considered it though.
1) Range scaling. I understand why larger maps might need large ship ranges. But this was way over scaled in GC2. It didn't matter how large a galaxy you start with it still feels small. It should also scale with the number of habitable planets or better yet be able to be disabled by user setting.
2) Planetary Governors. You should be able to save them so you don't have to make the same ones over and over from game to game. Also they should specify by improvement type and not specific buildings. So instead of xeno bank, it should just have financial improvement. It shouldn't fill out the planet right away after being selected. It should be selectable from the main colony screen. (I disabled the pop up because it blocks a large portion of the planet, you know the part I use to decide what governors I should use!)
3) Auto explore. Should bring up a dialogue where I can select random patrol, random unexplored patrol, traditional explore. Random would pick a random spot in range and the ship would go. Random unexplored would (try) to pick a random unexplored spot in range and go. Should there not be a random unexplored spot it would just go to random spot. Traditional would be the default explore the 'w' key already does. (Though perhaps you would be improving or deprecating this already?)
3b) Automate anomaly exploration should have the option to fallback to random patrol if there are no anomalies in range.
4) Ship design management. During the game I should be able to save individual ship designs rather than have the game set to same them all or none. I don't need to save every little change I make during a game. Turing this off on the other hand means that I can't keep any of them!
5) Mining governors. I understand you are doing something different then the mining asteroids that were in the previous games. Until I understand more about the replacement I am going to point out that mining asteroids could have used a governor. So that I could have them go to nearest planet still building something, or nearest planet with a star port. Or to a planet of my choice like the home world.
6) Colony list and build queues. They should not snap to the top of the list with every change I make. If I want to purchase a few improvements from the colony list and they are not at the top of the screen, tedium ensues.
6b) Colony list purchase governor. If I have some extra cash and want to buy a bunch of planetary improvements to hurry them along, I would have to go one by one and click and buy until I have them all or I run out of cash. A governor should be able to do the same thing. Auto buy xeno factory until you get them all or run out of cash. (or until a specified budget is reached.) Buy run out of cash I don't mean go into the negatives.
6c) If you are using the same ship upgrade model, give us a "upgrade all ships of this type in this fleet" option. I might have 200 of the same type of ship I need to upgrade over the span of 20-25 turns, it would be really nice to be able to do them in blocks of 8-10 at a time instead of "all" or "one at a time from the fleet management box".
5b) The option for space miners to turn off entirely instead of going into standby if nothing is in range. Or at least a way to easily search for ships on standby, so I don't have to use a notepad to write down the hull number when it pops up to tell me it's on standby. Once I start running out of asteroids to upgrade the miners get repurposed to other things if I can find them.
You seriously took my thread idea almost verbatim lol
Now I won't be able to post it without looking like a Douchebag :c
Damn straight son! It got so bad on immense maps with abundant planets I wanted to scoop my eyes out with my fingernails.
It actually used 2003, which is part of why the GC2 updates stopped.
6d. All lists and sliders. They should act like lists or sliders, not a crippled parody of lists or sliders. In GC1 and GC2 when you tried to page up or down a list, it often went straight to the top or bottom, even though the list was many window sized entries long. You could grab the scroll bar and pull it to where you wanted it, or click the up or down arrow and move it one entry up or down (maybe two entries per click), but if you clicked on the empty part of the scroll slider it went the maximum distance every time. This was very annoying on the "set relay point" list, for one.
Examples of sliders are numerous: The "Finance Management" "Economy" page sliders "Taxation", "Spending", "Military Rate", "Social Rate", "Research Rate", and "Espionage Spending" are examples. Clicking on the space in the bar between the edges and the tab moves the slider one space, just like the left and right arrows do.
On the diplomatic "Trade" screen, the lists of planets, techs, and ships only move one at a time (using the arrows) or max top or bottom (when clicking the empty space in the bar), never going to the next set of undisplayed items. And the money and influence bars can jump way too far to be useful when the max amount is in the 10,000s or higher.
The lists in the "Foreign Policy" windows "Stats" and "Reports", has the opposite problem; clicking in the empty area on the scroll bar works like lists in the operating system, but the arrow keys jump the list to the next set of undisplayed items instead of moving the list one item up or down.
I reported these problems during the Beta of GC2. The answer I got was that there was something in "Studio" (I think it was Studio) that was making life difficult for the Devs.
So please make sure lists and sliders work like lists and sliders and work consistently across the game.
This is an awesome post, I can honestly say that everything mentioned above has been addressed in GC3, some with solutions much like you suggested. Others by substantial changes in game play. I think you will be happy.
However I will say that I never thought to have planetary governess preview what they should build when selected, this is such a obviously good idea that I am now officially stealing it and claiming it was mine .
Only if you officially refer to it as the "planet nanny".
Awesomeness! Steal away, I don't care who gets credit if I get to play it!
As for Governess, I am with WIllythemailboy. Only it should be a species trait. The xsdf` have planet nannys instead of governors. Obviously that is a race placeholder.
I knew it was one of those two. But seriously, if I could compile it I would ask if I could.
Wonderful.
I have a few ideas myself:2b) Something that annoyed me in GalCiv 2 was, you could not add items to the planet governor que if you haven't researched it yet (or bought the techs). For example, you often had to research farm techs before you could add farms to the que. Likewise, I always considered the Counter Espionage Center very important, but it was expensive to research, so it might be a while before I got around to researching it.2c) Allow the planet governor to be able to replace planet improvements with different ones (not merely upgrade them). For instance, if I had a developed planet, and I change planet governors, I would like it if it could remove factories so I can replace it with market centers.2d) Factor in bonus tiles. If I were to normally build 4 factories on every world, but I found a planet with a factory bonus tile, then maybe I would put fewer factories on that world since I would get the same output. I could fill those empty tiles with markets or something.2e) Temporary planet setup until things are finished being developed. The best way to get a planet developed the fastest is to first fill every tile with the cheapest factories possible. Second, upgrade them to the next generation, and then the next, and so on until all factories are maxed out (or until it isn't worth while developing any further). Third, start replacing tiles with the planet improvements that you want the world to actually have in the long run. Start with the most expensive build item (as replacing factories will slow down production, so you would do well to start with the most expensive), and then work your way down.
3) talking about the traditional auto explore
a) it needs to be updated to (in my opinion) prioritize range from start point in gc2 it started by exploring its current sector then went 1 to the left then 1 to the left until it reached max range, what it should have done was 1 to the left 1 down 1 right 1 right 1 up 1 up 1 left 1 left and then expanded to the next sector out
b ) it should account for sensor range in determining the next point to explore if i have a sensor radius 5 it should choose the next point to explore as 5 spaces from the edge unexplored space as opposed to the edge of unexplored space
c) allow ships to be more efficient when having multiple ships explore either have it check to see if another ship is already in the sector and move to a different sector, have multiple standard patterns that are assigned in order (clockwise, counter clockwise, linear left, linear right, linear top left, etc) or (this one would be tricky) have it check the radius of the two ships and have them fly in a formation that would allow them to scan a much larger area than each alone and possibly give them a range bonus to the front and rear of the formation
This is exactly why I recommended random explore. While it isn't optimal for 1 ship, it does very well (better than most would intuitively recognize.) with several and is easy to code for. I have done most of my scouting with a fleet of anomaly ships in GC2 and almost never use the 'w'.
An ordered scouting as you describe in C would be nice though. Perhaps wit a drag and drop search zone. That would make it easy for the computer to do without worrying about other ships. If it is a drag and drop rectangle, it could start from where you first click and explore towards where you dragged the zone.
Ideas and ideas. It isn't hard to improve on the 'w' in GC2. The best part is if the 'w' brings up a dialogue we can then pick the search kind we want for each scout. Have some on random explore. Some circling out. Some in a drag and drop search zone. Imagine the awesomeness.
What are you talking about. Are you suggesting that they should eliminate life support; I wouldn't mind having unlimited range. If you are talking about the little range you start out with, and not being to make it longer. Then my question is why do you want to eliminate this, so I cant explore the galaxy. Can you clarify what you are talking about.
Here's my idea for planetary governors. I would like to be able to set my planetary governors for the whole game not just for one planet at a time. I would like to be able to que certain governors for certain classes or types of planets. Even though I had a civ wide setup I may still want the ability to go back to certain planets, and reset the governor for that specific planet. I would like to be able to save different profile governors to use later, possibly certain kind of governors for certain classes or types of planets. I would like to see more governor options.
I also would like to have a default que I could set for building basic improvements every time I colonize a planet. It would not have to pop up in the gnn news untill I was done. I would like to be able to set my options like not upgrading certain buildings; until, I was done with certain other buildings. Not terraforming certain tiles until I used every last available tile on the planet. Not auto upgrading improvements until my income is more than my expenses. Being able to set things like not building or upgrading a farm until my population is almost maxed out. Not building entertainment centers until my approval on a planet or for the civilization falls below a certain level. Upgrading certain buildings for certain buildings. This is desirous when you trade, and you find that building certain buildings first and building a different building type next is desirous. researching and trading may cause this.
I would like to be able to set a certain kind of ship for when you build a starport. Lets say a colony ship. I would build this until my population falls below a certain level, and then there would be a setting for another kind of ships. I also would like to be able to set planets to build constructures when a resource pops up, and start building something else until it finds another resource when the starbase is fully upgraded. I would like to be able to set the empire where the higher population worlds would build colony ships and start transporting colonists to lower population worlds until they even out.
I would still need to be able to turn these options on and off. I would like to have a way to set these options globally, and be able to change these governors globally all throughout the game.
I would like to be able to patrol a certain range of space instead of not going anywhere. I also would like my patrol ship to stop a planetary invasion. This shocked my when my ship was patrolling or guarding a planet It would let planetary invasion ships go and attack a planet without trying to stop them.
Or the fallback to random explore when you run out of anomalies to survey, but when a anomaly appeared on screen to go back to auto surveying. I would like to be able to set my auto survey to the nearest anomaly; even when another of my survey ships picked it first
Maybe set them to change planets when a closer one becomes available, or let you to be able to choose a certain class level of planets to beam asteroid resources to. Maybe types of planets, or your home planet. Setting the asteroid governors to beam the resources to certain kind of planets only like population, economy, research, social, or military production. Having to option of beaming every asteroid resources in the empire to only one certain planet. 6) Colony list and build queues. They should not snap to the top of the list with every change I make. If I want to purchase a few improvements from the colony list and they are not at the top of the screen, tedium ensues.
Wow, didn't visit for some time, now realized there will be GC 3!
Some things I would like to see improved compared to #2:
1. Personally I disliked some events that suddenly gave everyone max. sensors or max. speed. IMO that rather spoiled the fun of investing into a certain area to get ahead. If these are kept please make it possible to turn them off or edit them out easily (I tried to, but couldn't find them in files where "normal" events were stored). Dito maybe for that council vote which forced everyone to change techs with eachother.
2. Notoriously weak 'evil' AI civs - at least in the majority of games I played - with only a few exceptions - AI Drengin, Korath and Yor remained mostly small and were easily wiped out.
3. If possible, let me design not only my own ships, but custom starbases too (ideally specific for civs like ships)
4. A GUI issue - didn't like that espionage setup appeared in one window, while you had to call another one to read the spy report for a certain civ. IMO it would be nice to access that report where you decide to send spies or not (if only to check whether you already have max espionage level for a specific civ).
That's what I can think of right now, maybe more later.
And oh, whatever you do, please keep the option to have a clock displayed while playing
Ability to upgrade a specific number of ships of same type, galciv2 gives you max or individual ship, or ability to upgrade until money used, simular to the mentioned above planetary improvements.
From michaelwhittaker
What I mean is this, if you start with a small galaxy, you can reach maybe a quarter of it from game start. If you start a large galaxy, you can reach a quarter of it from start. If you start an immense galaxy, you can reach a quarter of it from start. It doesn't matter how big you make the galaxy they are all just small galaxy's with more planets. The range a ship can make with no improvements is scaled for each galaxy size.
I understand why, if you make an immense and have few, few, few for stars, planets, habitable, then you really need that range scaling or you can't get anywhere. But if you have a map that is abundant, abundant, abundant, then you don't need to research any range techs at all. I am suggesting that range scaling should also take into account the number of planets and/or be able to be disabled altogether.
Colony ships shouldn't just be a colony module and as many engines as you can fit after 1 or 2 life support modules. I should have to balance the design so that I can put 4 engines on it but then I can't reach very many planets. Perhaps I would need two designs, one for deep colonization and one for rapid deployment. The gap in the stars of a large galaxy should be a barrier of some sort where one can cross only with a large investment in range techs or a large investment in star bases. It becomes a tactical advantage to destroy enemy star bases because they can't reach you anymore if you do. Or you have to put more effort into establishing your own and protecting them so you can reach them.
Non of this is possible on the large GC2 maps unless you turn the number of planets down to less then half the maximum amount. Basically what you do is keep up in research and spam ships until the other side is overwhelmed. There are many ways to do that, but no matter the strategy you are still doing that. Even if by spam it is actually a handful of very expensive ships.
One I forgot when I first posted this thread.
7) Farms and population control. Frogboy decided that to prevent over inhabited planets, he would make it harder to keep them happy with crowding. It was a good idea but it had some bad side effects. One of them is that I no longer used the 300% bonus tiles. Another is that I didn't research the second or third farm techs anymore depending on how I wanted to play.
It occurs to me that the initial premise of crowding wasn't really an issue and it was the wrong way to go about population control. Let me explain that better.
On Earth, most of the planet (70%) is uninhabitable because it is covered in water. A good chunk of what is left is covered in mountains and deserts and tundra. Oh my. With advanced tech, those limits to living space aren't that permanent. In short we can fit some dozens of billions more people on the planet if we could make use of this space.
But there is only so much farmland available. True with more advanced techs you can make more but then you don't have places to live.
I propose that in GC3, (assuming the above is still relevant to game play) instead of crowding making it hard to increase a planet population, we have limited farm land with which to build farms.
Or you remove the Basic Life Support module from the game, which is what I did in my mod (still testing this change). Without it, the range of your ships is only a little more than a sector at the start of the game.
I also made a couple other changes to the Life Support techs and modules, and, so far, the AI is handling it quite well.
A big issue for most 4x space games is galaxy exploration is done very quickly.Civ manages it better because of the terrain.Exploration of a large galaxy should take most of the game in my view and be interesting.
I would like to see some restrictions with ship upgrades. I am for some, obviously an crew is a capable of improving their own ship and dry docking it can lead to some major improvement, Navies around the world have been doing it for years. But some how maxing the number of improvements for a hull would force new production less a race find itself with an aging fleet. It might even change the balance of power as one faction chose to start early with upgrading, thus having a smaller fleet but at a turning point can out class its enemy with superior numbers but old ships that are now very out classed.
A simplistic example of this would be a sailing ship, you an upgrade the guns, sails, and so on but once you add engines or iron plating you need to retire your old ships, you might use a few in limited scouting roles during the transition but the front line ships need to be built a new.
A possible way to implement this is a power core requirement that distributes power for engines, shields and so weapons. New "generations" of the power core might not be compatible with older hulls, can't fit or something. New weapons and so forth need them so at a certain point the ship just becomes un-upgrade-able and needs to be moth balled or turned into a museum.
the power core could be a crucial part of the ship that cant be changed without ripping apart the whole ship(and thus making it cheaper to build a new one) if power cores were a tech that supplied x units of power (which would be used by the various systems) then this could act as a limit to how far you can upgrade your ships plus add another layer to shipbuilding
That's why I proposed to allow ship upgrades only on planets with a star port or on starbases to have the infrastructure and a dock. That proposal was dismissed with the argument that there are lots of mobile docks owned by private companies accompaning your fleet and thus are providing the infrastructure and components at need.
A visual thing: in GC 2 after you designed nice ships for everyone you found that the AI had the annoying habit to place weapons, engines, defenses and other upgrades in rather absurd spots and sizes, which often resulted in very strange looking AI ships.
Maybe there could be something done to mitigate this prob, for example a size limit for those upgrades or the option to turn them to invisible. I'm not really sure if that's the best solution, but maybe someone has a better idea...
I would like to see the Auto Attack option get some love. I'd like to be able to set priorities for a ship in auto attack mode to target a type of ship first, within range, and another type second, etc... Also, if it would allow me to set enemy ship types to avoid while in auto attack, that would be cool, too.
The scenario would be to put my medium sized ship in Auto Attack looking primarily for troop transports, but avoiding huge enemy hulls.
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