I think the AI should still provide a challenge on the harder difficulty modes. After a bit more playtesting, I decided the AI still felt too unthreatening, so I've reintroduced an old bonus in r38000. All AI's on normal or harder are now starting with an extra colony ship. I would suggest doing th...

PrivateHudson wrote:I've got an impression that anti-missiles during defensive fire don't consume ammo. Is this intended?

Yes. Once upon a time it did, but I felt that it was both a gameplay problem and somewhat unrealistic that defensive fire should deplete offensive ammunition.

The AI's interaction with the Star Harpies is... unusual, so I can imagine cases where a colony ship might be able to slip through.

Harpies don't attack planets, so if a colony is established, they won't bother it.

No, you can't target individual systems.

Why do Marauders want influence in exchange for cease-fire? If I understand correctly, influence is a measure of reputation. I believe, Marauders, being inreputable (is this a word?) by definition, would accept for peace exactly the fee they requested (and were denied) at first contact. At most cor...

Also, while maybe a minor problem, the issue of lost idle fleets waits for solution. Those are ships sent to shipyard colony (or simply to any colony nearest to contested outpost) for refit, or empty colony ship sent to embark specific race colonists, or transports recalled from pool to pick up no ...

Tech trading was pretty common in 4X games (it was in Civilization IV and most earlier versions), but it's becoming less common, because it's a problematic mechanic. ⋅ It unbalances the research progression rate. You will progress much, much faster if you can trade for techs, so the progre...

Humans are meant to be more difficult than the other factions to play. Unless they happen to get a really favorable start, they will often be behind the 8-ball in the early and midgame.

Why after the Eye of Dzibix' loss all tinkers aren't instantly disconnected? Instant deharmonization would probably be too much of a punishment, pushing their faction into complete chaos. When the Tinkers say "Dzibix", what they really mean is "the collective." As long as Tinker...

Hans_Lemurson wrote:Hmm...so is it more important for PD to have high Accuracy or high Damage? How do I decide between Laser and Coilgun PD in the beginning?

I'd say accuracy is more important, because a PD shot that hits but doesn't destroy the target at least damages it, while a shot that misses does nothing.

Funny thing, though, I always thought I did see dimorphism in the Phidi- at least, there's a pretty striking contrast between the bright yellow markings on Arabo and Simli and the more subdued coloration of Anysus. Coloration variations between individuals don't have to be sexual in nature. I suppo...

Actually, I meant star-belonging asteroid belts instead of some tiny planets, not planet-belonging debris rings. Some of those planets could be broken into asteroid belts at map generation, some by terraforming, some by biggest guns. I understood what you meant. I'm saying we have discussed the pos...

I personally think that Factories should have a modest bonus to planetary Coin output in the case where the planet is set to Trade. Not necessarily a huge strategic consideration, but in cases where planetary industries are set to churn out civilian commodities, you'd think that the added industria...

One thought that occurred to me was to have bitmap asteroids that float and rotate in a cloud; the problem there is that if they rotate, the lighting direction would obviously become wrong. So they'd have to be completely static. Maybe it would look okay... I haven't really tried it. Another thing t...

Alimaeus wrote:Is there any chance that you could add missile/strikecraft HP to the UI otherwise its difficult to figure out how it stacks up against points defense.

I'll make a note of it.