Beta 4 where did the Star Systems Go ?

from Stardock Forums
The first thing I noticed was that there seems to be fewwer star systems than on an earlier BETA. I hope this is go to change. With in 5 turns I began running into major races. Not good if I wanted to play in a galaxy with few systems I would play with a smaller map.

I would like to build my empire for awhile without worrying about coping with a major power.

Gone for now are those days.

When will the 20X20 map get released ?
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
THere are slightly fewer stars but much more habitable planets.

We're making no promises of humungous sized galaxies prior to release. If we can get the play balancing and performance to be what we're looking for then we'll be able to make the galaxy size bigger.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,

I was playing a gigantic map on 3z1 last night, the computer stops colonizing at some point. Not sure why, but the other empires each had a bunch of planets, but left about 7 good planets uncolonized.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, that is fixed in beta 4.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Started an average game with all the AI players set to their defaults...most normal and one smart/one dumb I think. They quickly crank out 4 colony ships and grab planets all over the place. This is on the 6x6 galaxy. I had to restart it 5 times to get one with star systems near my home planet to have a chance of getting any. Even then, the computer quickly came in and grabbed all around me except the one I had. I don't think this is the best idea as far as balance goes. I went into debt buying to colony ships so I could get 4 systems total, the rest are all taken from what I can see on the map.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I noticed that too. The cause for this is I had the AI more aggressively purchsae colony ships while I was trying to figure out why they wren't colonizing planets (the bug in beta 3Z).

The bug turned out to be something else but I didn't get a chance to go back and tone down the colony sihp purchasing.

My suggestion would be to play with the AI set to dumb with no "smart" players.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
BTW, if I get a chance this weekend (no promises) I hope to release an update. The GalCiv team is on vacation for the next couple of weeks so there won't be changes in fundamental features. I only code AI and play balance stuff but I think at this late stage that quite a bit can be done there.

I'd like to get bigger galaxies in over the weekend.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
B4 very different. Almost feels like a different game, but I need to get used to it and play for a while.

I note Brad's comments about the initial set-up. I assume this is for heavy testing of AI-Player interaction and Eco-social Algorthyms as I have encountered well established AI civ's (5 or 6 or more developed planets each) withing for or five turns.

Looks like we are in for fun getting ourselves out of a very tight corner! I have Earth and one very poor (16) planet and am at my max early ship range; have met all the other races; can't find another planet and am overdrawn with an unhappy pop struggling to get out of hock. Intriguing..

I'm off back to bed (got up at 5am to download ;) and to plan my tactics.

BTW- I noticed the highlighting bracket did not appear around a planet closest and due west of my ship location. Two other planets on screen that I clicked on (NW and SW of my ship) bracketed ok

s
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Tried it with dumb, working better. They are dumb though :(

Think I found a bug. Game said that I had reached the max trade routes allowed, but there were 2 more slots (3 of 5 filled) in the economy/trade window. Going to try to duplicate it, game crashed shortly after seeing this (no SE though)
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
What is with all the green stars? Do they mean something, like the purple?

-Robert
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Odd message on the morale update: "But the people are pretty unhappy with 213184440 percent expressing an approval for the policies of ."

-Robert
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
"THere are slightly fewer stars but much more habitable planets."

I believe that's true, but I noticed a lot of them are class 15 or 16. These planets are not very good for population or production. (:(
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
Yea, 15 and 16 are going to be the most common planets. We will eventually have additinional graphics for 15 and 16 so that there is more variance visually. 17,18,19, 20 are supposed to be fairly rare and obviously 26 incredibly rare.
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
So gigantic *is* smaller--I thought I was going nuts! The preponderance of 15s and 16s feels a lot more "natural" somehow--I think you're on the right track there. When you fix the alien colonization overkill I might even tone down my settings from "Habitable planets everywhere"--they really are now. Nothing special about the green or are we supposed to discover that?

-Robert