A few questions...

from GalCiv2 Forums
I have a few honest questions that seemed to confuse me. And I was wondering if any one could answer them?

1) Why is it that when I remove the hyperdrive, sensors and life support off a ship it can still travel to other stars? I was thinking if I made a ship a pure planet defender by taking off traveling modifications and parts I could fit more wepons and armor but it would not be able to move from the planet. Immagine my surprise when I indeed was able to fit much more fighting capibilities to the ship but it still retained it travel abilities just at a slightly decreased range? That doesnt seem right to me.

2) How can you tell when a planet has reached its maximum population? Or more importantly is there a way to see exactly what bonus' a certain population size is having on the various workings of a colony?

3) I heard somewhere that moons around planets give certain benifits? What exactly are these benifits and how can you tell what they give?
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1) A ship without hyperdrive travels at speed 1. A ship with hyperdrives travel with at least speed 2. That's a 100%-increase. Huge difference. Same deal with range.
Since the attacker always shots first, speed is a must-have.

2) You can't see when the planet population has reached it's cap dependant on planet quality. You can however see if you have enough food for more population-growth, 1 mton feeds one billion.
And population doesn't give any bonuses to the planet, except more taxes and influence.

3) Go to details. Look at planet bonuses.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
1) Seeing as hyperdrive is the first space-folding engine available, I can see your idea. On sensors and life support, I don't think any pilot would want to hold his breath very long and only be able to use iron sights.

2) Max pop is limited to how much food (in mt) you can produce. At least it is in 1.0x.

3) Moons don't really give bonuses, but Economic starbases too. Have your first constructor build an Econ base and make sure your planets are in the sphere of influence. According to your researched techs (ie, Xeno Industrial Theory, Advanaced Computing, etc etc) you will be able to add modules to the econ starbase that will boost your production/research in the planets under the sphere.

For example, if you have Xeno Industrial Theory and Xeno Factory Construction researched, you will be able to add a Starbase Factory (no pre-reqs), an Advanced Starbase Factory (Xeno Industrial Theory pre-req) and a Mass Scaling Center (Xeno Factory Construction pre-req). These modules give +2%, +3% and +5% bonuses, respectively. It may not seem much, but overlapping starbase influences will stack. With a fully research tech tree, one starbase will give +30% bonus to research, social and military productioon.

Be wary, as it is easy to bankrupt yourself with these starbases - while your production increases, you still need to pay for the increased production (ie, 1bc per 1 flask or 1 social hammer or 1 military shiled). AFAIK, in the upcoming 1.1 patch you will only need to pay for half of upgrades. If your base production is 50 and you have an econ starbase with +20% your production would be 50 + (.2x50) = 60. You would pay 55 as half of the upgrade is considered free.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ah I see. Still seems weird for a starship with no apparent hyperdrive can still reach a near by star in 5-8 weeks. Isnt hyperdrive supposed to have revolutionized the galaxy? 5-8 weeks to a nearby star is preaty damn fast. I would have immagined a ship would need even the most basic of hyperdrives to even travel 1 parsec/turn. Something I hope stardock might change.

I thought population also effected manufacturing (enhancing already exsisting factories) and research in labs. If it doesnt it should...

Ah well thats just my opinion
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
1) like the devs' posted in the journal, its not MOO. considering the penalties suffered in defending, coupled with the need for orbital fleet manager, you're probably better off with less weapons and more engines. less firepower can be made up with more shots from larger groups of fighters, and the initiative bonus you gain when attacking.

that being said, each drive category gives +1 speed. so with 1 speed default, you can move at 5pc/turn with hyperdrive tech researched.

exception. on some levels of the AI on campaign, having any ship with a weapon around a planet prevents dread lords from swarming said planet with transports.

2) why would you want to tell when a planet has reached max pop? once your morale drops below 40% your population stops growing. unless you load up a planet with VR centers, its tough to get population much above 25mil.
instead of VR centers, money is better spent on stock exchange type buildings to increase tax$

3) not sure, but i think manual somewhere mentions +10% production bonus for moons around planets. i find the moons have a more cosmetic than practical appeal. still every little bit helps i guess
Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
+10% Production for moons, +10% research for rings... (AFAIK)

Your ship comes with a basic hyperdrive, sensor and life support package on the hull. You're simply adding extra engines, extra sensors, and extra life support to get it better than the minimal equipment on the hull.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Everything makes a certain sort of sense until the chart at the very bottom, which makes none at all.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The chart at the very bottom tells you how many farms of various types you would need to support a given planet at it's max pop.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ah I see. Still seems weird for a starship with no apparent hyperdrive can still reach a near by star in 5-8 weeks. Isnt hyperdrive supposed to have revolutionized the galaxy? 5-8 weeks to a nearby star is preaty damn fast. I would have immagined a ship would need even the most basic of hyperdrives to even travel 1 parsec/turn. Something I hope stardock might change.


Think of it this way: it's not that an empty hull has no hyperdrive, instead it comes with an integrated 1-speed hyperdrive as part of its basic cost. Notice that most (all?) hulls show engines on the back - that's your built-in engine. Any engines you add are just there to boost the speed; the ship is hyper-capable right from scratch. I could easily make up some fiction about every hull type needing a specially-tuned for it basic hyperdrive system to be integrated into that hull to produce the primary hyper field and maintain structural integrity, and upon which standard off-the-shelf hyperdrive units could then be added to boost the speed. Etc Etc.

Why would Stardock do things thist way? Possibly because if they took away the default engine, they'd have to give ships extra space to fit an extra engine on to compensate for that lost speed. Then some players would use that extra space for extra weapons instead and construct immoble defense "fleets" around planets. Or mabe it makes the AI's ship designer easier to code. Or maybe they thought it was more convenient or interesting for the bare hull to have some basic functionality like movement, sensors and range even with no components on it.