Game play is a bit on slow side!

I have another comment dealing with the "slowness" of the game. When accessing menus etc. there is always a slight delay i.e. changing your resource allocation between military, research or social production. When moving the bars there is always a delay reaction before the bar accually moves.
Is this due to my system specs?

Is this due to my system specs?

Well, if you had posted them, I could make some kind of conjecture.   

I was generalising. But to clarify...
2.4 Ghz Celeron
768 mb Ram (64 shared by graphics card)
ATI RADEON IGP 345M card.
XP with Service Pack 2.

And ja...

the slider thing happens on mine too:

athlon xp @ 2.5GHz (3600+)
1gb ram
ati x800xtpe 256mb

It looks as if neither of you should have any trouble due to hardware...it could be just all the calculations that are going on.  Every time you move one of the sliders on the domestic economy, it has to check to make sure that it's still within valid ranges and then do all the spending and income calculations.  So if you have a lot of colonies, it might take awhile. I'll make note of it, though, and see if I can reproduce it here.  It could be something like printing out debug messages that is making it go slower.  Also, if you're playing in a window and you're running anything that refreshes the graphics a lot, like an animated wallpaper, you could just be painting the screen too much.

My concerns were with how the game progresses including how the colony ships are from the start moving one space at time. Unless it was intentionally to get the player to create their own colony ship that moves more then one space at a time? I am still wondering if the game play has been addressed regarding the pace of the game or progression? Have you coded this in yet Cari? If you have I will shutup.

I think it's a good point. Perhaps our default colony ship should have two moves per turn.

It's not just the speed of the colony ship that creates a slower game. It's the current game design.

The reasons for this are:
#1) There's more micro-management. Especially concerning planets.
#2) Takes longer to develop planets.
#3) Takes longer to research "something useful".
#4) Nothing done to allievate the micro-management of star-bases/constructors.

This makes the entire game slower!

on Home world and early game:
For instance, early on, it takes longer for your home world to be able to chunk out those early colony ships/scouts/constructors. This could be addressed by having all home worlds start with an even mix of basic labs and basic factories for half the world. It fits into the setting of the game. It is the race's home world. This will allow players to get some building and research going much quicker, rather then having to "ramp up" from an empty world.

on Research:
There's only a few techs that seem to do something significant. I'm not picking on the tech tree... but it's not a big deal if my engine tech 2 takes up 1 space less then my engine tech 1 gave me. Same with the 5 steps of each weapon. This makes research seem to be a very boring thing, rather then a "ALRIGHT! NOW I CAN DO X! TIME TO UPDATE THE HARTH GUARD!"

on New Worlds:
Same problem as the home world. Takes them forever to be seriously useful. This could be aided by having the core tile add in extra production, research, economy as player advances tech. This would let that empire bring new worlds into useful status quicker as they advance through signficant tech milestones.

on Constructors:
These are still the bane of the game. All that micro-management, sending them out to improve your starbases, extend your range (ship and culture), etc etc etc. This needs to be be automated so players just mark a resource and say "Send constructor", or click on their starbase beside their home world and say "Max my Industry" and the game routes all new constructors to that base automatically until its maxxed. If we could set up priorities so our infrastructure governor would know which is more important to fix first (and split between equal priorities), this would really "speed up" the game play, and let players better concentrate on the "Big Thought" aspects of the game, rather then micro-managing all those constructors!

My standard start with GC2 leaves me with all drives short of impulse, and Impulse drive is the first tech I research, because that 1 extra speed really makes a difference.

As for your points:

More micromanagement: True, especially with the improvement lines that don't improve continuously. Factories upgrade all the way from basic to industrial sector, but it's one of the few lines that's unbroken. Morale is unbroken as long as you don't consider Harmony Generators. Financial is broken in more places than not (of course, the third financial improvement is better than the 4th or 5th, so there's not much reason to go farther). I think research is only broken in Research Center->Research Academy. I don't know if farming is broken anywhere, as food is too much of a hassle to deal with. Ship quality is a pet peeve of mine, the lowest improvement in that line in the tech tree is the Omega Shipyard.

Takes longer to develop planets: Only because now you're building 4 factories instead of just one.

Takes longer to research "something useful"? We must not be playing the same game. By the time I get around to researching weapons and defenses, I'm researching Laser I and II the same week, and sometimes III and IV both the next week. Aside from my first tech, it usually doesn't take me more than 8 weeks to research anything that is less than 2/3 the way up the tech tree, and most things land in the 1-3 week range. This is on normal tech speed. I like going deep into the tech tree, you'd be amazed what you can get (including starbases) if you're offering AI players that don't even have "Interstellar Governments" "Star Federation", "Master Trade" is another one I can always count on getting some nice stuff in return for. Not to mention I love making sure "Alliances" goes all over the place, the AI still doesnt' know how to extract itself from a war between two alliances. Also need to make sure that everyone gets Soil Enhancement/Habitat Improvement/Teraforming ASAP, after all, why should I have to upgrade all the planets? Let them upgrade them before I take them over

Starbase/constructor micromanagement. Oh, yeah. Doesn't even have to be that sophisticated, even if it's just "when this planet builds a constructor, the constructor will set a course to the nearest starbase flagged as needing upgrades". Having a way to tell a starbase "when a constructor arrives, apply it to economy, and don't bother me again until economy is maxed out" would be icing on the cake. Having a way to prioritize starbases would also be nice, but at that point I think we're reaching the pony list. Maybe have a special rally point that instead of going someplace specific, goes to the nearest starbase flagged as needing upgrades. (No, regular rally points are not the answer, they stink for doing this, I've tried, though it would go a long way if I could move an existing rally point and have all ships headed towards it immediately update their autopilot).

One of the things I really liked about MoO3 was the ability to flag a planet as "send colony ship here." and the nearest colony ship not already in route would head that way. And if you flagged planets faster than you made colony ships, the colony ships would take off to the nearest flagged planet when created. Not that I want that exact functionality, but it is something I thought that given their game, they got right.

Also note that the Homeworld "initial colony tile" is already capable of more production than a colony "initial colony tile" so I think maybe boosting that farther may help out the home world early game. GC1 didn't see that as much because your homeworld was your most populous world until you found a really nice world somewhere. GC2 isn't as constrained by population, and furthermore, you hit morale problems from overpopulation much faster in GC2, so the Homeworld looses its advantage very fast.

I think having the "initial colony tiles" automatically upgrade as better techs come along may go a long way to improving another issue with colonies, that being that if you found a colony late in the game, the "cheapest" factory you can build is an undustrial sector, and the game will be over before a new colony can build one of those things.

With regards to constructors, why aren't you just putting rallypoints on your starbases and having constructors go to it?

Three issues, though one could definitely be me. When I try to put a rally point on a starbase, I get one above it. You're saying that I should be able to do that?

Second issue is what do you do once you're done building that starbase? Is there a way to move a rally point? If so, I can't find it, if not, I'd need it to use it this way. Without that, I have to destroy the old rally point, create a new one, and then go and tell every planet to use the new rally point. Major pain.

Last issue, and not a very important one, is the micromanagement of sending just a few constructors each to several different starbases when I get a new upgrade is a pain.

So, on that subject, while having some kind of "constructor govenor" would be nice, being able to move rally points would make up for most of the problem, as long as any ships in route to that rally point immediately change course rather than waiting until they get to the old rally point and then update their autopilot. (or maybe make that an option, so you could say "enough constructors are heading that way, all new constructors head this way").

Yet another possible solution would be a "rally point govenor" that could change all ships with rally point A as their destination to rally point B, or change all planets with rally point A as their rally point to rally point B. Being able to see how many of what ship types are bound to each rally point would also be nice, as I could say "That's enough constructors for that starbase" before actually finishing the starbase.

While the constructor govenor sounds like a nifty idea and better for the problem of constructor micromanaging, I think either of the other two ideas are a bigger win overall, since they can also apply to military rally points. I'd also guess either of the other two ideas would be considerably less effort. They do nothing for the third issue which is very minor, but do address the second issue, and the first issue is probably somewhere between my neurons and my mouse.

Not married to any of these suggestions, but I would like to see one of them in the game to reduce micromanagement.

You should be able to put rally points on star bases. That was one of the reasons they were created.  I've done it from time to time, it's possible it's broken.

You can't move rally points but you can always create a second rally point. 

I like the idea of a constructor governor or starbase governor.  That wouldn't actually be that hard to do.  You would set the priority on each star base and based on that priority, it would be inclined to send a constructor to that starbase when it was built.

O.K., Just did some testing. Works fine if the map is zoomed in far enough to drop out of the tactical view, but if you are in the tactical view, ALL rally points get placed in the square above and to the left of the square you clicked in. As much as I love the way the game looks when you get in close, I spend most of my time at the tactical view.

And yes, as I mentioned, creating a second rally point can be done, but it's a pain reassigning all the planets/ships from the old rally point to the new one. That's why I was suggesting a govenor to apply to just that game mechanic.

Perhaps we should look at a simpler method.

Fewer constructors.

That is, we dramatically raise the cost involved in creating a constructor so that there will be a LOT fewer of them?

Perhaps we should look at a simpler method. Fewer constructors. That is, we dramatically raise the cost involved in creating a constructor so that there will be a LOT fewer of them?

Or have better constructors, available later in the game, that can create more than one starbase module at a time or create a starbase with 1or more starbase modules added.

Well in theory you'd just add more constructor modules.  But yea, we coudl come up with advanced modules that you can pack multiple modules onto.

Agreed, I was quite happy to see that with the Advanced Troop Module you could stick 6 of them on a cargo hull and lift 6000 troops in one shot (haven't tried that with the basic troop module since Beta 2, at which time it didn't work). Having more advanced constructor modules so that we can stick multiple modules on a hull to do multiple upgrades would be really nice.

I still like the idea of a "govenor" like function where I could tell all planets set for rally point A to switch to rally point B, but this would reduce the need for that.

That's not a bad idea. 

SO here's how that would work:

Governor screen:

Planets that have assigned ships to Rallypoint X will now go to RallyPoint Y. 

SO here's how that would work: Governor screen: Planets that have assigned ships to Rallypoint X will now go to RallyPoint Y.

I want that.

Right, I think. Basically, do the same thing as if I had gone to every planet that had RallyPoint X selected as it's destination, and switch it to RallyPoint Y. I'm not that worried about ships in transit, unless I was missing something in GC1, it's a lot easier to correct ships in transit in GC2 than it was GC1.

On a related note (both to rally points and streamlining the game), can we get either a different dropdown icon for ships that were autolaunched, or the same icon in a different color? That way I don't waste any time going to the shipyard of that planet to launch a ship that's already launched. Probably won't need it as much with this kind of rally point govenor, though. The biggest time I need it now is when I'm switching from one rally point to another, though I can think of other times it might be useful.

As a side note, while I'm still in favor of the idea of advanced constructor modules and multiple constructor modules per constructor, it wouldn't help this situation, as I'd still have as many planets to change when it's time to change destination, unless the rest of the process is streamlined enough that I don't bother with auto-rally points.

I find that I am developing 2 or 3 starbases at any one time. So I launch the constructors in batches. You know, World A, B, & C all spawn a constructor. Those are all launched towards my Influence booster. World C, A, B, and C (again) spawn constructors, and those go to my local Industry boosters. Tech advances rolls by, and I need a new set of Resource harvestors launched out to all my resources bases. Then a repeat of building up the Influence and the local Industry boosters. It is more of a pain to swap rally points then to just let the constructor spawn, and then Autopilot them at this time. Being able to mark starbases with needing all Industry bonuses or needing all Influence bonuses would be much more efficent.

Again, 'Takes longer to research "something useful"' is exactly correct. Please explain to me how much a difference Lasers 2 and Lasers 3 amount to, in game? 1 unit of space? Early game, that's not enough to matter, and late game, that's not enough to matter. So--- once you have a tech, most of the tech advances in that line do not significantly change for ship building purposes from 1 until the tech 4 or 5 (where it's almost 50% smaller, letting you significantly increase your designs using that EQ). Right now, if it was me, I'd chop out half the tech tree as it isn't significant to game play or game balance. If it isn't adding anything to the game, then it shouldn't be in the game. If that means we go through the tech trees too quickly, then just rebalance the tech points required to advance and be done with it.

just in support of the above post... MOO2 (I know...) had an interesting system. They had Laser, but not II, III etc. Upgrading from Laser to Fusion was a big deal. Laser would get minituarized all by itself as time went on (I forget the specifics). So getting a new weapon was a big deal (to me at least). I don't get too excited by all the iterations of a laser...

I don't get too excited by all the iterations of a laser...

i'm still hoping that the iterations might become exclusive techs - ie research laser III, and they're yours, becoming your exclusive take on lasers - the game could then name the laser III after your race so that in the trade screen you up against Drengin Bolts or Arcaen Lightbeams etc. What are they (ie size/cost/power)? well this could be something where your spies come in, or you take a chance in a trade.......more rubbish from me really. the game's gonna be great oi reckon.