Starstriker1

Reply to Enchancing combat without introducing tactical combat in Game Talk GalCiv2 Forums

Well, I've brought it up before, but as far as the smaller ships versus bigger ships thing, couldn't you simply add a targetting/evasion variable into the mix? A targeting system would increase the minimum damage a ship could do, replacing the effect luck has on minimum damage in Dark Avatar (50% luck means you always do 50% damage). The minimum can't go over the maximum, of course. The opposing technology would be some kind of evasion mechanism, be it a type of ECM, partial cloaking de

Reply to engines are too big in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Shouldn't the sizemod already be doing that? Adding engines takes a monstrous amount of firepower out of a huge hull... Ultimately, miniturization is the key to fast ships, though.

Reply to engines are too big in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Yeah, those engine sizes make you actually worry about speed, instead of throwing two hyperwarps onto a ship as an afterthought that doesn't really effect the fighting abilities of the ship. Now, you have to choose between designing fast ships and powerful ones... adding some much needed strategy to shipbuilding. MORE would be nice, but hey, we're not getting that this late into the beta. It also means that the racial speed ability is suddenly very powerful, as well as the addional spee

Reply to In DA, will enemy troop transports occasionally actually make it to my planets? in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

While I did notice the countless new ways that I could outmanuver the AI in the DA beta, I did notice some new and very interesting (and sometimes ominous) behaviours. For instance, in my last game, I was relying on specially constructed fleets of one capital ship and many super cheap tiny hulls, using military starbases to give me any kind of military power. I was in a constant war with my neighbours, and I'd been noticing the hostile diplomatic status with the Yor and the many, MANY fleets of

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

One minor unpredictable event? Probably, sure, though if its the wrong event at the wrong time, it could mean quite a lot. Any change gets magnified over time, and the bigger the change, the bigger the magnified effect. But I'm not talking about one isolated event, whose ultimate magnified effect would likely be small well into the future. I'm talking about the billions of small and sometimes quite significant events that are happening at all times, at all places. Put that much uncertai

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I'm very sorry, but you don't know the world. No one does, and anyone who thinks they can understand the world and make it dance to their tune is horrible mistaken. If you think you understand it, you don't understand it. Politics, economics, art... all of those are absurdly complicated by themselves. Intertwined as they are, they are indecipherable, ESPECIALLY to someone who doesn't have the benefit of looking at them in hindsight. No, a country would not necessarily find itself at war

Reply to Planet near your homeplanet in Strategies GalCiv2 Forums

Its the first planet I grab in Dark Avatar... it's only a PQ4, sure, but it's been made ABSURDLY terraformable. Each tech gies you three new tiles to play with... once you get the final terraforming tech, you can have a PQ 13 planet sitting by your homeworld, usually built with a considerable number of factories! Needless to say, they're highly valuable in DA.

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Oh, man. I'll avoid getting into a "existence of good and evil" argument and just grant you your point. Thats a whole different debate unto itself! A civilisation is made of individuals, and throughout history, individuals never seem to average out like you are suggesting they are. Yes, a group of people can take on a herd mentality, which many people have predicted and manipulated to their advantage, but again, that doesn't account for all possibilities, is not predictive very far into

Reply to Alliances in Galactic Civilizations II GalCiv2 Forums

That level of diplomacy would be an entire game unto itself! I'd love it...

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Human nature is notoriously UNpredictable, and still doesn't account for the impossible problem of predicting the future to any useful extent... certainly not for predicting the consequence of an action several years down the road! Lets take the "solar slammer" event (thats what it's called, right?) If you were to cover the sky with them, the geographical, political, and humanitarian consequences could not be guessed at. Do they cause a previously unknown environmental phenomena? Do small, grass

Reply to 1-attack weapons cause constant damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Which terms, specifically? Well, the bottom line is that the Alcubierre drive doesn't include significant temporal effects. Not if you're inside or outside the warp bubble. 'Course, with the way space is warped at the edges of the bubbles, things could get crazy if you wandered in there. Not that you'd last long...

Reply to Attacked by one, attacked by all X-( in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

What kind of treaties did they have with each other? Civs will often go to war to protect their economic and research interests. Its quite nasty when they link, one by one, into war with you via treaties. Best idea is to have treaties of your own, so that at the very least you'll get some support.

Reply to 1-attack weapons cause constant damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

What you're talking about is quantum entanglement. Nope, it's still bound by light speed... and it takes some very advanced techniques in order to preserve the entanglement without destroying the information. The experiment you're talking about I think was one where they beamed information across the Danube (or am I mixing up the river?) I forget the method they used to maintain the entanglement, but it was pretty neat stuff... entanglement based communication has some serious applications, one

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

"In my opinion" is no less a lame disclaimer than "no offense" is, and certainly can't justify a statement that the other cannot. Not that it needs to, since "you don't know what you're talking about" isn't nearly comparable as a "flame" as such classic (and 'original') statements as "You idiot!" or "Why are you saying retarded things, noob!?", or the even more obnoxious "WTF U N00B!". (Coincidentally, those are all things almost exclusively said by retarded people) You're seriously overreacting

Reply to Attacked by one, attacked by all X-( in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

The Drath are really good at causing chaos when they don't like people. Or, sometimes, even when they do.

Reply to 1-attack weapons cause constant damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Well, warp propulsion IMO has about the same chances to become a reality as time travel. It's a good subject for a debate, but let's face it. If you fold space by whatever means, the entire universe will be affected. Now imagine space being folded at multiple points, at the same time, each instance warping space in its own way. Chaos. Naw, totall

Reply to 1-attack weapons cause constant damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

The sun dissapearing is impossible as far as anyone knows of course, your comment is pointless, know one is arguing it can dissapear! I just used it as an example to ask a question about gravity, so i really don't see what purpose your "moot point" comment serves? Actually, it could disappear, we just wouldn't feel a difference in grav

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I don't think that could be considered a flame, or disrespectful of an opinion. I have done neither of these things. The facts you stated were simply incorrect. When you used newtons deterministic universe as an argument, that betrayed an ignorance of a *lot* of physics work that has gone on since his. Simply put, newtons models are good for a lot of generalities, but the universe is not deterministic. At least, not according to quantum physics. Also, my post wasn't that long. If you're

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Okay, dude. No offense, but you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Three things: *Newton indeed stated the universe was entirely deterministic. Theoretically, if you knew about every tiny piece of matter and energy in the universe, and had a big enough computer, you'd be able to flawlessly predict the future. However, there is NO way to know every piece of the universe because a)observing something changes it, however minutely (and my next point shows why even a minute chan

Reply to 1-attack weapons cause constant damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Gravity is also limited by the speed of light. Assuming crazy, rule bending stuff like warp drives and black holes aren't in the equation, no information (that includes forces) is ever detected faster than light from the source can reach it. I've thought about gravity based sensor systems myself... but not only are the mathematics absurdly difficult, it'd require some very, very sensitive instruments... instruments so sensitive they may not even be physically possible! The effect of gra

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

And I'm saying you are absolutely wrong, because any action has consequences down the road, and there is NO way, at all, in any context, EVER to be certain of what is coming to any degree, with less and less chance of a correct prediction the more complicated the system is. Civilisations and politics are very, very complicated systems, built on top of the real world, which itself is an even more obscenely complicated system. And the decisions being clearly differentiated in terms of goo

Reply to ANy new info on Ground Forces and epic story generator in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

Odd. The IGN preview is mentioning something about the epic generator...

Reply to 1-attack weapons cause constant damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Depends on the setup... keep in mind that I'm arguing based on the assumption of an Alcubierre warp drive, which may or may not be remotely like what Stardock ultimately decided to based hyperdrive on. Actually, after giving it some thought, I've concluded at an Ion Drive would be useless for travelling through warped space (again, assuming an Alcubierre style warp bubble). A warp drive doesn't merely fold space, that folding (one way at the front and the opposite in the back, hence the

Reply to uncertain, long term rewards for ethical decisions in Dark Avatar GalCiv2 Forums

I don't agree with his tone (no reason to flame, folks), but I do agree with his reasoning. Even the mightiest civilisations can never predict events 100%. Its simple chaos theory... the further into the future you try to predict, the more your errors are compounded. On top of that, the "stupidity and arrogance" you mention is usually awarded after the fact by historians and pundits. When anyone, entire societies included, tries to make a decision, they're usually doing a cost/benefit a

Reply to 1-attack weapons cause constant damage in Beta Reports GalCiv2 Forums

Are you sure that such schematics actually explain the physics involved?