DarkYorPathfinder

just fyi a couple days ago a was unable to complete the update and it would wait three seconds a few times then tell me it failed. now it says the update completed but it happens very quickly and the SDC/TGnet still shows the old version as installed and the button is still there to update to the new version, and trying again just reproduces the same thing. just in case you were wondering what a remote user was experiencing. also, fyi, SDC is no longer downloading any

giving the Drengin/Korth PB earlier would probably be a good thing - in a sense the advantages of a particular ethical alignment can be different for the different races, to encourage their 'natural' leaning?

nope, no starting ships as a mega event, only in campaigns (up to the current version of DA) and with a 50M planet I don't know for sure if they can _ever_ manage to build a ship even they get to sit forever. i tried letting them sit for maybe a decade and still not one single DL ship. and yes, even one dread lords ship (until late in the game, late game tech I would guess can handle them no problem) is a killer - although since I have not tried the campaigns I can only go on what others have po

I think it would be interesting to run a TotA game with the supposed 'dud' AI empires - Thalan, Arcean, Iconian, maybe Drengin. Maybe try this several times on different map sizes. Just to see who is really the worst of the worst. fyi I do believe you can do this - there is a cheat key that bypasses the 'turn' button and keeps the game moving. but I think you still need to be a human player just to get the game to set up (effectively you could do this and squat in a far away corner of a l

what is the IRC, or if I have to ask do I really not want to know? (is it related to the IIRC, hmmm ;) )

in TA (at least in the Drath-derived tech trees) you need the first of three disruptors, which is the last tech before the doom ray. in DA/DL it was after the first phasors which is way earlier. since the weapon has not changed, itself, it is now only a slight improvement and almost not worth it with doom ray so close at that point.

they get a planet with 50M population, it takes them _forever_ to build even their first ship, or building, because they have no population and no tax base to invest in building anything. however, if you invade them they are nasties in combat - those 50 troops fight better than several thousand from a normal AI race. from what I have seen when they pop up in the campaign scenarios they have ships etc and are quite powerful, but when they pop up as a mega-event they just have the one small-pop wo