You really should try the 'Majoring the Minors' concept of X-Worlds (as of now, for DA only... but i will be working on the TA conversion soon after CoSH v05-B is uploaded) -- for another alternative entertaining 'context'. Be warned however that these Minors (even when Majored with the provided extra raceconfig.xmls) have a tricky black coloring schema making them harder to detect. Bye-Bye sensors & fog issues.

Not that i'm aware of.

Well, The Drengin DID beat me to the only Toxic world (PQ11, i wasn't really consciously after it, but they still were faster than everyone else!) in the entire medium map with the rare extremes option in one of the test games i took.

The AIs in general seem to be smarter - but I have noticed they seem to look at Extreme Colonization later than they used to.  Good in my book, they tend to go for it roughly around when I do instead of sitting back with laser I and going "yup, that's good enough" and spending the next year getting the advanced colonization techs.

I have show pre-release versions checked on impulse and I've checked both usa-1 usa-2 servers but 2.0 beta isn't showing up? What am I doing wrong?

It's flagged as 1.99RC or somesuch.  It's a beta, not the official 2.0.

Is the new TA manual available somewhere to us folks that are not quite ready for Impulse?

Yea it was really strange.  I posted earlier that Impulse said all of my GC2 installs were not installed correctly, i assumed this was because i edit files all the time.  But when i started it up the other day, the 2.0 beta update was available so i just hut update on twilight.  It downloaded and installed to the Galciv2 root folder like i said, and i still have 1.96 in the twilight folder.  I'm going to assume all of my GC2 DL files are frakked now because of this.  :(  Dunno why it installed there, but it's an odd bug, need any files for this one?

I like the new starbase auto build feature but is it possible to get this from the governors list in the F6 screen please

Tech brokering option is great.. Thanks

PS Saving option on the governors list for the planets for future use in the next game too please

1.99rc isn't showing up for me on impulse either?

I don't have access to a computer capable of running GC2 at the moment, so I can't test it. There was something I suggested for another update that I didn't see make it in, and if its not in v2.0 I really hope it can be added.

My suggestion was this: You know when you're making a custom race or upgrading a core ship design and you get that box full of text for the description? You have to hold down the delete key for AGES to clear it. Please please please add a small button that clears all text from these windows. The custom race one is the worst offender, as it fills the box with that randomly generated text. Pretty please with sugar on?

For ship designs, I've usually been able to clear the text quickly by double-clicking in the edit field and pressing DELETE.

But that sort of functionality does seem a bit inconsistent throughout the UI. Starbase name fields, for example, sometimes appear ready to be cleared with DELETE, but other times focus seems to be stuck on the actual starbase and pressing DELETE gets a prompt to confirm that you wanted to destroy the base.

I require copy/paste function in my text windows for PC games. >_<

Also, if you save the race, you can open the file in notepad and edit the description and stuff there.

Thanks for the update guys!

Is there any chance of a widescreen loading menu?  I asked about it a while back and frogboy said you might be able to help!  The original loading screen in 1680x1050 is badly stretched in all versions. (DL, DA & TotA)

@BoogieBac

I said I would get back to you about an issue in a previous post of mine (in this thread), so here I am. I had some time today and played around with the download issue I mentioned I had with Sins of a Solar Empire, and it appears that a recent update has fixed it. Sins now asks me where I want it to be installed to. So disregard my previous post that mentions it.

However, there is a few issues from installing from archive. Atleast when I was fiddling around with Sins.

-You are not asked where to restore the game from archive to (only tested with Sins). Sins when being restored from archive, would always install to where ever the install location stated. This is also a different location to where it would install if you were to install fresh (uninstall the game and redownload). So if it says "C:\Program Files", it would install in "C:\Program Files\Sins of a Solar Empire" instead of "G:\Program Files\Stardock Games\Sins of a Solar Empire".

-Wierd game icons on desktop after restore from archive. I have an old game icon for Sins that points to its "Total Gaming" folder (probally from back when I used SDC more). Anyways, when ever its on the desktop, and I restore Sins from archive, it generates several extra game icons that only displays an error message when I try to use them. With a little effort, I can remove them and find the one that works correctly.

________________

I have a few more comments and suggestions to make about Impulse. Where is a proper place to do so?

Some more suggestions for version 2.0:

-Icons for starbase build statis: We get an icon on the side whenever we have ships built, and for spies. Can we get one for when a starbase gets completely filled up with modules? I've played large maps and I have at times completely filled up a starbase, but have no idea where it is. As such, it requires some effort to locate that specific starbase so you could redirect constructors head for it to somewhere else, and to avoid those annoying messages about your starbase is already full.

For this, could we get 3 icons. When a starbase is filled up, could we get a green icon? When we get a tech that allows us to install more modules, could we get a yellow one? For when we send a constructor to a starbase that is already filled, could we get a red icon (preferably once per starbase when constructors auto-move at the end of the turn)?

-Don't build these module types option: The new feature for starbases to automatically install modules is useful, but there are some module types that some people don't use. I consider starbase attack and defense useless, if for no other reason than they have little to no effect end game. As such, I don't want to have such a module installed without me having a reason to make an exception. Unfortunatley, the new feature that governs starbase development doesn't allow you to avoid it. If you have a constructor, and some modules you can potentially install, it will install them when you rather they went somewhere else.

-Meaniful information about AI ship designer updates: Being informed that the AI ship designer has made new ships is handy, but the current system doesn't provide us any real meaniful information. It doesn't say that these ships are new, or have been updated. The only way you can know which ones are new, is to either keep track of what ships you had before, or to check the tech tree (to see which AI designed ships are unlocked by the new tech). It also doesn't tell you what changes were made between this design, and the one it replaces (such as price, miniturization, or firepower).

Which reminds me of something;

I really do like the introductory music while the Terror Star is animating until i get to the next screen(s). Although, with the new 'external' Ship Designer; i'd prefer some silence if you can!

Wait a sec... is the automatic ship desinger fixed and no longer makes better ships than tech allows? And are Influence points at last usefull?

(I don't use the beta patches ever (again)... last time i did, the frigging thing messed up all the graphics and i didn't have archived released patch...)

IP are still pretty effectively useless.

I'd like to see a checkbox to just disable the United Fail. I don't want to leave and eat the penalties, I don't want to deal with the stupid resolutions.

+1 for updating all non-widescreen content.  And might as well do up everything in 16:9 while you're at it, from what I hear the monitor and hdtv manufacturers are doing away with the silliness of having 2 different widescreen aspect ratios and 16:10 will be dead soon.

Just went into 'Video options' to verify if anything was changed to accomodate huge variations when switching between 1280x1024 (my usual & regular setting) and 1680x1050 (default monitor optimal choice *AND* a much wider enviro)... and, sadly, there hasn't been any corrections made to the disproportional effects caused by panoramic view instead of scaled 4:3. Trade images are still recalibrating to weird crunching ratios & the planet surfaces deploy wacky buildings (as compared to what we're being used to see - bilinear re-scaling DO add blurry artifacts to these; more obvious in fact with the X-Worlds mod 'squared_like' sets).

The gameplay field itself can certainly benefit a widened perspective (and it does, indeed!) when the monitor resolution modes allow it. At the cost of having other areas *looking* strange, though.

AFAIC, the only easy way to correct these is to rewrite most scripts in many of the dxpacks with specific incode_relation to the Video-options resolution parameter selected.

I even went as far as to create a new *DomesticGraphsEntryWnd.dxpack* to enforce the whole set of categories (7 rather than scroll 5 to the extra missing two stuck in the right side of that panel) to show in the Statistics screen -- but, that's an indirect solution for me. Although 1680 mode, naturally adds some annoying empty space while 1280 drops everything onto the frame all at once to consult.

Well, the vast majority of aspect-ratio dependent is largely movies from what I can tell, and that means several versions of the same movie, which would take a lot of disk space.

I would recommend one standard ratio and one widescreen ratio of the movies, and if something is not either of the two ratios, letterbox the movie with the nearest aspect ratio rather than streching it.

It's one thing that annoys me about a lot of widescreen TVs in public areas: They'll be showing some standard aspect ratio TV show streched to widescreen, making everybody look fat. It's pretty ugly IMHO when streching is used. I'd much rather have the black bars.

What's funny is that 16:9 has become the standard for HDTV . . . but most movies are now released in 2.4:1 superduper widescreen, so even with a "widescreen" tv you've either got to zoom in and crop the edges, or letterbox it.

Oh, but since you are refering to the bink movies... i'd rather get the 'original' fixed ratios & sizes in a much smaller pop-up window than blowing all of these on full-screens (be it at any resolutions).

Events, first occurances, etc.

Not that tough to do, as it only involves an overall of some dxpack interfacing parameters to accomodate 'limited spannings'. As an option would be almost essential as many configurations are possible.

*rabble* *rabble* *rabble*  add ship queue to planetary shipyards pls *rabble* *rabble* *rabble*

And one more thing:  for the love of all that's holy, give us an option to NOT AUTO-UPGRADE FARMS!  Without turning off autoupgrades altogether.