Not thrilled with that movement display either.  My legs and balance are all shot.   The ship movement reminds me of what people say I look like walking down a sidewalk.  Like a drunk sailor headed to the next bar. 

Currently it's like 1.8GB.

27th so close! I cannot wait!

Actually, quite ignorant question for which I am sorry but I didn't fully follow the topic. Is it said at what time the Alpha keys will be out?

Looks epic already.

Yes..same here. Weds is my birthday, Thrus will be an even happier day.

Am I correct that in that video I didn't see uninhabitable planets with names? That's very nice since I often get confused in GalCiv 2 and have to mouse over to see what I can colonize.

.. neilkaz ..

I must say, this looks very good for an Alpha. Excitement builds...

Nobody has said anything yet, but since they are in Michigan (UTC -5 +1 DST) I would guess it will be either midnight their time (4:00 UTC) or 8:00 their time (12:00 UTC) provided they don't run into some last minute glitch.

I gotta ask cause I haven't seen anything about it yet can you say if we will be able to create custom factions in the final version, like we could in Gal Civ 2 Dread Lords? I understand if you can't say but I couldn't resist asking.

I second that.

I think they have announced custom factions, certainly the fan base has been talking a lot about it.

Nice work.Can't wait for the full game to come out.

Thank You for the info, so as an European I should more expect to play the game on Friday than Thursday if what You said will be correct.

Yeah. I'd expect it during business hours, but that would put it into the evening or late evening depending on where you are in Europe.

Usual time when You look at it normally, GMT+1 as I am from Poland so also French, Germany etc. 

I would actually like if they would release the alpha on 7 PM GMT +1, damn that would be perfect!

Excuse my language.

This looks  f*cking awesome already.

Murderous Alien Hordes for the Win!

At 1.8 GB (about 14.4 Gb), if it doesn't grow in the next work day, Here is a rough estimate of download times IF you can get the full bandwidth for the entire download:

50 Mbps (less 10% for overhead) = 320 seconds = 5.333+ minutes

20 Mbps (less 10%) = 800 seconds = 13.333+ minutes

12 Mbps (less 10%) = 1333.333+ seconds = 22.222+ minutes

7 Mbps (less 10%) = 2285.714+ seconds = 38.095+ minutes

3 Mbps (less 10%) = 5333.333+ seconds = 88.8888+ minutes

To add my $.02 I was not a fan of how ships moved "vertically" on that hex grid, bouncing back and forth as they move between hexes. I get that it's a necessary consequence of hexes as opposed to squares and perhaps the accelerated gameplay exacerbated the effect. But it made ship movement seem more cartoon-ish, in a childlike way. The only way I can think to negate that would be to program the game to move a ship directly vertically along such a path while still counting each hex along the way as movement, although to the eye that's much less precise and more difficult for a player to count actual hexes moved.

Or to program it to move in along a hockey-stick shaped course: go as far as it needs to in one direction, turn 60 degrees and go until it reaches the target. That is essentially what the ships did in GC2, they'd go straight as far as needed, then turn 45 degrees and follow the diagonal (or diagonal then straight, depending on what was needed).

It's looking good.  Oh and Adam, your narration is hilarious by the way.

You guys are all way too nice

I'd offer a time for the game to be available, but it's not 100% under our control so I don't want to promise anything. You can be sure our plan is to be in the office for launch in case anything dumb happens, though.

And just to calm some fears, the team is aware of the feedback on the "swimming" ships do as they move straight north. Making that more attractive is something that's being actively considered.

New dev journal coming soon this morning as well to help tide you over until tomorrow

Looks very nice. I'm seriously considering joining the alpha.

Don't worry, I'm sure that will change with time!

Thanks for the info. Hopefully the ship movement will improve with whatever you guys can come up with. Looking forward to reading the latest journal entry when it arrives. Fortunately I'm only working until about 4pm tomorrow and I'm hoping that I'll have the Alpha downloaded by then to start giving it a peak. Looking forward to seeing what you guys have come up with so far. Get some rest, you're all going to need it!!!  

Thank you!

im betting thursday about an hour and a half to two hours after launch