Dev Stream (Friday, April 24th) at 3pm EDT, Noon Pacific

Can you tell us about game stability for the expected launch? I feel it's vital new comers get a stable product to prevent bad PR that could stick. Multiplayer/singleplayer. Thanks

Sweet! looking forward to it.

Regarding modding custom factions, having a ball trying them out, but 1 thing I can't seem to work out is giving a custom faction its own 'StarSystem'. Is this possible?

If not then what will happen when many factions are created and used? Will they have to share instances of the same default 'StarSystems' all the time? Note, this is ok, but how to put in the homeworld? or will we have to copy to the in-game faction editor to put in the homeworld all the time?

Cheers!

Im no expert and maybe its me nit picking but there are few things giving me OCD when playing Gal Civ 3.

1) In the Ship Designer Can we have an option to turn the ships "bobbing" effect off. its really distracting when your zoomed in.

2) Could we get a Colour Tint (Similar to Photoshops Hue Offset) Option in the custom race menu to be able to make foregrounds and backgrounds images match more closely. this also will help give visual variety to races when you have 100 players on a map.

3) Black holes have a jet coming out the top, but I believe they also should have a jet coming out the opposite side at the bottom as well.
(On the Topic of black holes why are they bright pink, and not say something more neutral like blue)

4) All planets, gas giants, ect in Gal Civ 3 have a halo/glow around them(Technical term Airglow). However I believe only earth like planets with an atmosphere should have them. Tho im guessing this is more artistic choice then trying to be realistic.

Thanks for humoring me

Will be there another patch before final release?

There are many bugs and issues in the game do you expect them to be fixed for final release in 3 weeks?

Some of the issues I can remember now:

Shipyards than remain from planets who had a culture flip remain there while they should have flipped also or auto-destroyed.

What about color options? Everyone wants more flexibility for faction and ship colors rather pre-made sets. Creating a mod is not for everyone..

Mods don't work e.g. faction mod. Should we expect them fixed?

Shipyards need constant upgrades and management. Shouldn't be there a simpler system like  a construction route to keep them upgraded, this should be very useful to eliminate micromanagement when you have 20-30 or more Starbases.

Sponsors for shipyards: You have to click and click to add new sponsors while it would be much simpler to select a planet and right click the shipyard or at least have button in the small menu when you select the shipyard.

many more questions but I have to let others ask them..

Will there be a bit more optimization for LARGE maps and Many Factions prior to release? 

Current time lag for a 4 core, 4 thread system @ 4 ghz at turn 200 is about 18-24 seconds. It seems a bit long, hard to figure out how to improve it. 

Will the AI be improved a lot before final release? Will the campaign be available? And will we be able to permanently delete ship designs from both design lists?

Q: Will the GalCiv3 Dev Streams continue regularly post-release? (Please say yes)... 

Also,

Q: Will we be able to design custom faction ship designs for use with custom factions so we don't have to keep using the major faction ships for them?

Lately, I've had enormous success by entirely dedicating each planet to ether production, research,  or money. However,  I would like mixed focus words to be a viable option, perhaps with a tech line for that. What are your thoughts on this? Do you consider it a problem?

I would also like to ask that the annomelly frequency option be split into annomelly density and annomelly respawn rate options, that ship firepower numbers be changed to dps so we can better see how strong a ship is, and that a second version of the constructor with just construction modules and an engine be added for when we want to more cheaply upgrade a starbase.

Thanks a bunch!

Can we get a peek at progress on the Invasion Viewer?

Can we get a summary of what Brad has done to the AI?

Can you show us any late game situations on your screen?  I would love to see AI developed planets and AI built starbases under the newest AI.

You do realize that you can just create your own at any point and it will always be available. One of the first streams I watched had Paul doing this (he called it "cheep constructor") and since then I have done the same. You only need to create it once and it will always be available to you. If you select "show all ship designs" from the options menu you will have that ship for all races. Quite easy really.

Will there be a possibility of a maximum number of turns before first up meeting

right bow i believe you need to meet x% of all races in the galaxy i would love to have a check that says if it hasnot happened by turn 100 then it will happen now

1. When requesting a constructor from a starbase, can you choose which model to request, including custom models?
2. Can we play as pirates?
3. Can we change the starfield/background?

I am seriously enjoying the game but have a few questions about it before launch:

1) stealth modules will they make the final build?

2) Will there be an ability to simply bombard a planet with just a ship module - you don't get to control it, but it is destroyed so it is essentially left in ruin and neutral 

3) Will some structures require durantium, antimatter, etc to build?

4) Is diplomacy going to be overhauled? implemented? forming an "alliance" appears to be received as a gift by the AI, it just seems as if things are still missing

5) another diplomacy question: I feel like the +1 to diplomatic relations modifiers that can be researched make it far too easy to be at peace and in great relations with everyone? thoughts? 

6) final Diplo quesiton - influence seems better but still too powerful, maybe just because AI doesn't really build much along the lines of influence atm

7) Can you talk about governors? Its getting hard to manage my massive and expanding empire

thanks guys, the game is doing so much right I am just curious about these few features

What do you think of the current state of culture flipping and the influence victory in the game? It seems too easy and not interactive enough right now. Are these just balancing issues, or is there a chance the system might change before gold?

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@Stardock


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Starbase.

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Major and minor races build starbases near my planets to harvest resources, I am fine with this.

But with the current system for the limitation of starbase construction, based on a  hexes distance between starbase, I cannot build economic starbases near my planets due to this limitation.

It would be more convenient to use a system based on the number of overlapping effect areas of starbases (the number of layers), anywhere on the map, so the other civilizations can build their mining starbases, and the player can build his economic starbases at the same time.

Your opinion about that?

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The starbases are built instantly, but the starbase modules are built next turn, it seems weird and it's confusing.

Why this design?

Post Scriptum: If you say it's related to multiplayer, I hate you all.


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Terraforming.

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The terraforming system seems a bit broken currently.

Sometimes, it's impossible to build terraforming improvements on a planet.

The random "land generator" should take into account all the possibilities for all the terraforming techs (in game and modding) before the land tiles are generated, so that there is always enough tiles to use all the terraforming improvements possible in the game.

Also, the first terraforming techs give +1 tile, +1 tile, +1 tile, and then +20 tiles; more evenly distributed bonuses, per example, +4 tiles, +4 tiles, +4 tiles, +12 tiles, will give more possibilities for the development of the planet.

Your thoughts on this?


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Approval.

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The approval system is not very clear to understand yet.

Per example, for population, it's clear and easy to understand.

10 foods are needed to have 10B population.
100 foods are needed to have 100B population.

So why not a similar system for approval?

10B population need 10 approval points to have 100% approval.
100B population need 100 approval points to have 100% approval.


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Tech.

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In the tech tree, percentage bonuses are used for Ship Move, Ship Range and Sensor Range systems.

However, these systems are all based on hexes.

"Move 1" = 1 hex displacement.

"Ship Range 20" = 20 hexes max range displacement.

"Sensor Range 4" = 4 hexes range visibility.

Per example, with 10% bonus to Ship Move:

10% for 1 move will be 1.1, rounded down to 1.
10% for 9 move will be 9.9, rounded down to 9.

So, this tech is useless before the ship has at least a speed of 10 moves.

Is this going to be fixed?


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User Interface.

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A lot of useful tools, present in GalCiv2, are missing in GalCiv3.

Per example:

the Civilization Manager window, with all info about your civilization, and comparison tools,
the Foreign Policy window, with all info about the other civilizations,
the Planet/Ship list window, with advanced selection criteria,
etc.

GalCiv3 seems incomplete without them.

Also, the user interface, currently, is not really tailored to play the game in an entertaining way.

Some essential info are hidden in tooltips, and the player must go to different windows to have the needed info, etc., etc., etc.

This is not a model of ergonomics, efficiency, readability and usability, as should be any user interface worthy of the name.

What are your plans to remedy this?


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I think this is how it works.

Beta 6 will be available soon.

https://forums.galciv3.com/463670

I would like to know if you will balance the game in a way to make mixed focused worlds between money, science or production a possible option?

The current system with the ability to focus 100% on one area makes it very inefficient to build both money and science structures on the some planet. Industry is either a couple of tiles or cover the whole planet with them.

 It is quite easy mathematically to come to the conclusion that you either spend 100% in either area almost all the time. There are only a few exceptions such as avoiding over production on either the planet or in shipyards.

Can you speak a little about each races tech tree and the unique tech's they get? We heard from Paul previously about the Terran Super-Support Ship, as well as the Iconian Planet/Terriforming Tech's. What about the other races? And will all of it be in for the final Beta 6?

Appreciate your hard work on the game and any answers you can give! 

Cheers, 

Zoo

Hopefully that means today this time around for us poor slobs that can't access your Twitch channel and have to rely on the YouTube videos. Yes, I'm looking forward to what you guys have to say/show this week!

Updated with replay.

Quoting Island, reply 21

Updated with replay.

Thanks mate! You made my day/weekend. Now if you could only slip me that nefarious Beta 6... I would... I would... gladly have your child! Kinda hard seeing I'm male but I'd be willing to give it a go seeing I'm that anxious for it!!  (looks over shoulder to see if the wife is about... )

the audio/video dont mesh right in the youtube replay

Yes, the audio/video are not in sync. Not watchable. : / Help?

what i did was had the stream playing in 2 windows with the first stream playing audio ahead by ~ 24 seconds
and the second stream fullscrean muted