Yes, just press the tilde key and type fow and the fog of war is gone.

It is easy to do and easy to resist doing, just like building sensor boats.

The AI is supposed to be subject to the fow on the normal setting, but they do make you wonder sometimes.

yeah the logic, if you lack any reason... BUT the most important of them which is good real players finding the most crucial exploits in the most competitive scenario...

years passes and ppl still dont get how useless is ai and trying to make one good

Sensor barges remove the first X from 4X almost completely making the early game boring.

You can get 20-30 sensor range barge on turn 2.

Mechanic like that would be considered completely broken and would get laughed out if it was in a game like civilization IV/V or any other 4X game really. Is GalCiv really that different design wise from other 4x games that it makes units with insane vision radius not completely broken and OP? Why do all other games that still manage to have deep and complex unit customization systems do now allow you to have retarded sensor ranges? Can you name one other game where it is possible?

It makes the +sensor racial trait and sensors on starbases worthless. Once you get sensor miniaturization and tier 3 sensors you can get a 60-70 sensor ranges ship which is basically whole map making high tier sensor techs are also worthless. Why are those things in the game at all?

How the hell is that not broken?

"Well then don't use them"

It's not so simple. Limiting yourself to just one sensor per ship is pretty harsh. So how many exactly should you use before it becomes broken? 2? 3? 5? 10?

It's a slippery slope and once you decide you want a sensor ship for scouting you want to make it the most efficient you can because that's a sound strategical decision. It should be developer not the player that decides the point where a strategy is too strong.

People posted lots of solutions but they require significant changes to the system and/or aren't very intuitive.

The best solution would be to just make the sensor modules limited to one per ship. There are already 1/ship limited modules so it's just adding one line in 5 places in a .xml file.

The old modules aren't obsolete so you can put multiple sensors but each next one will be the older tech one.

It's a simple and effective solution which basically gives diminishing returns on sensors while still allowing to stack them somewhat.

So on tech 0 you have just one module with +2 range

One you get interstellar engineering you get another module which gives +3. You can stack it with the old one for +5 total.

After you get next sensor tech you can add another module for +9 total.

Each new tech level brings a significant increase in sensor range so researching them is actually desirable now. You can't get all the sensor range you need by just grabbing interstellar engineering and putting 10 sensors on a cargo.

It makes the sensor range on ships comparable to the one you can get on starbases making them viable choice of upgrade. The racial trait also becomes very useful for that early game bonus when it counts the most.

It limits the sensors early game and forces you to actually move and explore with ships like you should and like you do in every other game.

Later in the game you can still get 20-30 sensor range which means you can get very effective sensor support ships for your fleets without the need for too many of them.

Yes.. I have suggested this very same thing several times as well. A very simple way to deal with the problem since it give you quite good sensors in the late game but not in the early game.

You should do the exact same thing with engines as well...

Humm... If you power-play you can easily colonize 5-8 planets in the first ten turns. Depending on the local cluster and proximity to AI and map type I can have 20 or more worlds by turn 30. For this tactic a sensor boat with 20-40 sensor range in turn one is essential, it also mean I can send my Survey ship to gather goody huts instead of scouting which is way more profitable...

By turn 30-50 all AI are so far behind in technology and planets there are no point in continue playing the game, there are no more challange. This is on hardest difficulty.

And I only play on insane maps... period... 

Here is a little video on an example of what you can do...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXnDVs9O9sA

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY5i6CurT88

Heya all, just chiming into this discussion. 

I play about every strategy game I can get into my hands, starting from Ascendancy back in 1995, Civ, Crusader Kings, EUIV, Endless Space, Endless Legend et al.

You name it, I played it. 

What pretty much all these games have in common: At the start you have one city/planet and you want to eXpand. But you almost never know your surroundings, so you have to eXplore. Will the sweetest spot be to the left, or right? Could it be in that tiny small area you left out when exploring? That's usually the thrill of the first 20-50 turns, and it makes you happy to colonize a sweet spot before anyone else can.

In GalCiv, it's sadly not so.

Because when you realize that a) the AI knows everything about the map and if you want to compete you have to be lucky or abusing sensor modules, you do what? You abuse sensor modules. 

In none of the above mentioned games I did have the chance to reveal a big part of the map in turn 2. Because they are 4X games. And not 3X+Buy a ship for 2000 and be done with it.

And to be honest, if I didnt know that the AI can magically see every colonizable planets and just send ships all over the place, I probably wouldnt build that sensor-barge. But the AI is retarded, and so I counter it. 

The solution to all this mess is greatly reducing sensor ranges (by diminishing returns or whatever) and fixing the retarded AI. Seriously, it's 20 years of 4X development now.

BINGO! Best idea so far

To Kyoss79

I play about every strategy game I can get into my hands, starting from Ascendancy back in 1995, Civ, Crusader Kings, EUIV, Endless Space, Endless Legend et al.

Great. I've got almost 10 years on you. Started with Empire in 1986. (I guess they call it Classic Empire now.) And a DOS based ASCII graphics game called Space Command, or something like that.  I can't even find a reference to it anymore, but you ran your turn, saved the output file to a floppy, and handed the floppy to the person who started that game, he loaded the disks from all the players, ran the turn, like a compiler, saved off the results files onto floppies and handed them back to the players. Very crude, but for it's time, it was awesome.

You are correct, that other 4x games didn't, by default, let you show so much of the map. However almost all of them had a code to remove the fog of war. Yet you were somehow able to resist doing that.

Because when you realize that a) the AI knows everything about the map and  if you want to compete you have to be lucky or abusing sensor modules, you do what? You abuse sensor modules.

I somehow manage to win, consistently without doing that.

You know what I don't get? You want the devs to take out the ability to make sensor boats, right? So how is that end going to be any different than if you just don't press that series of clicks necessary to produce one? You understand that you're trying to dictate to the vast majority of us, who will never play other than single player, how we must play the game? I don't even do this in the early stages, but the changes you are proposing, other than econundrum's proposed change, will limit the sensor ranges I want in mid to end game. Leave me alone!

Quoting Larsenex,

reply 65

Quoting JorgenCAB,

reply 60

Quoting Starchaser12,

reply 59

Quoting JorgenCAB,

reply 58

Yes.. I have suggested this very same thing several times as well. A very simple way to deal with the problem since it give you quite good sensors in the late game but not in the early game.

You should do the exact same thing with engines as well...

And maybe you should leave others to play the game how they wish to play it?

I play insane maps. I think sensor boats early are a waste of resources. I rush a colony ship in the first turn. I will use my 2 colony ships (as well as my other ships) for scouting, until I find a planet that's colonizable, and I almost always take the Benevolent option on my first planet just to get that next fully loaded colony ship. So while you're 'seeing the entire map' (which you wouldn't be on one of my maps, you'd be lucky if you're seeing the whole local cluster) I have 4 colonies, and with any luck 3 of them feeding my initial shipyard within the first 5 turns. My next colony or constructor ship will be out in 3-6 turns, while you're waiting 20.

Now you want to limit engine stacking too? Again, on an insane map, currently I am located at the center lower map. not directly on the lower edge, but maybe 15% up. With the default colony ship build (right now 15 moves a turn) it takes me about 14 turns to get to either border, and 20 turns to get across the void to galactic north. I've had to strip out range modules and put in more engines, boosting me to 26 moves a turn to get those numbers down to a more reasonable 9 and 13...

Stop trying to cripple my playstyle. Why do you think yours is more important?

 

 

Humm... If you power-play you can easily colonize 5-8 planets in the first ten turns. Depending on the local cluster and proximity to AI and map type I can have 20 or more worlds by turn 30. For this tactic a sensor boat with 20-40 sensor range in turn one is essential, it also mean I can send my Survey ship to gather goody huts instead of scouting which is way more profitable...

 

By turn 30-50 all AI are so far behind in technology and planets there are no point in continue playing the game, there are no more challange. This is on hardest difficulty.

 

And I only play on insane maps... period... 

 

Here is a little video on an example of what you can do...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXnDVs9O9sA

or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY5i6CurT88

 

 

Jorgen,

Try a map with RARE  on all settings. You are part of a very small percentage of players who play like that. I for one find it boring to rush out and try to win by turn 50. However I am not going to change the game because your playing somehow makes me unhappy. I think you should play this single player game anyway you want. The game was designed from the ground up WITH sensorships in mind. Brad likes them. Therefore they are not broken. Nobody is under the constraint to build them. To say they remove the X our of Exlpore is untrue. Simply by building one you are able to 'see/explore' farther.

 

Again you should play however you want. Why people are arguing FOR nerfs in a Single player game is beyond me. Before we say oh wait multi-player lets reference Brads words, in that in no way will Multi-player be balanced as this is a Single player game at its heart and always will be. 

 

At least someone agrees with me. I'd karma this up 5 times, if I could,.

So if missile and beam weapons only did 5% of their current damage and if building a trade ship made you receive zero star-base benefits permanently, you would think the game would be fine as is? You could just ignore the existence of starbases and play on beginner, so you can use trade ships if you wanted, right? Power of imagination?

The sensor boat destroys other game aspects by making not using it a large handicap. It diminishes other play-styles, just as kinetic weapons would in our hypothetical above. It makes things that should be effective and fun, into being impotent in comparison. Just as if beam weapons only did 5% their current damage, I would be upset because I think they are cool in sci-fi, and I would never use them because if they suck, they aren't very cool in the game.

Constraints ARE what make a game. If you had a bunch of systems, with no limitations it would not be fun. You start with infinity money (use will power to only use a bit each turn?), you can instantly produce ships (just don't make too many if you don't want to be cheap?), you can travel anywhere on the map instantly (simply role-play that you can only move 8 spaces?). Without limitations it's not a game, and the balance of those limitations are important to how appealing the game is and occupy much of development time after the functioning systems are in place. 

You pretend balancing a single player game makes no sense, just there are surely limits to that statement for you. Other people have different limits, it's simply a matter of magnitude. So you can hop off the high horse with how "beyond" you we are. 

If you don't understand that if 1 option out of 3 is 20 times as powerful as the other two, be it by buff or nerf, that the relative effect is the same, then typing to you is a waste of time. It is not an inversion, it is the same problem looked at using terminology you aren't biased towards. You could also look as if kinetic weapons did 500% of current damage, and beam and missiles did 110% of current damage, so that the hypothetical functions with the interactions of defense systems. The solution would be to nerf kinetic weapons a bunch, and beam and missile weapons a bit to bring them in line with defenses. Increases through buffs, or decreases through nerfs are both methods to the same goal of balancing an intricate system of interacting functions, and to differentiate between them from any basis other than balance doesn't make sense. 

The best I can guess is that you have some extreme irrational negative connotation towards the term "nerf", that you impose on discussion about balance changes. Regardless of the effects of sensor boats on viability of other opening options and breaking the AI for auto-wins, my point is towards your absolute statement about "nerfs in a single player game", which is a cheap nonsensical cop-out from an actual discussion. 

What is wrong with self imposed restraints?

You are self imposing restraint every game that you don't pull up the console and type fow. I restrain myself when I don't build 5-6 star bases around every planet, even though I know this puts me at a disadvantage with every player who does. I restrain myself when I don't adjust the sliders every turn, even though I know that means others will have a huge advantage over me.

The AI doesn't build sensor ships unless you do and the sensor ships are not a core ship. You have to go to the effort to design it. Just say no, and don't design it or build it. This is a game of pretend. Pretend the sensor ship does not exist, in the same way I pretend you can only build one star base around a colony.

Meanwhile sensor ships are in the game for those who choose to use them. I suggest you get used to it. If you guys keep whining maybe they will change their minds and do it your way. If they do, I will get used to it and you will not hear a whine out of me. I will just mod the game to my preference. You should consider doing the same 

There is always a point where it crosses from what is considered cheating, and categorized as such by the game through console commands, and what is incomplete game design. 

Again, when you design a game, you come up with all these awesome systems and game design elements, but it's not a game. You then have to make all the constraints. The tech tree progresses so you can't start with the biggest ships. You don't have money, you have to build production facilities and colonize to make money. Suddenly the game becomes about working within constraints, and that is where most of the gameplay comes from. 

You aren't allowed to throw the ball in football during normal gameplay. Why? Because it's a constraint vital to the game-play. Can you cheat in football? In poker? Sure, but we view that as a mechanism outside the game, and do EVERYTHING we can within allowed mechanisms to win. 

You don't cheat in solitaire, but you use tactics that give you an advantage, like moving stacks of cards around so you can flip the cards under them. This is just how games work, they are about constraints on a fundamental level, and in game design adjusting them is important. 

Can I not build sensor ships? Yeah no problem. But I also have to not use too many missiles right now, not research logistic too deeply because NPCs don't value them enough. I need to not use the trade window for tech, or for planets and starbases because the AI has poor value determination, and will trade their last 3/4 planets and lose the game. I also can't play on maps with dense stars and lots of planets, while colonizing too quickly. I can make a list of things that breaks the game, and consult them constantly so I don't win too easily, but surely you can see where this just becomes an incomplete game and fixes make more sense?