MN ONE

[quote who="bilun" reply="11" id="3124020"]Defensive Strikecraft: Since the Advent Rebels are the more defensive advent factions, it would be cool to have a technology improving the strength of strikecraft fielded by hanger bays & starbases. It's always been interesting that only advent starbases can upgrade strikecraft capacity 4 times, but realistically doing so is of limited practical usefulness as doing so generally requires the sacrifice of mass disorientati

Oh I'm not concerned about why the Advent are fighting one another . As you say, that's pretty obvious. It's why they (the rebels in particular) are motivated more generally that's the concern. The loyalists get a few good aggression-enhancing technologies befitting their mindset, as well as mind-controlling ones that fit their doctrine of forcible conversion (and my own bulls*&t theories about Cerebri loyalties). More specifically t

Oh, that's kind of long, so I should add: TL;DR: 'Waah! Advent don't act enough like their background material suggests!' (At least I'm self-aware, I suppose.)

This is meant as constructive criticism but will probably just come off as complaining, so to clarify the motivations behind some of these thoughts: I like reasons in games - I want to know why events are happening, and why I should do something beyond 'here's a quest/enemy to kill/place to go.' I don't really feel that anything like that comes across with the Advent factions. The Other Factions <

Heh, yeah. Once I discovered a wormhole I spammed enough ToH to get me to the wormhole navigation tech so I could speed up the exploration. Was surprized when that turned out to be pointless.

So with the Beta 3 I've noticed 2 bugs, varying in severity depending on your outlook. Firstly, although now we have techs like 'Truth and Reconciliation' to offset race modifiers in our diplomatic relations, this is rendered utterly redundant by the fact that no game that I've started since the new update has had any race modifiers, positive or negative. Playing as Advent doesn't result in Vasari and TEC disliking me. What's more the research for diplomatic improvements gets counted

I find this keeps happening. The AIs can ally up under any conditions it seems, which leaves them with no-one to shoot at but you and perhaps one other AI that, for some reason, they haven't allied with. When there's 6 or so players, that means at least two of them are likely to come and hit you. My guess is it'll be fixed at some point.

You can still win when at peace (i.e. not just a cease-fire), I've only ever rarely defeated my final hostile enemy and had my ally turn on me. That's not to say that perhaps it shouldn't be possible to win with two or more AIs you've forged an alliance with, either as an 'arbiter' between the two or somehow brokering a lasting peace between them. Maybe that would constitute a 'Diplomatic Victory?'

So in two games I've experienced this same minor problem, once as Vasari, once as Advent: When researching the tech to unlock the first ability for whichever race's envoy the game minidumps on completion. Now for the weird part: reloading a save (auto- or otherwise) and playing from there results in a minidump on completion as usual. But loading at a point where the research wasn't yet started, or loading, stopping the research and waiting for a bit, avoided the minidump (one game I p

I've actually (although it can be hard) made freinds and won with an ally. Largely this was luck - they didn't feel like attacking me too early and so I was able to ingratiate myself enough to make a cease-fire and work from there. Envoys are very important for this, as is trying to stay on top of the missions (to avoid the equivilent of a 4.5 drop in relations). Still no luck on the pacts, but then I wasn't using too much in the way of tributes. It's quite satisfying to get an o

I didn't think 'christmas ship' either, I thought 'Arabian Nights in Space', with all the cheesy b-movie implications attatched. It doesn't really fit with the artwork either, except for perhaps one of the new portraits. Everything else about them leans more on the hight-tech aspect rather than the desert-world back story, which never seemed too important anyway, except as a way of differeniating their preferred-planet choise (TEC-Terran, Vasari-Volcanic, Advent-Desert). Except this one ship

I do have to say I like the race relations modifier. It makes sense and is a nice bit of character, especially in a game with no campaign as such. It ought to be easier for Advent to ally with Advent, or to grudgingly team up with a Vasari faction, but to get over long-term grudges and animosity in order to side with TEC forces... it makes sense that that takes effort and/or a very threatening third party empire.

Agreed, an enemy has little reason for grievance if you shoot down their ships as they attack you. I like the idea that there should also be a difference for 'neutral' (unowned or unownable) grav wells. I'm also fairly certain that the bonus for completing missions doesn't stack - it just stays at 3. Still, on the plus side the penalty doesn't stack either. I've whinged at length in another thread about similar early-game problems.

Been trying it out and all very good, I like the ideas that have been brought in but... AI players are still forming cease fires with one another despite a mutual 0-20% approval rating. Within 5 minutes of starting the game. Also, although offering missions still needs to be researched (which is fine by me) the AI doesn't seem to need to. Sure, in order to make it so they do offer missions and you can increase your standing with them, I see the logic. But th

I think, with regard to allied victory, it should generally be every ally must be allied with all the others in the group (i.e. A is allied with B & C, B is allied with both A & C, C is allied with both A & B) thus making very large alliances tricky to gain group supremacy. It may even come to a point where a 'core' of 4 or 5 factions are at the centre of a web of alliances from which they ultimatly hope to benefit as a group. The problem is getting an AI to be abl

Just noticed a bug - when you offer a mission to an ai and press submit the resources you're offering are deducted from your pool. If they then reject it you don't get those resources back. I haven't noticed this happening all the time, though it might have been and I just didn't realise. Plus, the ai seems to be signing cease fires with one another despite having 0% relations, whilst they won't even sign a trade agreement with me ever (though maybe this is because they haven't resear

"'Good: That which conforms to the will of God. Evil: That which opposes the will of God. Neutral: That is neither with God's will nor against it.' Excellent summary." No, it's not. It is a mere description of a religious moral-realist position. It says nothing about how morals are constructed, precieved, or analysed. Instead, it shows a remarkable lack of willingne

[quote who="Leauki" reply="25" id="2193501"] Rabbis and judges are not "holy men". Where do you get this stuff? Society relies on judges and teachers. I find it weird that you seem to have a problem with that. [/quote]Oh do learn to analyse texts correctly - there was no imputation that judges are holy men. Rabbis are however, since they are the interpreters and arbiters of a religious faith's doctrines, just as priests and immams are. The idea was, however, that wh

[quote]Even if God were infallible, I don't think anyone will claim humans. Humans make mistakes, they also have needs and desires, and will sometimes do things to fill those needs and desires that would be called 'lying' or 'forgery'. That's why we have rabbis and judges who interpret the laws and judge accordingly.[/quote] The implication is that the Rabbis and judges can do that, interpret things in a biased manner. Seriously, simple concept. Look at Justice Eady, t

Lets look at it this way, Pilgrim, you act as if 'your' science is uncorrupt, unbiasaed. Yet you phrase everything in the rhetoric of a fanatical preacher 'Almighty God tells us' etc. This is not the language of a rational, empicial approach ( Where does it say? When did he tell us? How did he tell us? And don't say the bible, everyone should know by now that document is unreliable, innaccurate and, as Ambrose Bierce once said, its covers are too far apart.)<br

Ahhh, theologians, so quick to ignore history. Christianity promotes reason, eh? Indeed, the emphasis on reason did help science evolve into a vibrant intellectual pursuit. But look at why your precious religion promotes reason: Aristotle, Democritus, Plato. A rich intellectual history raped by the Christian founders to co-opt a legitimate philosophy. The fact they weren't Christian was swept neatly under the carpet. As for Christianity accepting truth - the Atomist philosophers were rej

Incorrect: science has many origins, from Grecian thought, ancient Chinese mathematics and so on. Even a rudimentary knowledge of the history of science shows this ( Servants of Nature , by Pyenson and Sheets-Pyenson, is quite a good synthesis). Falling back on theological tracts is not proof that that theology actually 'created' science, just that the individual author sought to co-opt it. Most Christian scientists were well aware of the Athenian roots of their 'natural philo

What you asked was this:[quote who=" Leauki "] [quote who="MNONE"]For example Kropotkin thought ethics comes from our instinctual dispositions towards mutual aid - the desire to aid our fellows. A species which follows these instincts is better able to combat the vicsitudes of a harsh envi

[quote who="Leauki" reply="1" id="2191731"] You are still creating a false dilemma. It is entirely possible for an entity to be X AND to be the authority over what constitutes X-ness. In a world created by a god there is no "good" except that which the god created as such. And it is up to that god whether he himself is good or not. The god that I believe created this universe also created the definition of what is good and decided that he is good. [/quote]... I

Gah, yes, you're defining God, but you're defining him as something which is good . Which raises questions of what good is, and in what way God is good. If I say the sky is blue, I am referring to a value of 'blueness.' The sky has the property of being blue. So if you say that God is good, then you are saying he has the property of being good. But that makes goodness an external value to God, so how can he be the source of values that differentiate between what is good