In-House Preview Online: Part 2

[Alexfrog]

Originally posted by playshogi
One of the differences from the user guide and DanQ's review is that in the user guide it says that your race modifications have to add up to zero. In DanQ's review it seems like that is not true. Of course, nothing in the user guide is fixed in stone, but it seems that it would be a good idea that for every advantageous change you make you ought to take on a disadvantage. I think these race picks will make the game unbalanced for multiplayer.

Dan did say that the race modifications have to add up to zero(or you can give yourself more minuses..) but you an never have extra pluses without a cost....
so every advantage does come with a disadvantage (it would totally suck otherwise)

The trick is to find the disadvantages that dont hurt you so bad and the dadvantages that help the most...hehe

[Alexfrog]

Originally posted by Ekanata


I can't find screenshot indicating for example, tachidi's sweet spot environment. Shouldn't those info availabe when choosing race before playing. Are those among the information ?

It wasnt posted, but I happen to know becasue I am special (or in reality, I read a post by one of the beta testers on the infogrames moo forums)

Pressure/Temperature
61 38 Humanoid
106 55 Etherian
50 78 Geodic
30 55 Cybernetik
96 37 Ichthytosian
45 46 Insectiod
89 73 Saurian
?? ?? Ithkul
?? ?? (various minor races)

so Tachidi (insectoid) are 45 pressure (fairly low) and 45 temperature (moderately cold)

Silicoids and Lizards like it hot, machines and ethereans are medium in temp (and the machines are low grav, ethereans super high grav)

the fish (Ichotosians) like it cold and high pressure, humanoids are mid pressure and farily cold,

it has been stated that Ithkul like cold worlds....but you cant really verify it.

My guess on Ithkul is 75/35 on that graph. It fills a nice hole there, and is cold. Of course, there is still a GAPING hole in the middle, and a big hole in the middle of the hot temperature side if you plot all those points on a graph.

[Alexfrog]

Another factual error in the apolyton preveiw part 2??

According to the preveiw, there are 3 difficulty levels.

However, I asked Chaos Avatar (a Beta Tester) in the #moo3 chat on IRC, tonight, and he said there are FOUR difficulty levels, easy, normal, hard, and impossible.

[RolandtheMad]

They probably changed it since then. It was three at one time but they`ve been talking about a new build for awhile.

[Alexfrog]

I dont know if it was ever 3....the apolyton preveiw was the first thing we saw that ever suggested it was less than 4...

I dont know...it is possible the build he got had only 3 settings

[campfreddie]

From the preview:

"You have so many Pick Points: when they run out, you're done. If you try to confirm a configuration that is utilizing more than this allotment, you are told in no uncertain terms (non-flashing bold red text) that your wish is not a command it can permit. Naturally I was frustrated with this limitation but at the same time realized the importance of it: if you stack the deck too highly in your favour, there is no effectual competition to your dominance. If you are feeling especially suicidal, however, you can always stack the deck greatly to your disfavour though and place bets on or against yourself how long you will last -- not that I would have any first-hand knowledge in this regard, however. You can have as high a positive a total of 'Race Picks' as you want but not any negative total. I will now re-word the above for clarification purposes. Having positive race points left over means you still have points that you can use to improve upon your race's default abilities. If you have negative race points, you have tailored your race too favourably from its default settings. "

Simplified translation:

Each race has a default set of abilities. Increasing a racial ability costs pick-points, decreasing it gives you points back. The costs vary depending on the type of ability and the race that you are customising.

You start with a balance of zero pick-points and may not play the game with a pick-point deficit. You must therefore pay for your increased abilities by decreasing others. So abandon your dreams of playing a super race with all the abilities maxed out!

However, for an extra (or just plain masochistic) challenge, you can play with a pick-point surplus, meaning you can decrease all your abilities without choosing any increases.

By the way DanQ, I forgot to mention it before but special thanks for that 'forbidden picks' table at the end of the preview... very interesting!

[Writing Wraith]

Originally posted by Ekanata


I can't find screenshot indicating for example, tachidi's sweet spot environment. Shouldn't those info availabe when choosing race before playing. Are those among the information ?

Maybe it's shown in the manual? I don't think I've seen it anywhere outside of an official post, that was on the Delphi boards long ago.

[Alexfrog]

Originally posted by Writing Wraith


Maybe it's shown in the manual? I don't think I've seen it anywhere outside of an official post, that was on the Delphi boards long ago.

no, scroll up the page a bit, I just posted it there.

[Adacore]

We should be getting a new preview today shouldn't we - and this time we'll actually be in the game, rather than discussing the setup before the game...