Check out a brand new Star Control preview trailer We’ve got less than half a year left before Star Control: Origins is set to release. So much is happening! Before I get into this month’s updates, here’s a bunch of answers to questions: What is Star Control? Star Control is a space adventure game where you are the captain of a starship exploring the cosmos, meeting aliens, landing on planets, engaging in battles in space and on land, a...
We have previously discussed the perils of running a galactic civilization. People living hundreds of light years away from their home world will have relatively little interest in the political intrigues of the capital. That’s where the government types come in. What is the best type of government for your civilization? There is no right answer. Let’s work through a scenario and how it might play out. The star Procyon is 11 light years away from Earth. ...
The situation is desperate. The Terran Alliance is slowly losing the war to the Drengin Empire. Is Earth doomed? Your friends are doing their best to help, but they cannot directly involve themselves. Our friends, the Altarians, give us covert aid. The Drengin Empire's military might is vast. The Drengin have long prepared for this day. We had hoped that trade and diplomacy would stay their hands. But after having annihilated the Torians, their bord...
Intrigue is the third expansion for Stardock's massive-scale space strategy game, Galactic Civilizations III. This expansion changes the game in significant ways to extend playability and introduce new dynamics, adding politics, governments, civilization crises, the GNN, elections, and the Galactic Market to the game. We're also updating the base game to version 3.0 with the release of Intrigue; you'll see we've called out areas where changes are made in v3.0. This will walk you thro...
Everyone loves a good start. Every game of Galactic Civilizations is different. The original tagline was: “Never the same game twice.” It isn’t that the game is randomized as much as it is that each game is designed to be carefully imbalanced in a way that tries to push the player into avoiding well-worn strategies. Most of the benefits of version 3 will be coming to those who already have Crusade because it provides so much to build off on wit...
This article was originally written in 2001 as Stardock was nearing it’s 10th anniversary but it is as true now as it was then. Companies often give lip service on customer support. But in my experience, few companies really understand that supporting customers isn’t just a moral issue, it’s also good business. The New NEW Technology Economy: The Customer Is God If one good thing is going to come out of this recession, it’s that the dot-com’s will not just have simp...
In preparation for the Game Developer's Conference we wanted to put a polish pass on the planets in Star Control: Origins. There are about 3,000 unique planets that are split into roughly 75 different classes. Each class of planet has its own challenges, as well as its own mineral deposits that you might want to collect (along with ruins, cities, smugglers, creatures, etc.). Today, I'm going to walk you through how we create our planet classes. Unique, Procedural and Hand-Crafted...
The premise of Galactic Civilizations is that you have united your homeworld and are now ready to send your first colony ship off into space. What kind of alien worlds do you think we can settle? The reality is, many worlds are not going to be safe for us. We'll have to live in environmentally sealed enclosures at first. Not because they are too cold or lack the right atmospheric conditions (though that is an issue), but rather because many worlds will have microbes that...
People don't like to be taxed. They really don't like to be taxed if they don't have a say in it. The principle cause of the American revolution was not taxation in itself, it was that the colonists didn't have a say in who and what was taxed. Now, let's imagine how this would be handled when you are talking light years. To understand how distances work in Galactic Civilizations, we need to understand Hyperspace Projection. I'm the map I'm the map I'm the map! Space.....
13 minutes, 48 seconds. That’s how long it took the Curiosity rover’s signal to reach Earth from Mars - and Mars is in our own solar system. Intrigue is the name of the upcoming expansion pack to our best-selling space strategy game, Galactic Civilizations III. It’s not called “Government” or “Politics”. It’s Intrigue. 13 minutes, 48 seconds between responses for radio signals in our own solar system leaves a lot of time for...
Good afternoon. Below is the captain's log from the recent Jupiter test of the prototype Emdrive MK I. As a reminder, all information concerning the Emdrive remains classified. Please return your Aug glasses to the front counter when you have finished this briefing. Captain's Log: March 2, 2086… There are 69 known moons of Jupiter. Jupiter is the first planet we’re sending Star Control’s prototype ship to visit. Powered by the Darius Robotics...
We live in an age where developers actually brag about creating random quests as if that’s a good thing. In an age of gigabytes of memory the challenge isn’t in how many worlds you have, it is how to make those worlds compelling. In Star Control: Origins, there are no random missions. No episode of Star Trek ever ended with Captain Kirk receiving 14 Dilithium crystals for his troubles. Star Control is about telling stories in which you are the central character.
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The new Star Control is moving swiftly! We expect to release Fleet Battles Beta 2 within the next several weeks as most of our work is focused on the adventure game. We have been listening to feedback from the fans and incorporated that feedback into the project. For example, below is a screenshot which shows the updated home solar system: Our home solar system Similarly, the ships themselves have gotten the material system in early. Originally, this was going to ...
Every few months I write something that incites a twitter mob. There are people out there are compelled to right the smallest of wrongs by hurling days of abuse at the villain. As the said villain, I’ve developed many different strategies for dealing with these mobs. This week’s outrage: A pronoun joke (someone demanding to be referred to as "they" instead of "he" or "she" while referring to the other person as "honey" and siccing her (sorry their) followers on him in whi...
How will we feed our billions? In Galactic Civilizations III, we presume that by the time we are colonizing planets, our home world has reached an equilibrium between food production and population. But let's face it: when we colonize other planets, it'll take many years for those planets to build up sufficient farming infrastructure to produce for the kinds of populations you have on your home world. Surplus Food Galactic Civilizations III will be treating food ...