I would really love to do the alpha for this but I probably will not have enough time to play it so I guess I will just skip out on the alpha this time (I actually have exams starting in 2 weeks).
No worries! Time enough when you're not so busy.
I fully expect to have time for the Alpha, provided it's in mid-February.
This game is looking great so far.
Added you to the list of possibles.
I've no idea whether they're normal for 4X techs, but independent cooking, operatic training and culinary artistry = awesomeness
Assuming that blank techs (Adv. Hand-Weapons, Passive Sonar, Terraforming) are passive upgrades, what do the icons that accompany the other techs represent? I'd assume plenty are buildings, but I'm curious about whether some are the services part of "core buildings and services".
Haha, yeah, some of those are pretty fun. All of the icons at the bottoms of techs (the little white ones) are building unlocks. So as you can see, almost every tech thus far unlocks one, sometimes two, buildings. There are just buildings out the wazoo that you're progressing into here, and you start out with next to none.
The ones that are blank (not having a building icon on them) do something else, sometimes which is passive, sometimes which is opening up new abilities that aren't strictly related to unlocking specific buildings.
Adv. Hand-Weapons: A general early-game ground combat fighting buff, and a prereq for some other stuff.
Passive Sonar: Allows you to see the underground map at all (in more than just unexplored fog). Your buildings all give a short range of sonar view around them, depending on the building in question. Other later sonar unlocks give you more active stuff.
Terraforming: This literally unlocks your ability to terraform by placing any of your three terrain types. So that allows you to start competing in the atmospheric mix competition, if you choose to do that. So technically that unlocks 3 different things that you can place, but it doesn't show those at the moment. I suppose it would be good if it did in the future (the specific terrains vary by race). Actually, I just added that to our internal low-priority list, thanks.
Also, since you might be curious:
independent cooking: Unlocks the cheap diner, which is the first method of food preparation separate from your lander itself. You have to grow food, get and purify water, and then turn those into meals. The cheap diner does that (edit: this was unclear. The diner turns 1 purified water + 1 crop into 1 meal. It doesn't make water or crops, heh), and feeds a lot of people, but adds very little SP.
culinary artistry: This unlocks the fine dining establishment (nutritionist training unlocks the middle class eatery). The fine dining feeds very few people, and is expensive to maintain, but if you use it right it can be an SP goldmine. You need to build a mix of these to really optimize your city for both citizen growth and SP growth, though.
operatic training: This teaches your folks how to sing, and build an opera house. The opera house is bloody expensive to maintain in a lot of ways, but it's one of the big independent (aka not attached to or related to basic subsistence/housing/needs) ways to generate SP. The history museum is another one. There are pros and cons here, too, because it cuts into your crown production quite a bit thanks to its ongoing operating cost; but the SP boost can really help you get some very nice social level unlocks, and so on and so forth.
This game is looking more interesting every time I see a new post. I'm particularly interested in the statement that the player races base their technology of Earth knowledge, that seems unique in both making it easier for new players to understand that X = Y, it may also sastisfy people who simply enjoy Humans in sci-fi (myself included).
Thank you! And welcome to the forums, too.
Well I'd certainly like to help with the alpha as well, this is sounding more awesome as it goes, Spire aside
I don't know if I've been that helpful at it before, but I certainly have the time and the interest for if you need another!
I don't keep track of precisely how many things people submit (and volume over quantity is not always preferable), but I certainly remember your name in the release notes many many times. Anyway, added you to the list of those interested.
I'd love to join the alpha. I'm also glad that the Christmas lull is over and we all get to see some more details.
You're an obvious one to add to the alpha, heh -- you've been one of the biggest supporters thus far!
what effect does social progress have beyond unlocking techs?
Well, each social progress category is in itself kind of like a tech unlock. A passive bonus, anyway. It's vaguely like the culture unlocks in Civ V, or kind of like leveling up in Zelda II. Depending on where you decide to take your level, you might get better health on all your buildings, or the ability to have another city, or more benefit per tile of terraformed land, etc, etc. It's another way of specializing your empire, essentially.
and are the categories and bonuses the same between races/leaders?
They are the same between leaders of a race, but different per race. There are 8 overall basic categories. However, each race has a unique category that only they get. That category of theirs replaces a specific one of the base 8. Different races lose a different one of the base categories in exchange for the unique one that they get. So every race is a little different from the others in here both from losing one and gaining one.
Are any of the techs are repeatable? (researching again for passive bonuses, for end-of-tree techs)
Not yet, no. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with end-of-tree-techs just yet. I'm thinking that I may funnel that into a procedural technologies section, but I'm not sure yet. The very late game is something I have mapped out for certain victory conditions but not too well for others. The tech-focused endgame is one of the ones that I haven't focused on too heavily just yet, because it's one of the easiest conceptually (and thus one I can safely ignore for now).
You know what screw it, I can do the alpha, studying can wait. I might not be able to play it as much as other people but I can probably do 3 to 4 hours a week. So if you need anyone else to be in the alpha I CAN do it. Ignore my post above.
Haha, okay. It will be 4 or 5 weeks from now anyhow. How long do your exams last? I really don't want to get in the way of those. I'll let you make your own choices as to how you allocate your time, but please don't let excitement ruin any class grades. That's never worth it!
Cheers everybody.