Suggestion: Planet-count cap for Galactic War

My computer is sort of low end and old, and I cannot run the game with more than 2 large planets, or 3-4 small planets. As a result, I can't run half of the galactic war systems, which really sucks, so it would be REALLY HELPFUL if the devs could add a planet-count cap option for people like me with low-end hardware.

Our preferred way of handling this would be getting anything in the Galactic War using little enough memory that it's not an issue. We have already made some reductions in the client memory usage (you should try again if you haven't in the last day or two), and we have a number of other places we hope to shave off more.

And man.. that machine really needs an upgrade, even if it's just to throw a 64bit OS on it so you can use a little more memory.

I know... I might be able to afford a new computer soon, but for now, that's all I've got.

All i'm saying is that there needs to be an option to cap off the planet count for systems in the Galactic War, some people might not be able to run some of the systems generated, and since it's single-player, there's no harm in adding it.
To be fair, I haven't tried loading a galactic war in the last few weeks, and there have been a few updates, but it would still be nice to have the option, even if it's only a temporary fix until you guys can get the RAM usage down.

I would definitely try again. We've made some pretty big strides on client side memory, though we have more to do.

Also, the downside of this option, is it changes the intended design and flow of the Galactic War - hence why we'd rather fix it right than change the design of the Galactic War.

thanks for responding

Well, that's like asking to have a score cap for some kind of exam if someone in the classroom is stupid (no offense to your obviously wonderful PC).

For a game like this the RAM is mainly the thing holding you back for the amount of planets your PC can handle. Even if you upgrade to 64 bit it's not going to take advantage of more RAM since you have 3GB. Try something at least 8GB or more, 16GB seems to be the happy medium for price and performance for lots of players.

This is also new since the latest build:

It's a trade-off though. A low value for N (~4) reduces the amount of RAM needed, but it makes your processor work harder. You can experiment with that parameter to see what works best for you. I'm not familiar with Windows, but I think you can set the command-line parameters somewhere in the launcher.

maybe keep the systems small by the size of the galaxy? playing on a small galaxy size and you wont get big systems, while playing on large/huge galaxy sizes later in the game you could see some pretty big systems...which would make a nice change to change up galaxy play a bit with size

With galaxy war most challenging systems are those with multiple planets that can have halleys. And hardest boss fight is in such system with 4 planets. This would change gameplay of galactic war. Reducing number of planets on everything but that "last boss" does not help those with low end pcs because they cannot win in that system or play anyway. And reducing that last system to 2 planets would make that fight as easy as rest. And no playing against AI on highest setting does not make it harder, just more evil and annoying. However I consider this AI to be second best in RTS games so far. Best is still swarm AI for starcraft.

To be quite honest, I don't care about the gameplay. Galactic war is single-player, so its MY choice, and I'd rather actually be able to run it with ruined gameplay rather than not be able to run it at all.

But Galaxy War is not made only for you. Devs have vision for how it should be played. They probably already balanced a lot around how many systems and planets you get in GW. Also there is one more problem, people will always find easiest way, in this case limiting number of planets if they are allowed, then those same folks will come to forums and bitch that GW is too easy.

But you have one ready to use solution until you get better PC: play only single systems in skirmish, limit number of planets, their size and number of AI to what your PC can handle.