As a fan of 4x space games, I am obviously excited to hear more about what Legends of Pegasus has to offer. With some other 4x titles also releasing this summer, I would like to get some clarification on a few of Legends of Pegasus' features that I have seen listed here in the forums and within the gameplay videos (including the longer gameplay videos on gametrailers).

Unique tech trees are mentioned in several of the gameplay videos. Can you elaborate on how "unique" these techs will be? What I would like to know is if they will offer changes that significantly alter or enhance that race's playstyle? With only 3 races in play, I am hoping that each race will play significantly differently and that their available techs will reflect that. How many unique techs will each race have? I am aware already that the races will be able to make some wildcard tech choices to add techs they wouldn't normally have access to.

How many weapon types will be in the game? For example, ballistic, missile, torpedo, laser, tractor beam, emp, plasma, biological, etc. Are certain weapons limited to certain races?

Given the fact that Legends of Pegasus will include 3 playable races (and 12 "Factions" if you count the different origin choices at creation, ex. Science Human) and 4 neutral groups, how many AI players can I include in the galaxy? Will AI Humans go to war with other AI Humans as well as X'or? Will diplomacy involve more than just the head of each race (3 sides)?

I see that orbital structures can be places around the planet. Can orbital weapons be used to defend planets/systems without necessitating retaining a large fleet at all your systems for defense?

Will there be space pirates, monsters, or other threats to deal with in the sandbox mode?

Will there be unique minerals/artifacts/resources on certain planets/systems?

I think Legends of Pegasus thus far sounds like it could be my 4x game of 2012, but I think a lot of people still don't know much about it unfortunately.

Another question. How adaptable with the AI be? Will they be able to shift their strategy if the player has countered their current one, or will they continue trying to pound their square peg (i.e. poor ship design for instance) against the round hole?

So sorry for not answering your post earlier. So here are the answers to the best of my knowledge:

Technology: Each race has a unique tech tree. Of course some technologiesare the same for each race such as a colonizing module for example. But there will be enough differences for a unique playstyle. Examples: Humans tend to use particle weapons, their tech tree does not feature as much laser/beam weapons as that of the X'or.

In addition to the main tech tree of each race, you can choose bonus tech trees at the star of each match. These give you a special technology branch in your tech tree that you can research in the course of the game. For example, the humans do not have EMP weapons in their main tech tree. But if you choose the ion bonus tech tree, you can develop these weapons as a human. There are not only weapon bonuses. The tyrant doctrine bonus tech tree for example gives your race researchable technologies that you can use to push down hard on your colonies so you can force them to keep producing even when the morale is low.

As a benchmark, the game in it's current state has around 2000 researchable technologies. We had more, but we wanted the technologies to have impact and not only stand for themselves. So we reduced the number a little bit.

Weapons: I may forget some weapon types but I know that we have beam weapons, lasers, particle weapons, EMP, missles/rockets/torpedoes, tractor beams. I dont think we have biological weapons. But there will be hangar bays for fighters, interceptors and bombers. And there will also be special weapons (the tractor beam being one of them). Given the right technolog you can also target four different sub-systems on each enemy ship, for example destroying the engines.

Factions: Each game can be played with up to eight players, be it real players or AI in various difficulty levels. Yes humans can go to war with humans same as against the X'or or Arthrox. Each faction stands alone at the beginning. You can also have diplomatic relationship with each of them. In addition, each faction can also have diplomatic relationships with each of the guilds. They are not real factions and do not count into the eight player limit. They are just randomly roaming the universe.

Orbital defenses: Each race has orbital defense structures as well as deep space military bases that you can freely place in each system. The shipyard produces a special freighter that you can then move to the location where you want the station to be build. With a special command, the freighter then "unpacks" and builds up the station within some turns. Same procedure for some other deep space structures like sensors.

Random events: Yes, we are planning random events for the sandbox mode. But I cannot yet say if these work out or which ones these will be.

Specials on planets: Most of the planets will have certain special charactaristics. There may be ancient ruins on a planet that you can research with a special building. Or there may be native tribe there. But most of the resources are harvested in asteroid fields, not on the planets themselves. The colonies produce credits (for the human race) as a basic resource and of course up the manpower of your faction, resulting in more officers (for the human race) which you need to man ships.

AI: We are still testing this. I dont want to promise too much here. Let me test this a little longer and then ask me again. :-)

Many greetings,
Chris

Thanks for the responses. I appreciate you taking the time to answer them.

Great to hear that in addition to the 4 independent groups that the 3 races will be able to fight amongst themselves as well.

I will await the E3 information and see how things progress. Best of luck to the dev team.

Good info, there. Thanks Chris.