Differences between Standard Galaxy v3 and GALAXY Explorer

Browse standard Galaxy version 3.5 rules
  1. A player's knowledge in GALAXY Explorer is limited to what he has actually observed. This includes planets, other races, their tech levels and ship capabilities. Your knowledge of other races can age if you do not see them for a while.
  2. GALAXY Explorer has implemented winning conditions other than total dominance of the galaxy. Currently, if a race can control two thirds of the home worlds or exceed the aggregate production of all the other races (and be at least twice as large as its nearest competitor) and maintain that state for three turns, it is declared the winner.
  3. GALAXY Explorer has wrap around maps. All planets and ships are displayed relative to your home world. This puts you and your race at the center of the galaxy (in other words, the entire galaxy revolves about you and yours).
  4. GALAXY Explorer has a more diverse mixture of planets from size 0 (uninhabitable) to worlds larger than a home world.
  5. GALAXY Explorer maintains a separate list of planet names for each race. This allows each race to name any planet it encounters and helps to hide the location of home worlds and occupied worlds until a race actually encounters them.
  6. GALAXY Explorer supports the ability to produce ships at tech levels below your race's current levels at a slightly cheaper price.
  7. The diplomatic options between races has been expanded in GALAXY Explorer.
    • Races may set a default diplomatic state. This governs how they will respond to other races when they first encounter them.
    • Once a race has been encountered, you may be either at WAR or at PEACE with them, or declare them a full ALLY.
    • You may set a defensive state for the space above each of your planets. Defensive and you shoot at anyone above your planet, unless this is a full ALLY. Peaceful and you allow anyone to orbit that planet. The default case is conforming, this is where you only shoot at a ship above that world if you are currently at war with that race.
  8. Battles in GALAXY Explorer are much more bloody. Unlike standard galaxy, every ship in a battle gets a chance to fire (all firing is simultaneous). If any hostile ships remain after a round of firing, the survivors regroup and the battle continues. Battles have been known to result in mutual annihilation.
  9. GALAXY Explorer turn reports are generally incompatible with standard galaxy analysis tools.
  10. Most standard galaxy options are not supported or set by default.
  11. The AUTOUNLOAD option is set on a planet by planet basis. A planet must be settled by your race before autounload may set on that world.
  12. Players may not unload capital or materials on worlds they do not own. Players may only unload colonists on world that they own or are unoccupied. These restrictions can be relaxed by switching on the recently introduced international trade extension.
  13. Cargo may never be unloaded on an asteriod. This restriction can be relaxed by switcing on the recently introduced cargo at astroids extension.
  14. Players may only upgrade their ships while orbiting worlds which they occupy. Ships may never be upgraded while orbiting a world owned by another race.
  15. Groups of a mass of one (i.e., a single drone (1 0 0 0 0)) do not generate incoming reports.
  16. GALAXY Explorer has a blind mailer which allow races only to send messages to the races they have encountered (or the galaxy at large) while concealing the originating email address. This keeps players reactions towards another race from being influenced by previous games or anything outside the scope of the game.
  17. The '@' command for sending messages with the game orders has been disabled. The blind mailer replaces this.
  18. The 'F' command for player email address lookup is not supported.
  19. GALAXY Explorer supports limited recall of ships in hyperspace.
  20. GALAXY Explorer processes the turn orders in a random order, this removes the bias that standard galaxy has towards those who sign up early.
  21. GALAXY Explorer was written in C++ and will compile out of the box with Gnu C++ compilers on most UNIX platforms.
  22. GALAXY Explorer allows the GM to get an overview of the entire galaxy without having to go through everyone's turn reports.
  23. GALAXY Explorer comes with an integrated and accurate turn checker.
  24. GALAXY Explorer currently relies on the standard galaxy documentation to for the initial orientation of players to the game.