I wasn't talking about exact scaling. If you read my post carefully i don't expect the scale to be as it is in reality. Only more distinct. SE V screenshots illustrate my point better.

Aside for the whole self-satisfaction in realism, the map sizing and spacing of stars vs planets doesn't add anything to the gameplay. GC has never been about anything really approximating realism from all I've seen and heard. The focus is on gameplay first, and if realism supports that, then great.

If you had 10 planets per star, you might get 2 or 3 habitable, the rest would be taking up space, which takes up game resources and adds visual clutter to the game. One thing GC2 does MUCH better than other games is reduce the amount of noise on the screen. I can very quickly and easily scan the map to figure out where things are and what my empire's status is.

For SE, scaled planets and stars and distances may be fine, because that's the goal of the game. It's much more nitty-gritty details and realism focused than GC is. GC tends to be gameplay first, realism second when it supports gameplay.

Yep, luckily this is just a fun game and not 'space simulation VI'.

Realism has it's place, but I'd rather have fun. And where do you draw the line between a civ game and a galactic simulator?

I started doing some google searches for what would be the percentage of earth-like planets in the galaxy . . . and that led to "what's the percentage of Jovian-like planets?". . . and that led to "what's the percentage of solar systems based on galaxy size?" http://www.googleityoumoron.com/?go=percent+of+earth-like+planets

Not fun

Well the strategy map is meant to be just that a map. Although a nice pretty 3D one. It is realistic! imagine your the ruler of your race and your at a desk with a 3D map in front of you and your giving orders through it. there ya go!

Well the strategy map is meant to be just that a map. Although a nice pretty 3D one. It is realistic! imagine your the ruler of your race and your at a desk with a 3D map in front of you and your giving orders through it. there ya go!

mmm...that sounds great. good execuse for unrealistic scales....

---------------------------------------OFF TOPIC A BIT-----------------------------
Actually Some ships in the universe are the size of planets (they tend to eat alot.... )
but those are usually planet destroyers or somthing considering they are a waste if the just destroy ships...
oh yeh and also Colony ships are actually massive massive ships in GC2 so scale is slighty off (yes they are that large!)

It's harder to place the planets around a star without making it either crowded or having the planets too far away and seeming like they're not associated with the star. 

Also, it increases the complexity of the placing algorithm, which at the very least means that it will take longer, and at worst could cause lockups or fail to place the required number of planets.

What's with all these people who want their stars to go nova? If you want to talk realism, how could any race advanced enough to travel to another star NOT figure out beforehand that it wasn't going to be around in a few years?

It seems that you are being completely unreasonable.

Consider:

#1) Stars are already many times bigger then the planets. Turn on the gridding and zoom in. You'll see that a Star is much bigger then a single square already, while the largest of planets are still only about 50% of a square.

So, stars are 'significantly' (tell at a glance) bigger then their worlds. Enough to show they are a big thing (a star), without wasting too much screen on. Besides, stars are already 2cm on my screen when I am completely zoomed in. How much bigger should they be? 1 meter? 10? Things don't scale at the same rate as you zoom out. That's done to help the players recognize that there is an object there.

Think about this as well: If StarDock were to make stars bigger to make you happy, what should they do when the next guy comes along and wants stars to be 2 feet big on the display? You know, that still isn't to scale, but it does give a much better "epic" feeling.

#2) I think 5 worlds is already too much. And you want to double that to 10 or more? Realistically speaking, just the Earth system should have about 10,000 sized PQ 0 worlds. There's a few hundred of icy earths orbitting our star out in the Kuiper and Oort regions (at our best astronomical guess). There's thousands of small icy worlds the size of Mercury floating out there. Put those on the map. You'll feel epic. You'll feel like you are truly looking at space. And then be complaining within a couple of games about not being able to see where the whole 2 usable (Earth and Mars) worlds in the Human system are!

In just playing the game, I find the current 5 worlds sucks. It makes it a pain to find the 1 or 2 usable planets that most systems have (as it could be any of them. Plenty of Earth looking planets that will be PQ 0). Star Dock likes all the eye candy though, so we are stuck with 4 completely useless items, just so some players that forget they are playing a space game will see a few planets and feel like they are playing an "epic" space game. Bleah. Game play over momentary eye candy should always be the rule. But not in this case. Bleah again! And you want to extend this so you can get a couple of seconds of "Wow. Look at them graphics! Boy, them planets sure look pretty! Now where is that one half-decent planet in this system that I want to colonize? Was it this one? This one? This one? This one? This one? That one? Maybe that one? Did I already check this one? Er, where is that dumb thing?"

#3) By adding in this option, it would affect all players of the game. StarDock would have to code it, StarDock would have to test it, StarDock would have to teach the computer how to handle it. That's all tasks that would take away the few but highly talented people on the development team from doing other things--- like improving the game, improving the AI in normal play, etc etc etc. So, it would bother everyone because we'd end up with a game that wasn't as good just to address one person's complaint of "this doesn't feel spacy enough!".

They have to compromise somewhere. Give the beta a good drubbing. See if you think it still needs a lot more eye candy to be fun.

As for epic looking space--- go give the games X2: The Threat or X3: The Reunion a spin. See if you don't feel like you are looking through space in those. I bet you do. I know I do.

Something similar could also be done for things like super novas, terror stars and other catstrophic events. You don't want your stars go nova? No problemo. Just disable it. You want them to do so? Also no problem. Just set the frequency and the sevirity of the events. And now tell me, how could it bother ANYONE to have these things as an OPTION?

Well, the developpers need to code them, even if it ends with lots of people not using them. So at least, it matters to the developpers.

Ok, let me further expand my point:
About scaling: Maybe i'm wrong here. I admit it . But i still believe a little more spacing between planets and stars is needed but that's ok i guess
About the number of planets: Let's say 10 planets will be too much. I think couple of more planets won't hurt. If you can't find a specific planet in the solar system it's your own fault. I have played SE IV where there are many planets in each system and yet i don't lose track of the good ones.
About novas: I firmly believe the concept could work if we introduce a few rules on when stars go nova and which stars. For example: home systems would never go nova, the possibilty of a nova would be very low and it could be restricted only to ancient red stars .
Also there could warnings many turns ahead and you would have the possility to prepare for it. How? Move your citizens to other systems, deconstruct all your buildings and move them piece by piece to new planets and therefore not having to pay for them to be built again on a different planet, plust hey would be put together in a single turn each to make up for the lost time.
Furthermore, successfull evacuation would lift your people's moral and your appeal to the public would sky rocket. To make up for the lost time and energy to do all this you could have the ability to build special expendable ships or probes or something to study this significant event, and as a result you would get a great research boost.

These are just a few things on top of my head. There could also be more restrictions to make the event a bit more 'controlled' and more rewards for a successfull evac. Now in the case of a failed evacuation you could still have the ability to to study the event plus the ability to study the debris of your buildings that were on the planet ( now floating around). I can also think of additional ways to make the event worth like creating a black hole you could exploit somehow or....

Well, if one can think of many additional stufff if he puts his mind into. The event would be extreamly rare and when it happens it could be a fresh new challenge to deal with the situation and even benefit from it despite the lost production.
Maybe my ideas sound a bit strange, or are a bit difficult to implement but i'm sure that something can be done...

What do you think? Am i crazy or something ?

BlizzardGR, just give it a break. You haven't made a single turn in GalCiv II, and IIRC you haven't played GalCiv I either. This is not Master of Orion or Space Empires, this is GalCiv. You don't know how the game plays and feels, so I suggest you wait for that experience before suggesting quite drastical changes and additions. They won't be heard anyway at the moment and it's not me I'm talking about, it's Stardock that has other things to care about right now.