I'd say yes, it's because he's playing on extreme difficulty. The AI will get large bonuses to research and economy on that setting. So even though they are starting at the same level as the player they are quickly overtaking him. I guess he's just not playing as well as the AI.

Just check your game files, see what sizes they all are

<r>
<QUOTE><s>[quote]</s>ORIGINAL: chmjs<br/>
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Thanks for the reply. Well that would explain that! Nice it's not a bug. It is kind of a shame that the player must take a reputation hit when they take back their own planet!
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you don't have to take a rep hit if ...

<t> Probably working as intended. The Tractor Beam pushes and pulls according to strength of target, since the pirate probably has more firepower than your ships they don't want it closer. Not much you can do about that unless you can add more guns to your ships.<br/>
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or try shatterforce ...

Can't change the opacity, you could try a replacement galaxy map for better contrast Darkspire has some links here tm.asp?m=3450380

<t> <br/>
I believe it's up to the game to be as open to modding as possible for ALL USERS, someone wanted that latest feature added didn't they?<br/>
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The way Themes are separated into their own folders means that there is NO NEED for compatibility. So it's up to the individual modders to ...

<r> These ones are available in the kitchen sink image repository someone posted.<br/>
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<IMG src="http://i.imgur.com/rfEqLFy.png"><s>[img]</s><URL url="http://i.imgur.com/rfEqLFy.png">http://i.imgur.com/rfEqLFy.png</URL><e>[/img]</e></IMG><IMG src="http://i.imgur.com/bL2UcJy.png"><s>[img]</s ...

That's a lot of rules to remember! Some rules are unclear even after figuring them out for myself and then reading through your notes, why does Caslon have a blue background and a white circle when Hydrogen is the same as other gases, why do Gold and Steel have icons but Lead doesn't?

<t> Recently I'm not sure if I've even seen a defensive fleet moving to another system to defend mines and such when set to defend nearby systems or sector of their home base. I remember them doing so around Legends when I found this thread and did my own testing to learn how they work. Perhaps ...

Been a while since I read the thread but I think unless you set 3, 2 does nothing. Gelatinous Cube makes quite a point of that in post #4. You can set a home base and an attack target, the attack/defend button switches between modes

<t> Huh? what are you guys on about, it works same as usual here. Are you doing it right?<br/>
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Set attack target, enemy base. Set range, system. Red circle appears, fleet is supposed to go off to kill things in that system when at war. Mine just seem to sit there mostly. But I do see the red ...

Of course you have to remember a ship will turn back to refuel when it gets half way to that dotted range line unless you keep your eye on it, even on manual sometimes.

<r> <QUOTE><s>[quote]</s>ORIGINAL: Nanaki<br/>
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Oddly enough you still get the prompt even if you are not in a mutual defense pact with anyone.
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True but every time I tried to apply a name before I had a mutual defence pact the name didn't stick.<br/>
edit ...

just design the bomb cruiser, copy as new, turn it into a beam cruiser and then go back and un-obsolete the bomb cruiser, you can then build/upgrade both as normal.

<t> Can't be 100% sure as I had this issue a while back but I somewhat remember figuring out by switching back and forth from automated to manual design, from pre-warp to standard game that you had to have all the required techs on the earliest colony ship/passenger ship design to get one to show up ...

<t> Ha! I was able to reproduce it by using the galaxy_backdrop_OLD2. I wonder now if this isn't a result of that image scaling issue that Astrocat keeps talking about. Maybe when it's being placed in the same location as the colony it looks off because the background is scaled differently than the ...

1. Yes. Go to options, turn on auto ship design so civilian ships take care of themselves. Then go to design screen, click in the automatic upgrade column of each military design to switch them to manual. Solved.

<t> more happiness = faster growth according to Colony Taxes in Galactopedia, could be wrong though as many things in there are suspect. Per my observations though every time I have a new colony that's on the neutral face and add a base with med/rec they receive happiness go happy face and pop ...

Get a mutual defence pact with someone, then double click on them in diplomacy put your alliance name in and apply, you'll get the title under your empire and theirs in the left pane, like the freedom alliance in ancient galaxy theme. Not sure if it has any effect beyond cosmetic though.

<t> Hope the fonts don't end up getting too big, I complained before the Shadows update too but the latest one with the empire navigation tool on setting three was just too massive, the icons got blurry. I don't want that to happen all over the UI unless it's optional like the empire navigation tool ...