IGN previews the Dark Avatar

Wow, wow, lots and lots of new stuff.  

Looks like u r making every planet in the galaxy colonisable  , as long as u have the right tech. How many planets r there in a gigantic galaxy, including all 0 PQ ones?

Barracks eh...erm, new ground troops, interesting! Planets harder to invade?

Asteriods slowing down movement...plausable...will we be able to blow asteriods into oblivion? Surely a doom ray  would do it?

Looks like military conquest will be harder to achieve overall and a new spy race will take place.

Can't wait, when exactly in Nov. is the beta available for play testing?

Gasp!

Are those SHIPS orbiting planets? And templates? Fantastic! The more I hear about this, the more excited I become. The new features look great; it all looks great. Except for some of the textures on that new ship, but oh well.

GREAT ship design screen shoots, and i can't wait to take command and OBLITERATE ALL LIFE!!!! MUAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHA!!!!

Most likely, PQ planets will NEVER be able to be colonizae, because the enveronment is completely seperate from the PQ. There is a picture somewhere on this forum that shows a planet with High Gravity, and a PQ of 10. The two things are different.

My point is: If you set your expectations too high, then you'll only be disapointed.

The ship anlyzer looks sweet. I'm going to enjoy it, and you're custom made opponents will actaully use ships you design this time. That's going to make the game a bit more of a challenge. I wonder how the AI will use my ships in fleets?

I do not think the preview said you can degign AI ships. I think it said you can create templates to customize how their ships look.

When I saw this

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/837/837041/img_3977667.html


Now I'm extremely excited about the expansion(sequel).

Then I saw this

Other changes to the game include alterations with the political treaty system, tweaked technology trees, and the addition of ground forces. For negotiating purposes players will have two more types of treaties letting races trade economic and research aspects. In terms of ground forces, barracks can be built on worlds and will pump out up to 10 military divisions for use in planet invasions.

**** YeaH!!!

Aside from motivations, each race in Dark Avatar will get their own special ability. Humans, for instance, will be super-diplomats (meaning they're good at diplomacy), and the Arceans get the ability to strike first in battles they instigate.

I like the idea of race specific super abilities but NOT FIRST STRIKE! The first strike advantage is too power and proved to be game destabilizing! Why bring it back in DA!?

Oops, you have a typo in your screenshot, "propusion".