I purchased the game a number of years ago having loved Galactic Civ II.  I was disappointed to find that 3 did not meet my expectations and I lost all desire to play very quickly.  I thought that in time some of what I found missing would have been implemented down the road so I am checking in to see if that is the case.

1) Is the ship designer now available without having to play the game and progress through the research tree?

2)  Can I create custom ship designs for custom created races and then play AGAINST them?

3) Can I create ship designs 100% out of jewelry without having to use a predefined base hull?

4) Can I create custom races where I can choose appearance, behavior and economy type and then select them as an opponent?

5) Can I create a custom quick match like GC2 without having to progress through a campaign?

I just want to create my opponents and allies then play a custom game.  I really enjoyed this about GC2 and was why I played the game.