fh00ls

Join Date 02/2008

Sudden and extreme tech cost increases

I have just been playing my first TA game as the Altarians. Things were going well until tech costs suddenly and within a few turns increased several times. Just a few turns ago, Laser V would have taken 6 turns to research but now takes 20 turns ( my research level has increased and there are no spies ). Planetary invasion somehow suddenly jumped to from 13 turns to 41 turns! It' not just military techs, other techs have also increase in cost and research length by more than 100% within just a few turns.

This really makes the game unplayable as basic ( and neccessary ) techs such as planetary invasion suddenly takes such a great amount of time to complete.

Are others experiencing this too? Did beta testers discover this?

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Yes - noticed the same (also playing Altarians, but don't know if that is just coincidence). Immense galaxy, suicidal, abundant everything.

Happened once early in the game, then later on when I completed the last cultural tech, research cost for Nightmare Torpedo jumped from 10,423 to over 35,000. Re-loaded, changed the tech being researched to another and the same thing happened when it was finished. Everything more than tripled in cost.

With the earlier occurrence that means all techs now cost over 9 times what they should do.

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Several of us have been noticing this.

See this thread:

https://forums.galciv2.com/310872/page/1

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I just tested this using a couple saves

1. I got an auto save and a previous auto save. They only differ by a few number of turns as they are the auto saves created by the game automatically.

2. Auto save has tech costs across the board more than double (non uniform, some tech costs more than tripled) previous auto save.

3. I loaded previous auto save and played from there. After research one tech, taking 13 turns, tech costs across the board immediately jumped more than double (some more than triple) just like in the other case.

This is with Altarians on a gigantic map.

This looks like a certain bug.

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I think the tech costs scale per map size.

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I´m also playing my first TA-game right now. Me too are playing with Altarians and I have noticed the same pattern regarding strangely increasing cost of technology.
I become absolutely sure this phenomena existed after I realised that a certain weapon tech (I think it was some of the laser-tech) first would have to take only 2-3 turns to research. And then suddenly when I tried to learn it later, by witch time I produced much more research, that version of the laser-tech would now take 7 turns to complete.

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Yep. Been noticing this, especially with weapon research.

Mass Drivers 2 should not take 11 Weeks to research, when I've got plenty of RP's going and have already researched Particle Beams 3 and Harpoon 3... and those took me 7-9 Weeks.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

I just tested this using a couple saves1. I got an auto save and a previous auto save. They only differ by a few number of turns as they are the auto saves created by the game automatically.2. Auto save has tech costs across the board more than double (non uniform, some tech costs more than tripled) previous auto save.3. I loaded previous auto save and played from there. After research one tech, taking 13 turns, tech costs across the board immediately jumped more than double (some more than triple) just like in the other case.This is with Altarians on a gigantic map.This looks like a certain bug.

Definitely send those in to gc2bugs@stardock.com.

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I would just like to add that I too am seeing this issue. I first noticed playing Alterian but it also happened to me in my most recent game as Yor.

Basically one turn I noticed Alliances was going to take 3 weeks, the next week it was listing as 11 weeks. It was so massive a change I had to check my econ sliders to make sure that I was in fact running at %100.

I have played quite a few games as Terran and never encountered this issue. My guess is maybe some sort of race specific tech is kicking in at some point to cause this bug??

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I have got the same with the altarians.

I took +30% research rate, and I had a almost fully upgraded research mining station.

Somehow, at a certain point, I noticed all the techs taking more turns as usual, and this lasted the entire game.

At the end when I won the game, I had about 3 pure research planets, with research centers, star federation, +55% research abilities and 1 fully upgraded mining station, and Planetary defense 3 cost me a whopping 164 turns to research..

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I noticed this for the first time in my most recent game - playing a Custom race in a Medium galaxy on Painful. Fortunately, the game was almost over when it started happening, so it didn't affect the outcome, but it is nevertheless potentially a very serious issue.

FWIW, I don't think it affected all of the techs at once. Some things seemed suddenly very expensive but there were still others that I could research in 1-2 turns.

I think I would share the opinion of others - that this issue makes the game unplayable - if I encountered it on a larger map and/or earlier in the game. Which means I would also very much appreciate a fix/patch to correct it before the month-plus until the next planned update is released.

- Ash

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This happened to me as the Yor last night. I'll see if I have a good save file.

It also affected the Planetary Invasion technology. It went from normal to 56 turns (I think).

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Ok, I got a more detailed description now.

I play Korath now and just finish spore technology.

After this i did some experimenting. I researched planetary invasion, and saved 1 turn before it researched.

When the tech got researched. All my other techs just doubled in turns.

So I loaded again, and switched to another tech, research centers now instead of finishing my planetary invasion. I saved 1 turn before research centers finished. And voila, the moment i finish my research all the research double in costs.
This goes for any tech I finish researching after the save, lasers2 etc....
The only way you can stop the tech costs of doubling is not finishing the research, and stop researching a tech 1 turn before it finishes...
I can send the save files if you guys want too.

But I will stop playing until this is fixed, since I dont know if the ai is affected by it too.

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I'm wondering why there has been no word from the devs ? (new to forums, so is that normal?)

This, imho, is a game breaking bug... especially if you have focused on being a small(er) empire with high tech.

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I'm wondering why there has been no word from the devs ? (new to forums, so is that normal?)This, imho, is a game breaking bug... especially if you have focused on being a small(er) empire with high tech.

It isn't, but it is. Frogboy and Kryo post frequently to many concerns, but they also somehow both were completely oblivious to the Mind Control Center bug that has been around for, literally, YEARS, and just about everyone who's played the game knows about. It's been discussed many times, and I've seen some discussions end with "Well the developers clearly don't care to fix it, so it's probably intended to be that way."

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I'm wondering why there has been no word from the devs ? (new to forums, so is that normal?)This, imho, is a game breaking bug... especially if you have focused on being a small(er) empire with high tech.

The developers are under a time crunch to get the Polital Machine out in the next two to three weeks. I'm sure after that they will fix this bug ASAP.

Kevin

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

It isn't, but it is. Frogboy and Kryo post frequently to many concerns, but they also somehow both were completely oblivious to the Mind Control Center bug that has been around for, literally, YEARS

Huh? I've known about it since it was first discovered, and Cari had looked into it a few times. It just seems it never made its way up the chain for Brad to decide what behavior it should actually have.

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I would really like to see some official word on this. I've stopped playing my game simply because it isn't fun to wait as long as I now need to just to get planetary invasion. I'll go back to Dark Avatar until I hear what the scoop is.

-HM

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I've gotta chime in here.

I haven't seen this at all.

I have played games with tiny, medium, and large universes. I've had a variety of tech speeds (very slow, slow, normal, and fast). I've played as, and against, a variety of opponents, usually at normal difficulty or the one immediately above that. I've won by tech, influence, and conquest.

I have NEVER seen the tech rates change in a meaningful way after successful completion of one tech, especially not to the point of doubling.

I usually focus on tech. You might think that I'm simply not seeing it because I have enough tech to compensate - but this also means that I'm waaaay sensitive and aware of the costs of techs. There's many times when I'm choosing between techs that will take approximately the same number of turns to research. If I choose one, the other stays at the same number of turns, or goes down (if I built more research facilities in the meantime).

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Out of curiosity, disneydestroyer, did you preorder and play the beta? Or wait for the official release before buying?

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I played the Beta.

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I beta tested TA (it's awesome!), but I've also noticed that research is absurdly slow, and only gets slower for some reason, techs will for whatever reason double or triple how long it takes to research them. During the beta, late game I could get Duranthium I, II, and III in one turn, but now it takes almost a dozen turns for II and III each.

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I've gotta chime in here.I haven't seen this at all.I have played games with tiny, medium, and large universes. I've had a variety of tech speeds (very slow, slow, normal, and fast). I've played as, and against, a variety of opponents, usually at normal difficulty or the one immediately above that. I've won by tech, influence, and conquest.I have NEVER seen the tech rates change in a meaningful way after successful completion of one tech, especially not to the point of doubling.I usually focus on tech. You might think that I'm simply not seeing it because I have enough tech to compensate - but this also means that I'm waaaay sensitive and aware of the costs of techs. There's many times when I'm choosing between techs that will take approximately the same number of turns to research. If I choose one, the other stays at the same number of turns, or goes down (if I built more research facilities in the meantime).

I have only noticed the tech increase problem in Gigantic or larger games

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I have only noticed the tech increase problem in Gigantic or larger games

Had it in a Large game.

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I have only noticed the tech increase problem in Gigantic or larger games

Had it in a Large game.

And I had this problem in a medium game.
I suspect is has nothing do not with galaxy size.

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Zydor

Join Date 03/2006

+38

I played the Beta and final, and not noticed this one.

One thing that seems to be the case, it looks as if the posters so far reporting this were ae "non-Terran". I always play as the Terrans.

If as I suspect the basic game mecanics underneath it all are fundamentally based on Terrans, maybe its the way the other Races were customised in code that caused this? Just a vague thought, as it seems on the face of it significant that reports appear to be coming in from "non-terrans"

Regards
Zy

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