Dear Stardock

Not really a bug, although it does bug me..

After playing the excellent Galactic Civilizations game (v1.2) and then moving on to the Altarian Prophecy expansion pack (v1.49), i have noticed the following observation based on 20+ games played on each version to test my theory...

Playing v1.2 you recieve random events fairly regularly, however in v1.49 you can go 2 - 3 games without receiving a single random event! Now personaly i like the random events as they keep the game interesting as you never know what is going to crop up and smack you in the ar**. The fundamentalist event is great and i would like to see more of these critical events.

could you please clarify for me if there has been a code change that reduces the amount and/or frequency of the events, or is something else in the game suppressing them?

Many thanks

DW

 

[Message Edited]

Games on the metaverse older than 1 year are disappearing. It's OK to not include them in the score calculation, but they shouldn't disappear completely.

With an morality of 22, it comes up with string not found instead of a degree of evilness.

I too have found there are less random events than earlier games. (@ ver .002)

I just downloaded and played the latest Alterian Prophecy RC (1.49N.002), and whenever I build a starbase on a resource, it becomes invisible in the "global map" in the upper right corner.

~SDC~

I've never had an AP version where I didn't have "string not found" for some alignments. I believe it to be something to do with the english.str files.

If someone who doesn't have this problem could make both of their english.str available to me (I believe AP uses both its own and the GC english.str files) I' appreciate it.

Thanks,

Bill

~SDC~

Never saw it before (only used 1.21) but in AP they're definately there


~SDC~

There is another bug in AP. When I doubleclick on a starbase to view it's properties, it show 0 attack and 11 defense points, while having all possible upgrades (attack should be 11, defense should be 50)! Seems that it puts the attack-points where the defense points should be. If I click on a starbase in the main-window, and view the starbase information in small lower left/middle box, it says AT: 0, DE: 11 + 50...

~SDC~

[Message Edited]
[Message Edited]

I didn't think starbases could attack... In the usual sense. The only way I thought they "attack" was that if they survive the first attack fromn the enemy, they get the half-their-defense attack bonus.

Am I right? I'm not sure. Hopefully, someone can either back me up or refute my assertion with some hard facts.

Bill

~SDC~

Spot on

Hi, guys, a minor complaint:

This is supposed to be a release candidate, right? Could you customize the two new races' dialog? I mean, to have them use dialog from the Drengins and the Torians(?) smacks of "not quite a release candidate" to me.

Also, has the "string not found" alignment error been fixed? Could it be that one (or maybe both) english.str files on some people's machines aren't compatible because of some upgrade oddities?

Bill

~SDC~

Just finished a game in v002 where the Drengin changed from evil to good long after they were long gone

~SDC~

This would be trivial except that it probably affects your score because the game factors in how many AIs are aligned similarly to you.

Bill

~SDC~

I think that the planet sorting doesn't work right. Some of the categories don't sort. You choose a new category but the order is maintained from the last working category. I have verified this by testing a bad category that is sandwiched between two good ones:

GoodOne Bad GoodTwo

Going from GoodOne to Bad maintains the order from GoodOne, while going from GoodTwo to Bad will maintain the sort order from GoodTwo.

Bill

~SDC~

Starbases never have an attack score, and only get StarbaseDefense bonuses to their defense. All attack boni, and the Defense boni that do not specifically state 'StarbaseDefense' apply to all non-starbase ships in the same sector, with an occasional exception for non-combat ships (colony ships often don't, but transports and constructors do).

~SDC~

I believe that colony ships ALWAYS get the bonuses - it's just that their bonus is very small (I believe that the bonuses are measured in percent, so 1% of essentially nothing is still next to nothing).

Bill
~SDC~
[Message Edited]

Autosurvey is broken.

Okay.

~SDC~

Huh? :notsure:

Autosurvey is quite broken. Many are the times that my survey ship will no go anywhere even though I can clearly see anomalies within sensor range of my stuff. However, as far as I know, this is an old bug left over from the GC code, just one more unpolished thing they don't want to spend the time on.

The lack of a fix to the 'string not found' for alignments in this latest RC puts the nail in the coffin of my belief in their commitment to the game. It's got to be an almost trivial bug to fix (find where the display function calls from and either tell it to call the right data or put the right data where it's calling). This has been widely reported through more than a few builds and evidently is of no priority even though it screams amateurish product and you'd think they wouldn't want to go gold with such a thing in place.

I appreciate the support in a general sense, I'm less thrilled with the delivery. From the p.o.v. of the hardcore strategy gamer, I really love that they've continued to futz with the game mechanics themselves all this time. From the p.o.v. of the funsy gamer, I find myself wondering why there are so many blinders on with people regarding the volume of unpolished elements with the game.

I'm also disappointed in some recent retorts from Brad about people pointing out that the editors aren't working. I didn't follow much of the early development too much, but my understanding is that they never worked well for most people and, yet, somehow the devs thought they were ready to go gold.

My gut is that the budget is blown for this game and they need to shove it out the door to see how sales and reviews go before committing much else in the way of resources.

Oh, that was just a comment on your highly informative first post. Your second post should have been your first post.

I *do* agree that autosurvey is not functioning as well as it could, but I'd call it more hobbled than crippled. Do you remember how it USED to work? How all your survey and/or ranger ships would all eventually meet and go after the same anomaly? THAT's what I'd call "broken." I totally disagree that this was something that they didn't want to spend time on. I think Cari was badgered into releasing the new code as it was because of pressure from the customers wanting a better auto-survey code. She did mention that she, herself, wasn't satisfied with how she had written new code for the auto-survey but wasn't happy with it.

The "string not found" alignment issue is a frustrating one, for sure because, like you said, it should be easy to fix. I believe it hass something to do with how the two english.str files interact with each other. I think that the people who have this problem (myself included) have a GC english.str that somehow got skipped in one of the updates (I made some changes to my english.str and maybe it didn't get updated because the english.str file happened to actually be newer than the updated one?) Sometimes updates don't go right. For example, I still have an old verison of the movie where the trade ship gets blown up that has no sound. That was supposed to be updated, but it never did for me. That being said, maybe they could post a fixed version of these files?

One thing that also bothers me is how the two new races have dialog cut and pasted from the other races, and it made it into the release candidate. THAT surely seems kind of lame.

On the subject of editors, these are the very same tools that the developers used to make their maps. Hey, they didn't have to release ANY editor, now did they?

I think your gut needs some laxitives because it needs some, well, unclogging... They have had polls here, as well as reviews for AP in the mags already, and they got a fair idea of how it would be received already by seeing how many people signed up for the beta.

Bill


~SDC~
[Message Edited]
[Message Edited]

Wasn't my post at all. I just failed to see how anyone could act as though the statement required clarification as the behavior occurs every game.

As for your laxatives comment, whatever, I've been a fan AND critic of this game almost since it came out. Other people can be the "oh golly, they care about me!" type, I'll keep some objectivity in my evaluation of what Stardock does and doesn't do in regards to their products.

You're right. I can't read, or something. Sorry to ascribe that remark to you.

The point I was trying to make with that first remark was that since the poster seemed to be reporting the problem for the first time, the post should have included a detailed description of the problem.

My other comment was supposed to be silliness because I wanted to break the mood of my post, which was being way too serious, but I'm sorry that you had taken offense to it - and I can see why, now that I re-read it.

Bill

~SDC~

I could've sworn that with RC002 the problem with the rally points not being shown when loading a saved game was fixed, but it seems broken again.

Bill

~SDC~

Update:

It looks like they've returned. Must take a few turns to display, maybe similar to influence calcs upon loading?

Bill

~SDC~

In the first game of the campaign, I received 3 messages that the Altarians declared war on Korx and were helping me even thou they were already at war with them.

~SDC~