Well, I've been playing Supremacy for the past week and a half, and I have a few errors to report.

1. While playing, I found the Ocampa in the Alpha Quadrant, when they should, of course, be in the Delta Quadrant.

2. I'm sure you're aware, but the structures that add population because of moons... don't. Oh sure, the population increase appears on the system screen, but the population never goes above what it would without the structures, either.

3. The buildings that add population growth are bugged; they "increase" the population growth, but it actually slows down considerably, and eventually stops well short of the maximum population, even with plenty of food. Destroying the structures causes growth to resume.

4. I have an odd bug on a particular save file (attached); whenever I try to build a station, Supremacy crashes. This only seemed to show up after the Spacedock became available.

5. For several of my games, I get intermittent crashes whenever a minor race joins (error log of this attached).

Now for a few questions:

1. It's been a long time since the last major update; what is a reasonable estimate for the next one? Any clues for what might be in it?

2. Is there an editor for the current build?

3. Might I suggest making the deuterium plant/aquatic deuterium plant to give (+20 deuterium per gas giant)/(+10 deuterium per oceanic planet)? It seems silly for four gas giants to give the same as one...

4. We definitely need uses for Crystalline Gas Giants and Demon Class planets.

5. Another suggestion: how about, for the Bajorans, having their system have a wormhole (it would appear in the system; not sure if that's feasible) that leads to a random place in the Gamma Quadrant? Its terminus could be placed like a system, randomly in the GQ. You would have the option to send ships in the Bajor system through the wormhole like any other. I know the wormhole hasn't been implemented yet, but it's something to think about.

6. The religious holiday, though showing off random events, is annoying.

7. When will the effects of the various anomalies be programmed in?

The Ocampa issue has already been fixed some time ago, and a few others. The rest of the problems, see here:

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=3173

As for the questions:

1. There is no estimate. Mike is kind of busy right now, but he should be back to work on Sup soon. As for what's in the next release, Mike has posted a few hints lately in these forums.

2. Nope. There shouldn't be one anytime soon either, it's low priority.

3. GGs give you 10 Deut each, by default, with no structures built - currently; that makes the Feds get +40/turn, and other empires +10 (except the Dominion, but they'll get Deut from their Nebula eventually). That might change though, namely the output not being automatic. This is one of the "problems" with the game, systems are treated as a whole, and as such weirdnesses like this one are bound to happen.

4. AFAIK there will be uses for those.

7. Some will probably be in the next release. They might not be of any use in the game yet though, as scanning is yet to be fully implemented.

Hey mknote, thanks for the report!

1. Ocampans: the issue has been fixed, but the fix hasn't been released yet, which is why you're still encountering it.

2. Yes, we're aware of the population structure problems. I believe this is caused by a programming issue in the growth rate code. For the time being, our advice is...don't build the structures!

3. As above, don't build the structures!

4. The station crash bug is also known. The bug was introduced during the last update and has already been fixed. (But again, the update hasn't been released)

5. The intermittent crashes from when a minor joins you is known. Without checking, I *think* it's caused by some missing images. We're still working on the images so this bug might not necessarily be fixed in the next update, but we will do what we can to minimise any crash potential.

Questions:

1. Mike has hinted at future releases as .Iceman said, but he's currently moving home and has no access to his Supremacy-building computer. Work on the programming side of the game is therefore currently stopped, but work on all other aspects of the game (Images, 3D models, game text, etc etc) continues. Mike will start working on the game again once his apartment is all moved in. We know it's been a long time since the last release, but we're a fan-based game project with extremely limited resources. Mike is the only programmer. We're all volunteers. And we all have lives to lead. Development simply takes time. I know i've said this a lot over the forums, but please just have some patience.

2. There's no editor for the current build - but there used to be one. The editor had a number of bugs and wasn't flexible enough to meet our needs, so Mike decided to scrap it during the last update. He therefore removed it from the download. And before you ask, the old editor is not compatible with the current release of the game either, so whilst I have a copy of it, the files would be useless to you as the editor crashes instantly on start up. A new editor is on Mike's list of things to do, but unfortunately so are a million-and-one other things. And half a million of those are of a higher priority (Eg. bug fixes), so it's not going to be coming any time soon. The bulk of the game files are .xml though; you can open - and edit - .xml files in Notepad. Just remember to make backups if you have a go.

3. .Iceman explained this one. It's known that it's a weird system, but it's one that is forced by the way in which the game works. We've already discussed the issue, but haven't come up with an effective compromise yet. But we hope to come up with a working solution eventually. Note that a per planet solution would mean the Federation have a significant early-game advantage over the other Empires though, which is what .Iceman alluded to.

4. Crystalline planets are a bit of an oddity; Mike added them without actually explaining what he intended them to be. We have come up with some ideas for a use though, such as making them mega-rich in Dilithium (With associated mining structures).

Demon planets are also still a work in progress.

5. For the Bajorans, we plan to have a Wormhole in their system eventually. Its not currently possible yet though. If the feature is added, the Barzans will also get a Wormhole in their system.

6. The Religious Holiday was created purely to test the Random Event system; it won't necessarily remain. We have an Enormous List Of Randoms planned for the game, but that list too won't necessarily make it into the game in its' current form. Mike has said he plans to create a random events editor for us so we can create our own randoms, but since the main editor is a long way off, the randoms editor likely will be too.

7. As .Iceman said, some anomaly effects will probably be in the next release. Mike has been working on the scanning and cloaking code, but it's still a work in progress. Expect further updates in this area after the next release.

Just a question out of interest, but why did no one come with the idea of everyone on these forums to combine as 1 and bring out just one game? That way the workload would be divided and updates would be more frequent and the game would finish quicker .. The only downside I see is that some people might have to drop their project and that won't make some people happy ..

We sort-of are working that way actually. Any content that we produce -3D models, images, voice acting, text, etc etc is freely available to any of the projects that we are supporting. It's all being made with Supremacy in mind, but BotE is actually already using some of our images as part of the recent Alpha 6 update.

Everyone on the forums can play a part as well; we've got jobs available and everyone is free to have a go at filling the positions. So in that sense, it's a community effort.

The different games that we support all have their own unique aims as well. Supremacy is focussing on strategy, graphics, and empire management, whilst BotE is focusing on trade, resources, and war. Trekwar and Allegiance are browser-based games and are completely unrelated to Supremacy or BotE. They also have different teams working on them, so we can't just pull the plug.

Well obviously, but if you have only one coder things are gonna take a while I'd imagine .. I don't know how "skilled" the coders are on the other teams, but if they could contribute that would be great of course .. What language is it written in? I might actually know someone that's able to code

I think it's C#, but I'm not sure.

The games are in different codes. What we do need for Supremacy is someone to build our combat engine. Mike has been coding the main part of Supremacy. The intension is that this code would stop and the combat engine would run to resolve combat. In that way they are different. Mike said we could not use the game engine that comes with blender so I take it the codes need to be compatible if not the same. If you know someone that is interested we can get them in contacted with Mike (Mstrobel.) That would be great. Thanks Trashworm


Supremacy:
Please send a private message or IM to Mstrobel to find out more about what is needed. We are especially looking for:


Someone with experience with XML (and XSD schemas), or;
Anyone else that is interested in learning to code for the sake of helping.
If you have any experience with XML (and XSD schemas), or if you're interested in learning for the sake of helping.
If you are a programmer experienced in C# and have a strong background in either AI or 3D graphics with Managed Direct3D (or, even better, the XNA Framework), then we would especially love to talk to you.