Some of us older farts like slow.

You also cannot use the apostrophe, like in B'rel

I did find how to rename fleets. I like that. Came in handy when I found 'Decommission' did not work, so I created Mothball fleets to dump all my obsolete ships into.

Did anyone find an asteroid belt to mine? I never found one.

Server will be up at 16:00 GMT (2.5 hours from now). Connecting before then won't work. No need to test connection, but starting client (without logging in) could be useful.

If you mean having 1 or several sensors on a ship, then yes this makes a big difference in how far they can see.
In the future it will also affect how much data you can see, chance to detect cloaked ships, and maybe some targeting/damage bonus during combat

Scrapping/decommissioning ships is not implemented yet.

I will allow for spaces in names from next version, it's still in there because of the way the early client-server communication took place, but this has been changed.
Meanwhile you could use underscore.

Just to let you know I've been pecking away when I can. I never did log onto the quick server, sounded like there wasn't any point by the time I could...
Apart from my earlier comments on CPU (which you were aware of, Klogd) I haven't had any issues as of yet- I'm impressed! I like the UI this time around- it hasn't been a nuisance like before. I can't comment on the mechanics- namely the equasive factor, but from what I see, it appears to be working. With the slower server, things do take longer to run through, so I haven't even gotten halfway through the research yet...

The only issue I have at this point is I wasn't able to test bussards, or mine asteroids cuz there was so much open space. Just last night I found a nebula, but didn't have time to try out collection. Being a test server, I feel they should be readily available when that point in research is achieved.

It looks like were close to the point where the finer mechanics can be fine tuned (the behind the scenes numbers relations). I can't really comment on that aspect until I know what to expect.

Remember folks- this is a testing phase- so try to do more than play the game, try to do things that may cause errors. Try things that maybe shouldn't work, but MIGHT cause a problem. If something seems wrong, make a comment, and maybe others will see it too, but didn't say anything. The only limit is your imagination

I think his todo list already counts pages!
There will be more than one further alpha test for sure. If we flood him with non-important details, that might change over time anyway, he'll surely forget the most.

I see asteroids now! I'll be in and out all day today as I have lots of appointments scheduled. (Now you know why I like the slow server.)

I need to go make then eat dinner.. Someone log in and keep Iceman in check until I get back

There will be a slow server soon, One that can go all next week.

It's my gf's Bday, I have to entertain the guests, so I'm on and off.

Sweet, then other people actually stand a chance

Even more with me not having time to play either.
How many are participating yet btw?
Only the ones that posted or also some others?
afc so far kept quiet sadly, dunno what's up to the peeps over there currently

I've only seen one other person online, plus klogd. I spotted 3 of klogd's defense fleets Unfortunately I can't design ships here, so I'm no threat to anyone. I'm just expanding and checking things. Seems way too easy to expand, colony ships might be too cheap? And not costing pop, you can build them anywhere, and rapidly expand. But it gets tedious and boring, managing many systems. Maybe when more structures are unlocked by research it'll get better.

I've had 3 or 4 of those end-turn hangs, which are a drag. When you have the system window open, it's hard to tell when the end of the turn is coming.

Never change anything when the update comes up. That's how I had two GUI's become unresponsive. Had to kill javaw to get control back.
Make that three GUIs.

I know, it's always been an issue, but like I said, sometimes you just can't see the end of the turn coming. Maybe the GUI should just be disabled in those last few seconds. For me it's usually giving a build order.

Hey klogd, did you actually build all those ships, or are they a bonus for you?

If it's any consolation, I've had to kill the client via task manager like 5 times. Really need to fix that bug before next release


I built them all, but I seem to recall you having more ships than that last weekend.

Need to put up some sort of defense before I go to bed :p

You've just glassed one of my systems

Stuff that is off (before losing the system):
Morale at -8
Food surplus at -2, while every other production was at zero (no structures at all) [I've noticed this wrong calculation of upkeeps before]
I can't see the name or equipment of your ships in orbit (they must have torpedoes of course), a tooltip when mousing over the ship icon would be nice

Can't say much more because I logged in 2 turns before losing the system, everything was already destroyed except pop.


The Faction tab in Chat is not working it seems?


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Like I said, I can't build ships so you're safe with me. You're probably going to wipe me out during the night, or in the morning.

BTW, all I ever built was colony ships and scouts. Never had lots of ships.


I think you changed some stats of structures, like power upkeep? Seemed a bit better.

The minimap, I think it'd be more intuitive if it'd center on where you click instead of using that point as the upper left corner.

I got everything back in balance in your system and it's stiill borked!

I logged in just in time to see my last 2 systems being destroyed Where are the orbital batteries when you need them?!
Was I the only Klingon player actually playing?
BTW, I didn't get a message saying I was eliminated from play.


I have no labs left, and still the research screen says "research - 5 per turn" [I think that's 5, not -5, kind of confusing that - sign], and 1572 turns to finish research. And it's still counting (down). Something's wrong.

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Related, I don't like the exploration model in the game, honestly. And it's not just the (awful, eye-hurting) map overlay. It's also the need to blindly explore - better, uncover - your surroundings. I prefer a model where you see the whole map, but no details on star systems, and you actually needing to visit them to see their composition.
To the point, even with FoW, shouldn't I know the position of all my faction's systems and fleets? It's no different them being in my visible area (but not in scanner range) than being obscured by FoW...
Uncovering the map just doesn't make sense. And I don't just mean by being a game set in space.
My 2c.

Game over, unfortunately the teams were uneven, think it only was 1 klingon vs 4-5 federation players. So naturally the federation won:


I'll start a slower running game tomorrow, for people who don't have the time to play so much in a short period, but need to space it out a bit.

Yes, unfortunately Very hard to know which of the alpha testers will actually play or not. The teams were completely random so it was just bad luck that you were the only klingon.
For the next version with online authentication and better game management, it will be easier to start games that are more balanced in terms of factions.


Not implemented yet.


I'll remove that '-' sign, 5 research is kinda the default minimum you can have for some reason Should probably just set that to 0.


You no likez the map overlay? :o at least then you'll have a motivation to explore the map
All the images in the images directory can be edited and replaced. Going to make a skin mode soon, so that people can just make a copy of the images directory but with a suffix like "images_foo" and then when starting the game you can choose between the "foo" and "default" skin.

Fog of war seems to be very popular and is present in most strategy games (botf, civ, star/war-craft, etc..) and I quite enjoy it. However having no fog of war will be trivial to implement, so I'll definitely have that as an option when people are starting a new server.

I'll look at different sensor modes per game as well. Factions could either fully share sensors, share fog of war removal, share system location only, or nothing shared (like currently).

The fact that you could see other players outside your sensor range as long as they were not in the fog of war was just because the method that computes visibility is not done yet, just a temp method so far

Not in most space strategy games.

Smallish question, just checking.
I had this system where 2 artic planets (close to each other, just one other planet in between, so it doesn't seem orbit related) had very different growth rates (1,011 and 0,341). Is it intended?

Yea, that would have been me killing you. Fantastic timing, the exact same turn! The other two players on chat were ROFL for some time about that.

As far as Kilingon players, I can state that you were the third player I eliminated. The first never logged in and the second only got as far as colonizing one other planet and building some ships.

Maybe Erlend can start a second short round up?

BTW - definately have to fix the lock-up that happens if your making changes when the GUI refreshes. Outside of that, I'm in love with the direction theis game is headed.

OK- some problems / observations I found worth mentioning:

1) I really wonder if bussard collectors should require 1500 power??
2) I also doubt that impulse drive should use 1000 power
3) I suggest 'word wrap' in chat windows when they are resized
4) It would be nice if there was an indicator of sorts when the chat window is closed, and you have a private message sent to you. Even a window popping up is better than nothing
5) I wonder if chat could be permanently placed in a position out of the way. Suggestion- a narrow band on the bottom, with a channel selector on the side
6) When fleets in the same grid are combined, the map still shows 2 fleets until the next turn, or a course is set for the combined fleet.
7) Sometimes when one ship is moved from one fleet to another, the graphic still shows it in the old fleet until the next turn (I don't know if it disappears when a new course is ordered- needs to be checked)
8) Thanks for saving new server log-in info in the pop-up It would be nice if I could paste in my PW (unless it's something I simply don't know how to do?) I'm lazy that way LOL

8 ) CTL+C CTL+V for copying + pasting your pwd?

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I think there should be more system specialization. I'd increase power consumption of the shipyard to 50+, and labs a bit more too. So that shipbuilding systems "can't" do much else. Same for research systems.

Pop should also probably require more food. Bunkers and Military Outposts seem to take a disproportionate amount of food relative to civilian population.

Anti-ship defense is a must IMO.


What does everyone else feel about pace of the game? Research vs ship speed vs system development vs pop growth.
I think research is probably a bit to fast, but it's a bit hard to tell until one plays one game in one sitting.

I still think systems should be smaller. You'd develop them faster, and you could then concentrate on other systems.

Waypoints and queuing research would be nice additions.

Also the speed definitely affects gameplay. Fast games you tend to colonize more planets and push your tech up more rapidly than slow games where you tend to build more ships. (Though this is probably an artifact of being able to queue production, but not research.)

No joy yet for the slow server.

He can, and he will. wondering if I should actually send an e-mail out and ask who want's to play in it, and try to actually balance the teams

Yeah, that thing is more annoying than a ship filled with tone deaf Pakleds playing Vulcan harps
But I quite accidentally found out what was causing it when I fixed a problem with the chat window not updating the online users. Fix will probably take around 2-4 hours to implement.

nope, it's a typo
same as above
already on todo list for next version
absolutely, I've added it to the todo list.

I'll definitely change the chat window so that it's feasible to have it open all of the time without everything going wonky =)
Really? been merging fleets and moving ships alot and for me the second fleet always disappear when the last ship is moved.
Are you sure about this? Note that when you have fleet B selected, and move a ship from fleet B to fleet A, then fleet A becomes selected.
For 6/7 do you mean this bug:

If so, that's going to be fixed in version 0.4.7.. If not could you specify it a bit more?


This is definitely the plan, Many systems with shipyard ended up being fairly general, but I did have some systems that specialized on research, and one dedicated to troop generation.


I did like the fewer planets (fewer slots) approach. But I did find a system with 4 Terran planets that had 50 slots
I'll look at maybe reducing the number of slots on Terran planets, or decrease the number of planets in a system again, and raise the output of industry/food/power/research buildings, so you don't have to spend your time building 4 farms, 5 powerplanets, 4 labs, etc.. in EVERY system.


There is, it's called "other ships"
There are plans for stationary defenses for planets.

I've mostly been focusing on making the basic game systems work, so stuff like costs, growth rates, structure/components output/requirements, etc.. have not been getting lots of attention.


I found it kinda of fast at the mid to end, as one gets more and more labs. You get research quite quickly even without investing alot in building new labs at the end of the game. I do think the first 2-3-(4) levels of research should be fairly quick, just to provide the player with enough structures/hulls and components to start making useful systems and ships.


Slow? Where we're going, we don't need Slow.. Daaah daaaaaaa da daaaah, dah dah daah, daah dah daaaaaah.

I'll send out an email to try and balance the teams. Slow server should start tomorrow (or today if people respond quickly to the mail)

Slow server starting today or tomorrow afternoon/evening GMT.

Check your email for invite,
if no invite is there and you wan't to join, contact me: http://trekwar.org/contact