GALACTIC SUPREMACY
(soon to be Star Trek: Supremacy)

I went ahead and renamed this thread since it's grown far beyond me looking for testers with Windows Vista.

LATEST RELEASE: Click to Download*
(*) If you are using FireFox, you will need to install the FFClickOnce extension.

TROUBLESHOOTING
OK, so there was a problem with the MIME types on the server, so anyone who tried to launch the installer would simply get an XML file. This should be fixed now, both in IE and FireFox/FFClickOnce. Sorry about that--I hadn't experienced the problem myself because IE7 seems to compensate for this.

In order to run the game, you will need to have the following Microsoft components installed:

Windows XP Service Pack 2(*)
.NET Framework v2.0(*)
Visual J# v2.0 Redistributable Package
WinFX Runtime Components - January CTP(**)

(*) If you've kept your system up to date with Windows Update, you probably have these already.
(**) Note that this is prerelease software, so if you don't want anything experimental or potentially unstable on your computer, don't install it.

You'll also need DirectX 9.0c, but I believe this is included with Windows XP SP2, so you shouldn't have to worry about it.

DISCLAIMER
This is a WORK IN PROGRESS. I have only been working on it since January. There is no AI yet, nor will there be until most of the other game features are in place. For the moment, it is multiplayer only (though you can test it with only one player in the game). The functionality is at a very early stage, and there are many features missing. There are also several little quirks and UI annoyances that I am aware of, but they are low priority to fix at the moment. This game is currently a class project, and I've had to cut a lot of corners to get something playable out in only one semester--any inadequate features will be replaced with far better code when I have time to write it. Also, because it is a class project, it cannot have a Star Trek theme yet (for Copyright reasons). This will also change once the semester is over.

You are free to download and enjoy (or not enjoy) any pre-release version of this game, but be warned that features may change or break from one version to the next (and loading saved games will quite often cause a crash-to-desktop after a game update). Please do not complain to me about these things. Once the semester is over, I will open up features for discussion and post a lot more information.

Feedback Guidelines
I would like some feedback about the game--mostly about the general feel and gameplay mechanics. Also, I would like to hear about any significant bugs that you encounter. You can define a significant bug as something that causes the game to crash, display incorrect or inconsistent information, or otherwise disrupts the gaming experience. Things like "the map doesn't center on the selected sector when I zoom in and out" are not significant bugs. As long as you use your best discretion, I welcome any constructive feedback and bug reports from you.

A short little promotional video I had to make for the video game faire:

(I know there's one or two spelling errors... too late to do anything about it now)

Some screenshots:







RELEASE NOTES: (most recent to least recent)

27-April-2006 Release
Changes:

• Fixed a bug where assaulting a system would reduce the population on all systems held by all other empires. This bug often manifested itself in the form of all empires being wiped out simultaneously when a single empire was wiped out.

25-April-2006 Release
Changes:

• The diplomacy system is much better, though I removed some options so I could implement a reasonable AI quickly.
• Added some empires and minor races. You still can't select an empire, but rather they are assigned in the order that you join a game.
• Ship range has been extended a lot just to expedite testing
• A couple minor fixes for the galaxy UI
• Misc. minor adjustments

05-April-2006 Release
Changes:

• Combat system is much more reasonable in terms of the actual results, though the same thing will happen regardless of whether you click "Engage", "Hail", or "Retreat" (this will work correctly soon enough).
• More building options added
• Ability to assault systems added, though at this moment you can do this very quickly with only one ship (so I can test it easily). Also, you can only wipe out the population, not invade (yet).
• Endgame conditions are in place if you wipe out your ememies systems
• You can now cancel a move order by setting the destination sector to the current sector
• Fleet movement ETA now appears in task forces list
• There is an "Auto-Build" option available in your home system only, though I would not recommend using it, as it will tend to starve your population. This is only there as a test of the star system "governor" AI that will be used for minor races. Obviously, it is under heavy development.

Original Pre-Alpha Release
Known Issues:

• Clicking "Cancel Game" in the Multiplayer Lobby will cause the game to crash. This has been resolved for the next release.
• The map will not center on your homeworld at the beginning of the game, nor will it focus around the selected sector when you zoom in and out.
• If you move set a destination for a fleet, you will need to change the selection before it will allow you to move the same fleet again.
• Selecting a ship's destination can be annoying if the route overlaps with another ship's route. Later on, I will have the route lines appear green when setting a ship's destination if the hovered sector is in range, and red if it is out of range.
• There aren't many things you can build, and if you play against an opponent, the person playing as the Dracari will not be able to build a shipyard or many other facilities, so multiplayer gameplay is pretty pointless at the moment.
• Information gets cut off in the object information pane of the System View at lower resolutions.
• Editing any of the XML files inside GameData.zip won't do anything, because the actual copies used by the game are compiled into the executable. This will change when I have time to edit my compile script so that it automatically rebuild the zip file when I compile the project. Until then, this is easier for me.
• Combat is extremely ghetto and makes no sense at all. I have a much more reasonable system in place now, and it will be available in the next version.
• There is currently no way to win the game, as you cannot assault your enemy's systems.

have u been dong ur own project, looks good!

Thanks . Yes, I've been working on this since January. It will be a Trek game eventually, but right now it's part of a class project, so I can't use any copyrighted material without permission.

Aye, looks extremly good!

I noticed the reference to the "Altarians" in the screens, are you playing Galactic Civilizations 2 as well?

Your project is certainly coming along nicely. You've got more stuff done since youre last update.

I'd love to be able to help but I haven't got Vista and won't unless I get a new computer. I've only had my current one for 5 months so I won't be getting Vista for several years at least.

Hexagons certainly seem to work better than the simple squares of BOTF. It makes the map look more compicated, as though it were a "real" map. It's easy enough to understand though. Cool.

The screens are clear enough, and they look really shiny compared to BOTF.

The writing is a little small and blurry though. Is it just that way, or is it my monitor? I've got my resolution on max at the moment, at 1280x1024.

NOTE: The full version of Vista isn't even out yet!

I've got a mate with a beta copy of it so i could try to get the copy from him

I don't have Vista but I'd like to test this game anyway

same here, im running xp, always available to test

I cant see the screenys but im sure they are great ^^

Nice work!

When your project is done you could just get the content being created for the BOTF game and put it into your game.

no 3d combat.

That's not entirely accurate. There will be no 3D combat *initially*. I would like to add it in later, but only once all of the other major game features are in place.

Thanks for the positive feedback, guys. If anyone wants to provide me with some web space, I can publish periodic pre-releases for you to play with. There isn't much gameplay at the moment, but I'll do it if there's any interest. I would need a fixed URL so that the game will be able to automatically update itself.

Mattress, you may be on to something regarding the text. It's actually very crisp, but some of it may be too small. Also, I may change the font settings to enforce standard-height numerals. I assume you were referring to the system view--if you were talking about the map and star names, you can zoom in much farther with the slider at the bottom-left.

afc will provide webspace if you want

Well if AFC is gonna provide the space, you might as wel put it up with the forums - put it in the download section.

If you do that, it would be best to create a new section so that other forum members can differentiate the game from your project, Jig.

...

MStrobel, I was referring to the size of the text, but I was also referring map names - I only just noticed the zoom bar on the left.

The main writing seems fine, although on different resolutions it may not be so. Anyways, it's your game, so you do what you want with it. I'm sure you'll get a good grade for all your hard work though.

I hope so. I'm supposed to have an alpha release ready for playtesting on Monday. Which means that at the very least, I need to somehow implement basic combat this weekend so that it's actually possible to win a game.

I couldn't post it in the Downloads section of the forum, because I would need an entire directory in which to store several files--the download wouldn't be a single file (otherwise auto-updating wouldn't work). Jig, I'm about to send you a PM.

why dont you use a RAR or ZIP file?

then you can have your directory in a single file.

Also, my BT Tracker is up, if you need it.

Because if I use one file, you'll have to re-download the entire thing every time an update is available. This way the automatic updater pulls only the files that have changed.

how large a file are you predicting it will be? and is the AI functional? it's all so very exciting

AI? LOL, no! These things take time, and I've only been working on this since January. There's not much in the way of playability yet. However, there is a huge framework in place that will make it much easier to add new features. At the moment, you can explore the galaxy, build ships and structures, and load/save games. Everything is multiplayer at the moment with a limit of 2 players. For testing purposes, you can start a multiplayer game with only yourself playing, though it isn't much fun.

The coolest thing is the Effects system. I boosted the idea from the FreeOrion project, though I've made some great enhancements and I think I use it more extensively. It basically allows you to define (in XML) a series of effects that game objects can have on eachother, as well as the conditions under which those effects are executed. It's proven to be extremely flexible and extensible--you'll be able to implement some pretty creative objects (i.e. special structures). I recently came up with the idea of having custom ship orders defined as a group of conditions and effects. For instance, you could create a Research Mission order that would allow a science vessel to generate research points if it is in the same sector as a black hole (or some other anomaly). Cool, huh?

As for the size, it's probably somewhere between 10-15mb at the moment. I could cut that down a little bit by removing the music, which is currently non-functional.

I think 15mb is pretty small for most people here, good luck with your project though.

Thanks, cdrwolfe. I got bored and decided to try out a couple LCARS control templates for when I eventually convert this to a Trek game. Check it out...


That's a templated WPF button conrol--completely scalable vector graphics (image is zoomed to 800%). I refuse to have my game confined to a single resolution .

for the autoupdate, you could have it download a zipfile, and then autmatically extract it correctly.

15mb is miniscule in my opinion!

General, consider this example: I update some of the code in the primary SDK, so you need to download only a new library file and a new executable. Why should you have to download the entire game--graphics and all--when you could download ~500k instead?

And besides, I don't have any control over it--I'm using Microsoft's new ClickOnce deployment technology, and it handles all of the auto-updating itself. It works very well, and it allows my testers to automatically snag the latest version whenever I publish an update. If you really want it that badly, I can send you a build in a Zip file, but there's really not much to do in the game right now.

We had the idea for researching anomalies (Like Blackholes) as well.

It's all in my starship info thread if you haven't read it yet.

My Starship Info - Building Through To Mothballing Thread

I don't understand anything about programming, so I couldn't help you with the problem. I agree with the others though - 15 meg does sound miniscule. Modern games usually need multiple installation disk, and each one can hold 700 meg!

...Of course, i'm not comparing your game to a game made by a multi-national company with potloads of money and and a huge development team - i'm not that evil

Still, I expect it will be bigger once you've completed it.

...And if it isn't, be prepared for visits from data storage companies, coz you might just have put them out of business!

Completely understand mstrobel, this is yours and others "baby" and it might aswell be done right and done the way you want it.

Though when or if you do the AI give me a bell as i would like to know how you implemented it

Alright, if anyone wants to give this thing a try, you can download a preview here:
http://swiki.cc.gatech.edu:8080/cs4455/uploads/398/SupremacyPreview.zip

Try this at your own risk. I'm very busy at the moment, so if you can't get it to work, I can't take the time to help you figure it out (at least not until sometime after Monday).

You will need to download the following from Microsoft:
.NET Framework v2.0
Visual J# v2.0 Redistributable
WinFX Runtime Components - January CTP (not a more recent version!)

Good luck. If it crashes and you can run it from the console and get a stack trace, send me the data and I'll have a look at it. The UI performance isn't what I hoped it would be--I need to do a lot of research on WPF optimization.

A few notes:

Right-click the galactic map or a ship in the task force list for context menus; you can only access System View if the currently selected sector has a star system you conrol.

I highly recommend you run the game with the standard game options (SMALL galaxy). You can try a Huge galaxy if you really want, but be prepared for crap performance. That thing is huge.

You can: build, move ships, colonize, and maybe engage in automated combat (experimental and pretty ghetto-rigged at the moment). Nothing else.

Have fun.

Well I have .net v1, v1.1, and v2.0, but I don't have the other two things - i've never heard of them before.

I don't install stuff from microsoft unless update says I need it, but even that isn't completely reliable. It tells me I need the "software update for C-Media", (It's something to do with the sound) but whenever I install it I lose ALL sound on my computer until I roll back the drivers!

Obviously it didn't work for me, but never mind, i'll just keep an eye open for more screenies.

completely offtopic in regards to MOE's 2nd previous post, did you know there are compression algorithms that can fit a 7gb dvd file onto a FLOPPY! 8O

takes about a day for the program to decrompress it though

That would be cool. I have all DS9 episodes which take up around 28GB, I've been looking for a way to fit them all on one DVD.