Hello. You have made a very good game. Keep up the good work. Here are my questions & suggestions:

1. I would like to be able to name my game saves. I can only save Unbennant and keep overwriting it.

2. Can the buttons on the left side of the screen be made smaller so the galaxy screen can be bigger?

3. I like to terraform each planet with a few colony ships. I can't give the terraform order to a fleet of Colony ships.

4. When I colonize a new system, many times only 1 planet ever has a population. The population should spread throughout the system on its own. I have to use & lose another colony ship to colonize each of the remaining planets in the system.

5. Can you explain the Trade section? How do I sell resources? Clicking sell does nothing.

6. The resources needed for to build things should be reduced.

7. The Database in the Research section does not work.

8. The Intelligence Section does not come up at all.

9. Can you explain what each of the resources are used for?

10. Each sector should say unexplored if none of my ships have ever been there.

11. Where are the Coalition Replicators & Charge Collectors?

12. Producing enough food is very burdensome. Make each system more efficient in food production or start with more than 1000 food.

13. Later on, some systems have a large surplus of food. It would be nice to be able to sell it on the open market for a profit.

14. I have had no visiting ships in 200 turns.

15. I have only encountered one minor in 200 turns. There should be more minor races around.

16. I built something at the barracks but I don't know what it is because the text is in German. Is it a regiment of troops? Why does it take 10 energy?

17. Systems should have a minimum population capacity of 10 million. I colonized a system with a maximum of 5 million. I'm not sure what I can really do with it.


18. A system was apathetic, with a morale of 95. I colonized a new system & the morale did not improve.

19. Sometimes when I hit end turn, a message in Germans comes up about Major races I have not met yet.

20. The New Colony announcement is in English & then again in German.

21. When I load resources on a transport & drop them off at another system, the transport is lost. The transport should survive the cargo run.

22. I don't understand the combat system. A scout disappeared with no explanation. Later, it said 1 of my destroyers won a battle. I don't know who or what this was with. Then the destroyer disappeared. An outpost was destroyed & I don't know what happened. Can you add a 2D combat system like the one in Birth of Federation? It may not be 3D, but it would be better than this. No combat system, really takes a lot of the fun out of the game. I want to be able to see my ships, choose their maneuvers, decide to retreat or hail. If you had a combat system, more people would play test & enjoy the game.

23. The Khaoron Empire is making a request, but I don't know what the request is. This may be a translation issue.

24. I had 17,000 Credits. I meet the Heyoun & they ask for a gift of 5000 Credits. This is too much. They should ask for 1000 Credits. When I did not give it to them, they declared war on me. This makes no sense.

25. There are no Ground Combat values listed or shown for each system.

Look in " your account" (It s easy)...find pic somwhere on net... do copy pic of adress and paste it in your account (or you can upload your own image)

First, did you downloaded the alpha3 (version 0.5), or the older alpha2? Because some of your issues sounds like they are from the older version.

1: You can, just type an other name into the field.

2: No, not possible. You can scroll the galaxyview with mousewheel or page-up, page-down buttons.

3: Yes you can! But there have to be only colonyships in the fleet.

4: If you don't select a planet to colonize, you will colonize all terraformed planets. But deselect the ship with a righklick in the mainview, not in the planetsview. I have to fix it later.

5: Just click on the sell button. At the top you see the name of the current system. If you clicked on the sellbutton, there sould be a short sound. If you look into the transferoverview, you see which resources are transfered next round. You don't get or sell the resources in the current round.

6: We have to balance all of the things.

7: Not implemented yet.

8: Not implemented yet.

9: Titan for most of the buildings and ships. Duranium for better buildings and better shiphulls. Deuterium for some energybuildings and strong torpedos for ships. Crystal for some researchbuildings and Iridium for the latest buildings and best shiphulls.

10: Okay.

11: Should be build in. Maybe you have to research them.

12: I don't think so.

13: No, you can't sell food. If you can, you got so much latinum that it is too easy to buy things.

14: Do you play alpha3?

15: You have to build new spaceyards and outposts. Sometime there are only less minors around yor homesystem.

16: It doesn't need 10 energy, that value is the power value of the troop. It says how strong your unit is. The name of the troop is in german, thats right. I'll fix it later. But atm the troops are hardcoded.

17: I don't think so. Sometimes there are systems with 0 population. Nobody forces you to colonize such a little system.

18: Can be, I don't no the rest of your empire.

19: Than there is an error in any of the *.data files. I think a racekey isn't translated into english correctly.

20: Perhaps a translation error.

21: That sounds like a bug, I have to check this.

22: At the moment you can't interact with your ships. Maybe later we'' implement a 2D system, so you can see your ships fighting.

23: Maybe, at the bottom of the screen, there should be a text with the request.

24: Why not?

25: I know, that isn't implemented yet.

Thanks for your feedback.

1. You should be able to name your save games with the current version.

5. When you colonize a system give the colonize order then immediately hit the next turn button ... make sure you don't select a planet or you'll only colonize that planet.

6. I'm working on DRAMATICALLY reducing the time & resources needed for buildings. When I feel that there is something worth releaseing I'll work with Sir P. and others to see what we can do. [Next week or so??]

11. The Coalition Replicators and Charge Collectors are in the current game. Just work your way to Energy 5 IIRC and you can build them.

12. I'm working on the food issues. I think your main issue is when you get a minor power they are often "starving". Try waiting until the minor has finished growing and you'll often get better minors. Homeworlds and Colonies usually work fine for me.

14. It's unusual that you haven't seen enemy empires for over 200 turns. It almost sounds like you've got an old version without any AI.

15. Hmm ... it sounds like you've had bad luck. Try a new game. FYI I normally have minors coming out of my ears when I play.

17. I'd sort of like to see planet populations in a range of 20-75 or so. FYI I've seen systems with max population of 0.8 which is a waste

21. I agree that transports should survive cargo runs ... I hope that's resolved later.

23. Better translations would be cool from other powers. I can noodle out what they are often for but English would be nice.

24. I feel that other major powers making "outlandish" demands is not so bad. If you said the Khaorons had done that I'd say that would be fine. It's a little more unusual for the Heyoun to say that ....

Yes, I did download the alpha3 (version 0.5) BotE 0.5 German Server Download & BotE 0.5 English Data zip. Here’s more feedback:

1. Are you able to make an Auto-Build feature? This would be able to be turned on/off & would build needed structures for a system (farms, replicators, reactors, etc.). This would allow players to concentrate on more important tasks & systems.

2. At one point, I could not select the colony fleet & I had to restart to get rid of that problem.

3. In some of my systems, I cannot build a Titan Mine or Duranium Mine even though Titan & Duranium are available in the system

4. I am not able to Train the crews of my starships.

5. There is no Intercept command for ships.

6. What does making a ship the Flagship do?

7. How do I form a Monopoly?

8. The Khaorons proposed a War Pact even though I had not met them yet & they do not show up in the Diplomatic screen.

9. Are there any other keyboard commands for the game? Sometimes it’s a lot of mouse use.

1: Yes, there would be an autobuild feature for your systems later. But you won' be able to say, which building have a higher priority. You only can decide autobuild on or off.

2: ?

3: Perhaps you have to scroll down the list.

4: You need an online building in the system the ship is, which has a shiptraining ability.

5: right

6: All other ships in combat get a lot of boni when the flagship is in this combat too.

7: You have to know more than a half of the majorraces. Then you can buy a monopol, so you get all the taxes for the resource.

8: fixed in current version. Download again...

9: in systemview: try the arrow keys, in empire informationview: try the arrowkeys and the delete button for a message, 'C' to open the chat, 'return' to set a building in the buildlist.

OK,
You asked for it.


I have been seriously playing the game (and I do mean seriously) and here is a somewhat organized list of every little note I scribbled down of things I think might be a problem, spelling issues, etc. etc.

I can help with the Englich spelling/grammar but I do not know if editing the .DAT files with a text editor will cause a problem. I will check it out.

Also, I am very good with Photoshop, so I can help with the Graphics.
(which is a request on a different post) although for the next few weeks I will be super busy, but after that I will have more time. Photoshop is much more time consuming that editing text files.

Please don't take ANY of these items as criticism in any way, the game is AMAZING. I just want to help make it even better.


Potential Game Play issues

1. When a system is selected, does not show planets on bottom if a system was not already selected prior to opening Systems list.
For example: If a ship is selected before opening the systems menu and then double clicking to open the production queue.

2. Save Game Should remember which Empire is human players and which are AI. (and perhaps a password for the race, like CIV 4 multiplayer) to prevent players from checking other races in saved games

3. Minor races, if planets terraformed, the population will start to grow (by design?) but not Colonized systems

4. Voice for computer is Coalition “Affirmativeâ€￾ for all races.

5. Beep for “Cannot buildâ€￾ should give a pop-up that says why you cannot build.

6. Trade routes cannot be changed (if a trade route is set up to a zero population planet, it is stuck there) Cannot see population of opposing Empires when only a Trade agreement is reached.

7. Khaoron Shipyard does not upgrade. (so system shows the Shipyard and the Spacedock)

8. Khaoron Scanner/Listening posts do not upgrade (creates a new structure in the buildings list)

9. Cannot invade systems with Transports.

10. Number of ships attacking a system does not change the casualties. 100 ships should do more damage than 10.
Table of number of Attacking ships with casualties:
#Ships Casualties #Ships Casualties
......62.....5.678 b.......13.....6.271 b
......62.....0.685 b.......13.....4.602 b
......63.....3.916 b.......13.....5.848 b
......73.....0.928 b.........8.....0.930 b
......73.....0.757 b.........9.....1.064 b
......74.....1.392 b.......15.....0.351 b
......74.....1.077 b.......16.....2.659 b
......75.....4.046 b.......16.....0.640 b
......75.....1.059 b.........3.....0.570 b
......75.....6.136 b.........4.....2.475 b
......75.....1.885 b.........8.....6.430 b
......75.....1.311 b.......10.....4.270 b

11. Cannot choose to build Starbase or Outpost (once Starbases are available), transports automatically build Starbase.

12. Khaoron Scout ship not available to build later in the game, and no other Khaoron ship has long range.

13. Khaoron background map makes it hard to see Khaoron owned space (Sector M9 for example)

14. Non-Aggression pact should eject ships from controlled space. ( My ships were trapped in Cartare space, unable to move after a treaty was signed ). Or a better and more realistic approach would be to only allow the ships to move in a direction towards their home.

15. Minor race systems sometimes have Shipyards but no Deritium in system.

16. Output from fixed buildings/devices (Wind Turbines, Advanced Replicators) seems to be affected by Morale bonus.



Potential Balance problem

1. Khaoron Deuterium production seems too high (not used much, and primitive mines are high) I very quickly had many systems with over 100,000 units


German to English

1. Top menu bar

2. Main Choose Race window

3. Khaoron Bribe Description to other race.

4. When attacking a system "Bombardierung des _____ systems verstummt dissdenten"

5. Save game window title "Speichern Unter"

6. Save Game Default file name "Unbenannt.sav"


Typos / Corrections

1. Titan - should be Titanium on Planet Resources, Production and Storage lists, build list, etc

2. "The [EmpireName] requests a request from us" where [EmpireName] is Rotharian, Omega Alliance, etc. Bad grammar.

3. Galaxy "Scan strenght" should be "Scan strength"

4. Khaoron -"Class 1 Matter Furnices" should be "furnaces"

5. Khaoron font - Quotation mark does not display

6. Shows "Outpost construction xx% complete" even though it is building a Starbase

7. Khaoron non-aggression offer “Even if the death…â€￾ should be “Even if death…â€￾

8. “Outpostconstruction of Khaorons is xx% completedâ€￾ Should be “Construction of Khaoron outpost is xx% Completedâ€￾

13. Rotharian - Declare War to [Empirename] – should be “Declare War on [Empirename]

14. Rotharian – Declare war statement… “The Preator has come to the decision along with the Rotharian Swarm Network to wipe your world out of the galaxy.. We Have War!â€￾ World should be Empire, or race, or something. And the overall phrasing is awkward.

15. Cartar “ A military cooperation is out of questionâ€￾ should be “… out of the questionâ€￾

16. Stellar Storage – Should be Interstellar Storage.

17. Rotharians – “We offerd the [EmpireName] a non agression treaty. (Should be offered and aggression)

18. Murnea system – Aqua Cells – Food Nonus 50% (should be Food Bonus)

19. Defence Pact (on Diplomatic Menu) Should be Defense



By design?

1. Khaoron Outposts/Starbases - Moveable and no Scanner

2. Planet maximum Deritium storage 100. Why?

3. Ground defense rating (viewable in BotF) not able to see now

4. Orbital Batteries missing




Would be cool

1. Double click on galaxy map, centers map on that sector.

2. Planets that are habitable, but have no population – show Type in yellow (or Yellow 100%) ie: M 100%
(to make it easier to identify which have been colonized)

3. Number of Ships lost should not include transports to Outposts, and Colony ships to planets. (maybe)
(although it is still nice to see on the overall itemized “lostâ€￾ listing)

4. Available resources list (in a table format, like the Systems list, sortable by column)

5. Galaxy map, habitated Minor Race system names in a different color.

6. Diplomatic page, left and right “increment by 1 stepâ€￾ Credits slider

7. Music on/off option

8. Galaxy map – Outpost and Starbase icons with the O and S under them (like in BotF)

9. Show the minimum Gift/Bribe amount that will be required to have any effect (like BotF)

10. Show ship “sizeâ€￾, so it is easily identifiable what can be built at which stations

11. Empire – System List – sort by column (if you have a lot of systems, and need to see what food is available, what the colonies are building, etc.) Like MoO-2

12. Ships / fleets - show turns to destination

13. Transport ship “transport MAXâ€￾ of a resource

14. Choose “Leaderâ€￾ of your Empire, and each leader has different play style and perhaps bonus trait.

15. Demand unconditional surrender of minor Races and Empires (they join your Empire) without having to exterminate every last person/system.

16. Food Storage- On Systems page- Color changes (like Moral) IE: <500=red, 500-1000=yellow, 1000+ green

17. Fleet Menu window – Show ships specific stats in bottom left <on mouse over> same as when ships are listed in the bottom window.

18. Aqindoan/Scytorians – Standing with one race directly affects the other (IE: One is a member of player’s Empire, the other race is “hatefulâ€￾.

19. Build list on Systems sorted better. Upgrades on top, then new production structures, then new resource structures, then unique buildings (Advanced Replicator, Wind Turbines, etc.) it seems like the list is random. Hard to find items sometimes. (might just be user error on my part)

20. Resources Tab on the bottom (between Production and Energy) above the System graphic instead of the current smaller button.


And again, I want to re-emphasize, that this is by no means any sort of criticism. And I should also point out that this is just one person's perspective after playing BotF forever. Other players might disagree with many of the items I listed above.

Thanks for the feedback man!!!! Don't worry about offending me or anyone else ... we just want a good game!!

FYI: I fixed the issue with the scanners. I would think the spacedock should logically upgrade so I'll fix that. Both of these updates should be released with the next build file.

As for the Dueterium I believe that I've gotten that taken care of already. I don't think its posted here but I could give you a link to the most recent build file if you want it. Just let me know.

Thanks for your great feedbackreport. I pasted it in the feedback part of our german forum too. That's what I want, thx

yes. it even qualifies for a round of jeopardy so I'll take "would be cool" 12:


Question: Isn't it already implemented in-game with the number on the bottom left of the destination sector?

For the alpha & beta testing phases [not the "RC" phases] I would recommend that we keep the ability to load an AI player's game to check out where they are.

Right now it's the only way that I can tell if the building files are helping or hurting the AI too much.

=========================================

The minor powers can terraform their own planets. That is a game feature. Once you own the planet though it's usually your job to handle terraforming yourself.

=========================================

As far as planet sizes / population / location / etc. I believe that everything is variable by design so you don't always know everything as soon as you see the planet name.

I would however like to see a "Canon" mode that is chooseable in gameplay. It would be nice for Earth to be technologically primitive [by comparison] but the "out of the box" relationship with a powerful Vulmar, Andromeda, etc. would be nice

==========================================

Some more things that I think may be "cool":

1. Implement a research agent of sorts. What it will do [if it's enabled] is to automatically distribute research between unlocked research fields so you will hit the next tech level as closely as possible. The agent should be able to reallocate percentages on a turn-by-turn basis until all of the unlocked research fields are at the same level.

Note: If you put the same number of points into Construction and Energy then Energy will hit the next tech level much more quickly than Construction will.

2. Implement some bare-bones Intel. I would at least like to know where I stand in raw fleet strength numbers. The lower my intel compared to other factions the wider the "possible range" should be reported ....

3. If you are building an Outpost / Starbase / etc. then you should be able to get some offensive && defensive capabilities out of the station even though it is not fully built. [Think partially built death star]

For example if you have a 90% complete outpost and a single scout comes by it should not be able to destroy the 90% complete outpost. I would think that the above 90% done outpost should have at least 30% of the shields and weapons online and 90% of the hull online.

Alamar,

A link to the most recent build file would be awesome.


Malvosin,


Very true.
But often times I will have fleets/ships flying from one side of the map to the other (from their build Base to the area of conflict). If there is more than one area of conflict, I have to look around for the little number in the bottom of the destination sector. Because I have purple dots all over the place so I cannot easily see where this particular ship/fleet is headed.

I just thought it would be cool if in the very bottom left window, where it shows all the info on the fleet/ship (including the destination sector) if it also showed turns to destination. A one-stop-shopping location for all your fleet information needs (so to speak)

okay, that should be possible.

anyway Alamar, how about using sharepoint as most recent build file storage?

so the link is/would be http://www.botf2.com/bote/Shared%20Documents/Files/Buildings.data

I was getting ready to PM you to make sure it was OK.

As far as I'm concerned I think that it's a good idea ...

This looks beautiful, but I had a couple of things to add that you might want to know about:

1) The wording for the Khaoron gift and demand offers seem to be inverted.
2) In the diplomacy screen, once I've encountered more races than will fit in the frame, the race names go down into the lower frame and eventually disappear with no way to scroll down.
3) The Khaorons seem to start with a homeworld at tech level 8. I don't know if this is by design or an oversight, but it seems kind of unfair.
4) Once a planet has been taken from another power--annihilated and recolonized, conquered, or a minor bribed away--the build list seems to keep going as if it were still under the old controller but show up as blank in the list with concurrent options for the new controlling player.

Those are things which I noticed that seem to be odd. If I had a choice, I'd love to see more ships for all the races--it'd be beautiful in an ultimate 3D combat version, but I know that could be extremely difficult. Anyway, all in all, Ich liebe Deutschland!

Also, I wanted to say that I like the leader idea mentioned, but I don't think the Civ model is the way to go since very few of the individuals we've seen in the movies/shows are actually empire leaders, especially on the side of the Coalition. I'd go more for the Star Wars: Empires at War model where you have specific hero units who can move around and provide bonuses where ever they happen to be (lower production cost, increased research, special unit construction, experience bonuses, increased combat performance, etc.) .

Just putting my two cents in. Keep up the good work.

The Khaorons shouldn't be starting with a Homeworld at tech level 8 UNLESS the buildings file is broken. [And guess who's responsible for the building file ]

Can you download the build file from the web link given a few posts above? Can you then also snag the most recent BOTE exe from this site [IIRC 0.51B Alpha]? Could you then start a Khaoron game to see if it is broken? If it is could you also check the Rotharians?

If it's broken with the latest updates I'll see if there is anything that I can do tonight to resolve it.

I tried your suggestions, but the Khaoron homeworld still seems to start at tech 8. All the other colonies need to grow normally, and the buildings which need to be unlocked (deuterium, matter furnaces, all that) grow normally, but the hunting grounds, foundries, titanium mines, and halls of research are all level 8. The Rotharians seem to be ok, but I noticed that Rotharius seems to be trying to build Coalition farms instead of organic factories.

I also noticed another weird error message in the diplomacy screen. Apparently, it can't load/find the Nacha'urr display picture. Now that I think about it, I think the same thing happened in an earlier game with the Vulmar.

I just checked my version and the Klingons seem to start off with the proper buildings at first glance.

Did you download the latest building file from:
Building File at BotE sharepoint

Did you download the "newest" BotE exe from:
BotE download page here

If you did all that then I guess we'll have to wait to see what Sir P. has to recommend but it sounds like you have some mismatched files somewhere .....

Hmmm...downloading from that specific building file link seems to have fixed both problems, but I actually downloaded the file from malvoisin's post and it didn't seem to fix the problem. Maybe I just picked the wrong link.

hehe that "bad" grammar isn't mine

anyway my download link was the same so you might have forgotten to overwrite your old file with it? well doesn't matter anymore since the thing is fixed..