I notice the same, but only time it hangs like that is when you set a fleet to explore mode.

okeey.. here are some things I noticed... don't know if somebody allready posted them... but here are they :

- when you want to unscrap a building (right mouse click) the menu bar comes up..
- If you’ve researched cruiser II… you can still built cruiser I… but once you’ve researched cruiser III you can’t build cruiser II anymore.. but you can still built cruiser
- Outposts don’t upgrade automatically.. don’t know if they are suppost to?
- About crew experience…. I happened to notice that the exp. Of my contruction ship I… was legendary 9007 from the moment I build it… (turn.. 157)… and the exp of my explorer I ship… was legenday 6798… but I have that ship since turn 40 …
- How do You create a new taskforce… cause I couldn’t make my 2 construction ships to be in the same group…
- I also happened to notice that there isn’t any construction ship II research possible at all…. Saw no picture or.. ‘image missing’ with the name.. construction ship II in de “research matrixâ€￾

Thanks .

D'oh.

So it actually continues to successfully process the turn after that long a wait? That's the first I've heard of that particular bug...

These are the things I need to know . There's probably a glitch in the exploration pathfinding algorithm.

A production facility or a building?

Some models are no longer buildable when they're replaced, but not all of them work that way. I'd have to check the BotF2 database to see if that's the way it's supposed to work with the cruiser or not. Either way, it's probably just a mistake in the game data and not the code.

Nope. Gotta scrap them and build new ones. That's part of the game design .

OK, that's probably a bug in how I calculate initial experience levels. I'll look into it, thanks.
Click the redeploy fleets button, and it should work just like in BotF, except that you have to double click a ship to move it (single-clicking a ship displays the stats in the ship pool panel).
Construction ships weren't in the original design, just something that I decided to implement on my own. I could only come up with one design in 5 minutes of googling, so I'll wait and add more later (once I'm sure they're going to stay in the game).

The problem happened on turn 63-65 then stopped and then started again around turns 68 and then I stopped playing lol

Anyways, I also did have about all my ships on explore at the time so it might be something with that?

Again, great start to what can easily be an awesome game!

It sounds like the exploration algorithm needs to be reworked (it was a first draft anyway). Probably best not to use the Explore order for now.

- when you want to unscrap a building (right mouse click) the menu bar comes up..
• it’s an production facility

- How do You create a new taskforce… cause I couldn’t make my 2 construction ships to be in the same group…
• OK it works now.. tnx


NEW ITEMS
- About the construction ship --> if you want to build an outpost 2 with 2 construction ships I it takes a hell of a lot of time... about 40 turns aproximately.... don't know if this is supposed to take thát long.. ?

- It is not yet possible to attack or subjugate a minor race.. I guess this is so because there not yet any form of diplomacy available!?

edit - Scrapping vessels? not yet possible!?
- And.. why the hell can my scout I cloak 8O

Firstly id just like to say (along with everyone else) well done and so far so good.

- A few things ive noticed and just reading back through the recent posts...the problem when it takes ages to turn and "process ship movement" is down to your ships being set to explore mode, and when they reach their exploration limit and try to explore systems outside of their range it hangs for a minute or so on "processing ship movements" so for now you either have to watch your ships or inhabit as many systems as possible to increase your range throughout the galaxy.

- Secondly im on turn 595 i have inhabited a few systems i just over half way through in research, one thing ive noticed is that with "Sol" the system has a max pop of is it 210 and i have found that i have to keep building plasma reactors to keep all the buildings operational. I currently have 18 structures and 5 that are not operational (see image) whereas other systems such as the Breen homeworld have a max pop of 400! I dont know whether you can upgrade the max pop of sol or whether its possible that when you upgrade your plasma reactor there's a bigger jump in output to compensate?

- Thirdly when you build the colony ship II the game crashes - - If i remember rightly the game turns up and "unhandled exception" and closes.
This also creates the problem that i cant inhabit anymore colonies lol

- I don't know if it is just me but could you explain the point of science stations? They look like a great i dont know whether you have a plan for them? or do they improve research points or something like that?, also could it be possible to build a science station and a outpost/starbase in 1 system, i currently have a random science station in a random system that i dont currently control becuase i have an outpost in all of my systems. Also i dont know if this is intention but starbases/outposts and science stations take absolutely ages to construct with the construction ship I.

- Is there any way to scrap ships? i have reached the point where im -54 credits.

I think thats it, i love playing the game, i cant wait until its finished
Keep up the great work!!


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Hi guys, glad to see people are finally giving Mike some great feedback!

slickshoes, the science stations are a new concept that we came up with while planning BOTF2. Research is going to be a bit different in BOTF2, and there will be new methods of performing research, as compared to BOTF.

The main way of doing research will still be through building labs and special research buildings. However, EVERY map object in the game will now be scannable - Stars, Nebulas, Wormholes, EVERYTHING. When you scan something, you will gain research points from doing so, but this bonus is one-time. Once you've scanned it with a ship, you won't get any more research from doing it again.

Scanning is a slow process though. It won't be automatic such as simply entering a system once and that's it. It'll take several turns, depending on factors that i'll explain in a minute. Certain objects - such as Wormholes - can ONLY be found by scanning a system. A ship simply travelling through that system without scanning the system will not find the Wormhole! Scan system/sector will (Eventually) be an option that you can tell your ships to perform.

Pretty much all ships in the game have new stats to allow for this change - it's not just Phaser damage, Phaser number, Photon damage, Photon number, Shields and Hull. Ships have new stats such as Science ability, Number of crew, and Sensors. (Amongst others, but these three are just the ones that are relevant to scanning)

The amount of research points you gain depends on a number of factors - the higher your tech level is, the better your scanners will be, so you'll gain a high number of points. However, the higher level techs (Obviously) require a lot more research, so the relative bonus that you get from waiting until this time will be very low.

Some ships will obviously be better suited to research as well - Surveyors will be equipped with far superior scanners than battleships, for instance.

Other factors come into play as well though, such as the number of crew and the % of crew that are dedicated to research. You could have a low-crew ship with many dedicated researchers producing a lot of research, but that amount could be matched by a high-crew ship with a low % of researchers! 8O

Each object in the game has a set amount of scanning that needs to be performed before you get the science points, so as your technology advances, your scanners will improve allowing this to be done faster.

Once all this is taken into account, the general formula of research points is like this:

(Crew x Number of Science Officers) x Crew Experience x Scan Strength


Here are some examples for you, as taken from Dafedz's Database:









So that's how research has been improved for BOTF2. None of this has yet been implemented, and some changes may still be made before the system is added in. You're probably wondering how Science stations fit into this though?

Science stations will be much better at performing research, as they are stationary structures that can monitor an object for a long period of time and detect any changes or patterns that occur within that object. Ships do not have this luxury as they have missions and require supplies. This extended duration ability of Science stations mean that instead of giving a one-time research bonus, they will give you a constant (But small) research bonus!

This bonus will vary depending on the object they are built around - stations built near extremely rare and mysterious objects will give much larger bonuses than stations built in a system!

Science stations will be roughly equivalent in capabilities to an outpost of the same tech, but won't have the same kind of offensive firepower., They will therefore need protection of some kind against enemy attacks. They will also be expensive to maintain, and will be at risk from enemy spies and saboteurs. The research edge that these structures give you could be the difference between galactic domination...and slavery however. They will be very useful structures - once properly implemented, of course.

Here's part of Dafedz's shiplist for you to look at. It is by no means definitive, and will likely undergo changes in the future, but it'll give you an idea of what sort of stats some of the ships will have. The full list can be found on Dafedz's Database, Here.

I hope each game is moving towards dedicated planets type play rather then a jack of all trades, makes the galactic map more interesting. If you have an area heavy in science bonus resources or nebulae etc then no doubt you have systems which focus on research, which means you have to protect them heavily and they become vital areas in a time of war.

Makes for an interesting game

Regards Wolfe

Well as I've mentioned in other threads, there will be two new types of Planet in the game - Demon and Rogue planets.

• Demon planets are rich in raw materials and Deuterium - but are uber rare and dangerous places that lower the growth rate of other planets in the system.
  
• Rogue planets are rare planets that can be found in Nebulae. They will make good places to launch surprise attacks against enemies, but will suffer from low populations and terrible growth rates.

There will also be new structures and bonuses, making the game more varied. Obviously these will be down to the individual programmers to decide on, but Dafedz's Database lists many possible structures and bonuses, for example, Medical Centers and Population Health bonuses. I believe the minor race structures and bonuses are out of date in the minor races section of the database, however. Dafedz's computer has suffered from a major crash and is unlikely to be repairable.

The Database
Structures List

@Matress, there are two lists, one you mentioned and this one:

http://www.trekmania.net/temp_files/min ... akdown.htm

(They have some obvious differences)

is there a complete date for the full game or a rough estimate?

The truth is we have more data then we can implement

hehe, yep. since we are in no company with timeline and feature catalogs here nobody knows for sure 1) when and 2) with which final features the game will be finished.

I mean you can calculate a date sure by yourself when scouring through the information here which tells you that mstrobel roughly began one and a half years ago and then compare what's already implemented with regard to botf. a different thing is when additional programmers swoop in. that can increase impulse speed dramatically. so, just stay tuned here and watch the progress. it'll be worthwhile..

Has it really only been a year or so? I guess I started the project around June 2006, but it seems like it's been longer than that. I suppose I've made a respectable amount of progress in that time, especially considering that there were two periods of 2-3 months each when I had to shelve the game and focus on other things.

It's a long and slow process to be sure. I'm the sole developer the vast majority of the time, and this is strictly a side project that I work on in my free time. So the development time depends on how much free time I have, and how willing I am to spend that time working on the game. The latter is heavily influenced by the perceived level of community interest.

These are the things I need to know . There's probably a glitch in the exploration pathfinding algorithm. [quote]

oh btw Mike there is a problem when you set your fleets to explor mode :P

Yeah I know I have been bad about shairing the bugs, but I normally like to give you a laundry list of things to do

That's a long-existing usability snag that I haven't gotten around to fixing. You can counter the scrap orders on your production facilities by doing either a ctrl+click or shift+click (I can't remember which, but either might work).

*shrug* space stations are large, but I agree that the build times are a bit extreme. Virtually no balancing has been done in the game yet, and production costs and build time need a *lot* scrutiny.

Correct. Although system assaults/invasions don't depend on diplomacy, they are rather interwoven, so I've chosen to forego implementing the former until the latter has been at least partially implemented.

Correct again. There's no particular reason that it hasn't been implemented yet--it just sort of fell through the cracks.

Because I need at least one ship with cloaking abilities to test if cloaking actually works in the game, and until the tech trees for the other empires get fleshed out, I just picked a Federation ship. The Federation won't have cloaking tech in the final game though, and it's easy enough to change using the bundled editor.

:)

I guess I didn't really test the Explore order much beyond just letting it run for a couple dozen turns and observing that it performed acceptably for a "first draft" implementation. My new AI guy had already pointed out a couple issues with the algorithm, and it's been marked for a rewrite.

The game needs some serious balancing and tweaking with regards to resource production, build time, and various costs (including energy maintenance cost). I imagine the buildings will either need to have their energy costs lowered, or the power plants will need greater output. The Sol system has the lowest starting population of any empire--it's one of the negatives of playing as the Federation. The max population isn't defined explicitly, but rather it's calculated based on the number and size of the planets in the system, and adjusted based on the habitability of those worlds relative to a race's environmental preferences. Currently, only the planet configurations of the major empires' home systems are predefined--all of the other systems in the galaxy (including minor race systems) are randomly generated. The only consideration that the galaxy generator makes when creating minor race home systems is to make sure that at least one ideal planet exists in the system for that race.

hmm, ok, I'll look into it.

Again, the construction times need some scrutiny. I think Matress summed up the point of research stations nicely.

Not yet, I kinda overlooked that one .

Thanks . If you like playing the game an want to help out, you could try experimenting by changing some of the production and energy costs around to make the game more playable. Right now resources are a bit scarce, and as you've noticed, maintenance costs are a bitch. Everything can be tweaked with the editor, just make sure to use the Save command before closing it . Also, any changes you make in the editor (with the exception of names and descriptions) will not be reflected in your saved games--you'll have to start new ones.

Is there any way to alter or change the population values of different types of planets.

Yeah, open Resources\Tables\UniverseTables.txt in MS Excel and edit the values in the PlanetMaxPop and PlanetGrowthRate tables. You can do it in Notepad if you're careful not to screw with the formatting.

Hey Mike, I've tried Suupremacy on a friends computer. The game worked fine until about turn 60, when I got an unhandled exception error message:

Hey guys. just a quick note, love the work. not had a single prob with it yet. Cant wait for the next release. This may have been spoken about not sure but would the borg be a even that just occurs or would then be like a major race with a homeworld. Cus that would be great, being able to launch a invasion on the borg homeworlds. Also would the major and/or minor races also be able to collionise other worlds just to put a new twist on the game.

Even though nothign is in stone as it is up to the developers, previous discussions have lent towards slowly incrementing the power of the Borg throughout the game.

I.E first you make contact with a smaller drone type scout, and later on comes a bigger ship such as a sphere and then finally the brog really begin to kick in by sending larger Cubes. They should be able to conquer worlds, i can't remember about colonisation but i see why not, of course earlier on it should be easier to handle them and stop them as they are weaker then normal.

The minor races are varied form staionary home worlds to more advanced ones which can colonise new systems, of which there are also differant levels of 'empire size' they can grow to.

There is a webpage, http://www.trekmania.net/temp_files/botf2_home.htm which houses some of the ideas mentioned but remember discretion lies with the developers and i'am not sure how much this holds towards the German project BOTE.

I'am sure MOE or someone else will have a better answer for you.

Regards Wolfe

we haven't got it stoned yet too but I was thinking of linking the number of arriving borg vessels to the current main tech level of all major races so no game-play-disrupting super- or sub-development of any kind can occur and lead to the borg be unstoppable or easy-to-fend-off.

as a major they can always occur if someone mods them in by replacing another major.

If one of the descriptions (usually in the second section) cites "The communication object, System.ServiceModel.Channels.ServiceChannel, cannot be used for communication because it is in the Faulted state," then it's a generic error message that unfortunately doesn't tell me anything. At this point I'm not sure if it's a random connectivity issue or if it's caused by some other error on the server side.

no that fine just wanted to ask big fan of BORF and alway wanted second one to come out.

Anyone know of a way of installing .Net without having to install SP2?

Regards Wolfe

I think it requires SP2... though it comes with Vista.

Baah Typical, even though i despise SP2, it isn't helped by the fact that after installing it, it somehow magically screws with my optical mouse and makes it non-functional .

More research is needed

Regards Wolfe

I posted the entire error report Mike. Sorry it doesn't help you, just thought you'd want to know. As I said, it was a friends computer, so I don't know precisely if there were any background programs that could interfere with it. I still don't understand why the game needs a sever for a single player game though.

...

cdrwolfe, have you checked whether there are any updated drivers etc available for your mouse? You could also try getting in contact with the company that made your mouse. They may have a specific update or workaround that you need.

I'm personally a fan of SP2 - why say no to better security? God knows Windows needs it. Ok, it does cause problems with stuff like older games, (BOTF...) but these issues can be solved. I'm sure there's a way for you to be able to use SP2 and your mouse at the same time.

...

lautherous, i'm personally writing the random events - although there is NO guarantee that ANY of my work will actually be used in the final game(s).

Here's what I've written for the Borg random event though:


The Borg (They assimilate systems, initially invading with small scout ships. If you destroy their vessels, the Borg will return with gradually stronger ships or in greater numbers. The only way to completely destroy them is to wipe out every last one of their systems AND ships. If ANY Borg ships are left, they could launch another invasion at any time. When the Borg appear, you will gain a new option in Diplomacy to set up an Anti-Borg Alliance with the other powers. The chances of this random event occurring increases the longer a game is played, and/or the higher the tech level of the most powerful Empire is. The Borg will always attack the strongest race first, even if the strongest race is an AI Empire. Once the most powerful Empire is assimilated, the Borg will then move onto the second most powerful Empire, then the third, and so on until the game ends. They will be a much bigger threat than they ever were in BOTF)

Event Messages
It seems that we have come to a dark time in our great Federation. At 0800 hours this morning, a fleet in sector _____ engaged a species calling itself the "Borg". This species is not interested in money, politics, or diplomacy. Their only objective is the assimilation of all life, and the destruction of our culture. They seek both our worlds and our people, and will stop at nothing to obtain them. Diplomacy is impossible; they see it as "irrelevant". The time for peace is over. We must combat this grave threat with everything that we have for our very survival. For the first time in its history, our great Federation faces the threat of an enemy that may be unbeatable. If Starfleet fails, there is no hope of survival. It will be the end of peace, the end of the dream that is the Federation.

Like Kahless fought the tyrant Molor, we are now faced with fighting a great evil for our own survival; this time, it is for the survival of our very race. Our Battlecruisers in sector _____ have engaged a powerful new enemy called the Borg. The fleet was decimated; our warriors died in glorious battle...but they died in vain. We have now lost contact with the system the fleet was defending. These Borg care not for honor or glory, only for the taking of our bodies and our Empire. Sharpen your bat'leths, charge the Disruptors. There is battle to be fought. Go in honor, and may you and your house find eternal glory in the great halls of Sto'Vo'Kor!

We have always hid in the shadows, content to plot against our enemies, ready for when they trip, to swoop in and conquer. We must now emerge from the shadows to combat a grave new threat, however. Our Navy in sector _____ has encountered the "Borg", a cybernetic species whose only wants are the assimilation of our people and the death of our great Star Empire. We must bind together, and show them the true power of Romulus. Charge the Disruptors, arm the Plasma Torpedoes and disengage the Cloaking devices. We will show the Galaxy what it means to defy Romulus.

As people of great knowledge and power, we have much to be desired by other species. When these species plan to disrupt our way of life, we must confront and exterminate them. The Navy has engaged a species known as the "Borg" in sector _____. They thrive on death and destruction. We must not let them do that to us. We will not let them do that to us. We have always persevered, and so shall we now. We will fight with our last breath to protect Cardassia.

Some have spoken of the great evils that the Founders must fight. Now, we have come to that great battle. Our battleships have engaged a species calling itself the "Borg" in sector _____. This race has only the urge to destroy and conquer, and refer to our Gods as "irrelevant". We must teach these heathens the wrath of our mighty Dominion. With the blessing of the Founders, nothing shall stand in our way!