I posted an update this evening. It contains mostly bugfixes, and it should be significantly more stable than the previous release .

I have tried the new version and it big improvement of the last version. The turn process is very smooth and fast even with larger galaxies. I do not get any of the problems with clicking to another screen from diplomatic one.
But there is a few problems where the research pop-ups and page are missing pics that were present in the last version. Also in the system screens there are a lot of underscores and also when their are upgrades to industry it says upgrade_format . string instead of the name of the upgrade. There are underscores in the ship orders as well.

I was having a lot of stability issues with the version I downloaded two days ago (27th Dec version I think), so I'm glad to hear about the bug fixes and whatnot. Particularly annoying was that the Make Proposal and Send buttons wouldn't light up (and thus I couldn't use them) in the Diplomatic screen, of course as well as the constant 50-70% CPU use on my 2.66ghz Core 2 Duo. Once the dl is done and I get a chance to give it a spin, I'll report back

HOAH!

UPDATED SUPREMACY RELEASE!

- Cant wait when Supremacy is fully released... thatll be a day long remembered in Star Trek Gaming History.

Interesting... I'll have to look into that one, thanks .

Falcon, I haven't noticed any problems with additional missing images in the research screen; there have been missing images for quite a long time but that is simply because those images haven't been made yet. It isn't because images have gone walkabout somewhere. We need to get people working on making those missing images...

The underscores problem may be partially down to me however. I had problems with previous releases of the editor that wouldn't accept the description edits that I made, leaving Supremacy unable to read those edits. Eventually the game only displayed things like "tech_desc_xxx" (Where x is the name of the building/tech/whatever). I thought that i'd cleared all those problems in the most recent updates, so either I missed some, or Mike has made further changes somewhere that are incompatible with my last updates.

I've included all of your previous edits Matress, though I'm not sure why some of the descriptions seem to be missing now.

Mike, where are the object descriptions stored again? I know i've asked you this in the past, but they're not in techobjectsdecriptions.xml and en-us.txt only contains the decriptions for the techs and not buildings. The decriptions have got to be *somewhere* because buildings like the Aquaculture centre haven't got any problems with their descriptions. It looks like the problem only affects the facilities and not the structures.

They're now stored in a database file--it's not human readable, you have to use the editor to access them. I did this because it makes it easier to add multi-language support. In fact, you can set new names and descriptions in different languages using the editor now (but only for tech objects as of yet). More of the game text will be moved to the database as time goes on.

Oh, so I'm going to have to manually re-enter the missing text then? Oh well, I'll get cracking on with that. Hopefully Dafedz has something useful I can put in or i'll make it up.

*Edit - Mike, i'm having trouble saving my changes in the editor again. If I close and reopen the structure or even the editor itself then all my changes have been deleted. It happens whether I click on the floppy disk icon or not.

Um, is there any way to use my savegame from the last release in this one? I just get a Connection Failed error, I've tried with two different savegames.

I doubt that it is possible, Fedor, because the files for this version are different to those when you were playing your game. If you're getting errors, that almost definitely means that an important file(s) have changed that makes it incompatible with the save file. You'll have to start a new game i'm afraid, or hope that someone has a copy of the old download.

Savegames will almost always be incompatible between releases, at least for a while. Even minor changes to the structure of the game data will prevent a new version from loading an older savegame. I'm afraid there's no way around that, sorry.

OK I figured as much, thanks for confirming. I have the old version myself, but it was just _too_ unstable (maybe 10 restarts of the game to get to turn 80).

So far the new version is a pleasant surprise. Stability is drastically improved. However, I still don't see why the game uses about 60% of my CPU when doing nothing and looking at the starmap? Other bugs include:

1) I have trouble selecting to add labour to farms etc by using the arrow on the right. It's good you can click on the bar itself, because otherwise I would have no way to do it. The arrow doesn't even light up in red.

2) After about 60 turns I again ran into problems with diplomacy. The Make Proposal and Send buttons stop lighting up and become unclickable.

3) At around turn 80 the game was getting to be very noticeably sluggish. MUCH better than the 10 or so turns it took in the last version, but still even Microprose's infamous memory leak wasn't near this bad :p

I think there's more, so once I spot the stuff I'll come back here and add it. As always, keep up the amazing work mstrobel!

1) I've encountered this problem myself. It seems to be a random glitch though. Reloading the game usually fixes it for me. Make sure you save your game first though.

2) Try going to the map then back to diplomacy. If it still doesn't work try reloading again. It obviously isn't a permanent bug or you wouldn't be able to make proposals at all!

3) Supremacy is such a massive game that slow downs are inevitable - but they aren't for the same reason as BOTF. In BOTF, the slow down occured because every time you change screens, each screen is being left in the memory instead of being flushed out properly. (So if you're on turn 100, all the screens that you looked at on turn 1, turn 2, turn 3, and so on are ALL still loaded into the memory) As you take more and more turns and view more and more screens, the available memory gets more and more clogged up until the slowdown becomes unbearable and you stop the game.

In Supremacy however, the physical amount of information that needs to be processed per turn is increasing exponentially, because you're building more buildings, colonising more systems, and building more ships. There is simply a lot more data than was contained in BOTF. Mike has said himself that he's still got a long way to go until the game is fully optimised, so there will be more performance improvements in future, don't worry.

...

We've realised that the editor in the current download doesn't actually work - you can make changes, but the editor simply won't save them for some odd reason. Until the problem can be tracked down, I won't be able to sort out the underscore issue. All the text that needs to be entered into the game is ready though; it's all in Dafedz's database, luckily enough. I've also noticed a problem with the Federation shipyard Mk 1 that i'll fix as soon as I can.

@Fedor: The CPU usage is likely from the audio engine and the planet/star animations. The animations don't have a set framerate, so they might use a good bit of CPU power if it's available. However, they're on a low priority thread, so they shouldn't actually be taking CPU time away from other applications--they'd only use your otherwise free CPU capacity. I'm not sure how much of an impact the music engine has--you can try running the game with the -NoMusic argument and see if that makes a difference. If it does, let me know and I'll see if I can improve its efficiency . At any rate, the amount of game data shouldn't have a noticable impact on UI responsiveness other than during turn processing.

I wasn't aware of the button issue, but I'll look into it. It's possible that the diplomacy issue is actually a side effect of the slowdown issue. As for the slowdown issue, it probably has something to do with the in-game animations--I have some theories, and I intend to investigate soon.

Thanks for your continued feedback .

mstrobel, I just wanted to confirm that what Matress said is the case for me as well - troubles with the buttons start once quite a few turns have been played (and again is the case that more turns are needed in the new version to run into the problem than the last version). A reload does fix it.

As for your comment Matress about how Supremacy is such a massive game and "In Supremacy however, the physical amount of information that needs to be processed per turn is increasing exponentially, because you're building more buildings, colonising more systems, and building more ships." yes I can understand that turn processing would slow down, and it did in BOTF too. I was specifically refering to the high cpu usage when seemingly doing nothing and just looking at the starmap screen. So I investigated what mstrobel said and he was spot on, it's the animations. Although I had Music set to 0%, the NoMusic switch helped about 4-7% across the board, on all screens. Considering I'm using builtin motherboard audio, this sort of usage level isn't unusually high I believe. However, the animations are almost definitely the major cause, here is an outline of my experience:

Without music, when the animated stars in starmap option is disabled:
Starmap, looking at a sector WITH a system - ~40% CPU
Starmap, looking at a empty sector - single digit, 4-7% CPU
Without music, when the animated stars are enabled:
Starmap, looking at a sector WITH a system - ~60% CPU
Starmap, looking at a empty sector - ~40% CPU
With music, that 4-7% can be added to all the numbers.

Planetary screen is always around 40% (w/o music) / ~45% (with music), I would guess the animation of the star and planets in the bottom is the main cpu cycle guzzler.

Diplomacy screen and Research screen are very similar [to each other] - about 35% w/o, 40%ish with.

I figured maybe some numbers would be useful to you, if not, then no problem. More subjectively, without animated stars and looking at an empty sector was a pleasant discovery. The planetary screen usage makes sense if we consider the animations to be the big cpu users. The Diplomacy and Research screen usage doesn't make much sense to me - there are no animations I can see, and I found that the numbers for those screens were surprisingly high.

Well that's all for now, I will report back if I spot anything else and keep checking back for the next version

Some things I noticed.

Certain racial pictures are in the zip but not properly linked in game. Pakled, Risians were the two I saw tonight.

Some systems have "Humans" as the population, Pakled for example. Shouldn't it be Pakleds?


Oh, thanks for the scroll bar in the build screen menu. =] Not sure if it's an addition but I swear it wasn't in the last one.

I can confirm that some minor races show Human as the population. I really should start writing down the things I notice heh.

Emwun Garand, the issues that you've mentioned are known by me - it's been like it a while actually, it isn't just this release that is affected. But as Mike has been performing a lot of updates lately - and forgetting to check the editor actually works - so I haven't been able to fix them. They're pretty simple issues to fix, it's just that I can't do it until the editor is actually working. You can make changes with the editor - it just doesn't save them for some odd reason. Once Mike has fixed it, there's quite a few updates that i'm going to implement:

• Fix missing/incorrect game images where possible
• Dehumanify the minor races
• Re-add the descriptions for the facilities (Fix the underscore problem)
• Link the images for facilities instead of specifying specific images - this will make it easier to mod those images in future
• Fix the shipyard issue (Federation technically has two Mk 2 shipyards but no Mk 1)
• Further building additions or changes based on Dafedz's database
• Minor image transparency updates

I'm sure there will be more, but those are all that I can think of at the moment. Actually...thinking about it I can make some of those changes without the editor. I'll see what I can do.

Those numbers are quite useful, Fedor, thanks . The relations graph in the diplomacy screen is updated every frame due to the 'repulsion' technique used to lay out the alien race pics, which probably accounts for the higher CPU usage there. Keep in mind that the animations are a low priority thread, so they're only using the CPU when it would otherwise be idle. So it's really not a performance killer, but I'm still looking into further optimization. Thanks again for the feedback .

Matress, are you doing all of the writing for the minor race descriptions, starship descriptions and random events? If you need any assistance I'd like to get involved in that aspect of the development as my actual graphical and coding skills are lacking.

I was going to offer to help with that too but it seems Matress said that there's a database that someone called Dafedz (I think) has, so it would seem it's mostly copy paste. However, I will be happy to spot any typos and grammatical errors (like I don't think the Klingon race description should have the word Cloaking capitalised, etc etc), but I figured that kind of polish doesn't need to be done until the game is at least fully playable (my transport sitting on top of Cardassia is getting antsy).

In other news, I don't know if this is a bug as such but when you select a Upgrade on the planetary screen, for example Universities from 1 to 2, the "Build Cost" field said 370. However, 370 is actually the cost of one of the Universities at the next level (2), not the build cost of the upgrade itself. Hope you see what I mean, not the easiest thing to explain. IMO, would be good if there was a build cost of the upgrade itself as well as the build cost of each of the buildings after the upgrade is done. I noticed this because it said Build Cost 370, time for the upgrade was one turn, although the planet's industry was only 208.

From what I understand, you're not at the stage where it's relevant to talk about planetary improvement cost/benefits, ship availability from research, etc right? Also things like new technology only being available when all tech types reach the next level, as opposed to certain upgrades only needing certain tech like energy alone.

http://www.trekmania.net/temp_files/botf2_home.htm that's the database and more. Dafedz recently updated it and gave it lot more pictures and improved descriptions. Feel free to find any typos and stuff there.

another thing if I may..: fedor, there is currently some sort of database in construction with Birth of the Empires. I know you probably don't know the game at all but I'm sure help building it could someday be useful to supremacy too, who knows, if or when such an original content comes in handy. Anyway, if you want to help a bit with creating a non-trek universe, now would be a perfect time .

Thanks for the link. With it in mind, I know now that the game content simply hasn't been updated from there in a while, for a vivid example:
DB -
COMPUTER 4 - Data Imaging
With this technology, computers can faithfully represent physical matter as data, and use solid matter as long-term data storage. In practise, this allows a material sample to be duplicated as easily as a data file.
And in-game -


Heh. So I guess I'll lay off any suggestions and gameplay tweaking since there's still no combat, AI, etc, it's just too early. I will be sure to keep checking back for new releases!

Actually, the most recent content update was made by myself - and it was only about four weeks ago! I haven't been able to do any updates since because the editor wasn't included in the previous update (Which was unstable anyway) and saving in the editor in the current version doesn't work for some reason. As most of the game content is stored in a non-human-readable database, the information can ONLY be edited in the editor, so until the editor is fixed, I can't make many content updates.

...I can make some updates, however, as not all the information is being stored in the database. The tech descriptions are luckily one of these data sets, so i'll fix the typo for you. It'll be part of my next round of content updates, which will also include all the updates that I mentioned above.

I've also noticed that several of the techobjects images have been doubled up - and mistake which is possibly my fault. I'm actually in the process of removing these doubled-up images as I type this.

Fedor, if you want something to do, then you could make a text file of any typos that you find and send it to me when the editor is fixed. I'll be able to fix them straight away then.

...



Did he? I didn't realise it had been updated in at least the last four months, as he's been away from his computer. And last time I checked, he sounded like he felt surplus to requirements now that his database is complete. I've not noticed any updates to the database and haven't seen him around here either - not even in the staffroom thread we made just for him!

he talked to me recently (yesterday and the day before) via pm. Tested our game a little bit and he told me:

Matress I will try if you like, but I think it's gonna be a seriously massive list (I think most research and major race descriptions could use work).

On another note, the database has some fairly poor pictures of minor races, primarily from TNG I think, look fairly distorted (like from a VHS or a poor quality reception tv rip, instead of dvd). Do you folks have alternatives or would you like me to go hunting through my dvdrips?

And finally, I wanted to ask about credits. Playing as the Federation, it seems there is no use for them except to give as tribute/bribes. Is this something that will be changed? From an economics perspective, in TNG/VOY/DS9 the Federation citizens got no pay, obviously there'd be no taxes either, so one would imagine that there would be no credits/latinum except possibly involved in trade with other races. So I was wondering what your thoughts on all this were? If it were me, I would either get rid of credits/latinum for the Federation (made possible because now tributes/bribes can be in the form of a number of resources), or I would find some uses for them (like rushing orders in BOTF - perhaps not as drastically as paying for it entirely but some sort of "Hire Alien Experts/Entrepreneurs" that gives a large % bonus to industry or some fixed amount of industry per certain amount of credits).

trekcore.com has a lot of dvd screens, might be worth a look there.

as far as credits/latinum is concerned, well, for once the series are all full of slippery notes about money and stuff, where captain janeway for example says something like "that did cost me a lot of money back then in starfleet academy" and picard is no better. So it is to be questioned if there is really no currency inside the federation. Some sort of currency has to be there I think. Plus, in the end it's just renaming. When buying things with the federation, they could buy that with other material things outside latinum (goods for example or spacecrafts or anything like that, remember the "cigar currency" after the first and second world war). So money and of course "credits" can be pretty widely layed out and interpreted IMHO.

The first few paragraphs are quite useful, even tells you which parts are absolute canon to the series.

http://www.geocities.com/willbswift/costchart2.html