Hope I'm in the right place

I just started playing this game a couple days ago and here are my observations.

BTW thought I made a post about this but the post seemed to have poofed? anyways on to the bugs I noticed.

A. Saving games doesn't work.
I tried to save and well the file save worked. I left the game did my own thing and came back later. Loaded it and planned my moves for that turn, and.. that was when the game kind of hung between turns.

B. unable to scrap obsolete ships.
Even when I made the surplus Depot it did nothing. for that matter I could not upgrade ships either.

C. Raw materials could only be gathered from sol and colonies

I could not harvest from Betazed for instance to save my life

Hope these things help. also if I may ask when is the net update?

Hi Mike . Still lovin' the game . I hope you don't mind my asking ? can you give me an idea when you're next update is due? I ask because i have some time off coming up , and i'd like it to coincide it with you're next update if poss'. I'll be "house bound" for 2-3 months! and i cann;t think of anything i'd rather do than play(sorry TEST )Supremacy .BTW in my last post i asked about the possibility of having a minor race included as a member of you're chosen empire when starting at the highest tech level,what do you think ? would it work or would it affect game balance? cheers Mike

Hey guys, glad you're liking the game! Welcome to the forums as well, akashicrei!

Mike has unfortunately said that there won't be any updates for a while, other than hopefully an update to fix the game editor. (Which we're still waiting for, Mike. Hint hint )

This is because he is working on the game AI, which is arguably the most important - but complicated - parts of the entire programming process. Once this work is complete, you will be able to play the game 'properly' - the other races will build ships and expand as in BOTF.

Mike recently completed moving house as well, which is why there hasn't been any updates for over a month. (Compared to the sometimes bi-weekly updates during December) There is no way of knowing how long it will take for him to complete the AI, but it could be anything from tomorrow to six months. I'm sure if it takes six months to do he will post an update on his progress or maybe even release an incremental update, even if this is just as a test to ensure the code is stable in the wild.

Anyways, if Mike releases the fix for the editor, I will be working on the game content to iron out a number of bugs that people have noted over the last month or so, so I will at least be posting that for people to download.

Sorry I can't offer any better news for you guys, but keep playing the game and let us know if you encounter any bugs or notice any mistakes - no matter how small they are. And you never know, Mike might release an update much sooner than any of us are expecting, so watch this space.

Sorry guys, but the next update is going to be a ways down the road. I've been completely swamped with work lately, and I haven't even had the chance to touch the Supremacy code since late January . Hopefully things will lighten up a bit near the end of the month.

We feel your pain. I have only just now gotten my PCs back in shape to work on models again. We will be here when you get back to it.

That's good to know, Kenneth . Development will resume once I have some free time again .

Ok Mike . Take all the time you need. We'll all still be here ! I think we all realise you have a life to get on with as well as Supremacy. Get back to the good work when you can ,we will not go away .Cheers take -care pal.

Wow, it's been a while since I've last checked(lurking that is) on the progress of this game. It looks good so far. Since I've tried it out I felt I should at least comment on it.

I really like that ships can explore past their max range although it sucks when you don't pay attention and end up stranding them.

I haven't read the whole thread, so I don't know if this was mentioned or not, but in the summary I was thinking it would be nice if the messages were color coded. For example red for empty building and ship queues. Maybe green for buildings completed. Blue for diplomatic messages etc. etc. etc. So that at a glance you have a better idea what is happening. Right now I find it hard on the eyes just to see which planets are reporting empty queues.
Maybe even have some messages reporting which planets have an unused labor pool.

Also as mentioned a few pages before a list of all planets and what they are building(or not)etc. just like in BOTF.

Maybe a list to show all available ships and what their mission is.(sitting idle or moving to a location etc) or push a key to toggle between ships would be nice. Or as I saw mentioned earlier, bigger icons when zoomed out. Basically something to make it easier to see where and what ships are doing.

Although not a big deal but make it possible to scroll the map by moving the pointer to the edges of the screen when zoomed in. If not the arrow keys will suffice.

I also am getting an instance of Supremacyclient running after I quit the game and if I hit retire in the menu the game hangs.

That was a longer post than I intended, but there you have it. If I have any other bugs, observations, suggestions I will post again.

Colour-coded messages might be a nice idea, although it could make the game look a little...garish if we used too much colour. Some people might even feel it is an information overload.

One idea that I like from a game called Pharaoh (And its expansion pack, Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile) is that you can actually choose which alert messages actually get displayed. So for instance, you could turn off messages about high unemployment levels or Nile flood event messages. If we used it in Supremacy, you could perhaps turn off the messages for system that aren't building anything, and so on.

A system like this might be useful, and would allow players to further customise the game to how they like. The options also carried across games, so those that don't like micromanagement so much only have to set it up the one time, then they wouldn't have to worry about it ever again. What do people think? Is this in the realms of possibility, Mike?

I think Wraithone's idea on colour coded alerts is a good un.It can be alittle hard on the eyes,at times,when scanning a long summsry list.MOE -you're point about it being garish is very true,perhaps just one or two words in colour would look better i.e.Empty - Starvation-Diplomatic Messages ..... you get the drift.Anyways lets wait and see eh?Cheers.

Or change the background color, framing, annoying icon....

Got supremacy latest, was nice but i had ati controls set to highest quality and supremacy interface lagged alot i.e took ages after a right click to get the menu thingy up) and main menu (galaxy creation menu) didnt work proper as in the pop up bits went behind the buttons etc) stuff i turned it back to balanced so adaptive antiantilising, AA, AF were off instead of on, and vsync to off and was fine after.

you sure you all got hardware support enabled? My Radeon 9200 drivers (the original ati ones) sucked and only provided software mode which made even the planet rotations lag considerably. Switching to omega drivers, the game ran fine from that time on.

What you could do is an 'alert' system like with Federation starships.

So maybe messages in red are high-priority, such as someone declaring war on you or starvation in a system. Yellow messages could be medium priority, such as non-war diplomatic traffic and non-critical intelligence reports, and everything else is green.

It's nice to see others like my idea and have expanded on it. True after I posted I did think a little on it and as MOE said it probably would look garish. But, as Moe said, putting in filters to turn on and off which messages you want to see, would work a lot better and you probably wouldn't need to use colors, or combine it with what Darth Windu said about Red for critical etc. That would minimize the colors. Possibly allow the user to change what colors they want for each priority, to what suits them.

Hi,
Just registered on the forum since I've been wanting a sequel to BotF for years and years now (still play the original ... saps many hours of my life away still).
Anyway, I downloaded the latest supremacy build and have been mucking around with it a bit (100 turns or so) and here's the feedback I've got for you.

Firstly, the pull-down list of your worlds in the system view, shouldn't it be alphebetised for easier navigation?
Secondly, happened a couple times now, the game can get stuck sometimes when processing turn ... mouse still responds etc, but the turn doesn't process and the program ends up using an entire CPU core.

As for the text colouring in summary to indicate the severity of the message ... you could implement it without making it too garish on the eyes by just using different shades of the same font colour. Maybe brighter for the more urgent messages and duller for the less urgent.

I have to say though, you have made it *very* pretty compared to the original (not that that's a bad thing ). I'd love to help out in some way ... but the last time I attempted any programming was with Basic, and my 3D skills are considerably lacking. I'm quite good with writing (both fiction and non-fiction) if you need any help on that side of things?

Welcome and we are glad for your input. Just testing out the game's balance can help. Others here may be able to give you more specific suggestion regarding writing. I guess we could use a manual at some point?

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1752

Hey CoretTrobane, welcome to the forums!

A manul will definitely be a must for a game as huge as Supremacy, but I don't think that it's something we should think about just yet; I started to help BotE by translating their own manual (Pre-detrekking), but by the time i'd gotten to grips with the translation my version was completely out of date due to game updates. If we start thinking about a manaul, it should be left until the features and the interface are all but complete to ensure we don't have to go through the manual every five seconds to update it.

...If you like writing though, you could always have a go at the random events...

lol na, the randoms are my babies. MINE I tell you!

...You're allowed to look at them though.

Random Event List

Personalised Random Event Messages

It's taken me two years to write the random events so far, although I haven't actually updated them during the last year because i've been too busy to give them the attention they deserve. I might start doing them again now though coz i'm on my easter holidays.

The random event messages are personalised for each of the Empires - a nice improvement over BOTF1 I think. HOWEVER, it is NOT intended that all 115 events will be in the game - it may even turn out that Mike (Aka MStrobel, the developer of Supremacy) will decide to come up with his own. I made them simply to serve as potential ideas for Supremacy and BotE, and decided that it would be best to think of as many potential random events as possible top make life easier for Mike and SirPustekuchen (The developer of BotE). I then started to write event messages for fun, and it eventually became the gigantic list that you see in my second link. I would be very happy to hear any input you have on the randoms.

Again, welcome to the site, and thanks for any feedback you may give.

Well, I've come up with some more random events for you to mess around with They're mostly taken and adapted from the Dilemma cards from the ST:TNG trading card game.

Where crew experience is used, the scale is that of the original BotF (green - regular - veteran - elite - legendary).

X = 0-9
XX = 10-99
XXX = 100-999


Birth of Junior
= Alien space creature, newly born, assumes ship to be it's mother and feeds off its energy due to death of mother.
- Ship range and speed each reduced by 1 for X turns or until ship reaches friendly planet/outpost.

Conundrum
= To be encountered in a planetary system with at least two habital planets. Ship personnel are given amnesia by Satarrans, who then attempt to trick crew into attacking Lysian ships and a Lysian command station.
- Unless crew experience is Elite or higher, you lose control of affected ship for X turns. Ship begins random travels and will attack any encountered vessels.

Cosmic String Fragment
= A long space object as thin as a proton but with the gravitational attraction of a hundred stars.
- Ship is pulled in and destroyed unless crew experience is Regular or above.

Firestorm
= To occur in a planetary system. Natural freak-phenomenom.
- X percent of population is killed.

Gravitic Mine
= Ancient space mine from a long gone culture ... nuff said.
- Ship hull damage incurred.

Iconian Computer Weapon
= To be encountered in an uninhabited planetary system. Weapon causes destruction of ship unless the crew is wise enough not to annoy it.
- Ship destroyed unless crew experience Veteran or higher.

Menthar Booby Trap
= Relic from ancient Menthar-Promellian war. Aceton assimilators trap passing ships, drain power, then emit deadly radiation.
- Ship speed and range reduced by 1 and 2 respectively for X turns. Hull damage incurred for X turns.

Microbiotic Colony
= Rare subatomic spaceborne life form that can cause severe damage to a starship's hull.
- Ship hull damage incurred for X turns.

Nanites
= Originally, submicroscopic robots used for medical therapy. Now, self replicating sentient life-forms.
- Ship hull damage incurred for X turns.

Nitrium Metal Parasites
= Microscopic life forms that normally live in asteroids but can infest and damage ships by ingesting nitrium.
- Ship hull damage incurred every turn for X Turns

Null Space
= A rare, invisible pocket of space caused by turbulence during star formation.
- Ship hull damage incurred unless crew experience Veteran or higher.

Rascals
= Needs a new description. Original Description: Passing through a molecular reversion field in a shuttle, Guinan, Ro Laren, Keiko O'Brien and Jean-Luc Picard reverted to children's bodies but retained adult knowledge.
- Crew exprerience reduced to Green for XX turns. Experience gained during this period is doubled upon end of effect.

Rebel Encounter
= To occur in a planetary system. Belligerent rebels can often hide out on remote worlds, waiting for a time to strike against their perceived enemies.
- Ship hull damage incurred. Crew gain XXX experience.

Quantum Singularity Lifeforms (Romulans Only)
= To be encountered in a sector containing a black-hole. Sentient dimensional beings whose young incubate in black-holes. When nesting in a Romulan ship's artificial singularity engine, a frozen-time effect occurs.
- Ship becomes unable to move until it is towed to a Romulan/Affiliated world/outpost. Event less likely to occur with greater crew experience. Maximum 20% chance of occurrence.

REM Fatigue Hallucinations
= A crew can go insane from lack of REM sleep (caused by a virus).
- Ship destroyed in 3 turns unless crew experience is veteran or above, or ship returns to friendly/affiliated world/outpost.

Rogue Borg
= Rogue borg conduct a brief but deadly raid on one of your planetary systems.
- System loses XX percent of it's original population, and no resources are received from that world for this turn.

Tarellian Plague Ship
= Ship containing the survivors of a Tarellia war plague. Infected from biological weapons, they are now refused entry everywhere.
- Ship destroyed unless crew experience Veteran or higher.

The Gatherers
= Nomadic marauders and thievs from Acamar III. "We Gatherers value our freedom. We do what we want and we answer to no creature."
- Unless crew experience Veteran or greater, ship is commandeered by rebels and turns rogue, attacking any vessels or stations it comes across. Will run from combat when heavily outnumbered. If crew experience is Veteran or higher, XXX experience is gained.

Two Dimensional Creatures
= Perfectly flat spaceborne creatures from a two dimensional space continuum.
- Ship unable to move for X turns unless crew experience is Veteran or higher.

Enjoy ^^

I installed Vista (32bit) service pack 1 this morning, so I've got some more feedback for you.

The problem I mentioned before with the game getting stuck on the first couple stages of "processing turn" is still present, but will unstick itself given a couple of minutes and alt-tabs. While it's stuck though, you can still right click on the map and switch window (though you can't interract).

Another thing I've noticed, before SP1 when I quit game about half the time the process wouldn't actually end and I'd have to open task manager to kill it. After SP1 was installed, I have to do this every time I exit.

First: There are some good ideas there.

Second: I have not had those problems after converting to Vista for the game PC.
(whatever that means)

@CoretTrobane some very good randoms there, me like

@CoretTrobane: I'm a bit disturbed that you're having that kind of performance problem during turn processing. I thought I had eliminated those issues. I'll look into the issue once I have free time.

Hi there, i am brand new to the forums but have just downloaded and started playing. Thought i should report that i am having the same "hang" between turns that appears to be always at "Performing pre-turn operations".

Another issue i have noticed is some tooltips. In the research screen, i select a research item, for example Bionics, and in the bottom half there is a description accompanied by a number of boxes containing structures, ships etc that the research is needed for. When i started playing, upon mouse over a tooltip would appear with the name of the item. Those tooltips now no longer have any text in them although they do appear, almost like [] instead of what was [Cruiser III] etc.

Other than these two tiny, tiny issues, i have to say how impressed i am with the work so far. The visuals are sumptuous and the interface is fluid and responsive. As a long-term BotF fan i am really pleased to see this work progressing. I'm sure i am one of many who play the original from time to time and think "if only they had done this with the interface, or maybe added this in, and wouldn't it be great if you could do this with your ships" etc etc, and so far it looks like my dreams are being made a reality.

Many, many thanks to mstrobel for giving us this glimpse of what BotF really should have been, and hopefully, will be.

@mstrobel
I've no doubt you fixed it in the past, and before this morning things seemed to be going along smoothly (happened once out of about 80 turns). However, as soon as I installed Service Pack 1 onto my vista the problem became much more apparent. Basically, I reckon the new service pack probably changed something relating to the .net (complete guess, but makes sense) which has had this impact.

Over the next couple days i'm going to try testing it out on two of my other machines and see if the problem exists there as well (using the same save game to test with on each) and see whether it's just this vista machine causing problems.

For the record, the three machines I'll be trying it on are:
1) Vista SP1 - Athlon 6000+ - 2gig DDR2 800MHz RAM - 8800GTS 320mb graphics card
2) XP SP2 - AthlonXP 2700+ - 1gig DDR 333MHz RAM - Geforce 2 GTS graphics card
3) XP SP2 - Pentium 3 933 - 512mb RAM - Some intel integrated one.

I doubt it will run at all on the last machine in that list, but i'll give it a try anyway.

Testing on multiple machines would be greatly appreciated, thanks .

Ok, just finished doing some quick testing on the following machine, feedback on it is below.

Laptop - Windows XP w/ Service Pack 2
Intel Pentium III 866MHz
384mb RAM
Ati Radeon Mobility graphics chipset (the first one)
I believe the hard drive to be a 4200rpm one (could have some bearing on load times)

Feedback:
1) Don't run the game in windows 2000 compatibility mode - takes 6 times longer to load and can't load save games
2) Takes about 30-60 seconds from clicking on the icon for the game menu to come up.
3) Once a map is loaded, in the main view you get about 2-3fps on the system animations (1024x768 resolution). Interface works fairly well even with the low fps. Mouse movement is silky smooth, so there's no knock-on effect there. Otherwise it visually looks to be the same kind of image quality as on my 8800gts.
4) I've only tested on Tiny map size and Huge map size. On tiny, after about 25 turns of play (3-4 planets colonised and developing with build queues stacked for 20 turns or so .. about 5 ships running around on explore) turn processing takes approximately 10 seconds. On huge map size, I waited five minutes and it didn't get past waiting for other players.
5) Unlike on my vista machine, the process successfully terminates on exiting the game, leading me to believe my earlier observations are a vista-quirk.
6) During the game, the CPU utilization is up at 100% and memory usage is approximately 250mb.

If you have anything specific you want me to check out, just let me know and I'll get round to it

Just finished trying a new game on my main rig (machine #1 above) and after 101 turns, 26 systems with populated build queues etc... The problems my last game ran into on this machine have NOT occurred ... i'll try another couple 100ish turn games this week and see if any problems crop up again.

Why does my system have to be the only one with major random psycho issues with the game? It's not fair I tells ya!

As an added note to above, i have since discovered that my machine doesnt terminate the process upon exiting the game. I'm running XP SP2 so i don't think it's a Vista bug. Maybe its just more common on vista.

System as follows:

Core 2 Duo 1.86
1GB PC2-6400 Ram
Running XP Service Pack 2
Realtek 7.1HD Audio (came with my ABIT board)
Radeon X1900GT 256MB

Two machines with completely different hardware and OS's both having this process hanging about after closing. I'm gonna do what i usually do and blame Billy boy for it. Maybe its just a random bug in .NET and if you opened and closed the program repeatedly over time eventually everyone would encounter this bug?

Thoughts welcome, and if anyone has come up with a solution make sure to post it here please!

EDIT: Played for a while using a clean boot and the problem with the process not closing seemed to have gone but its now back. So far i have managed to play to well over turn 200 without experiencing a hang between turns. The hang still seems to occur if I play on a large or huge galaxy however, and is introduced comparatively early - around turn 30 to 40.