I never said I made that Volcanic texture, 3 of 12. I got it by googling images of Planet textures. I found one that fit and then cut it down to size in irfanview. I wouldn't have a clue how to make such a complex image. Then again, my definition of complex means anything that requires the use of an image creation program other than Micro$oft Paint. I've got Paint Shop Pro, but that thing just confuses the hell out of me so I don't bother with it.

I know that feeling, so I moved from PSP to Photoshop

Apologies for the delay--a new Supremacy update is now available. The update requires the .NET Framework v3.5 SP1 RTM (not the Beta). I'm also updating the download link in the original post of this thread; it may be unavailable for a few minutes while I upload the new release. If you have an older release, you can use the auto-update service--you do not need to download the entire release.

Praise be to the maker.

Exellent! Cant wait to see the new editions, and quite speedy i may say mstrobel.

Great Work!!!

Woo! The Supremacy download is working again. Come and get your update guys!

Excellent news! Is the multiplayer stuff actually working at all yet, btw? By which I mean, can you play multiplayer games? (I know you can play a multiplayer game... on your own... you know )

Yes, you can play multiplayer games, but since there is no support for system assaults or invasions, there isn't any way to win yet... so it's probably a somewhat hollow experience at the moment .

Hooray for the update! Thank you mstrobel.

Playing for the first time, it looks pretty

If you want to play a multiplayer game against yourself (So you can choose to be a non-Federation Empire) then when you click on multiplayer, just click on the host button at the bottom, then select your race at the top of the next page and the Galaxy settings on the side. I have to warn you that the non-Federation Empires have very few buildings set, and those few buildings currently lack any build costs etc. I am personally working on fixing this but my update won't be out for a while yet.

If you want to play against someone else (Remember there are no victory conditions set yet), then you will need to decide who is hosting the game. (Only the hoster gets to choose the Galaxy settings etc) That person should enter the IP address of the other person in the direct connect box, then they should click on the Host button at the bottom.

I've never seen what happens after that, but the other person will either then see the game listed in the servers box (So you need to click it) or you will need to enter the IP address of the hoster and click on the join button. You'll have to find that out for yourself i'm afraid.

Ok, been playing it for a few days and I really enjoy it, it's a really game and I can't wait for the full version.

Pluses:
- Love the start from scratch, gives a nice authentic feel to game compared to the first game
- The whole system runs smoothly
- No tech problems and running the "Empire" is nice and easy

Minuses (and not sure if covered)/Questions
- When searching out for other races, the preview which reads "Unexplored System" gives away where a race is located before I visited the system
- Not sure how to generate more people units so I can get more people working on energy/intel, etc
- Do the transports work in picking up people and moving them? Cause I want to relocate some people to Sol so I can keep the light bulbs going

Hey Dave, as far as I know, the giving away of minor races homesystems is intentional. Think of it as being able to pick up radio signals from the minor race or something, although it makes less sense for the less advanced races (Eg. Mintakans). I have no idea if Mike plans to change this or not.

Systems hold only limited amounts of population. 10population = 1 population block to "power" a structure. Once a system is full, the ONLY way to increase this is to colonise the Moons in your system (If there are any, they are randomly generated). There's a special structure to do so but it was removed a few months ago due to a bug that stopped the structure working correctly. I haven't actually tested it to see if it works again. If you need bigger systems, you'll have to search them out and colonise them - make them a priority! Just like in BOTF, when you click on a system, it will tell you the max population at the bottom of the screen.

Systems also grow at a set percentage based on the current population. (Not the maximum population, so the larger it is the faster it grows) The percentage rate is also adjusted based on how ideal the planets in that system are. Each race has preferences on ideal planet types, but most races prefer class M worlds (Minshara/Earthlike). The closer to the ideal the planet is, the faster they will grow. The Empires can also build special structures that will increase the grow rate. (Eg. Atmospheric Condensers, Advanced irrigation System) I'm not sure if these have been implemented correctly in your version of the game or not though. (I'm working on a content update so I have to keep juggling the files around.)

Moving of population will be a feature in the game, but only for emergency situations. It is an evacuation order, not a partial resettlement order. It is basically designed to help in extreme situations such as if you know the Borg are coming. A resettlement order would otherwise end up working like a cheat, with players constantly shipping people from the fastest growth systems to boost their colonies straight away. The AI wouldn't be able to work out a strategy like that, so it would need to be able to cheat to balance that out, and cheating is exactly what we don't want. (Except perhaps in games set to impossible difficulty settings)

I'm not sure where you got that idea, Matress . "Unexplored System" simply means that there is a star (and presumably planets) at that location, but the sector has not yet been explored. It does not necessarily indicate that there is a civilization located in that sector.

Well it's not like you'd make a mistake like that, is it Mike? therefore it's intentional.

Radio signals announcing the existence of the Antedeans:

This is like the tenth time someone has pointed out that bug, and every time I swore I had fixed it already. My bad.

I suppose it could be put in as a part of the Scanners (Subspace Scanner, Isolinear Scanner, etc) but Mike would need to program that into the editor.

I've thought of something else as well Mike. The growth rate structures increase the growth rate of the entire system. Would it be possible to set it so it affects just one planet? The growth rates are used to calculate the overall growth rate of the entire system so it would make sense.

I'd like to have a new option added to the conditions list - one per planet or one per planet of (type). So you could build structures based on planet types. It always annoyed me in BOTF how if you had two Oceanic planets , you could only build one Aquaculture Center, for instance. there's a lot more planet-specific buildings this time round, so it would be a very useful option.

@matress: No for the growth rates affecting single planets. That's not tractable because we don't break population down by planet. However, you if you do +% Growth Rate (instead of +Growth Rate), you end up multiplying the base growth rate by some factor, e.g. +20% Growth Rate would mean a planet with a 5% base growth rate would yield a 6% growth rate after the bonus is applied (0.05 + (0.20 * 0.05) = 0.06). That means the net gain for each planet would be relative to its original value, so planets that started out with a higher growth rate would get a bigger boost.

As for the "per planet type" restriction, I don't see much point considering in BotF you were only allowed to build one instance of a particular building in a system anyway. I had planned on Supremacy working the same way.

Ok then, how about a "+ x bonus per planet" option then? So you get one building offering cumulative bonuses based on the number of planets. Eg. a system with two oceanic planets, you build an Aquaculture centre which gives +50 food, so you get a +100 bonus instead.

it would make more sense to adjust the aquaculture center bonus to the size of the class O planet, rather than the number of it in system. For example, 3 small class O planets have potentially less aquacultural areas than a huge one but according to your formula you get +150 food in the one system and only +50 in the other. I'd say +50 times size where size 1 is small, size 2 medium and size 3 large.

actually bote has a system where dilithium/deritium refinery have outputs times number of deritium planets in system. In this case however I agree with not looking for size issues since it's just about small deposits and small planets can have the same amount as large ones.

I'm sure Mike wouldn't agree to the idea, but if we were going for total accuracy we could have a system where both the number of planets and their size would be taken into account. This would then be modified by a random amount, (To simulate the size of ore deposits, fish shoals, etc) to calculate the exact bonus.

This system would require a much greater amount of complexity in the editor though - you would have to specify how much bonus you get per planet size and per type of planet. It would alternatively require the removal of user input in the bonuses that structures give, so that the game could come up with its' own numbers. This would always lead to random bonuses always being received though, instead of predefined amounts.

for simplicitly and playability, i would not include random factors in it and not mines or buildings that require workers being assigned on it. You already have your size effects via the different amounts of population on differently-sized planets in the latter case.
But you're right, combine both ideas and you have the most accurate and comprehensible system. just leave the values as they are in the editor but code a multiplier to both effects and costs of the building. It should not be much coding work in the end that way.

The reason this idea won't work is because it either throws balance out of whack or introduces unnecessary complexity. It makes no sense to adjust the bonus based on the size of the planet if you're not also going to adjust it based on the number of planets (with consideration to the size of each). If you do that, you have to increase build/resource costs accordingly, or else you end up with disproportionately large or small bonuses for the same building between different players and different star systems. If you adjust the costs, then you end up in a situation where the player thinks, "but I don't want a ___ on all my oceanic planets, it takes too long to build--can't I just put it on one?" Well, if I let them do that, then I have to track which *planet* the damn thing is on so I know on which planets one could be built later. Don't even get me started complexity it would add for the AI when it comes to evaluating the fitness of various structures when it tries to determine what to build next.

Sorry, but feature costs way too much to implement with relatively little payoff.

If you allow "in theory" for partial and "swapped" construction on the planets then the idea is a lot simpler. Just take the sum of all sizes times number of planets, i.e. the multiplying factor, and let the normal aquacultural building be upgradable or multiply-buildable (multiple iterations of the same building) by that number, i.e. in order to fully build all aquacultural centers that a system potentially provides for, you need to build all upgrades/numbers of that aquacultural building where every upgrade/unit costs and brings the same as effect.

you get the idea? a practical solution would be to add up to 9 types of aquacultural centers, each of them an upgrade to each other with according stats and the prerequisites would be type<multiplying factor in system. The multiplying factor is known and static so it should be possible to do so.

I think payoff is quite large considering you could do so with wind turbines and charge collectors also. Even with replicators if you want. theory and subatomic simulators could possibly be linked to overall max system population, offering upgrade types or units for large enough systems (minimum system population requirement for the building(s) in the editor). It might spare you a lot of workers that are usually wasted in such systems on food and energy production while still flexible in production with no hatches.

It's just about giving it a good intuitive name such as Wind turbine arrays, sea/aquatic parcells, charge collector units, replicator units and so on to make clear for the player that these buildings are possibly a multiple instance and not everything combined in one.

If Mike says no, then we've got to accept that. We want the game finished afterall. (Or are you trying to sabotage Supremacy in favour of BOTE Mal? ) It's a nice idea, but if it makes programming too difficult, it will have to be consigned to our old BOTF5 thread.