Hi y'all,

For the sake of easy finding, I'll just post all my thoughts on problems and suggestions concerning Supremacy right here.

So far, I played the huge map for well over 100 turns and found the following (I'm sure Mike and the rest of the dev team are quite familiar with most, but still worth mentioning):


GAME FREEZES

Game freezes during turn processing on planetary production step. One has to end task. The bad things is that saving the game right prior to processing the turn does not save everything that you just did, so you lose the whole turn in case the game freezes. I was unable to determine what makes the game freeze at that turn processing step. It happened on tiny as well as huge galaxy sizes.


CANNOT SCRAP SHIPS

Ships which are obsolete cannot be scrapped. Most logically, one would upgrade them, for example from Cruiser I to Cruiser II once that ship has been researched. Obviously, any such upgrade could only be done on a shipyard (1 turn?).


A.I. NOT SET UP - duh, you guys are well aware of that one. My respects for hard work on that, it's undoubtedly the most daunting task of the project.


INTEL

It appears that the INTEL menu is at its infancy, as there is no detail for any departmental allocation. I'm sure that is work in progress. I'm just wondering what you're guys planning on including in it?


MUSIC

Music is good, except for the intro music which is simply too...well, computery. Might I suggest incorporating music from Star Trek: The Fallen? I used to play that music as MP3 while playing the original BotF and it was truly wonderful. Otherwise, music is good for starters.


ISSUE WITH SOUND

When I right-click for the first time to call up the menu, there is an odd screeching sound, which does not seem to occur again within the same game session. Not sure if this is a serious problem.


BALANCING THOUGHT

For the Sol system, far too many installations require power which is hard to come by. Perhaps there are too many restrictions for the home system?


SOLAR PANELS

Solar panels are in wide use today, while in the game it requires research to get to. That is somewhat odd, so I would suggest making solar panels available from start or earlier in development, and an upgrade availability later as the tech progresses.


PRODUCTION ISSUE

I noticed a couple of items that increase growth rate of a system require zero production effort. Same is true for orbital batteries, which do not seem to require power (don't they?). Also, would it make sense to have one or two of these buildings increase total population capacity rather than simply increase growth rate?


SPACE STATIONS

Upgrading to outpost II from outpost I is currently not supported.


Well, that's all for now...I'll keep adding things as I test the game. Wonderful work, Mike & Co. And, of course, thank you.

Hey Stromgarde. Here's the answers to your points.

GAME FREEZES
A known problem - with an unknown cause. This is most definitely a bug, and one that has plagued the game from the beginning. We have no idea about the cause, and Mike hasn't been able to trace it. We have found no relation between computer types regarding this bug, but we haven't looked hard in that respect either. The best thing to do is to save regularly, and if the game freezes on (Or near) the turn after a save, please attach it to a post for us.

CANNOT SCRAP SHIPS
I haven't tried to scrap ships lately, but the system will definitely be in the game. You will also be able to "mothball" ships - basically scuttle them for useful components, then put them into storage until such time as you need them again (So you also save the maintenance costs per turn and recover the crew). You will then be able to reactivate them - at a resource cost, and it will take a couple of turns - for use in whatever war you've got going on. You will need to take ships to a mothball yard in order to do so, and each empire can build only one. One of the The Zakdorn special structures is also a beefed up Mothball yard that allows you to recover a greater percentage of resources from mothballed ships.

The ship database in the game is incomplete, which is why the ships and stations are in such a state. We have a completed game database, which you can find Here, but it hasn't been implemented into the game yet. I will be personally implementing this database in the future, but i'm currently working on the buildings updates. Once those are done, I will turn my attention to the ships.

A.I. NOT SET UP
Lol we know about this one. The AI is arguably the most complex part of the game, and will take a looong time to set up and get working correctly - which will also take a LOT of playtesting to make sure we don't end up with non-canon occurrences like the United Federation of Planets behaving like the Terran Empire.

INTEL
Yes, the Intel screen is still only in its' infancy. Mike has big plans for this screen, and those will be coming as part of future updates. I can't go into specifics about his plans though because I don't actually know myself what he intends to do!

MUSIC
A few people have mentioned the intro music. I personally like it...except for the quiet wind-like bit at the very start. We CAN'T use any music that has been used in other games for copyright reasons though - we do NOT have the licence to make Trek games, so we can't use any official content. If you have any suggestions for music, please contact Sandman our resident musician. He's uploaded samples of his music to Our Music Download Location (The link will only work if you first sign up to and/or log in to Our Site Portal though. The downloads are only available to registered users and we haven't figured out how to bridge user accounts so one log in works with all of the areas of our site )

ISSUE WITH SOUND
This actually happens to me too. I *think* it's an issue that was brought in with a recent game update, so it's probably an introduced bug or incompatibility somewhere. We can tell Mike about it when he gets back from his works conference thingy.

BALANCING THOUGHT
I've noticed this already - and when I release my above-mentioned update, there's going to be a LOT more energy-requiring structures. I've already bumped up the output of the energy structures by 25%, but i'm still not sure that's going to be enough. I'll test it a bit once i'm done and i'll beef it up more if necessary or reduce the energy costs before I release it. My ideal solution would be to increase the population sizes of the systems though - which I think are currently too low. You can't do this at the moment though because the game works these out automatically. I would have to completely unbalance the systems in another way to get ideal system populations, and i'm not prepared to do that.

SOLAR PANELS
I've made a lot of updates in the game, including the tech requirements for the structures. I felt the same way as you.

PRODUCTION ISSUE
Some of the buildings require zero input because they haven't got any build costs set. I've fixed these problems in my update already, I just haven't released it yet. There IS also a structure in the game that will increase total population - it's just been disabled at the moment because it is buggy. The population increase structure allows you to colonise moons and was something that I personally suggested about two or three years ago.

SPACE STATIONS
Again, this is because of the state of the ships in the game. I'll be working on this once my buildings update is done.

What exactly should I attach? A screenshot of the freeze? Sorry, I'm kind of stupid when it comes down to these things.


Sounds neat, an admiring undertaking with a seemingly gigantic complexity. I just fear that it may take far too long to implement all of this.


Hat off to you, sir.


I hear that. I guess this would be the last thing to work on, but at the same time the most complex. God's speed.


That's too bad, I was going to suggest contacting the developers of The Fallen and asking for permission to use their music, I truly think it's phenomenal stuff, but if it's not within the realm of possibilities... The intro music definitely should change in my opinion, it's just too synthesizer-sounding.


Just how many things can this Mike Strobel do at any given time? He must be existing in some kind of space-time continuum or replicating himself like an amoeba...


I'd agree that something like that is less critical for the game. Although, it's good to keep in mind that our Earth right now has over 6 billion (with a b) population - if we add the other planets and whatever space-dwelling habitats of the future (within asteroids, orbital facilities, etc.) to that, we're talking more than twice that, at least. But I wouldn't sweat it if you can't alter the numbers.


Perhaps a bit off topic, but a couple of days ago as I was on my way to the Denver International Airport, I noticed a brand new solar panel array near it, probably supplying the airport itself with electricity. Ideal location, at the front range on the great plains where we get about 300 days of sunshine annually. Since my wife works on solar cell computerized modeling, she tells me that the most efficient cell ever made has about 26% efficiency. Not bad, but think about the future - if we ever figure out how to simulate the ability of the plants to use chlorophyll to harness the power of the light, we'll go way above that percentage. Thus, future solar panels ought to provide even more than wind farms. Just a thought.


Great thought. Me like this.

Thumbs up, m8.

Oh, you need to attach the .sav file for your saved game. It will be in your Supremacy folder as xxx.sav. (Where xxx is whatever name you saved the game under) When you have one, just create a post, then scroll down the screen. You will see a small box underneath the place where you type your post message. Click on the "Browse" button, then find and click on the .sav file, then click on the "Add the file" button to attach it to a post, then submit the post to finalise it.

...

The mothball yards are already in the game as a special structure, so it's not as far away as you might think. Like I said though, I haven't tested this part of the game to know whether it works - yet.

...

Whilst we can't use any copyrighted stuff, that doesn't mean we can't use any other music. A lot of music is available on open licences, or we can use stuff that has been made specifically for the game - like Sandman is doing for us. The original intro music for Supremacy (When it was still Mike's university project and was titled Galactic Supremacy) was actually taken from X3: Reunion, so we have been a little bit naughty in that respect, but at least we solved it from a legal point of view. Unfortunately, the music taken from X3 was a gorgeous piece, and just like most of the music from that game, was absolutely perfect for Supremacy, but it was replaced by the current one when Mike decided to make the game proper to avoid the legalities. Thinking about it, I have no idea where he got the current music from...

...

LOL Mike has a special website dedicated to bugs etc. He fixes them as he gets around to it. All I need to do is submit the bug report. I'll do it after I finish typing this post.

...

I'm not sure whether the precise population of the Earth in Trek has ever been mentioned, (Except for when it's assimilated with 12 billion drones in First Contact) but i'm sure it's been alluded to being around the four billion mark, so it's less crowded than it is today, especially if the Atlantis project succeded. Anyways, the game works out the populations on a number of variables - it's a lot more complex than it would at first seem.

Each race has their own ideal class of planet. For humans it's Terran planets, for the Cardassians it's Desert planets, for the Ferengi, it's Jungle planets, and so on. The game calculates the maximum population of a planet based on the size of the planet, and how close it is to the ideal of the inhabiting race - so a system full of Desert planets inhabited by humans would have a lower maximum population if that same system was instead inhabited by Cardassians.

I've asked Mike to make a change to take another factor into account though - population density. We know that some races have chronic over-population problems (Such as the B'Omar) whilst other races are scattered, few in number, or are in decline. Being able to set this for individual systems or races would allow me to set the home systems to have dense populations, which would solve some of the problems - AND make the game even closer to canon. I don't know whether he will actually implement it, but i've submitted it as a feature request for the editor, so fingers crossed.

The only other way to make the systems bigger would be to add planets or make the planets bigger - which is obviously a cardinal sin for a game that is trying to follow canon.

...

Beefing up the Solar cells would be one way of canonically (Is that a word?) boosting the energy output I suppose. Hell, we could even come up with upgrades as energy efficiency improves. The Wind farms get an upgrade afterall. I'll have a look at it and see what Dafedz (The database creator) thinks.

Is there such a thing as first class support? I haven't seen it, yet you're delivering it. Thanks for such detailed, lucid, and swift replies. Now as far as the file to post, the presumption is that I saved the game right before processing the turn?


Something tells me that the game won't come out until you're all satisfied with the intro music. And right now that doesn't seem to be the case. Either way, I would always encourage more time in development to get the game done just right rather than a premature release. The only important thing is never to lose patience and to persevere - no matter what.


Apparently, you're hell of a multitasker yourself. With this work ethic, it should not be a problem for you to find proper employment with some software developer, even with your game addiction. I just hope that finding a new job or occupation does not stop you from completing this gorgeous project (as it's clearly long-term). The same goes for other team members.


Interesting! Nice little feature.


Nifty. The more you tell me about the game the more I keep telling myself that all of this may be an unsurmountable project - or rather, a never-ending one. That's why it would be best to do only Fed as playable race and single player only, release the game, and perhaps then worry about the other things. Since the project has been going on for years already, it's likely to take just as many before it gets released even as a beta. That's why persevering is so important. But then, you know all that already.


I think being canon is definitely more important than anything else.


Wonderful.

Hi y'all,

Here's some more feedback.

FREEZE ON TURN PROCESSING


In the next post, I'm including the .sav file you requested, Matress.

SCAN STRENGTH?
I hope you guys plan on including scan strength to be included in the game. What do I mean? When you go with a cursor over a system, scan strength is indicated (which also reveals whether you'll detect cloaked ships). That was present in the original BotF and I hope you guys are planning on including it here as well.

WHERE AM I ON THE MAP WHEN I VIEW THE SYSTEM MENU?
One really important feature to consider adding would be a minimap in the corner of the system view, so you can see where that system lies on the map. Otherwise, you have to exit the system view to see where it is on the map. It would just make a lot of things way easier. Just a thought.

OMARION NEBULA
When you select the Omarion Nebula, in the menu below it says "nebula" twice.

RAW MATERIALS
As far as I understand it, the little icon next to the sun that represents raw materials indicates whether that system has any. It is odd, therefore, that you'd be able to build the mining corps and asteroid sweepers in systems which do not have any raw materials. These buildings should be limited only to systems which actually have raw materials present. Right now, I've seen these buildings available for construction in systems that do not have any raw materials (in upper left corner it indicates zero) and there's no raw material symbol next to the star. Also, I've seen these buildings included in systems which have asteroid fields, but even if you build an asteroid sweeper you get no raw materials. I'd implement a feature which would allow any asteroid belt to have raw materials. In fact, nearly every system (if not all) should have some form of raw materials present, it's just the amount that would have to vary greatly.

RETAIL OUTLETS?
If replicators can replicate just about anything, what's the point of having retail outlets? I guess I'm just not seeing the point in having that building.

PRIVATE FARMS
To construct private farms, it takes a lot of industry, yet one gets very little food increase. Consider changing that.

EMPTY CONSTRUCTION SLOT = NOTHING?
I recommend that when the player does not have anything of use to construct, the system generates credits instead (like in the original BotF).

PURCHASING TO HASTEN PRODUCTION?
I don't know how relevant this can be, as the economy of the future is not supposed to be money-based, but original BotF had the option to hasten production by purchasing remaining industry needed to manufacture what's being built. Is that going to be implemented here also? If so, how would it be reconciled with "no meaning of money"?

UPGRADING AND BUILDING
When you put a manufacturing plant in the construction queue, the "upgrade to type X construction plant" disappears and vice versa. I fail to see why that has to be the case. After building one type I manufacturing plant (for instance), one should be able to queue "upgrade to type II manufacturing plant".

ORBITAL BATTERIES
Right now, the orbital batteries cost no energy. Shouldn't they? Also, even after you build them, system info on the main view still shows "no defenses" for that system. Defense strength is not indicated.

APOTHECARIES AND STUFF
I'm not sure I understand the point in building apothecaries and clinics, that may be too much micromanagement. I suspect that that's part of a greater scheme (such as if an enemy empire poisons the population how readily it'll recover)?

CANNOT INVADE
If you declare war and build transport ships, put them in the system of the enemy, there is no option to invade the system. At least that was the case in the Omarion Nebula where I tried to conquer the Founders.

OVERWRITE OK?
It's a good idea to add a dialogue when saving a game, asking whether the it's okay to overwrite the selected file (if selected).

CONTESTED SECTORS
On the main menu, contested sectors should be indicated as such, not as neutral.

And lastly...Earth has 4 moons?

Well, that's it for now. I'll keep posting as I go through. Cheers!

I've been on the forums since December 2004, barely three months after they were first created. I've since gone from being a random poster to one of the admin, and I have written more posts than many of the other top posters combined. I believe I even hold the record for the longest post ever written on the forums, although a few people have come close to beating me. What all this basically means is that I probably spend more time on the forums than is healthy. Addiction is both a terrible and wonderful thing.

...




...So yes, this does assume that you've made a save, coz I just told you to make one.

Anyways, thanks for the save file; it's absolutely useless to me because my game is modded (Since i'm doing the updates) and is therefore incompatible with the standard game, but i've forwarded it to Mike to have a look at when he returns.

...



Supremacy has only just turned 2 years old, (The pre-release download thread is dated 17th November 2006) and we're still saying that it's in the pre-alpha stages of completion. So there's no need to worry about us rushing it.

...



Umm...i'm not a software programmer or developer. Software code frightens me!

I'm a student that' just finished uni and haven't got a job yet. I've just got a lot of time on my hands, so I spend it writing posts, that's all.

...



Half of the game features (Or pending feature requests) are mine, so technically it's my fault that the game is still only pre-alpha. That's why I started helping Mike work on it so much. It was a bigger undertaking than I expected though; i've been working on the buildings update for close to six months now, and I haven't even got around to doing the ships update yet.

...

SCAN STRENGTH?

Scan strength is most definitely in the game, and the scan strengths of the individual ship designs have all been worked out on paper already - advanced ships have very high scan strengths and ranges, especially the scouts, explorers, and science ships. You can see these stats in Dafedz's Database

...

WHERE AM I ON THE MAP WHEN I VIEW THE SYSTEM MENU?

I think someone mentioned having a mini-map a month or two ago. Mike said he was willing to consider it, but then he went off to his works conference thin, so we haven't heard anymore about it since. I'll post a feature request for him.

...

OMARION NEBULA

I've already fixed that in my update. We've known about it for quite a while, and it happened because it's name was listed as "Omarion Nebula" instead of simply "Omarion". The game adds on the Nebula bit automatically, so it ended up being called a Nebula twice.

...

RAW MATERIALS

Yes, the little icons DOES represent raw material deposits are present in the system. Every system does produce a very small amount of raw materials per turn (I believe it's 10 per system per turn), but systems that have the icon have extra-large deposits that require special technologies to access - that's where the buildings come in. On top of that, systems that have asteroid belts can also build structures that harvest them for their resources. The asteroids are also necessary for some other special structures. Anyways, this all means that there are lots of ways of gaining more resources - but as the ships cost a lot of resources, you'll always need more. Some buildings may also require resources themselves, although I can't think of any off the top of my head.

There is also the fact that the version of the game that you are working with hasn't received my updates yet, so you might be able to build things in systems that you shouldn't be able to.

...

RETAIL OUTLETS?

No, replicators cannot replicate everything. There are some things that require more energy to replicate than can be recycled from them - such as Gold-pressed Latinum. That's why the Ferengi value it so much. But standard domestic replicators themselves can't replicate much more than food. In an episode of TNG, Worf had to go to a special industrial replicator on the Enterprise to replicate some glasses as a wedding present. The retail outlets represent these industrial replicators. They are places where people can go to get special or luxury items that their domestic replicators are unable to create.

PRIVATE FARMS

Already have changed them. You will be able to build as many of them as you can support (Which is why they have such a low output. This feature is also currently buggy in the editor but will be added at a later date). They require 70 industry and 15 energy each.

EMPTY CONSTRUCTION SLOT = NOTHING?

It's going to. Mike just hasn't figured out how to get Trade Goods working correctly yet.

PURCHASING TO HASTEN PRODUCTION?

Yes, this is going to be in - but it won't be an instant-buy feature like in BOTF. Mike hasn't started to implement it yet, but it's going to be a system where you can boost construction speed by a maximum of 10%, but it will cost you to do so. A lot of people hated the instant-build feature, but agreed that a way to boost should be possible, which is why we came up with this compromise.

UPGRADING AND BUILDING

This is just the way the game works. Other buildings of the same type are removed from the queue to prevent players accidentally ordering the construction of old technology. It might be annoying, but it avoids a lot of potential bugs that way.

ORBITAL BATTERIES

Already fixed. Like I said, i'm updating the game.

APOTHECARIES AND STUFF

A new feature in the game will be the potential for disease outbreaks. These plagues will kill off your population, depending on how healthy they are. Ships in orbit of a system will be able to offer aid, as will any medical buildings in the system, reducing the length of time that the population is affected, and reducing the number of casualties. There is even a new Hospital ship non-combat design in the game, although they will be much more useful in combat situations than troop transports and colony ships because they will actually have decent defences and a few light weapons.

The Random Events - including the risk of plague outbreaks - haven't been implemented yet, but will be in the future. Systems being poisoned by enemy sabotage will still also be in the game, and yes, health buildings will negate some of the risks.

CANNOT INVADE

That's just another feature that hasn't been implemented yet. It will be implemented in the future, just don't ask me when. As another example of a missing feature, the only way to break a treaty at the moment is to declare war - but since there's no AI, they won't be able to fight back.

OVERWRITE OK?

I didn't realise this was missing, but I mod more than I play at the moment. I'll submit it as a feature request.

CONTESTED SECTORS

Oh, I thought they already were? I definitely remember seeing contested sectors shown as a wavy band of colour instead of the colour of another empire. Is this no longer the case? Or do you mean something else?

...

The moons system is completely random. Try playing another game. Earth will have a different number of moons. Sometimes it doesn't even have one! This is simply the way the game works. I've asked Mike a few times to change it, but this would apparently require a lot of work for something that realistically would have little impact on the game. It is therefore a low-priority fix for him.

I hope it'll be of some help. I'd say that's one of the critical fixes.


Been there. I could be selfish and say how important the development of this game is, but I'll do the right thing and remind you not to neglect real life too much. But then, you know that also, you're a big guy. And now to the issues...


I meant scan strength to be displayed on the main screen as you're going with the cursor over a sector or have a sector selected. I sure noticed that each ship has a different scan range (that's great), but it's good to know how strongly your overall scan strength is in any given system (i.e. assign it a number and have it be displayed on the main view).


Adding this would really make things way nicer and the game itself a lot more fun. I always thought that that was a crucial feature missing in the original BotF. That's why I'd appeal to you guys to really try to implement it. But enough lobbying - I know you'll do your best.


Great. One tiny problem less. Moving on...


Hm, could you release your version? Even if may not be too much further ahead, I think I can give better feedback if we both have the same version. Besides...I'm craving to see the changes and improvements.


Got it. Sounds good then. This should definitely be an explanation in the game manual once it's made prior to game hitting the market.


Great. Looking forward to testing that.


Fair enough.


Now that I like a lot. Wonderful thinking.


That is definitely annoying, but nothing that is a must-do. I'd say focusing on other things takes priority.


Sweet.


When you construct apothecaries, have you constructed only one or a system of apothecaries? It would not make any sense to have just one in the whole system - it's like one pharmacy being responsible for supplying the entire Earth (and other planets). My guess is that it's a system, but if a spy destroys the icon "apothecaries", then has he destroyed the whole system? That's a bit unrealistic, isn't it? But I guess a necessary hit for the game. Well, perhaps it's too early to critique this feature just yet. We'll see how it performs once plagues and agent-introduced toxins start to affect the population.


This is a feature that's independent of the AI (my guess). It wouldn't hurt to implement it before developing the AI and to test it properly (along with defense strengths etc.).


Great, one more element of coolness.


Indeed, they are shown as bands of mixed colors, but on the main view it doesn't say that it's contested (written in words, up above on top, where it tells affiliation). Right now it says "neutral" if it's contested (I think, if I remember right).


I'd also say that something like this takes a back seat priority, if at all.

Here's another crash report. I tested the Dominion game (although I don't think that is the cause), the first 10 turns or so.

Ok, now that I have the new version, here's first feedback on that.

1) If you go to SYSTEM screen, the buttons on top now seem further apart.
2) When negotiating in diplomacy, if you are the faction that makes a suggestion and if the suggestion is accepted by the negotiating party, it should not say "we have accepted proposal from *** " but the other way around.
3) I briefly tried the Dominion and Klingon. The screen layouts are the same as for the Fed, and I'm sure you're planning on changing that. Also, some buildings like the Universities are not appropriate for Klingons or Dominion and should be different yet equivalent to University for Fed.
4) "Klingon war room" can be built on every Klingon-inhabited system? It gives +1 loyalty empire-wide, so that may be a lot of loyalty to go around if you have a huge empire. Is that the idea?
5) "Tactical college" is buildable on all native systems, which may be inappropriate.
6) Praxis gives a hell of a lot of power, which may completely obsolete the fusion and plasma reactors.
7) Klingon battle cruiser image is on white background.
Finally, if you RETIRE from a game and want to start a new single player game (don't know if selecting a different race has anything to do with it), you'll get the below error message.


I'm curious how all these ships will look like on the combat engine. I hope the graphics will be at least approaching what Bridge Commander was like. Ever since I played that game I hoped someone would fuse Bridge Commander and BotF and make this ultimate Trek game.

Grr I just wrote a reply but my computer crashed mid-posting. oh well, here it is all over again...



Mike's back now (He replied to my PM today and replied to some of my Codeplex comments). He thanks you for your save files.



Real life?

*Searching memory core. Term not found*

Please define "real life".



Ah now I understand you. I've submitted this as a feature request on Codeplex. Mike's gonna hate me.



I submitted it to Codeplex and Mike has assigned it as a low-priority feature. It'l be in, but don't expect it in the next update.



Done. Check your PM's. Most of my changes are stat changes or things to do with the minor races or non-Federation Empires though, so don't expect anything spectacular. Since there's no AI yet and Empire selection has only just been implemented with today's update, you can't really compare the unmodded game with my update.



Whilst the game will likely have a manual when we finish the game, there certainly won't be a market. This is a fan-made game and we don't have the Trek gaming licence. It therefore won't be appearing in any shops anytime soon. We can't even accept any "donations" for it, so don't even ask. The game will simply be released as a free download - just like it already is.




Notice the bit I highlighted? The editor currently has a bug that means that special buildings that *should* be built more than once (Such as these new Private Farms, Orbital batteries, etc) can only be built once. Mike knows of the problem, but it means you won't be able to test this particular feature. When i said it was cahnged, I was referring to the industrial costs.



They're supposed to be multi-site buildings, so lots of them, not just the one. If the game ever refers to a single building instead of multiples, then let me know, I've done my best to "pluralise" the existing buildings, but it's inevitable that some have slipped through the net. As for foreign sabotage and realism though, you've got to remember this is a game. Sometimes we've got to sacrifice a bit of realism for the sake of gameplay.



Ok, i've Codeplexed it. But if Mike murders me for all this extra work we've making him do it's on your conscience.



I submitted it to Codeplex. Mike has assigned it as a low-priority feature.



Refer to my comment in the CANNOT INVADE section above. I sure hope you've got a conscience...

...

1) The buttons probably are further apart. In some previous updates, the code for the buttons at the top was actually broken so we could see buttons that shouldn't actually be visible. I suspect the larger buttons is something to do with that.

2) The other races are newly implemented. I'm sure diplomacy is therefore still a work in progress.

3) Yes, Mike does have plans to change the interface, but that is dependant on getting someone to help do the artwork for those interfaces. Our resident interface guys (Silvercliff and Joel) seem to have gone AWOl from the forums in the last few months, although I occaisionally see Silvercliff on MSN every now and then. We did also have a mockup of the Klingon interface in the staffroom a while ago, and that was a [b]really[/i] nice interface. Don't worry about the universities, i'll be sorting that in my update.

4) You can only build the War Room in systems that you colonise. You can't build it in subjugated or member worlds, so it isn't as universal as you might think. And yes, it does sound like a big morale boost, but the Klingons have a LOT of negative morale "bonuses" from buildings. They actually need this building!

5) That's fixed in my update.

6) That depends on the structures you build. Yes, Praxis gives a hell of a lot of power, but as I've said before, you need a lot of energy anyways. By the mid-late late game, I seriously doubt it will be enough. Besides, we all know what happened when Praxis blew up, and it *was* the main energy facility of the Empire. Giving it a lower bonus simply wouldnt do it justice.

7) That's probably the result of an incorrectly-applied transparency. It's easily fixable.

Ah i've seen that error message before. I think it happens when the game tries to close a component that it is simultaneously trying to open. It's nothing to worry about, and Mike knows how to fix it.

9) Don't expect the combat system to be a compelte bells-and-whistles affair yet; CdrWolfe is teaching himself how to program whilst he programs the combat system. As time goes by, he will constantly be improving it as he learns new tricks. The thing that he needs most is for people to test it and to give feedback, so please download it from our portal and let us know what you think. The models ship models themselves are being made by a number of talented people though; this means the models will be made much more quickly, but will invaraibly lead to differences in the quality and styles of the ships. Kenneth_of_Borg is working on quality control though. Tjose that fail to meet the grade get assimilated into the collective for corrective action.

If you're realy looking for eyecandy though, check out Fireball's models. Hes made plenty of threads on demonstrating his skills. His Oberth, Connie refit, and Constellation are gorgeous models. Just do a search for his posts.

Oh man...if your PC tends to freeze, consider typing up messages in Word first.


Excellent - whichever way I can be of help.





Something tells me that it's not as time-consuming to do, but it's kind of important to have in the game, wouldn't you say? How else could you say how strong your sensor strength is and whether or not you can actually detect any ships, especially cloaked? So, kind of like in original BotF - with scan strength being shown by number, as well as by color (green for strong enough to detect even cloaked ships, yellow for uncloaked ships, red only for big ships or fleets or something like that or no detection ability at all). Makes sense to have something like that, right?


As long as it's planned in the game, it's great. I'm sure you guys agree with me that it's an important add-on.


Fair enough.


The only instance in which I'd imagine him murdering you is if you suddenly gave up on this glorious project.


Looks like the most recent update has that feature built in. Great.


If this one takes him longer than an hour to do, I'll send him a European chocolate we yanks don't get over here (provided I get my hands on it, but since I'm a chocoholic I just may...)


Naturally. As long as you guys are aware of this little glitch.


That's too bad that those two are no longer around, makes me wish I could help out with this stuff.
I'm not only concerned about the universities, but all buildings, namely how well they fit into the culture of the race (not just empires, but also minor races). I guess I'll just keep an eye out for any odd things - the university with the Klingons was just an example. By the way, in old BotF these buildings were called Halls of Learning, were they not?


Ah, I see you have this all figured out. Sweet.


Agreed, but then the other empires should have something comparable, otherwise the Klingons will that a huge advantage.


Nice. I'll try to provide feedback on that as well.

I DO. Most of my posts are too long to easily retype as you can probably guess. I just forgot to save it this one time and the autosave apparently decided to turn itself off.


Colours and numbers were part of my feature request.


I've been here for almost four years. There's no chance of me disappearing. If I die, i'm gonna be haunting the forums instead of going to matress heaven.


We can still contact them, it's just about whether they want to be contacted. We can always find someone else to do the interfaces anyways, it's not really a problem. And as you said, the Klingon research buildings were called Halls of Learning in BOTF, but they're now known as Working Parties. They currently have the Halls of Learning image assigned to them, but that's only temporary until Zeleni sends us a replacement image. Anyways, it means the Klingons certainly don't have universities anymore. I'm sure they wouldn't find much use for a diploma in a battle anyway.


No, the other races don't have a comparable energy structure, and don't need one - because each Empire has its' own unique abilities. The Federation have the best infrastructure and ships, constantly improving it with even the slightest improvement in technology. But they pay for it through thr nose with high build and maintenance costs. The Klingons have the best weapons, have low maintenance costs, and get a huge energy production structure in their home system, but the rest of their Empire thirsts for energy and often has to make do with older technology. The Romulans have cloaking devices, decent science and strong intel, but their battleships are slow, lumbering leviathans. Their fleet generally won't last long without the element of surprise either. The Cardassians are brutally efficient, have low resource costs and have a strong intel service, but they suffer in many other areas. And the Dominion can churn out ships like there's no tomorrow, but they have only a few ship designs that have to last them a long time; their latest designs quickly become yesterdays technology compared to the other Empires. But when they do get new designs, those designs are able to decimate everything else until the other Empires improve their tech.

These differences between the different Empires present different challenges for players, and getting to know their strengths and weaknesses wll be part of the challenge.

Man, you are soooo on top of things.

Two new issues:
1) when a race joins your empire, there's a glitch with how many farms there are (other than the glitch that they're starving). Here's an example: one minor culture joined and for their farms it said that they have 3 of 5 active, even though all are lit up. Odd, eh? I think that happens with every new culture that joins.

2) this is kind of related to a previous report. There are some systems which have the raw materials icon present, but in the upper left corner where the detailed system info is displayed, it says zero for raw materials. I think even if you were to build something that actually improves raw material acquisition, it would still remain zero.

Four years of slavery to the game does that to you.


That's not a bug, it's more a case of a missing feature. This missing feature is a pretty big one. I'm talking about the AI. The minor races haven't got a brain yet so they don't even know how to feed themselves.


That's definitely a new bug - but it's also one that's happened a few times before. Mike knows how to fix it if it is indeed the same problem.


Could you test it and find out? This one is definitely a new bug. The info we have the better.

Hi guys,

Here's a thought on music, which I addressed before. I was saying that ST: DS9 The Fallen has excellent music which can be exploited for the game. In fact, it's downloadable http://www.startrek.com/custom/include/gaming/ds9-fallen/Downloads/HTML/downloads_index.htm. Now I'd guess that you'd have to ask for a permission to use it (or not, since this is not for-profit), but I just thought I'd provide you with the link.

Cheers.

Thanks for the link Stromgarde, but a guy called AndrewJT has agreed to make music for us - ALL of the music. Apparently Andrew has made music for games and hollywood in the past, and is the official composer for Star Trek: Excalibur as well. He hasn't submitted anything for us yet, but we're waiting for that day.

Hi guys,

Here's that bug that I think I addressed before. Namely, the icon for raw materials is present next to the star, yet on the left "Raw Materials" will be set to zero. Now, you can build facilities which normally boost raw material harnessing, but if the number is zero, then it also remains zero. Here's the pic.

Hmm, I'll look into that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention .

I have this nasty feeling that when Star Trek Online (STO) comes out, progress on this game will come to a virtual halt. Keeping my fingers crossed that I'm dead wrong...

Oh i wouldn't worry about that,....

We have to much invested man!!!!! TO MUCH!!!!!!

ahem...



Regards Wolfe

Yes, dead wrong

Ok, the flawless Internet Explorer just crashed on me as I was submitting my previus post, so I lost everything I wrote…so I’ll make this one concise and to the point.

First, thank you guys for your continuing hard work!

Now, here’s some additional thoughts.

1) It would be nice to have the “minimize” feature available. I mean to minimize the game by pressing Alt+Tab simultaneously. It would especially help in taking snapshots of the game, so I don’t have to exit the game after every snapshot. Is there a way around that?

2) Related to what I wrote earlier (i.e. about raw material icon being present in the system, but the system info in upper left corner showing a zero for raw material quantity available), I am also finding that there are some systems where you have no raw materials (zero), yet you can build raw-material-gathering stations, such as Mining Corps.
Here’s what I mean:

Frankly, it doesn’t make sense that any system would have zero raw materials (not sure it this was already discussed). If you guys simply make every system have a random amount of raw materials, that should solve the problem of buildable raw material structures. It would also make far more sense that every system has at least some raw material present for good use. That way you can also get rid of the raw material icon (or, perhaps leave it where LOTS of raw material is present).

3) In this particular system, two Mining Corps and two Starfleet Shipyards were built, even though I built each only once. Not sure if this is a new bug, but something tells me that this came up before as well. Here’s the pic for that:


4) The game still freezes at the turn processing, while processing planetary production. Now that's a major bug, hopefully it'll be fixed before the game's release.

5) I think you can get rid of the X-mas tree in the intro now (not really that important, just filler so that it appears like I’m giving you more useful feedback).

About systems with zero raw materials, maybe the name of the resource is not that descriptive, but these raw materials are those used for building ships. Structures don't use them, they're simply made of something other than Duranium or some other material. My take on it anyways. Not saying that every system shouldn't have raw materials though, but the global nature of stockpiles in the game kind of makes it irrelevant.

Oh, well, I'd say that if they're the materials used for building ships, then perhaps it would be better to state which raw materials those are...for example, duranium, tritanium, etc. But all in all, it's still a bug that hasn't been fixed yet.

I'm surprised that Matress hasn't replied yet, he usually does so by the time I refresh the page...

Agreed, calling it Duranium instead of Raw Materials would be better.

Hey Stromgarde, welcome back to the forums. Happy birthday for yesterday by the way.

I haven't been on the forums as much as normal lately because i've had computer problems. I've also been working on a new Supremacy update.

1) You CAN have a windowed screen so you can minimise the game. In the game options, on the graphics tab, turn OFF the option that says "Run in fullscreen mode".

2) As for the raw materials, Mike knows that there is a bug in how the raw materials work, so he's looking at that. We'll just have to wait for the update, although that might not be for a few weeks because he is currently working on refactoring the game.

3) Yes, that is a known bug, although it is one Mike supposedly fixed an update or two ago. It may be he accidentally removed the fix or reintroduced the bug with a more recent update. It happens when the build queue temporarily desynchronises from the rest of the game; the structure is completed, but the build queue doesn't get updated to remove the recently-completed structure from the build list. So when you start building the next structure in the list, it is STILL the structure you've already built, resulting in you building two of the same structure.

4) We know. We still haven't figured the cause, but there is one piece of good new. The refactoring process that Mike is undertaking has the potential to remove some of the bugs from the game - including the random freeze bug if we're lucky. It will *hopefully* also fix some other bugs, such as the ever-increasing industrial costs bug for some of the ships (Some of the build costs are being permanently multiplied each time the game is updated), and the ever-growing log files bug that is caused by the log files being appended to instead of being replaced. Mike has also told me that based on early tests, the refactoring will lead to improved turn processing times. It remains to be seen whether this really is the case though and by how much once the refactoring is complete.

5) The christmas tree will be removed during the next update. As i've said before, that won't be until the refactoring is complete, which unfortunately won't be for a few weeks at least. I've also just sent Mike an update to fix all of the typos that .Iceman has kindly pointed out, as well as updates to change the Outpost prerequisites/obsoletion/upgrade system (But not the starbases, I don't know whether the updates will work as I intended yet), and it will add in a load of new or updated images, especially when it comes to the ships. Kenneth has done an outstanding job on the models, as you can see from my recently updated Model Database Thread

6) Raw materials are referred to as raw materials simply to get around th eissue of being too specific. Ships aren't *just* made of Duranium for instance. It also means that it's easier to mod the game - I don't think they've ever mentioned Duranium as a metal in Star Wars for instance, so that makes life easier if someone wanted to make a Star Wars mod. That's purely an example though. I'm not saying I know of any mods yet.

Well, they aren't made of *just* raw materials either Plus, those raw materials have to be processed before being used on construction, and it's really not the role of shipyards to do so. One other aspect is that structures don't cost raw materials (since they're unspecified, it makes sense that they should). By specifying it to Duranium (just one example that would fit the theme, even though most ships are not exclusively made of, or even primarily made of, duranium) you can justify that structures don't require any of the game's base resources to be built (unless you want to go the moronic way and make it so that suddenly, in the middle of the 22nd century, you find out that titanium for example can actually be used for building stuff, even though it's been known and used for decades ).
The way I see it, if you want to keep them as raw materials, then every system (with solid planets) should in fact generate them, the amount per turn depending on how many solid planets (and type, if you want to add a little spice) the system has. Systems with asteroids and/or the system special would then be able to build additional structures to mine extra amounts of these materials. Of course, as per above, every structure would cost some amount of raw materials, which would be another interesting factor in colony development, and it'd make you think twice before building extra structures. *
OR, specifying them to duranium or whatever, systems would have no intrinsic generation, unless they have the system special and/or asteroids, and mining structures would have to be built to get those resources. Structures would be built with common building materials, and therefore wouldn't need this resource.
Right now, the game uses a mix of the 2, it just makes it all sound strange, that's all.
As for modding the game, you can change the resource names in the definition files AFAICT, so that's not really an advantage.

* I still think that it doesn't make sense that planet size caps pop, but not amount of structures. Even though they're somewhat related (on-line structures only), the fact that in a small planet you can build as many structures as in a large planet (I mean, there's really no limit, and is system-wide) is, weird I'd say.