Iceman, you sound a little arrogant do you (kidding ). Just let it go. Other games are other games and KISS be KISS. We make it that way and that's it. Mod it otherwise if you feel like it's better but I haven't heard any argument yet that disqualifies our way of living in the future. The other universes are just so slow, I mean there's always a hatch no matter which way you go, constant or decreasing turn times.

There's actually a point in having sector lengths at 20 ly. Warp speed math matches with that distance and our turn times and map speeds. It's all linked to each other.

Sectors are the unit of distance measurement in the game. You can think of them any way you like, but they do not represent any other unit of measure. Game turns are the unit of time measurement. Game turns do not represent any other measure of time, be it weeks, months or years. I have no plans to implement stardates or anything of the kind. I'm keeping it simple. If someone wants something more tractable, they're welcome to modify the game's source code.

I have also said on a few occasions that I will not implement any form of sublight travel. Ship speed is a natural number of sectors per turn, period. Sorry, guys, but this is one thing I won't change my mind about.

Iceman, could you explain this concept of a "research pool" to me? I'm not quite sure what you mean.

never mind iceman, I was just kidding anyway.

That last idea with the pool is naturally circumvented by the possibility to distribute the surplus according to the last research percentage distribution. So if you research a project at 100% with full intent although it is already 99% finished and you know you would need only 5% to certainly get the tech, then all RP are transferred to the next tech level within the same tech area. If you decide now to only give 20% onto that tech and distribute the other research percentage on other techs, then only 20% are surplus on that tech. You don't need a pool. Just rearrange distribution the turn before. It's micromanagement but you know..

I know how it works Mal, my point was that you just need another variable to hold the excess points. It works pretty well in LE:I. Notice that the way the research screen works, I don't know what is coming up next in the various tech areas. I might not want to pursue that line of research. And yes, that kind of micro is totally uncalled for. Sure, I can do the math, and work the sliders (which aren't all that easy anyway, unless you lock them). There wouldn't really be the need for another screen, just display the value in the research screen somewhere.

As for the sublight travel issue Mike, I'd say display the path in a dotted line, in red, but that's already used for out of range travel

Scanners:
Let me explain a little better how they work in LE:I. There are 2 kinds. Deep Space Scanners, that detect ships (those used in Sup) within their range. And Communications Scanners, which scan systems within their range. They are built automatically in any system, and their range simply increases by researching the respective techs. There's one system type, the Outpost, that has extended DSS range, and the homeworld hs both extended. The main difference between the 2 games is that LE:I does not have FoW, you can see all stars in the galaxy. What you can't see though, is what they have. For that, you have the CSs. Info on the systems you can see is only updated (every turn) *if* they fall in your CS range. In Sup, once you've scanned a system, you have access to its current info every turn, including pop and defenses.
Just an observation though, doesn't have to mean anything.

One thing I'd like to see. I've read in these forums about maps. So I know it's been mentioned already (talk about pre-emption ). The game is about ST, granted. But using canon all too much might make the game too predictable and ultimately boring. I mean, if I know that the Cardassians are *always* in the Alpha Quadrant and the Dominion in the Gamma Q, the surprise factor is greatly reduced. Especially in smaller maps. So, what I'm saying is that there could be either 2 modes of play, or simply a switch on the game creation screen, that would allow the player to play Canon Mode (majors and minors are placed according to their canon locations, maybe even have a fixed map size) or Random Mode (where locations are completely random).

One stupid question. Is there a reason factories use the Grade x classification instead of Type x, like every other base structure? It's a bit detracting, all the structures being grouped together in various lists, and factories always apart.

Deuterium

Collect Deuterium is working. The real problem is that it doesn't make sense Ships cannot Collect Deuterium when inside their Refuel Range... Can't see why. Being outside the range is no different from being inside.
The way I see it, the whole refueling thing is messy. You're using 2 different fuel paradigms in the same game - refueling range, and fuel tanks. Personally, I'd do one of the following:
- scrap the fuel reserves (they're more realistic, but the global nature of stockpiles in the game simply doesn't make them viable). But then, there's really no justification for the Fuel stat in ships, and ultimately, for the existence of Deuterium as a resource.
- scrap the Range stat in ships. Fuel would be actually spent from the reserves, and not replenished automatically. Ships would have to go to a system _with a Deuterium facility_ to replenish their reserves, which would be deducted from the global stockpile. No going beyond max range. Of course, the Fuel stats of ships (and their Deuterium costs) would have to be increased, but it would be simple. Just replace the current Fuel values with those of Range, basically merging the 2 stats (ships have enough stats as it is).

When I first saw the Collect Deuterium order, it was in a Transport. I thought it was a cool thing, Transports - as Cargo ships - having the ability to fill their cargo holds with Deuterium, making them quite valuable to have in a deep strike fleet, refueling all the other ships in the fleet. Then I was disappointed. Imagine these ships having a Cargo stat. They could have up to that amount of either Deuterium (when collecting it) or troops (if these were to be implemented in the game) for invasions. Or even Raw Materials, if Construction ships are indeed scrapped from the game, if you wanted to build Outposts and Stations; the first generation Transport would only carry enough Raw Materials for building an Outpost I, the 2nd generation Transport an Outpost II, etc.

BTW, Crystalline Gas Giants don't allow Collect Deuterium, but they do grant the 10 Deuterium bonus per turn. A bit of an inconsistency there.

Facilities:
Deuterium Plant (Gas Giant): cost 650, 40 Ene, +20 Deu
Aquatic Deuterium Plant (Oceanic): cost 1900, 80 Ene, +10 Deu
Not sure why the difference in tech levels (in a Gas Giant is actually easier?; also the DP requires Propulsion1 and the ADP doesn't? [though it's mostly irrelevant]), and in cost (in a Gas Giant is actually cheaper?), and in energy consumption (double with half the output).
Again, I'd remove the automatic bonus altogether, and make homeworlds start with DPs already built.


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A couple of questions:

Aquaculture Centre doesn't have an Energy cost?

Planet habitability = Adequate (3% growth), was it scrapped? Don't recall ever seeing it.

The Neutron Star and Quasar do not have a description.

Diplomacy screen
Maybe the Klingon speech should be a bit more aggressive?

Shipbuilding screen
New names of ships: it's not easy to identify the type of ship only by their class designations.
On the build queue, the longer names are cut off by the resource costs.

Minors
Malcorians: Affiliation=Malcorians, but in the system display they read as Humans (the old bug?). When they joined my empire, I could build the Fed basic facilities (intended), but the shipyard was the Klingon one (I was plauing the Klingons).
Minors that joined your empire, production is doubled? I built the Geo-Studies Centre, should take 20 turns, but the counter was going down 2 turns per turn instead of 1. I think the pop growth is also doubled. Maybe everything is doubled? Is it possible they're developing twice, as a minor and as part of an empire?

Pop growth
It seems it is calculated as the % of the most habitable planet in the system up to the max pop on that planet, and then it changes to the system's average growth. I' not sure this makes too much sense, as the system is colonized as a whole, and the average growth already takes the most habitable planet growth into account.
Sometimes it seems I get double growth (in some systems?). I'll try to check that.

The lack of descriptions for the Neutron star and Quasars is something i've mentioned to Mike in the past. Unfortunately I can't figure out *where* the description is supposed to go in the files, so I can't add it. For the same reason, I can't fix the typo you mentioned elsewhere with the Pulsars. I simply can't find these descriptions anywhere in the game files, so they are probably part of the non-human-readable database files that Mike started implementing recently to make the game load faster.

...

Making the Klingon diplomacy more aggressive is something that I *could* do, but I don't want to mess with the Diplomacy files until I know the Diplomacy is working correctly and is fully implemented. It's still at a very early stage at the moment from a programming perspective. I don't want to risk making changes to files whilst Mike is still working on that area.

...

The problem with the new ship names is definitely an annoyance. I made the change to make it easier to find ships in the editor; I didn't realise the race name would show up in the game as well. I'll have to go back to the drawing board with that one - the ideal would be to have both the ship type and the class name in the title, but that would be just as bad in-game.

...

I'm not sure what is going on with the minor races. The Malcorians are definitely not Humans in the editor, and the minor races don't have access to the Klingon shipyards at all, so there must be a rogue bug somewhere. I'll let Mike know about it.

...

Population growth is still a bit experimental because of the new population growth structures that I implemented duing my last structure overhaul. Prior to my update, there was a bug that prevented such buildings from working, so it may be the bug hasn't been completely fixed yet. I'll also mention these two points to Mike.

...

I've got another update on the way for you to check out, .Iceman. I've just implemented the descriptions for all of the Cardassian ships (But not stations), as well as fixing the typos that you've noted with the last update. Sorry i'm sending you so many files, but four eyes are better than two.

Ok, got it, and sent you more stuff to fix

BTW, I guess it's intended that the Shipyards of minors are *way* more power hungry than those of the majors? (100 vs 35)

Not intended. If anything, they should have lower costs to encourage the AI to build ships. Update five on the way...

The build costs are lower, but the power requirements are higher. Effectiveness is also lower, which is ok.


BTW, a suggestion about the names of shipyards of minors (and the Dominion). Instead of
Basic > Medium > Advanced
maybe
Basic > Improved > Advanced
would sound better? Just a thought.


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More stuff:


Aquaculture Centre doesn't have an Energy cost.

The Meridians only have one tech in their tech tree, a race specific one (Planetary Research Station). Is this intended? Because of the phasing of the homeworld, maybe, even though I'm not sure it makes sense.

Is it intended that all races now have similar SpaceStations? The Klingons only have Starbases and the Science Station though, no Outposts.

Federation: Free Market upgrades to Agricultural Centres. But FM is not restricted in number, and AC is one per native system. Also, the Credits bonus of FM is lost, in exchange for 1 Morale (which also affects Credits, just checking).

Ferengi Franchise Office
Is not restricted to OnePerEmpire.

Is it intended that the Quarren can build the Meridian Planetary Research Station?
Also, the Quarren Ministry of Health only has as Restrictions OnePerSystem and NonNativeSystem, is that intended?

Vissian Cogenitor Foundation
Only has as Restrictions OnePerSystem and NonNativeSystem, is that intended?

Vissian Scientific Survey
Only has as Restrictions OnePerSystem and NonNativeSystem, is that intended?

Feds:
Mining Corps doesn't require an Asteroid field in the system, but the next upgrades do (GeoSurvey, Harvesting).
GeoSurvey requires BioTech (3), but Mining Corps and Harvesting don't.
GeoSurvey's cost seems a bit excessive? (4150, vs 1100 for MiningCorps and 5450 for Harvesting). It only increases Raw Materials from 15 to 20% (and Harvesting to 30).

Aquaculture Centre doesn't have an Energy cost.
It never did in BOTF either. I've never actually even thought about giving it an energy cost...

The Meridians only have one tech in their tech tree, a race specific one (Planetary Research Station). Is this intended? Because of the phasing of the homeworld, maybe, even though I'm not sure it makes sense.
A few races are actually like that. From what I remember, the Meridians weren't particularly advanced, and seeing that the arrival of their planet was so predictable, they wouldn't really have a chance of defending themselves from an attack. Dafedz didn't give them any structures other than their research station, and I didn't see any reason that that should change.


Is it intended that all races now have similar SpaceStations? The Klingons only have Starbases and the Science Station though, no Outposts.
I changed the editor identities of all of the stations simply to make it easier to find them when sorting out the upgrade etc paths, or for when people wanted to mod the game - the game simply displays them as Outpost, Science Station, or Starbase that way. This change *shouldn't* have any effect on the names in the game though - I purposely gave them all different names for the same reason you just gave. The Klingons DO have Outposts, it's just that for some reason the Outposts were removed from the Klingon build list. I've readded them now. For reference, the stations are:

Federation Outpost I
Federation Outpost II
Federation Science Station
Federation Starbase
Federation Spacedock
Klingon Base Station
Klingon Imperial Armory
Klingon Sensor Platform
Klingon Military Starbase
Klingon Imperial Starbase
Romulan Naval Outpost
Romulan Imperial Outpost
Romulan Tal'Shiar Experimental Laboratory
Romulan Naval Station
Romulan Imperial Starbase
Cardassian Union Outpost
Cardassian Military Outpost
Cardassian Union Stellar Research Laboratory
Cardassian Union Station
Cardassian Nor Station
Dominion Jem'Hadar Incubation Post
Dominion Jem'Hadar Hatchery
Dominion Cloning Advancement Centre
Dominion Domination Station
Dominion Founders Station

If you want me to change the names to something else, just let me know.

Federation: Free Market upgrades to Agricultural Centres. But FM is not restricted in number, and AC is one per native system. Also, the Credits bonus of FM is lost, in exchange for 1 Morale (which also affects Credits, just checking).
Hmmm...I noticed that one myself, but I thought i'd fixed it. Oh well, fixed again.

Ferengi Franchise Office
Is not restricted to OnePerEmpire.
Fixed.

Is it intended that the Quarren can build the Meridian Planetary Research Station?
Also, the Quarren Ministry of Health only has as Restrictions OnePerSystem and NonNativeSystem, is that intended?
Not intended and not intended. Fixed.

Vissian Cogenitor Foundation
Only has as Restrictions OnePerSystem and NonNativeSystem, is that intended?
Not intended. Fixed.

Vissian Scientific Survey
Only has as Restrictions OnePerSystem and NonNativeSystem, is that intended?
Not intended. Fixed.

Feds:
Mining Corps doesn't require an Asteroid field in the system, but the next upgrades do (GeoSurvey, Harvesting).
GeoSurvey requires BioTech (3), but Mining Corps and Harvesting don't.
GeoSurvey's cost seems a bit excessive? (4150, vs 1100 for MiningCorps and 5450 for Harvesting). It only increases Raw Materials from 15 to 20% (and Harvesting to 30).
The Asteroids bit was intentional, but it's still not woking exactly as I intended. I wanted people to be able to build the second two structures, but not neccessarily the first, in most systems, whilst still having the Mining Corps upgrade to GeoSurvey; since the GeoSurvey and Harvesting structures say they can access more and more areas for extraction, they should be able to be built in more locations. I'll remove the Mining Corps prerequisite to see if that makes it work as I intended. If not, i'll rejig those three structures another way.

There already is a K-W facility, buildable on the Dom's HW IIRC. Not a SpaceStation type though, a regular structure.

Ahh i must have missed it. time to go play more

BTW, the Ketracel-White Facility doesn't have the One Per Empire Restriction.

Fixed. It didn't have the one per empire restriction because it was originally intended to be a structure that could be built on all systems but gave a very small bonus. When this changed, I forgot to add the new restrictions it would need.

I've begun working on the shiplist update. I've added in 20 minor race ships and their stats so far, and i've updated the stats of several of the existing minor race ships. None of the minor race ships have a description - and they may never get one, depending on whether they will be human-buildable or not. If only the minor race will be able to build them, they won't *need* a description.

I've also begun discussing with Dafedz the possibility of giving the Federation two science stations - one at tech 2 and one at somewhere around tech 6 - as opposed to the other empires which get theirs at tech 4. This would give the Federation an early and late game research advantage, but a mid-game penalty, which would actually follow canon in certain respects because the Federation became a bit complacent whilst their old enemies the Klingons were building up their strength after the Klingon Praxis explosion and the Romulans had retreated into a 70-year period of isolation. The Federation started experimenting with a lot of new ship designs and technologies once the Klingon Empire had recovered and the Romulans came out of hiding, which started happening at around the equivalent of tech 7 (Post-Ambassador level) in the game. By the equivalent of tech 8-9 level, this increased experimentation bore fruit just as the threat of war with the newly-encountered Cardassians started to become a possibility and the Borg had just made themselves known. This decision isn't finalised yet, and we *may* also give *some* of the other empires an upgrade as well. It depends on how the discussion goes.

My newly-implemented stats for all of the stations *may* also undergo some changes soon; the stats I implemented were also decided on by myself - but Dafedz had already worked out the stats on paper without my knowledge, so we will be discussing the differences in our stats and the reasons behind them. I will then implement the updated stats - if and where they are necessary - once we have finished this conversation.

There are a few other facilities that don't have the OpE restriction, probably the same issue. Actually, the TechObjectDatabase.xml still needs (a lot of?) work. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the Editor to work, so I'm basically going through the file itself, which is slow and unfriendly.

Some more stuff:

Card Phoenix Network, Cost 740, OPNS, 100 Intelligence?
vs Card Obsidian Order (which BTW is missing the OnePerEmpire Restriction).

Dom Quantum Simulators
No Restrictions at all?

Skrreeans
Geological Survey grants bonus Raw Materials, but the Skrreea system doesn't have the Raw Materials special.


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A couple of observations:

Personnel starting numbers = 306/297/297, why not 300/300/300?

Dominion
System panel - Inhabitants: Jem'hadar Inhabitants: Jem'Hadar
Starmap - Omarion Nebula's name doesn't show; Uninhabited and Minor systems should show in different colors (both show in white).

The editor doesn't work? If the game works, then the editor will work. if however the editor is bringing up an error message that refers to not being able to load a specific file(s), then that's because the human-readable part of the database does not match the non-human readable part; basically you've performed an edit to the mentioned file(s) without the use of the editor. This has resulted in a mismatch between the data contained in the .xml files (Which are human readable) and the .sdf or .xsd files (Which are only readable by the game and editor).

The only way to fix the problem is to revert the files to a previous installation - which means losing my updates. Run the game, and allow the updater to run. This will revert your files to the Christmas update. Then, download the most recent update files that I PM'd you. If you've deleted the PM's, let me know.

...

When you say a structure has "no restrictions at all", this isn't technically correct; by default, ALL structures have a one per system restriction. This restriction is buggy at the moment though so it might not be showing up in the files, but it IS selected in the editor because I would have to physically turn it off first - and i've only tried that with a very few structures, such as the Orbital Batteries, which players need to be able to build as many as they want of. Mike knows of the problem, so we'll just have to wait for that particular bug fix.

I don't understand what your problem with the Obsidian Order and Phoenix Network is. The Obsidian Order increases research output by 20% Empire-wide and can only be built in Cardassia. The Phoenix network increases Intel output by 100 points per system. I've fixed the OnePerEmpire problem with the Obsidian Order though.

Dom Quantum Simulators
Now have a NativeSystem requirement.

Skrreeans
They now have a raw material bonus.

Personnel Starting Numbers
I have no idea. These are part of the programming, and have not been set by me. Only Mike can answer this question.

Dominion
This has already been fixed; I haven't sent you the update, that's all. And the Omarion Nebula name does show, so either i'm misunderstanding you or i've fixed that problem already as well. You'll need to ask Mike about changing the colour scheme of systems. Whilst there is an option to change the colours in the editor, for some reason this option is locked; I can't edit it.

So what happens when you try to load the editor then? Does it crash? Does it simply not load?

...You are trying to use Editor2 and not Editor3, right? Editor3 is incomplete at the moment.

...

The Orbital Batteries are a BuildableByAll structure, but are obsoleted by the Empire Orbital Batteries, so there isn't a problem there. What is a problem is how they are handled in the game, and i've already sent a PM to Mike about this. In BOTF, you had a bar just like the facilities/population bar that you get on the production screen. it didn't matter how many Orbital Batteries you had in a system, all that mattered was how many were powered. Seeing as they were only needed when a system was under attack, you could usually just turn them off until you knew you were going to need them, allowing you to divert power into the other structures, or allowing you to move the extra population into another production area. I believe that it was also intended for the Orbital Batteries to have some effect against enemy raids as well, because the raiding message always mentioned the number of Orbital Batteries detected. In practice though they never did anything, and they certainly didn't ever destroy enemy ships when they raided a system, so it was probably yet another example of an incomplete feature in the game.

...

Yes I did mean Intel output. Sorry about that, I was typing a PM to someone else at the same time.

The Intel structures have a larger output than you suggest - the Phoenix Network is a tech 4 structure so you're comparing the Phoenix to the wrong structure; you should be comparing it to the Type 4 Intelligence Office, not the Type 1. The Type 4 Intelligence Office has an intel output of 36, not 8, so the cost isn't quite as steep as it seems. The Cardassians also had the 20% bonus in BOTF as well, and whilst this certainly made their intel extremely strong, i've not really heard of people exploiting it because the Obsidian Order structure has such a high energy maintenance cost. (300) Using it means your energy supplies will be rather stretched for other structures.

...

With the Nebula names, I thought you were referring to the missing names at the top of the screen. The Ba'Ku are the minor race you're reffering to, and yes, they do also suffer from this problem, although they do have the correct system names showing at the top of the screen now. Mike already knows about the missing Nebula names on the starmap itself problem.

...

Mike isn't on the forums anywhere near as much as me, so I usually write him an uber PM if there are any important points that he urgently needs to know about....so your best bet is to direct suggestions at me or to Pm him yourself.