I imagine the game will change quite abit between now and when its finished.

The first thing that I noticed out of place was a Federation construction ship. Is the idea to give every race construction ships? What's the point of transports now that they don't build directly anymore? Will the presense of transports make building easier?

New colonies are getting to many structures to start with.

What happened to the Ferengi? Will they and/or other playable races be added?

Cruisers seem to be availible to quickly,maybe destroyers to.

Transports will be for troops, construction ships for constructing outposts and star bases.

The Ferengi are a minor race now. I don't know if a "Medium" race is planned that could colonize a bit. The Ferengi Alliance is canon-wise not really a major in Star Trek, at least when comparing to the Federation, the Romulan Star Empire, etc..

All races have construction ships now - I just haven't released the update yet. Construction ships are needed to build stations, and the Federation actually have two of them. Check out the Shiplist Thread for images and info on all of the ships in the game.

The starting structures of colonies is down to how the game is programmed - I can't select or change this. You certainly aren't the first person to say this though, so i'll mention it to Mike.

As Mal said, the Ferengi are now a minor race, being replaced as an empire by the Dominion. But the Ferengi will be one of the biggest of the minor races - they have multiple special buildings, huge economic special bonuses, and a large number of ship designs. They will also expand aggressively, so they will be a powerful little empire...even if they end up getting bribed to death.

The shiplist is undergoing a major overhaul. Ignore the implemented ships for the time being, changes are on the way.

In BotF at max tech level start (5) you get one manufacturing structure and 3 food producing structures when creating a new colony.

Do you plan on having different starting tech levels or just one?

Mike has never told me about whether he plans to add different starting levels, but I would assume that he does. He's got a lot of plans for the game though, and there's only so much that one person can do at a time.

While playing the Cardasians I encountered the Benzites. The message is geared toward a Federation player.

"They would be welcome members of the Federation"

I noticed that 4 of the five races have the same (6 box) right click interface, yet the Cardassians have a nice custom one. This probably just isn't finished yet.

Yep, each race is supposed to have its own menu style, when the game is finished. I think the Cardassian menu is still experimental.

The Benzites (and the Bajorans IIRC, same issue) text was fixed a couple of weeks ago BTW, it just wasn't released yet. Mike is finishing refactoring the game, and the next version will have a lot of fixes to in-game texts and the database.

The Federation-geared intros are the result of Mike not wanting the game to be as massive as myself and Dafedz do; Dafedz wrote minor race introductions for each of the five empires, and since i'm the guy in charge of database stuff, I implemented the introduction text as well. Unfortunately, Mike didn't include spaces in the editor to enter five separate empire introductions, he included just the one, so only the Federation-specific one is implemented - so all of the races get the same message. For this reaosn, i've now got to go through all 150 of the minor races to edit out the Federation-ness of the text.

...

The Cardassian user interface (UI) IS experimental - and it's a flawed one. Mike based the Cardassian interface on the Federation one, but the interface code has since been updated. He didn't update the Cardassian interface though, so it still relies on old code. This has introduced an incompatibility in the Cardassian UI, because if you try to issue a right-click order to your ships (Enage, avoid, etc) a blank box will be displayed instead of the orders. You can only read the orders by hovering your mouse over them, and it reverts to a blank box when you move the mouse away. For this reason, Mike is going to scrap the Cardassian UI and start from scratch.

A couple of months ago, Mike showed us some designs for a potential Klingon interface in the staff room. He hasn't told us anything more about it since then, but, if it finally turns out anything like the designs he showed us, I can honestly say that the Klingon interface is going to be pure eye candy.

We haven't made any mock-ups or discussed the interfaces for any of the other empires.

I figured I'd add an observation to this thread instead of starting a brand new one....

Early in the game, I inadvertently sent a surveyor ship to a sector that I had thought contained a star. Turns out, the star was actually part of the background and I did not look at it long enough to realize the star was not pulsating (I like that feature, but it's pretty subtle). I would suggest dimming the stars in the background a bit to be not quite as bright and perhaps brightening the actual system stars just a tad. I had more observations, but I'll hold them until the re-factoring is done to see if they persist.

I told Mike about this exact same problem a few weeks ago, Azhdeen. I mentioned adjusting the brightness levels, but I don't know if he is going to do it or not. I do know that Mike is going to implement some new graphics options though, which include turning the background off. Obviously that sounds a bit extreme, but this "fix" wasn't decided on to solve the star discernability problem; Mike is implementing it as one of several options to improve game performance on low-end computers. It would however also fix the discernability problem since there wouldn't be a background to be confused by!

I already did that, and sent you the results (those 2 mentioned above, and IIRC another one which I can't recall but that wasn't related to the Federation).

Remember I said that I lost he last weeks worth of updates, .Iceman. I'm not sure it I lost any of the minor race intros yet, so i'm still gonna have to go through them to check. I'm still in the middle of installing stuff at the moment. Damn I didn't realise just how many programs I use.

I know. But those were fixed quite some time ago, hence my comment
I still have the last update you sent me, if you need it, but it probably was made before your hd crash. LMK if you want me to send it to you.

First of all,nice work on the update.

I noticed was that the Dominion Food producing structures are called "Rations Container's",

Wouldn't Ration Cointainer's be better?

Has the intelligence system been removed for now?

There never was an intelligence system, but I've started working on one, and it's going to be significantly different from BotF. Among other things, the Intelligence production structures will be removed.

There aren't as many Intel structures as there were a few months ago - I've already removed the Training camps for instance. All that remain are the Intel facilities and the Intel Special Structures of the empires and minors. Come to think of it, several of the minor races are going to need new Special Structures once the Intel system is up and running. I'll have to discuss the specifics with Dafedz at that time.

I know changing the Intel system seems drastic, but Mike has quickly spoken with me about the changes on MSN, and I think they sound like a good change. This change will also indirectly lead towards the unnamed little goody that we've been teasing people with over the last few months, so it's a necessary change in that respect...

okay after getting the may update running i noticed some things.

First the barzan insignia doesn´t show up. It´s listed in the folder but when i encountered them it didn´t show up.
Second the axanar hadn´t any special building.

If the image is present but isn't showing up, then the image is named wrongly. I've just checked, and that is indeed the problem. To get it to show up, add an "s" onto the end of the name - it should be named "Barzans.png", not "Barzan.png".

As for the Axanar, they've definitely got a special building programmed in. What's probably happened is the building hasn't been added to their build list. This would be easy to check and fix - if the editor worked. Unfortunately it doesn't, so we're going to have to wait until editor 3 is available. It is possible to manually edit the files, but some of the the database information is stored as non-human-readable files, which the editor is capable or translating. Manually editing the readable files may therefore result in incompatibilities between the readable and non-readable files. I therefore do not advise that you do this.

The Axanar special building is also a shipyard instead of a normal building, so it's possible something else has gone wrong in the game. The only way to confirm this is to check whether the Kazon and the Coridan are able to build their own special shipyards; if they can, the Axanar likely haven't got the structure in their build list. If they can't, then there's either something wrong with the way the game handles special shipyards...or I forgot to add the shipyards to the build lists of all three races.

Thanks for the heads up anyways, admiral, i've added this to my list of stuff to do as soon as editor 3 is released.

This certainly sounds interesting. Even though it will be changed there must be some way to determine how much intelligence is availible to any given race.

One of the first things that hit me about this game was the need for trained officers,and it was neat the way you worked it into the iteligence resource bars. In the Christmas edition,it seemed like those bars were providing more officers if you set it accordingly.

Actually, officers are going away too. Well, sort of. There's going to be a much more "personal" personnel system .

Ooh nice little tease there Mike. Shame you don't want me to say any more about it...

I started play testing last night & I have to say Supremacy brought a tears of joy to my eyes. I love it & think that it will only get better. My wife actually said "Great! I am a computer widow again!" . I know there is a long way to go before the game is "finished", but I have a few observations.
I Liked
1) I love the graphics & the ambient music & the sound effects.
2) The layout of the sytem info is beautiful & clear.
3) I like the fact that there are separate build sections for the planet & the ship building.
4) I loved the background, and had no trouble distinguishing the pulsing star systems from the background.

I am not sure yet about...
1) Will there be voices in the game or will it only be sound effects, music & text.
2) Navigating the screens took a little getting used to, but it became 2nd nature very quickly. I have only played the test for an hour so I m not sure how the officers for the ships work, does your population generate them or will an academy be ness for increasing the #.
3) I understand the concept of raw materials, but shouldnt most sytems in the game contain them at various amounts?
4) are there or will there be wormholes (haven't found any yet)?
5) Will you be able to mine asteroid fields for materials?
The only thing I disliked about the game is that it isn't complete yet! I can't wait to try other races & tech, and be able to build outposts & combat!!!
I think this is a work of art in progress!

Hey Xion! Thanks for the kind words about Supremacy . Let me answer your questions for you:

Yes, and many have already been recorded. However, I haven't developed a system to trigger them yet.

The concept of "officers" in Supremacy is something I've been unhappy with. As you yourself noticed, it's not very intuitive. I can tell you that I am working on a completely new personnel system (coupled with an intelligence system) that will make officers far more interesting (and less confusing). For now, though, personnel are recruited at each colony as a percentage of the local population. You can use the Personnel screen to change how new recruits are allocated--I recommend maxing out the Officers slider, as the other two serve no purpose yet .

Probably . Resources are another aspect of the game that I'm not happy with. I just haven't decided what to do about it yet.

There are no wormholes yet, but they are planned for a future release.

Maybe! I'll consider that as an option when I'm re-evaluating the resource system.

Thanks! I'm glad you like it .

Hey Xion, welcome to the forums!

It's great to hear when someone loves all the hard work we're putting into the game. Mike is a slave driver for improving his creation though, so you can definitely expect even better things in future.



Actually, i've implemented a mining structure for each of the Empires that require the presence of Asteroids before they can be built. These structures have various uses, such as increasing the Raw Material production from the system per turn, or providing an extra source of Dilithium. These structures are the Cardassian Ore Processing Rig, the Federation Harvesting Complex, the Klingon Dilthium Gulag, the Romulan Geo-Survey Commission, and the Dominion Asteroid Sweeper.

Thanks guys! I am surprised I got a reply so quickly!
I played Supremacy last night for many hours (250+ turns) (much to my "widows" chagrin ), and I tried a small size map, load times were much quicker (which makes sense). I did a lot more exploring of the screens and played with a few settings. It's all very well done, and I have a few more questions & comments.

1) I tried scraping ships last night & wasn't able to do so, is that not implemented yet or am I aquiring spontaneous retardation on how to do it?

2) I think the build times for outposts/sci stations are a bit long, even when combining multiple construction units. Is the combination ratios not factored in? or is that how its supposed to be?

3) I intentionally stranded a ship to see if I could rescue it by sending a longer range vessle to retrieve it & combine task forces but it did not allow me to do so. It that intentional? Perhaps a tug vessle with tractoring capabilities ?

4) As stated I was on a small map & wound up uncovering everything, but I did not find the Dominion? Are they in it yet, Or could it be my settings?

5) when will the other races be available to test out?
Thanks again

1) No, scrapping has not yet been implemented. We're actualy hoping to have a mothball rather than scrapping system; when a ship is mothballed, it will be scavenged for useful parts, with the bulk of the ship then put into storage (Via a special structure that each Empire has. The Zakdorn special structure is also a mothball yard, but it's even more efficient than the ones built by the empires). The scavenged resources are then added to your global stockpile or raw materials. However, if you need to ready a fleet quickly, you will be able to bring ships out of mothball. It will take several turns to do, and cost resources to refit the ships - but this will be much faster than building an entire fleet from scratch.

Whether this system actually comes to pass though, we'll have to wait and see.

2) The build costs and outputs are NOT finalised; we were waiting before feedback before we made any changes. Purely by coincidence, I discussed this with Mike in another thread this morning, and we decided to reduce the build costs of ships by 90%. A similar change - possibly even more drastic though - will likely happen for the stations. I also don't know if combining construction units actually works yet.

3) All Cruisers in the game will be able to use tractor beams to bring ships back. This is a feature that hasn't been implemented yet. If you increase your fuel range so that the ship comes within fuel range again, it will be automatically refuelled. You can expand your fuel range by building a shipyard nearby. Stations *should* also be able to do this, but I haven't actually tested whether this has been implemented yet.

4) The Dominion ARE in the game, so I don't know why you wouldn't encounter them. I know how you might have missed them though; the Dominion Homeworld is NOT in orbit of a Star - it is a giant Rogue planet, located within the Omarion Nebula.

5) I don't understand what you mean; all of the Empires are playable already, just change your starting race when you generate a new map. If you mean when will the empires and minor races start fighting and colonising etc, then that won't be for a long while yet; the AI (Artifical Intelligence) system is one of the most complex-to-program aspects of the game and Mike has barely started working on it. We're looking at a year minimum before the AI is ready for release.

If you mean that you would like to play as a minor race, we don't intend to have that as part of the normal game - you will be able to mod the game to change this, though.

I'm glad to see that Personnel and resources are going to be revamped

As for the "asteroid mining" structures, most provide a raw materials % bonus, so i the system doesn't have those, they're worthless. I guess that issue is still waiting on a decision about if *every* system is supposed to generate raw materials, or only those with the bonus...

The Axanar did have their shipyard in their techtree the last time I checked (April).
And it's *4* minors, not 3, with the Tellarite. And they all had them in their techtrees.

If they're all in the techtrees, then something has gone wrong with the update. Mike's gonna have to have a look at it. I've sent the image update to Mike as well now, so the new images should be up on the update server soon with any luck.