Raw materials is intended as just an all-encompassing term. Stop analysing things!

...And yes, you are correct about renaming them. It is very easy to do so. I just said that in the vain hope of shutting you up about the raw materials.

Making buildings cost raw materials is definitely an option that would be worth considering - but the editor isn't currently set up to include raw materials in the build costs for neither the structures nor the facilities. I thought that they were, but they're not. We will therefore need to wait for the release of Supremacy Editor 3 before we can think about implementing this change, and I have no idea how close Mike is to releasing it.

I know the lack of limitations on structures sounds wierd on paper, but you have to remember we're talking about PLANETS. Even small planets are tremendously huge thing - you could fit a lot of buildings and facilities on them. The numbers that the game is dealing with is relatively small though, around 15-40 facilities for an average system as far as I can tell. Ok, you could play the card that a structure actually relates to a whole network of them, and 10 population is actually millions of people...but planets are huge things. So we've simplified things. Not everyone needs to be analysed.

[/End rant]

Thanks for the birthday wishes, Matress.

That’s exactly what I’ve been saying. Keep things simple, or you guys will never finish. If it’ll make your life easier, by all means, simplify it. What deserves by far the most focus is the combat engine and starship texture, etc. I’d **** my pants if saw the phasers fire the way they should, which is the beams converge on the arc and then fire…like in Bridge Commander…please, please, please…do your best to implement the engine the best you can (you rule, Wolfe), it’s by far the most important part of the game (no offense to other devs!).

You didn't really think it'd be that easy to shut me up, did you?
And yes, I most certainly would play that card. As you most certainly knew I would

Anyways, the point was to keep new lines of thought open in this stage, so that 4 years from now, if the same issue presents itself, you don't have to go "you should have pointed that out sooner" hehe.

Some of the early combat will be with just a few ships. You might
see detail in that setting. Then once we have a fleet of ships they
will all appear very small and distant on the screen. Even the demos
we have so far with three or so ships have them appearing small.
I think our eye candy will, by the nature of the game, be found more
in fleet action. We are taking advantage of that with a wide range of
ships. We might also do well to invest more in good looking ship
explosions. That would count more in our scale of combat.

I don't know if you've seen it or not yet Stromgarde, but I recently did an overhaul of the Shiplist Images Thread, thanks to Kenneth working overtime on sorting out the images on Sharepoint for us. Those images are what the models that we have actually look like - we haven't just acquired random images and slapped them into the game. Kenneth is now working on improving and optimising the models as he has time to do so, so we may even have to replace these images with better ones later on...

We would love to add the correct Phaser effect as well - you're not the frst person to ask for it, and I doubt you will be the last. It all depends on whether Wolfe *can* actually program it - the engine simply might not be capable of doing so. But if it can, then i'm sure Wolfe will try to implement it. I believe Wolfe's current priority is to get the combat engine working in Vista at the moment though, so more people can experience the combat system and provide feedback. Eye candy will just have to come later i'm afraid.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Yes, I've seen the ship list and it looks quite good. Looking forward to seeing that in the game...

I strongly agree with Ken, explosions and debris are quite poor at the moment (I tried the demo a couple of months ago, not sure if that's still unchanged), one could say nonexistent, so that's something that would need work. With debris, it could be around following an explosion, but not indefinitely. After a while, it could fade away or keep exploding. See Star Wars: Empire at War as an example when the space station is destroyed. A truly wonderful animation of its destruction, quite realistic AND an eyecandy.

Cheers!

The explosions in the combat system are big coloured rings - red for the death of enemy ships, blue for your own. There is a little bit of debris, but it only lasts about 5 seconds tops.



...That was 10 Defiants vs 100 Klingon Bortas D5's. The Defiants won.

You can just about see the red ring from the death of one of the Klingon ships, and the red blobs in the middle are the debris. Is that how you remember it, Stromgarde?

Yes, that is how I remember it, so it seems that further work hasn't been made on it yet. That's ok, but I really think that it'll be necessary to implement before calling it good enough.

Also, notice how things get crowded. I mean, there we have a real danger of allied ships colliding with each other. Is that even a feature in the game? It would be crucial for the Dominion ships, I'd say. On the other hand, it would present an unfair advantage of the Dominion over the others. Even if collisions are not part of the game, creating a little more space between ships may not be such a bad idea...

LOL,...

Explosions and debris are simply a knock off from a previous game star trek battlestations, and though 'cartoony' they do what they are currently intended which is allow me to build code to handle debris and explosions .

The reason ships bunch up together is simply because the only attack command, is by setting ships to aggressive, in which all they do is iterate between ships until they find the closest one, then place a waypoint around it which is a distance set away from the ship in a sphere.

That code is old and as you can see needs work.

Also first pass shield effects were added, which you can't see anyway, this brought up another problem which is I can't currently go adding Uber special effects, simply because the last one brought up a memory leak of huge proportions and as of yet I'am unabe to find it. I feel it is linked with how the enigne is handling textures, and simply not removing them when they should be. But it annoyingly hasn't been easy to fix.

So yes better effects with time, however currently more important things like AI code and better aggressive logic and better more efficient collision detection, the more efficient the better which means more and better effects.

Anyway takes time but I still look to put in work when i can.

Regards Wolfe

Wolfe is right; the combat system does now include shields, as well as other improvements such as voice acting. Those improvements were released only relatively recently, so I doubt you would have known about them, Stromgarde. One of the best screenies i've ever made of the combat system is this one, which incidentally shows the shields:



I know you're working hard Wolfe. You've done fantastic work on the combat system already. Don't push yourself too hard, and remember Mike or others may be able to help you if you contact them.

Yes, there isn't enough praise one could put down on here. So, I too congratulate you on the hard work and success, Wolfe. You'll get there, it's just a matter of time and perseverance. Ultimately, it'll be an awesome game, and the combat engine will be without doubt the most important part of it (next to the AI).

You guys have definitely created quite a work for yourselves. Sometimes I think that it may have been better to simply revamp the old BotF, make it bigger, alter things on an already existing code. But I'm sure that you guys considered that option and decided to make everything from scratch. The result is, unfortunately, that these things take a long time to do, which can be demotivating, but in the end the outcome is priceless.

Keep up the wonderful work.

there was no option like that since the botf code is not available to the public, i.e. us. For botf revamping, there are already a lot of people modding it on www.armadafleetcommand.com/botf but it's limited in many ways and slow-going as well although nevertheless impressive as well .

I have to commend you all for the progress, there are lots of posts out there. Iceman has been providing some useful input, it seems, and the team has been working on furthering the game. Puts a smile on my face. However, am I right in the statement that no game update has been released for quite some time? I’ve been waiting for the fresh update to continue testing it and providing feedback.

No Supremacy updates have been released since Christmas. The reason for this is that Mike is working on a major programming update that will fix several bugs - possibly including the random freeze bug - and it will also speed up turn processing times. This update requires Mike to refactor the entire game code, which requires a massive amount of work, which is why there have been no updates. I have also been working on content updates as you've probably realised, but that update also includes a whole host of new images, so the next game update is likely going to be a big one filesize-wise.

As for Wolfe's combat system, there haven't been any updates since December to my knowledge. I haven't spoken to Wolfe about it lately, so I don't know what the latest developments are. I'm pretty sure he's still working on it though. We'll post updates for either game as soon as we know anything more.

Nice to see you around again, Stromgarde.

Oh, I'm sticking here, don't you worry about me...I'm just worried about you guys not to give up because you've given yourself a NEARLY unsurmountable workload inevitably accompanied by huge expectations due to Star Trek theme...

Once there's a new update, I'll keep testing it and providing feedback. Thanks for never giving up!

Ixnay onay hetay orkloadway. You don't want certain people to actually realize this stuff, right?

OMG! Stromgarde is right! I see the light now, there's no way we can ever do this! Ok...I give up on the game. No more Supremacy!

Yeah right, like i'd ever say something that. FAT. CHANCE. I've come this far with the game, and so has everyone else. The game is coming out in one form or another. Simple as that. You've got nothing to worry about Stromgarde, you'll be playing Supremacy, even if you're 90 by the time you finally get to play the finished version.

Haha...I do hope I live that long. Unless Alzheimer's gets me before then.

So...have I missed it or has there not been another Supremacy update yet (since I last gave feedback)? Just out of curiosity.

No updates yet. The Easter update has now become the "After-Easter update".

Mike had to go on some week-long works conference thing but I haven't heard from him since he came back...

Maybe this conference thing had been infiltrated by some alien parasites or even planed by the government to sabotage the development of supremacy maybe they have an own top secret program which is also called supremacy and they needed mike to get some brain washing.

ohjeohje just to bring up some conspiracy.

Hello all,

Here's some feedback on the May update. I started playing under the "supreme" setting in a small galaxy, so I can have maximum building options and quite a bit tech already researched.

1) In the build menu, there are two orbital batteries that can be built.
2) The icon for the trade center is missing - you can use the same one used in BotF.
3) Building the advanced solar array is available at the same time as the solar panel array. Isn't the advanced solar array the succesor to the latter?
4) There was a standstill in production on Sol for one turn due to a religious holiday. Just plain weird, I'd think that by the time the game takes place humanity has become enlightened enoughto ban such ridiculous theistic crap from public life and reserve it exclusively for private/personal affairs. But, if it's too much of a problem to remove, why not leave it...
5) There are no sounds when selecting buildings in the building menu nor are there sounds when turning them ON/OFF.
6) I built a construction ship, then flew it to a sector, and ordered it to build a station - at that moment, "an unhandled exception has occurred" and the game crashed to desktop.

Well, that's it for now. I'll provide more as time goes on...hopefully. Sorry for such inactivity, but life's a bitch lately. Good luck!

Hey Stromgarde, welcome back!

1) I know about this problem, I just haven't figured out *how* to stop it happening. The secondary orbital battery is meant to be buildable by all races, but the Empire-specific ones are supposed to obsolete it and yet they don't, so this might be a game bug.

2)It's probably named wrong rather than being missing. I've made some big changes in the economy buildings with the update and the image probably got left behind.

3) This only happens if you select a tech level higher than the starting level. The tech requirements for the Advanced Solar Array are atually several levels higher, but the higher tech levels don't actually start you off with anything built (Yet) so the game gives you access to both. There's absolutely no point in building the Solar Panels because the Solar Array obsoletes it once it is built anyways. So again, this might be a programming bug.

4) The religious holiday is the games very first random event, and the little surprise that i've been hinting about lately. The random events system is going to be massively expanded in future to include more randoms. Since it is a random event it happens in a random system. I don't believe you can stop it happening in particular systems.

5) This is a known problem. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not though because some of the sound effects could be annoying at times.

6) You wouldn't happen to have a copy of the error message would you? Attach the Error.txt or ServerError.txt files to a post. These files will be deleted the next time you play the game though, so if you've played the game since then the error report in these files won't exist anymore.

Hi Matress,

Sorry, but I didn't save that file. However, I'm sure that you may get the same error if you do what I already typed about the construction ship.

Is there any word as to roughly when the AI will be added to the game? I guess that would have to happen simultaneously as the mod for battles, so I'll just combine the two questions in one: how's progress on these two?

I've answered both of those questions a million times on the forums Strom. Since you've not figued out the search function, i'll put it as simple as I can:

AI: About a year.

Combat: Ask CdrWolfe. He's making it, and we're getting impatient for an update.

Well, one is universal, so it's available to everyone - maybe regardless of obsoletion paths? One thing might be trumping the other.



TBH, I don't even know why there is such a thing as an Advanced Solar Array... Instead of being an upgrade, why not call it something else, and make it be a different energy structure? Or simply scrap it? The upgrade system is "complicated", why convolute it even more with more upgrades? Just to have more structures? Meh.
Besides, you start with Fusion reactors as your main power sources, but you can't build "advanced" solar arrays... or other (basic) energy producing facilities... This just sounds like some sort of competition with BotF, to see what more can be added.

...Your point being...?

Your point about the universal status trumping the obsoletion queue is probably correct, but that leads to another problem; the only current fix would be to manually give the minors the orbital batteries, which would then massively increase the size of the database, which I am loathe to do in this particular instance. Alternatively i could scrap the Empire-specifc Orbital batteries, but then means Kenenth has slaved over the Orbital Batteries for nothing. I am therefore lothe to do that as well. I'll have to bring the point up with Mike.

Could you possibly make the empire specific Orbitals an upgrade to the generic ones?

Haha, sorry Matress, I know you get to answer that question at leat a trillion times a week, and you're right, I was too lazy to search for an answer, so I just flat out asked. Thanks for the feedback.

By the way, I just saw Terminator Salvation (not to drift too much off topic), and I would recommend it, although there was slight disappointment on my part for it being too soapy/Hollywoody (i.e. the heroes face an impossible challange and you know that they'll make it, you're just curious about how and that's the only reason why you're watching the movie).

Hehe you know me Strom, i'll reply to a post even if I don't know the answer.

I'll be watching it in a few days or weeks. I rarely ever see a film when it first comes out, I prefer the cinema to be quiet.