Twilight of the Arnor Beta 4C

Published on February 1, 2008 By CariElf In GalCiv Journals

I'd like to apologize once more for the delay. I kept running into snags with getting the map editor ready for the update. I also caught a few more minor things with TA in the process that won't be visible to you as users. This is also the first build of TA built on my new work PC. Yay!

If any of you are playing GC2 on Windows 98, ME, or 2000, if you could try out the map editor even if you don't plan to use it and see if it works for you, I'd appreciate it. I'm sure that some of you on Vista will want to use it so I'm sure that I'll hear from you.

Some of you have been reporting AI fleets with ships that have negative hitpoints. I had a debug message put in that would pop up a windows message box if the game detected it, but it was popping up behind fullscreen windows and made the game appear to be frozen, so I removed it. So, if you notice a fleet with negative HP (appears to happen after a battle), please note down the name of the fleet, save the game, and then try to find a recent save game from before the battle to send in so that we can try to reproduce it here.

As a reminder, please make sure to zip your save games before sending them in, and unless you actually can't start the game, e-mail bug reports and crash logs to gc2bugs@stardock.com so that you save the support people the trouble of forwarding them to me.

Also, I forgot to enable custom maps so you won't be able to load them into Twilight. If you really want to try it out before next week, you might be able to get around it by making your own tournament and putting it in the tournament directory.

+ NEW: Map Editor
+ NEW: Added option to enable/disable tech stealing
+ NEW: Added buttons to Lease/Maintenace screen to toggle between listing ships and improvements on the maintenance part
+ NEW: Hyperion Starbase modules now in

+ FIXED: Added code so that if an AI space miner can't find a new destination, it will go home instead of parking on an asteroid
+ FIXED: Crash in AutoPilot line graphic
+ FIXED: Gaia Vortex so that it will now update the planet surfaces for the affected planets
+ FIXED: Crash in InvasionWnd
+ FIXED: Bug where ships could get stuck on asteroid fields
+ FIXED: Stuck turn bug caused by a space minor on auto improve that was targeting an asteroid where another minor was parked

+ TWEAK: Added code to try to prevent bug where CTRL+N results in a game with all civs set to Fool level of intelligence.
+ TWEAK: Drengin AI now uses some new code for choosing planetary improvements. Beta testers: please let us know if you notice anything.
+ TWEAK: Minor Races made significantly more intelligent

Comments (Page 3)

Uranium - 235

on Feb 02, 2008

Why still no research speed adjustment?

The current 'very slow' is about 200% faster than 'very slow' should be.

In fact, I recall that 'starting' techs at 'very slow' used to take 32 weeks right off the bat. Now they seem to take 16 weeks.

I started two games - both Terran, neither with any spent points, TA on Immense/Abundant/Abundant/Abundant and DA on Gigantic/Abundant/Abundant/Abundant, with "Very Slow" research.

The easiest techs to research in TA were 15 weeks each. The easiest techs to research in DA were 13 weeks each. I started another in DL, and they were 10 and 13 weeks.

This was with the sliders in their default position. Perhaps you should play past those early techs, and you'll find that the later techs tend to take a long time to research - at least, that's been my experience.

Yes, I've never played past Laser IV and Interstellar Governments.

Even with 'very slow' I find it generally takes a far shorter amount of time than 'very slow' implies. Remember that research speeds are generally linear, whereas colonization and research INVESTMENT is exponential.

Zenicetus

on Feb 02, 2008

Why not give them limited colonization? Like they can only colonize planets within their star system? Otherwise, I agree. Minor races shouldn't be allowed to have far-reaching galactic empires.

Agreed. I don't understand the frequent requests for minors to stop being minors and join the Big Boys. Especially in TA, since the whole point is to differentiate the majors with unique tech trees. The minors use a generic tech tree (IIRC), so you'd have a bunch of new races running around with the same generic tech (modified by whatever they acquired through trade). I like keeping the main focus on competing-but-different tech trees for the main races, with the minors just there as trading partners, until someone grabs their home system.

kungfujoe

on Feb 02, 2008

I think something needs to be done to better manage multiple similar buildings. I haven't played the latest beta yet, but in the last game I played, I traded with all sorts of races for technologies that I couldn't research for. The result was that my building list on each planet was ridiculously long, making it hard to find any particular building, or notice when a new one was available as a result of a new acquired technology. On my list of "current best" buildings, I'd have three or four different morale-boosting buildings, three or four different production-boosting buildings, etc. Instead of really showing me the "current best," it shows me the current best for each race. With ten races having ten different tech trees, a player does does a lot of technology trading is quickly inundated with building types.

DivineWrath

on Feb 02, 2008

+ TWEAK: Drengin AI now uses some new code for choosing planetary improvements. Beta testers: please let us know if you notice anything.

This is what I have to say after playing 1 game:

Well the Drengin now seem to use more of their production bonus structures (I'll be using the term "PBS" for short) than before, even going so far as to try to build several of them on a single planet. However, they don't seem to consider building a slave pit instead of a PBS, which would provide more industry with less upkeep. As such they are often wasting large amounts of money for minimal rewards.

The only reason I can think of for using PBS instead of a slave pit is to avoid the influence penalty that comes with a slave pit. Its a really expensive, and wasteful alternative though.

This problem might be related to how the AI sometimes builds a "Research Coordination Center" without having research structures on the same planet. However, the "Research Coordination Center" has an upkeep of 1 bc, and provides a +25% research bonus to the planet, so the AI building one isn't going to be much of a waste.

________________

Any how, based upon my analysis, the Drengin PBS are best used to increase the military production of a planet to its maximum instead of an alternative to a slave pit. Its too expensive to replace a slave pit.

Lets compare a "Slave Canyon" to a "Devil's Forge". A Slave Canyon has an upkeep of 3 and a Devil's Forge has an upkeep of 4, so simply having one regardless of your military spending is going to cost you more. In addition, at 100% military spending, a Slave Canyon would produce 10 industrial points, but a Devil's Forge would only produce 3.2 if it only had an initial colony to rely on. If there was an initial colony and 4 Slave Canyons however, the Devil's Forge production bonus would yield 11.2 industrial points.

So, as you can see, Drengin spending habits should be looked at.

________________
I'll comment latter after a few more games against the Drengin.

DivineWrath

on Feb 02, 2008

...On my list of "current best" buildings, I'd have three or four different morale-boosting buildings, three or four different production-boosting buildings, etc. Instead of really showing me the "current best," it shows me the current best for each race...

I wrote this post (see link) to provide a suggestion to deal with this problem, but the devs are currently too busy to add in any more features at this time.

WWW Link

Feel free to add a reply, or comment though...

Calmiche

on Feb 02, 2008

This is also the first build of TA built on my new work PC. Yay!

The Beta is cool... But I want specs and a picture of your new work PC!

TC44

on Feb 03, 2008

I have a question about the Map Editor, and I hope it doesn't make me look dumb

When I open my editor and begin to add this like stars, planets, and others stuff everything shows up like very close up on the screen

Is there a zoom-in/zoom-out feature that will allow me to zoom in and out when you design your maps that I am just not seeing?

Mekanical

on Feb 03, 2008

yeah there is a zoom mode and when you push ctrl you can have a 3d vision of the map

Sir_On_The_Edge

on Feb 03, 2008

or use the mouse wheel

Franco fx

on Feb 03, 2008

I noticed that under editors an options is ship editor. I assume this means we will be able to design ships outside the game. That is outstanding and long overdue.

The Watcher

on Feb 03, 2008

I noticed that under editors an options is ship editor. I assume this means we will be able to design ships outside the game. That is outstanding and long overdue.

Indeed! Hopefully we can alter the stock shops too as that might resolve the darn invisible ship bug!!

ScottTykoski

on Feb 03, 2008

Ship Editor == Ship Component Editor

Sorry guys

havocCAU

on Feb 03, 2008

I just preordered my copy of Twilight of the Arnor through stardock, how do I get to play the beta?

KevinLorenz

on Feb 04, 2008

I have a few points that I would like to make.

I like the idea of minors being able to colonize their own system. This should carry over to other systems if another race gives them a planet in another system.

With the latest patch its hard to tell what resource is in a starbase. Could there be an option to go back to the old look.

I would like to see brand new tech's that only show up to research if you have two race specific tech's from two different races.

Kevin

TC44

on Feb 04, 2008

or use the mouse wheel

Can't do that

I have a new Logitech trackball that has no mouse scroll on it

I have also a new Logitech keyboard snd on that I can use the main +/- keys to zoom on the main display map in the game, and the +/- keys on the keypad, but it will not let me use either of those in the Map Editor

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