Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

This happens also in games where you create an empire.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

My ships won't unmothball, they have the order they just do nothing, does it take some amount of turns?

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Is there a way to be notified when a ship or fleet has reached its destination?

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Only by the Orders section of the ship list- once a ship reaches its destination, that will be blank.

Or by the next ship/fleet button, which skips ships with orders.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

The ground cannon (troop weapon) needs major tweaking. At top level it does 707 dmg, although top lvl small shields are only 108 and top small armor is 50.

As someone else has pointed out emmisive armor doesn't work.

The anti-matter and quantum torpedos need tweaking. You get both at the same time, they level at the same time, their stats are the same except the quantum has more range and damage.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Then I have a request for a " We have arrived at our destination Sir. Do you have any further orders?" message.

Difficult to do?

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

You'd have to ask MM, not me..no idea how difficult it would be. Email the request to se5@malfador.com. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Video Wierdness
 

Did a search and tried to find out if this was already reported. Didn't find anything sorry if it is a dupe.

After initial opening of a new game.
When to system list and the icons for the planets, asteroids, etc are rendered in totally mangled video mostly black but basically horizontal lines of random color.

I'm using...
1.5ghz centrino
512mb ram
rez 1280 x 800 (native for 15.4" lcd)
shared video ram

added dxdiag attachment

Re: Video Wierdness
 

Have you tried switching to "SAFE" mode in setup?

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Update: I had originally saved this game at turn 42. I played up to turn 47 and saved it. Game locked up again at turn 48. Ended game and reloaded and have not been able to repeat the problem yet. In hindsight maybe I shouldn't have overwritten the turn 42 save.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Switching the video to SAFE, seems to fix everyone's video problems.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Do mines even work in the demo? I mined a warp point and aside from the mines disappearing when an enemy came through, they didn't take any damage. I know for a fact they didn't have minesweeper components on the ship either.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

For some reason, in the simulator. Fighters (Ground and space) make straight away fro the edge of the map. Same goes for ships in the space simulator. Straight for the edge of the map.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

I don't know about ships, but fighters will do that if they launch with no supplies/ordnance. Make sure your carrier designs have large supply/ord stockpiles. I had carriers with only enough supplies for half of their fighter complements, so half of my fighters would race towards the enemy and the other half would head off in the opposite direction. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif


On a related note, I'd like to be able to turn off "Auto Launch Units" in Strategies for Tactical Combat, but still keep it on for Strategic Combat. There are times when I don't want my carriers to launch fighters but then again I don't want them to be sitting ducks during any auto-run battles.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

What do you mean "if"? Why would you be refitting one ship at a time? In SE4, unless I was trying to cut down the time it took to build ring/sphereworld components or stellar manipulation vehicles, I was usually refitting five ships, minimum, sometimes as many as 20 in a turn. (I also tended to have lots of repair bays in my fleets and build dedicated repair starbases, so this didn't make my fleet a sitting duck for a dozen turns.)

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

I would really like to be able to right-click an empty planet, and have one of the options be 'send colony ship'... only being able to auto-send a colony ship from the planet menu leaves me clicking back and forth between screens too much.

I would also like to be able to change levels on the blueprint without emptying the cursor of the current component... would make designing ships much easier.

In lists, components and facilities need to be stacked... and their research levels needs to be easily identifiable without right clicking on each of them.

Of course, none of this is really new... just like the code for ship movement is badly in need of optimization (since the longer the trip, the slower ships move between hexes). Also, the automatic function give away hidden map info... like if you try to auto-colonize an occupied planet, it won't go... or as was mentioned before, the pathfinding bee-lines for hidden wormholes.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

The game does this for me already - even unasked for http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/thr...00-BigShip.png

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Dude. That is a serious ship. I am totally NOT playing you in PBW.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

And that is only "FF Explorer MkI". Wait 'til you see "DN Squa**** Mk XIII" - or rather it's 241th porthole on the left, staring right in your eyes with screenfilling gaze http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

None of the special armors work, neither do those crystalline solar plants, urban pacification centers and the planet condition improvers, I think a set of abilities have been left out of the demo, not actually a bug.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

I was very careful not to say that, I was mearly curious as to "why" someone would want to do Alt+Tab. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

In BitmapEffects_System.txt set
<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>Frame 1 Texture End X := 0.00
Frame 1 Texture End Y := 0.00</pre><hr />
But it will look really ugly.

Re: Video Wierdness
 

I'd also like to have bigger ships on the sector view, maybe it's moddable (it was in Starfury where ships were too big to the contrary..).

The "ship design layout" is disappointing : the idea is good (it was neatly done in SF), but here we have a bunch of slots, way too numerous, very few specialized
This would be useful for preventing abuses - eg transports full of weapons, to enforce engine limitations, etc.., and weapons are still not directional (it seems).
It really looks half- (or rather quarter-)done http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif

Re: Slot Layouts
 

If you made the slots too specific, then it would become increasingly difficult to balance the sets - and then you'd have the problem of user created shipsets with favorable layouts for weapons or extra engines etc.

In the SE:V Balance Mod, slots are put to a little better use with some components like weapons and engines being restricted to outer slots and stuff like that. With the layers of damage, they should be the first to go before internals and so on.

Diplomacy
 

Has somebody else noted that the AI empires do not seem to react to the human's diplomatic proposals? Not that they refuse, they simply do not react at all.

Re: Diplomacy
 

In my games they react, I've had several treaties with AI players.

Re: Diplomacy
 

I had them accept a counter-proposal. Can't remember if I ever sent a regular message. The AI in the game felt completely uninteractive at any rate, it felt like we were all just sitting in our own corner of the galaxy doing our own stuff.

Re: Diplomacy
 

I think the problem is limited to a couple of the races. For example, the Phong seem much more inclined to offer up treaties than some of the other guys. I'll have to investigate this matter more fully though. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/stupid.gif

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Oh that's an EXCELLENT suggestion; it would really help with preventing the smaller ships from becoming "uber" late in the game.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

On treaties, I like the new options, but the AI doesn't seem to have any understanding of them at all. Perhaps there should be a number of set "packages" of options, and those are the only ones the AI will recognize. They'll never suggest, for instance, a ban on research, and if you offer it, they will simply edit it out in the counter-proposal. That way, it's a lot more balanced for single player, and we still get all the advanced options for multiplayer.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

In that case..what is the point of all the new diplomacy options, if the AI just ignores any that aren't part of a pre-defined package? I don't play multi-player, and even if I did, why should all the new functionality of diplomacy be reserved for multi-player?

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

I don't do multiplayer either, and the change I was mostly looking forward to was the AI( and the modding possibilities). Can't really say it's been impressive thus far. If it really isn't much better in the full version, how much of an improvement can be expected from modding it?

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Probably none, since there is no actually artificial intelligence. It just reacts according to the settings given to it.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

That's about all AI is at the moment. The best AI's could probably come up with creative solutions to situations (within set paramaters), for games it's pretty much limited to 'if x happens, do z'

Re: Slot Layouts
 

Hmm, problem is that as it is it's rather pointless and not interesting, the "dump'em all" of SE4 was at least simple and visually clear ...
Now I can design a Frigate with engines all over the place, weapon facing rear, everything spilled over 3 decks, it's rather stoopid...

Re: AI Improvements
 

There is a ton of room for AI improvements like making better Colony Type decisions, better fleet composition, better ship design, improved analysis of treaties, better decision making for attack locations, and so on. All of this and more is accessible through the AI scripts.

For slots, I agree it would be better if there were a couple more slot types for weapons or engines. We'll see I guess if that ever turns up in the future.

Re: Video Wierdness
 

It's almost certainly moddable, but you should not have to rely on a mod for something like this! Seeing the ships is a basic part of the gameplay.

If I have to download a mod just to play the game without straining my eyes, then maybe I should pay the modder instead of the game company.

If you scroll in to see the ships you can only see a small part of the system. You have to scroll out in order to decide where to move your ships. This makes no sense.

Well, as I said before, it's Aaron's choice as to what direction he wants his game to move. He has his reasons and that's his right and that's that. Everybody can make his own decision about whether that direction is right for them.

Re: Video Wierdness
 

I had an issue where I couldn't switch back to the system view from the tactical view.

I had to resize the system map, click next colony and then look in a build queue, then i could switch back.

Re: Video Wierdness
 

I would suggest that all player ships/units should have an outline around them, to make them easy to see.

Re: Video Wierdness
 

An outline is not enough- the ships need to be bigger. Basically the same reasons Artaud stated 3 posts up.

Re: Video Wierdness
 

Oh I don't know, I think a bright/glowing outline would suit me fine. Although maybe a way to adjust the scale of individual elements (ie ships/bases/etc), would be a good idea.

Re: Diplomacy
 

Something I already miss from SEIV is being able to see just how many resources each construction queue is using that turn. It's a micro-management function but I like it. With construction spilling over to the next build item, I can understand why it's not there, but it' still a function that I'd like to have.

What if you are building a bunch of facilities that don't use rads or orgs? I'd like to be able to see which queues are consuming what.

Balance Issues and other gripes..
 

The weapons and armor/shields have (of course) changed somewhat in SEV, but that brings up balance issues. this being a demo, my observations may already be out of date for the final release.

I've noticed the incinerator beam(medium range weapon) has a max range of 12, but the wave-motion gun (long range weapon) only has a range of 8 (or 9, I forget at the moment), doesn't seem right to me..

Organic Armor..was this completely nerfed on purpose? It take 6 times the space of normal armor, and provides less protection (440 vs 520 (or so)), and the regeneration on it looks pretty lame (depending on how, exactly, it works) regen is somewhere around 152Kt per minute...combat only lasts for 1 minute (30 rounds of 2 seconds each, if I read the setting.txt right). Anyway, regardless of the regen, this armor is seriously under-powered for it's size.

The Alliegence Subverter at max level(and unmounted) has a 15% chance (or less) to affect an enemy ship, this seems quite under-powered to me, especially as it's really only useful for a limited time (until the AIs start using computers).

The Cloaking Device, looks pretty much obsolete now, stealth armor cloaks to the same level(and consumes no supplies) and is more economical and practical to research.

I'm not sure what to make of the shields, in SEIV phased ended up the strongest, in SEV normal shields are stronger. Makes it rather difficult to defend your ships from PPB's. Also a question here..does mixing shield types still result in un-phased shields, or does the phased-shielding only kick in when a PPB is used? (or they are the last remaining shields on a ship).

A bit of a gripe that I suppose could fixed easily in a mod: Shouldn't Organic and Crystal hulls have some special abilities, aside from having their min/org/rad costs slightly altered?

Can't think of anything else at the moment. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Balance Issues and other gripes..
 

Organic, Crystalline, and Emissive armor are not working atm.

What you're looking for is the SE:V Balance Mod. You'll just have to wait another 4 weeks to try it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

What's the point of the new diplomacy options if the AI has no idea what it's asking for, and suggests treaties that are all over the map, and treaties which may greatly harm them? The ideal solution is, of course, "fix the AI", but we all know the chances of that. My solution would at least stop the AI from completely screwing itself over or proposing treaties that make no sense and rejecting ones that make perfect sense.

I say leave the complex mode for the multiplayer arena where it will do more good than harm.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

I would say, take the middle road. Make diplomatic 'packages' for the AI to use, but don't restrict the player to using only those packages. Of course making the AI more savvy in diplomacy would be good too.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

You almost have to restrict the incoming treaties the AI will accept if you don't improve the AI. Otherwise, it would be trivially easy to get them to agree to treaties that are extremely harmful for them. I agree that your system would be a great improvment to the current alphabet soup, but it does leave open serious potential for exploitation.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Not really, just add conditions to AI acceptance. For example, make the AI not accept a treaty that disallows them to do research, UNLESS, the treaty also says the player will share their research with the AI. With the possibility of the AI accepting a no research treaty if the player is much, much stronger than them(intimidation factor).

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

When a ship is under survey orders and gets within 1 hex of a star it stops surveying until the ship is manually moved furthe away and a new survey order is issued.

Re: SE5 Demo Bug Reports
 

Is it possible to add ships to fleets in the Simulator? When I tried, the ships just vanished from the fleet window, rather than be added.