SE5 Demo Bug Reports & Annoyances/Requests

[dmm]

I don't know if this is a bug or just a balance issue. Played the SEV demo for about 30 turns. Have missile5 and PDC5. In the simulator, a Frigate5 with 3 missiles easily defeats a LightCruiser2 with 11 PDC and 2 large-mount DUC5s, in either Tactical or Strategic mode. I figured the LC would chase the F into a corner and pummel it, but the missiles get through the PDC too often. [edit: Forgot to mention that LC has CombatSensor4.]

Note that the strategies are set to Med Range for the LC and Max Range for the F. (BTW, I also noticed that changing to Max Range _really_ helps missile ships, and editing the Max Range strategy to break formation and to target the closest ship is also critical for the success of missile ships in multi-ship strategic combats.)

Note also that I didn't know about directional damage until just now, so my PDC and armor are distributed around the perimeter of the LC in an aesthetic fashion. Don't know if that matters. Are there firing arcs as well?

Anyway, is this a bug, or a balance issue, or am I doing something wrong? As it stands, there seems to be no point in using any weapon but missiles for the first 50 turns, and there seems to be no point in bothering with PDC. (I haven't encountered any AI yet. [Wierd, but I did start in the corner.] I guess if they are using fighters I'm in big trouble.)

On the positive side, I love the look of the tactical combat, and how it can be varied from adrenalin-pumping real-time to almost cerebral turn-based. Also love how the ships can't change heading instantly -- they have momentum! Does engine placement affect this? (I'm guessing "no.")

[dmm]

BUG: In combat simulator, if you click on a ship that has been added to combat (before starting combat!) you can add cargo to it. (Use the Add Cargo button.) So I made a drone-launching cruiser and went to add drones to it. I had encountered another race and one of their sat designs was in the list of possible things to add, just below my drone design. But every time I clicked on the drone to add it, the program also added an alien sat. Then I had to click on the alien sat in my cargo bay to get rid of it. In addition, raising the amount of cargo to add had NO effect. So adding 8 drones to cargo took 16 clicks instead of only 2 or 3 clicks if things had worked. Now imagine if this had been a real game, and it was turn 150! Instant carpal tunnel.

[StarJack]

I'll just echo the access violations, seemingly random, but most likely to occur in the ship design screen, and most likely to occur there when holding the shift key and adding multiple components. I have turned off one of the CPU's, doesn't seem to matter. Getting them waaaaay to frequently.

WIN XP SP2
Pentium D CPU 2.8 GHZ
1 G RAM
Radeon X300 128 Meg
Over 200 giggles of HD space free!

[Thermodyne]

Is it just me, or is everyone getting 100% CPU usage at the game setup windows? I played with the display driver/memory settings and was able to get the kernel time down, but the usage stays pegged at 100%

[Phoenix-D]

That's fairly normal for 3d games actually, and it shouldn't affect your actual system performance.

[Thermodyne]

Phoenix-D said:
That's fairly normal for 3d games actually, and it shouldn't affect your actual system performance.

Um..I can’t speak to that, I don’t do much 3D gaming. But I fail to see what would cause it to do that. Once the flat window loads, it’s only playing music while it waits for user input.

[Baal]

A friend of mine had a ship get cargo bombed leaving it with no supplies but it still had full movement point that turn. Only after I went to the next round did the game recognize that the ship had no supplies and reduced its speed.

Also, the same friend built an 18 ship fleet but whenever it would move it would run out of supplies after 1 turn of movement. Mind you the fleet was fully supplied but when they moved in a fleet they used many times the supplies they should have. When the ships were all taken out of the fleet they functioned normally and did not brun supplies so quickly.

[Suicide Junkie]

Thermodyne said:

Um..I can’t speak to that, I don’t do much 3D gaming. But I fail to see what would cause it to do that. Once the flat window loads, it’s only playing music while it waits for user input.

Not quite... it is re-rendering the screen repeatedly, trying to maximize the frame rate.
The downside to directX and 3d engines in general...

[Ragnarok]

I apologize if this was brought up already. I haven't read the entire thread.

While creating your empire you are able to select your empire logo (this is a neat little feature, BTW). Later, after you start the game, you will encounter other players - the AI obviously - that may have the same logo.

I think when the game creates the other empires for your game it should chose empire logos that are not in use currently.

Is this possible? Has anyone brought it up?

[Slick]

It's not just you. Additionally, game turns won't progress when the game is minimized. So much for surfing the web during turn processing.