Request for more cooperation in order to improve the game

[Gandalf Parker]

For anything to happen:
A) there has to be a problem
B) there has to be an agreement by the people who can do something about it that there is a problem
C) a fix has to be requested in a manner which does not piss off the people who can do something about the problem

There are two ways I know of to change a problem from "your opinion" to "fact". Either someone zips up a game save that the developer can easily open and see it. Or a little less effective, large percentage of the users complain about it. Posting a rant over and over can only get you banned. Especially if you "try to save others from making the same mistake". THIS forum is a SUPPORT forum and people who cant be supportive of the efforts need to find another forum more appropriate IMHO.

[spillblood]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Parker

For anything to happen:
A) there has to be a problem
B) there has to be an agreement by the people who can do something about it that there is a problem
C) a fix has to be requested in a manner which does not piss off the people who can do something about the problem

There are two ways I know of to change a problem from "your opinion" to "fact". Either someone zips up a game save that the developer can easily open and see it. Or a little less effective, large percentage of the users complain about it. Posting a rant over and over can only get you banned. Especially if you "try to save others from making the same mistake". THIS forum is a SUPPORT forum and people who cant be supportive of the efforts need to find another forum more appropriate IMHO.

OK, referring to that:
Point A: There IS a problem
Point B: There IS an agreement between the community here that there is a problem, but no agreement by Malfador and Shrapnel yet.
Point C: We have already requested a fix over and over, in E-Mails, in support tickets, here in the forum.

To answer the remaining post: We could send in a fix, but we'd need forum members with programming skills since the section of the game in question (the AI) is hardcoded as far as I've determined, plus we'd need an agreement with Aaron Hall/ Malfador on that. For that, I need his reply on my last E-Mails.

But, we can also change the game /mod it in its still defective state, and even in the demo, that's why I try to lure people here.

[spillblood]

Just to quote another outside voice I got in another forum today:

Sent: Wed Aug 03, 2011 12:07 pm
by darkstar076
G'Day Mate

Just went and followed the link and read the forum about WS. All i can say is wow, you really have an uphill battle

The develpoers have since moved on to other games and as you say the only thing that will cause the game to tick over is enough tickets throught the official bug report system. Even then there is no garentee that they will fix all the problems you have outlined. They might just fix the ones to keep the game working.

Hehe, I can only say: Join me in this battle, dudes!

[spillblood]

Ah, to add that point, yes, I've sent in savegames, logs and bug reports to Malfador, to Shrapnel (via the support system) and I've posted the stuff here.
They definitely know about all the problems.
And if not, I can do this again, all the points Aaron requested, over and over.
But it would help if more people would do the same, so,
WE NEED MORE PEOPLE TO JOIN IN HERE!

[spillblood]

See, Aaron has explicitely stated he needs more people to send in bug reports if we want fixes to the AI, he stated he can't do with a single beta tester.
Do you get that?
I will not repeat this anymore.

[Skyburn]

Well, I had a look at the data files. Not much in the game seems to be moddable, but there are some things that might help.

If the AI can't use nuclear weapons well, remove them from the game.

Increasing unit HP should reduce the human first-strike advantage in combat.

Does the AI build facilities well? If not, remove those, too.

Mod units so they can be built anywhere and the AI might have a better defense setup. In units.txt changing the value on the line "Purchase In Region With Unit Family ID" to 0 for each unit should do it.

Finally, if the AI doesn't seem to replace units well, try increasing the number of starting units. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any separation between starting units for humans and non-neutral AIs, but at least it would give the AI more starting firepower. Maybe they'll be more aggressive if they get more hardware.

A suggestion you might make to Aaron is adding SE style production bonuses for the AI. It would simply be a multiplier selected on game setup. So the AI would get 2,3,5x (or whatever) the resources of human players. I suspect that would be a relatively easy change to make.

Last but not least, though I am sympathetic to your efforts to get this game fixed, I won't be doing any modding or sending support tickets myself. Good luck!

[spillblood]

Thanks, extremely useful contribution, Skyburn. Stuff like this is exactly what we need. But we really need some more people with modding experience willing to make actual mods here. But circumventing some AI restriction by modding the game is an idea that was brought up here in this forum before. You see, I try rallying support and sending in tickets (last one yesterday, replied to two tickets today), but modding is time consuming. We need more people to be able to do that.
That's why I try gaining some support in other forums.
I want to post one reply to a ticket where I requested a modding guide today which I wanna share here because it might help you to understand Shrapnel's standpoint, which they used in other games:
Modding guides must be done by the community:

If we receive enough requests we will look into it. So far, you are the first to ask for one. Most of our modding games have the modding manuals put togetehr by the community. YOu might consider starting one.

I have no experience at all, and we need to analyze the game's structure thoroughly to be able to start one. Any help would be appreciated. We could submit it to Shrapnel when we have one.

[spillblood]

[quote=Skyburn;781465]

Well, I had a look at the data files. Not much in the game seems to be moddable, but there are some things that might help.

Not fully true. I saw by analyzing the game files, that you can point the game via links to specific graphics files for each unit, terrain tile etc. Since those are in simple .bmp format (they are located in ...\World Supremacy Demo\Images or ...\World Supremacy\Images, depends on whether you are using the demo or the full version), they can be easily changed and pointed at in the text files (look at ...GameTypes\Standard\data\Units.txt). All the appearance can be changed. Each mod should have an own folder located in ...\World Supremacy Demo\GameTypes\... (Standard game has the folder "Standard"). So when you create a new mod, just copy the Standard folder, rename it and change the text files. And you can point at different folders for different mods there (located in the main menu). ScottWAR (RIP) has used this in his Basic Balance mod. We might be able to reconstruct things from that, because it's still online.

If the AI can't use nuclear weapons well, remove them from the game.

That could possibly be done, in the Units.txt-file

Increasing unit HP should reduce the human first-strike advantage in combat.

I think this isn't necessary in V 1.09. Just play the game again and you know why. The AI in fact isn't totally disadvantaged in combat.

Does the AI build facilities well? If not, remove those, too.

It DOES build facilities. Removing them (especially factories, cities) would cripple some AI abilities. I'm not sure about Radar stations though.

Mod units so they can be built anywhere and the AI might have a better defense setup. In units.txt changing the value on the line "Purchase In Region With Unit Family ID" to 0 for each unit should do it.

I'm not sure if this is necessary, because the AI is able to build factories and produce units in territories bordering on player territories.

Finally, if the AI doesn't seem to replace units well, try increasing the number of starting units. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any separation between starting units for humans and non-neutral AIs, but at least it would give the AI more starting firepower. Maybe they'll be more aggressive if they get more hardware.

That maybe true, just do that in the actual "Start game" menu.

A suggestion you might make to Aaron is adding SE style production bonuses for the AI. It would simply be a multiplier selected on game setup. So the AI would get 2,3,5x (or whatever) the resources of human players. I suspect that would be a relatively easy change to make.

That's a very good idea, I'll suggest this to Aaron. This should be an option in the start menu of the game.

Last but not least, though I am sympathetic to your efforts to get this game fixed, I won't be doing any modding or sending support tickets myself. Good luck!

OK, I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter. Thanks for your help. Any help by Space Empires modders is appreciated!

[spillblood]

One thing I must add here: Please, all people who bought the game, especially JCrowe, just try playing the game again. This way we can gain more info about the weaknesses. I've already made a start and played two games yesterday, sent in savegames to Shrapnel, but according to this reply:

What do you want us to do? The only new customer service tickets on World Supremacy are from you.

I seem to be the only one. Please, don't let me down people.

Try fiddling with the starting settings. I've noticed enabling only two or three AIs on a detailed Medium map and giving them large starting territories actually makes them more powerful. They were able to almost wipe me out in these two games.
It seems trying out different starting settings is pretty important.
You simply need to play more games so that we can learn all AI weaknesses that still remain and either contact Shrapnel or mod the game so that they are circumvented.

Please,
Help me with this!

[spillblood]

I forgot to mention one important fact for people who don't own the full game and want to mod the demo: The mod selection in the startup screen is disabled in the demo. So you need to modify the files in the ...\World Supremacy Demo\GameTypes\Standard\...- folder. You can then simply rename the Standard-folder to the name you want for the mod. You can try your mod by simply playing the standard game-mode (by the way, the full version ONLY HAS this standard game mode by default (when I first started up this game I myself wondered why this selection is empty besides the standard mode, but this is simply reserved for mods). So, please don't expect extremely much more variation when buying the full version.
But owners of the full version can simply select the available mods at startup when the folders are named differently than the gametypes\standard-folder. I really wonder why no one has tried doing something more than changing a few numbers with the game yet.
Must really be because they were to pissed off because of the bad quality of the game at release.
But we can simply try to enhance it ourselves, people!