Testing, but think bug may have been my fault.

[Captain Kwok]

Your son is not using the Balance Mod to create his empire. He is using stock, which has starting tech point amounts of 100,000, 1,000,000, and 10,000,000 points. Make sure you are both running the same version of the mod and are selecting the Balance Mod and not the standard game prior to empire setup.

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Most of SE5 is bug free, it just happened that v1.71 dropped in a couple of bugs that are annoying and a couple more serious ones that seem limited to only certain users (save issue, combat simulator issue). There will be another patch shortly to correct them.

[Dogboy]

Thank you C.K. for your reply. As a result of your reply, I did some checking and have come to the conclusion that the problem is probably my fault. I did verify that on both PC's I selected standard SE V, v. 1.71. But, then I looked to see if the "Paradise" galaxy type (which is, I believe, specific to Balance Mod) was present as an option on either of the PC. It was, on PC #1 (my PC), but not on PC #2 (son's). I then recalled that during the initial install of the Balance Mod, I copied the Balance Mod files over the Standard SE V files, before creating the correct subdirectory for the Balance Mod. I should have realized that this could cause problems.....

I am now wondering if some of the bugs I've been seeing (beyond this discrepancy in initial research points)
could also potentially be an indirect effect of this error on my part. I don't know how this could cause crashes on the other PC (with Balance Mod installed correctly), but I suppose that given the complexity of the systems involved, it might.

Question: Do others find that the combat simulator often crashes the game? If not, that would be good news, since it augurs well for me being able to resolve that bug by a fresh reinstall.

Over the next few days I will uninstall and freshly reinstall SEV on the PC where I think I made this error. I will then play test to see if the bugs disappear.

So, there is hope, and I am embarrassed to have taken up so much time ranting about bugs.

I will post a summary of what I find on this thread....

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Mistakes are a great way to learn.

[Captain Kwok]

You should never overwrite the stock data files. Mods always go in their own folder in the GameTypes directory. That's why it's there!

From what I've seen/heard, only a small percentage of players are seeing errors with the combat simulator, save bug, and comparison's screen crash.

[Dogboy]

I re-installed SEV on both computers from scratch, applied patch 1.71, installed Balance Mod, and updated Balance Mod. Too early to be sure yet, but I did some limited play testing and so far I have not encountered any bugs. So, I am guardedly optimistic. Thanks for all the help!