Finding major problems

[-Thog-]

Ok, been playing all day, and it seems like allot of the functions and features don't work as designed or described in the manual.

For example, playing in simultanious movement I cannot get either combat reports or into tactical combat itself. The "No tactical combat" is not set, and I find nothing else that would disable this function. Though a battle is fought (or so my log file says), the "Combat reply" option doesn't light up.

Ships destroyed in unstable wormwholes only show a message in the Log as "damaged", but they dissapear (indicating they are destroyed).

Telling a ship to load population and then move fails. The ship loads the population, then stops and erases it's movement.

Using the option to automatically send a colony ship to a potential colony world also fails. Sometimes the ship clears it's orders, other times it pickes the furthest colony ship to send.

All and all, it's pretty ugly. I've gone through the manuals and found no way to correct these issues. If I'm doing something wrong, then it would appear that the manuals and interface are poorly laid out. These options (those that have then) are set correctly but still failing.
This means it's about to become shelfware, which is a pity considering the potential.

Thog

[Resident Alien]

"All and all, it's pretty ugly ...
...
This means it's about to become shelfware, which is a pity considering the potential."

I play strategic resolution of combat, minister control of colonization and population transports and sequential moves style. These issues are not show stoppers for me. (I am playing 0.99 till Monday so my opinion may be worthless here )

I would bet money that these and many other minor glitches and bugs will be fixed in the first or second patch. Patience will be rewarded with years of great gameplay.

The only thing I want in the manual is some kind of a tech tree to print out for reference while playing.

quote:

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Originally posted by -Thog-:
Ok, been playing all day, and it seems like allot of the functions and features don't work as designed or described in the manual.

For example, playing in simultanious movement I cannot get either combat reports or into tactical combat itself. The "No tactical combat" is not set, and I find nothing else that would disable this function. Though a battle is fought (or so my log file says), the "Combat reply" option doesn't light up.

Ships destroyed in unstable wormwholes only show a message in the Log as "damaged", but they dissapear (indicating they are destroyed).

Telling a ship to load population and then move fails. The ship loads the population, then stops and erases it's movement.

Using the option to automatically send a colony ship to a potential colony world also fails. Sometimes the ship clears it's orders, other times it pickes the furthest colony ship to send.

All and all, it's pretty ugly. I've gone through the manuals and found no way to correct these issues. If I'm doing something wrong, then it would appear that the manuals and interface are poorly laid out. These options (those that have then) are set correctly but still failing.
This means it's about to become shelfware, which is a pity considering the potential.

Thog

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[Elmo]

Resident Alien

..."The only thing I want in the manual is some kind of a tech tree to print out for reference while playing."

You can do that in the demo. Start a game with the entire tech tree visible to all players. You can then use the export button to save the entire tree to a text file and then print it out. I forget which menu you access to do that but you'll see it if you look around.

Elmo

[This message has been edited by Elmo (edited 12 November 2000).]

[Resident Alien]

Hey!! Thanks Elmo! That's just what I am looking for and it was there all along. You can export two views of the tree into CSV files. Perfect for spreadsheet sorting and printing.

Thanks

quote:

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Originally posted by Elmo:
Resident Alien

..."The only thing I want in the manual is some kind of a tech tree to print out for reference while playing."

You can do that in the demo. Start a game with the entire tech tree visible to all players. You can then use the export button to save the entire tree to a text file and then print it out. I forget which menu you access to do that but you'll see it if you look around.

Elmo

[This message has been edited by Elmo (edited 12 November 2000).]

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[This message has been edited by Resident Alien (edited 12 November 2000).]

[-Thog-]

Unforetunately, I can't even get a replay to watch, so I've no idea what happened in combat. More to the point, these aren't exactly subtile bugs, and it shouldn't have shipped with them (assuming they are bugs and not some bizzare interface issue).

I doubt it's as simple as the testers missing it (contrary to popular belief, testers rarely miss things that obvious), but more likely the wronge file Versions being included in the CD, or the final cut made after the problem they had with the recall not being retested, or something similar.

I would like to hear from Mafeasance <grin> on the issue.

Thog

[Dweeb]

Here's a quote from the manual:
"Simultaneous Games work a little different than Turn-Based games. Every player takes their turn at the same time as the other players (if on different machines). Players can only give orders to their ships, they will not move. Movement for all players is executed at the same time after all of the players have taken their turns. Combat which occurs is resolved automatically by the computer and no Tactical Combat is allowed."

It's not a bug, it's the only logical way it can work.

[-Thog-]

Understood. However, I was under the impression that simultanious movement would have a combat replay feature. This way you can see what happened when the computer resolved the combat. THAT is the only way to get any idea what weapons worked, what didn't and why.

So the lack of the replay feature severely impacts the utility of the simultaneous movement system. Since you haven't the foggest idea what happened (except that you won or lost), you have no way to really improve your approach or designs. In that case, why bother with complex ship designs? After all, you'll never know if it made any difference.

I still haven't found anything in the paper manual or on-line that indicates that the combat replay feature is disabled in Simultaneous mode. I fact, I can't find that quote in the paper manual at all (though it is in the on-line Version).

I also noticed a comment in the Online manual that; "For some things, this is instantaneous such as transferring cargo or renaming something". This is true of renaming, but does not appear to be true of cargo. That seems to wait till the next turn.

Thog

[KillerManJaro]

I dunno, Thog. If these issues are enough for you to consign this title to the shelf, what on Earth do you play? Seems to me to be pretty paltry issues, given that turn based works fine.....

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KMJ

[Taqwus]

Don't forget the combat simulator, given that IIRC you always get the other side's ship designs after combat. There, you can test [most things*] to your heart's content.


* At least in the demo, starbases, planets and ships didn't necessarily start anywhere near each other. Makes it harder to test multiple battlestations defending a world.

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-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[Malfador Machinations]

To everyone who has found problems:

Don't worry, there's a patch coming next week!

Be sure to email us with anything you have encountered.

Aaron