The Gold Demo: A Mixed Blessing

Noble713 · #1 October 13th, 2000, 04:08 AM

Hmmmmm. Here are things I've noticed in just the two hours or so that I've been playing:

GOOD:
The AI is much more intelligent. I've hardly gotten out of my home system after 5 years of play. It also makes good use of units; I was horrified when my fleet of 4 frigates and a small transport w/troops was wiped out an "undefended" planet.

New systems! Ground units now have ground cannons. That's the only new thing I've researched so far. I thought it was kinda dumb for nothing to be in the troop weapons Category and to have to arm my tanks with fighter weapons.

New art! The new cockpit images look great.

More starting tech! Players now start with satellites and platforms already researched, making far easier to defend your territory.

New construction feature that allows you to queue one turn's worth of units.

You can now see the forces in an engagement before choosing Strategic or Tactical. There are also new formations: Wall and Flying V.

Small fighters are now 15kT, so you cram 9 engines and a DUC into them, giving them a combat speed of 5 and respectable firepower (I think all of the weapons are much stronger than before).

EDIT: Militia units have been reduced in number, so small populations won't decimate your troops, but large ones still do. I just landed 100 troops with 3 Ground Cannon-I each on a planet with a pop. of 4 billion. They were met by 199 militia. I lost all of my guys and only killed about 20 militia.

BAD:
The finite resources still don't work if you pre-generate the map, which I always do.

For reasons unknown, races I am allied with tend to propose the same type of treaty that we already have. This didn't happen in .56.

The image for the Ground Cannon (componenet_153.bmp, I think) is missing.

I watched an enemy ship fire a Large APB-III (about 40 damage) at a group of 17 small fighters, and the entire group was destroyed! I smell a bug...

EDIT: Grrrr. I just build a Space Yard Facility at a planet, and for some reason ALL the other facilities on the planet are now missing. This place had the only Space Port in the system, and now I'm going several thousand minerals in debt. BUG.

EDIT: Ok, now I just watched a single small DUC II destroy 2 weapon platforms, each with a platform core and capital missile. I think there is a problem with damage allocation vs. units. No, it apparently wasn't ONE DUC, but the whole group of 17 that fired, even though I selected only one weapon. This means that the weapon selection code is screwy and doesn't work anymore, or that fighters need multiplex tracking.

Conclusion:
This is the gold code? Hmmmmmmmmm. Well most of the old problems are gone, and the AI really is impressive now, but now there are NEW problems. Still, I'd say the game is looking far better then some other initial releases (ST: Armada comes to mind, I NEVER got that game to even RUN correctly).

[This message has been edited by Noble713 (edited 13 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Noble713 (edited 13 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Noble713 (edited 13 October 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Noble713 (edited 13 October 2000).]

Jubala · #2 October 13th, 2000, 05:16 AM

Not only do your allies keep offering you the same treaty you already have. They are perfectly ok with bLasting my ships and planets alike while mine don't shoot since we are allied. Result: alot of dead people and ships killed by my so called "allies". Had they only returned fire they would have pulverized the opposition. So my guess is that the AI doesn't realise you are allied even though all the benefits from the alliance (trade) do come through while my forces realise the alliance is in place and thus do not return fire on "allied" ships. Not even when I attack.

This was in a simultaneous turn game. Haven't tried turn-based yet. I suspect the same though. Haven't seen any of the bad damage Noble713 is talking about but then again I didn't get to long into the game and the battle reports in sim turn are maddeningly unsatisfactory in their lack of detail. Even worse then strategic.

While on the subject of sim turns, why can't I save my game? That message that the turn is saved when you end it is extremely annoying. What if I want to quit playing for awhile but not end turn? If I just close the game all the orders I have given are gone when I open it up. Saving to complete the turn later is something I do alot in all my pbem games and the inability to that with SE4 is bugging me bigtime. I really hoped something would have been done about it in the gold code. I mean, we can save in turn based so why not in sim turns? Sorry, had to get it off my chest.

[This message has been edited by Jubala (edited 13 October 2000).]

Possum · #3 October 13th, 2000, 06:30 AM

whoo-haa! Re-check ALL the weapon strengths, guys. The dynamic of the whole relationship has changed. Level One DUC's now have an attack of 20, and Level One CSM's now have an attack of 60, but both retain the same *range* they had in the 0.56 demo.

wingte · #4 October 13th, 2000, 06:32 AM

[quote]Originally posted by Noble713:
[b]Hmmmmm. Here are things I've noticed in just the two hours or so that I've been playing:

Was this from the patch or the .99 (full demo??) download??

Cybes · #5 October 13th, 2000, 08:28 AM

where are you getting the 0.99 pathch from? when i trundled over to the malfador site, all i could find was the old 0.56 stuff - no changes at all since september. :/ and the shrapnel site has links only to the complete 21mb download, which i could really do without.

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"Just think of it as Evolution in action" - 'Oath of Fealty', by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.

Seawolf · #6 October 13th, 2000, 04:53 PM

Cybes,

.99 is the new demo not a patch.

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Seawolf on the prowl

llreye · #7 October 13th, 2000, 06:10 PM

There was a 0.99 patch Last night on the Shrapnel page, which didn't list if it patched 0.51 or 0.56. Looks like it's fixed to say 0.56 now.
-MKC

[This message has been edited by llreye (edited 13 October 2000).]

Noble713 · #8 October 13th, 2000, 08:27 PM

quote:
Originally posted by wingte:

Was this from the patch or the .99 (full demo??) download??[/b]

I wasn't certain if the patch was for .51 or .56 (I think it said .51), so I downloaded the full demo and installed it in the same directory.

Psitticine · #9 October 13th, 2000, 08:55 PM

The demo upgrade patch is to move from 0.56 to 0.99.

I decided not to go that route myself though. I don't know exactly why (I'm not generally distrusting of patches) but I felt more secure uninstalling 0.56 and installing a fresh copy of the entire 0.99, downloaded "chunky style" since my connection kept cutting out on me before I could get the full one-file Version downloaded.

Aaaanyway, the reason I mention the fresh install is that I haven't seen the problem mentioned by Jubala with allies at all. I've only had time for one full 100-turn game so far but I had allies flanking me on two sides in that one. We were cheerfully moving through each other's turf, passing through sectors occupied by each other's forces, and so forth without any conflict occuring.

Jubala, did you happen to upgrade via the demo patch?

Cybes · #10 October 13th, 2000, 09:24 PM

ok - i got it. apparently i overlooked the correct link on the shrapnel homepage, and went to the other malfador page instead. :/

hey, shrapne, if you're listening:! it'd help if yer link colour wasn't the same as the text. or at least make that first patch link capitalised. please..?

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"Just think of it as Evolution in action" - 'Oath of Fealty', by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.