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Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 2:59:50 AM

Erik Rutins

Posts: 37503
Joined: 3/28/2000
From: Vermont, USA
Status: offline

Hi everyone,

Time for another preview of what's on the way. I just synced up with Elliot to make sure we were on the same page and I think you will be happy with the upcoming improvements and fixes.

Below are the items that will be in the next patch. Because of the rebalancing, we will have this in testing a bit longer, so we expect it to go to a public beta around the 19th.

BALANCE FACTORS

* Rebalance number of colonizable planets and abundance of resources
* Racial bonuses apply in more gradual manner for multi-racial empires
* Trade valuations for colonies, bases and tech rebalanced
* Decrease likelihood of empires colonizing in other empires systems
* Reasonable limits on arming civilian ships. AI allows for defensive weapons, with no negative impact on relationships
* Enforce size limits on Resupply Ship. Also enforce minimum percentage of space as cargo storage, etc to limit how many weapons can be on board
* Limit negative effects of poor reputation on your empire's colonies, i.e. citizens less concerned about your reputation, especially for certain races

NEW FEATURES

* Add auto-refuel option for all ships, even when manually-controlled
* Manually-controlled military ships automatically engage enemies, no need to manually select targets
* Add mass-retrofit option from Ships and Bases screen
* Allow turning off display of ships at galaxy- and sector-zoom level (fleets, bases, military ships, civilian ships, etc)

BUGS

* Fix bugs where fleets may have missions cancelled
* Fix bug with 'ghost ships' and defeated empires
* Fix other minor bugs

There may also be other items included in the patch, but this is the minimum list.

_____________________________

Erik Rutins
CEO, Matrix Games LLC

For official support, please use our Help Desk: http://www.matrixgames.com/helpdesk/

Freedom is not Free.

Post #: 1

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 3:16:05 AM

HsojVvad

Posts: 1036
Joined: 3/24/2010
Status: offline

Looking good. Thanks for giving us the heads up. I have never seen a company that keeps so in touch with their customers.

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 2

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 3:53:06 AM

codearchitect

Posts: 10
Joined: 3/30/2010
Status: offline

Keep up the good work guys!

(in reply to HsojVvad)

Post #: 3

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 4:16:41 AM

thiosk

Posts: 150
Joined: 2/2/2010
Status: offline

(in reply to codearchitect)

Post #: 4

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 4:27:13 AM

Astorax

Posts: 188
Joined: 4/11/2010
Status: offline

Excellent job, guys. We appreciate all the hard work and dedication!

(in reply to thiosk)

Post #: 5

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 4:43:55 AM

YvesDelecroix

Posts: 15
Joined: 4/5/2010
Status: offline

I am continually amazed by the responsiveness of this dev team...

(in reply to Astorax)

Post #: 6

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 4:51:48 AM

OberonDark

Posts: 64
Joined: 3/29/2010
Status: offline

Yay.

(in reply to YvesDelecroix)

Post #: 7

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 5:19:22 AM

Marcuso

Posts: 82
Joined: 11/23/2009
Status: offline

I can't thank you guys enough for the support you're giving this game.

(in reply to OberonDark)

Post #: 8

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 5:20:43 AM

swatter555

Posts: 199
Joined: 3/19/2002
Status: offline

The auto-target for manual ship control is absolutely imperative. Getting a beta around the 19th is really fast turnaround for such important changes, I eagerly wait for the expansion and the great things that will have.

I also want to mention an important idea I had about the end-game. It would be nice to have another victory condition similiar to MoO, where a galactic vote is taken and if a civ has enough votes, that civ wins (based on pop). If anyone doesn't except the vote, they are attacked by everyone.

(in reply to OberonDark)

Post #: 9

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 6:24:33 AM

Malevolence

Posts: 1781
Joined: 4/3/2010
Status: offline

In terms of retrofitting and upgrading. I respectfully submit, if it's within the bounds of your architecture, to re-focus on the name of the ship vice the role in terms of upgrades. What the Navy would the call the named class instead of the role.

For example, the USS Carl Vinson is a nuclear aircraft carrier of the "Nimitz" class. The role is an aircraft carrier. If I wanted to create two design classes with the aircraft carrier role, I might name the other design, "Queen Elizabeth".

When I upgrade my design, I don't want my Nimitz design to "obsolete" my Queen Elizabeth design. I want a Nimitz II. When I upgrade my Queen Elizabeth design, I want a Queen Elizabeth II.

As it currently stands I get very strange results with multiple named designs of the same role. The name sometimes suddenly changes (particularly if I have chosen my own name) instead of increasing the roman numeral. Bases suddenly go from being "Weapons Research" to "Star Base" and then I have three or four "Star Base" designs with nothing to distinguish them except the costs and size.

Can DW's code distinguish designs by Name instead of Role or do the automation routines rely so heavily on role that this is a hard change? By that I mean, is your AI going to choke on the possibility there are two designs for a small freighter? or which Gas Mining Station should I build if automated?

< Message edited by Malevolence -- 4/12/2010 6:33:54 AM >

_____________________________

Nicht kleckern, sondern klotzen!

*Please remember all posts are made by a malevolent, autocratic despot whose rule is marked by unjust severity and arbitrary behavior. Your experiences may vary.

(in reply to swatter555)

Post #: 10

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 6:28:41 AM

Gertjan

Posts: 698
Joined: 12/9/2009
Status: offline

Great work!

quote:

Decrease likelihood of empires colonizing in other empires systems

Please dont do this, instead please reduce the relationship penalty you get from colonisation in each other's systems (in particular if they have friendly relations/treaties). I find it nice that there is his current relationships in which empires can share a star system.

(in reply to swatter555)

Post #: 11

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 6:33:10 AM

Fishman

Posts: 795
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

* Enforce size limits on Resupply Ship. Also enforce minimum percentage of space as cargo storage, etc to limit how many weapons can be on board

The problem with this approach is that cargo space doesn't need to be very high on ANY kind of ship before the amount of cargo space available becomes Ridiculously Huge. This was an issue in Space Empires as well: The requirements of sticking a large percentage of cargo space on a ship resulted in even small transports developing Ridiculously Huge cargo capacity far in excess of anything that anyone would sanely NEED, simply because it was required to be there. If anything, there shouldn't be any explicit limit, resupply ships should simply be limited to the size of a deep-space base instead of treated as a planetary base, or the limit should be in absolute cargo space rather than percentage, especially since the game already seems to treat resupply ships as a "giant mothership". If you consider an 800-point resupply ship with a 25% cargo space requirement, the resupply ship will have 200 points of cargo bays, or 25 cargo bays, for a capacity of 25000. This is a RIDICULOUSLY HUGE amount of cargo space that exceeds that of mining bases.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

* Fix bugs where fleets may have missions cancelled

Does this fix the annoyance where ships ordered to do something like load troops, retrofit, or move will decide to drop their orders in favor of doing something idiotic, like chasing a frigate, instead of doing what they're told to do?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
* Rebalance number of colonizable planets and abundance of resources

This is very vague. Does this mean more colonizable planets and more resources, or less? I'm thinking we should have more resources, but less colonizable planets, so that a given planet becomes more important and less prone to colony spam. Also, less filler systems that have no use. Does a star with no planets serve any real useful purpose? Even with today's technology, we can determine that such a place is immediately uninteresting, and too many of these just wastes map space.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
* Reasonable limits on arming civilian ships. AI allows for defensive weapons, with no negative impact on relationships

What is "reasonable" and "defensive weapons"? For instance, I arm mine like the East Indiamen of old, which means they carry weaponry comparable to a low-end warship. Reasonable? Plus, if the limit is hardcoded, it will not keep up with the times: If enemies start becoming more heavily armed, you have to more heavily arm your freighters as well. I've noticed that pirates imitate your ship designs, which immediately starts an arms race. Because of this behavior, the number of guns on merchant ships starts becomes a continuously increasing trend until a merchantman becomes carries enough weapons to flatten an entire planet to combat pirates with weapons capable of destroying a small moon.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
* Manually-controlled military ships automatically engage enemies, no need to manually select targets

Does this mean that they will disregard orders and run off and chase enemies, or merely that they will fire upon any targets of opportunity if not given a specific target and merely told to move? Will they cease firing when their fuel starts to run low so they have enough to leave the fight and make it back to base?

< Message edited by Fishman -- 4/12/2010 6:40:31 AM >

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 12

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 6:35:28 AM

Nephrinn

Posts: 17
Joined: 4/6/2010
Status: offline

Can't wait for this. Keep up the good work guys!

(in reply to Fishman)

Post #: 13

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 7:15:46 AM

Resan

Posts: 98
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline

Look great.

"Rebalance number of colonizable planets and abundance of resources" - This is to slow the economy down a bit?
and this "Trade valuations for colonies, bases and tech rebalanced" will make the AI less likely to sell it's colonies?

And btw, the 19th? Like in about a week

Thats insanely fast

(in reply to Nephrinn)

Post #: 14

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 8:33:51 AM

Hyfrydle

Posts: 75
Joined: 3/22/2010
Status: offline

Wow can't wait for this one it addresses nearly all my issues with the game. Had a fantastic game this weekend but on a 700 star map but by the end it just looked like a mess of blue which was my colour will be great to control whats displayed on the map.

(in reply to Resan)

Post #: 15

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 8:57:15 AM

fabio80mi

Posts: 57
Joined: 3/26/2010
Status: offline

Thank you for the update on your progress :)

(in reply to Hyfrydle)

Post #: 16

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 8:58:19 AM

sbach2o

Posts: 378
Joined: 3/26/2010
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fishman

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

* Fix bugs where fleets may have missions cancelled

Does this fix the annoyance where ships ordered to do something like load troops, retrofit, or move will decide to drop their orders in favor of doing something idiotic, like chasing a frigate, instead of doing what they're told to do?

It should fix the problem that a fleet of yours that is under complete manual control may suddenly become idle. I've think I've seen this often, but I couldn't really nail it, was never entirely sure I hadn't done something stupid. It may happen when a fleet is scattered, part of it doing combat while the rest is on move or refuel order. Suddenly when combat has ended for part of a fleet (or so I think without having any way to back this hypothesis up), every ship stands idle. Which is bad, bad, bad when you wanted to collect all those ships somewhere or have those low on fuel remedy the situation. Has been a major headache for me.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fishman

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
* Reasonable limits on arming civilian ships. AI allows for defensive weapons, with no negative impact on relationships

What is "reasonable" and "defensive weapons"? For instance, I arm mine like the East Indiamen of old, which means they carry weaponry comparable to a low-end warship. Reasonable? Plus, if the limit is hardcoded, it will not keep up with the times: If enemies start becoming more heavily armed, you have to more heavily arm your freighters as well. I've noticed that pirates imitate your ship designs, which immediately starts an arms race. Because of this behavior, the number of guns on merchant ships starts becomes a continuously increasing trend until a merchantman becomes carries enough weapons to flatten an entire planet to combat pirates with weapons capable of destroying a small moon.

Good point. For me, either it's useless or too much. I found the current situation preferable and would have liked it, if the ship designer forbade putting arms on civilians or warned clearly about it. But you cannot please everyone.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fishman

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
* Manually-controlled military ships automatically engage enemies, no need to manually select targets
Does this mean that they will disregard orders and run off and chase enemies, or merely that they will fire upon any targets of opportunity if not given a specific target and merely told to move? Will they cease firing when their fuel starts to run low so they have enough to leave the fight and make it back to base?

Disregarding of manual orders already happens - around bases as far as I have seen. Recent event: A smaller fleet of mine was engaging an enemy base while being intercepted by enemy fleet. The fleet was the bigger threat to me, so I manually ordered my ships to engange and gang up on enemy ships. After a short while, most or all of my fleet snapped back to engage the base. Me fuming!

What Eric probably means, and is another 'me fuming' inducing occurence, is when the current target of a group of ships is destroyed, this group of ships goes idle for a (more or less long) time while combat is raging all around, often within weapons range. This is just so awful. And it doesn't seem to hit the AI empire's fleets as much or at all (just a sidenote: if combat actually were to work under my control, which is currently hardly the case, the AI side would be hit hard - the more actual control I get, the more the AI will be left in the dust).

< Message edited by sbach2o -- 4/12/2010 9:10:58 AM >

(in reply to Fishman)

Post #: 17

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 9:12:20 AM

deanco2

Posts: 75
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline

* Add auto-refuel option for all ships, even when manually-controlled

-------------------

Yes!!! If this works, you have just fixed my biggest gripe with the game, namely: If I am a galactic ruler, why do I feel like a gas station attendant?

The other changes are almost as sweet, but that guy there is huge. Well done.

(in reply to sbach2o)

Post #: 18

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 9:37:48 AM

Greyhunterlp

Posts: 371
Joined: 12/20/2006
From: The UK (wot wot ole bean)
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Fishman

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
* Rebalance number of colonizable planets and abundance of resources

This is very vague. Does this mean more colonizable planets and more resources, or less? I'm thinking we should have more resources, but less colonizable planets, so that a given planet becomes more important and less prone to colony spam. Also, less filler systems that have no use. Does a star with no planets serve any real useful purpose? Even with today's technology, we can determine that such a place is immediately uninteresting, and too many of these just wastes map space.

I Assume this is in relation to the fact that there are a large number of sub continental planets - such as ocean and ice worlds that only a few races can colonise at the begining of the game - giving these races a massive advantage.

(in reply to Fishman)

Post #: 19

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 10:20:15 AM

martok

Posts: 837
Joined: 8/30/2004
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

Great work!

quote:

Decrease likelihood of empires colonizing in other empires systems

Please dont do this, instead please reduce the relationship penalty you get from colonisation in each other's systems (in particular if they have friendly relations/treaties). I find it nice that there is his current relationships in which empires can share a star system.

Sorry, but I'm in support of reducing the frequency of this. I always find it annoying when someone else "horns in" on my territory.

_____________________________

"Evil is easy, and has infinite forms." -- Pascal

(in reply to Gertjan)

Post #: 20

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 10:24:50 AM

themetalcrow

Posts: 69
Joined: 1/24/2010
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: martok

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gertjan

Great work!

quote:

Decrease likelihood of empires colonizing in other empires systems

Please dont do this, instead please reduce the relationship penalty you get from colonisation in each other's systems (in particular if they have friendly relations/treaties). I find it nice that there is his current relationships in which empires can share a star system.

Sorry, but I'm in support of reducing the frequency of this. I always find it annoying when someone else "horns in" on my territory.

im not sure i understand this gripe. i don't have the game but if you don't want your borders and territory poached shouldn't you defend it?

or am i missing something there?

(in reply to martok)

Post #: 21

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 10:47:29 AM

Fishman

Posts: 795
Joined: 4/1/2010
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: themetalcrow
im not sure i understand this gripe. i don't have the game but if you don't want your borders and territory poached shouldn't you defend it?

or am i missing something there?

You're missing something: The fact that "defending" your territory from this behavior involves Total War Against All, which, while a valid strategy, is not something for everyone.

(in reply to themetalcrow)

Post #: 22

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 11:54:54 AM

Igard

Posts: 2282
Joined: 3/29/2010
From: Scotland
Status: offline

This is really great work guys. However, I am also having the same bugs as Malevolence posted above. Upgrading ship designs re-names them, research bases re-naming to 'starbase' so I end up with 4 designs named, 'starbase'.

Please don't limit the size of the resupply ship too much! I love the fact that we can build without limitations. I would prefer to see a steeper maintenance cost.

On the topic of empires colonizing inside one of your systems, couldn't there be some kind of alert if an alien colony ship arrives. Then a diplomatic warning could be issued to the offending empire? They could choose to back off, just like if it were a military ship.

(in reply to Fishman)

Post #: 23

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 2:01:30 PM

dawilko

Posts: 87
Joined: 2/25/2008
Status: offline

Awsome stuff guys!

I also am having the bug where upgrades designes are being renamed to 'starbase'

Much

< Message edited by dawilko -- 4/12/2010 2:02:56 PM >

(in reply to Igard)

Post #: 24

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 2:31:54 PM

RViener

Posts: 123
Joined: 7/8/2004
Status: offline

Erik, I think expanding the diplomatic options so one empire can request permission to colonize a planet already colonized and in another's Sphere of Influence should be apart of this tweak. I believe that the "sphere of influence" should be part of the equation.
Bob Viener

(in reply to dawilko)

Post #: 25

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 2:32:17 PM

Julyan

Posts: 3
Joined: 4/6/2010
Status: offline

Very nice. Couple of things I'd like to see:
1. Like folk above said the renaming of ships when you upgrade them is annoying. If this happens because a design of particular name already exists then a lesson from SotS school of ship naming might be in order: there if you tried to name a ship into one that already exists, the game automatically puts Mk2 at the end (or Mk3, Mk4 etc). This allows you to have several designs of same class but they retain their own names and the Mk-marking makes it easy to recognize which generation the ship is.
2. Make retrofitting a part of the automatic AI so when I make a new escort of frigate design the ships under AI control automatically go have their refit at some point for example when they return for refueling.

(in reply to dawilko)

Post #: 26

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 2:38:07 PM

RViener

Posts: 123
Joined: 7/8/2004
Status: offline

Erik, Excuse me but I meant colonizing a planet in a "system" in another empire's sphere of influence. This will open up negotiations for those systems on the border. This does require the visualization of those spheres of influence. If the empire occupying the system refuses then having a variety of diplomatic/trade options including declaring war would be great.
Bob Viener

(in reply to RViener)

Post #: 27

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 2:46:24 PM

Impact1986

Posts: 19
Joined: 3/27/2010
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi everyone,

Time for another preview of what's on the way. I just synced up with Elliot to make sure we were on the same page and I think you will be happy with the upcoming improvements and fixes.

Below are the items that will be in the next patch. Because of the rebalancing, we will have this in testing a bit longer, so we expect it to go to a public beta around the 19th.

BALANCE FACTORS

* Rebalance number of colonizable planets and abundance of resources
* Racial bonuses apply in more gradual manner for multi-racial empires
* Trade valuations for colonies, bases and tech rebalanced
* Decrease likelihood of empires colonizing in other empires systems
* Reasonable limits on arming civilian ships. AI allows for defensive weapons, with no negative impact on relationships
* Enforce size limits on Resupply Ship. Also enforce minimum percentage of space as cargo storage, etc to limit how many weapons can be on board
* Limit negative effects of poor reputation on your empire's colonies, i.e. citizens less concerned about your reputation, especially for certain races

NEW FEATURES

* Add auto-refuel option for all ships, even when manually-controlled
* Manually-controlled military ships automatically engage enemies, no need to manually select targets
* Add mass-retrofit option from Ships and Bases screen
* Allow turning off display of ships at galaxy- and sector-zoom level (fleets, bases, military ships, civilian ships, etc)

BUGS

* Fix bugs where fleets may have missions cancelled
* Fix bug with 'ghost ships' and defeated empires
* Fix other minor bugs

There may also be other items included in the patch, but this is the minimum list.

how about adding more different shipclasses? like a really big ship called worldship, with unlimited size, but depending on the planet its built on.
and more weapon classes, instead of having bombs and torpedoes in one class, make an own class for bombs against planets (also with different warheads, nuclear, chemical, biological... etc) and then put torpedoes in their own class. that way ships which get upgraded wont automaticly have bombs instead of torpedoes. it would also be good if you could have massdrivers...

now that i think of. how about custom massdrivers? the only thing you improve is the miniaturization, so at the beginning with low tech, you will have massdrivers like todays cannons and firearms, with a chemical propellant. those weapons have larger range or are more damaging, depending on factors like size of the mass they accelerate. you can build one giant cannon on a frigate, up to the maximum size limit of the current shipyards, but will be less accurate and cost large amount of resources. the ships also have to carry the ammunition, so the will be of limited use.

better technologies will make the size of the weapons smaller, and have a higher speed because then magnetic fields will be used. instead of only using ammunition, this type of weapon also uses up energy, also depending on how large the calibre is.

i would like to mod these things into the game by myself... but its impossible because everything is hardcoded.

this is the only gripe i have with this game now. if you make it more moddable, i would even pay you again

(in reply to Erik Rutins)

Post #: 28

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 3:12:07 PM

Hyfrydle

Posts: 75
Joined: 3/22/2010
Status: offline

quote:

I am also having the same bugs as Malevolence posted above. Upgrading ship designs re-names them, research bases re-naming to 'starbase' so I end up with 4 designs named, 'starbase'.

I'm also having this issue in my current game I think I have about 10 just called starbase the only difference is the cost to build and maintanence.

(in reply to Impact1986)

Post #: 29

RE: Latest Update Plans - 4/12/2010 3:36:41 PM

nammafia

Posts: 102
Joined: 3/5/2010
Status: offline

I hope that only IDLE ships will attack detected hostiles. I also hope that random names for moons is things of the past in this update; this will definitely help reduce the confusion and the number of clicking and zooming.

Thank you for keeping up the updates to your product, making it nice for us customers.

(in reply to Hyfrydle)

Post #: 30