Changelog for SE:V v1.14

its good to see that things are progressing in the final debuging of a great game

2. Fixed - Troops were not moving in ground combat because VehicleSizes.txt had
Engines Per Move for troops set to zero.

How can we mod this while we are waiting for teh patch? What should it be set to?

Ok...my first thought was overly harsh...

Please allow us the option to "run a warp point blockade". I will risk damage to my ship to get thru the guarded warp point.

regards

Imphroooove ze AI please. I feel it is realllllllly not doing this game any favours.

I guess the game breakers have to go first, but I notice a ton of fixes that really can wait.

I don't know how hard it is to make better AI, but without it, this game which probably caters to 90% SP gaming, is going to suffer.

Maybe modders can help I hope.

Janster

How come they post change logs for versions that aren't ever released to the public? Like 1.09, 1.10, 1.11, and 1.12 all listed what was changed but they were never released it went straight to ver 1.13

Because 1.xx is just a build. 1.10 was not a patch. It was a build of the game. The tenth build since the release, release being 1.00 if I'm not mistaken. Rather than releasing a patch for each and every build they wait 3 or 4 builds and release the patch, then the patch takes on the name of whatever build they happen to be on. 1.13 is not the 13th patch, it's the 2nd patch and the 13th build of the game to be used.

Ignore this post.

ETA on the patch - last time i shot perfectly ( about .13 revision ;p ) no i suspect .19 and release date in one week

at current stage game is playable - bugs with repeatet combat and troops not moving can be easy repaired now

only the boarding combat is major issue for me

btw maybe Aaaron would allow to access night build for more ppls ( they install it at their own responsibility ) this would help in bug hunting

Please repair the Space Simulator Bug (Carrier do not launch fighters) during a simulated combat. They do not launch, when in AI Mod, and when taking over human control the message "invalid index" folllowed by an access violation appears if you try to launch them.

Nevertheless a great game.

finding the bugs is not as big a problem as the time it takes to fix them.

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an se5a is a ww1 fighter, it is also a car.

If only I had another computer game to play...... *GRRR* I really just want to put this game away for a month (or maybe 2) and wait till its actually patched to a playable standard. 1.08 was playable just about, but 1.13 simply isn't.

Thanks for the dope on the changes being made to the game and the workarounds. Your change log is an invaluable piece of info that keeps us informed as to what to expect from the next patch and which bugs are being fixed and need not be complained about. Is anyone fixing the solar sail movement bug?
Omnius

And the boarding ship bug? I do not see any allusion to this bug in 1.14 changelog.
Thanks

I personally tend to go for the major bugs when fixing stuff but I don’t see any point in not fixing incidentally minor irritating stuff that can be fixed relatively easily. Indeed if a bug proves to be intractable I will go fix other stuff I can fix and often the fix for the one I am stuck with comes to me whilst I am doing that.

Aaron knows what has is doing it’s his game he wrote it and therefore knows it best. I would hate having to debug some one else’s code as you have to learn how they program as well as every thing else

How very true that is. however, there are times where another set of eyes, even unfamiliar, can spot something that is wrong and can help go a long way. Although it usually requires the 2 people to be in close proximity to ask the questions about what they think its supposed to be doing. ^_^

Dragagon

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

-- Robert Heinlein

@mumin

I want to add that the supplys and ordiance of the carrier starting fighters will be reduced to 0 immediately. It is unimportet how much supplys or ordiance the carrier can hold.

I hope this info can help with debugging.

'd like the crashing bugs fixed first. How about fixing the Alliance crashing bug or the lock-up-turn bug?

First, I'd like to say thanks for a great game from one who has owned and played SE from SE2 on. Even the early SE5 bugs were kind of fun to try to find workarounds/mods for, and I'm glad to not have waited another month for a better version to begin playing with. From previous experience I know that Malfador will be concientious in responding to issues in a timely fashion. Good pricing too, IMO.

Overall I'm glad the game was released when it was and I understand the imperatives of release deadlines. This is a complex but highly playable game with many subtleties, nuances and huge configurability via mods so really thorough testing is a large undertaking. The basics of functionality seem robust now. FWIW, I have not yet played a simultaneous moves game in SE5.

I am still setting the se5.exe process affinity to single CPU as I had to with the demo to avoid the many range check errors. Is this still necessary or is the ver. 1.13 now dual core CPU friendly?

Using ver 1.13, I continued with a 20 player, human vs all AI, with intelligence turned off, game started with ver. 1.08 just fine and got the troops moving again with the data file fix... thanks. I have not had any crashes or lockups yet and only once when quitting the game did I have a problem, specifically with the game task going non-responsive in the last stage of exiting where the blank window remains 'on the desktop'.

With 1.13, I was surprised by the new retreat feature and the weapon re-balancing.

IMHO, it should be moddable whether to allow retreat in a game or not, or at least the retreat boundary radius should be moddable. I did not follow any discussion on the retreat issue but I think I see the 'logic' of the new rules. Any ship with strategic movement left should be able to retreat... if it can. But the way it is now, I can try to track down a colony ship at speed 10 with ships at speed 14 but they can retreat before I can engage. A couple solutions, other than the target ship running out of strategic move points for the turn, are: chase the ship into a sector with other ships, then attack from 2 directions at once, or chase it down with fighters. I do wonder though if the enemy ship's remaining movement is actually being decrememted when it retreats. I does not seem like it is as I've chased a colony ship (speed 10) thru 12 sectors in one turn and it was still able to retreat.

The weapon balancing seems pretty good, but now the standard setting for psychic weap. telekinetic projector seems a bit on the weak side compared to say, the temporal time distortion burst.

Lastly for now, the AI players do not seem to research sensors. e.g. At turn 40 they still only have level 1 sensors, while their main weapon is level 10. Sensors are key to efficient exploration and keeping tabs on what's going on in a system. And why do units get created without crew, although it doesn't seem to affect their operation? At first I thought the 'troops that wouldn't move' problem was due to their having 0 crew.

have fun, RB

Regarding....

"9. Fixed - Any ships which retreat from combat will have their orders cleared."

I'm presuming this would also speed up AI processing. I'm guessing that the AI's are spending alot of time repeating useless combat rounds.

I hope this particular patch can be quickly released. Please!

After destroying 2 escort frigates, for the last five turns I've had an enemy empire continue to send an unescorted freighter to attack one of my planets.

In the last five turns I've sat thought 25-30 useless combat rounds as the freighter realizes it has no hope and scoots away.

I agree 100%. This must be fixed asap. It's really killing the game and destroying the fun for many many people.

I had a squadron of frigates attack a colony of mine with no ordinance and missile armourment for about five turns during which I was able to build sufficient defences mostly weapons platforms to see them off when they did resuply and launch a proper attack rather than advancing to engage and then running because they had no ammunition

Of course I'm assuming (and praying) that if the orders are cleared, that the AI won't just keep making and remaking the same stupid decision every single time the orders are cleared.

In the last turn I just played, 3 enemy colony ships and 1 freighter just put me through 16 useless rounds of combat.

I can't save the game now. It won't let me. I really wish they would fix the Alliance Chambers and the other crashing bugs soon!!!

I tried this too- and amazingly, the enemy ship fled into a hex where I even had another ship waiting. Even when I tried to intiate combat with the 2 ships in the sector, he still got away! Is there a way to alter the encounter distance so my attacking ships (which are faster at 14 mvt) can actually catch the colonizer with speed of 10 mvt before he moves out of the fight circle? Fighters were the only way I could catch the tug...

-Z

Maybe it's already mentioned elsewhere, but I've since looked at Kwok's balance mod, which looks very cool, and noticed the following change in the settings.txt which is likely the setting for the retreat boundary radius. I haven't tested it yet:

From data/Settings.txt ver. 1.13:

Space Combat Map Radius := 1500.0
//Space Combat Map Radius := 1000.0 original value

And this line is also new for 1.13 and I'm wondering about it's value, as I've not had success boarding even with 100 marines vs 50 Abbidon crew. The balance mod ver. 0.96 doesn't change it though.

Space Combat Crew Boarding Strength := 0.1

RB

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Give me atmopshperic manipulation cannons, or give me death!

Changing the retreat boundary radius works. Nice fix.

I'd just be happy if the game didn't CTD every time you initiate combat within your move radius.

Sincerely,
Kahn

After 14 Revisions now.. it would be nice if after maybe after 20 turns, that the game STILL doesnt hang on end of turn empire resolutions. I started a new 1.13 game.. got far enough in to start surveying the system next door.. game hangs on empire 6 at end of game.. no biggy, let me try again from save.. nope.. same thing.. load a earlier save, try to figure out what empire 6 was doing.. no use.

Start another 1.13 game.. get in far enough to research Destroyers.. hangs on Empire 7..

after 14 Revisions.. I am willing to give up on some of the fluff items on the repair list at this point, and would simply like to play the game.. even in it's most BASIC FORM.. I have grown so jaded at this point on this product, that last night I nearly uninstalled it outright. 14 versions in.. and I still can't even PLAY the damn thing.

Robert

Ok, I'm not a modder and have only limited experience looking at or manipulating any code, but this is what I have noticed:

1) Hangs in end of turn processing or during a specific player's turn seem to be caused entirely by an AI player trying to overstuff a full planet with cargo or population when it can't hold anymore. The AI doesn't realize what is wrong and just keeps trying, in an endless loop. The fix is to go into the data file under AI Minister called Default.txt and delete the cargo and population ministers (I don't have my computer in front of me right now but it's numbers 22 and 33 or something like that). You'll get an error message saying those ministers couldn't be found when you start a new game, but you can click through it and the game plays fine. I used to have the hangup every couple turns and I am now more than 50 turns in with no problem. I thought it might be an issue to have the AI not be able to do this, but they seem to bring population on their colonizers so it should be ok. I've never yet run across an AI colony with no people or cargo (though I guess it could be an issue if there is a plague). It's not a perfect solution but at least makes the game playable.

2) From what I can tell from what the modders are saying, the slow turn processing seems to be a problem of the AI repeating combat against itself over and over. It looks like the next patch will fix that (hopefully) by clearing orders after retreat. Hope this helps some people.

I think retreating should be stopped all together. In SEIV, you couldn't effectively retreat unless you were considerably faster than your opponant. And even then you could be potentially out manouvered by multiple opponants.

Keep the battle radius, make it an unpassable wall and stalemates cause the defender to move one random sector out of the combat zone.

Or better still, turn the radius back into a square. That would force retreated back into corners.

Realism trades off for fun. It's an unwritten rule that is so true!

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE5/Tools/

Thanks for that Phoenix

Your lord and master (below Foamy) LordHavoc

Hey, I *LIKE* being able to retreat havoc! Sure, it can be irritating when the code doesn't work, but it makes sense to be able to retire from combat when your 10 times faster than you're opponent... or even just a little bit faster.

There are 10 types of people in the world:

Those that understand binary, and those that don't.

Hey, I like the new retreating thing as well, make it bigger, ya, but defintly keep it, it makes strategies like blockade running (using fast ships to break through the defenses around a warp point) more viable since you dont have to wait for combat to end while hte map gets bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

I like blocade running to. I don't want every fights to be all or nothing...

I hope they can address the 1.13 bug that seems to make Turns take forever. 15 Minutes ++ on some peoples machines. Makes Multiplayer games Unplayable

I am playing version 1.08 with Balance Mod 94. All works very well (my maximum time between turns is 30-40 sec with a huge galaxy and 9 empires), except the boarding ships. The AI is excellent and the empires make war, dialog, make alliances and do trade with me (the only problem, very minor, is the log that is inversed).
I think that, to will too many implementation to the game, we are destroying it.