When is the next patch coming?

well, since there haven´t been any posts about new beta-patches lately and the current 1.66 works very stable it may take some time till the next patch comes out.
until the 1.66 MM worked an all the small and medium problems so there where often new beta-versions to tell about. as it is rather quiet now i would guess that MM is working on something bigger now so that there are not so much versions to test or is taking a break for holliday or so

I still haven't done any work on my mod because the get_vehicle_size/get_planet_size and the facility count functions aren't working as I would like them to.

I want ship-scaled engines (instead of tweaking all of those values by hand), ship-scaled bridges (based on, say, Sqrt of tonnage), ship-scaled computers, planet-scaled improvements, and improvements which have their cost and maintenance scaled based on how many already exist.

I'm in the same boat - I would really like those functions to work properly. I'd also like "Is_Planet_Domed" to work properly as well. Ah well.

--
Creator of Space Empires V Editor and DevnullMod
http://www.devnullsoftware.com/se5

Auto explore systems has no relation to the range of your sensors. Ships never seem to use the full range of sensors to explore new systems.

Point defense will fire ALL available at the 1st target, then have nothing left (wait to reload) for the 2nd target. Even if there is a massive overkill.

Alliances are broken, and unusable.

The AI are better but still need work.

There are no races that need no atmosphere.

Finite resource games should have the AI "auto-fix" resource gathering to only gather what then empire needs to consume and to fill storage. The AI shouldn't waste production that will just vanish.

I think you can get the PD (and other weapons) to stop overkill by refining the tactic. Put "less then 100% damage targeted" as your prime targeting definition for tactic. This causes weapons to target something else in range, if the shot(s) of previous weapons would kill the target.

Note that if the first shot misses though, no other PD will target it, and if the original PD can't reload in timethe seeker comes through. You can assin twice the damage by putting less then 200%, but it is not all reliable.

Seekers ignore this targeting setting, so any seekers (missiles/torpedoes/PD missile) will fire at single target which is then targeted by direct fire weapons too.

How about SE5 Deluxe and SE5 Gold? I'm sure many of the features that were in SE4 but not SE5 were being left out for a reason. I would hope that by now most of the bugs, especially the one's that could have found by a decent playtester, have been found by now.

As for overkill issues, I'm fairly certain I've seen multi-tracking kick in (at least, in IRM where multi-tracking was explicitly stated among component abilities) but it's still rather inefficient. Possibly because people need to realise there's a further tweak in Settings.txt for what percentage of a weapon's damage is used in overkill calculations (wasn't it 50% by default in stock?).

---Sig---
Playing Touhou games (Go to this Wiki if interested. No, nobody else is that good/insane as that replay). No rush for SE

My biggest qualm with the game right now, is that the AI doesn't use stellar manipulation because apparently that function doesn't work either.

All I want is to be threatened with stellar annihilation when invading AI territory so I can feel right in dishing it back at them.

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I've always assumed that the lack of a race using the 'none' atmosphere type is intentional. It is a nice feature for the player but puts the AI at quite a disadvantage since they'll never really be able to use gas giants without another race's population available to them. The player on the other hand can compensate for this quite easily so it isn't as big an issue for them.

I work in game development for the Battlefield series FPS games, and I think the same ideology of "when it's done" applies here too.
When new material/fixes are ready for the masses, we will receive them.

Will be interesting to see where he's gonna take it now, though. He obviously isn't gonna be patching the game forever, and we are nearing the 'acceptable amount of bugs' state for the game. Yet the bigger issues, the UI, long turn processing and poor AI, still remain, and these are also the ones that are most time-consuming and difficult to fix.

I'm wondering if those issues are considered too much work for a patch and will instead be saved for later resolvement, perhaps in a sequel.

Unfortunately, balance and AI scripting are likely not issues to be fixed anytime soon. They can be fixed with modding, and will likely remain in that realm. There are some modding functions that do need to be adding/fixed, and a more usable UI is something I consider important (but doubt I would see in SE5).

I understand how Dizzy feels. Bugs (and their fixes) have reached the point that they are an accepted feature of the game. Yet one of the most common issues heard here, AI weakness, is rarely addressed outside of mods. The AI (and UI) issues can be addressed by having help in coding. The bug issue can also be addressed with help in coding as well as having playtesters who are willing work and do what it takes.

I don't mean to sound critical or harsh, nor do I wish to put down MM or any playtesters present but with the AI as it is, the long lists of bug fixes, and the excellent mod work done here well illustrates my point.

I'd prefer MM not focus on the AI, unless it were simply to incorporate the AI from a mod. The game was made to be modded, and from what I understand, a lot of good work has been done by modders toward increasing the AI. Why ask Aaron to spend time on that, when he can work on other stuff? It's likely that he's not as good at playing it as the modders and can do as good a job at it; he spends more time coding than playing SEV.

Yes, when I mentioned "help in coding" I was trying to imply that MM could get that help from the modding community from the start. Perhaps he can farm out the parts that he doesn't work on all that much. I believe he already contracts out much of the graphics. Why not other parts?

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I still think the best way to improve AI would be to make a "create an AI" contest.

Each participant creates an AI, which then is sent to Malfador.

Games will be set, stock games with random settings (randomize all settings)

One human player, who will do nothing (cheat this to separate system if you must), and see then let the system process 100 turns. If more then 1 side is left, process another 100 turns etc. I think the turn process can be done automatically, so it will be overnight computer usage.

Winner gets points the empire has divided by the time of turns used.

Any/all AI:s of the competition can be implemented in default game.

You likely get few different AI sets, because people think differently. Also, you can see they actually put up a fight.

Hmmm. That would seem to imply the bottleneck is with MM. Must be frustrating for the playtesters. Guess I should be glad that my offer to volunteer back then wasn't accepted. However, I'm not so sure about that. I've found a number of bugs early on and sent an email straight to MM and the fixes usually did make it into an upcoming bug list.

A great idea. It would be an opportunity for alot of people (including myself) to put their money where their mouth is, to put up or shut up, or whatever metaphor is appropriate. I'd have to bone up on the process. I wonder how much interest that would generate.

I know an issue with weapons, i'm using a borg shipset, and say my ship was right next to the enemy ship, both flying directly towards one another, you would think how could they possibly miss one another with their weapons? Very easily it seems, my ship would fire its weapons so wide of the enemy its ridiculous.

Its this sort of thing it does: - >

With '-' being the enemy ship and '>' being the directions my ship fires in. The computer's ship hits me, oh no problems there, my ships have to fire a good number of times before a single shot hits. Maybe one out of 10 vollies hits, and my ships are usually equipped with 10+ weapons.

There must be something wrong with that, my ships have ecm, combat senors etc... i know that not Every shot would hit their target, but at the minute this is stupid.

Do you know what is on the opposing ship?

Hmm, meson blasters? Or something like that. I'm using a fair bit of organic weaponry, i understand that for this reason my ships might miss a lot, but thats no excuse for firing in a direction miles away from where any enemy ships are.

Not sure. I usually rule with organic weapons. Does the ship have unusual defenses? A Crystal tech Energy Refractor decreases beam damage. Since you are at max tech he may have a maxed out device that mitigates the chance to hit or damage. Scan him with long range scanners and look for anything that looks cool. Any chance it may have something to do with the non-standard shipset?

Suppose it might have something to do with the shipset, but it would be odd if it was.
The enemy ships are basic is style i find, engines, shields, storage, weapons, armour, life support etc... Only the basics so far.

Sounds like you just have low hit chances; missed shots are animated wildly in random directions.

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Which version of the game do you play?

You said he uses meson blasters. Do you by any chance use beams? The bolt weapons have a slightly different behaviour with the rounds then beams. Bolts can actually collide the target even if they are supposed to miss. This happens often if the target is moving towards. Up till version 1.20 there miss-hits also cause damage, now they only cause explosion, but the ship suffers no damage from them. If you are taking lots of hits, but suffer little or no damage, then it is likely that the hits you see are actually these missed shots, that you collidde with.

I use version 1.66, i do use one beam weapon, can't recall the name, but its the one that does 10k-10k damage with a massive weapons component. The organic weapons i use fire... gooey balls?
My weapons seem to have a longer range than some of the enemies beams, so my ships are firing first, yet still in the wrong direction.

Longer range means lower hit chance, leading to more misses and more wildly animated shots...

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Just a link to the old AI deathmatch from SE IV:
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB23&Number=295019&fpart=&PHPSESSID=
If anyone is up to the challenge, go for it.

I would be willing to submit a race or two (or three).

-Unnamed

Unnamed Mod

I would love to participate in an AI contest...too busy with requirements of real life tho for the forseeable future.

The thing I would like to see the most in any future patch would be additional fixes/improvements to moddability. There are still functions that don't work and I'm sure there is room for new ones. I don't mind having to "fix" the game myself - for me that is one of the best parts because it means that I can "have it my way". It is very frustrating, however, when a listed function doesn't work correctly and a little dissapointing when it isn't possible to mod in a feature that you want. There have already been a LOT of improvements in this regard...but there could still be more.

Real life can be a pain sometimes. I'd always wanted to give multiplayer a shot.