This weekend we're back on GalCiv so that we can get an update up hopefully Tuesday or Wednesday of next week.
The main thing we're doing is fixing that annoying research behavior where after awhile, the research gets too expensive. What's really ironic is that we added in the new algorithm in response to those who felt research was too cheap. So we made research get correspondingly more expensive near the end of development.
Now, bear in mind, you can change the research rate but we're just not satisfied with the research pacing in the game so twilight will get a tweak to that next week.
Update: Based on feedback in this thread, we're going to expand a bit on what we were going to put into the update to deal with a few additional issues so it won't come out until next week but it'll be a much bigger update.
Yeah, I appologize for a further delay in the official release, but if you don't mind DL-ing a zip, I'll be uploading the patch for you guys to download when I get in the office.
The real question is how many players ACTUALLY find Research Inflation to be a game breaking bug? I'm not being a smart-ass, I meen factually...50%? 10% 1%? I don't know, but given what I've seen on this forum and others, it's a small, but vocal, group of players.
What we're getting into is a diminishing return on intestment for features added. Something was changed (Tech Prices Inflate up to 1.5x) which, for most players, didn't break anything, and gave them a new feature that some were asking for.
But for that small group of players, this new 'feature' broke the game as they played it. And now they hate us
What we need is more due-dilligance moving forward, so that only new features that are 'no brainers' make it into the game. For Dreadlords there were alot of 'no brainer' features that everybody would benifit from. Now 3 years later, most of those have been fixed/added, and we're left with alot of suggestions that may be good for some players, but create unwanted effects for others. Just have to be more careful.
Anyways, the problem has been fixed and I'll get that zip to you guys once in the office.
OK, guys, this should be good...
http://sd.stardock.com/GalCiv2/GC2_Twilight_1_92_Alpha.zip
It's an 'Alpha' for marketing reasons only...the official one has to come from SDCentral/Impulse. I have no reason to beleive this build will provide anything buy happiness and sunshine for all that use it
Here's the change log:
+ NEW: Improved Starport improvement graphics
+ NEW: Zoom to Mouse ursor option
+ NEW: Added ship components for Disruptors IV and Photonic Torpedo III techs
+ NEW: Removed a duplicate entry in the StarbaseModules.xml file. Also added some starbase modules with "Mining" and "ProductionAssist" abilities to compensate the races that do not have the factory line of techs in their tech trees (Iconians, Thalans, Korath, Yor). And I didn't just blindly add these, I made a spread sheet of all the starbase modules that each race has access to and filled in a few of the holes with new modules the best way I saw fit. They are tied to race-specific techs, so no other races will inadvertently be affected.
+ TWEAK: Made sure some techs were non-tradable and non-stealable because they now unlock starbase modules that I intend to be race-specific.
+ TWEAK: Fixed a few spelling/grammatical errors in the Yor tech tree. Specifically, changed "York" to "Yor" and "significant" to "significantly"
+ TWEAK: Fixed a typo in the Thalan tech tree. Changed "product" to "produce"
+ TWEAK: The research cost penalty has been reduced
+ TWEAK: Removed the description for the Divergent Evolution tech from both the Drath and Altarian tech trees so I could put it in techTree.xml. The description was exactly the same in the race tech trees including a bunch of misplaced linebreaks, which I fixed.
+ FIXED: A few typos in the descriptions of some ship components. Namely, when describing the numeric amount of HP or % boost a component gives.
+ FIXED: The Krynn were using the Torian's description for Aquatic World Colonization. Removed that, so it'll use the default description now
+ FIXED: Added "Space Weapons" and "Space Defense" techs back into the Thalan tech tree in their usual place right before the weapons and defense branches. I made them cheaper than usual so you can still have a quick research route to those branches of the tree. The reason I had to add them back in is because they provide starbase modules that are prereqs to other starbase modules that are still being unlocked in the thalan tree. Without access to the prereq starbase modules however, any modules that depend on them are impossible to use. Simply adding the two techs back into the tree fixes the issue.
+ FIXED: Bug where you could buy several improvements for the planet on the same turn from the quick build screen.
+ FIXED: Bug where if you bought a ship on a planet, you couldn't buy an improvement that turn
+ FIXED: Bug where the colony management screen didn't always have the most recent data
+ FIXED: Planet height maps that were placing tiles in the 'ocean' parts of the planet images
+ FIXED: Mind Control Center improvement
+ FIXED: Modified plague and disease mega-events to notify a player that they must research antivirus software or firewalls as a robotic race to find the cure, not plague cure or disease cure
+ FIXED: Gravity Accelerators were missing a Special ID, which was causing a crash when they were built
+ FIXED: Now can't trade Ascension starbases
EDIT: That 'The research cost penalty has been REDUCED' change put up a red flag for me (I thought the penalty was removed) so I went into the code and, yes, the feature is still in, but all the numbers have been decreased.
As you guys play, PLEASE let me know (scott@stardock.com) if the inflation is still crippiling the AI. I haven't seen it, but I didn't see it to begin with
Send any saved games my way so we can get into the code and really figure out what's going on. Thanks!
The problem is that, upon looking back, there has ALWAYS been a cost penalty associated with techs (or at least in the Dark Avatar Gold build...I didn't recurse past that). The difference seems to be in a gradiation that, in my eyes, shouldn't be killing the AI or makings late Techs impossible to complete.
We need to figure out if this is the code that is breaking it, or if somewhere else the research cost is being altered.
Does anyone have an old saved game they can send that will reproduce this bug? I'd like to step through in the debugger and see what kind of weird numbers are being brewed
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