Hey everyone its that time again, lets compile some data!
This is a post that I will update regularly to give the DEVS a better idea of what people think should be done to stats in the next patch. This is ONLY for patches, no new ships or elaborate concepts for the next expansion. This is for dealing with peoples’ concerns about balance. If there’s a balance idea you have that’s not on here, post it and I’ll put it up for voting if it seems valid. I love the fact that ICO pays attention to the forums and what people suggest, I’d like to make it easier for them. The idea is to have all ideas posted straight forward and ranked so the DEVS don’t have to sift through pages and pages to find popular ideas. SP and MP players are both welcome to comment. Post yay or nay for any idea you like or dislike (be specific please) or say no fix needed. If you’d like I’ll also insert specific values you may come up with. Some votes will be taken from other threads.
BUGS
So the current build has been plagued by a desync bug that effects both Entrenchment and Diplomacy. This is one nasty little basterd too, occurring in 60%-90% of games I've played, and having several adverse side effects. Here are the current ICO symptoms of the bug(s).
DESYNC BUG
- Games lose sync within the first 15 minutes. Some cause minidump, while others let the game conclude, giving all players a win when one team destroys all of the others planets in their game universe.
- Increased lag.
- Some games register a massively increased strain on all players CPUs, slowing the game to a crawl right from the beginning. This is not caused by a single player as the CPU strain continues as people leave.
There is currently an Entrenchment executable available that tracks certain areas of code for desyncs so we can help the devs locate where the bug(s) are. You can download it here. There is, unfortunately, not an executable for Diplomacy, but if you want to help get rid of the sync bugs grab a friend and download the tracking version and playa few entrenchment games. It will be much more effective than screaming at the devs to fix the problem on the forums, or condemning the entire game for one fixable problem. If you'd like to get an idea of the difficulty in finding the desync bugs check out Blairs journal about it from several patches ago here.
More Coming soon!
Let me get some feedback on bugs, anyone seen any? Post em here and I'll confirm them and stick em up there. Pawelo where you at dude?
Ill get to game content and balance after we get some of the bugs sorted out.
The normal start bug where the extractors produce as soon as they are queued instead of only after they are built still exists.
The relationship points victory is either bugged or seriously in need of adjustment- as it is you can have won the game before you can get any pacts with your allies! This might take extensive testing to work out exactly what is wrong, though. It might be useful to have some other conditions like owning at least half of a system, or culture preponderance, then at least games affected by the points system would still have a more normal end while it is sorted out.
The pirates are a major problem. Though Insurgency has been doubled in effect- so you might get a minimum of 3 normal heavy frigates per rebellion (thats not with 30 armour and 40 damage and 3000 health), how is this not just giving experience to the enemy, if the pirates need to be toughened as much as they have been? As the pirates are they make the game both weird and practically skill-free in the later stages. I'd like them changed into a far less mighty anti-trade weapon, and I also considered the suggestion on the forum that you pay them off with protection money an improvement, rather than placing bounty on others, given that the ability to commission raids has been implemented. If you could pay them off, so that they attacked the player who had paid least, then they might feature in multiplayer- as anyone man enough to take them on could simply avoid paying up, unlike the shrinking violets..
Deceiver, there have been lot of bugs posted about, such as capships not auto-using some abilities, the kortul continuously spamming jam weapons, etc. You might want to run a search for them. Also, I just finished a Diplo game where my vasari ships, in a phase jump, did not use the phase stabilizers between both planets. The phase stabilizers had been at both worlds for a long time - they weren't recently built.
Has anyone concidered the possibility that the resource extractors producing early is not a bug? I'm not saying it isn't, I'd just like someone to test if it produces early on all planets, or just the homeworld, and whether it is by design or not.
I also believe the diplomatic victory time should be doubled, so it takes twice as long to end the game through diplomacy, but I'm still learning that game, so don't take that last part too seriously unless others who are more experienced have the same complaint.
-Exile Ascendant
I've tested the extractor bug and it only occurs on HWs, no quickstart, when you queue up construction of the extractors. I don't think that its by design, though I also don't think it really hinders the game, but rather helps non quickstart games get moving.
Since it happens for everyone, and isn't really an unbelieveable thing, I personally think it is fine as is. Even from a strictly lore standpoint. This is the homeworld of your people. It could be explained by:
1 ) Meteoroids falling from the resource asteroid to the surface over the years, OR,
2 ) Being that the homeworld would naturally have the most traffic in any empire, the resources are taken via alternate means while unter construction. (Like, when the drills are being moounted to the asteroid, the resources are sent to the surface via small charter ships, or some such. Only available on the HW because it has the highest population, and therefore, more possibility for civilian contractors.
Not saying that's it, but I vote against having it listed as a bug, as it does quicken the early game a bit, which is really needed.
For reasons others stated, I think the fact you get metal and crystal when your HW extractors are under construction is probably fine as-is. For one thing, it makes sense - sure, they're not TECHNICALLY done, but the population on your homeworlds likely allows for civilians to come and pick up what resources they can and ship 'em back planetside. Two, it helps get the ball rolling and you're not COMPLETELY helpless in regards to being low on metal or crystal.
Deciever you can post these bugs:
Vas SB phase gate doesnt work on stars
Kortul wave guns are silent in entrenchment (it works in vanilla)
Migrators sb building claws arent shielded when attacked (maybe not a bug but it looks strange)
Some musics arent used (battle3 and 4 and some that i dont remeber)
maybe not a bug but vas mine explosions are so tiny that really hard to see even from moderate distance
gravity mine glowing animation is twisted - sparks should connect the spikes on the mine not just sparking in a side (also maybe not a bug but it looks a lot better if they are connecting spikes)
Ah excellent thank you pawelo, you're always on top of this stuff.
Battles 3, 4, 5 (I think Battle 5), TEC 4, and TEC Opening are not used in the game.
Battle 5 is used. But i forget about 1 thing (i dont know if it is fixed or not) if you request your ally to attack or defend a planet (by greeen and red buttons when you click on your ally not by mission sender) your ally wont be informed who gave this command in diplomacy picture will be grey picture but i think there should be portrait of faction requesting it. Also there is no name in info text which may be confusing in ffa and request will be told not by voice of requesting player but a player who gets the request (for example vasari player want help from tec with attacking planet tec gets the request and dont know from who is the massage - blank portrait and its told by tec voice not vasari)
Also if you issue mission for attack somones planet if you hover mouse over package button to see how much time left you always see thet you wanted him to attack someones homeworld (but ai will attack desired planet not HW) same is with pirates.
When your are researching fleet capacity you may queue ships for production surpassing your current capability for fleet support (which then is shown as -xxx on the fleet support counter) In this state your queue does not get produced at all, not even to satisfy the current capacity. It waits until your research is finished and fleet capacity is >-1.
Example: You have 8 capacity left.you start research for more capacity (a theoretical of lets say 128). your fleet capacity counter stays at 8 until the research is finished. then you queue 5 ships costing 2 capacity each.
The result: the capacity counter now states -2 and no ship gets produce until the research for fleet capacity is finished even though you should be able to produce 4 ships!
Iirc, I was told all the music was used somewhere or other, probably the tutorials. Then again, they aren't what's played most, so should be in the regular game, too.
SB Tradeports fail to work at stars, too.
Deciever can you put up the changes that didnt make it but were voted on up?Like the emp tree movement deal.That way we can keep it in the devs minds we really dont like it being so hard to use the darn thing.Plus I would bet the balance changes are the same.Still like to see dunov cast shield restore on itself.
I will probably put those back up for a re-vote, but I want to get to some important issues with this patch first, and a few balance problems Im discovering about pacts, more specifically the higher tiered ones. Buffing the lesser used caps is high on the list so we wont have to wait too long on that front.
I'd like to pose a question though:
Is the TEC supply pact too strong? Being able to add close to 1000 tax free supply worth of ships to your fleet and a friends fleet seems much better to me than Vasaris Armament pact (20% increase to cap ships, destructors and enforcers fire rate? is that right?*, or just a flat 20% increase to fire rate) or the Advents Shield Pact (+2% max mitigation, +15% shield regen and shield points)
Or how about the tier 7 pacts. Armor pact (+4.0 armor to everything) and Structure pact(+25% hp to everything) seem to be in order, but what about Anima pact(+2 SC per squad). Seems like that would benefit the hell out of a Vasari player (per squad DPS increase of 66% for bombers, WOW), but not so much a TEC player and even less so with another Advent player, and could that be considered a similar bonus as +4 armor or 25% more hp on EVERYTHING?
The lower tiered pacts seem fine to me. Some are a little better than others, but none of them have an impact on the game like the higher tiered pacts do. Though I do have a few questions about them like. Missile pact--> Straight forward help for Vasari and TEC, but what about Advent? Does it improve purge vessels? Does it do anything for Advent? If it doesnt thats ok I guess, cuz the Advent have the beam pact, which has pretty limited use on TEC and Vasari Ships (pulse beams on Vasari cap ships, and beams on the Kol and Argonev). But it would be nice to know exactl what kind of effect the missile pacts has for Advent.
*This is according to the infocard in manage pacts when you are playing as Vasari.
-- On a side note, I would like to have seen a Starbase pact that allows for 1 or 2 more upgrade slots on starbases. That'd be pretty cool.
I think a TEC pact that would have allowed for modular bays on starbases (tear out a module, load in another) would have been cooler.
A vasari phase stabilizer pact, allowing the pact partners mutual (if two vasari) use of each other's phase stabilizers, or if a non-vasari, granting that pact partner access to the vasari partner's phase stabilizers. That would have been cool.
As far as bugs, lbgsloan discovered a "bug" (technically it isn't, but either way it's something that should be looked at) which allows you information on planets without scouting. When you offer a mission to a player, you can know what planets the target player owns without scouting them.
EDIT: Don't know why the hell this crap is showing up in yellow
My thread here talks about the bug with the AI and doling out pirate bounty.
It would possibly be better if instead of weapon based pacts like missle or beam that it would buff specific kinds of units(such as a lrf, HC, or LF pact). That way all races could get benefit from a certain pact compared to a beam pact that has limited effect outside of advent. I think the fleet supply pact needs nerfing. That is way too much supply to get tax free. I would think a better solution would be a percentage increase to the current supply level. That way it would scale up better and not allow someone to econ and fleet for free basically. At the least it should be less supply if nothing else is changed.
[_]-Greyfox
Yall want to nerf the Supply Pact?!?! Geee.....glad I work my butt off to get a AI player to give me the damn pact and now yall wanna nerf it. Blargh....Im so very against this.
That would be better indeed, but may require a bit too much work on the devs end to change up, especially now that its released.
I do like the idea of changing the supply pact to a percentage so that players paying very little on fleet supply tax can't get a MASSIVE advantage from all that free supply, and so that the more supply you're using, the more benefit you get from that pact.
If you want to quicken the early game why not use quick start, not normal start...!?
The home planet extractor bug is clearly a bug, it didn't exist in earlier versions of the game. It doesn't make a great deal of difference either, the few 'free' resources will scarcely speed the game up any. Its more like a graphic bug- after all, a gap when looking at the Kol "from an odd angle close in" wasn't much of a bug either.
You're going to 'vote' against a bug? A meteorite fall on your head? I like the civilian contractors though- but if they were killed in a raid, would it be a war crime? What about the other civilian contractors who wouldn't take the risk, because they didn't want to be involved with your evil imperial ambitions?
These aren't multiplayer issues, but still bugs that need attention.
-AI players are not putting bounty on other AI players. Always target the human player, which is probably a large part of the reason so many new players are finding Trinity/Diplomacy so frusterating.
-Pirates will never leave a sector if mines remain.
-AI players still not using pirate missions despite 1.01 claiming otherwise.
Main menu plays TEC 3.ogg instead of Opening Theme.ogg
(not that much of a problem unless you want to mod the starting music - which I do)
1. This annoying issue definately needs to be fixed: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/374505
2. Ship/planet name lenght limit should be increased, I cant even name my ship TDN Enterprise..
the menue music is definatly not a bug... they just pointed the file to location x instead of y.
I like it better too.
As far as the final pacts... the TEC pact does give you 800 more fleet supply... but you then have to build 800 fleet supply of ships... the other pacts are applied instantly.
and 2% shield mitiagation increase... man... anyone done the math on that? an advent lv 10 cap ship in its culture... has a mitigaton of... 87%.... 72% for frigs... throw in a few guardians invurnable? no... does it mean that 90+% of the damage thrown at your cap ship just dissappear? yes. throw in a progenator and a repair bay... and we end up with rediculous damage tanking ability.
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