First Code Patch Feedback

[Budee]

I can't Bombard without getting hung up on resolving remaining space combats - Multiplayer game. Anyone else have this problem?

[eugenemcardle]

Originally posted by Vallis


The only bug I've had since installing the patch is that, on the first turn of the game, I could not adjust my Research Sliders - the scroll bars appeared to be disabled (they were grayed).


-Vallis

iirc, thats always been the case, not able to adjust till turn 2

Anyone having problems with the Winzip file...

Just download the zip file into a directory on your desktop, like 'MOO3PatchDir' then right click on the zip file, from the sub-menu that appears on the Winzip section, choose 'unzip to here' there will be a new dir created inside your original down load one, (Moo3-v102), inside that will be the files needed for the patch update, just click on the 'Install Moo3 Patch.exe' NOT the 'moo3_v102.exe' as this is one of the update files.
Hope this helps, and hey! im blonde and i got it to work

So far so good. I have only come across one glitch. I sent one spy out to create havoc and for the next several turns the SITREP gave me the same message:

Spy Ajax (real name not used to protect the spy's family) has successfuly entered so-and-so territory.

After about three turns of this same message I got two new messages:

1. Spy Ajax catured
2. Spy Ajax killed

I can understand if the spy is captured and killed in the same turn but why am I being told that he has successfuly inserted for three turns in a row. It makes me think that there is a bug causing three different spys names Ajax to insert with the result being Ajax#1 is captured, Ajax#2 is killed, Ajax#3 gives up the life of spyhood and opens a Burger-Master of Orion (Burger King is no longer a grand title these days).

Any thoughts?

Tandem

[Killerbean]

Patch looks good so far. I also noticed that the AI tends to build lots of mines now. But it isn´t that bad.

Diplomacy still has some issues, though. For one, exchanging techs is still a pain: I need to spend 10 minutes with a pad and a pencil in front of the technology matrix to figure out what kind of tech exchange would be acceptable.
It would be really handy if there was some way to differentiate, in the diplomatic tech-exchange interface, between techs that I can research on my own, and ones that I do not have in my tech-tree. Same goes for my own techs in regard to the empire I´m trading with.

Finally, the behaviour of other species is still extremly erratic. In my first game, I formed a non aggression pact and assortet trade/research treaties with all empires except the silicoids and antarens. With one, I even had an alliance. Then, out of the blue, the empire I have an alliance with declares war on me. Checking the foreign matrix, I see that both relations and casus belli are WAY towards the positive end of the scale.
I have no idea what pissed them of so much. I don´t have a common border with them, so it can´t be troop buildup. Could be that I was framed for spying, but I doubt it.
Considering my excellent relations, they would have at least given me a warning to cut the crap.
Frankly, considering the unrest they will be getting because of their casus belli, I must have really, REALLY torqued them off somehow... or it is a bug. Maybe the relations "wrapped around"?

Anyway, I´d really appreciate a feature that gives some sort of feedback on why other empires do what they do diplomatically.

2 bugs:

The missle #boxes are transposed from what they were before the patch. i.e. the # of racks, and # of missles are labeled reverse of what they were before. Unfortunately, the functionality was not reversed with the label. So, if you click 3 racks with 2 missles, it actually gives you 2 racks with three missles.

The sitrep thing in MP that was mentioned earlier. Everyone else can see the host's sitrep on a reload.

The patch is great. A fantasitic improvement. Thanks for the hard work.

Well,
Interresting so far, but I have had two hangs and a crash.

Hang 1 occurred the first time I tried to quit the game.

Hang 2 occurred when I was looking at the graph of population and changed the y axis down toward zero (divide by zero error?)

Crash1 occured just now and it made my machine restart. No idea what caused it. I was just switching between two (in-game) screens.

I had removed all my mods before installing, but I'll wait for the new patch validator.

--update

hang 3 scrolling in planet list

hang 4 entering PBQ

will re-install and see if it helps

--
Reinstall helped.

But now ships don't actually get built??
I get messages saying that they are built but the only thing appearing in the deploy screen is the pre-built troopships. Is it because my custom designs have 1 system speed?

The reporting cost for spy upkeep is still wrong, so that if you have any spies the budget ledger is always wrong from turn to turn. You are actually spending twice as much money on spies than is listed. It's annoying to think I'll have money in the bank next turn, but find out I spent more than projected. I would think this would be an easy thing to fix for the next patch.

[AminMaalouf]

Crash related to directx9.

Specs.:
NVIDIA Geforce4 Ti 4200
windows XP
Athlon XP 2600
Chaintech7NJS Zenith nF2 R/FW/LAN/A/S-ATA 8xAGP
512 RAM

Description: Fine run of the game for approximately two hours, then suddenly the access to directx had been interrupted. Black screen and message by the system. After a while the os shot the game down.

I really like the feature that allows turns to elapse after turn1, and then puts you into a developed empire. This eliminates part of the eXplore feature of the game, but gives you a realistic feel for coming into an empire with history behind it. Just for fun, I tried setting it to 1000 turns and left it running all night. In the morning I found I had lost the game at T376 due to a Senate Victory. Next time I'll uncheck that box

A VERY cool part of this feature, that I didn't understand from the readme, is that the AI expands your borders as if you were a computer empire, rather than just confining you to your homestar. Very interesting. Perhaps on future releases you could give the option of confining players to their homes?

I was also a bit worried that I would get stuck with the limited LightCruiser-capped ship designs during the AI expansion. Not so! All the same ship designs are available to all players, and the list keeps expanding as your tech level improves. Very well done!

[Colt374]

Yep, i can also vouch for the error with the # of racks and # of missiles per rack buttons on the ship design screen. The buttons are the oppositte way around to the way they should be. For awhile I couldn't figure out why my ships were only firing one slavo of missiles in each battle, (mind you they were pretty vicious salvos)

Colt374

Nice patch,

I was disapointed that my favorite psilon (unchanged) was changed to a different type of government.

I guess I'd better read on the balancing issues...

note to self: dont play on impossable

i ust got rape in no time by the comp

had no probs installing

to killerbean:

If an empire has no method of expanding other than declaring war, it will declare war on someone. If you were the only player in contact with it, a war was inevitable. The AI has always been like this; it expands peacefully when practical, with war whenever it has to or it finds a good opportunity. That aspect of the AI is actually pretty smart, but it never informs you of what it's doing very well

Originally posted by StormHawk
You used to be able to click on where you wanted the slider to be. Now you must drag it, unable to click on it. pretty serious huh?

I think this is "as designed". Many people were having a problem where they would accidentally click on the slider bar instead of the two arrows at the end. This would end up setting the slider instantly to either 0% or 100%. If you did this in some screens, it would hose up ALL of the sliders (because when you set one to 100% it has to slide the others to 0% to balance)

I'm grateful for this change.

Scott

I finally got it. MoO3..

But, it doesn't work:

"DirectX Surface not Avaiable"

Wht the hell? I got DirectX 9.0a! AND A GFORCE4200 Ti...

This really sucks.

Further specifications of my system:

PIII 933
384meg Ram
Windows 2000 Professional

Originally posted by TheOsiris
I finally got it. MoO3..

But, it doesn't work:

"DirectX Surface not Avaiable"

Wht the hell? I got DirectX 9.0a! AND A GFORCE4200 Ti...

This really sucks.

Further specifications of my system:

PIII 933
384meg Ram
Windows 2000 Professional

PIII 933 ? 384 MB RAM ??

Ouch!

Well, for that "game" (if you wanna call it like this) its still enough.. hell, even Morrowind is playable with 1024x768 at constant 35fps....

But this game here doesn't even recognize that I got directx 9.0a...

Well, eBay will do the trick if there's no solution...oh, btw: i got the new patch 1.2....

still doesn't work

Is this game "tested" on Windows 2000 Pro?

[EEBaum]

Is this game "tested" on Windows 2000 Pro?

Yes, heavily.

well, then i don't understand why it is not working...

[QSI Programming]

Originally posted by TheOsiris

Is this game "tested" on Windows 2000 Pro?

That is what virtually all of the programmers are running.

I gather you have just installed Moo3 and it didn't work pre-patch either?

You may have some bad asset files from the install. Download the installation validator from the Quicksilver site and run it. It will not recognize the patched executable or the GameData .mob files until it is updated early this coming week, but if you have bad movies or graphics files, it will recognize those.

There have been a lot of problems with bad installs off the CD.

The next most common cause has seemed to be marginal or bad RAM.

You didn't say exactly where you were crashing, but it sounded like it was quite early after game launch.

[visage]

Originally posted by visage
Point defense mount has been changed, something that's not in the README.

Also, part of the change to it is to increase MaxAccry. Last time I tested this (pre code-patch), I found that mounts had no impact on accuracy. Has this changed? (Were my tests flawed on the subject.)

I'm going to have to run some simulations and see if the new version of the PD mount actually finally outperforms the Light mount.

As an FYI, Bhruic's examination of 1.2 savegame files indicates that mounts don't change weapon accuracy and thus that the new PD mount is broken.

[AminMaalouf]

Originally posted by TheOsiris
I finally got it. MoO3..

But, it doesn't work:

"DirectX Surface not Avaiable"

Wht the hell? I got DirectX 9.0a! AND A GFORCE4200 Ti...

This really sucks.

Further specifications of my system:

PIII 933
384meg Ram
Windows 2000 Professional

I got a similar problem (see some postes up) while the game has already been in progress. After crashing the game run for 10 hours without any difficulties. As we have the same graphic chip and the same version of directx, the problem could also result from older versions of the graphic driver. I have NVIDIA 4.1.0.9. - But it is only an idea.

First bug:
Started a new game post 1.2 patch.

After colonizing a planet in a neighbouring system, the viceroy keeps wanting to build bioharvest DEAs instead of the usual starting industry DEA.

The strange thing is that even if i cancel the bioharvest DEAs and put in my own industry DEA, the viceroy will ignore my addition and start another bioharvest DEA the next turn! I finally managed to get an industry DEA built after I substituted one for a bioharvest witn 1 turns build time left.

This lead me to a second bug:

After finally getting an industry DEA built, I decided to plan out all the DEAs for the planet right away instead of leaving it to the AI.

After a few more bioharvest DEAs (that I put in myself) were built, a strange thing happened. The viceroy had added another bioharvest DEA to the first region, giving it a total of 3 DEAs in one region!(2 bioharvest and 1 government)

This could be a very bad potential exploit for multiplayer!

Now, I have save games from various stages of my game if anyone wants to look at them (one of them showing the 3 DEAs in one region), or if OSI wants to look at this. Just e-mail me and i'll send them.

Well I've been able to get a DX error very repeatably. It's pretty simple really. I think it's a UI bug that's not accurately closing the screens that are open. here's how I do it:
1) on the planets screen, open the military build queue
2)open the ships screen
3)on the existing ships screen, open a weapons folder.
4) press "shift" + "enter" to go to the next turn.

I get it like clock work, and possibly many other DX problems are related to this. I'll post this on the bug chart under the exception errors (the first unaddressed bug)

Just as an update to my last post, I can confirm from my testing that the bug I mentioned (having 3 DEAs in the same region) is just cosmetic.

The situation was that I had 2 completed bioharvest DEAs (one added by the viceroy) and a government DEA in progress (added by me). After all the DEAs on the planet, except the government DEA, were completed, the government DEA would freeze construction at '2 turns remaining'. It froze like this until I scrapped another DEA on the planet. When the government DEA finished construction, it 'moved' to the region where I had scapped the other DEA.

Although it seems harmless now, this could be a very annoying bug later in the game when you have a large number of colonies and cannot keep track of construction to check for 'frozen' DEAs.

As stated before, I have a savegame to demonstrate this

Killerbean:

Try RIGHT clicking over the TECH, you will find a complete description of the TECH.

BUG ISSUES:
1) Missile Rack and Reloads swapped. If I put in 5 reloads it give me 5 missiles.

2)Recon ships still put on however many ECCM's that they can fit in thier hulll(This MUST BE FIXED, So my mod can get completed.)

3)I have had an instance of the Race color picks corrupting.

4)When counter offering with tech it still shows up on the wrong side of the bargaining table.

5)Autofire does not calculate for total damage in ship building screen. So I assume that it does not work STILL.

That's all for now.

BTW The GAME is 200% better than before. I can at least enjoy playing it now. Thank You.

it's in renaux's Big Bug Chart (i know bc i reported it). i think you have more info on it, though, and i definitely don't have save games for it. the one thing i did notice that you don't mention is that the summary of DEAs on the econ tab usually didn't match the number of DEAs built in the infrastructure tab by the time this happened. the numbers were already not matching, then a 3rd DEA would show up as planned in some region. i never tried scrapping an existing one to see what would happen to the extra, though.

oh - and my problem is pre-patch.
-rhyssan

hay guy's, you know that QSI is more active in the bugs section, right. So post the bugs over there. It's a little difficult to run all over the place to collect bugs.

Thanx ! After the patch the game starts consuming time ;-)

Some odd bits:

The new fulfill alliance seems a bit strange if your ally is
allied with sombody you are in war with.

e.g.: Myself ( Cynoid ) made war upon some Eoladi which was
allied with a psilon. I had an alliance with the psilon too.

Now i started some genocid bombardments on the eoladi ...

The psilon declard war on me. After that i called for fulfillment of
his alliance to me. Now in a far an distant solar system we all met.
First I was attacking with help of the psilon the eoladi and controlled his fleet, later i had to fight the psilon ( because he was at war with me ).

If anybody is making war with me he should drop all alliances ?


Now after always getting the bombardment options i just wished the skip option beside AI and Control, so i dont have to control if i dont want to bombard ( because i will invade and take over everything intact ).

In the ship system descriptions some techs have a comment like this: This technolog is always for all players availabel. But the area for the tech description has no scrollbar ! So this text wanders of in the other gui elements.



After all Moo3 is fun to play because the enemy are more responsive now. PD is really good working now. Even the first missile salvos are targeted. My No 1 missing feature is in the combat screen is a minimap. Nice to have would be a more complete battle report in the sitrep, to analyze the buildup of your enemies ships.

Some more bits i just would like to see:

Diplomacy - Demand surrender ( system, empire )!
Winning a flett battle in your system - chance of getting enemy ship tech ( maybe dependend on own weapon, ion = high chance )
Winning a ground combat - chance of getting enemy gc tech
Diplomacy Trade Aggrement - Offer Food xxx k / turn for yyy turns
Diplomacy Trade Aggrement - Offer Minerals xxx k / turn for yyy turns
More feedback about tactical situtation e.g. Enemy fired Laser, Hellfire as Text ( -> Battle Reports )

Antaran X - compose your own fleet with mission antaran x
every antaran x is available only one time and the competitors may meet in the aerchology phase -> Battle or share knowledge.
Antaran X customizable and each game a different set from e.g. 30 should be selected ( grfx, texts and movies should all be replaceable in spreadsheets )

Last but not least I would wish a real chance of getting some antaran techs ( by defeating guardians or something ... )

I better stop now ... :-))))))))))))

Ciao Stefan from Stuttgart/Germany