After the code patch - Initial Reactions

[KWAiRT]

So far the patch is working quite well. It has definantly improved many aspects of the game. Tech seems to be moving a little too fast for my liking but the modders have already fixed that. AI is definantly alot more aggressive. Ive been slaughtered a few times already. If you want to rename a system just zoom in once from the starmap and select the star itself instead of one of the planets in that system.

[Jamski]

Exactly what is the "System" screen ???

The system screen is the level between the galaxy screen and the planet screen. Its the one with the star in the top left corner, and the planets all hanging down.

-Jam

[Proteus_MST]

Further Impressions after some more turns:

The Galaxy Map seems to be a lot larger.
I played with a huge Galaxy, as always, but somehow this Galaxy seems to be really huge, much huger than the Galaxies I had in my games without the patch.

FLUs (Forced Labor Units, the Slaves of your Empire ) are now shown in the Infrastructure Screen. Now you can see to which DEA the FLUs are assigned. They appear directly beneat the DEA which has assigned them, below the Improvements the DEA possesses.

For some strange reason my Psilons now only psossesses Government Types from Despotism up to Constitutional Monarchy and Oligarchy.
In all my Previus Games I could choose between more democratic forms of government, such as Democracy and Republic.
I am still not sure if it means that they have altered the racepicks, or if it means you have to develop a certain Tech Level to get the more advanced Governments or if the Goverment Types are now chosen randomly (I assume the first one). I have to find out.

The ability to see in which region yozu have unrest has already become very handy for me. I colonized a Red 1 Planet (with a Standard Colony Ship, so I had to wait several turns with migration turned on). After a while the Planet turned into a Colony, but started with Unrest Level 2. I looked at the Planetary Infrastructure Screen and was able to locate the reason for the unrest at a glance.
The Klackons, my neighbours had also tried to establish a Colony on the Planet, but my Population grew faster than theirs. So, as the Planet turned into a Colony of my Empire, I had one Sector of the Planet populated with Klackons. And it was just those Klackons who were somehow discontent about becoming part of my Empire (maybe because I had a constiututional Monarchy insted of their Hive). So I just waited a few turns and the Unrest calmed down.

And last but not least another Difference to unpatched Games I noticed:
I seem to encounter more Magnate Races than before. Even in my own Home Planet I had 2 Planets with Magnates on them (Darloks and Phaiogur).
And they tend to like migrating to other not settled Planets, where there is also a Mgnate Race Specials with members ofg their own Race. I had the Darloks migrate to 2 other Planets with the Magnate Race (Darloks) - Special which, of course came very handy, because I had to do nothing to get 2 Planets with a population of 4500 each

[krait23]

Any opinions on the patch from some of the harsher MoO3 critics? No offense Proteus, but you liked MoO3 even before the patch so I am taking your reviews with quite a large crystal of salt

I want to know if this patch has the potential to bring back people that didn't like the game at all (like me), not whether it improves it for those that already liked it (which should be a given)...

And I don't really have the time to test it myself, and neither the desire because I still think chances are high that I will be disappointed after wasting dozens of hours with MoO3 again....

Lata
Krait

[ChristopherC]

Was it too much to ask for the code patch to allow games on which you are presently engaged to be played? I am in the middle of a very long and taxing though enjoyable one and would hate to give up on it.

It seems to me I should wait for the revised code patch, which is compatible with the data patched game (one hopes!), before modifying the game.

Live long and prosper.

[Seran]

Originally posted by ChristopherC
Was it too much to ask for the code patch to allow games on which you are presently engaged to be played? I am in the middle of a very long and taxing though enjoyable one and would hate to give up on it.

It seems to me I should wait for the revised code patch, which is compatible with the data patched game (one hopes!), before modifying the game.

Live long and prosper.

It is not uncommon for a patch to break saved games. It is risk that is there when you make major changes to the code, esp. with all the changes they made to saved games.

[SirOsis]

I have played a little with this patch. The interface improvments are great. Makes it a little easier to get into when I don't have to click so many buttons and get lost.

I would say that the game is in fact playable now. It remains to be seen if it can keep my interest. I just wish the documentation was better.

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by SirOsis
I have played a little with this patch. The interface improvments are great. Makes it a little easier to get into when I don't have to click so many buttons and get lost.

I would say that the game is in fact playable now. It remains to be seen if it can keep my interest. I just wish the documentation was better.

Yup... it is playable...

and after the second patch i expact it to go above playable


you can get a great encyclopedia mod here:brians encyclopedia mod

cheers

[CharlesBHoff]

I just delete over 800 megbytes of save games from MOO3 as the code patch make playing the games go much better than pre codepatch. The games Arena was to allow you to tranfer your savegames to daggerfall which they where working on. When they finish Daggerfall you where unable to do so for very good reason. The games system where total different from each other.

[beandip242]

Finally got the patch downloaded, and loaded.

I was expecting more from the patch really. Playability is better. I ahve not found the AI to be anymore aggressive though, but it is still early in my game. But I usually have at least 1 AI civ at war with me by now though........
Still having DX errors!!!!! Had 2 in this game already! On the second one the game just quit! thought this was to be fixed???????????????????????
and the other bug is when I click on a link from the sitrep for a specific col, then go back to the sit rep and click on a link for a newly explored star system and I go right back to the specific col page, not the new star system. Have to get out of the sitrep and use the Gal map to view the new star system. Not a big deal, but it is new since the patch.
It just seems that the developers dropped the ball with the initial release, and are now having to play catch up big time, and are still fumbling along the way. Lets just hope the game gets enough of a boost out of this patch, so another(better) patch will be possible!!!

[Kahn]

More...

Originally posted by ChristopherC
How did you install the code patch? Just over a game program in which you had previously had installed the 'data patch'?

What files ('extracted spreadsheets') did you delete?

'Stormhound' has heard that the code patch broke previously saved games?

Installed patch over previously data patched installation with no problems.

I had extracted some of the .mob files to test out some mods. I deleted those files prior to installing the patch. I have also since extracted the new .mob files and continue to test mods.

Didn't take a chance on any saved games, deleted those and the auto-save files too before installing the patch.

---

A couple of small notes:
The patch did not break the mods incorporating more flag formats to the game.

The patch did however introduce a new bug in the colony and recon ships that you start the game with. When opened in the current design screen, recon ships indicate they have ECCM 1 pods installed, colony ships indicate they have Focus Detection Arrays in place of colony pods. Both ships seem to function OK despite the incorrect listing, and creating ships with the correct equipment installed works OK too.

[Kahn]

Originally posted by beandip242
Finally got the patch downloaded, and loaded.

Still having DX errors!!!!! Had 2 in this game already! On the second one the game just quit! thought this was to be fixed???????????????????????
and the other bug is when I click on a link from the sitrep for a specific col, then go back to the sit rep and click on a link for a newly explored star system and I go right back to the specific col page, not the new star system. Have to get out of the sitrep and use the Gal map to view the new star system. Not a big deal, but it is new since the patch.

Have you tried the "copy disk 2 music to the hard drive" trick? Though I expected this not to work when I did it, I was pleasently surprised that it did get rid of my DX problem. I believe that the knucleheads at QS programmed the game to check for the 2nd disk every time you transition to another screen. Since the music is already playing, this is a second thread attempting to access the CD at the same time. This is a basic no-no that any first semister programming student learns not to do. If your system is set up not to read-ahead (disk caching off) and you have a fast CD-ROM, then you may be able survive with few, if any, problems. Windows Me has an easily accessable function to set the disk caching parameters, I have yet to locate the same on my Win 2k system though. Please get back to us on wheather this helps or not.

[statusperfect]

Originally posted by Kahn


Have you tried the "copy disk 2 music to the hard drive" trick? Though I expected this not to work when I did it, I was pleasently surprised that it did get rid of my DX problem. I believe that the knucleheads at QS programmed the game to check for the 2nd disk every time you transition to another screen. Since the music is already playing, this is a second thread attempting to access the CD at the same time. This is a basic no-no that any first semister programming student learns not to do. If your system is set up not to read-ahead (disk caching off) and you have a fast CD-ROM, then you may be able survive with few, if any, problems. Windows Me has an easily accessable function to set the disk caching parameters, I have yet to locate the same on my Win 2k system though. Please get back to us on wheather this helps or not.

where to put the files?

cheers

[Harry Seldon]

Check the readme. It has directions and I think this time they're correct.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by krait23
I want to know if this patch has the potential to bring back people that didn't like the game at all (like me), not whether it improves it for those that already liked it (which should be a given)...

The patch helps if you liked the game at least in principle but didn't like the AI sluggishness, or all the micromanagement headaches.

If you were expecting MOO 2.5 and didn't like the basic premise of MOO3 then you still won't like the game.

And I don't really have the time to test it myself, and neither the desire because I still think chances are high that I will be disappointed after wasting dozens of hours with MoO3 again..

Provide specifics on what you didn't like and chances are someone will have seen something in the patch to let you know if it was improved or not.

We're not mind readers and people like different things so what I think was a great thing they fixed in the patch may not have mattered at all to you.