The patch thread: what to patch?

[vmxa1]

I saw that as well. I finally got all the tech research and ended the game around 510. The game would take 60-90 seconds after going to Ground Combat screen for the computer players. This is strange as they only had one system. I guess it was evaluating all of my planets.

[Harry Seldon]

I just came by to post on tech; I see you beat me to the punch. I think I read that the beta testers didn't get anywhere near the end of the tech tree but I'm sitting at five hundred turns and I've got two techs left to research. Why don't we have the generic Economics I, etc., like we used to? Also, I understand the random tech philosophy but I'm missing stretches of ten levels of tech. Would it kill ya to let us magically discover some of this old tech?

[vmxa1]

I am guessing that they figured no could stand to play much longer on one game. I was doing I-kools so no tech trades and had to learn it on my own. You could never steal all the missing stuff either.
Long gaps in most lines of research and I have no way of finding out what I am missing and if I wanted it.
At least we should have a full tech tree some place with a discription.

[Flinx]

Just how many upgraded and retrofitted WWII fighter-bombers, navy ships and battle tanks are being used against Iraq this week? Personally I don't have a problem with not being able to use them in my battles against the Darlok Guardian either. Yes I can build ships that go twice as fast and do oh so much more damage, and I am, but in the mean time I send the old stuff up against an easy target. If I still have them around when they are completely useless I just send them off to the junkyard where the obnoxious Humans from Hollywood use them to make horrible so-called entertainment.

On the subject of what needs to be fixed in the game:

1) What am I doing to get the Eoladi so pissed off at me? We were the best of friends, had a non-aggression pact, open trade, had exchanged some tech, and then suddenly one turn “Stop that or else” and the next “War!” I have not been near one of their stars for over 150 turns, and they have not been near mine either, so why is a cease-fire out of the question. And what did I do in the first place?

2) The Trilarian’s apparently sent a colony ship to the same planet as I did. I obviously got there first because the planet is mine, but the Trilarian colony task force has been hanging around trying to colonize Asellus V for 20 turns. Now I have an alliance with the Trilarians so I don’t care much, but I think the flip of this situation nearly cost me the alliance. Out of the blue the Trilarians tell me “stop that or else” and just happen to notice that one of my colony ships is trying to colonize a world they got a full colony on first. So I give my colony orders to get out of there fast, and the Trilarians and I are back to trading tech every 3 turns or so and otherwise blissfully ignoring each other.

3) The send colony option is clearly implemented as a ‘stack’ rather that a ‘queue’ i.e. the planet most recently issued a “send colony” order gets the next colony ship rather than the planet waiting the longest for a colony. Actually that can’t be true, because some planets get sent more than one colony ship over several turns and I get messages in the SitRep the Evon (me) have already colonized that world. So why didn’t I get a message that the Trilarians had colonized the planet in the situation above or they get the message that I had?

4) If you have 5 colony ships and only one planet flagged with a “send colony” order, all 5 ships get sent there even if it is a “sweet spot” planet.

5) The save game problem.

6) The troop ship problem

7) The no reason given for unrest problem. How am I supposed to fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong?

8) I’ve never played MoO or MoO2, and given the learning cliff (there is no curve its straight up! but I like using my brain so that’s ok) I don’t have a problem with the AI not attacking me on “easy”, but I would have a problem if that were the case on the more difficult levels.

[Elron]

The watch mode in spacecombat needs an escape button. For example if you acedently atack a colony ship with a scout. And also when like they atack your planet with missilbase with only transports.

[Shnozwangler]

In addition to the well stated patch recomendations, I would like to restate an important one and pose one or two.

But before I get into the nity-gritty, I would like to say that despite the short-commings of the game, it does have some great qualities and with a well executed patch could easily rise to the glorry of the MoO franchies!!

1.. Ship refit/upgrade... ok I know that one can "get by without it", but the need for this is just too obvious. This feature was in the original spec for the game but was dropped at the last minute cuz the hurdle was too large for the time available. Now that the devos have a bit more time this MUST be addressed.

QS went out of their way to develop a system that does not require micro management if the player desires it - but the need to CONSTANTLY spend much time in the fleet screens, building and scrapping ships as they go through their life cycle is a huge pain in the a**!!! Especially as the game gets on and there are tens to hundreds of ships in circulation.

In my first few games, I had the concept that a ships life was finite, but got caught sending poorly out of date ships into battle as the number of fleets multiplies. I had ended up with old ships guarding a strategic system in all the shuffle of fleets. Ok... my bone head for nto micro managing my fleets. Now I spend too much time reviewing ships and fleets, sometimes to the point of loosing the focus of the strategic game flow.

It would be sooooo much easire if I could send a fleet into port to refit and upgrade - this way I could have a handfull of main fleets that I could come to know and love instead of a constant revolution of fleets who's name is just another number... In fact, the game story line continually refs to the Antarian fleets going in for repair and upgrades... why can I do this?! Where is my White Fleet. And dont even get me started on system ships.. out of sight out of mind, once build they sit and fester.

So, not to be that guy that only criticizes and offers no solution... A possible simple way to accomodate upgrades is to have the player define the upgrade stream from one ship to the next as a ship class is commisioned and/or as one is marked obsolete. This cold naturally be restricted to things like hull size, classification. In this senario, one could sent a fleet to port and chooes Upgrade Ships from the Military Queue (which woud always be there) - this would lead to a simple table screen that shows the ships in-system and once clicked would state the user defined upgrade available and the cost/time required to do so - you would not even need to decommision the fleet, just address the individual ships.
I would even be happy paying almost full ship manufacturing cost just to be able to do this - as I hate the revolving door of ships and fleets so much.

2.. System combat enhanced info... When going into the combat resolution screens, it wold be nice to have more info that just the number of ships each side has... When you have numerous systems and fleets it is difficult to keep in mind exaclty what fleets are where. So, perhaps 1. a button that allows one to pop out and see what system is being referenced (what fleets are near by, both yours and theirs), this both tactical and strategic info would be usefull in knowing what avenue of combat to take. 2. a button or enhanced screen that allows one to see the nature of the ships that are facing each other... a Carrier fleet, or a troop ship fleet?... Very important info nes-pas?!

Well, lest hope these request and the others are not too much to ask for..

[Harry Seldon]

Shoot, I'd settle for them getting the numbers of ships right. There's nothing more exciting than entering a combat sequence against what appeared to be Zero ships only to find out it's actually twenty-five.

And yes, I'm using scouts.

[Flinx]

Originally posted by far too many people to mention!!!
Ship refit/upgrade... ok I know that one can "get by without it", but .... ..... ..... ... I would even be happy paying almost full ship manufacturing cost just to be able to do this - as I hate the revolving door of ships and fleets so much.

I just do not get this!

I name my ships 'BattleshipL5' or 'TitanM9' or something similar: Ship size, mission type, and warp speed. The weaponry is the best that was available when I first got that warp speed.

So now I want to upgrade my 'BattleshipL5' to a 'BattleshipL6' and I am willing to pay the full price of a new 'BattleshipL6' and wait the length of time it would take to build a new 'BattleshipL6' but there is no 'Upgrade' button in the military queue, oh no the world is going to end. Get a life! Add 'BattleshipL6 x5' to the queue and when they pop out the other end all shiny and new, create your 'White Fleet' and trash the old one. Better yet send the old one along with the new so it can get trashed by the enemy for you and you don't have to open the fleet screen which you hate doing so much.

Some of you talk about how much you hate micromanaging your ships, but clearly that is a result of your own choice! This is a strategy game. If you redesign your ships every time you get a weapon upgrade, that's all you would ever be doing. Stick with what you've got for a while, and use a few more ships when the effectiveness is starting to drop off. But this is not a problem because you knew this was going to happen and you planned for it. You have new ships which are 10 or 20 microsteps better (i.e. state of the art) rolling out of your shipyards and ready to go into action. Some of the people posting here seem to just want to smash things up with the best that is available, but don’t want to actually think about how to achieve that goal.

[habadacus]

Originally posted by Flinx
Just how many upgraded and retrofitted WWII fighter-bombers, navy ships and battle tanks are being used against Iraq this week? Personally I don't have a problem with not being able to use them in my battles against the Darlok Guardian either. Yes I can build ships that go twice as fast and do oh so much more damage, and I am, but in the mean time I send the old stuff up against an easy target. If I still have them around when they are completely useless I just send them off to the junkyard where the obnoxious Humans from Hollywood use them to make horrible so-called entertainment.

LOL, and how many F/A18 Hornets, Aegis Cruisers, and Abrahms Tanks are going to bombard a planet in another solar system, Flinx? What a silly argument.

We're not talking about fighters or tanks or even navy ships, which are covered extensively in other games. Were talking about battle-ready starships here. A tank weighs what?, 40 tons? No big deal to scrap it and start over. How much do you suppose a Battle Cruiser in MOO3 would weigh in earth gravity? Do you suppose that a ship of that scale would be designed to be sent to die because it couldn't ever be improved? Designed with no consideration of "The Future". Designed to never be able to use any of the 18 million techs in the game, except the ones they left stardock with? Do you suppose this empire-wide doctrine of retirement by explosive decompression might discourage enlistment in your galactic navy a little bit?

Using your (MOO3's) concept of Fleet Management, the United States would have used the atomic bomb on Japan a full year after they discovered it, because they would have had to build a whole new plane from the ground up just to drop it! Silly. Silly, and worst of all when talking about a game, NOT FUN. Stuff like Star Trek could have never happened, because Captain Kirk would have been sent to be a meat shield against the Klingons as soon as his ship got old. But as I recall the Ol' Enterprise has been around the galactic block a few times and can still throw down with the best of them. Why? BECAUSE ITS COOLER THAT WAY. Who gives a ratzass if it's realistic? Sending waves of faceless ships to die needlessly because they're too much trouble to scrap illustrates a game world that's about as much fun as a fart in a spacesuit. How I am supposed to be immersed in such a dry and emotionless game, if my ships, the very instruments of my galactic will and might, lack all personality and are just pawns on a very cluttered chess board? Ugh. Out of the box, this game won't even let me name them right.

I'm very proud of those who figured out a system they like for ship nomenclature. But I still feel that any TBS game design that railroads you into feeling like your veteran fleets are worth more to you dead, is not quite grasping what makes a 4X space game , and in fact the entire Science Fiction genre so captivating and immersive. And on that note, back to Freelancer, which occupies the space on my harddrive formerly occupied by MOO3, and which is (perish the thought) FUN!

[Aqa]

I read the thread trough, but I'm not sure, if this is already said.

I think I found out why the AI doesn't invade with ground troops if there's troops on the planet besides militia.

In bombardment phase in the combat scheduler, the amount of troops in friendly fleet seems to be 1, even if there's an army aboard the transport. But the amount of troops on the planet is acually the power (or whatever the number is in the ground combat where you have for example marine 3/45) of the army, not the number of units. But when there is no ground force present(only militia), the amount of troops is zero. So if the AI gets the same numbers, no wonder it doesn't commit a invasion, if the odds are 1 to 350 or something like that...

[gunnerstahl]

I hope QSI makes the research alot slower than it is now, as part of the patch, almost as slow as how Colin the Grey's is but not quite that slow......

[gunnerstahl]

Choice to not blockade or assault, just to sit there...

[vmxa1]

I guess I do not understand the cry about the speed of the research. It slows down quite a bit later in the game, why is it a problem?

[Brazuca]

what i want changed

1-) Tactical ground combat with more unit options, i wanna to directly command my troops on the ground, nothing to great a map with all regions 10 minutes and every unit single represented.
2-) Real pirates to my systens ships fight
3-) More realistic missile combat, a IF armada hardly will be defeated by any other armada, lower the missile power could resolve this
4-) More realistic diplomacy, more options, ask votes at the senate, or war declaration more openly
5-) More spy options like mission choose
6-) More easy fleet and ground groups creation, put one by one is lot of tedious, i wanna to choose nunbers and groups, and put all at the same time, i dont wanna to change my mouse every two weeks
7-)Macromanegement options like Ctp2 i choose the planets and order the Mil ou Plan Quee and the same time.
8-) More agressive, conqueror AI, i wannt to fight every system hold they at my capitol and trow the back to the wormhole from were the came from.
9-)More resisetnce to Orbital Bases, single missiles or fighter waves kill they easily, they must be a fortress
10-) Directly AU give to the planets
11-) More resistence to ships and planets, the battle could take longer time
12-)Coordenate allied war efforts ask atacks or defenses ant tell the nunbers of turns that they stay or arrive at the target
13-) Possibility fo training leaders and they could level up, choose the specialized area
14-) If i can get a tactical ground combat i can choose the weapons, a primary and a secondary

For now this is the things that i want changed, some can changed at the patch, other wanna graphical changes, but the game will get lot of better.

[Turk Man]

yes