4.1 Bugs

[Beersatron]

I was building the GE and SS ships and they were being classified as commercial, guess if I had wanted thermal and em sensors it would have been changed to navy.

see attached gif for the missing date

Thanks for the screenshot. If you reselect on the construction option or the class type, does a date appear?

I tried as many variations of dropdowns and selections as I could to see if a date would be displayed, but no joy.

Edited: Sorry I mislead you with the original reply - updated one is here

Commercial ships build slowly compared to a naval vessel of the same size. That isn't usually a problem because commercial ships are usually much larger and larger ships build faster so it evens itself out. Large but relatively cheap ships are best in commercial shipyards. Small, expensive commercial vessels are very slow to build. Commercial shipyards can be increased in size really quickly compared to naval shipyards and far more cheaply in both money and minerals so very large commercial shipyards are easy to get. The downside is that commercial vessels are are treated as one quarter their actual size in terms of build speed and you can only build 'commercial vessels' in commercial shipyards. That is fine for a 40,000 ton freighter that only costs 400 BP but for a 10,000 ton commercial geosurvey ship that costs 1200 BP, it will be incredibly slow. A naval shipyard can build a military version of the geosurvey ship more quickly but couldn't build the freighter because it is far too big.

The actual formula for build rate is:

Class Size is tons/50
If Commercial Vessel = True Then Class Size = Class Size / 4

BRMultiple = ClassSize / 100
BRMultiple = 1 + ((BRMultiple - 1) / 2)
Actual Build Rate = BRMultiple * Racial SY Build Rate

I guess the bottom line is, if you want a commercial geosurvey ship that uses little fuel and doesn't require maintenance, you can get one but it will be slow to build and probably slow in tactical terms. A military version will be smaller and faster and will be built much quicker but it will require maintenance and it will use more fuel.

Steve

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense! I think I will stick with commercial survey vessels because they have ridiculously long cruising ranges which means once less thing to babysit

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Two (both minor):

1)  With a "conventional" start (not TN), it says that you get 1/4 as many research points, but no tech or RP appear after the game has started (it appears).  I had auto-select tech ticked.

Is this v4.11 or v4.1? Assuming the former, I removed the starting tech for a conventional campaign on the assumption you would have to start with nothing. Where does it mention the 1/4 research points - I obviously overlooked that.

2)  On the tech tab of the F2 screen, selecting the "Research Project" field doesn't update the Technology Description box.  Clicking the "Field" field does, however.  Also, if you play with the column widths (moving "Field" to the left) shows a "Pre-Req Two" column appearing.  More weird than a problem....

I can't recreate this one. Selecting items using the Research Project field seems to update technology description and I can't get the Pre-req two column to appear. I'll keep playing with it.

Steve

[Beersatron]

Magazines do not appear on the Technology Report dropdown.

Is it possible for you to display technology dropdowns in alphabetical order by any chance? Tis just a nice to half, nothing world ending though

I checked the appropriate column in the DB for magazines and I also noticed you have an entry for Nova Cannon, uber weapon that you were thinking of adding?

[Erik L]

Got one under 4.1 coming up intermittent. Error in NPCPlacePop(?) Not sure on the exact sub as I'm trying from memory. But it did deal with NPC's finding planets or placing populations.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I checked the appropriate column in the DB for magazines and I also noticed you have an entry for Nova Cannon, uber weapon that you were thinking of adding?

It's a placeholder for a weapon I was toying with. I might start looking at new weapons once v4.1 is stable as I hope that this version will be a good baseline so that anything will be additions and new features rather than changing any of the underlying mechanics or physics.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Got one under 4.1 coming up intermittent. Error in NPCPlacePop(?) Not sure on the exact sub as I'm trying from memory. But it did deal with NPC's finding planets or placing populations.

If you click the show error box on the Events window, it should show you any recent error messages.

Steve

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Magazines added and dropdown changed to alphabetical. However, magazines won't automatically appear until the next version with a database update even though the code will be in the next exe update. If you want to activate them in the next exe update, you will have to manully tick the Components field of the Magazine record in the ResearchCategories table.

Looks good on the technology report ... could you also add it to the Create Research Project screen? Pretty please with a cherry on top, heh . Added for the next version.

Steve

[Beersatron]

Noticed something that doesn't seem the same as v4.0.

I have a given a fleet the primary default order of 'survey nearest body' and secondary default order of 'move to nearest trade location' (because I am in Sol otherwise I would use move to entry JP).

What the ship is doing is performing the primary order and surveying an asteroid, but then it will not move to the next asteroid but move to Earth as it is the closest trade location. And then, it goes back out and surveys the nearest body.

In v4.0 I would use the entry JG as secondary order and it worked grand.

edit**

That is to say that the GE would go and survey until it couldn't find anything within 10 billion KM or whatever the limit is and then it would head to the secondary order.

Also just noticed that the 'Minerals Located' event type is not being displayed on the System Map, other events are being displayed on the System Map and the 'Minerals Located' is showing in the actual event log window. There may be other events that are not displaying on System Map and I have just not noticed it.

edit2**

yay for alphabetical ordering  

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Noticed something that doesn't seem the same as v4.0.

I have a given a fleet the primary default order of 'survey nearest body' and secondary default order of 'move to nearest trade location' (because I am in Sol otherwise I would use move to entry JP).

What the ship is doing is performing the primary order and surveying an asteroid, but then it will not move to the next asteroid but move to Earth as it is the closest trade location. And then, it goes back out and surveys the nearest body.

In v4.0 I would use the entry JG as secondary order and it worked grand.

That is to say that the GE would go and survey until it couldn't find anything within 10 billion KM or whatever the limit is and then it would head to the secondary order.

The move to nearest trade location option is for civilian freighters to ensure they never wander off if something unfortunate happens to their current destination. I hadn't considered what might happen if a player ship was assigned the order. The best option is to leave that option alone. I'll try and hide it in future versions. You could set up a conditional order to refuel instead.

Steve

[James Patten]

I had something similar happen as happened to Beersatron.

Started my empire having fully geosurveyed Sol system, but not gravsurveyed.  Sent my grav ships out, with Survey Nearest Survey Location else return to Jump Point.  Of course they have no jump point to return to, but didn't know what else to put.  After the first time advance, they gravsurvey ships had as the first order Return to NotFound Jumppoint, and second order was Survey Location #5.  I cleared the orders and manually ordered them to SL #5, reset the default orders.  After completing the survey of SL 5, it rec'd an order to return to NotFound Jumppoint.

[Brian Neumann]

I keep getting an error every 8-12 months.  The time only increments 1 day even though I am doing 30 days at a time.

Error in AddtoShippingLineWealth
Error 3201 in DAO.recordset
you can not add/change a record because a related record in shipping line table is missing

I get 18 of these each time it happens.  Also I have exactly 1 freighter in one of the three shipping lines for the player race. None of them ever get any money added to them, nor does the freighter move, even though I have deliberatly set up a colony with more population than infrastructure.

Brian

[sloanjh]

Two (both minor):

1)  With a "conventional" start (not TN), it says that you get 1/4 as many research points, but no tech or RP appear after the game has started (it appears).  I had auto-select tech ticked.

Is this v4.11 or v4.1? Assuming the former, I removed the starting tech for a conventional campaign on the assumption you would have to start with nothing. Where does it mention the 1/4 research points - I obviously overlooked that.

I think it's v4.10 (i.e. I saw the post that you'd uploaded a new version with 3 bugfixes, but there was no "4.11" patch message when I downloaded).  On the startup configuration screen w/1 Billion people, toggling the conventional/non-conventional radio button flips the "starting tech points" box between 240K and 60K - the latter should be 0.  It looks like the same thing just confused Paul - he has a question in Mechanics asking what he should set the starting points to.

BTW, I think the way it works (no extra tech for conventional start) is fine, it's just that the configuration screen doesn't agree with the behavior.

2)  On the tech tab of the F2 screen, selecting the "Research Project" field doesn't update the Technology Description box.  Clicking the "Field" field does, however.  Also, if you play with the column widths (moving "Field" to the left) shows a "Pre-Req Two" column appearing.  More weird than a problem....

I can't recreate this one. Selecting items using the Research Project field seems to update technology description and I can't get the Pre-req two column to appear. I'll keep playing with it.

Steve

Funny - I wonder if it was because of the conventional start.  As for getting the Pre-req two column, I think moved the dividers (both left and right) for "Field" to the left , which gave space for the pre-req two column to appear.

John

[rdgam]

Ships with damaged jump drives can still jump.

Magazines are still missing from the technology report.

[James Patten]

Loaded 1 mass driver on a freighter, sent it to a colony and unloaded all.  It unloaded 2 mass drivers, even though it only had one.

I'll never need to build mass drivers again  

[Beersatron]

Ships with damaged jump drives can still jump.

Magazines are still missing from the technology report.

For the Magazines:

Magazines added and dropdown changed to alphabetical. However, magazines won't automatically appear until the next version with a database update even though the code will be in the next exe update. If you want to activate them in the next exe update, you will have to manully tick the Components field of the Magazine record in the ResearchCategories table.

Steve