Beta 4 status report

from Stardock Forums
There's a lot going on this week and we're trying to decide whether to release beta 4 this Friday with updates after that or wait longer.

The last beta 3 beta we're not terribly happy with because of the stacking problems and general slowness.

On the AI side, things are going quite well. The diplomacy aspect of the game is maturing very well. One controversial thing we're doing is that we're going to have the AI be able to do things in diplomacy that you can't do. But I think you'll understand why (or at least most of you). We want the AI to be able to come to you and..well just talk.

Example: Say things like "The Drengin are slowly taking over the galaxy. You and us aren't allied but we should try to counter balance them by constructing star bases to limit their influence. Let's work together informally"

A more controversial example is that I will have the AI complain about things you're doing in the game. But we can't think of a straight forward way to let the human player do the same that doesn't seem really lame. I.e. What would we do, have a "Whine..." where you can select a half dozen things to whine about?

Visually there is a lot of stuff getting put in. The cut scenes and such are getting completed. Most of which won't be part of the beta testing.

Performance has been greatly improved. I do a lot of the AI coding at night on my 600mhz laptop and the drawing performance was just driving me nuts so I spent an evening rewriting some of this and the frame rate trippled. The ships move much smoother now.

Additionally, Cari modified the path finding to be much faster thanks to Red sending us that saved game.

So there's a lot of stuff convering but I'm not sure they'll make it together by this Friday or not.

We'll keep you up to date.
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
PLEASE have beta 4 released on Friday - it would be great to have a more stable game to find the remaining bugs.

Thank you!

Jerry
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Looking forward to it, I for one understand and do not mind alittle wait if Beta 4 is not ready Friday.
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Friday is good.......but I'll take stability over getting it early.

You're right about talking back....there wouldn't be a good way to do that without having to layer a separate composition window on top of the diplomacy window, not to mention coding responses to the messages!

Something like A 3-pane window with Subject/action/tense/mood in the left pane, a set of check box selections in the right pane and a window that composes the selection on the basis of your choices in the bottom pane. But that is wayyyy too much coding. Maybe a good 1.x or 2.x project.

All in all it sounds pretty teriffic. I can't wait!

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Can we at least get an update that fixes the stacking bug by Friday? It would sure help in making suggestions or comments on game balance. Right now I don't think any balance issues can be looked at too seriously without combat as a viable option in the game.

This is the main reason I haven't been playing the beta too much lately (that and I seem to be busier than hell right now). The bug just takes the "fun" out of it.

Thanks.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
If a slip of a week or so, makes a major difference in the quality of the beta, then delay it as long as you need. I've only been playing for a little more than 3 months and the changes from then to now are incredible.
but watch out for the old adage, work expands to fill the time available LOL
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I am looking foreward to beta 4 but would much prefer a delay if it gets us a more quality beta. Also will help because we won't be giving you already known bugs if you delay a small bit. Oh I have seen this with other betas perhaps you can post a known bug list when the beta 4 comes out so we don't keep rehashing whats already known. Though if possible a small fix that repares the stacking bug would be much appreciated.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Yeah, I'd rather wait and have a more bug-free version, than hurry and have things left unfixed which could have been.

As for the diplomacy, it will be okay if the sorts of things you mention can only come from the AI to the human. However, if you can figure out a way for the human player to send messages like, "Leave System X, or we will declare war," for example, with the AI being able to understand the message and weigh the pros and cons, it would certainly add another dimension to the variety of actions possible in the game.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
And I'd still like to be able to issue a "demand you offer peace to X" thingy in the diplomatic screen.

It doesn't have to automatically put me at war with them if they refuse, but it should affect their thinking, if you get my drift....

And I should not get "bad guy" points for going to war if they refuse.


Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Maybe release on Friday and ONLY fix bugs in beta 4 updates after that. No new additions. I agree with only the aliens being able to complain. It's nice to know why they are upset. Possibly add some new treaty options for you to counter this.

'no starbases in your sector'
'no ship type X in your sector'
etc...

Paul.
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
I would say consentrate on the stacking probs you found in the saved game, and other simmilar issues. This is because I hav'nt played a game in a while because the bugs as alian13c put it "it takes all the fun out of it". If you release 4 and the the above bugs are still there I will probably play it once. And if the stacking is still causing problems not play again until it is fixed.
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
well I guess I might be in the minority.

:p
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
The stacking stuff is fixed in our internal build.

The thing is, we can't just put out a beta that has a particular feature. The build we have is the build we have. We'd have to go and tka eout a bunch of stuff right now in order to have a build on Friday that "just does X".

We also haven't put in any new United Planets issues yet.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
Release it when its ready Brad, and not until
s
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with delaying it until it is deemed stable.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Sorry Brad I did'nt mean ignore stuff that is working and you want feedback on to iron out gameplay issues etc.. I meant that items like the stacking (glad is't fixed) are fundimental basics that can render the game no fun at all. If the new diplomatic does'nt work that is Ok as we can still play the game enjoy it and report back our findins to you.

on the politics for terrans could you do it a bit like a maths formula eg
Terrans/Dregen cooperate as Bradians too powerful in sectors x,x by x,x.
this could be expressed as

Terrans/Dregen (icon for cooperation) as Bradians (icon too powerful)(icon sectors) x,x by x,x.

IF it is possible (I now little about programing) it could form the basis of a diplomatic written language.

I am sure someone will tell me that if you could do that you would get the nobel prize for science. But it is only a suggestion and you may get an idea you can use out of it.
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
Sorry Brad I did'nt mean ignore stuff that is working and you want feedback on to iron out gameplay issues etc.. I meant that items like the stacking (glad is't fixed) are fundimental basics that can render the game no fun at all. If the new diplomatic does'nt work that is Ok as we can still play the game enjoy it and report back our findins to you.

on the politics for terrans could you do it a bit like a maths formula eg
Terrans/Dregen cooperate as Bradians too powerful in sectors x,x by x,x.
this could be expressed as

Terrans/Dregen (icon for cooperation) as Bradians (icon too powerful)(icon sectors) x,x by x,x.

IF it is possible (I now little about programing) it could form the basis of a diplomatic written language.

I am sure someone will tell me that if you could do that you would get the nobel prize for science. But it is only a suggestion and you may get an idea you can use out of it.
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Basically, you are giving the AI a way to let the player know if they are doing something to make the AI angry.

A player "whine" feature would be nice, if you could provide choices for a variety of things that would make a player angry with an AI *and* if the AI would receive these messages and take action if they cared about how you felt. Essentially if they player could request the AI to do things:
"Remove this starbase from this sector"
or "Remove that ship from that sector"
or "make peace with empire X"
or "gimme some ships/tech/money/planets"

There are no consequences to the AI ignoring the request, but if the AI considers being on friendly terms with the player more important than whatever the player is asking, then the AI would comply. If the AI feels that the item was more important than the relations, then they need not comply. But then, you as the human, would know that you tried to use diplomacy before pulling out the guns. I think it would be a nice feature. It would just require some UI work to present the player with appropriate whine choices (and allow them to combine whine choices, so they could say "remove this starbase from sector and also gimme some stuff and also make peace with such-and-such". Now that I think about it, it is alot like making a trade where you are asking for stuff and offering nothing in return. And some of the stuff asked for is non-material, but strategic. Perhaps you could add some strategic things to the trade screen so that people could ask the AI to do strategic things as part of a trade. Then, the hard part of course is the AI code to evaluate the requests...

Enough rambling on my part though...
Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
I'll take quality and stability over arbitrary release dates, any day (literally). "We shall release no game before its time." - Our Son Welles

Regarding complaing to the AIs: would it be easy to program degrees of complaint (mildly annoyed, pissed, preparing for war) and let the user fill in the text for their own game by editting whatever file holds the generic text? Just a thought.

Would it be even easier to worry about that after beta 4?

End transmission.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
BTW, none of this affects the game's official release date.

In a pinch we could release the game in January but marketing is what is dictating the release date. Though there are concerns that if other games of this genre that are in development keep getting pushed back that this would create a potential problem for us.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
well I dont mind waiting for as long as it'll take within reason, as for being able to contact the AI, tbh I dont see that as a big must as it isnt that important and would probably be abused and thus make the game less fun, although i would like to see some sort of treaty to set up official borders and DMZ's where no military ships can pass etc, you'd need to set up sensor nets to keep an eye out but it'd add more depth to the game.

also:
it would be nice if we could say steal a ship from another race and use it to frame them by attacking another empire, or even attacking yourself to justify a war against X empire.
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top
Stability is a must. Crashes are only good when one loses, not when winning! LOL!
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
Captain Bizarre said '"We shall release no game before its time.""

But you have to be very careful how you define "ready". If you try too hard for perfection then you never get the product out the door.
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
Just wondering how's it looking for friday?

That's ok if you have more things to do before it's ready.

But I'm trying to plan my Friday evening. Right now I'm intend to go out with the wife. But if you are able to release it tomorrow, then the wife can wait!
;p LOL

Later