Here are some bugs from PA11 Hotfix that may or may not have been fixed in the recent hotfixes. I have been combing through my videos, now that the Moltar series is done, in order to see what bugs I encountered and hadn't reported. When using the ship attack range overlay in combat, it shows my missile range cut off half way through the enemy as if it is the edge of the map when it isn't. Certain events can cause wormholes and ship movement lines to become visible in the system view screen when they are normally hidden. Here is an example of this occurring with a ruin exploration event. Image 1 shows the lines in the galaxy view. Image 2 shows them hidden (as they should be) when in the system view performing the search. Image 3 shows the lines have appeared on the screen after the event result is revealed. Image 4 shows it also occurred later when I found a Nano Swarm tech (not yet implemented) in a ruin, so it is not just when you find a ships, but perhaps whenever you find anything in a ruin the lines reappear? Mothership (found above) is a battleship found on turn 126 on hardcore. Is this too powerful to find in an average ruin at this point in the game? Maybe you should only find a battleship this powerful in a "yellow" ruin with an expert explorer, or this ship should be pushed to turn 150 or later? It is also possible it is fine as-is, but I know it dramatically affected my fleet strength at that point in the game. When taken to a system where combat is possible, you typically have to right click to and click "Yes" to acknowledge you don't want to fight. I experienced that zooming out with the mousewheel, or perhaps clicking the close icon in the top right, exited the battle screen without the No/Yes prompt. If you do either accidentally you can't go back and fight that turn. Enhanced targeting algorithms seems to replace improved targeting. I made this assumption. but this is not indicated in the tooltip. Same with Advanced targeting. I believe these should use similar wording to things like Phasor Rifle (the bonus is replaced (not cumulative) by those of more advanced rifles). For example, Improved Targeting (this bonus is replaced (not cumulative) by higher level targeting algorithms) I will reply with more as I continue re-watching my footage from the series.
Alright, I'm back with round 2 of bugs and balance notes from my video series. I finished going through all my videos, so here is my massive brain dump of information... I saw more instances of the wormhole and ship travel (green and red) lines appearing in the system view at random times as shown in my initial post in this thread. I moved economy related info to its own separate thread due to how lengthy that portion of this ended up. EDIT: Links to YouTube timestamps are being replaced with embedded links to the video in general. This is a Xenforo forum issue based on how it handles its media links. Sounds like it might be fixed in 2.0. Anyway, I am placing a space in the link after the https:// so it doesn't do that. Copy and paste and remove the space to watch. Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks! COMBAT & SHIP DESIGN RELATED ISSUES Can't Attack Colony Bug where I was unable to attack a colony despite having the option presented to me. I clicked it repeatedly, but it would not proceed. When I finally decided to decline the attack, the ground combat UI came up. Here a link to where this occurs in the video: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Z5iHl8ahU&t=434 Draguul fail to research better armor The Draguul never upgraded beyond level 1 Titanium Armor. This left them with battleships that had 40 structural and armor points and titans with 80 structural and armor points. This made them very easy to defeat in a single volley. The Sulak did not exhibit this behavior and had at least upgraded to Wurzite Armor (320 structural and armor points on their titans). Missile Defense Issues Take a look at the video of this battle and note these timestamps: https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn817N1LCt4&t=1790 31:07 Missiles appear to be getting blown up when I click on them, but no ammo is expended. I don't think it is actually shooting at them, but the sound and visual effects are played. 31:21 UI shows 0% chance to hit nightmare missle, but am able to hit it anyway. From here I continue destroying them despite 0% chance to hit. 31:40 I am unable to shoot at missiles that are sharing a space with my friendly ship because it thinks I want to select my ship instead Wurtzite Cannon Unexplained Inaccuracy Please take a look at this video until time marker 45:20. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iVKsIEBti4&t=2685 Wurtzite cannon accuracy is very, very low as described in the video clip. In this video you will see Wurtzite Cannon accuracy vs. Gauss-Coil Gun Accuracy https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iVKsIEBti4&t=3345 Gauss-Coil Gun is far more accurate. Even Particle Accelerators have higher accuracy. Why is the Wurtzite Cannon unable to hit anything even with a high attack and low defense? The description does not indicate it is a close-range shotgun style weapon or anything. Fighter Bays and their numerous issues Please take a look at this video until time marker 3:35. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iVKsIEBti4&t=150 Issue #1 The space requirement is far too high It is impossible to even fit one on my battleship or even a titan, and this is with 3 miniaturization! Issue #2 Their space requirement scales based on ship class, but the number of fighters do not. A fighter bay on a titan uses the same % of the ship's available space, but provides no benefit over a fighter bay on a much smaller ship class. On a battleship, it is requiring approximately 167% of the space available, which is approximately 720. On a titan, it is using approximately 167% of the space available, which is approximately 1440. Having the fighter bay scale this way creates a thematic disconnect. Why does it take so much more space when it still has the same number of fighters and the same effectiveness? Regular weapons do not scale with ship size, which means they are always better to use than fighter bays. Issue #3 Unclear how ship attack impacts fighter Do fighters take on the ship attack % of the parent ship? Do battle sensors affect them? I don't know. Issue #4 They take a long time to engage and are easily destroyed Watch this video and see how they work on this titan. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0Z5iHl8ahU&t=3025 They don't arrive near the battle station until the end of turn 3, when the battle is pretty much over. They are then wiped out at 55:24 in a single shot. Hardly worth the massive amount of space. Titan UI issue with heavy reinforcement Duralloy Plating Titans with max structural increase display 120 structural points instead of 1200. Issue due to ship design UI not supporting numbers in the thousands for this element. It is correct outside the ship design UI. Side Note:My Titan can fit a single gauss coil-gun and fighter bay and nothing else. Fighter bay takes up 720 space even at miniaturization 4. RUIN EXPLORATION BALANCE I found the Mothership, a battleship class ship, on turn 126. This seemed early to find such such a powerful ship, but what do you think? Should the minimum turn that this ship can be acquired on be higher? Another thing to consider is whether or not some items should be locked behind the "yellow" ruins, meaning locked until you send an expert explorer to scout them a second time. Perhaps this is already the case for some things. SPACE CULTURE BALANCE I am happy with nearly all of the choices, even if some, especially in Knowledge, aren't too exciting. I am not happy with the Rank 2 choices except for Adventure. With the others, I often feel like I am just picking them to get to something better. More info below as to why. I am not happy with the Rank 5 Knowledge choices. They are substantially weaker than those in Adventure and Wealth in my opinion. Rank 2 Adventure - I am happy with the options offered. I will choose one or the other equally depending on the game state. Wealth - Neither option is very useful early in the game when you will generally be looking at your rank 2 choices. I also always choose one option over the other. I always choose Aggressive Terraforming. I don't see why I would ever want Master Geologists early enough in the game to place this at rank 2? Uplifted worlds don't come into play until the late game. I also have never needed to terraform an uplifted world. I always terraform a planet before I start increasing it's eco level to an uplifted state. I'd love to hear what I am missing out on? Knowledge - Only one of the options presented is useful in the early game when you are generally looking at rank 2 choices. Asteroid Archeology can be useful early game. It does not scale well late game. 10 RP makes no difference at that stage. The other problem is, how often are you going to have a lot of research asteroid belts early enough that 10 RP each makes a big difference? Xenoresearchers is potentially useful, but you aren't going to have alien pops until you've had wars later in the game. I have never selected it, but I can see its value. Rank 5 Knowledge Theory of Everything and Universal Academia both feel weaker than the Rank 5 choices in both Adventure and Wealth. 2 Free Random Techs? Far too high a chance to get garbage to risk it. +30 RP and 1 science leader appears or levels up? Negligible that late in the game. I'd rather get a legendary leader or level up 4+ leaders as I can with Adventure Rank 5. REQUESTS OTHERS HAVE ALREADY MADE THAT I ALSO WANT TO SEE: Allow automated remote exploration for end game. It becomes tedious picking new targets when victory is at hand. Allow automated declining of attack when sitting in same system for a long time with another empire. Allow players to review the galaxy map before committing to an attack or declining.
Just some thoughts on this. It is a powerful find, but it isn't guaranteed to happen. I've played numerous sessions so far, in one I found two ships, in some I found one and in others I found none. Once, I attacked an AI who had found a battleship early on, so this can benefit them as well. At first I thought as you did... but then I looked at it from replay value. Finding a ship of this caliber early, or even encountering one in opposition, changes the game and can mean good things too. I would leave it as is unless we discover that it is happening too often, thus far, I don't see that being the case. What I'm saying basically, is that these type of finds add to the sense of wonder, even if at times they give the player an early and clear edge... other times though, they can present an extra challenge. Let's let it ride for the time being and observe it more closely as we amass more feedback.
Yes, I'm open to that. I enjoy the sense of wonder and excitement these events can bring. It may have just been luck of the draw this time. I believe it is the fact that it was a battleship that made me pause. Finding destroyers, or even cruisers at that stage, isn't a big deal. The other thing that really made question this is that the Human Federation had nothing but frigates at this stage of the game. There was literally nothing they could do to stop me. Only a stray dark nebula kept me from destroying their homeworld with that battleship at that stage. That delayed me long enough that the Sulak bailed them out by declaring war on me.
Man... that sounds like a blast, keep an eye out for the space rabbits, left unchecked they can be quite an obstacle. I'm also jealous, no-one has declared war on me yet... perhaps because I beat them to it?
I believe that is the edge of the map. The green space is the total area where combat takes place. That Space Amoeba is right in the lower edge. If that was not what you witnessed let us know. Right, sometimes the wormhole lines and other lines are rendered inside the system view, as in the case of ruins. We'll look at that. I agree with @Konstantine, let's give it a chance. If it happens often (it shouldn't) or unbalances the game too much we may re-think when it should appear. Good catch. That's a nasty one that may cause some serious trouble and interfere with the game's natural flux. I agree, the tooltips should be re-worded in the lines of rifles and other equipement where bonus are replaced and do not accumulate. Thanks!
Ok, some specific edge case that provoked this. The case was: you had bombers, no assaults, they had a battlestation. You could not attack but when closing the planetary assault went ahead. We'll have a look at this specific case. If you happen to have a save of that time or near please send it to us, thanks. Right, we need to have a look at that. Thanks, we'll address that in next releases. The Wurzite Cannon is more powerful than similar kinetic weapons but comes with double range accuracy penalties. The Gauss-Coil is the opposite, as it has no range accuracy penalty. This should be described in the Ship design screen when installing the weapon, however we should provide this description during combat, otherwise players will be confused about these discrepancies like you were. Still, that double range penalty for wurzite cannons seems to be translating into too much penalty, we'll have a look just in case. In any case, the wurzite cannon is better used as a shotgun-effect weapon, only effective at very close range. Agreed, it doesn't make much sense for a fighter bay to take more space in a larger ship, especially when there is no added benefit. If more fighters would be provided I agree it could be justifiable. We'll look into this. Yes, they take the ship attack % of the parent ship. I suppose battle sensors do affect them, but I'll check that. We'll also think in ways to make it clear how fighters ship attack is affected. Yes, fighters still need a lot of work. Probably too slow as you say, and too weak to justify the cost and space. We'll have a good look at them at the next opportunity. Yes, it's a glitch in the ship design screen. The space issue was already mention, we'll have a look at that. In principle, fighter bays space requirements should not scale with ship class. Already addressed in my reply above. For the items unlocked by the "yellow" ruins and the need for an expert explorer leader to unlock better stuff, we'll give it some thought. Having an expert explorer leader is great but the player may not have access to any during the game, so it would be a bit of luck to find one. However, there is a culture perk that unlocks an explorer leader, so we'll see. Agreed on Rank 2 Wealth, both choices are not very exciting at the moment, we'll have a look at that. Knowledge rank 2 is also a bit weak. As you say, you need wars to benefit from Xenoresearchers. It was not the idea in the beginning, but at the moment it is the only way to benefit from it. Asteroid archeology does not scale well late game, correct. Correct, there are some scalling issues on Rank 5 knowledge. 2 Free random techs is too risky. We should probably force late tier techs only. +30RP is also too few at that stage and 1 science leader appearing is not that of a big deal either. We'll need to buff this. Yes, yes and yes. Don't worry, we'll have this. Thanks a lot for these monster posts @aReclusiveMind. This was very helpful. We took notes and we'll be addressing these issues in due time.
@aReclusiveMind excellent post and great look at Space Culture. I must say, I felt the same way about some choices but somehow it never occurred to me to talk about them on the forum. I agree with all what you've said in this regard. @Adam Solo Maybe instead forcing late game technologies for THEAORY OF EVERYTHING you could move it in place of XENORESEARCHES. As it has been pointed out, it is too early in the game to have benefits from XEBORESEARCHES but two random techs would be a tempting choice
I think I figured it out, why no one has declared war on me yet... I need your help @aReclusiveMind if you can spare it. It seems my playstyle means I always have a potent military, usually 1st or 2nd throughout the game. In many instances on hardcore, I see the AI expand well, and research well, but usually they neglect their military until the game starts approaching the later stages. I'm playing one now, waiting, and while most AIs are cautious towards me, (with the exception of the Moltar who like me), no one has attacked me, I'm 3rd in tech, 1st in Military. Interestingly enough, on the overall section, we are all virtually in a tie. The AI has gone to war twice with other AI factions (Human vs Dragul X2) but these have been skirmishes that ended quickly. The council vote is between myself and the Sulak, the other three factions constantly abstain. This will probably force me to go for a conquest victory of sorts. But I'm wondering, in this situation, perhaps it would be best for the AIs to start allying with one another. I think that aReclusiveMind plays a bit more peaceful than I do, I'm not sure, so I ask that you pay attention to who has the largest forces and see if that is a factor in the AI declaring war on you. By the way, I'm not charismatic, but I'm also not repulsive. Just trying to figure out why they were never aggressive with me, any help would be appreciated.
Thanks for looking through all my feedback, @Adam Solo. I appreciate the time and attention you've given to it! Yes, you are correct. I noticed now the position is (57,0). It looks like I was just confused because a) battle map boundries aren't visible except for with the UI/range overlays, and b) the enemy appears to have half their body off the usable battle map. Perhaps the enemies shouldn't be able to spawn that close to the edge? Haha, you are in luck! I have a save the turn before that issue occurs (222). The series just happened to warrant one at that point as that is right at the beginning of part 8. I've attached the save for Moltar Union - Turn 222. Remember, this is for PA 11 Hotfix 1. I do not see Wurtzite Cannon listed as a short range weapon anywhere. You are correct that is is still very inaccurate even at close range. Here are the descriptions I saw (in PA 11 Hotfix 1). It is entirely unclear that the Wurtzite Cannon has special attributes that would impact its effectiveness in any given situation. I think part of the issue is the weapon effect and description can too easily blur together. It is becomes unclear what part of the description is simply flavor text and which part affects gameplay. Some examples: Particle Accelerator description: "First accelerator with no explosive propellant, faster and a bit more powerful kinetic weapon. "First accelerator with no explosive propellant," - this sounds like pure flavor text "faster" - could be flavor text or gameplay. What does "faster" mean for a kinetic weapon? It is not a missile that has movement speed and which someone could try to outrun. They either fire right away because you are in range or they don't. I assume faster means something like "better at hitting smaller targets due to improved tracking capabilities resulting from this weapon's increased projectile speed." Is that correct? Again, I am guessing because a player can't tell based on that description exactly what the intent is. "and a bit more powerful kinetic weapon" - I assume flavor text based on it being better than the Tungsten Gun. Wurtzite Cannon description: "Provides improved kinetic firepower to a ship using wurtzite reinforced ammo" The entire description sounds like flavor text. As the player, I am not aware of any properties of Wurtzite that make it a close range shotgun like weapon. Only the Doom Cannon mentions anything about being a "shotgun". There needs to be a clearer way to state what a weapon's intended role is. Separating that from the flavor description would be ideal. If you could extend the text box slightly, and add a blank line between the flavor text and the start of the gameplay effects, that would help. That way the player can read the flavor text, but also quickly see what the weapon is best used for. That is probably the easiest way without creating a new UI element for this. For an example with the "shotgun" effect weapons, something like "This weapon is designed for close range combat. It is inaccurate at long range, but incredibly damaging at close range. Not designed for shooting at smaller targets." This is just an example. I don't know if the Wurtzite Cannon is supposed to be accurate against "smaller targets", destroyers and frigates, or only capital ships, even at close range.
And I appreciate every sentence, every video and every second you and everyone else has put into helping us improve the game. Thanks for the save, that will help a lot on detecting what the issue was. Yes, I see now that the descriptions in the game do not match our latest specification for the weapons. We'll correct that. We may go with your suggestion to separate flavor text from tactical considerations with a different section or at least with the use of a new line to separate them.
I believe that the fact you could not initiate an attack on the Lau system was linked to the Glitchy Ships issue, where the system was seeing phantom ships in the data and then an error you could not see was being raised in the backend. We'll keep this issue open in case this happens again.
Yes, I prefer to let the AI fight each other early and keep a low profile. While they spend time/energy creating low tier ships to ping each other with, I build up my economy. That way when they start looking in my direction, I can flip the switch and bring superior firepower to bear against them. If the AI were more aggressive right now, and brought bombs or assault ships early, I would have to consider being aggressive, building up more defenses, and/or making friends with someone who can help. Ideally certain races would be more or less inclined to early aggression based on their racial traits and background story. Perhaps with some variance as in Civ VI so you don't know for sure the Draguul will attack early 100% of the time, for example. I will keep an eye on when the AI declares war in the future. I can say that in the Moltar series I posted, the Human AI declared war on me even though I had a much stronger fleet according to the rankings. Here is the chart: The Humans declared war on turn 144. I was superior in fleet strength as you can see. I absolutely destroyed them, so attacking me was a poor choice. The Sulak declared war on turn 163 while I was still at war with the Humans. My fleet strength was decent in the early game primarily due to the ships I found in ruins. The first small dip is when I let my special ship get destroyed by a Crystalline Entity.
I've had a similar experince and I'm playing exclusively on hardcore. The AI players either attack over something trivial (outpost near their territory) and do so when they don't have a decent military OR they have a much better fleet rating and are very cautious about declaring war. They tend to build a ton of frigates and not much else. One game when I was attacking and the ai player was down to two colonies and an outpost and they stationed their big ships at the outpost, leaving colonies relatively undefended (maybe had a few frigates or destroyers).
