traukanshaku, I have started a game on the large random multistar map as tec with 2 tec allies 3 advent allied and 2 vasari allied without a problem, but my system specs are athlonx2 5200+ 4gb ddr2 800 geforce 7600gs driver 182.06 winxp pro 32bit sp3, therefore my suspision of your problems is the amount of ramie the 2gb, I would suggest upgrading to atleast 3gb assuming a 32bit os

harpo

I'm getting a brand new system very shortly, but I included the specs as common courtesy, really. I've been able to play games through their entire length, and then I've had the minidump before the game even starts. It's very finicky, but the inconsistency points to perhaps a problem with something in the random map. Personally, I'm leaning toward one of the many additions in planet types, since that could account for the randomness of the crashes. The random maps may or may not have the offending type on the map.

Granted, that's a guess and I could be ( and most likely am ) completely wrong, but I've pretty much ruled out hardware problems.

one of the dratted double posts

harpo

Hey does anybody know what the small triangles are that appear on the planets?  I was playing through a game on the balanced resources map in version .7 and as the vasari and saw triangles on some planets. s ometimes it was 3, sometimes 2, sometimes none.  just wonderin what those were/ment

oh and Nacey, in the vasari tech tree, to colonize ice plants initally you need a tech that has the word Tropic in it.  Didn't know if you ment that or not. just though I'd point it out.  i think the second one is subzero biology or something like that.

There isn't a need to worry about the triangles, they have no affect on the game

The triangles are part of CB they help you see what size your plant is. the less triangles I do think that mean a smaller planet.

Those triangles represent planet size.  One for Dwarf planets, 2 for Normal planets, and three for Huge planets.

Which technically has no effect on the gameplay or the game at all

Size affects how much population the planet can afford.

Ebla by E.S.Posthumus is the current main title song. Too bad you dont hear the other E.S.Posthumus song ingame in the current patch.

Yeah its backwards, its been adressed. Along with some planetary buffs not matching decriptions still.

LOL, too bad you dont hear half of it!

I cant seem to recreate your bug, My random maps work just fine. Might I suggest redownloading the mod and such. Sometimes that seems to fix crazy things like that. I will see if I can further bug hunt for you on my end.

Actually yes they do. Like its been stated, the triangle represent the size of the planet. More triangles bigger planet. Currently only 2 things gameplay wise are effected by planet size. Planetary buffs and population. I say both importaint gameplay wise, yet look forward to planet sizes also limiting how many resources asteroids there will be per planet size.

I appreciate you trying to recreate it, Ue_carbon, I'll try redownloading and I'll try my other standby tactics again, graphics drivers, etc.

Edit: things seem to have been smoothed out. Not sure what did it, but it could be a thousand different things so I'll just be thankful that I'm able to play without worrying about minidumps. The addition of celestial bodies is absolutely awesome, btw.

thanks for the info Ue_Carbon

Just wanted to drop you a note that I have the same bug, it's not as bad as 95%, but I'd say like 2/3 of the games will crash when the loading bar is @ 95%.

Coincidently Advent is my main faction as well, haven't tried with other factions so far.

Only difference is that this not only happens on big maps, but on medium maps as well, with only 2 AI opponents.

This is with Entrenchment 1.02 btw.

If you need any more specifics, tell me what you need to know.

Edit: Gonna try the redownload as well.

The song is called "Elba" on the Album "Unearthed".

Ive tried and tried to recreate this but neither of my 2 computers have had this problem. I glad that a redownload fixed it for you! Sometimes that all it takes with SINS. Nacey can tell you that its a picky picky picky game sometimes about silly things when you mod it. I will try to test it further the rest of the weekend.

@UE_Carbon: we gave a run to your maps, and had a blast!!!!

are you working on more? keep em coming!!!! They are great! And do you have a galaxyforge, that is compatible with celestial bodies??

Olli

I tried the 0.7 version of the game and it still looks great but they are deep problems of balancing.

I mean, the original game is quite well balanced, so i don't understand why you took some time to make changes that, in fact, makes the game unbalanced to not say sometimes ruined.

Understand me well, i love the new stuff you added but i just played a game and saw a Kortul with a 225% bonus in shield repairing (power surge) destroying almost by itself 3 capital ships and a starbase of my ally in a row ! 225% bonus is ok in the original game but now that shields have twice more HP, it is a nightmare.

And it is just an example : i almost only play advent but for this race i saw :

-A carrier which has it supply cost decreased to 14 and his nomber of squadron decreased to 2 from 3 whereas having the same cost than the normal version that host 3 squadrons.

-Advent turret is 4 times more expensive : a turret is more expensive than a hangar !

-You need to research all the level 1 shield to access level 2 shield and then the guardians. It means the IA will never get any guardians and me neither because it is too damn expensive.

-The credit income is still crazy. I play in low income because in fast income i couldn't spend all the money i was getting ! And even with low income, well, thre is no more dilemna about what i am going to choose between two things with my money because you wait 20 seconds and you can buy both !

-Pirates are way funnier now but too much is too much : A starbase for the pirate base is ok for me but a 13500 HP upgraded vasari ?! Come on, attacking the pirates is a nonsense today : you need a larger fleet than the one you are using to fight your foes. Before, you asked yourself the question : "do i protect my planets or do i destroy the pirates once for all". now, i just build defenses with my crazy income and head to the ennemy, lot weaker than the pirates.

-I am not sure about that one but it seems to me that strikecraft are weaker.

I am aware i am quite tough with the mod just now and you don't deserve it after the crazy work you have done but the truth is that i love playing this mod -real capital, new planets, new tech, new player portaits, new sound...- but my pleasure is ruined by a few little things.

I have some ideas of improvement :

-nerf the kortul

-Remove the multi tech level in military tree : the IA don't know how to manage it so your ships are twice more powerful than theirs. Worst, it prevents him from researching some ships like the guardians.

- a Lower income rate.

-Pirate Starbase has one level upgraded in health and armor instead of 3.

-Balance price of advent carriers and advent orbital turrets.

-Well, balance the game.

I mean, this mod is at one inch from perfection but, sadly, it is the last inch that counts.

Nerf the Kol then.  And nerf the Radiance. 

All three are meant to be the 'beasts' of survivability.  They're the heavy hitters you pick up early on because they can take such a beating.  Just saying that maybe you should review what you think each cap ship is meant to be used for.

Guy, three cap ships and a starbase : one time, it was a Sova lvl 3 joined a moment later by a kol level 1 that have been destroyed by a Kortul lvl 4. He then escaped to another planet, the kol got after him one minute later and the ship had got enough shiel to take off the Kol easily. Then come a medium fleet (percheron, LF, LRM around 15 of them) with an Akkan lvl 1 : the now lvl 5 kortul destroyed the whole fleet without going under 2000 HP shield (with 225% shield regenration, it was meaning 300 HP shield every 10 seconds !). The Ia then build a starbase. Not upgraded but taken off by a kortul that have been destroying 3 caps in a row in 15 minutes.

I used my fleet later in the game against the kortul and it, alone, standed one minute in focus fire against 6 caps, 10 illums, 10 LF, 5 carriers.

Personnally, i find it a bit too much OP compared to other caps but i am ready to give up on this point if people are fine with very powerful battleship. But what i said about the other stuff remains.

There are other things to consider.  Research level of both sides, levels do make a difference.  At level 5 he can have maxed the shield regen ability.  Your fleet could have consisted of basic frigates, no cruisers.  What you're stating here is VERY generalized and VERY vague.  An un-upgraded starbase is cannon fodder for even 1 level 5 cap ship.

And as for it lasting three minutes under focus fire. well again, what was your research level vs theirs?  And the kortul's level vs yours?  And also this mod is meant to make cap ships more noticeable.  In Vanilla and Entrenchment Cap ships are speed bumps.  In Distant Stars they're meant to be something big and nasty.  I think you're missing the point of the mod.

Personally I like the ultra-powerful battleship. I have witnessed the Kol and Radiance do much the same thing in which you pointed to. As a matter of fact the Kol I had was lvl 10 and took out 7 caps before being brought down by 10 minutes of strafing bombers. It was epic is the making. Makes me wish I still had that game record but that was an earlier edition and no longer works.

I do agree with the advent cruiser carriers.  They need to be reset back to original terms, that was Advents strength and I think they should keep it.

I also agree with the pirate issue. I mean they are scroungers and they should have weaker stuff.

As far as the SC being weaker that is more of the fact that the caps are much more powerful. Your average frig/cruiser still falls fairly quickly to them.

The research issue is a problem that is being worked on. When you play a multi vs the research does make things very interesting, but against the AI it is a problem. I dont know if it is a hard-code issue or just difficult to find in all the files that are needed to be modded.

Also the resource issue is being worked out as well.

I will let Nacey answer the turret issue. By the time I build them, money and resources are not an issue.

I think you are missing the point of my post.

I witnessed the fight of my ally (IA) against another IA and IA don't make military research (or just one or two level, not much). Moreover, i didn't say three minutes of focus fire, i said one and i had made some research in weapon wheras, him, as IA didn't. 

I perfectly know that unupgraded starbases are trash : i was just saying that under a certain level of firepower, these things were merely invincible and can crush caps one after the other like ryat was pointing it out.

Finally, i just want to say that i love Capital Ships in Distant Stars, i just don't like the gap between battleship and other caps because it makes spamming Battleship and Motherships only, which kill the diversity of the game in my point of view, at least against the IA.

The ideal solution should be playing the mod online but it is hard to meet people who are using Distant Star on ICO.

About turrets, the advent ones are a little bit OP in the original game but here, the nerf is too hard.

For research, i don't know if it is hard coded but you could do at least some modifications so the advent IA would make guardians :

for exemple, in RESEARCHSUBJECT_SHIELDSPSI2

for the lines

Prerequisites
    NumResearchPrerequisites 1
    ResearchPrerequisite
        Subject "RESEARCHSUBJECT_SHIELDSPSI1"
        Level 10

change level 10 to level 2 so the IA may get to the second avent update for the Advent shields and so to the guardian (i didn't test it yet).

I dunno, I find capital ship diversity to be still alive.  Yes I use more battleships and the planet bombers more than others but in any naval fleet in WW 2 you saw an obscene amount of battleships.  They are the heaviest hitters.  It is meant to be that way. 

And my experience with DS the AI does research military, mind you I ALWAYS set the AI to brutal for a challenge.  Also remember the more ships shooting at a ships shields the more mitigation they have.  Vasari are shield based so they have high shields, good mitigation and cap ships can get up to 60% mitigation.  Combine that with the shield regen and I'd believe it'd take awhile.

By brutal level, do you mean unfair level ? I have been playing against 7 unfair allied against me (just for fun, i crushed all of them at my home world using a starbase with meteor storm) and after watching the replay they researched ships but only one of them researched weapons upgrade. and what he did was ridiculous : 1 lvl in missile, 1 lvl in laser. All after more than one hour of game !

For the shield, you are totally right : with mitigation and shield regen, you need to have three times the firepower of a Kortul to overpass only its shield !

For the other caps, you really kill the diversity of the game with that kind of logic because most capitals have powers that can make combo with other caps. Just using mere brutal firepower is less fun than managing the powers of a mixed fleet of caps (i play advent, by the way), at least for me.

Glad you like them, I have more but I dont know if they will included yet in a patch. Thats something me and Nacey havent talked about much.

To quickly address all this talk about balancing. I cant speak for Nacey directly but do know this next patch will focus on balancing. Everything from income rates to Cap stats and such will be addressed. Thanks all for your input and talk about it. I do know for a fact that the Advent Drone host will be getting its 3 squads back.