egable

Agreed. AI defense layout sucks. Personally, I build a starbase with forced loyalty or the equivalent and then ring it with turrets/missle platforms/laser platforms and hangers with a repair bay tossed in. With fully upgraded hull/shields and weapons with maybe one or two hanger upgrades, it's pretty much impossible to take out the system. Especially if those are all ringed with mines. Advent is the worst to take out because of meteor storm, shielded laser turrets, augmented laser turrets, an

Agreed. I have no problems fighting off the pirates. Even when they catch me "with my pants down" on a particular planet, I can still manage to throw up enough defenses or bring in the cavalry before they wipe out the planet. I'm not sure they necessarily need to be any stronger, however. They are a pretty big nuisance right now as it is, especially since they pretty much always attack me and nobody else.

Could we please have the AI separated out into its own thread, the graphics updating running in a separate thread, and ship movement in a separate thread? On my 4-core processor with 8 gigs of memory, this thing really runs slow as the game drags on. I believe it has to do with all of the ship movements. It runs 100% on one core, but one core only. It _really_ needs to make use of multiple cores. I understand it can't happen by release time, but an update a bit down the road would really make

Multiplayer is slow, but really fun. Don't use random maps as AI placement on them sucks. Love the new operations points settings for buildings and slots for the planets. However, if I build any labs on an asteroid place, there is no way to fill up all the slots unless I go all labs. The cultural stuff was completely useless to have in the game. Computer never researched it. I never needed to build it. It was too expensive to build it for what limited use I would

Starting a game requires you to do some network trickery if you are behind a NAT / Firewall (like most people on high-speed, nowadays). First, Sins runs on the X11 protocol using ports 6000 and 6001. Make sure you have outbound TCP port 6000 allowed through your firewall to connect to Iron Clad Online (ICO). Once connected, if you want to host a game, you have to have port 6001 forwarded from your NAT box to your computer, and allowed through your computer's firewall. On Windows, allowing it thr

Yes, need to increase game speed or even pause it.

Please keep in mind that you can archive the program in SDC if you need to reinstall multiple times. It will save some bandwidth for others needing to download Beta 3. Also, the windows are probably complaining about the same thing I experienced and posted about in another thread... the .entity files being screwed up. Like Zoomba said, uninstall then reinstall B3. If it continues, it should work if you launch from SDC instead of from the shortcut created by the game. At least,

If I browse to the folder where it is installed and double click the executable, it does the same thing as launching the shortcut. But going to SDC and launching it still works.

Yes, I am running Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I was just thinking, perhaps this has something to do with user account control? When I launch SDC, it asks me for permission to run it with special privileges whereas launching the game via the shortcut in the menu does not. I still don't know exactly how that would end up creating the problem I am seeing, but I'm grasping at straws at this point. It works from SDC and does not work from the shortcut.

I reinstalled the game. I also figured out that when launching the game from inside SDC, the game runs correctly. However, when launching the game from the Sins shortcut in the Start Menu, the game complains about missing entries in the .entity files. The target on the shortcut is: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock\TotalGaming\Sins of a Solar Empire\Sins of a Solar Empire.exe". The "Start In" setting for the icon is: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Stardock\TotalGaming\Sins of a Solar Empire". The strang

Note to Stardock: It would be helpful if you could make Stardock Central cache the download of programs (or have an option to enable caching of them) so that we do not have to keep re-downloading them every time we need to re-install. The cache could be cleared manually with a button, or automatically on an update to the program. Update: It appears that there is an archive function already there that will do what I want.

After adding back in the missing line, I tried running the game again, only to find this: TextFileArchive (.\GameInfo\PLANETMODULE_TECHORBITALGAUSSDEFENSE.entity) missing Label: 'statCountType' I will now reinstall the game again, back up all the .entity files, run the game, perform a diff on all the .entity files, and see what I find.

I just reinstalled the game again. I made a copy of the .entity file and then tried playing the game. This time, it gave me the same error without being able to play it even once. I went back and compared the copy of the .entity file with the original. The original has been altered and is indeed missing the statCountType line. The copy of the .entity file still contains the line. Just out of curiosity, I performed a diff on the two files. The file seems to have been heavily modified: 10

I got one of those error messages again that I was talking about: TextFileArchive (.\GameInfo\CAPITALSHIP_TECHBATTLESHIP.entity) missing Label: 'statCountType' This is on start-up of the game. The only reason I even was able to get this message is because I run dual monitors and noticed that there was some kind of window with text in it behind the black screen. I was able to locate the window bar with the mouse because the mouse cursor changed, and then I was able to drag the e

First, I started out by uninstalling my old version and then installing the new version. After playing one game and crashing to the desktop, I tried to go back into the game only to find out that one of the entries in a text file for TECHBATTLESHIP (or something like that) was missing a required line. I wasn't sure what it was supposed to be, so I just uninstalled and re-installed again. I played another game, only to have it crash to desktop again. I tried to go back into the game, but now

Could we pretty please have a 1 - 5 microsecond sleep in the main loop? This will stop the thing from consuming 100% CPU resources and should not impact the gameplay. It will reduce power usage and help save the environment (as well as our computers; running cooler = longer life).

The AI doesn't currently avoid your cannons. There are much better placements for your cannons than at the entrances to your solar system - use them to protect key structures would be a better idea. Increasing their range so they can hit the jump point is rather absurd, as it would remove any need for any other type of mobile defense. If you rely only on cannons and you they get bypassed, then it is time to build a d

Everyone agrees that something needs to be done about pirates. This is another good idea worth investigating. However, it may be hard to implement in this game. The way the game is structured, you will almost always have ships either in orbit around your systems or enemy systems. If they only attack lightly defended systems, then you just build up enough defenses there to fend them off and forget about them completely from then on. If they just attack trade and refinery ships, then you have to m

I agree. Something needs to be done to address this. Perhaps just increase the range of the static defenses? I doubled the range to try it out, and found it worked much better. The gauss cannons were actually effective when spaced evenly around the system. I could easily cover the system in such a way that at least 3 cannons attacked any vessel no matter where it was. I'm not sure what the ranges are for the system and the cannons, but the cannons ought to at least reach half way across the syst

Why stop at dual monitor support? Have the game detect the number of monitors you can support and allow you to enable them. They could all start with the same display, then you could move the display on the one monitor to (for instance) a system you are attacking, while another monitor shows your ship factories. A third monitor could show a second battle taking place, etc. I have seen monitor rigs that have 6 or even 8 monitors. While it would take a pretty rich person to own one for personal ga

This is the same bug I was reporting in my other thread: https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/?forumid=402&aid=158596#1265494

--------------- Display Devices --------------- Card name: NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT Manufacturer: NVIDIA Chip type: GeForce 7600 GT DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_0391&SUBSYS_C5503842&REV_A1 Display Memory: 744 MB Dedicated Memory: 248 MB Shared Memory: 495 MB Current Mode: 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz) Monitor: Generic PnP Monitor Driver Name: nvd3dum,

These are some bugs I discovered in my most recent 14 hour game: Multiple capital ships target the same object with the same special ability at the same time. For instance, 2 or 3 Dunovs use shield restore on the same Kol, or they use the Magnetize ability on the same enemy target. When you click to place a structure in the gravity well at the same time that autosave kicks in, the structure places at the point of your mouse cursor when the autosave finishes instead of whe

These are some general suggestions I came up with for interface improvements based on my most recent 14 hour game: When placing an item that overlaps another structure, instead of canceling the item construction and playing the message, just play the message (leave the item selected for construction) so that we can just click another location. We need an option to toggle on our fleets to cause them to auto-attack the same target or to auto-attack the target of a designated lead

I am using 0.76[b].018 updated 7/12/2007. I had all abilities turned to auto, but I wasn't paying attention to if they were casting. I thought it might be the interruption that was discussed in the other bug report you mentioned. You can test this by loading up one of your games and going to an enemy system. Clear out anything that fires at you and then park all your other ships on the other side of the system with auto attack to weapons range. Then, take one Dunov and move up to a research stat