Supremacy new release

[Iceman]

@DarExc
When you make contact, the location of the civ's capital is disclosed to you (set to Scanned) if you have not visited it yet. It's not set to Explored though, so that you do not get access to its information. That's intended.

[Iceman]

New patch available.

Should now be harder to bribe other civs.

Added the rank badge for each ship in the Combat Window; in the future it should always be displayed for your own ships or allied ships (done) and only for the opponents' ships if you or an ally has a Scout (or a Station?) - like in BotF.

Minor civs now keep developing their own research even when members of an empire, or subjugated - as discussed here and here.

Feedback on these, and any other issues (galgen in Spirals, AI DoWs, etc) welcome!

[Iceman]

I think a good automatic allocation logic for unused pop (during growth) would be the biggest improvement. If food is negative -> farm. Otherwise priority production, research, intelligence, food.
That would save a lot of daily routine. ;-)

Yes, I understand that. But wouldn't that be kind of like having the game play for you?
A small part though, sure.

Penalty for anmanned PF is a nice concept. I'll still keep my strategy in the current situation.
First, money hasn't been a big issue for me so far (probably because I didn't need a big fleet).
Second, I can quickly tech-upgrade my colonies and then switch the optimized colony back to research to overall gain technology quicker.

Notice that it's not only paying the upkeep of the unmanned PFs, which, if ~20Cr per colony per turn, will build up; but also the Credits you didn't get from Trade Goods while (over)building all those excess PFs. And the colony's health is also affected by all that industry - though the effects of that are still very weak.
Both are valid choices.

And yes, money is another issue that needs to be addressed.
I'd like trade routes to be very profitable, to encourage trade. I've nerfed the number and conditions of TRs, while keeping their outputs rather high.
We might need to lower taxes, or trade goods, or fleet population support.
Today's patch made bribes less effective, so they should sink a bit more cash.
I once had orbital batteries cost 1Cr each per turn, to prevent overbuilding them, and sinking more cash.
Another option is to increase ships maintenance.

It would be cool, if the AI has 2 or 3 different strategies and would adapt depending on the situation. Or maybe by chance.

Agreed, and noted.

Even though I'd enjoy it, if the usefullness of the skills als depend on the Minors personality trait.

Charisma and Empathy are probably the most important traits for any diplomat. But to have qualities that mirrors the trait of the Minor could/should be equally important, maybe even more.
For instance a warlike race respects "Combat" skills, Isolists may need additional Empathy, Submissive would appreciate Leadership and Dishonest could fit better with Evasive.

Something for the Enhancements list.

[erazortt]

How are planet bonuses distributed for planets where the HomeSystem.xml does not state any explicit bonus? Are they randomly added?

[erazortt]

I'm having an issue that once I sent a gift, I cannot ever send another message to this culture, the "new message" field is grayed out.

[Iceman]

I'm having an issue that once I sent a gift, I cannot ever send another message to this culture, the "new message" field is grayed out.

That's not an issue, that's a feature
It's not "ever", it's for a few turns. There's an unavailability period after any diplo exchange, which depends on a couple of things - the civ's traits, and whether you have an envoy assigned or not. Isolationist minors will not grant you an audience very soon after an exchange (thinking of increasing it a bit), Diplomatic majors (Feds) will decrease that period; and en envoy, depending on his experience, will also decrease that period.

How are planet bonuses distributed for planets where the HomeSystem.xml does not state any explicit bonus? Are they randomly added?

Yep. With limitations, of course. Food will only be spawned in Terran, Jungle or Oceanic planets. Energy only on Desert or Volcanic, IIRC.

[erazortt]

Ok! Thanks!

[erazortt]

Just got a crash. Inbetween rounds, so after finshing my turn and during the calculation there was a stage saying "Resolve Combats" (or something like that) and than it crashed. Openend a bugreport: https://bitbucket.org/mstrobel/supremacy/issues/488

[geordie]

As you know I tried to test war against Borg options. I really disliked meeting them once I was about Research level 4, but now it looks that Borg lost all aggressiveness and ability of territorial development.
I thought also about some options to slow Borg conquest down. I wander if it is difficult to add a system abandonment to increase a distance between my colonies and Borg systems, for example by building cheap and slow civ transport ships (like one per turn, so a shipyard is required) and to redirect them to other colonized systems.
For now Borg does not build transwarp hubs, but maybe put some additional limitations to that, like distance from Borg colony or building on certain types of planets?

[Iceman]

Just got a crash. Inbetween rounds, so after finshing my turn and during the calculation there was a stage saying "Resolve Combats" (or something like that) and than it crashed. Openend a bugreport: https://bitbucket.org/mstrobel/supremacy/issues/488

Ah, that one pops up once in a while... an AI vs AI battle.

[Iceman]

Hey geordie!

but now it looks that Borg lost all aggressiveness and ability of territorial development.

What exactly do you mean by this? I mean I need to know details. Can't recall having changed anything.
The Borg will remain dormant for a large number of turns if no one goes there to disturb them. Dormant in the sense that they don't leave Uni01, but they'll still build ships. That is, until they reach their fleet support capacity. I may need to revisit that, and allow them to assimilate a system or three once in a while, to increase their pop / fleet support.

I thought also about some options to slow Borg conquest down. I wander if it is difficult to add a system abandonment to increase a distance between my colonies and Borg systems, for example by building cheap and slow civ transport ships (like one per turn, so a shipyard is required) and to redirect them to other colonized systems.

Ships do have a stat for PopulationCapacity or something like that. Precisely to carry pop.
But that would be really low priority, considering what still needs to be implemented.

For now Borg does not build transwarp hubs, but maybe put some additional limitations to that, like distance from Borg colony or building on certain types of planets?

You mean they should only be able to build the hubs with those conditions?
The plan is to limit the number of hubs to 6, which is canon. But it's not set in stone yet.

Thx!

[geordie]

I had not too much time recently and played still the same game, you had a save two weeks ago (as I remember?).
Eventually I met Borg "armada" of 4 spheres - those were all Borg forces in about turn 350!!!, not counting 2 or 3 probes.

I suppose 6 hubs is OK, I did not know that, but I did not find any hub apart Unimatrix01. But anyway to abandon a colony would be a defensive option for other races.

[Iceman]

Man, this forum is hot right now! Lots of people, nice!

I had not too much time recently and played still the same game, you had a save two weeks ago (as I remember?).

Ahh, you need to upgrade!

Eventually I met Borg "armada" of 4 spheres - those were all Borg forces in about turn 350!!!, not counting 2 or 3 probes.

Yep. People complained that they were too strong, and I delayed their release. In huge galaxies, yes, some 300 turns or so. I can decrease that a bit.

I suppose 6 hubs is OK, I did not know that, but I did not find any hub apart Unimatrix01. But anyway to abandon a colony would be a defensive option for other races.

They don't build any other hubs yet. And the cap is not yet set (because they don't build them).

Evacuations would require the game to keep track of which race is being loaded, and I'm kind of reticent in adding that just for this purpose...
A simplification would be to only allow that for native systems.

[Iceman]

New patch.

I think a good automatic allocation logic for unused pop (during growth) would be the biggest improvement.

We could use your Propulsion tech level instead of ship speed to calculate travel time, which would make researching Propulsion have one more benefit (and a non-combat one, at that), and decrease travel times for TLs above 1.

I plan to add a warning dialog when you give the terra order without an OB.

With Isolists: penaly > reward

Done.
Right now only Isolationists get the terraforming penalty, but I may extend this to ExpandingPower and DevelopingPower minors too.

Other changes:
- lowered envoy effects a bit
- increased/tweaked unavailability period for diplomatic exchanges
- build queues not cleared for memberships (only subjugations)
- added display of survey level of stellar phenomena in the star system panel
- fixed the GarrisonTraining bonus, it's now working
- increased pollution calculation *
- increased upkeep of unmanned PFs to 2Cr/turn *

* @Malioc:

[Malioc]

New patch.

I think a good automatic allocation logic for unused pop (during growth) would be the biggest improvement.

We could use your Propulsion tech level instead of ship speed to calculate travel time, which would make researching Propulsion have one more benefit (and a non-combat one, at that), and decrease travel times for TLs above 1.

I plan to add a warning dialog when you give the terra order without an OB.

With Isolists: penaly > reward

Done.
Right now only Isolationists get the terraforming penalty, but I may extend this to ExpandingPower and DevelopingPower minors too.

Other changes:
- lowered envoy effects a bit
- increased/tweaked unavailability period for diplomatic exchanges
- build queues not cleared for memberships (only subjugations)
- added display of survey level of stellar phenomena in the star system panel
- fixed the GarrisonTraining bonus, it's now working
- increased pollution calculation *
- increased upkeep of unmanned PFs to 2Cr/turn *

* @Malioc:

Awesome.

I was about to write, that imo an allocation logic is not too much help, since it's just about the (new) unused pop.

But it seems you have already altered that a bit. Cool. =)

I really like the rest, too. A pause between diplomatic contacts is nice so you have to think careful about you official offers.

The display for survey was also a (minor) thing that was bugging me.

The PF penalties are a nice challenge. How does the pollution work?