Supremacy new release

[Iceman]

Ok, thanks. It was just to confirm if in fact disabling those star anims in the Assets screen would produce a relevant effect. There are still more XNA animations that might be affecting performance (star in star system panel, rotating ship models, bombardment effects) - but my guess would be that the Assets screen is the main culprit, with all the stars being displayed.
We should get some static star images for the Assets screen. And hope that at some point a Win10 update addresses this.

[Iscaran]

Yes...could you probably try deactivating ALL XNA animations and test how well performance then is ?

Maybe there is something "wrong" about how these animations are loaded or called within the code, so perhaps they are called and called and called ...but never "closed" or something.

[Iceman]

Not really sure there'll be significant improvements. You can turn off bombardment animations in the Settings screen, Video tab; and you can rename the \Models folder so that the game won't load the ship models (the game doesn't crash if you do so). The single star in the system panel shouldn't really affect perf too much, I think.

Like already mentioned a few times, this is strictly an issue with update 1903. Something in that update is causing this issue. Danijel tested that, as explained in the Problems with Win10 thread.
If it didn't happen before that update, shouldn't really be a problem with the code.

[Iscaran]

Yes. Maybe the root cause is 1903 update. But the problem solution cant be to roll back to pre-1903 as this is NOT an option. Especially not for everyone.

In 1903 AFAIK were many fixes included for the "speculative execution" Intel-CPU bugs, despite me having an AMD CPU I fear the entire XNA-software is severely affected by this.

Perhaps there is a newer version of XNA available ?

[Iceman]

Nope, unfortunately XNA is dead...

[Iscaran]

Then perhaps it might be an alternative to consider switching to a still actively supported version of XNA ?

According to wiki this should be possible with e.g. MonoGame:
https://www.slant.co/options/1069/~monogame-review

If I understand it correctly one could even be able to "port" the old XNA-Version to start with ?

[Iceman]

Yep, that's in the ToDo list, but at this point it's not really a priority with so many other things still pending.

[Iscaran]

Honestly, I would reconsider the priorities in this case. I was not aware that XNA was already "dead" for so many years (2013 ?). But if there are alternatives, which apparently might even "re-use" the old code directly...maybe switching should be more an ASAP priority.

The performance "killing" is a potential game breaker - and the more things you now add to the potentiall outdated old XNA-Platform, the more problems you might get when later really WANTING to go to another platform.

[Iceman]

I don't think there'll be anything else using XNA in the game, not until we start coding the combat engine; at that point, yes, it'll be a priority.
Until then, if the changes to the Assets screen (I'm currently replacing the 3D stars by the starmap static images) are good enough, we'll just have to live with what we have. Unless someone volunteers to do that, and/or code the combat engine

[Iceman]

Uploaded a new patch where I also disabled star animations in the Shipyards tab of the Assets screen - which I forgot also had them...
AFAICT Iscaran, it should make the UI more responsive in your game.

And you're right about the AI, something must have gotten messed up as in your game it is not expanding much... will look into it when I can. Not sure if it is (related to) the Borg code in the latest release.


edit:
fixed a few things in hull repair, namely
- added stations' self-repair (only if not upgrading)
- stations that are upgrading do not repair ships
- of all station types, only starbases repair ships
- a very specific condition that might not result in a repair value

[Iscaran]

Nice... old save games will work in the new patch ? (Probably yes)

Btw. Are you aware that scrapping stations is currently somehow "bugged". It appears one can only scrap ONE Station each time you start the game.

After that scrapping additional stations is NOT possible anymore.

Some more Questions:
- How does one "upgrade" a station ?!?
Somehow I didnt find this out yet :-).

- Upgrading ships is NOT active right now, correct ?

[Iceman]

Nice... old save games will work in the new patch ? (Probably yes)

Yes, they should, I don't recall making any changes that would render them unloadable. It was just basic fixes.

Btw. Are you aware that scrapping stations is currently somehow "bugged". It appears one can only scrap ONE Station each time you start the game.
After that scrapping additional stations is NOT possible anymore.

Yep. Old standing bug...
https://bitbucket.org/mstrobel/supremac ... g-stations

To get around it, you'll have to save, retire and load the savegame.

- How does one "upgrade" a station ?!?
Somehow I didnt find this out yet :-).

Same as in BotF. Construction ship(s) in a sector with an outpost, Build Station, and the OP upgrades to s starbase. Assuming you have the tech to build the SB of course. The more construction ships you have, the faster it gets built.

- Upgrading ships is NOT active right now, correct ?

Yep. There's a thread about it somewhere.

[Iscaran]

OK - thanks for the answers.

One more thing I noticed today.

Science Stations are apparently NOT Giving research (any more) ? Is this by design or a bug ?

[Iceman]

Will have to check... thanks!

Here's the thread about upgrading ships:
viewtopic.php?f=300&t=3678

[geordie]

Hi Iceman,
I would propose to consider an engine/speed upgrade of older ships. It could be a propulsion achievement in the tech tree. I mean especially military ships of minor races to upgrade from speed 1 to 2. In a huge galaxy it realy lasts to move such fleet, even to a surplus depot. It could be further limited to upgrade only in a level 3 shipyard or so.