Supremacy new release

[geordie]

OK, I try to remind myself what happened during the game:

General remark - the Dominium was developing slightly slower, especially in relations with minors. It is difficult to compare AI changes, but for the whole first part of the game (up to about 30 colonies) Klingons were slightly ahead and Feds were on about my level. After that all empires developed significantly slower and remained far behind, at least in number of controlled systems.

Anyway, how does the new TGL building (+3 Morale) play compared to the old TGL (+1 Morale EW)

The Founders' systems with TGL constructed were going quite fast to 'Fanatic' morale, so we could lower that to +2 and test how it works. The diplomatic relations with friendly minors were improving also slower, but as you can see there was no special problem with increasing number of memberships. I would not go back to the previous version.

Where did you meet that Gorn fleet? Their homesystem is rather far from your explored territory...

The Gorn fleet is still in the same place (sector 38.59), I met them first in Haakona system, they escaped a fight against 15 Haakonian destroyers. After some turns I sent a scout to meet them and official relations were established. THere were some quite big fleets (Gorn, Breen), about 10-15 ships in strange places on the map. It looked like they would use unstable wormhole, but... there was no such wormhole in their vicinity and it was the whole fleet, not just a scout. Yeah, I know, they have no scouts.

Yes, that sector is not explored. Same issue as the Gorn?

I had 2-3 such strange encounters, but not Gorn, my scout really met Gorm fleet. I mean Breen, Yaderans and Pakleds. A relations established, but no visible ship to meet on the map.

Construction doesn't advance though. Has it been like that for long?

Those are (cloaked) Breen warships. Did they appear there all at once, or one at a time (like they were built there)?

Not sure, I noticed that when I wanted to upgrade the shipyard. The fleet was there for long time, but one sector off the system and I thougt it was Klingon one. After sending my scout there and establishing a relation with the Breen, they moved to my system.

[Iceman]

Where did you meet that Gorn fleet? Their homesystem is rather far from your explored territory...

The Gorn fleet is still in the same place (sector 38.59), I met them first in Haakona system, they escaped a fight against 15 Haakonian destroyers. After some turns I sent a scout to meet them and official relations were established. THere were some quite big fleets (Gorn, Breen), about 10-15 ships in strange places on the map. It looked like they would use unstable wormhole, but... there was no such wormhole in their vicinity and it was the whole fleet, not just a scout. Yeah, I know, they have no scouts.

Yes, I've seen this in the past, large fleets unexplainably "moved" across the galaxy. It's in the issue tracker already.

I had 2-3 such strange encounters, but not Gorn, my scout really met Gorm fleet. I mean Breen, Yaderans and Pakleds. A relations established, but no visible ship to meet on the map.

I'm not sure if the Breen contact was due to you contacting the Talarians, who do have scouts, and are within those scouts' range of Talar; IIRC they should only share contacted civs when Affiliated+ (the Talarians just accepted Affiliation), but I'll have to check.
The Yaderans also have scouts, and both the Gorn and the Pakled are in their range; it's possible that contacting the Gorn might also have shared those contacts - they were both "contacted" 8 turns ago. Though the Pakled homesystem's location was not revealed...
I don't think there's a SitRep about those shared contacts. I should add those.

Construction doesn't advance though. Has it been like that for long?

Those are (cloaked) Breen warships. Did they appear there all at once, or one at a time (like they were built there)?

Not sure, I noticed that when I wanted to upgrade the shipyard.

Do you have a previous savegame where you could check that? Just curious.

The fleet was there for long time, but one sector off the system and I thougt it was Klingon one. After sending my scout there and establishing a relation with the Breen, they moved to my system.

It just crossed my mind that they could have moved there in an attempt to attack the Borg. Since you have an Affiliation treaty with them, they can use your shipyards for range. The Borg are the only civ they're at war with, and that's clearly an assault fleet.
Checking the previous savegame mentioned above might shed some light on this matter.
I've made minors not try to attack the Borg, just in case.

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Yes, I've seen this in the past, large fleets unexplainably "moved" across the galaxy.

Actually, BotF has a similar bug where one can magically teleport fleets.

The combat retreat code mistakenly moves all retreating ships of the same owner to a random adjacent sector of the first lost battle with retreating surviving ships (even if this happens in more than one battle) and at the same time messes up the range check of the sector.

But you shoudn't copy all of BotF bugs in Supremacy. Or do you fear your players might suffer from some sort of bug withdrawal symptoms after playing BotF?

[geordie]

I have attached my earliest save with that Breen fleet:

SP Dominion Huge Irregular 203.zip

(593.8 KiB) Downloaded 83 times

That time I thought that was a Klingon fleet, despite it was slightly too far from Klingon territory.

[geordie]

And it is my save with the Gorn fleet:

SP Dominion Huge Irregular 166.zip

(565.02 KiB) Downloaded 87 times

I am pretty sure that there was a fight two turns earlier between small Haakonian fleet (3 destroyers) and quite powerful Gorn fleet, just in the same turn I have visited Haakona first time and the Gorn fleet has escaped one sector up. It was before the last patch so no contact with the Gorn was established. After some turns I have sent a scout again to meet the Gorn fleet (the last patch applied) and official relationship has eventually started.
I have a save from turn 160 and tried to repeat that situation, but no Gorn fleet was nearby. So it is somehow accidental.

[Iceman]

Yes, I've seen this in the past, large fleets unexplainably "moved" across the galaxy.

Actually, BotF has a similar bug where one can magically teleport fleets.

The combat retreat code mistakenly moves all retreating ships of the same owner to a random adjacent sector of the first lost battle with retreating surviving ships (even if this happens in more than one battle) and at the same time messes up the range check of the sector.

But you shoudn't copy all of BotF bugs in Supremacy. Or do you fear your players might suffer from some sort of bug withdrawal symptoms after playing BotF?

ROTFLMAO!

Actually, I'm not so sure it's a bug anymore, I'll explain in a minute, replying in context.
In Supremacy I mean, not in BotF!

And the retreat code works fine, and even selects the best/safest sector to retreat to.

[Iceman]

I have attached my earliest save with that Breen fleet:

SP Dominion Huge Irregular 203.zip

That time I thought that was a Klingon fleet, despite it was slightly too far from Klingon territory.

Thanks for those saves, I'll check them out.

It occurred to me when I woke up that that Breen ship under construction might not actually be under construction, but it might be repairing. Since you're Affiliated, they can use your SYs for repairs. None of the orbiting Breen ships seems to be damaged though...
If the Breen are bankrupt or lack resources (they did build a bunch of ships), repairs would be put on hold, which seems to be the case.
If that's the case, it is not a bug, it's just poor feedback - last week I was looking into adding text or an icon in the Shipyards tab of the Assets screen if the build is a repair, but I haven't managed to do it in a satisfying way yet, and I wanted to make sure it doesn't break savegame compatibility.

I'll have more information about this tonight.

[Iceman]

Yep, the Breen ship is repairing. Or more accurately, has been repaired. But due to lack of code to support repairs in foreign SYs, the project remained in the SY even though the ship is fully repaired.
For now I'll disable the ability of ships to repair in foreign SYs. Geordie, as a "fix" in your game you can just cancel that project.
Oh, and the Breen are out of fuel, so the fleet cannot go anywhere anytime soon. When I decreased deuterium output a couple of patches ago, I only adjusted starting amounts for empires; still need to do minors.

About what the Breen is doing there, so far from home, I don't have a clue. They were not on their way to attacking the Borg (which hadn't shown their faces yet) or anyone else, as the Dominion is the first civ they come into contact with...
Must have been Q playing around...

[geordie]

Yes, I removed that ship from the shipyard queue next turn.
I have noticed that minors started to build big fleets quite fast (having only one slot shipyard ). It is a risk to go bankruptcy after acquiring a new member or scrap all its ships immediately.

[Silverbreaker]

is there a demo for the battles? Is something in the works? Otherwise its a great game

[Iceman]

is there a demo for the battles? Is something in the works? Otherwise its a great game

Hi Silverbreaker.
No, no demo and nothing in the works yet, sorry.
Thanks!

[Iceman]

I have noticed that minors started to build big fleets quite fast (having only one slot shipyard ).

Do you think that something is off?

It is a risk to go bankruptcy after acquiring a new member or scrap all its ships immediately.

Well, someone once asked for larger minor race fleets
Suggestions?

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

In BotF is two (bugged) codes meant to limit minor ships:

- skip (random/evolution) ship building via current pop vs some limits
- cap max ships to transfer for membership (i.e. auto-remove surplus)

But the codes are broken (counting fleets instead of ships) and the numbers silly (posted somewhere in 'minor race advancement').

EDIT: IIRC their draft was (given the BotF game/map scale) max fleet 12 ships, max transfer 6 ships.

[Iceman]

I can take a look at the limits in Supremacy, but geordie is playing on Impossible, which increases those limits - by 2.5x, which might be a bit too much

Only transferring a part of their ships seems a bit odd, but it might be an option.

---

New patch.

Attempted to fix geordie's ship repair issue.
Ship repairs are marked so in the Shipyards tab of the Assets screen, to avoid confusion.
Starting deuterium increased for minor races.
Minor races will not attack the Borg.

Lots of fixes and tweaks to diplomacy:
fixed crash related to assimilated or eliminated civs
fixed mutual defense treaty WarDec issue
no affiliation if at war with ally
set homesystem as explored when sharing contacts
set all colonies to explored when signing mutual defense or alliance treaties
the Federation is not emboldened by having allies when considering a WarDec
added SitReps for WarDecs due to treaties - these need to be checked properly, only managed to test some!!

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

Impossible, which increases those limits - by 2.5x

Dunno how this affects Supremacy, but in BotF difficulty level vs. minor races vs. low empire starting levels was always double edged.

Fighting/conquering such relatively overpowered minors was too hard (especially for AI). At the same time membering them brought too much of an advantage (especially with an overpowered fleet on top and if close to another empire, with no means to counter this sudden power increase).

Not mentioning the unholy possibility to scrap their ships 1:1 for credits to get all gifts back with profit....

As a workaround I fixed a hidden feature reading the highest empire tech level in game (to cap minor race power levels), the cumulated ship cost of the largest empire fleet and the average starting levels of all empires instead of difficulty level.