DA Minor Issues...

Hi TIPedersen,

To your first two issues I can't say I've had any problems with them. Are your drivers up-to-date? What version of Windows are you running?

To your thid issue I had the same problem. Earth just... wasn't earth. It was a world with only two very large square landmasses. Possibly something wrong with the file on that one.

For 2., try using the hardware mouse cursor option.

For 3, please post a screenshot so we can see what you mean.

Hi, long time lurker here with a first time post. I also (regarding TIPedersen's post) noticed that Earth does not look like Earth when starting a new game with the Terrans. I saved my game and reloaded it and the map reverted to the standard Earth map.

Also, I noticed that after using a mining ship to construct a mining base, the mining ship's movement was reduced to 1/1, when it had been 2/2 before. This also occurred after I upgraded the mining ship with faster engines. Don't know if that is a bug or not.

I will try to post a couple screenshots illustrating the two problems above in a couple hours when I am able if no one else beats me to it.

Ryanmobile, after your miner finishes building the base, it is still in the asteroid field. Any ship that moves into an asteroid field or starts a turn in the field has its movement reduced to 1. Try moving the miner out of the field. When you start your next turn, the miner should have its full movement capability restored.

Any ship that enters an asteroid field is reduced to 1 move until it finishes a turn outside the field.

Marshall and Kryo,

Thanks for clearing my misunderstaning of the mining ship so promptly. Sorry, I must have missed that in the manual. The reasoning is very obvious now that you explained it.

I have not been able to replicate the false Earth map described above. It occurred the first two times I opened a new game of DA with the Terrans today but has not happened since. I'll post a picture if it happens again.

Great job on the new expansion Stardock. It's been a lot of fun exploring the new improvements!

Kryo,

I finally managed to replicate the false Earth map again. Here's what I observed:

I logged into the metaverse and started a new game of DA v1.50 with the Terrans four times today. Each time I logged into the metaverse the false Earth tile map would display whenever I viewed Earth. This seemed to have no functional impairment of the gameplay, it was just aesthetically unpleasing. When I saved the game, exited DA, restarted DA, and reloaded the save file, the regular Earth as we know it tile map displayed correctly every time.

I also started numerous games as the Terrans today without logging into the metaverse first, and the Earth tile map displayed correctly every time.

In summary, I was only able to get the incorrect map when I logged into the metaverse first. The incorrect map was replaced with the correct map after I saved, exited, and reloaded.

I have 2 images of the false Earth tile maps saved as jpgs, but I seem to be so incompetent that I could not figure out how to upload them with this post. Searched the forum and could not find anything specific enough to help a techno dimwit like me. If you can give me some very easy to understand instructions, I just might be able to get those pictures uploaded in this post.

Hope I've been some help.

Hi !
I started a game with the Terrans, I think Earth looked normal, but the introduction text (the very first thing to appear when you start a game, with the classement and the blabla) reffered to the Torians and not to the Terrans. Maybe there is a link ?

Upload them at imageshack.us then post the link here. The forum does not host images itself.

Here are two images of the faulty Earth tile maps...if I did everything correctly.

I think goes along with the little glitch I found earlier. A tile that looks like an ocean would show up as a mountian or desert or any of the other choices. Seems like a mismatch with whatever files control the planet layouts.


Kyle

I think these should be visible without a microscope.   

Use the URL...the images are larger there.

Well the Torian leader does look just like my ex-boss....

Hi!
I'm currently playing DA campaign with game version v1.50. I've noted some problems:

- When alt-tabing out of the game and returning, game crashes after 10 seconds of disc activity. This hadn't happened with the game for at least half a year. At the end of the message is excerpt of my debug.err. Well, the newly loaded game doesn't CTD after alt-tab. Tried several times.

- When ctrl-N, AIs don't retain their inteligence settings. I started the second mission at masochistic, and after some big blunder (lifted all pop from my HW), hit ctrl-N to get new start. After literarily rolling over the AIs I checked the graphs and debug.err file. At maso level I should've had about 60% of AI production, research and economy, but I already started with almost twice the economy of both Terrans and Thalans. And debug.err said both AIs had intelligence 100.

- Third campaign mission at masoshistic, "force AI to use max CPU" checked , no CTRL-N: I conquered altarian's planet class 6. I found there the following buildigs:
. initiall colony,
. starport on 100% food tile,
. empty tile with 100% approval bonus,
. partially built Reseach coordination centre on 100% approval tile,
. queued Enhanced factory on 300% production tile,
. queued Technological captial on normal tile and
. a tile for terraforming with hab-improvement tech.
Yes, NOT A SINGLE RESEARCH BUILDING, despite all the research support structure was queued.

- clumsy work with spies. I have a spy on AI's planet, but I can not move the spy or check the planet through the starmap window. Also, cost of spies production is strange: not a fixed amount, but a percentage of empire's production. So at early game I got a spy for investing 20BC (~10% of income of my empire) for 12 turns, but in late game I got the same spy for the same 10%, but those 10% were now 150BC. Needless to say I decreased the espionage spending to 2%, because for the cost of one spy (~2000 BC) I could have bought a whole fleet of fully armed medium hulls WITH some troop transports. And that was with only 7 planets settled. So what will be with big universes, where weeky income will be in range of several 10,000 BCs?

- construction times on Planets/ships list for upgrading are completely off. The game displays them like all would be build anew, or even worse. In GC2-DL they were very accurate, so I relied heavly on them, but here ...

I'd also say AIs aren't aggessive enough. In third mission I haven't built a single armed ship for a whole year (opponet AIs had at mil strenght 40-70, me just starting defender), but AIs haven't attacked with anything, despite I had some juicy undefended targets two AIs knew off (7 asteroid mines and 3 starbases).

Will report more after I collect more experience with the game.

BR, Iztok


Part of my debug.err after alt-tab CTD
---------------------------------------

Debug Message: Version v1.50 Dark Avatar last updated on: Fri Feb 2 10:52:32 2007
Debug Message: Checking DX Version.
Debug Message: *********DXDiag info follows.*********
System Info
Time: 2/8/2007, 11:42:21
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Machine Name: CEL633
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.050301-1519)
Languages: English (Regional Setting: Slovenian)
System Manufacturer: INTELR
System Model: AWRDACPI
BIOS: Ver 1.65
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.50GHz
Physical Memory: 896MB RAM
Page File: 163MB used, 1684MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS


Display Info
Display device 1:
Device Name: \\.\DISPLAY1
Card Name: Tul Corporation, RADEON 9200SE
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip Type: RADEON 9200 SE AGP (0x5964)
DAC Type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Key Device: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5964&SUBSYS_2073148C&REV_01
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Display Mode: 1280 x 1024 (32 bit) (75Hz)
Monitor Name: Default Monitor
Monitor Max Resolution:
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6601
Driver Date: 2/21/2006 19:46:48
DirectX Acceleration Enabled: Yes



Sound info
Sound device 1:
Description: Intel(r) Integrated Audio
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_2445&SUBSYS_59344352&REV_12
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Driver Name: ac97intc.sys
Provider: Microsoft
Driver Version: 5.10.0000.3523
Driver Date: 8/17/2001 11:20:04
Type: WDM
Other Drivers:
Acceleration Level: 3
Cap Flags: 0
Min/Max Sample Rate: 0, 0

...

Debug Message: Save game finished.
Debug Message: Popup Manager Update: Updating window with ID=19
Debug Message: Popup Manager Update: Unhiding QuickProjectWnd
Debug Message: Game Screen: Setting mode to 9
Debug Message: Game Screen: Setting mode to 0
Debug Message: Error flipping back buffer to primary buffer.
Debug Message: Device lost

----------------

Hi!
I'm in the middle of the fourth DA campaign with game version v1.50 - AI set on masochistic. I found some more problems:

- AI isn't at masochistic at all:
Debug Message: Drengin Empire: Intellence -> 40
Debug Message: Dominion of Korx: Intellence -> 40
Debug Message: Iconian Refuge: Intellence -> 40
Debug Message: Korath Clan: Intellence -> 40
I just restarted the mission to check the AI settings and it still stands at masochistic. Stardock please check that, because that's the source of the next problem:

- How the h... I can place 4 spies on that korath's planet, when there are ONLY two factories, where I can place spies?!?! and on the starport and initiall colony I can't place them?

- Planet class doesn't improve with terraforming.

- Speed and consequent costs of spies production seems either related to
. the number of active spies, or
. the time passed between two produced spies. The more time, the faster a spy is produced.
I still can't get the numbers, will have to make a serious testbed to get them right. Anyway, I have the impression it will be quite cheaper to defend against spies than to attack with them.

- Money production: I've never been so broke in any previous GC2 game as I'm in DA! Despite my race had 40% econ and growth bonuses (growth bonus utilized fully by artificially holding down taxes for several months to get 100% approval for 200% growth on ALL planets), I had taxes at 69%, one mined econ resource (~29% bonus) and republic government, I've been running a constant deficit of 150-200BC per turn. If there wouldn't be 4 ships taking anomalies, my empire would go broke in half a year. They prolonged that to 14 months. Seems that in future games researching early the Trade centers (or even Banking centers) and Trade will be a must. Speaking of them:

- The difference between basic Market Center (8% econ bonus) and Adv. Market Center (10% bonus) is too small. I actually heven't built a single Adv. Market Center, but skipped them for Trade Center (15% bonus), building Market centers instead (thanks Stardock for that feature!).

- The time to finish researching a tech, that's displayed in lower left corner, sometimes isn't accurate. Way to many times I fell short by just 1% or 2%, despite overshooting it by 3+% in the previous turn.

- Mission #3: in a battle between an altarians' scout and my starbase the scout was not visibe in universe window. In previous turn I've seen it closing, but when game processed AI's turns, I've only heard a sound of scout firing, seen my SB firing back and an explosion, and that was all.

So far for now. Going back to the game.

BR, Iztok

Hi!
I'm about a year in the fifth DA campaign (conquer dreadlords' planet Dithir) with game version v1.50 - AI set on masochistic. Two issues:

- a DL's medium-based hull fighter without defenses has decided to upgrade itself in a middle of "my" space. OFC I decided to seize the opportunity and went to destroy it while it was immobile (for just a single turn!) and whitle it had only one hit point. I attacked it with a ship with a single laser, and lost... ~10 times in a row (yes, reloaded ~10 times)!
Conclusion: either DL's ships can't be destroyed while upgrading, or I found a bug.

- in DA ships can roll 0 for attack. Found that when I tried to intercept a DL's troop transport with a single-laser armed ship, and lost.

BTW: that mission is just insane. The first DL's hip I've seen is a simple "scout" with 128 missile attack and 11 hitpoints. Then I've seen a medium hull "fighter" with 7 mass attack and no defenses, and a medium hull "escort with 158 missile attack and 11 beam defense. How the h... am I supposed to fight that, when
- I lose almost every starbase (at least all econ-mining ones) I put up,
- there's no trade, so I
- can't go out of 200BC/week deficit spending,
- while being constantly "bombed" by DL's troop transports I'm almost unable to intercept, because engines are so teribly expensive now?!?

Remember this is GC2-DA, where there's no first shoot, where dying ships can fire back their weapons, destroying more than one target, and where several attack-25 missile are a standard equipment on DL's ships?

At least Korath are pretty slow...

I see only one "cheese" solution - some weapons-heavy medium hulls to clear defending ships over the planet, and LOTS of troop transports to take it. Ugh, just calculating the costs for that gives me a hadache...

BR, Iztok

This is intended.

Hi!

Seems that some DL ships can't be destroyed at all. I made a specialized design for for killing those two small-hull based 157-missile-attack 16-missile-defense "scouts", that were killing my starbses and asteroid miners. The design was a DL-killer cargo hull with 3 psyonic beams (attack 46) and 4 ion engines for speed 7. The damage calculation would be: I attack with 46 DP, 4 are taken away by sqrt(missile-defense 16), the rest (on average 21) would be applied to "scout's" hull. I should kill it in ~75% attacks. Yeah, in theory...
EVERY attack I made on that "scout" ended with me scoring EXACTLY 10 points of damage, and my ship died thereafter. However the "scout" had after battle again 11 hit points, like no damage would be applied. I did test that through 4 or 5 consequent turns, reloading each turn several times, getting every time the same result - my ship destroyed, the "scout" alive with 11 hit points.
So where's the catch? Masochistic settings or a bug or by design?

Antoher issue with combat: one of my ships got 14 points of damage through 11 shields (5 shields III) from a ship attacking with 19 beams (plasma weapons). Shouldn't all shields be removed first, before damage is applied to hull?

(Edit)
I just attacked that "scout" with a fleet of two of my DL-killer cargo ships. The first one scored usuall 10 points, but the second ship never fired, just died.

Well, I also lured a DL's fregate in range of those two DL-killers, so I attacked it. Scored 32 damage on that fregate with 28 HPs, but both my ships died, and fregate survived with 1 HP.

Can someone from Stardock please tell me, how am I supposed to win this scenario, where I can't kill DL's ships? Especially when there's an (also indestructible?) cruiser sitting in orbit of the target planet?

(Edit2)
Well, maybe a new version (1.50.059) will solve that issue? Downloading now....

Nope. But something was different. When I attacked the "scout" with two DL-killers, the first one hit for 16 points of damage, the second didn't fire, and the "scout" survived with only one hit point of 11.

BR, Iztok

Hi!

True, but only when I tried that with CARGO HULL based warships. When I attacked DreadLords' ships with medium hull based ships, it all went like expected, with one small surprise for me: in 1-on-1 battles my attacking ship finished with FULL hit points, not 1 hit point as I heard it should under new combat rules.

Now when I crossed that obstacle, I have a feeling this is not a bug, but a design decision. If that's true, Stardock please include in a mission description a hint or sth. that cargo-hull based ships can't kill DreadLords's ships. That would saved me (and probably some other players in future as well) quite a lot of frustration and time.

BR, Iztok