lost in space.

Even if you're out of range, if you click a destination that IS in range your ship will go there.

But I can't move towards my destination manually.

I dunno. From a UI perspective, that's kinda nonintuitive. What is this, "Star Trek: Gilligan?"

I think it's meant to signify the fact that you're running out of fuel and need to get back in range ASAP...

It's more of a convenience factor than anything else. Your ship would be useless if we didn't give you some way of getting out of there, but if we let you move it manually, you could trade for colony ships from the AI, colonize all the good planets in the sector, and otherwise abuse it, so range would be a worthless feature.

We could just make you sit there until your range extends that far, or something like that, but that would be annoying. So we made it so that you can get your ship back into your own space.

As in the OS/2 version it is kind of like the crew is in hibernation when the ship is out of range, to enable them to get in range and resupply essential life supporting goods. They have to put the ship onto autopilot to a point within range and go into some form of suspended animation to survive.

Lucky Jack,

nice non-gamey justification it makes sense. If the game said something along these lines for this unique situation everyone would probably nod and accept it as 'realistic' it could be done with a simple adjustment of the graphic and wording on the pop-up. Not every solution has to be technical, narrative is powerful.

Hey, cool, I'll have to change the description.

I'm not complaining about the justification; I'm just pointing out that from a USER INTERFACE perspective, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Don't offer the user false choices. If you don't want the user gaming on the way back into range, then TELL THEM THAT and put them on 'mandatory autopilot'. As it is, you pretty much expect the user to guess that autopilot will work, even though moving manually doesn't.

The autopilot still needs an end destination. Forcing it into manual autopilot without a destination invariably attempts to move the ship to the upper left corner of the galaxy (this can be verified by trying to autopilot a ship to it's current location, which fails, but doesn't correctly clear the autopilot, causing the same problem).

I am detecting a sense of hostility in your notes, Peter. Generally, people react best to rational speech. If you find yourself misunderstood, try another tack. If you want something, ask for it, nicely. You don't have to say please, because I'm not a kindergarten teacher, but on the internet, caps are generally reserved for "shouting."

You started out fine, "I'm not complaining about the justification", but user interface all in caps is a different tone than UI. Then you could have followed with, "It would be more understandable if you told the user they can only use auto-pilot".

I try to refrain from making my irritation known, because I know that beta testing can be frustrating. But I also don't want to come on here every day and get pissed off, and you are developing a pattern of antagonistic posts. Please note that I am NOT asking you to shut up or deliberately trying to be insulting. If I am coming off as being insulting, I apologize; it is not my intention to offend. I am, however, asking you to remember that developers can get frustrated too.

I made a change to the text that is displayed when your ship is thrown out of your empire range. Now it tells you that you have to set an autopilot destination to within your range. I'm not, however, going to arbitrarily set an auto-pilot destination for the user. That would just piss most people off.

Here's an opportunity for creating an event. Say the Survey Ship gets lost from your control and has to crash land on some remote barely habitable or whatever world it can reach. Later on in the game, the tiny lost colony shows up and its people claim descent from the original crew or something...

hmm...that might be interesting. You lose your survey vessel, but you get a small colony on some random world...preferably just on the fringes of your space, so that you don't immediately lose it to cultural influence...

nice!

Not my survey vessel! Noooooooooo.....

Seriously, I hope that the "event" doesn't happen during colonization, where I spend every dime of military toward colony ships. I would hate to have to build a new survey ship, and the bonuses you get from it early in the game are important.

This would be the kind of event that would happen later in the game. We would make it so that it doesn't happen until a certain year, probably based on the galaxy size. And maybe the colony would get bonuses from the survey ship.

does this sound daft? its just the way my vivid imagination works - picture this-

yes the survey ship crashes in unknown space and is lost with all hands. yes it creates a colony that develops slowly (and perhaps with its own unique research - ai controlled, but modest?), however, it is an unknown colony that remains undiscovered, until you actually explore that planet (or someone else does) - a bit like the surprise discoveries on planets that crop up when you first explore/colonise them. In taht way you get a prize for 'rescuing the colony with an already partly developed infrastructure and perhaps some tech advantages.

p.s. I like the surprise discoveries when you take planets. Could we not have a few that occur after colonisation, say whilst the planet is being mined/exploited/explored? e.g.
we have discovered a rich source of xxx on planet yyy, production/research increased on planet by z% or 'we have discovered an ancient religeous artifact, Influence increased by x%'

this may keep things fresh and even (perhaps) tip the balance in various ways on occassions creating some mid/late game drama?

Brad is planning mid-to late game surprises that will affect various things.

Also, there will be random events not directly connected to planets that will be more rare than the colonization events.

Quite often I find that my initial survey ship becomes my strongest ship. If I were to lose it in battle that would be one thing but having a random event trigger the loss would just piss me off.

Yeah.. I always think of my survey ship as the flagship of my empire... whenever a big fight is brewing I call it back into my space to kick some booty. plus, nothing like engaging an enemy fleet while taking their anomalies! Does the AI get mad at this? Because the Torians declared war on me once for no reason, but my survey ship was in their space taking all their anomalies...

Umm...no, I don't think that the AI cares if you take its anomalies. The AI will declare war on you if (1) your military strength is far enough below theirs and has been for enough turns (2) if you're playing evil and they are good and they think they can beat you or (3) if their ally declared war on you. I don't think that there are any other times that the AI declares war on you.

About the survey vessel crash event, we may not do it, but either way it is always possible to create your own events or delete our events.

Also, on a slightly related note, you can set the game to autosave more often in the prefs.ini file and you've probably noticed that GalCiv keeps a copy of your last autosave before making the new one. I did that because if you set the game to autosave more often, you also get a higher of something bad happening just before the game autosaves. One day soon, I swear I'll have time to get the multiple save game screen done.

Cari

Is there any chance at this stage to introduce casus belli? perhaps by a diplomatic insult or some other political or cultural infringement on the race politics screen?

I really do like this feature in EU2 which means your relationships and respect by other races reduces if you start a war without due cause. Engineering a justification for war is great fun and an added layer of colour without increased complexity. It strikes me that with the existing interface, interaction tools etc races could perhaps add this political dimension?

Regarding colonization events, I love them. Really. Not because of the bonus they provide, but because they give the feel of exploration, sending your ships to establish a colony "in the unknown". I would love to see more of them, perhaps some that would not give too many bonuses...

I don't know...I never played EU2 so I don't know how it would work. I have gotten popups where my senate votes to go to war, though. I guess it's not in your build yet, though.

It would be cool if when you lost control of the senate, the party that IS in control starts making desicions for you... Like if I'm the mercantile party but the techno party takes over, I get all those negatives AND I loose the ability to pick my techs! and vice versa, if the merchantile party takes over, they start making their own trade routes! that would be cool, but it would also take a lot of work...

Yes, those types of things I would love ... where losing the ruling senate party place might have actual consequences beyond just a change in bonuses. Votes like the united planet ones would be excelent. ie where each party has a number of votes equal to its percentage in the senate. Also I would like it not to be arbitrary all negative bonuses just because your party isnt in power ... if the war party currently controls the senate shouldnt that give the civilization a little bonus to their war effort? I mean my party should be penalized not the civ that it represents The loss would be losing MY choice of civ bonuses, make sense?

Myros