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Sins Beta 2 - Technical Feedback - *Post Here*

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Sins Beta 2 - Technical Feedback - *Post Here*

from Sins Forums

This thread is for technical feedback for Sins of a Solar Empire Beta 2. 

Please reply to this post if you'd like to make: a bug report, let us know about a compatibility issue, graphics issues, performance reports, etc. (i.e., technical stuff).

Before making a report, please be aware that the minimum system requirements for Beta 2 are:

  • Windows XP SP2 / Vista
  • 1.8 GHz Processor
  • 512 MB RAM (1 GB RAM for Vista)
  • 128 MB 3D DirectX Video Card
  • DirectX 9.0c

IMPORTANT:  When making a post about a bug, be certain to include - your system specs, a description of the bug you encountered, what you were doing when the bug occurred (how to reproduce it), and if it was reproducible or not.  We won't be able to make changes to the game without detailed information.

If you encounter a crash, please install SmartException from the Free Stuff section of Stardock Central and reproduce it (if possible). Send the generated exception to: sinsbugs(at)stardock(dot)net along with a detailed description as outlined above. If Sins generates its own crash report, please follow the instructions on the dialog that pops-up (if you send in a Sins-generated report, you don't need to send in a SmartException one).

If you wish to give us non-technical feedback about Beta 2 (feature requests, gameplay suggestions, etc.), please post it here:

https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/index.aspx?AID=155665

By keeping this information separate, it will go a long way towards us making Sins a better game!

Thanks!

221,526 views 271 replies
Reply #201 from Sins Forums Top
Its been said that they are looking into dual core support


Well thats cool, but I stand by my statement... I doubt any game designers are going to incorporate real, full up dual core support for a while. They may separate things out onto different threads (AI from game engine) but I doubt the fine-grain programming approach will gain large appeal for a while yet, if ever.
Reply #202 from Sins Forums Top
Last night I found what looks like a bug with the empire influence feature. I have built on each of my planets/asteriods a broadcast center. The phase lines after a time starting showing up in my color, as expected.....except that my home world is showing up in my enemy's colors. Checking the status of the planet shows no possibility of revolt (at 100% loyalty) and no enemy vessels in the home planet gravity well.
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #203 from Sins Forums Top
Checking the status of the planet shows no possibility of revolt (at 100% loyalty) and no enemy vessels in the home planet gravity well.


Your capitol is immune to culture flipping, I believe, and I don't think ships can cause culture even with mods -- I know they can't without.
Reply #204 from Sins Forums Top
This looks like a problem in the diplomancy functions:

After fighting an opponent for a while, we finally agreed to a cease fire. Then a trade alliance and finally an intelligence pac But, when his ships crossed over into my space, they were attacked by my forces. Also, my ally continued to be my ally. His ships did not counter attack, nor did he declare war.

System Specs:
Alien Ware Intel 2.8 Ghz
Os: Windows XP Prof Sp2
DirectX 9c
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS
System Memory 2 GB
Reply #205 from Sins Forums Top
I'm not sure if this is a technical or a gameplay problem, but since I got the update from Stardock, when my game autosaves, it says AutoSave [###] where ### is replaced with some large number with lots of zeros like 1200000, my guess is that this is the amount of seconds in game. Before it only did a few actual save files, but now I have a list a page or two long of the autosaves. Anyone else got this problem?
Reply #206 from Sins Forums Top

The firing on allied ships one sounds like a bug. Please email your save game where you're seeing this  (zipped) to support(at)ironcladgames(dot)com along with a description of the issue.

The autosave is behaving properly (it's not the final design, but is working as intended for this part of the beta).  There may be a toggle in the game options if you'd like to switch that off.

Reply #207 from Sins Forums Top
After I got the request for the zipped game file with a potential bug in it, I went through my old saves to find one. After finding the save that fit the bill and mailing it, I started playing another game I had started on the 9th. Played a while, then saved the game as a V2.   

Later this evening when I came back to load the game under the name I had saved, I found that instead of saving the intended game, the old game I had zipped and sent in with the reported bug was pulled in.    It seems the game had saved the next to last file opened instead of the actual game I had been playing at the time.
Reply #208 from Stardock Forums Top
A couple of things I've found about way-points, I think they're bugs.

1. I had a game where I sent ships from system A to system B, one jump away, and they wanted to go via system Z. This happened in 3 connected systems, A to B went A to Z to B; and then to go from B to C, they went B to X to C. The direct systems made a line of about 80 degrees on the screen.

2. Can they make the waypoints so a ship only uses explored systems? I sent a slow little colony ship 2 jumps away thinking that it would go through my safe, explored system. I clicked on the end point and went to manage my exploring/fighting group. I looked a few minutes later to find it went through a system packed with pirates. Needless to say, it didn't make it.

3. Last, I notice that when I have large battles zoomed in enough to see details (enough to see a defensive fort), the fighter squads seem to pop in and out of sight when traveling. Do they do short transports? They disapear for about an inch at a time, pop back out shoot and then zoom off for another run. It does this consistantly and they are the only thing that does this. Maybe because they're the fastest thing on the screen, don't know. It's nothing bad, just a little strange

pek
Reply #209 from Stardock Forums Top
Oh yeah, major irritation for me, I wnat to be able to choose where the game installs and keeps its files. The beta scatters files across 2 directory trees from root (c:\). They should all be in stardock/totalgaming.

pek
Reply #210 from Sins Forums Top
You can do this already in Stardock Central, with the exception of save game and config files (those are Microsoft mandated to go into Application Data). In SDC go to Tools -> Settings -> Advanced and change your Downloads and Archive/Restore locations.  You can also choose where games are installed to by going to Tools -> Settings -> General -> Installation and checking "Prompt to enter an installation directory."
Reply #211 from Stardock Forums Top
I've had those set forever for GC & GC2, the beta doesn't use those settings, it uses it's own that you can't change, at least not on the beta. I've got the stardock & tgn directories on another drive. I see where GC & GC2 saves are in "My Documents\my games" but the beta doesn't use that directory for saves. The beta has it's saves in:
"C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Ironclad Games\Sins of a Solar Empire\SavedGame" and I can't change that or the install directory:

"C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\Sins of a Solar Empire".

pek
Reply #212 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, those locations are now required by Microsoft and won't be changing. Most, if not all, future PC games will be storing their saves in the same place.
Reply #213 from Sins Forums Top
3. Last, I notice that when I have large battles zoomed in enough to see details (enough to see a defensive fort), the fighter squads seem to pop in and out of sight when traveling. Do they do short transports? They disapear for about an inch at a time, pop back out shoot and then zoom off for another run. It does this consistantly and they are the only thing that does this. Maybe because they're the fastest thing on the screen, don't know. It's nothing bad, just a little strange


I think thats just an artifact of the way the game handles fighters. Fighters, unlike any other unit, get their icons based on the positioning of a group of units, but their models are based off of individual distance. Which means that when the model is far enough away that it stops being displayed, the icon that should replace it is nowhere near where the fighter was. And because the icon is based on the mean positioning of the entire squad, having an individual fighter die causes the icon to "jump" to the new mean location.
Reply #214 from Sins Forums Top
that brings up a great idea, fighter icons should be individual, at least IMO.


ah I can finally post here: system specs for future reference:

core 2 duo at 2.4 gHz
nVidia 8800 GTS (I believe 564 MB cache) Direct X 10 etc. etc.
4 gig RAM

anyway since the new computer I've not really noticed any serious glitches, although the phasespace lines b/t planets do vibrate very quickly, it causes quite a bit of strain for the eyes.`also: whats with the super slowdown of culture in the new game?

also, as an aesthetic note: shields on asteroids have a "beach baloon" effect at the top, it would be nice if it could be softened out. (where verticle lines all come together at a point and create quite the eyesore)

for future reference (because they aren't labeled) what does each of the 3 boxes in the video options box represent? (and what is the max setting for each?)
Reply #215 from Sins Forums Top
Upgrading fleet capacity doesn't let you queue up ships until the research is done. Un-/intentional?
Reply #216 from Stardock Forums Top
I also notice that when a squad is destroyed, you can see them kind of pop back to where they came from to be regenerated. I know it's a new squad, but it appears like they are magically transported back to the structure that where they were made.

pek
Reply #217 from Sins Forums Top
there should be some sort of indicator that your ships have died, maybe their icons should flash with a red x before dissapearing, and new squads should do the same flashing for a few seconds before they begin battle.
Reply #218 from Sins Forums Top
Yes, those locations are now required by Microsoft and won't be changing. Most, if not all, future PC games will be storing their saves in the same place.


That sucks  I don't like to save anything to my C: drive. Much easier to keep that way.  
Reply #219 from Sins Forums Top
Playing in Windowed mode results in a substantial decrease in FPS (almost unplayable). Expanding the window in windowed mode by clicking and dragging does not result in increased visibility, it just zooms everything that is currently showing to fill up the new size of the screen (this may be by design, but I would prefer it to increase the visibility).

SYSTEM:
Mac Pro Tower (via bootcamp)
XP SP2
Dual Intel Xeon 2.66Ghz
1.96GB of RAM
ATI Radeon X1900

My apologies if this has already been reported or is considered a known issue. Is there a place that shows all known bugs so that I can avoid reposting any already known issues (or must one read all the posts here?).

All I have done are the tutorials, but am very excited to dive into the game. Thanks!

Reply #220 from Sins Forums Top

Yes, those locations are now required by Microsoft and won't be changing. Most, if not all, future PC games will be storing their saves in the same place.


That sucks  I don't like to save anything to my C: drive. Much easier to keep that way.  



Crap like this is why I need more space on my C drive now, I've survived with a 50Gb , C drive for years, now all of a sudden everything wants to go on C and only C...
Reply #221 from Sins Forums Top


My apologies if this has already been reported or is considered a known issue. Is there a place that shows all known bugs so that I can avoid reposting any already known issues (or must one read all the posts here?).


Dev's haven't bothered because "no one reads stickies"

Expanding the window in windowed mode by clicking and dragging does not result in increased visibility, it just zooms everything that is currently showing to fill up the new size of the screen (this may be by design, but I would prefer it to increase the visibility).


This is actually "SOP" when it comes to windowed mode. When you change the window size, all you really touch is the resolution. It doesn't touch the visibility at all.
Reply #222 from Sins Forums Top
We're not supporting any Bootcamp, Parallels, or other virtualized setups with Sins.
Reply #223 from Sins Forums Top

We're not supporting any Bootcamp, Parallels, or other virtualized setups with Sins.


Haha. Running windows on a mac is no different that running windows any p.o.s. box you can pick up at dell. It is Windows running on an Intel chip. There is no virtualization or emulation. To say you don't support bootcamp is like saying you don't support HP bought computers, it just doesn't make sense. I am running in a native windows XP environment and utilize about 80 windows games and another 20 or so video and audio editing apps. Believe me when I say that bootcamp has nothing to do with poor fps in windowed mode. The game plays super fast at full screen as to be expected with a ATI RadeonX1900. I suppose one could argue that the Graphic Card drivers could be to blame, but I would think that if that was the case it would affect full screen performance as well. Anyone else out there have slower FPS in windowed mode?

Reply #224 from Sins Forums Top
If others also have problems with windowed mode running in a pure Windows environment, we'll check into it.   It could very well be driver-related (we have tickets open with both ATI and Nvidia on a couple issues).
Reply #225 from Sins Forums Top
Haha. Running windows on a mac is no different that running windows any p.o.s. box you can pick up at dell.


The entire reason bootcamp is needed is because the BIOS has to be emulated--Windows does not support EFI.