Beta 1Z oddities - Bugs

from Stardock Forums
There were many little things changed in 1Z that improved things quite a bit but I'm going to point out a few problems.

1. Selecting "Starfighter" from the ship build menu results in GalCiv locking up. I have to use the Windows 2000 Task Manager to kill the process.

2. Sound sometimes fails. All sound will, at times, cease, this is normally followed in short order by a crash to the desktop (which isn't being caught by SmartException .090.

3. I mentioned this in another thread but for the range increasing techs the techs seem to increase the ship range as designed but the display shows "string not found +10" as the ability granted by the tech.

4. If a ship goes through a blackhole and pops out somewhere beyond the current range from base it's stranded. You get a nice graphic of Homer Simpson who kindly tells you that you can't move to point X as it's too far from home.

The problem is that if a ship somehow reached an area beyond it's normal range it should still be able to move. Right now the only options are to either destroy the ship or have it wait until the range increases to the point that it can move again. This isn't quite right, the ship should still be able to move.

5. One of the things changed in this beta is, according to the posted list: ships can not de-orbit onto another nation's ships. This is all well and good but what happens in the situation where enemy ships surround the planet. This means that even if you have an armada waiting on the planet you can't use it to attack the ships in orbit. You have to be rescued by some external ship or ships. This seems less than optimal.

Cheers
Magus
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Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
As far as #4 goes, you can acutally move the ship. Just click on an area that is inside your range for that ship and it will move there.

My Survey Ship found a defender once. I was obviously inside the range for my SS, but well outside the range for the Defender. I did manage to move it back inside my valid range.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
"1. Selecting "Starfighter" from the ship build menu results in GalCiv locking up"

Checking this now...Ok, I think that you really clicked on the StarHawk, and your file needs to be updated to have a range. Open your StarHawk.ship file, and your shippak1.ship file. Copy the Range line from the definition of the Survey ship and paste it under the definition of the StarHawk.

"2. Sound sometimes fails. All sound will, at times, cease, this is normally followed in short order by a crash to the desktop (which isn't being caught by SmartException .090."

So you get neither sound effects nor music when this happens? Or does just the music fail? No one has been able to tell me yet if it also kills sounds in other apps. Probably it would only affect other DirectX applications if this were the case, but I would appreciate it if I could get a saved game where this has happened.

"3. I mentioned this in another thread but for the range increasing techs the techs seem to increase the ship range as designed but the display shows "string not found +10" as the ability granted by the tech."

This should be a simple matter to fix. However, it appears that Brad has failed to check in his updated tech file, so I can't fix it at the moment. I'm not even sure that they are wholly implemented.

J. Michael Lynch has already correctly answered #4.

"5. One of the things changed in this beta is, according to the posted list: ships can not de-orbit onto another nation's ships. This is all well and good but what happens in the situation where enemy ships surround the planet. This means that even if you have an armada waiting on the planet you can't use it to attack the ships in orbit. You have to be rescued by some external ship or ships. This seems less than optimal.
"

This was to fix a bug where ships of different races could get stuck on top of each other. However, you should note that you you get a defense bonus if you leave your ships in orbit. I can make it so that the attacking ship has to attack the ship in orbit with the highest attack value first. This will make its chances of getting destroyed a lot better, hopefully freeing up a space.
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
On #1: Will do. For this sort of issue shouldn't subsequent betas incorporate the ships that have been posted to the library since the last beta? This seems to have been done with the dreadnaught.

On #2: On the sound issue...if I restart Galciv the sound comes back. As for a save game that exhibits the problem :d The save game I sent to you earlier this week was saved just after the sound had failed.

On #4: I tried what J. Michael Lynch suggested and it does indeed work as he described. It just doesn't make a lot of sense that a ship can move an infinite distance as long as the end-point of the journey is within the range limit. That means you can successfully move the ship all the way across the galaxy if you want to but you can't successfully move the ship 2 feet to the left. ;-)

Cheers
Magus
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
1) Um...I don't know. Brad might have just forgotten to update the StarHawk.
2) Ahh, the one where the survey ship's stats were messed up. Cool.
4) Umm...yeah. I think that it was the same way in the OS2 version, though. I suppose that we could add code so that if you ended up with a ship outside of its range it could go a certain distance before it would just shut down and not be responsive (and you'd lose the crew), and then you'd have to bring another ship to reactivate it. That might be something we want to have a poll on.
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
4). In the os/2 version a ship could be sent through an area that was not within its range as long as the start and end points were within its range. However, while it was outside its range it went into "hibernation" and its course and status could not be changed. Any ship caught in this maner by an enemy could still be attacked and destroyed. Of course, the OS/2 version didn't have worm holes.

Cheers,
Jack