The minidump is most likely tied to a specific ability or a broken tech path. Playing race pure games will help narrow down and isolate the problem. For example if EA vs EA plays with no problems then it is not EA. If Narn always crashes at research tier 5, that level of detail would help immensely.

This is how i test:

1 vs 1 (i tried to research everything and use all the abilities) I do this for each race.

Once i find the races that are bug free I run a 2 vs 2 or 3 vs 3, I pick a different race to mine to observe the AI build and research method, I do this with all the races.

After that i play big games(multi-star, huge), I usually do this with all the races to observe all the aspects of the game that i can't with a small or medium game(Titans abilities, Starbases, Diplomacy, Etc.)

I usually play  1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2 until i know that a race is minidump free.

This system is how companies usually test and it works but it takes a long time. 

Just finished a 3 hour game with EA and Centauri so far no issues, I wanna max out the research before I add another race. I really like the new abilities the EA have. I want to play more but early start in the morning.

Thanks for the advice 1+ karma to you sir.

ok I am going to try this sneak peek out. I will also try and help with reporting mini dumps etc. 

Actually I have a copy of the Babylon RPG .. is there anyway I could help with skins etc? I mean there must be something I can do..

How are your 2D skills? Every tech, ship and planet module needs its own 2D tile.

As Darvroth said, if you have got good 2D graphic skills, e.g. Photoshop, Gimp, illustrator, Corel Draw, web design using one of the above or some other graphics program, you are very welcome to help us out. Brushes, textures and window files are one thing that could be done easily with the right skill set. Model textures do require more knowledge of graphics and 3d programs to properly create and test.

oh, and thanks to you all for testing.

Wow 7 hours to max out the EA research. No mini dumps with EA and Centauri. 

Few things I've noticed with the EA:

• B5 station has very low weapon range
• Fighters Tiger and Nova still have stock models, could you use the Aurora model?

Fighters are in a different order on ships
Explorer Class, Nova Class:

• Tiger, Nova, Aurora, Badger

Hyperion Class, Avenger Heavy Carrier:

• Nova, Aurora, Badger, Thunderbolt

Poseidon Class, Omega Class:

• Aurora, Badger, Thunderbolt, Firebolt

The textures look amazing! The Victory is simple gorgeous!

I do have some artistic skills.. but I haven't touched a computer graphic program going on a decade now. Any suggestions? 

B5 is a diplomatic station, its tier 1 weapons are slightly better than early EA, Narn and Centauri capital ships. By design it is not as robust as a dedicated military station.

EA fighters are in the correct order for the ships they are on. Early EA capital ships have early fighters, later ships have later fighters, some ships have "upgrades" that grant access to some later fighters. EA fighter sequencing chronologically is:

Tiger, Nova, Aurora, Badger, Thunderbolt, Firebolt

One thing I did notice because the fighters are in different a order on certain ships when you have a fleet selected and press the fighter management button you would see the wrong icon for fighters for example Aurora might be Nova. I thing this is caused by having fighters in the different 'build slots'. But it does only show up when you have a fleet of ships selected.

Good observation, I never noticed that before as usually ships in my fleets were thrown to the front line as fast as they could be built.

True, and I have known that from the start. Thing is, we have more than 4 types of fighters for EA, but only 4 fighter build slots, so there is no way around that I'm afraid, except to only use 4 fighter types (which I did not want to do for now - but would be better perhaps).

Thanks!

Maybe, will look.

Just finished playing as the Minbiri against EA, Narn, and Centari maxed out the research with no mini dumps. The Centari got knocked out early on, Narn built the most ships with EA playing very defensively (this may be down to what was selected during setting up the game as all races we're on random, i can test further once I've maxed out research on all the races).

The pirates seem a little weak especially during the late game when most of the research was completed. 

Sharlin Capital ability 'Stealth on' is faulty before its researched it vanishes when you select the ability it disappears instead of saying its not researched. Once it is researched it then appears but won't go past level 2, even on a high level capitals (level 4, 5)

Sharoos has level 2 on the stealth ability when it is built (level 1) I only noticed this when I had high level Sharoos ships mid to late game.

Neshatan Gunship still has exhaust flumes on engines.

None of the Minbiri starbases will build (warrior, religious, or worker).

This game I played on hard and while more challenging than normal it wasn't much of a challenge, granted I have been playing for years but I would suggest playing at hard or above.

Duplicated

Other than a single model the pirates have not been touched and are a lower priority than the six player races.

The Minbari Stealth Ability requires the ship be 20% damaged as a precondition of use which may explain the available/not available you have noticed. Unlike SoaSE where there was uniform access to the capital ship abilities, most in SotYR have level limits. The most immediate is level 3 minimum for the Narn Energy Mine but there are others. For the Minbari Stealth the third level requires a higher experience level to unlock.

Of note we have reworked the Minbari stealth ability several times trying to seek balance. The current ability uses an AM drain per sec and has a set period of use, earlier versions would drain all the AM which was less than desirable.

Just finished a game as the Centauri playing against EA, Minbiri, Volon, and Narn no mini dumps with maxed out research. I have to say I've always liked the Primus ship design and the model and texture are just fantastic!

I noticed the Centurion wasn't attacking, when I checked the entity file I changed the weapon entry from this:

Weapon
WeaponType "Projectile"
damageEnums
AttackType "ANTIHEAVY"
DamageAffectType "AFFECTS_SHIELDS_AND_HULL"
DamageApplyType "BACKLOADED"
DamageType "PHYSICAL"
WeaponClassType "AUTOCANNON"
DamagePerBank:FRONT 250.000000
DamagePerBank:BACK 0.000000
DamagePerBank:LEFT 0.000000
DamagePerBank:RIGHT 0.000000
Range 3000.000000
PreBuffCooldownTime 6.000000
CanFireAtFighter FALSE
SynchronizedTargeting FALSE
PointStaggerDelay 0.090000
TravelSpeed 6000.000000
Duration 0.000000
fireConstraintType "CanAlwaysFire"
WeaponEffects
weaponType "Projectile"
burstCount 12
burstDelay 0.100000
fireDelay 0.000000
muzzleEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonLight_Muzzle"
muzzleSoundMinRespawnTime 10.000000
muzzleSounds
soundCount 2
sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONLIGHT_MUZZLE"
sound "WEAPON_TECHCAPITALAUTOCANNONLIGHT_MUZZLE_ALT1"
hitEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonLight_Hit"
hitHullEffectSounds
soundCount 1
sound "WEAPONIMPACT_PHYSICALLIGHT_HITHULL"
hitShieldsEffectSounds
soundCount 1
sound "WEAPONIMPACT_GENERICLIGHT_HITSHIELDS"
projectileTravelEffectName "Weapon_TechCapitalAutoCannonLight_Travel"

To this:

Weapon
WeaponType "Projectile"
damageEnums
AttackType "CAPITALSHIP"
DamageAffectType "AFFECTS_SHIELDS_AND_HULL"
DamageApplyType "BACKLOADED"
DamageType "ENERGY"
WeaponClassType "PLASMA"
DamagePerBank:FRONT 270.000000
DamagePerBank:BACK 0.000000
DamagePerBank:LEFT 0.000000
DamagePerBank:RIGHT 0.000000
Range 2400.000000
PreBuffCooldownTime 3.000000
CanFireAtFighter FALSE
SynchronizedTargeting FALSE
PointStaggerDelay 0.000000
TravelSpeed 3600.000000
Duration 0.000000
fireConstraintType "CanAlwaysFire"
WeaponEffects
weaponType "Projectile"
burstCount 1
burstDelay 0.000000
fireDelay 0.000000
muzzleEffectName "Weapon_PsiCapitalPlasmaMedium_Muzzle"
muzzleSoundMinRespawnTime 0.210000
muzzleSounds
soundCount 3
sound "WEAPON_PSICAPITALPLASMAMEDIUM_MUZZLE"
sound "WEAPON_PSICAPITALPLASMAMEDIUM_MUZZLE_ALT1"
sound "WEAPON_PSICAPITALPLASMAMEDIUM_MUZZLE_ALT2"
hitEffectName "Weapon_PsiCapitalPlasmaMedium_Hit"
hitHullEffectSounds
soundCount 1
sound "WEAPONIMPACT_ENERGYMEDIUM_HITHULL"
hitShieldsEffectSounds
soundCount 1
sound "WEAPONIMPACT_GENERICMEDIUM_HITSHIELDS"
projectileTravelEffectName "Weapon_PsiCapitalPlasmaMedium_Travel"

The Centurion was able to attack after the changes.

The only races left to play are Narn and Shadows. 

I Looked into this and the actual problem is not the weapon assigned to weapon 2 but frigateRoleType "Anitmodule", if this is removed the Centurion attacks normally. Note it is still assigned frigateRoleType "Siege" and will prioritize attacking an enemy planet to the exclusion of all other activities.

TobiWahn,

I won't send you a commit for this one change but it needs to be made as part of the next build.

Edit: I checked and this was the only ship missed by a previous balance effort.

Hi Guys, sorry for the lack of updates, personal problems keep me from modding. Hope to incorporate darvroth last commit in the coming days but cannot guarantee.

Sorry and hope to get back to you soon.

NP. Real life takes priority. All the best and hope you can strike that balance in the short term and going forward.

Shadows have been fully tested research maxed out, I love the way the Shadows play. I was a little confused when I couldn't attack the pirates but when I realised we we're allies it just felt right.

I'm not sure if the Hit and Run research did anything, combat experience was increased by 0% on all three tiers. Didn't notice any other issues.

The increase is a small fraction but it is applied at a constant rate of X/sec. The actual effect is to jump new capital ships up the first few levels. I haven't actually played with the gain over time to see if it is appropriate. Both the Shadow and Vorlon need more course adjustments before the finer details get focus.

TobiWahn,

Ran the new build for the first time and the Minbari Worker Caste tech tab is in need of review, looks like a simple fix. Didn't play it long enough to see if the numerous balance efforts were working as planned, mostly to verify the UI was sound, which in that one case it isn't.

AI does a much better job researching with the latest internal build. I'm experimenting with strike craft as aside from the bombers they don't do much against larger ships. More to follow as I experiment.

I have noticed for some time now that fighter performance against the gambit of ships really varied and in some instances didn't seem at all effective. For set up I used a variety of representative of EA fighters (4x squadrons) against representative Centauri ships that have each ship armor class: Light, Medium, Heavy, Very Heavy and Capital. The results are below expressed as damage per sec (DPS)against a simple (shields + hull), of note shield regeneration played an increasingly important role the longer the take down took:

                            Tiger                Nova               Badger

(L) Kutai               13.750             5.238               28.205

(M) Morgrath        12.297              2.009              22.631

(H) Darkner           5.340              0.298                9.105

(VH) Centurion       5.806                                      7.361

(Cap) Altarian        3.843                                      4.074

It is immediately evident the antiVeryLight gun only Nova is essentially useless against H, VH and Cap armor. The missiles of the Tiger and Badger produce the preponderance of the damage observed. The rear turret of the Badger provided a small contribution. I will admit to a small sample size but feel the limited results are so compelling further baseline analysis is a waste of time. The Aura is essentially a slightly faster and more maneuverable version of the Nova. Earlier fighter balance efforts demonstrated the Thunderbolt is a bit less effective than the badger against shipping but a much superior dog fighter. The Firebolt is much more effective against heavier armors.

I'll post rebalance results when complete and will carry over to the other races.