GC4 EA Feedback Test Branch | VERSION 0.81.280177

Bug .80: The Altarian commander ships are full of typos. Here's one. Date should be Data and ists should be its.

"to and from it" should be "to and from them" since it's referring to the remote worlds.

Valueable" should be "valuable".

"This legendary warship both reinforces nearby fleets and worlds" would be better worded "warship reinforces both nearby fleets and worlds"

This survey result still has major clipping, it does not scroll.  I also assume the "+" should be inside the box with at a minimum the wording "Experience Points +5 (for each ship in fleet)"

Ship designer GUI working fine for me now (Y)

Ok, so I had a 2 ship Terran fleet (with the Gaze) survey a ship graveyard. Killed the 3 pirate ships with no problem.  Decided to watch the battle using the new battle viewer.  Cinematics were pretty good.  The video ended just as the 2 fleets were getting ready to engage.  I think your battle viewer needs some TLC   

Went back and replayed the survey.  This time battle viewer showed the Gaze taking a bunch of hits & then destroying 1 pirate ship.  On a scale of 1-10 I give that video a 7!  Obviously the battle viewer is timed way to short.  It will not give the player a satisfying experience once the battles have bigger fleets unless it really scales up with the # of ships.

Just surveyed different ship graveyard.  Video was still short but this time it showed the entire battle.  That was very engaging - a 10!

On my 3rd Ship Graveyard survey, I was rewarded with a prototype ship - The Prospector, the survey ship of Boric the Quick.  The only problem is that I was awarded that prize on my 2nd Ship Graveyard survey and had already rebuilt it.  There needs to be logic that does not allow prototypes to repeat.

What am I missing? Why can't I build shipyards on my core worlds? 

I'm witnessing some crazy rout pathing by my ships. They look like fish hooks, taking the long way around instead of a straight line. 

I struggled with that same issue but then noticed they moved the “build shipyard” icon to the top of the screen.

Are they going through Arcean territory?  Arceans have the Vigilant trait which makes all tiles in the area of effect for a starbase cost 1 extra move.  This also stacks, so it may cost more than that.  The pathfinding will recognize that and plot a path that takes the least amount of moves even if it isn't a straight line.

Battle Viewer Failure

I'm not getting the battle viewer to show the battles.  I have a save that shows this.  The save is available here.  Load the save.  You should be at my survey ship which is close to a defended anomaly, the yellow one.  Use the survey ship to attack the anomaly, then try to view the battle.  It has never worked for me.

EDIT on Friday

I have more information.  Here is what I see.

I have learned that there is supposed be text at the top and bottom of the screen, including controls for the battle viewer at the bottom of the screen.  They never appear for me.  They are there, but they are invisible.  I can put my cursor on them to get the tool tip to show.

I can also click on them to get things to work.

In the options I have Autostart Battle Viewer turned off.  When I changed it so that autostart was on, I got the same screen shown above, then the battle viewer started, all the text appeared, and the battle viewer worked correctly.

The problem occurs when the battle viewer is not set to autostart.

I just started a new Terran game and things all around seem to be working much better than previous versions.
Thank you for adding the grid options. They make a huge difference.

This is straight out of my home planet at the start of the game. I'm trying to move a probe 6 hexes and it makes a wide swing, taking twice the distance. 

Gamebreaker:

- Colonyship spawns on shipyard and I am not able to move it. I tried auto colonization but this did not move the ship neither: Loading save game did not help. This is game breaking and I will stop

Edit: The Go To menu worked.

Bugs:

- Policies: dragging and dropping policies results in some wierd sorting. This applies to the center and to the list to the right. Sometimes tooltips of policies are not shown

- During game setup: victory options resets your chosen faction to terrans

- Tooltip+Shift does not work at Tech Navigator

Feedback:

- Tooltips of improvements (before you place them) should show what you get for each level-up

- I like the changes to zoom levels and grid. Currently I play with grid always on and icons at "14". View 3 has no icons and I only need to zoom out once if I want to see icons. View 4 instantly shows icons - what I prefer at such a high zoom level.

In the battle viewer there is an option to Show HUD, but the HUD is already showing.

After clicking on the button it changes to Hide HUD, but the HUD is already hidden.

The same problem also exists in GalCiv3.  I made a mod for GalCiv3 that "fixes" the problem by switching the text in UIText.xml, but the underlying problem still exits.

The letter "a" should be deleted.

Are the Onyx Hive considered to be meat, or is N-1 failing to understand what the Onyx Hive are, or is this a bug that allows this conversation to appear when playing as the Onyx Hive?

Sometimes the probes appear normally in the shipyard, like this.

Other times they are invisible, like this.

They are there and can be selected, but they are invisible.  This applies to all races that I have played.

After playing 0.80 as the Baratak for a day and a half, I have the following positive observations:

1. I LOVE the fact that, when you successfully invade a planet, your ships remain outside the planet.  In previous versions, I was constantly losing fleets that disappeared into planets after invading and I spent a lot of time trying to find them again.
2. I think your new options for displaying the grid are a good way to let each player choose how the grid displays as they go through the game.
3. The video part of the battle viewer is OK, but I REALLY like the battle log.  That lets me see and understand how a battle went.
   1. I ran into an issue with battles where I was taking excessive damage and, when I looked at the log, there were enemy ships showing as being involved in the battle that were not visible on the main screen.  Exiting the program and restarting fixed the issue.  If I encounter this again, I will take screen snapshots to show the issue.  Creating a save will not work since restarting the program fixes the problem.
4. I love the trails that lead from an "in range" resource to a constructor before you convert it to a starbase.  This really helps with positioning the constructor to capture the desired resources.

There are other good improvements, but these are the top ones so far.  Good job!

There should be a comma after raiders.  their should be its.

There should be a comma after old, and by should be but.

The comma after reaction is not needed.

The Onyx Hive don't use food.  The negative growth and negative approval are punishments while the negative food consumption doesn't do anything good.  This policy is worse than completely useless. 

Is it ever useful? Isn't the penalty for starving 10% approval? Just let them starve. There has got to be a more useful card than something that gives you a maximum of a 4% approval boost.

I think in actuality that approval goes off individual citizens who are all different in how they tolerate things, you'll notice how some people will be happy whilst others aren't. Some will react ok to rationing and others will get more upset sooner, especially if other things are affecting their approval.

The AI player is still taking down defended anomalies without a survey ship.