A few things with 0.12[b].002

Saves, loads, Spaceports, Spacedock, and more

from GalCiv2 Forums
Things are looking better and the game is becomming much more stable. I have noticed a few things I wanted to mention though.

Saving - When I save a game to an existing slot I do not see the 'Replace' dialog until I back out of the save screen then back out of the menu to the game itself. Then I see the dialog asking if I want to overwrite my existing save. Also, I have to hit 'Yes' twice for it to actually save. Lastly, on my system at least, the selected button (the one I move my cursor over) is dimmer than the non-selected button. This seems counter-intuitive.

Loading - When I load a saved game I notice a few things. I get two icons, one for the build queue on one of my planets and one for research. This is just like when you start a new game except that my planets now have their build queues set and research has already been set. Also I do not see any border/influence information until the first planet actually does put out a build message.

Build messages - When I build Soil Enhancement, the only purpose of which is to allow me to build something else, I feel that the message icon should be different from other build icons. Either that or it should automatically bring me to the planet's build queue, but that might be a bit too forceful. Anyway, I am usually going to want to build something on the newly available square.

Starport Build queue - I would like to more clearly see what I am currently building.

Shipyard - Updating ships does not seem to work. Also, when building a ship, the component list (of what I've added to the ship) does not scroll properly. I can not remove a component that I've added.

Ship facing - Ships still fly while facing the wrong way at times. They get where they are going but it looks goofey. I don't remember the specifics of when this happened but I will look for it again. It did eventually correct itself.

Colonizing - When I colonize a new world I need a way to get to that world to set it's build queue. I find that when I have six or eight worlds and I am sending out three colony ships and one of them reaches it's destination I have to hunt for quite a while to find out where I need to set the build queue.

The game seems much more stable overall, except for alt-tab which crashes. Keep up the great work.
16,967 views 12 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Starport Build queue: This Screen is being revamped to better display that info.

Shipyard- We still need to implement Ship Refitting.  And the scrolling of those components will be fixed when the screen is touched up.

Ship Facing - I thought this was fixed    Oh well, we'll put it back on the list. 

Colonizing: Should we bring up the planet screen for that planet when you've colonized it (or invaded it?)  I beleive this is what we did in GC1, but would it be too jarring to automaticaly bring up that screen?

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
On colonizing, you should bring up the screen automatically. Well, that is my personel preference. Though perhaps highlighting (somehow) the planet you colonized on the map so you can go there on your own time?
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think it's fine to bring up the colonize screen right away. Most "civ" type games do this so it's a natural thing to do. However I think a decent alternative as Drachir says is to have a special colonize icon drop down the left side for each planet that was colonized or invaded as a reminder (and shortcut) to do this.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
i do not understand the icons which represent increased production in certain areas on the colony screen..how about a little doc on the lower left screen representing the area describing the superiority or inferiority of the area......and lets adds ome inferior areas too....for variety.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I would also support bringing up the colony screen right away. A very viable alternative would be to have a default build queue a'la governor as in GC1 .... but I guess that would be a mite difficult trying to optimize the bonus squares on the surface.

However, I am amazed you guys seem to manage colonizing at all. On my system the game crashes almost without fail when I try to colonize a planet. I think out of about 15 games I started I managed to build one colony without having a C2D
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
either that or have a colonise box come down the left hand side


I think this is the ideal solution. That way, if the player still has battles to fight and wants to get on with them before coming back to their newly conquered planets, the player can just leave those planetary icons on the screen and use them when they're ready.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
except for alt-tab which crash

Are you in fullscreen mode? Because ALT+TAB isn't supposed to work on fullscreen mode.
I guess that Galciv II really need to detect the screen definition and launch itself first (or set defaukt pref.ini) to be windowed at screen resolution mode.

either that or have a colonise box come down the left hand side

Why not on the right hand side? To be able to clearly indentify that something must be made since colonization mean generally that planetary queue must be initialized.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
"Creating a forum post is very easy". That should be a clue that the processs is going to be considerably more complex than most other forum software. The forum would be better served by minimizing differences in user behavior requirements.

v0.12[b].002, a crash to desktop has occurred for me on several occasions when I fill the planet queue, and then press the scroll-down arrow. This does not seem to happen all the time. It may be a matter of what got added last, or if the last item was a "buy" or a "build"; I don't know yet.
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
What about adding a 'Goto' button to the dialog box? That way the user could easily goto the planet screen if he wants to.
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
the report of evil:

beta much more stable. can play for an extended period. no crashes so far. comments:

1. as stated by many, influence/range not updated with reload
2. finding that the galaxy generation sometimes fails (black screen) on start up (rarely, but thought it worth mentioning)
3. missing turn button fixed, but when i had three ships moving on auto, the bug turned up again.
4. ocasionally (rarely) a transport or colony ship fails to 'die' on invasion/colonisation
5. when loading transports/colony ships, population is not recalced for planets
6. when invading and losing, AI planet screen still comes up.
7. did have one ctd when i had numlock on and tried to name a new ship with the numlock pad, but that might be perculiar to my laptop.
8. on tactical map ships don't move "bow forward"

that's it for the moment. i'll update when i remember the rest
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
in restrospect, i think point 4 and point 6 are linked ie the transport didn't 'die' when the invasion failed.

9. when taking an ai planet, the planet sometimes produces an ai generated ship after a few turns, despite having no starport!