GalCiv II: v1.1 BETA 4 Change Log

Fixing the bugs we introduced in our own beta

from JoeUser Forums


This version basically fixes bugs that were introduced in the 1.1 betas to prepare for the final 1.1 release:

Note, your saved games may not work with this version.


+ Saved games now load MUCH MUCH faster on new saves

+ Fixed bug in Ship Designer where auto-place would not create a slot icon for modules such as colony, trade, troop, etc

+ Fixed bug in Ship Designer where auto-placed modules could not be removed from the ship

+ Fixed crash when trying to buy AI ships from trade screen (ahem)

+ Fixed bug where Diplomacy history would have no data

+ Fixed bug where large galaxies might save planet data before it the data had been initialized, making the saved game crash in unexpected places

+ Changed saved game version because saved games no longer save influence data - speeds up saved game load time

+ Added support for loading older saved games that still have influence data

+ Fixed bug where you could not select a ship that had been upgraded in the Quick Build list

+ Fixed crash in ship move calculation because the ship had no ship type

+ Fixed crash related to ship/improvement built icons

+ Fixed crash related to failure to load and create fonts

+ Implemented Cari's change to prevent AutoSave crashing

+ Improved stability in various places by checking process pointers before appending them to other processes

+ Added debug messages when memory allocation fails

+ Influence updates immediately after loading a game (No need to wait a turn for the influence to correct itself)

+ Fixed a bug where saved games from older versions that had orbital fleet managers in them did not allow the player to attack ships in a planet

+ Ship Design Screen deletes an old design if the new design has the same name

+ Fixed bug where if you pressed ESC in election window, you would never get any more elections from then on

This version should be available by 8pm EST.

53,823 views 34 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Man that was QUICK!!!!!

Now if I can only get done with working weird hours soon to actually play more than an hour or two....anyway you can implement that change quickly?
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Happy to see you guys devoted this patch towards fixing a ton of crash bugs and implementing failsafes... and although I'm still concerned about the save/load features (because it seems like it isn't clearing/loading data properly sometimes) I guess I'll have to wait and see for myself.

On a side note, any chance you guys have tracked down the massive freighter fleet behavior that I've been seeing lately? It's an odd annoyance that really slows the game down (because of all the ship movement), and makes me wonder if the AI would be better off making constructors instead (since those don't cost any maintainance either). Stocking constructors around to build starbases is 1000x more useful than a fleet of freighters IMO (that is, if their existing starbases were already full and they don't have enough money to build more Starbases). So far the only thing I could do to limit this wierd quirk is to jack up the cost of the trade module.
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Good God! You guys need a vacation!


Dano
Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Could not see PQ bug (returns to original level although soil, habitat, terraform built) having been fixed. This bug has been mentioned on the forums countless times and is a BIG bug.

Surely Stardock is aware of it...


Lenius.
Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
...Influence updates immediately after loading a game...


YES YES!!! I can not wait to get this! I've been wanting that fixed sense the day I got GalCiv2.
Reply #7 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

The Initial Save game is still very slow. No change from Beta3A.


I believe this is because of the modding features that was implemented. Looking through the save file structure, I have noticed that the save actually keeps a copy of nearly every data file (.xml) that the game used when it was created. Naturally, before Beta3, modding was not an issue, so the save simply dump all the .xml files into the save, and proceeded to write down ship/planet data, etc... however with the modding implemented, the game has to go around checking mods over and over to see if something needs to be overwritten. This is the only thing I can think off that would cause the first save to slow down to a crawl. If so, they will probably need to look at how this is done and optimize it a little more.

Besides, the change log state that the save game LOADS faster, not save faster ^_^;;; It just shouldn't crash anymore.
Reply #8 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was able to load from a Beta3A save no problem. I then saved the game with Beta4. Loaded that save and it took 1/2 the time the Beta3A save did to load.

@genocide - I'm not sure this is the best place to place debug.err - though I could be wrong. It makes reading replys to the journal very difficult. Perhaps it would be best to make a thread in the Bug forum and link to it.
Reply #9 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Wow..I love you guys. I was just hoping the load times were going to be dealt with and it's already done..you guys (and girls) ROCK!

Now if only you needed more people for galciv3 so I could help work on it
Reply #10 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Ok so I have the old issue still.

When I upgrade Core ships it strips em down fully leaving only the hull if I have the "remove only functional components" option enabled. Witht this option disabled everything stays on Core ships as should be.

Could somebody confirm if this is intended thing or a glitch? Driving me nuts here
Reply #11 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
OK, a possible version problem:
Stardock centrad just did an update: says galciv2 is on version 1.10[b4].016
Running the game, though, says v1.1 BETA-3A
Reply #12 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
There is a possible 'bug' in the Custom race selection. Email about this sent to Cari_Elf and gc2bugs.
Reply #13 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The +10% production bonus due to the presence of a moon still does not work. I've seen reports that ALL planetary-based military production bonuses are not working, but have not tested this.
Reply #14 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The +10% production bonus due to the presence of a moon still does not work. I've seen reports that ALL planetary-based military production bonuses are not working, but have not tested this.


What about the rings? Do they work? I think they do, but I can't really say for sure.
Reply #15 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
AFAIK the rings work for the research bonus. This seems to only affect planet-based military production bonuses.
Reply #16 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The bonus production from moons and such does work. I've watched it in the debugger.
Reply #17 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
BTW, I removed the debug.err posting.  A debug.err posting with no context means nothing. It won't tell us why a game crashed or whatever the intent was.
Reply #18 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
The bonus production from moons and such does work. I've watched it in the debugger.

Well, I am afraid to have witnessed otherwise, as I have posted here : https://forums.galciv2.com/?ForumID=274&AID=112931
Reply #19 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One irritating bug is that I see what custom ships I will get from technologies in their descriptions on the research screen when starting a game. However, if I save and reload, it's gone forever. Irritating now that I have a whole lot of custom designs that i reuse and have to guess what to research to make them available.

Also, you missed an \n after the new 'More miniaturization needed'-text in the 'completed technology'-screen. For example, it might look something like this (from memory):
New Ship Designs:
Ship Design 1
(3 other technologies needed)
* More miniaturization neededShip Design 2
(2 other technologies needed)
* More miniaturization neededShip Design 3
(1 other technology needed)

And once again, initial AI weapons research seems bugged to me. I know that you wrote that it's rand() %3 and that's why I think there is something wrong elsewhere in the code.
The majority most often chooses missiles in any given game now with the minority choosing either beams or guns. I have never seen all three being chosen in the same game after beta-3A, it's always missiles with either a couple of beams or a couple of guns.

I have to say that the Altarian AI impressed me yesterday, building a frigate in December, first year. However, I wasn't as impressed by the beginning of the third year when all his ships still had 1 movement and he doesn't seem to have researched any engine technology at all. My fleets are on the way over right now. Will be interesting to see what he does when I start taking his planets. Tough AI of course and game was begun in beta-3A.
Reply #20 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Could somebody please answer #10, should not be that hard of a question.
Reply #21 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Not to revel in anyone's mis-fortune but thank you ben_sphynx! I was beginning to think I was the only one this happened to.

I can't* play the game at all right now because of being stuck inbetween upgrades. I have no idea what actually got installed, what didn't, or if running the game will cause a LOT of problems. *: can't meaning not in good concience. The game launches fine right now, but what got hosed (if anything) might have serious effects as a game progresses.

I hope they don't wait too long to address this. And I would feel a lot better knowing they are looking at it at least. If they come back and say it will fix itself when the patch is released (by upgrading the game again), fine. But not knowing wtf is going on is frustrating. With the added irritation of I missed checking the auto-archive option in SDC, so I can't restore the previous version and would have to reinstall everything from scratch. Not for a beta.
Reply #22 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Frogboy:

The bonus production from moons and such does work. I've watched it in the debugger.


If the bonus is being applied it is doing so invisibly. This is very easy to test. Just start up a new game and look at it, as in Peace Phoenix's link.

Apparently this is the case for any inherent planetary bonus to military production, such as from special events and moons.
Reply #23 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Sorry if I'm threadjacking for this long shot, but could anyone help me understand why I can't download the latest beta? I've tried clearing my cache and uninstalling SDC but every attempt at downloading fails with the following messages in the log:

Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\Terrain\Desert_Query.png_ 0 (skipped) | 23497 | 10/21/2005 17:00
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\Terrain\Mountain_Query.png_ 0 (skipped) | 28520 | 10/21/2005 17:00
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 1 | -14 The Url is invalid
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 2 | -14 The Url is invalid
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 3 | -14 The Url is invalid
Server: Using other server http://sdcentral2.stardock.com
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 1 | -14 The Url is invalid
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 2 | -14 The Url is invalid
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 3 | -14 The Url is invalid
Server: Using other server http://sdcentral4.stardock.com
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 1 | -14 The Url is invalid
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 2 | -14 The Url is invalid
Download: C:\sd\Base\Gfx\ s\planets\Earth.png_ 0 | Attempt 3 | -14 The Url is invalid
Result: Installation failed (0)
Reply #24 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Well from the error, I would say it's because there's an illegal folder name (your " s" folder - notice the space infront of the 's') which, shouldn't even be there (IE: it should be "Gfx\Planets"). I'm not sure how to go about fixing something like this, but from what you state, I assume this is not some problem with SDC itself (since you uninstalled and reinstalled) but one that deals with the path which is saved in your registry. That said, I don't believe the game actually saves individual paths (just one to your base install folder) so you can't go and edit a field to fix it. Instead, it is probably related to the patch in question, as to why you are not able to download it... no clue. It might be some error they had when putting it up and you just tried downloading at the wrong time. Perhaps try it again?
Reply #25 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I just hope the Stardock Gal Civ 2 team will add in some additional art content.

Probably the main change would to be give each race unique ship designs. In the current system certain races like the Arceans and Terrans have the exact same ship models.