DA 1.6 Beta 2 Here

CariElf

Join Date 08/2001

+68

DA 1.6 Beta 2 Here

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Hey all,

We are having some technical difficulties with the servers but we wanted to get you another beta. We are still having slowdown issues from the ships, but at least the minimap is much more efficient. Here's the change log for the beta:

+ FIX: Made it so that your allies won't declare war on you in the mega event Allied War where the good races gang up on you.

+ NEW: Added code to save score data for non-metaverse games locally in the My Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar folder

+ TWEAK: Added dialog to warn you if you start/load a metaverse game with a cheater flag

+ NEW: You can now change the social project (if there is stuff in the queue) from the colony list in the civ manager

+ NEW: The popup for adding money to negotiations on the trade screen will now open with the value needed to make the AI accept the offer (or the total amount in your treasury if they won't accept it).

+ FIX: Minimap and line graphs now uses Direct3D for drawing, which should show an increase in framerate.

+ FIX: Updated the QUICKSTART command line parameter code to work with DarkAvatar's settings (Starts a sandbox game with your last settings without needing to go to the menu.)

+ FIX: The minimap scrolling lag on Vista should be resolved, and scrolling in general should be smoother with better frame rates.

+ FIX: On Vista PCs, the debug.err will now be saved in the Documents\My Games\GC2DarkAvatar folder. (This will not work if you run the exe in WInXP compatibility mode.)

+ FIX: If you turn off the Show Damage Animations option, it will now remove the damage animations from fleets.

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Btw can i ask, when will the new stuff come into the beta's?

Do you mean, when are we starting to add new features instead of just optimizing stuff, etc? Probably not for the next one, as we still want to do something about the slowdown due to ships.

only a very little issue: the graph does not fit all the area.

I'm not sure why this is the case as I'm using the same math as it was before, just using a different implementation for the display. I did notice this, but it wasn't worth holding back the beta to fix it.

Supposedly, but it wasn't. Apparently, somebody was looking at it for Beta 2...

Hmm...I remember talking about this with the coder responsible for the fleet battles...I'll have to ask him, but I thought that he did fix it.

I just finished a game with 1.6 beta 2. Here are my findings:

- Ships become invisible if multiple on the same spot
- The gold slider in the trade window behaves strange if you have debt
- If zooming the minimap in, the trapezoid indicating the visible mainscreen doesn't display properly. It gets smaller instead of larger.

I have not seen the first one. Does this happen consistently for you? Is it only if they are different models, or something like that?

The second should be a one line fix...I must have forgotten to put in a check for debt.

I will have to look at the minimap zooming issue.

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The disappearing ships bug (since beta 1.6 v1) has been widely commented on in the Bug Forum.

Basically, if you have single ships stacked with no fleet present, the ships disappear. The square looks like it is empty - you can click on it and it will bring up the ships in the details window. Any type ships.

This happens with freigthers and starbases too. If a freightor ends it's turn on the Starbase, the base and freightoer disappear. Kinda scary to suddenly see a Resource Icon there with no Starbase around it - at first I thought the aI had a new secret weapon...but if you click on it the Starbase is there in the details view.

I was 'ambushed' by the Torains becasue of this...they had 25+ single ships stacked in a rally point behind my 'lines' - I could not see them...suddenly they formed fleets during their turn and decimated some of my fleets. Kinda fun, but it is a bug.

Related, sometimes ships will not revert to their 2D Style Icons when zoomed out to Tactical view. They stay in their 3D model and become very very tiny.

I'll send in a save game tonight - but a lot of people have been seeing this issue - one of them may be able to get it to you too.

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- Ships become invisible if multiple on the same spot

Does this happen consistently for you? Is it only if they are different models, or something like that?

Yes, happens often. It can be two of the same ship models or completely different ones, even fleets (e.g. combat fleet + transporter fleet on same spot). Ships become invisible even if zooming out to tactical view.

There's a whole thread about this issue: https://forums.galciv2.com/?forumid=421&aid=142687

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Related, sometimes ships will not revert to their 2D Style Icons when zoomed out to Tactical view. They stay in their 3D model and become very very tiny.

Now that you mention it, I think I might have seen it as well. Didn't really notice it in the heat of the war

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Cari,
I think that everyone who has ever commented on either 1.6beta in the forums has mentioned this. Though I have not finished my first beta 2 game yet, I know I had the diappearing ship stacks on EVERY stack in EVERY one of about 10 games with beta 1.

drrider

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Cari,

I noticed this in 1.6 beta 1 as well.

Production gets messed up on planets that you invade and take over.
What happens is that after take over typically a factory is getting upgraded (say to Manufacturing Centers) once it finishes it gets "stuck" at 0 turns left and never completes. You can buy it and it will clear the queue but I've also moved it down a slot at which point it changes from 0 turns to whatever turns it's needed. This then "unsticks" the queue.

Has anyone else see this?

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Thanks for your continued dedication...

...and for this change in particular:

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

BTW, I don't know if this is affecting anyone else but reply #6 borks up the thread.

Sorry 'bout that!

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NEW: The popup for adding money to negotiations on the trade screen will now open with the value needed to make the AI accept the offer (or the total amount in your treasury if they won't accept it).

Looks like someone read my post, Getting Best Trade Deal = Micro-Management Pain!

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Has anyone commented on the MP of ships changing? i have ships with 37 MPs and all of a sudden, they can only move 3 squares. This is with the 1.5 DA version.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

i have ships with 37 MPs and all of a sudden, they can only move 3 squares.

You're in Yor space.

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

I may have a problem with this build. I am developing a mod, so I am in the process of teasting it out. I will get SmartException and report when I have more details, but this is the (weird) endd of my debug.err file:

Debug Message: Shutting down sound system.
Debug Message: Clearing sound and music handles.
Debug Message: WorkAreaBack.png not cleared 1 counts left.
Debug Message: GameUninitialize end
Debug Message: Device not cleared. 35 counts left.
Debug Message: D3D not cleared. 1 counts left.
Debug Message: Destroying Window.
Debug Message: Main Shell terminating normally

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

That sounds like a pretty normal exit, Pants.

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1.59.078? That is my version number of DA. Is that the latest beta?

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

That sounds like a pretty normal exit, Pants.

Yeah... I was wondering about this: "D3D not cleared. 1 counts left."

However, SmartException seems to be concentrating on this:

Application Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Crash Addr: 005857A5 01:001847A5 C:\Program Files\Stardock\TotalGaming\GalCiv2\DarkAvatar\GC2DarkAvatar.exe

Doesn't that sound bad?

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

Strange if you got a crash despite the game exiting normally. Send the SE log, debug, etc to gc2bugs@stardock.com, as usual.

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What is the penalty for Yor space? Where can I find it documented?

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I have accidentally put the english.str into the wrong folder and overwrote the DL version. Will DL be OK, or can someone send me the DL version of the file, English.str?

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What is the penalty for Yor space? Where can I find it documented

Part of the Yor super ability (called "Super Isolationist", iirc). Non-Yor ships are limited to a speed of 3 in Yor space. The ability is documented in the manual, and which ability goes with which race can be seen in the screen where you select which race to play.

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I'll install that new beta right now.

By the way, is there a beta program or a beta community ? Is this forum post the whole thing ?

I think it would be easier to help the devs if we had some lists like things to look for, knowns issues, etc.

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Cari, the graphic bug looks like a "truncation" issue, typical into conversion from float to integer. Indeed, the more data you have to plot into the graph, the less is the "gap" from the graph to the right edge of the area, it looks like the error is bigger when you've few data to plot, and become smaller if you have lots of data. And... oh, it's a little OT, but very annoying: if i post a thread from stardock central, the RETURN key is not enabled so i cannot insert a newline inside this textarea!

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+ TWEAK: Added dialog to warn you if you start/load a metaverse game with a cheater flag

Thank you!

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How about a dialog to warn you if a purchase will cause you to drop below -500BC! Late in my last game when I needed to spend those >150,000BC surpluses each turn it was really easy to mistakenly exceed this limit!
Debt Limit Should Be Relative to GDP

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General Pants

Join Date 08/2006

+19

Strange if you got a crash despite the game exiting normally. Send the SE log, debug, etc to gc2bugs@stardock.com, as usual.

Anybody else having a problem like this? I've tried rolling back to Beta 1, and it didn't help, so I'm beginning to think it may be an issue with DirectX 9.0c, which I installed the other day.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

I'm beginning to think it may be an issue with DirectX 9.0c, which I installed the other day.

DX 9.0c is required for the game to run to begin with, so I'd expect you already had it prior to this.

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