Seth Gaines

Join Date 03/2006

Range Bug

I've submitted a save game already on this one.

Playing in an immense universe, I have one of the corners, and no close neighbors. Even with extended life support researched, I was unable to get a freighter to any other race. I upgraded the basic freighter with a better engine and 2 extended support modules. That increased the range a small amount, but not enough. I upgraded again, and stuck on 5 or 6 modules. Now my range shows as 10.7, up from 4.something, but the freighter range is now a rectangular area that is generally the same size as my prior range bubble. I live in the top left corner of the map, and the outside corner of the range box does show some jaggedness at that extreme range, but it is otherwise a perfect rectangle. Not just a graphical bug, I cannot pass the line.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

You're hitting the maximum range value (don't recall offhand what it is specifically). But if you're really far from any other stars, your best bet is to extend range via starbases rather than trying to pile so much life support on ships.

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I figured there was a maximum range, but shouldn't I still have an irregular blob reflecting the contours of my empire? The limit of the rectangle I ended up with is very close to the range I had with just a standard ship and the range bonuses from research, so something must still be wrong. I had only gotten to level 3 of life support.

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kryo

Join Date 05/2003

+458

The limit of the rectangle I ended up with is very close to the range I had with just a standard ship and the range bonuses from research

Well, ranges scale with map size, so with the new immense map, you get to that limit a lot easier since the base value is much higher.

I do believe the limit is not actually intentional, which would explain why it's square (square grid map, so a specific number of tiles in any direction will make a square too unless it's specially coded otherwise). But it's been known since early DL, and hasn't been changed in that time.

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I think it will have to get fixed, or at least raised with the advent of immense galaxies. If you look at the save game I sent, I am far away from my neighbors, but not really that far in proportion to the size of the map. The present range limit will make it practically impossible to interact with most races, especially in warfare, when you can't expect them to leave your range-extending bases lying around.

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Well, the beta is a bit limited in terms of available races. With a full set of opponents, you might not hit the range limit before making contact.

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Ummm.... Unless the number of stars and their distribution is determined by the number of races, that doesn't make any sense. At best, I'd have ended up crammed into a smaller piece of the corner with one other race, and maybe a minor or two. I have actually made contact with four races (and two minors), I just can't get to anyone's planets, aside from two worlds belonging to the race in the top center of the map.

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But if you are playing with rare stars, rare habitable planets and tight clusters... then you can expect to have to use starbases to extend your range.

However, I do think that if the "base" range is changing with each galaxy size the max range should change accordingly so that each life support upgrade will give you something.

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That is a good point, but the range is still inadequate. I had the top left eighth or ninth of the map, but I couldn't reach anyone. Everything was set to abundant, but I did have tight clusters set.

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Alstein

Join Date 07/2004

+55

ON a related note- should sensor limits raise, especially with the new optimization featured implemented since the limit was put into place?

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I do not see the reason to have that limit at all. If you want, have a limit of how many life supports you can put on a single ship, not the range limit. It just does not make sense.

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