I've seen (and reported) this with those weapons and others in previous versions of the Beta, but not yet in Beta 4. I thought weapons graphics had been created and implemented by now in most instances, but in Beta 3d I rarely reached the upper echelon techs before finishing the game . On the few instances when I did, I was not using the beam weapon tech tree where these unfinished tech applications seem to be concentrated. That being said, I did notice in Beta 3d that the "scatterblaster" tech still had no graphics. As reported here, the sounds, impacts and damage effects of the weapons were still functional, but I've never had this particular problem cause a game to crash to my knowledge.

I'm having the same problem with disruptors,I get the sound effects but no grafix. I also noticed the same problem occured when the Acreans researched doom rays. Usually when a battle starts with a ship with these techs the game stalls and won't end turn.

I've had this problem too. At first, I thought it was the nightmare torpedoes that I was using, but the ships I was fighting had Doom Rays.

The game does often become unresponsive during combat, and I didn't experience it until the Korath (whom I was at war with) started deploying doom rays.

I've noticed the same issue with Nightmare Torpedoes...no graphics for that, either. I have not yet researched Black Hole Gun, or whatever it's called, so I'm not sure if there is a graphic for that. But with Nightmare Torpedo, there is a sound effect with no corresponding graphic. At least, not on my machine.

Hi there, I talked with the devs, cause I think I know the problem.

some of the weapon animations could be corrupt in your game directory, so the game doesn't play them.

I asked Scott to take a look at them.

You could try to open the files of the not working weapons with DX Viewer (from the dx SDK) so you can see if they are corrupt or not.

It may be a cause but it is not the only cause. I have seen pathfinding problems cause the missing turn button/unresponsive game with my own eyes. In the last instance, which I reported by sending in the saved game files, a Drengin Scout ship attempted to enter the smae game square as one of my planets. The turn would not process past that conflict and thus the turn button did not return. On reload of the saved game, the turn button was back but would not function. Further, the screen became focused on the offending Drengin ship and would not allow me to change that focus. In an experiment, which I've done before, I bought the scout ship from the Drengin, countermanded it's orders and like magic the game unfroze and the turn processed. It is also documented that internal game rule conflicts can also cause the game to become unresponsive and the turn button to go missing. For example, in one game I played there was that UP nonagression rule that forces everyone to wait one turn until they attack the opposing side after a declaration of war. A war broke out between me and the Torians. The Torians tried to attack me the same turn they declared war, which conflicted with the UP Rule. As a result, the turn would not process, the turn button would not reappear and the eventually the game became unresponsive except for save/exit functions. The problem was confirmed in a series of emails with the Devs after I sent the saved game and that particular facet of the missing turn button/unresponsive game bug was purportedly solved.

All of that being said, the "missing" weapons animations are annoying and I hope they are fixed soon. I've experienced "missing" animations with doom rays, torpedo weapons being used by the Peacekeepers which I imagine are nightmare torpedos or their equivalent, the scatterblaster series of weapons that the Yor use, and disruptors. There may be others but I do not recall them. The strange thing is that in the game with the Peacekeepers I alluded to, I was using nightmare torpedos as well but could see my weapons fire just fine. The Peacekeepers' weapons fire was invisible, but was a powerful torpedo weapon of some type.

What's DX Viewer, what is SDK, and where do I get it?

Well I just can say about the animations, that they may be corrupt in the downloaded files from SDC.

I created the effects and I tested all, they work 100% fine, they should look like here: Gallery


-Stefan

yep right, thanks for checking, the files ARE corrupt when they display errors.

strange, this must be on Stardock/SDC side.

that other looking in dxviewer of the working ones is normal, they just don't render it like the game

-Stefan

We'll re-update the files when we put up the fix for the invasion crash, but I guess we're still having technical issues so I can't say when it will be. Just keep an eye on the forums, or you can hang out in #galciv on irc.stardock.com if you want something a little more interactive than hitting F5 on the forums.