No graphics for Disruptors and Doom Rays?

finally someone else with similar problems like me. do u hear the sound and explosions happen? after awhile it should crash your game.

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.

Doomray lacks graphics for me to, it have sounds and explosions and it do crashes the game. Well not really, but after one of my ships fires Doomray the turn buttom dissapears...

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.

Same problem for me with the Doom Ray; I didn't equip any ships with Disruptors, so I don't know about them. My game also refused to end a turn after the second time I used a doom-ray equipped ship, so that might be related.

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.

This is interesting because it might explain some of the instances of the game becoming unresponsive-I've not seen anyone make the connection between "invisible" weapons and the unresponsive game bug. This might explain some things.

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.

ive been having this problem since the beta when the korath were added. They said they couldnt find the problem and so i just gave up on it but am glad that others are seeing it too so that its not just me. Maybe now they will have to take a closer look and not assume im just nuts.

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.

I have noticed the game gets unresponsive for me after using the doom rays and disruptors as well. The turn button will disappear. However, if I leave the game for 3 min or so it will then continue as normal. Also, quicksaving and then loading seems to solve the issue as well. A work around that I have noticed is that if you go into the fleet battle screen this unresponsiveness stopped happening (for me at least). So I set the options to show EVERY battle with my ships involved and this has ended the issue for me

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.

I wonder if this is the actual cause of the missing turn button.

Also, several people have the same problem with the same weapons. I wonder if the corruption is at Stardock's end?

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.

I notice the turn button go missing if I watch a battle between two other civ's ships from the "bird's eye" view on the screen. In other words, not the actual battle screen, just the standard screen, but focused on the two ships in conflict. This only seems to occur later in the game, though, and if I keep the camera focused on something else, I don't have the problem. The button returns if I let it sit for a few minutes, anyway. Regarding the corrupted animations..I wonder if that's also the cause of the invisible Drengin ships? I can view Drengin ships (or pirate ships made from the defunct Drengins) in the icon-only view, but very often if I zoom in to see the ship itself, it disappears. It only seems to be an issue with Drengins, though.

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

SDK = Software Development Kit. You can download it from Microsoft, probably on this page.

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

They don't look right in my DirectX Viewer, but neither do others that I know work fine in-game; is there anything else I should do with DirectX Viewer? The ones that don't work do display error messages though, so the files could be corrupt.

I'm opening the .X files in the GalCiv2\Twilight\Gfx\Weapons directory; is that right?

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

Any word on whether there will be a fix?

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.