Final Frontier: Problems & Issues (Post-3.13 Update Available)

RavenXL said:

I have encontered two problems:

1) I have build a starbase and I had open boardes with an AI-Civ. He has started to build one round after me one space away. I thought that would not be a problem and let him. It was a problem. My starbase was build - everything was ok.

The round after when HIS starbase was ready, he got a small band of influence on the far side - everything was OK except that he was on one of the resources). The round after, the situation was reversed and I got the small band.

I declared war to get my influence back (and the resources - anyway, the resources were near me - it was half the card from his territory away, so I don't know in the first place why he did it), but then my starbase vanished. (The comp tried to get all my ships out of his sphere of influence - but a starbase can not move, so it vanished...)

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The starbase is incorrectly listed as having a movement of one. Once built they cannot move.

However they do NOT disappear if built next to another starbase. That will only happen if the nearby starbase bombards AND nearby units also bombard so as to reduce strength to zero (like for any other unit).

That being the case it is indeed foolish for the AI top build a starbase away from his own ships and cultural influence unless there is a fleet of his ships parked on top of it to prevent it from being demolished.

thomas.berubeg said:

Religion: Why give them names like Knowledge or Wealth, if they don't have benefits that improve that specific. one would think if one adopted Wealth, there would be an increase in gold production.

Later post -

I don't like the idea of having to put production into what the Value should automatically give...

thanks,
thomas

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The benefits of Values = "Civ 4 standard religions" are powerful, but more subtle than an instant addition of some facet of gameplay.

Each of the Values in a star system, whether acquired by founding a Value, spread by an apostle, or left over from the previous owner, has a special building that can be built that adds the resource the Value is named after

as well as 3 cultural influence points.

The cheap culture feature is so powerful that for new star systems I routinely build interplanetary beacons (also cheap culture) and Value buildings until the system is producing 20 culture per turn. The rapidly spreading cultural influence of the star system then dispels the nearby Fog of War to some extent and allows plenty of roads to built to knock of barbarian space ships.

In fact one the cultural boundaries are intact the star system only needs one or two bombers
and a stealth ship or destroyer to fend off the barbarians.

It only if another civ attacks you that more defense becomes necessary.

There is no grand temple collecting income from the Values buildings like in Civ 4. Hence you would LIKE it if every single value was in every single one of your star systems due to the cultural expansion and base adders it brings.

So as currently coded there is absolutely no incentive to spread a Value you found to anywhere but star systems you conquer.

If would help the mod if a grand temple collecting income was added similar to vanilla Civ 4. Then the civs would have alot more incentive to allow open borders, and hence open up the possibility of trading resources with each other.

Artie said:

So long as I have [a] Value in [a] system I am able to build the special [Value] building and get some bonus.

When you convert to a Value you get the same type of bonus you had with regular civ and a religion in that you get 1 gold per system with the value. This way IF I don't found a value and am lucky enough to have those that do send an advocate (which just so happened in the last game I played) then I can build all the buildings in all my systems and get a nice bonus without ever converting to a value.

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What possible reason would a neighboring civ send an apostle of their Value (religion) to your star system if there is no grand temple of that Value collecting income (as in vanilla Civ 4)?

In fact sending that apostle and converting one of your planet does you a BIG FAVOR since now you can spread this Value throughout your whole empire and collect its immense benefits of Value specific buildings with CHEAP CULTURE.


One the other hand there is ZERO benefit to the civ that sent out this apostle other than the remote possibility you will convert to this Value as your new state religion and hence presumably become friendlier towards them.

Am I missing something????

Oneah said:

Can anyone explain me how do i control population growth and health in my system? I can't control my city's lvl and they keep complaining its too over crowded. Thanks

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Post #120 explains how to add health and happiness.

To "control" pop growth the answer is to carefully assign pop on your planets so as to have a balance of both production and food.

This may involve adding food, mining, or habituation (extra population capacity) to various planets.

When playing with the "always war" option on (single player or multiplayer) the AI can still send advocates to each other, but human players cannot.

When the leader who recieves -1food (Jack?) founds a system (with a white [3food] planet in the starting culture), it is STAGNANT at 1 pop. wtf. A 3 food planet, -1food, = a different leader with a 2food planet. 2 food planet = stagnant at 1 pop?

Maybe it has something to do with the trade routes/leader with trade bonus not working.

Each pop point consumes 2 food.

Your point? Or rather, if I misunderstood your post, why is that a problem?

HI some minor things and suggestions...

-Ace- promotion only available for squadrons, but squadrons do not get EXP.
(Unless maybe by great general, but you are going to fire his ass.)
(It IS possible to get the carrier-upgrades, but only by mopping up severely damaged pirates)

-Ferry-It might be a nice feature if population could be ferried from a overpopulated system to a developing one by colony ship.
or maybe migration via traderoutes to the more desirable system.

-UU-Civs using different graphics (aliens?), but I gather you will leave such graphical things to modders.

-Morecivs-Copy-paste civs with different leadernames/empirename. (to prevent clone-empires)


-upgrade idea- Upgrade that prevents damage from radiation belts, maybe shields3?

-random events- Stars going supernova unless a starfortress is built in x turns for example. Or slowly moving, expanding/receding radiation fields. A space monster. solarflare reducing LOS in system-range to adjacent squares only for x turns. aliens abducting your population: go get them back (or brigands: pay the ransom or else)

-Story ending- I agree with the others, that the backstory leaves the fate of Earth unexplained. However this also leaves room for expansion-mods to come up with exciting scenarios.

-city?- there are several texts that refer to 'star system' as 'city'.

-typo?- In one of the hints it states Stealth ships are only visible to other Stealth, this should be AND SCOUTS right?


Love the system graphics with the rotating planets and cities lighting them up when populated. Grand!
The spartan use of unittypes is refreshing.
Great job.
Glad to hear the pirates will use better ships and the AI will deploy missiles in the next patch.
Your continued support on your mod is greatly appreciated.

edit: solved:

Cabay Jet said:

Your point? Or rather, if I misunderstood your post, why is that a problem?

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It is a problem because when you found a system, you get certain improvements on one planet (nutrition and mining facility); yet, when "The Forge" founds a system, even with a white planet workable (3food), it is sometimes stagnant. There is no apparent reason, and it does not happen all the time. When it does happen, there is no descernable reason why. Perhaps I will start a game as the forge and worldbuilder a bunch of colony ships at star systems and see if one is stagnant after founding.

Another leader had a problem with "traits". The trade guy was not getting proper trade revenue because of a code route. Perhaps a code route is the problem with the Forge going stagnant at 1 pop for no apparent reason.

had this happen too once... took over the last of the Forge's systems, that happened to be a stagnant.
It stayed stagnant for quite a number of turns, but later the system started to grow anyhow.
(Maybe I switched the one pop to a better outer-ring planet and built a farm there, didn't pay too much attention to it then)

Just take it as a feature of the stunted-growth factions that some systems are dead ends.
Although I wonder if the AI can work around it. eg build influence buildings to get to the (hopefully better) outside planets.

After several games I've come to conclusion that doomsday missile is not usefull weapon. It only good when you are going to demolish somebody's system but this is rare case; more ofter you wish capture it and destroying best planet in system is not an option.

One more note concerning population. Why can't I move people between systems? It looks logical to move some transports (or whatever) to a newly founded system to quickly develop it.

Construction ships. Their AI is so bad that I was forced to refuse using it In spite of I have tens of them in all corners of the Empire they still ALL run for building just one thing in just one place. No doubt, ten ships complete job faster then just one or two but... when time to reach the destination is about 6-10 turns all benefits from quantity are lost - job get done before all the builders arrive I'd be satisfied if ship just get a modified command "build route" where I can specify key points for route. In current algorythm ships try using nearest routes to shorter path but in most cases I do not need existing lanes - I'm going to build new ones and this is the goal.

They might be ok if you could use them to blackmail in diplomacy.

"Fear my Weapons of Doom!", "Now bark like a dog!"

Simply depopulating a planet or destroying all buildings may be good too...
Like with nukes in vanilla, the animations are the only justification for using them anyhow.

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The biggest bug, IMO is the inability for squadrons to gain XP. They are allowed to have many upgrades, but are simply not able to use it.
-Allowing (by Python?) a fighter defence grid to function like a training ground for squadrons. like...if fortified/sentry/intercepting in system with FDG, 25% chance of +1Prestige to a Sq.
-Or a single barraks-like bonus plus 1prestige when succesfully bombing a unit/intercepting/etc.

Sq need alot of prestige to get to Ace! a minimum of 4 levels.

Arexack_heretic said:

They might be ok if you could use them to blackmail in diplomacy.

"Fear my Weapons of Doom!", "Now bark like a dog!"

Simply depopulating a planet or destroying all buildings may be good too...
Like with nukes in vanilla, the animations are the only justification for using them anyhow.

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The biggest bug, IMO is the inability for squadrons to gain XP. They are allowed to have many upgrades, but are simply not able to use it.
-Allowing (by Python?) a fighter defence grid to function like a training ground for squadrons. like...if fortified/sentry/intercepting in system with FDG, 25% chance of +1Prestige to a Sq.
-Or a single barraks-like bonus plus 1prestige when succesfully bombing a unit/intercepting/etc.

Sq need alot of prestige to get to Ace! a minimum of 4 levels.

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Hah the nukes in vanilla kick ass. I didn't try the doomsday missiles yet but I frequently use three or so nukes to bash the main fighting force of my enemy.

I once noted how much damage it did and if you really pull it off properly with a city that has both the Heroic Epic and Ironworks and dishes out a nuke every one or two turns you can remove a third of your opponent's fighting strength in the very first turn of the war which leaves the rest easy prey for your soldiers.

alpaca said:

...remove a third of your opponent's fighting strength in the very first turn of the war which leaves the rest easy prey for your soldiers.

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This is true only when you opponent is not developed well enough. Missiles are totally ineffective against well fortified systems: a missle does just 1-2% of damage (compare that to 50-60% in open space). That is why I was trying to use doomsdays against systems but their side effect is inacceptable in conquer wars. The only good application is "guard": in case of enemy's battleship breaks your defense and enters habitate space you may demolish it just by one shot (btw cost of doomsday and battleship is almost equal).

-IH- said:

This is true only when you opponent is not developed well enough. Missiles are totally ineffective against well fortified systems: a missle does just 1-2% of damage (compare that to 50-60% in open space). That is why I was trying to use doomsdays against systems but their side effect is inacceptable in conquer wars. The only good application is "guard": in case of enemy's battleship breaks your defense and enters habitate space you may demolish it just by one shot (btw cost of doomsday and battleship is almost equal).

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Yes, we also had the theory that the doomsday missiles could be good against stacks which consist mainly of battleships (I believe humans will often tend towards using them because they save a lot in maintenance).
However against the AI you can't properly put it to the test as it's pretty passive.

Anyone else not able to bombard improvements with squadron/missiles?
or is it just that 'lanes are not bombardable?

I've seen the changes for the next patch, but i notice a bug in FF and so... there it goes! : planes can recon over nebulas, but space ships can't enter them; but space is 3-D, so planes shouldn't be able to fly over them... or... the should be passable for everyone, but with about 3 movement cost and 50% damage per turn

What do you think?

The AI would blunder blindly into them, like they do for black holes.

Strange that.
There is quite a bit of AI-code dealing with routeplanning and avoidance of hazardous terrain. (Maybe just confusing the 'best route' planner code for AI code here.)