Public Beta for Legends v1.7.0.14 now Available!

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: WiZz

And where are bombs? [:(]

In the bomb bay?[:'(]

[WiZz]

I meant, where is bombard weapon in design tuning?

[Falokis]

ORIGINAL: WiZz

I meant, where is bombard weapon in design tuning?

I'm hoping they are coming with missiles and other options. I'm hoping this is a first step to test the mechanics. If so, I'm happy to be patient.

[ASHBERY76]

ORIGINAL: WiZz

I meant, where is bombard weapon in design tuning?

If Bombard is researched it pops 1 on the ship design from my test.

[Shark7]

OK, after playing it for a bit my comments:

1. Ship design influences seem to be working great. I set my little human empire to design ships that were shield, blaster and engine very heavy...end result was only being able to build escorts, but those escorts were triple shielded, had a speed of 48 and 4 blasters. This is spot on from my point of view. This will be essential to modders in the near future, and since it is a savable file, it solves our whole designs delimma I think. But I do have a suggestion or two:

A. Introduce a player defined maximum ship size per class cap. For instance a drop down menu that allows me to set each ships individual max size according to current ship size capacity. Example: Escort Maximum ship size _________ % of current build capacity. That would allow me keep every ship from maxing its size and keep a little more difference between the classes.

B. A check box for 'Allow troops on Escorts and frigates'. Some people may like to do that, and I have a modded race in mind that theoretically would over-run planets the way that cockroaches over-run a kitchen...IE pure numbers. [;)]

2. Reserach focuses. Wonderfull...this allow me to tell each race where to specialize their research to take full advantage of of the design changes. Personally I will be making a custom policy file for each race that will likely put emphasis on construction as #1 so they can all stay competative through the game.

[ehsumrell1]

Well stated Shark7!

[Tophat1815]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

OK, after playing it for a bit my comments:

1. Ship design influences seem to be working great. I set my little human empire to design ships that were shield, blaster and engine very heavy...end result was only being able to build escorts, but those escorts were triple shielded, had a speed of 48 and 4 blasters. This is spot on from my point of view. This will be essential to modders in the near future, and since it is a savable file, it solves our whole designs delimma I think. But I do have a suggestion or two:

A. Introduce a player defined maximum ship size per class cap. For instance a drop down menu that allows me to set each ships individual max size according to current ship size capacity. Example: Escort Maximum ship size _________ % of current build capacity. That would allow me keep every ship from maxing its size and keep a little more difference between the classes.

B. A check box for 'Allow troops on Escorts and frigates'. Some people may like to do that, and I have a modded race in mind that theoretically would over-run planets the way that cockroaches over-run a kitchen...IE pure numbers. [;)]

2. Reserach focuses. Wonderfull...this allow me to tell each race where to specialize their research to take full advantage of of the design changes. Personally I will be making a custom policy file for each race that will likely put emphasis on construction as #1 so they can all stay competative through the game.

Agree 100% with your point A!

[Cauldyth]

Once you've got some good policy files for each race, care to share them?

[Imrryran]

I don't really understand: don't the devs intend to provide the best AI designs within the next patch?

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Imrryran

I don't really understand: don't the devs intend to provide the best AI designs within the next patch?

Yes, but modders are still going to have to do it the hard way, and I think we all agree that being able to share policies and optimized designs is not a bad thing.

[Shadow Tiger]

Just spotted this and grabbed the beta.

ORIGINAL: Andrew Loveridge
Change List

v1.7.0.14 Beta - May 5th, 2012

DESIGNS AND RETROFITTING

- added new AI design settings in Empire Policy screen.
-- Can now fine-tune how designs are generated with settings like how many shields, engines, weapons are used, etc.
-- Thus each race now has a particular set of focuses for their ship and base designs.
-- Also have multiple new tech focus settings (now 6, instead of 2) which are used to guide which research projects the AI selects
- reviewed base AI design templates for all ships and bases so that AI designs are more challenging to play against
- ensured that new designs properly obsolete old designs of the same type (e.g. Carrier, Resupply Ship)
- auto-retrofitting no longer downgrades spaceport sizes when population is below threshold at a colony (but will still upgrade spaceport sizes when retrofitting)
- toggling the auto-retrofit settings in the Designs screen now also propagates these changes to all individual ships/bases of that design. This ensures that ships are not auto-retrofitted when their role is set to not auto-retrofit

GLEE!!!

The ship fine tuning is the bulk of the design policy ideas we came up with, which is seriously cool. I saw this and thought Wow, already?! Looks like a few of the weapon types are missing, but as ASHBERY noted it seems the alt techs are used if that's where you tech focus instead. Very slick!

And 6 tech focus areas, thank you! Between those two things I think the AI empires will take on much more life of their own. Can't wait to get some play time this weekend.

[Imrryran]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: Imrryran
I don't really understand: don't the devs intend to provide the best AI designs within the next patch?

Yes, but modders are still going to have to do it the hard way, and I think we all agree that being able to share policies and optimized designs is not a bad thing.

Of course, but I had concerns about different modders providing different policies/designs without any easy way for players to find out which ones are the best.

Integration of the best results from modders and players into an official patch makes much more sense to me and I wanted to be sure that was the developers' intentions. [:)]

[necaradan666]

hi, just a question should I update to beta patch version from the official patch version or from base game version?

[demiller]

I've always upgrade directly from the last patch and didn't have any issues.

[tornnight]

I can't seem to run the beta.exe installer.

It simply says "not compatible with my computer. Check if you you need a 32-bit or 64-bit version..."

Almost like it is corrupt download.

[Kayoz]

Any word on a time-frame for an update? Given the stability issues in 1.7.0.14, I'm surprised there hasn't been one yet.

[chrono280]

I was about to ask the same thing

Looks great, but I don't want to rush them.

[Bleek]

I'm thinking of getting back in to DW and buying Legends, what's the stability like of the latest release?

[HectorOfTroy]

No issues here.

[Fishers of Men]

The Legends expansion is a MUST. The 1.7.0.15 beta patch work well for me, also.