New Public Beta v1.9.0.9 for DW Shadows

[Andrew Loveridge]

Hello All,

We have a new beta build for DW Shadows in the Members Club. It has a number of bug fixes, fixes some rare crashes, and makes adjustments to fleets, as well as other changes.

Please check it out, if you don't mind using a beta build, and let us know how it works for you.


V1.9.0.9 – August 2nd, 2013

Beta Update

CRASH FIXES [/b][ul] - fixed rare crash when generating new troops - fixed rare crash related to pirate missions - fixed various other crashes

BUG FIXES

- fixed problem where tech breakthroughs were not being applied for ruin encounters, abandoned ships and some other situations - fixed mining ships to handle situation when do not have luxury resource extractor components but are mining a planet/moon with luxury resources (i.e. will no longer stall at planet) - fixed bug where research locations were not showing in Empire Navigation Tool when your empire had no buildable research station designs - now ensure that Retrofit Stance setting is properly applied to new ships and bases from their design (Default Retrofit Stance) - fixed problem where ships captured by an enemy were sometimes not being attacked

MILITARY SHIPS, FLEETS AND COMBAT

- groups of military ships (e.g. fleets) are now much better at balancing targetting of multiple enemy threats so that they do not all attack a single enemy. However they will still gang up on an enemy when no other targets are nearby - military ships are now much better at firing at nearby enemies even when pursuing other targets - unautomated fleets will now always properly honor manual commands and thus will no longer auto-respond to intercept incoming enemy fleets and planet destroyers - reduced the frequency that idle auto-controlled fleets refuel when in the same system as refuelling points - idle fleets will now always return to home base, regardless of whether the home base is nearby or not

AREA WEAPONS

- epicenter of area weapons is no longer centered on firer. Instead area weapons now fire at target and the damage shockwave expands from the target (similar to area gravity weapons)

GAME BALANCE

- reduced bonuses from most wonders, especially for wonders focused on colony income and empire research

DESIGNS

- changed behavior of "Manually Upgrade Design" button in Designs screen so that previous design not obsoleted unless new design saved - if your empire cannot build a design, the reason is now explained in the hover tooltip of the construction Action buttons (when Spaceport selected), e.g. design too big, missing tech

OTHER

- added pirate strength option in Game setup. Decreasing pirate strength makes for an easier game, with pirates closer to the weaker, old-style Legends pirates - Ancient Guardians no longer automatically declare war on empires building victory wonders

[/ul]

[flight2q]

> - reduced bonuses from most wonders, especially for wonders focused on colony income and empire research

Awesome. Lots of other good stuff too!

[Titan32]

AREA WEAPONS


- epicenter of area weapons is no longer centered on firer. Instead area weapons now fire at target and the damage shockwave expands from the target (similar to area gravity weapons) ]

[X(] [X(] [X(]

Awesome patch, thank you! [&o]

[Algoritm]

- changed behavior of "Manually Upgrade Design" button in Designs screen so that previous design not obsoleted unless new design saved

Yep, that was definatly a pain when you wanted to manually check your design, cancel and find it dissapeared in the long list of obsoletes.

- groups of military ships (e.g. fleets) are now much better at balancing targetting of multiple enemy threats so that they do not all attack a single enemy. However they will still gang up on an enemy when no other targets are nearby

And that sounds great [:)]

[Starke]

Highly approve of all the changes. What disclaimers come with this being a beta build? (should we expect possible bugs or crashes? a stable version of these changes in a week? additional tweaks before the next "full" patch?)

[t1it]

Wonders finally nerf'd. Time to pick this up again then...

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Starke
Highly approve of all the changes. What disclaimers come with this being a beta build? (should we expect possible bugs or crashes? a stable version of these changes in a week? additional tweaks before the next "full" patch?)

There are enough significant changes in this one that we wanted to give it a bit more testing time before declaring it official. It simply means that it is a bit more risky as far as bugs go, but if you are up for giving it a try we would appreciate your feedback to make sure it's ready to be an official update.

Regards,

- Erik

[ASHBERY76]

Because area effect is now relevant should the A.I template design be updated too? They basically ignored the area weapon before.

[Erik Rutins]

Agreed, we will get to that as well.

[Strat_84]

ORIGINAL: ASHBERY76
Because area effect is now relevant should the A.I template design be updated too? They basically ignored the area weapon before.

Don't put the cart before the horse, the area effect has to work properly first. And with what I've seen I understand better why the patch got a beta sticker. [:'(]

Even if it was working, I also have mixed feelings about that change.

When several ships are attacking a much bigger target (a space station for example), they usually are all around it. That means an area weapon is really interesting in a defensive use with a blast centered on the ship on which it is installed.
If the blast is centered on a target, I don't expect it to be very efficient, according to the usual placement of ships, and the range of the blast, you often won't hit more than a single ship, two or three if you're very lucky.
The blast on target seems relevant only in particular situations, if the targets are artificially attracted in the blast area (gravitic weapon), or maybe with a very large blast area (super weapon).

Instead, I think an elegant design would be to keep a blast centered on the firering ship as it used to be, and rather work on the AI to make the weapon usable. With 2 main axis to develop:
- Make sure the area weapon doesn't fire if it doesn't do much more damage to enemies than friendlies/neutrals in the area (something that could be adapted to the kind of weapon, for example I often used the ion pulse weapon as it was, it was great at disrupting massive attacks without irreparably harming my ships or neutral civilians)
- Have friendly ships avoiding the dangerous area when a ship/station with area weapons is fighting
And a bonus, if it doesn't already exist: have a minimum distance between automaticaly placed defence stations/spaceports so that they can't shoot each others with area weapons.

[Yarasala]

Even better, devise a logic that centers the effect on target or origin, whatever has more effect. Actually there should be an option to influence the firing attitude. More evil empires would surely accept more collateral damage than more friendly empires.

[Darkspire]

ORIGINAL: Yarasala

Actually there should be an option to influence the firing attitude. More evil empires would surely accept more collateral damage than more friendly empires.

Why? If the concept of good and evil empires was introduced it would make things much more interesting. If a race is evil than wiping out out good empires would be the thing to do and vice-versa, we have the Darkness government and the Light one but it stops there, the only given thing for assuming those governments is the bonuses they give, the empire reputation takes a hit if you step over to the darkside, you can not really play as an evil empire, for example have a look in the F1 Colony screen, in the population tab it will say 'we are proud of our empires good reputation' would be good if your choices could lead to an evil empire like GalCiv, so that if you want penal colonies and nuking planets your empire should then become proud of there evil status. The most wanted and asked for thing on the wish list for DW is the policy for individual races, so you can enslave bugs but leave others alone for example and with that in mind you could then enslave / exterminate the 'good' races, bolstering your evil reputation.

Darkspire

[Yarasala]

Ok, you are right in that the difference between "good" and "evil" is not very significant in the current version of the game. But perhaps that changes some time in the future, especially since it's so prominent on the wish list. I too have the opinion that the differences between the races are not pronounced enough.

[Plant]

Not sure if this is the right place to say this, but in this test patch, I have noticed that newly built ships don't automatically fill up their shields quickly when built. instead tey start at 0 and slowly recharge at default rate.

[Demonius]

Hasnt it been this way since the very start?

[Cauldyth]

Always been that way to the best of my knowledge.

[Jeeves]

Always been that way, but if you design with an energy collector early, then reactors, then shields, the shields will often be charged by the time the ship builds.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Plant]

Silly me, I shouldn't post when sleepy. Guess I designed differently from normal.

[jamthree]

There has kinda been a long standing issue with private sector ships taking forever to retrofit to a new design but it seems really bad with 1.9. I watched my mining ships after an upgrade and one did it with about 3 months and the other one still hadn't gone in for a refit after 3 years.

[Trev_lite]

i scrapped a research base while a scientist was transferring to another research station and he was killed because of the scrapping.
i thought that this bug was fixed. also he was no longer at that base, he was on route to my new research station.