Starships Unlimited: DG v1.1 Patch Released

Erik Rutins · Post by **Erik Rutins** » Mon Jan 21, 2002 9:04 am

Hello all, just wanted to make sure the main news announcement was echoed here along with the official patch link...

Thanks to comments from the game's numerous fans, Matrix Games announced today that a patch for Starships Unlimited: Divided Galaxies is available from their website at http://www.matrixgames.com/updates_2.asp

The v1.1 patch includes 13 new features and fixes, including:
A new cheat code allows players to double the maximum speed of the game.
All worlds will now have at least a 5% chance of stopping spies
Made the AI players more challenging in Intermediate/Advanced levels
Deep Mining Facilities no longer make Underground cities obsolete
Improved research choices made by the AI
Improved production choices made by the AI
Killer Beam no longer can give multiple shots
Corrected some context-sensitive help messages related to shortcut keys
'About to go into battle' messages no longer repeat when multiple ships are going into battle
Mine logic improved when tracking multiple targets
Improved video rendering at start of game
Added a new icon
Fixed a few random bugs that caused the game to crash.

Best Regards,

- Erik

vmxa1 · Post by **vmxa1** » Tue Jan 22, 2002 12:07 am

Great but what is the code to use faster speed.

Andrew Ewanchyna · Post by **Andrew Ewanchyna** » Tue Jan 22, 2002 1:16 am

[home]+f+a+s+t (e.g. [home]fast).

Use [home]slow to revert back to normal 5x.

It should also be in the readme.txt that came with the patch.

[ January 21, 2002: Message edited by: Andrew Ewanchyna ]</p>

rjosh · Post by **rjosh** » Tue Jan 22, 2002 1:19 pm

Starships Unlimited is almost classic, but a couple things need fixing.

1) Multiplayer. Does not need pauses or manual combat, but support for programs like Gamespy Arcade and All-Seeing Eye.

Without multiplayer a game needs tryku good, challenging AI, and in STUN

2) AI is still a pushover. Patch helped, but not enough. I still can't lose.

Some notions:
-Standoff weapons rule. Too much.

-AI is not aggressive enough. In one game it had total upper hand, but still it never finished the job. That job being me.

-AI has loads of money but only one ship. Instead it builds planets full of generators, while I destroy freighter routes.

vmxa1 · Post by **vmxa1** » Tue Jan 22, 2002 10:44 pm

Andrew, I do not have a readme with the patch. Can it me downloaded?

Erik Rutins · Post by **Erik Rutins** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 4:20 am

The patch does indeed install the new readme.txt file. Just looking your Starships Unlimited directory. By default, that's C:\MatrixGames\Starships Unlimited Divided Galaxies .

Regards,

- Erik

Andrew Ewanchyna · Post by **Andrew Ewanchyna** » Wed Jan 23, 2002 8:47 pm

Rogan, this is the kind of constructive criticism that I like to hear. I always like to improve the ai, especially it's aggressiveness. I'm assuming you're playing on the Advanced level of play, of course. As for finding a world with a bunch of generators, I'm guessing you caught the world with its pants down, upgrading a bunch of things by first scrapping some old stuff.

Let me know how you find the latest ai. Is it better during the exploration phase?

Does it keep up in worlds and starships with you?

How about with technologies and ages?

Are you using fleets alot? Is this how you paired it down to one ship?

Does it do a good job of keeping it's ships and worlds updated with it's latest technologies?

Do you expect the ai to constantly attack your worlds when it has the upper hand?

The more information you or others provide me, the better the ai can be.

rjosh · Post by **rjosh** » Thu Jan 24, 2002 4:41 am

Originally posted by Andrew Ewanchyna:
I'm assuming you're playing on the Advanced level of play, of course. As for finding a world with a bunch of generators, I'm guessing you caught the world with its pants down, upgrading a bunch of things by first scrapping some old stuff.

Actually it was Fed partners planet. About 8-10 generators, which is a bit overkill.

Let me know how you find the latest ai. Is it better during the exploration phase?

I'd say so. At least I see a lot of scouts.

Does it keep up in worlds and starships with you?

Worlds yes. Starships seem to be problem. Even if AI has lots of money (around 10.000) it has a fleet of one ship.

How about with technologies and ages?

Depends, but mainly yes.

Are you using fleets alot? Is this how you paired it down to one ship?

No, I use fleets only when attacking planets or strong ships. My main choice of weapons are Stand-Off Weapons. Fly in, shoot SOW's, run away.

Does it do a good job of keeping it's ships and worlds updated with it's latest technologies?

Well enough.

Do you expect the ai to constantly attack your worlds when it has the upper hand?

Yes. Thats what I would do. Last game AI could have exterminated me, but then it stopped attacking. When somebody is down, AI should go for the kill.

Some things I think AI should do:

Spies should try to steal my wisdom artifacts whenever they can, and keep me in Stone Age. Second most important target should be technology and money.

AI should not be so keen to offer me star systems and/or 500 dollars. You should add 100 and 250 dollars donations. These donations have too many times saved my *** .

Metalli · Post by **Metalli** » Thu Jan 24, 2002 10:53 pm

If you have same philosophy, then I dont think AI should attack so easily. On the other-hand, when the philosophy is different it should attack even for smaller reasons. This is how I have experienced AI to act, so there isnt need to change that.

What comes to the donations, mayby there should be more options. But as far as I know only those with same philosophy give you donations so often.