Any hope for another patch?

[Ripster8]

Gentlemen,

RFTS is a good, inexpensive and enjoyable 4X space game. I was especially pleased with the easy download of the game and its modability (is that a word?). In any case, I have spent many hours of my life fighting off the Hive hordes - the foul buggers can colonize just about any planet! - and hunting down the evil Klaakeen. But I have yet to experience the joy of total victory. I don't even know if there is a victory screen. And why is that, you may ask? No, it is not because of my mediocre playing skills - a sad fact to which I freely admit. It is because of the horrid late-game CTD! I really don't think it is sound-related, as some of the other threads seem to indicate. I think that the little game engine just gets overwhelmed! By late in the game there are usually 4-5 species still breathing, and they could each have several thousand starships. I would guess that it is all too much for RFTS to keep track of! Isn't there a simple way to cap the number of ships each side can have? Or should I play on smaller galaxies (I admit to a weakness for huge galaxies)? Perhaps if there was a maintenance cost for ships, taken our of your RPs each turn? Thank you for your time and please call me -

Kurt

[matt3916]

Ripster -- My impression is that RFtS is experiencing two different types of problems.

First, inability to get the game to play. Seems to occur with "newer" (post Win 98) systems. Probably of most interest to Matrix. More people seem to be having this problem than the second one.

Second, CTDs late in game. Occurs in the final scenario of the second campaign, also occurs in large random map scenarios. This situtation has been around since the beginning (and I mean the initial SSI release in 2000). There was some speculation about a memory leak but nothing was ever resolved.

[Ripster8]

Thanks, Jon. It would be a shame if they abandon this fine little game. I'll try some smaller galaxy random scenarios and we'll see what Matrix decides.

Kurt