A preview of the v1.9.5.5 Change List

[Erik Rutins]

This build will be available as a public beta today, hopefully as an official update next Tuesday.

This build has the following changes from 1.9.5.4:

CRASH FIXES
- added extra safeguards to help prevent crashes when using faulty themes

BUG FIXES
- now cancel intelligence missions when target colony or base conquered, destroyed, etc
- fixed bug where sometimes getting tech bonuses from disassembling ships without advanced tech
- Ion Defense and Tractor Beams no longer counted as weapons when checking civilian designs in Ship Design editor
- ensure never load pirate raider troops when loading troops onto transports (e.g. loading troops from own colony while attacking pirate base)
- ensure custom planetmaps getting loaded ('other' folder)
- ensure mouse scroll wheel retains focus when Character and Empire Policy screens are closed
- ensure colonies only appear once in Top Colonies screen, even when controlled by pirates

MODDING
- NEW MODDING FEATURE: defined Research path. Optionally allow specifying project order for a race for each tech tree (see new entries in race files: WeaponsResearchProjectOrder, EnergyResearchProjectOrder, HighTechResearchProjectOrder)
- reverted file loading for certain files to be encoding neutral, i.e. does not matter whether ANSI or UTF-8 (resources.txt, components.txt, research.txt)
- increased maximum government amount to 60 (governments.txt)
- increased maximum planetary facility amount to 100 (facilities.txt)
- increased maximum fighter amount to 50 (fighters.txt)

USER INTERFACE
- increased font sizes for main menu items when screen resolution is greater than 1920x1080
- increased font size for Galactopedia topic index
- increased font size of hover panel at bottom-middle of screen
- increased font size in Game Options screens
- slightly increased font size in main view for system names, nebula names, etc
- increased font size of tradeable items in Diplomacy trade screen
- increased font size in hover tech descriptions in Diplomacy trade screen
- increased font size in Component Guide screen (Design Detail screen and Research screen)
- ensure correct empire remains selected in Diplomacy screen when conclude trade deal

GAME BALANCE AND AI
- further improved AI ship design: no longer add too many extra reactors, nor remove too many shield components, when attempting to shrink a new design to fit within construction size limits
- increased chance of counterintelligence missions successfully intercepting enemy intelligence missions, especially for agents with high counterintelligence skill levels
- random government selection more balanced (no longer frequently choosing Military Dictatorship)
- initial home system ruins (Age of Shadows) now never contain system map bonuses
- reduced number of spaceports empire builds when has low population
- increased maximum fleet count. Now relates to overall number of ships and bases, up to maximum of 100 fleets
- AI empires now check whether colony is safe to build at prior to initiating research station construction (e.g. check for nearby pirates)

PIRATES
- ensure pirate smuggling freighters repair at pirate base when damaged
- ensure pirate smuggling freighters retrofit when necessary and able
- empire will not detect and attack pirate smugglers when they are smuggling resources for that empire
- ensure that pirate-owned colonies are included when checking for wonder completion
- pirate factions now get research bonuses from scientists at their bases
- pirate factions can now change their home base to any space port in their empire by selecting new option in right-click pop-up menu

OTHER
- ensure that new settings and savegame folder locations are properly created (My Documents\My Games\Distant Worlds Universe)

[Max 86]

increased font sizes...hip hip hooray! [:D]

[dejagore]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
[...]
GAME BALANCE AND AI[/b]
- further improved AI ship design: no longer add too many extra reactors, nor remove too many shield components, when attempting to shrink a new design to fit within construction size limits

Nice! Will try that one. Hope it fixes the 'no shield' issue for AI design spaceships.

[Icemania]

Lots of interesting elements as always but this new feature is a highlight ...

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
- NEW MODDING FEATURE: defined Research path. Optionally allow specifying project order for a race for each tech tree (see new entries in race files: WeaponsResearchProjectOrder, EnergyResearchProjectOrder, HighTechResearchProjectOrder)

Our Modders can now make some significant AI improvements particularly if this is combined with Ship Design Template improvements!

Woohoo!

[Cauldyth]

Awesome!

[Osito]

Looking forward to seeing the new fonts improvements...

However, I would say that I recently (i.e., yesterday) moved back to a 27 inch monitor and in my opinion the clarity of the fonts in the game (as of 1.9.5.4) is fine, even at 2560x1440 resolution. I speak as someone with pretty crap eyesight, who has complained about this aspect of the game in the past. I appreciate the improvements.

Osito

[necaradan666]

Hope the fonts don't end up getting too big, I complained before the Shadows update too but the latest one with the empire navigation tool on setting three was just too massive, the icons got blurry. I don't want that to happen all over the UI unless it's optional like the empire navigation tool is.

[GVind]

Nice to see pirates got some fixes.

[MrFreeze]

happy to see increased font size... literally [:D]

[ASHBERY76]

Will the defined Research path have an option for a random choice? I would prefer to add some random in-between.

[Nanaki]

I am impressed. This looks like it will be a very good patch.

[Rhikore]

Devs, I am working on collaborating with some other modders to spice things up a bit, and was wondering
If it is possible to open up the Sub-characteristics of the Main Characteristics so that we could further define AI Behavior, and Racial Flavor.

I think the best approach would be to carefully define the Sub-characteristics for each main Characteristic, and then assign numerical values in the range of the main Characteristics to the Sub.
Thus the main Characteristic value would become an average composite of the sub-Characteristics.

Thoughts and Commentary appreciated!

P.S. Regarding the defined research paths: Will we be able to make multiple path profiles per race? The idea would be to eliminate certain foreknowledge of racial research, to some degree anyway.

P.P.S. Devs, Excellent work the last few patches!

[Rhikore]

Bump: Would love a response here!

[hyme]

ORIGINAL: Rhikore

Bump: Would love a response here!

I just been one day on the weekend.

[Rhikore]

The Post had fallen down the page quite a bit!
[:'(]

[hyme]

ORIGINAL: Rhikore

The Post had fallen down the page quite a bit!
[:'(]

then lets have one more bump then.[:D]

[Keston]

- random government selection more balanced (no longer frequently choosing Military Dictatorship)

This is well and good. A military dictatorship is normally a transitional institution triggered by events and if it survives tends to develop legitimacy in another form.

Does the AI change form of government voluntarily, and if by events, what kind of triggers and what scope of new form?