Chat Session With Aaron

[Combat Wombat]

Aaron aka Malfador the developer of Space Empires 5 will be in #spaceempires on irc.freenode.net at 6PM PST on the 7th of this month. He will be answering questions about SE5.

If you have a question for him but are not able to attend I can ask them if you want to email them to 'cwombat at gmail dot com'

[Caduceus]

Woo! Thanks for the notice, CW!

[Atrocities]

That chat is going to be a huge mess. I just might log on to watch the event.

[mac5732]

I do hope there will be some moderator or at least some moderation from those attending. Aaron is there to answer questions and help us gamers.. I hope those attending realize this important fact and don't go off on tangents to the point he won't chat with us again....

[Spoo]

Will you post a transcript after the chat?

[Combat Wombat]

There will be a transscript posted like always http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

The chat will be moderated if things get out of hand people will get kicked.

edit: and for those of you confused by the whole timezone thing here is a countdown clock brought to us by Zagethy/Tevlik. http://zagethy.com/countdown.php

[Atrocities]

Can people submit a list of questions for Aaron to read Prior to the chat that way we can get many of the more common questions out of the way right off the top?

[Combat Wombat]

Ya people can email questions to me and I will sort through them and remove copies

[Atrocities]

Lets see if they do email any questions. I will bet no one will. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/frown.gif If any one does it won't be in any great number though.

I have a few I would like to ask:

1. How have sales been?
2. Has SFI offered any assistance in the programing department especially and specificially in working out the bugs?
3. When can we expect an expansion pack?
4. Are the semi negative reviews hurting the sales of the game?
5. Why release the game when there were still significant bugs present knowing that the reviewers would focus on that and use it to rate the game poorly thus harming sales?

[Santiago]

Is the UI going to be worked on?

[Timstone]

7. When will you supply women with the game? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif
On a more serious note:
8. Will you work on a patch which adds even more damagetypes?

CW:
I've e-mailed question number 8. Thanks for the notice, great work!

[Phoenix-D]

Timstone: you realize DamageTypes.txt is modable, right? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif you can add as many as you like..

[Ed Kolis]

Combat Wombat said:
edit: and for those of you confused by the whole timezone thing here is a countdown clock brought to us by Zagethy/Tevlik. http://zagethy.com/countdown.php



Umm, that clock seems to be off... unless PST is something other than Pacific Standard Time, it seems to be implying that the chat will be happening at 10 in the morning for Aaron, not 6 in the evening... is the clock set to count down to 6 PM GMT instead of 6 PM PST???

[Combat Wombat]

Ya its fuxored now, it was correct yesterday. Last time I depend on Zeg for my countdown clock needs http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Timstone]

Phoenix-D said:
Timstone: you realize DamageTypes.txt is modable, right? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif you can add as many as you like..



Ehh... no I did not... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/redface.gif
*sneaks away in a dark corner of The Cantina*


------------------Thread hijack--------------------
To hijack this thread a bit.
Can I put in the Damagetypes.txt a damagetype that will cause the weapon in question to fire all weapons at the same time?
If not, then I want to ask Aaron that.
------------------------------------------------------

[Ed Kolis]

I plan on being there, but just in case...

"You said you'd release the source code for SE2 and SE3 once SE5 came out. Any plans to make good on that promise, or does the SFI buyout preclude that?"

[Phoenix-D]

I might be there, but:

-Ships can't generate research or intelligence right now, or use any of the planet abilities (eg Solar Resource Generation). Any plans to change that?

[Noble713]

When can we expect a map editor? How about a full-fledged scenario editor?

Any possibility of removing hard-coded component limitations, such as only one Afterburner per fighter effective?

[Baal]

I'm interested in the full scenerio/map editor as well.

[Suicide Junkie]

Timstone said:
Can I put in the Damagetypes.txt a damagetype that will cause the weapon in question to fire all weapons at the same time?
If not, then I want to ask Aaron that.

Wha?
Firing all your weapons at once is a function of your strategies, weapon ranges and reload rates. Nothing to do with damage types at all, aside from shield depleters vs unshielded ships, or weapon disruptors and things like that.
FYI:
Just to be sure we're on the same page; Damage Types are things like double damage to shields, or Engines-Only. Or "45% armor skipping", or "90% normal shield skipping, 66% Phased shield skipping, but only 33% Multiphased shield skipping"

[Matryx]

SJ: only reason I can think he may have suggested that would be for some sort of battle-rage-inducing-psychic-beam which forces them to shoot everything at just a single target (thus ruining point defense, or making swarm attacks harder to defend against)? Who knows http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[Raapys]

Ships already do that. It's part of the whole 'overkill' problem actually.

[Fyron]

Combat Wombat said:
edit: and for those of you confused by the whole timezone thing here is a countdown clock brought to us by Zagethy/Tevlik. http://zagethy.com/countdown.php

This is broken; the chat is 8 hours from now.

[Combat Wombat]

Ya this was already mentioned earlier in the thread Fyron

[Phoenix-D]

Another simple question:

Does he actual use the bug report system at spaceempires5.com, or should we be emailing everything in?

[Artaud]

Here's a question: will anything be done about the size of ship icons? Will they be made larger (i.e., easier to see)?

[Suicide Junkie]

Larger?!
They're already blotting out the view of two or three hexes.

[Combat Wombat]

2:30 left till the chat starts

[Phoenix-D]

SJ: he means the actual ships, not the flags.

That can be fixed with a mod, like the flags, but I haven't found a way to increase the ship size ONLY on the strategic map, which can make combat kind of clunky..

[Atrocities]

Aren't they adjustable now?