SE5 Patch 1.13 Out

[Matryx]

Here (http://www.strategyfirst.ca/downloads/patches/se5patch_v113.exe) - 17.8MB

(http://www.strategyfirst.ca/downloads/patches/se5patch_v113.exe)

Thanks to Sysop again for getting this uploaded sooner rather than later.

Note: As usual, STEAM users will have to wait for STEAM to process the patch and release their own version - so expect it "shortly" (last time was just a few hours)

Changelog: http://www.strategyfirst.ca/downloads/patches/se5patch_v113.txt

[Combat Wombat]

W00t sooner than expected

Version 1.13:
1. Fixed - Sometimes the TCP/IP Host would not send the first turn game file to the players.
2. Fixed - Planet structure points were too high.
3. Fixed - "Propulsion Experts" racial trait was giving movement to bases.
4. Fixed - Some designs would lose racial trait effects on load of game.
5. Fixed - Text was overruning the side of the Set Construction Queue lists.
6. Fixed - A ship constructing a vehicle cannot retreat from combat.
7. Added - Whether a vehicle can retreat from combat to the Combat Piece Report.
8. Fixed - Repulser beams will not knock a ship past the retreat border.
9. Fixed - A ship cannot retreat into a blocked sector (such as a star).
10. Fixed - If all retreat locations are blocked, no retreat is possible.
11. Fixed - In the Construction Queues window, the On Hold and Repeat filters were switched.
12. Fixed - "Upgrade Facilities" action on the Construction Queues window would not work correctly
if upgrades were already present in the queue.
13. Changed - Some weapon balancing.
14. Fixed - More than one Emergency Resupply or Emergency Reordnance pod could be put on a ship.
15. Fixed - AI was sending multiple colonizers to the same planet.
16. Fixed - AI was trying to retrofit ships that had cargo.
17. Fixed - Sometimes ships which could drop troops or capture ships would just sit still.
18. Fixed - Crew were too strong in defense of a ship during ship capture.
19. Added - "Space Combat Crew Boarding Strength" in Settings.txt which sets the base race combat strength.
20. Fixed - Sometimes finding ruins would cause a crash.

[Dizzy]

Can I install this over 1.08? Or do I need to uninstall SEV, reinstall and then repatch?

[Matryx]

You can install straight over 1.08

[Phoenix-D]

Well, at least some of the 1.13 fixes didn't work- you can still slap multiple Emergency Resupply pods on a ship, boarding parties don't work (I think that one is thanks to the fact that crews just will not DIE at the moment, even to Toxin Injectors and the like)

Odd little quirk I've found: the RAM order no longer works. A ship with a ram strategy will ram, but you can't order it manually. Plus ships don't use the Z-axis anymore; they just clip right through their targets!

[Ragnarok-X]

Uh...
1.3 kb/s download, anyone ?

[President_Elect_Shang]

Me too, it took over 15 minutes to complete.

[AAshbery76]

Nice bandwidth SFI.What can these clowns do right.

[Ragnarok-X]

Weird President_Elect_Shang. You had 1.3 kb/s and were able to get 17 MB within 15 Minutes. You must use some space dimension x super connection.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Ha-ha-ha, oh boy…

Umm, what I was trying to say is that it might have not been that exact rate. However, it was very slow and with DSL it took over 15 minutes to get a paltry 17MB.

Sorry, didn’t think I would be taken so literally. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/shock.gif

[Combat Wombat]

Ragnarok-X said:
Weird President_Elect_Shang. You had 1.3 kb/s and were able to get 17 MB within 15 Minutes. You must use some space dimension x super connection.



Heh just got mine installed yesterday, price is alittle high(since it is in dimension x dollars) but I think it will be worth it.

[Fyron]

We have started up a torrent of the patch:
http://kazharii.no-ip.com:6969

[Atrocities]

A nice patch to be sure.

[AAshbery76]

Download it from here
http://www.gamershell.com/download_16299.shtml

[Q]

I get an average of 4,5kB/s that means more than an hour of download!
Strategy First should really buy a better server.
Aashbery you saved my day with your link: average speed 366kB/s!!

[Raapys]

Very nice patch. At this rate the game will be finished very soon, I think. Time to start on new features!

Gamershell went quick, had the patch before I could choose where to store it O_O

[Dizzy]

Can anyone confirm boarding parties are still broken?

[AngleWyrm]

The torrent tracker link (http://kazharii.no-ip.com:6969/torrents/se5patch_v113.exe.torrent?72BC8895F930D0503CD8474D 48A57678CD9BD47F) is workin for me (over 50Kbs and climbing)

[Q]

The new combat retreat works excellent after a first small test. Not only did three of my unarmed repairships retreat during combat, but they returned to their fleet after combat (and had used two strategic movement points for that).

[Q]

In the combat simulator the boarding crew of empire A enters the enemy ship of empire B (a small flag indicates the presence of the marines on that ship), but the boarded ship still acts under the control of the original empire B and fires on ships of empire A. So boarding is still broken IMO.

[AAshbery76]

Did MM even test it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[TheDeadlyShoe]

the complete patch notes:


Version 1.13:
1. Fixed - Sometimes the TCP/IP Host would not send the first turn game file to the players.
2. Fixed - Planet structure points were too high.
3. Fixed - "Propulsion Experts" racial trait was giving movement to bases.
4. Fixed - Some designs would lose racial trait effects on load of game.
5. Fixed - Text was overruning the side of the Set Construction Queue lists.
6. Fixed - A ship constructing a vehicle cannot retreat from combat.
7. Added - Whether a vehicle can retreat from combat to the Combat Piece Report.
8. Fixed - Repulser beams will not knock a ship past the retreat border.
9. Fixed - A ship cannot retreat into a blocked sector (such as a star).
10. Fixed - If all retreat locations are blocked, no retreat is possible.
11. Fixed - In the Construction Queues window, the On Hold and Repeat filters were switched.
12. Fixed - "Upgrade Facilities" action on the Construction Queues window would not work correctly
if upgrades were already present in the queue.
13. Changed - Some weapon balancing.
14. Fixed - More than one Emergency Resupply or Emergency Reordnance pod could be put on a ship.
15. Fixed - AI was sending multiple colonizers to the same planet.
16. Fixed - AI was trying to retrofit ships that had cargo.
17. Fixed - Sometimes ships which could drop troops or capture ships would just sit still.
18. Fixed - Crew were too strong in defense of a ship during ship capture.
19. Added - "Space Combat Crew Boarding Strength" in Settings.txt which sets the base race combat strength.
20. Fixed - Sometimes finding ruins would cause a crash.



Version 1.12:
1. Fixed - Some components were not showing up for weapon platforms.
2. Fixed - In the Alliance Chambers window, the Alliance Relations option would cause an error.
3. Fixed - Alliance votes were not completing.
4. Fixed - Game was not removing old Alliance log entries.
5. Fixed - Alliance messages had two headers on them.
6. Fixed - Alliance proposals wouldn't complete if no majority and all players had voted.
7. Fixed - Game was not removing old Alliance proposals.
8. Fixed - Empires added to an Alliance were remaining as individuals on Empire and Alliance windows.
9. Fixed - AI's were not voting in alliances.
10. Fixed - Planet's were keeping 1M population of all populations on the planet.
11. Fixed - Floating point error when try to move population in the Transfer Cargo window.
12. Fixed - You can't move ships in the Sector View if enemy ships are present.
13. Fixed - In Simultaneous games, combat should happen (in sectors with enemies) once per sector per
turn even if no ships move (unless combat already occured in the sector).
14. Fixed - Space combat now allows you to retreat if you move your ship past the circle border (and
it has strategic movement points left). Retreat costs 1 strategic movement point.
15. Fixed - Space combat no longer ends when the distance between enemies remains the same or increases.
16. Fixed - The combat border is now displayed on the overview map.



Version 1.11:
1. Fixed - Using the setting "Warp Points located anywhere in the system", warp points would sometimes
overlap stars or the center of a black hole.
2. Fixed - Ruins on planets were disappearing after the first turn.
3. Fixed - Sometimes ground combat would occur on a ship (the AI was loading enemy troops on his ships).
4. Fixed - Sometimes an error would occur if a fleet with no task forces engaged in combat.
5. Fixed - Fleets could exist with ships but no task forces.
6. Fixed - Intelligence spending should be cleared against an empire with which you've lost contact.
7. Fixed - "Can Be Placed On Vehicle Types" in Components.txt was not matching items correctly.
8. Fixed - "Component Type List" in Components.txt was not matching items correctly.
9. Fixed - Combat replay would create real unit groups from the combat.
10. Fixed - Units in ground combat were losing weapons even if the weapon was undamaged.
11. Fixed - Units were retaining maximum movement even if their engines were damaged.
12. Fixed - In Space or Ground Combat, the selection list would not change if the same number of items were selected.
13. Fixed - Units were showing 100% damaged in combat reports at the start of combat.
14. Fixed - In a Simultaneous Game, the sector view ship placements were not being maintained to the next turn.
15. Fixed - Sometimes the Movement Replay would cause an Access Violation.
16. Fixed - In a Simultaneous Game, name changes for vehicles were not being maintained on the next turn.
17. Fixed - Loading an empire from a file in Game Setup would lose all of its technology.
18. Fixed - Game Setup was incorrectly preventing some loaded empires because of technology.



Version 1.10:
1. Fixed - After using the Fleet Transfer window from the Space Simulator, all controls would be unresponsive.
2. Fixed - When selecting Set Fleets in the Space Simulator window, you are setting fleets for the
currently selected empire in the button panel. Only vehicles and fleets owned by that empire will
be displayed in the Fleet Transfer window.
3. Fixed - Simulated Empires were not getting their strategies from the current player.
4. Fixed - You shouldn't be able to press buttons while a Generate Map is in progress.
5. Fixed - The Launch/Recover Units window would sometimes crash when recovering a unit.
6. Fixed - Sometimes units in cargo would show damage with huge values.
7. Fixed - Sometimes when a planet rebelled and formed a new empire, an error occurred.
8. Fixed - A rebelling planet should start with the technology of its parent empire.
9. Fixed - A ship or unit is destroyed if all non-armor components are destroyed.
10. Fixed - You would get a black screen after the "Processing after all player turns..." was complete and
the autosave was taking place.
11. Fixed - Satellites, mines, and drones were taking part in Ground Combat.
12. Fixed - AI was not laying mines and dropping satellites on warp points.
13. Fixed - AI was not designating enough "Mining" colonies.
14. Fixed - AI was not surveying unexplored systems properly.
15. Fixed - AI was proposing treaties to human players in Team Mode.
16. Fixed - AI's on the same team were not forming the best treaties possible.



Version 1.09:
1. Fixed - Possibly fixed error international users were having when trying to load data files.
2. Fixed - Recovering a unit in the Launch/Recover window would sometimes cause an Access Violation.
3. Changed - Drones can now be recovered on ships. Drone Launcher component will allow you to recover drones.
4. Fixed - Recovering a unit in the Launch/Recover window would sometimes leave a blank line.
5. Fixed - A Fleet would sometimes lose ordnance for no apparent reason.
6. Fixed - Some player created empires under computer control were not speaking.
7. Fixed - The Fleet Report - Task Forces tab would misposition the text if scrolled.
8. Fixed - The Select Package window would sometimes not let you hit OK.
9. Fixed - The Planet Report - Races tab would sometimes show population amounts wrong for more than one race.
10. Fixed - When colonizing, if you have population in cargo, then the crew of your ship will not become
1M population on the planet.
11. Fixed - Shard Cannon was not increasing damage with level.
12. Fixed - Sometimes ground combat would occur on a ship.
13. Fixed - Buffer Error at the end of combat.
14. Fixed - The combat progress bar would reset after 60 seconds.
15. Fixed - Organic and Crystalline Dreadnoughts cost too much per level.
16. Fixed - Large combats would sometimes cause the game to lockup.

[Yimboli]

"5. Fixed - A Fleet would sometimes lose ordnance for no apparent reason. "

w00t!!!!

[Shadowstar]

Sure would be nice if Steam would get this out sometime soon...

[Fyron]

Some people on IRC mentioned that Steam was updating their installs a few hours ago.

[Noble713]

Q said:
In the combat simulator the boarding crew of empire A enters the enemy ship of empire B (a small flag indicates the presence of the marines on that ship), but the boarded ship still acts under the control of the original empire B and fires on ships of empire A. So boarding is still broken IMO.



Hmmm, maybe there is a time delay before they take over/disable the ship? A complete loss of control wouldn't be instantaneous.

Other things that are still broken:
-The "mixed up" warp points bug, where ordering a ship through Warp Point X will actually send it to System Y instead.

-Emissive Armor doesn't work. This only bugs me because the mod I'm working on relies on emissive armor and it's current nerfed state is making balancing ground combat futile.

[Phoenix-D]

There is a time delay, but that isn't the problem.

Emssive armor works. It does not, however, STACK. If you have 50 Emissive armor components that have the ability "stops 50kt damage", only 50kt of damage will be blocked.

The ship ability screen will say 2500kt will be blocked, but that's incorrect.

[Q]

If a boarded ship still can fight (on the side of the original owner) during the entire remaining combat turn time, IMO boarding is broken.

[AngleWyrm]

In a recent v1.13 combat simulation, I sent a ship with ten 13-point boarding parties (130pt) against a ship with no security and 50 crew (5pt). The boarding party icon showed up, but the crew counter did not change through the whole combat. After five minutes, combat timed out, and the ship still belonged to the original owner. Both ships were from the default QuickStart Terran race, so there were no racial differences in combat modifiers.

EDIT: I have tried setting "Space Combat Crew Boarding Strength := 0.001" (down from 0.1) and it didn't seem to make a difference. Setting it up to 1 (up from 0.1) made the boarding icon disappear within about ten seconds.

Seems to be more than a moddable balance issue.

[Q]

I verfied this in a real combat outside the combat simulator: even after the next game turn the boarded ship still remains under control of the original owner and no trace of the boarding parties is visible. The attacking boarding ship however has lost its boarding parties.

[AngleWyrm]

18. Fixed - Crew were too strong in defense of a ship during ship capture.


Has anyone successfully boarded a ship that has crew? If so, please do tell, because my attempts have not succeeded, and so I don't understand this bullet.

[Captain Kwok]

AngleWyrm said:Has anyone successfully boarded a ship that has crew? If so, please do tell, because my attempts have not succeeded, and so I don't understand this bullet.

I think Aaron thought he fixed in *code* but probably didn't actually try it out to see if it work - which it doesn't and is probably even worse than before.

[Spoo]

AngleWyrm said:
EDIT: I have tried setting "Space Combat Crew Boarding Strength := 0.001" (down from 0.1) and it didn't seem to make a difference. Setting it up to 1 (up from 0.1) made the boarding icon disappear within about ten seconds.



What about setting it to 0?

[President_Elect_Shang]

Spoo said:
What about setting it to 0?



I was wondering this too, but just for bug testing purposes. If it works I would say the problem has more to do with math than broken programming. If boarding still doesn’t work when it’s set to zero then my guess would be the programming is the culprit. Then again I am not a programmer; my experience is limited to the Java I am taking now so I can teach it later.

[Zereth]

The current problem appears to be that crew simply aren't dying unless they lose life support/crew quarters. Apparently the marines are dying in combat, but the crew is invincibile.

So I'd guess setting it to 0 would have the battle rage on, with the crew unable to kill the marines due to being wimpy, while the marines being unable to kill the crew and thus take over due to the fact that the code for that simply doesn't work.

[Phoenix-D]

Spoo said:
What about setting it to 0?



Doesn't help. The crew simply can't be killed no matter how much overkill you've got (I had 50 crew against 500,000 boarding parties- the crew lost..)

[Kana]

Well it sound like it a problem with the crew units. In SE4 it was just boarding attack, and boarding defense. These are in SE5, but there is a new variable, which is the crew, that doesnt seem to be using boarding defense correctly.

Are the crew numbers tracked seperately? Is it done just by the crew quarters, and/or life support?

[dmm]

Although the boarding bug is REALLY annoying, it sounds like a stupid little programming error that will be easy to fix once found. Aaron will be embarrassed at his own stupidity (just like I have been many times). So, short term: AAARGH! but long term: don't sweat it.

[dmm]

OT: Cool, the spellcheck feature saved me from being embarassed by poor spelling. Suggest some of you check it out. (You know who you are!)

[Noble713]

Phoenix-D said:
Emssive armor works.



Hmmm, I don't know what's wrong then. I have infantry weapons that only do 1-2 damage, and vehicle emissive armor that blocks <=3 damage, but the vehicles still take damage... I'll have to run more tests when I get home.

[Phoenix-D]

Ok, let me re-phrase that: Emissive armor works ON SHIPS. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I haven't tested it on units yet..

edit: tested, works fine on troops. Could you post the actual component you're trying to use here?

[Shadowstar]

Still nothing on Steam...

[Q]

There is a trade bug (still?) in version 1.13:
You get what you offered instead of what you wanted!

It is not just the wrong message but you really do not get the accepted trade items.

And you can't just offer what you would like to receive because technology that you don't have will not be available in the list of the to give items.

[Yimboli]

Q said:
There is a trade bug (still?) in version 1.13:
You get what you offered instead of what you wanted!

It is not just the wrong message but you really do not get the accepted trade items.

And you can't just offer what you would like to receive because technology that you don't have will not be available in the list of the to give items.



catch 22 strikes again!

yossarian lives!

[Q]

Just an esthetic bug but still:
Before the patch ships and units would fly nicely over a planet. Now they go through the planet (without taking damage). Looks quite stange IMO.

[President_Elect_Shang]

Q said:
Before the patch ships and units would fly nicely over a planet. Now they go through the planet...



Same with combat too; before v1.13 ships used the z axis and now they don't.

[Suicide Junkie]

They should have to go around the planet, IMO.
Having stacks of things is bad for gameplay, even ignoring the ugly things it does to weapon animations.

[NullAshton]

What about preferring to go around, but going over if it's faster? Like in combat, they favor going around planets and ships, but if there's ships on either side of the ship you want to go around, you go over instead.

[Baal]

I can still move planets in simultaneous mode.

I don't know about anyone else but it annoys me a great deal when simultaneous processing takes 10+ minutes at turn 30. I notice most all the processing takes place with the red bar (I think that means combat). That time needs to be cut down for the sake of play value or I'm going to get really ripped doing sit ups while I'm waiting.

[Q]

I had a maximum turn processing times of 30 minutes so far. The average is 5-10 minutes at stardate around 2413.0 with 18 empires and about 60 systems.

[Baal]

Mine was for a small galaxy (~15), 8 players, stardate 2403.0, High Bonus, High Difficulty.

[Raapys]

Ironic, though. We've got 3D graphics, but we've got 2D combat.

I don't know about anyone else but it annoys me a great deal when simultaneous processing takes 10+ minutes at turn 30. I notice most all the processing takes place with the red bar (I think that means combat). That time needs to be cut down for the sake of play value or I'm going to get really ripped doing sit ups while I'm waiting.

Yeah, I checked into this( I had two players who used 20 seconds each while the rest used 2~ seconds, turns out the ones using 20 seconds were fighting each other) and sent a mail to Aaron about it.

In my scenario one of the empires suddenly used 5 minutes for its turn processing. I logged into it and looked at the player's log; turns out the empire had had *8* seperate combats where they had 5 frigates chasing after the same single insignificant enemy frigate; it had retreated 7 times, they managed to destroy it the 8th battle.

Now, turn processing in SE V is actually very fast; it's the way combat works in itself that is the major issue. I'm assuming the hidden combat AIs do under turn processing is only slightly faster than the 'strategy combat' offered to human players, and we all know they can take quite a while, even at 8x speed, if they go on for a full 5 minutes. Then imagine *each* AI player having a dozen of these combats in a single turn. Not a pretty thought.

Hopefully something can be done with this issue, and hopefully more people will bring it up to make it a priority. It's really unbearable for single-player sometimes.

[frightlever]

Raapys said:
Ironic, though. We've got 3D graphics, but we've got 2D combat.





The whole game is 2D. The 3D is all pseudo.

[Suicide Junkie]

The graphics are indeed 3D.
Thank goodness the game physics are 2D, or it would be hell to play.

[Raapys]

I don't know. Personally I think for instance Homeworld did the whole full-3D combat very well( granted that the scenarios were still mostly 2D-designed). Excellent control system when you got used to it, although use of keyboard was a must.

[AminMaalouf]

I suppose there is not going to be a real solution for the turn-slow-down issue in the short. But can we expect in a future patch or mod (maybe) something in the direction?

[AstralWanderer]

Suicide Junkie said:
Thank goodness the game physics are 2D, or it would be hell to play.

With the current UI's limitations I'd agree. But with better UI design (Should we haved a whip-around to send Aaron a copy of Homeworld? Perhaps not, he might spend his time playing it instead of doing a new patch!) "true" 3D could certainly add an extra element to both tactical and strategic movement (warp point ambushes would be harder for example if you had to envelope them with a sphere of ships instead of a circle to prevent a faster enemy from escaping).

Even an old DOS game like Ascendancy benefited (IMHO) from a true 3D strategic map - just a shame that the combat and AI in that game weren't up to scratch.

[Suicide Junkie]

With a team of AI programmers on staff, yeah. But tactical combat would still be a problem. We just don't have any inputs that can easily specify six degrees of freedom across tens to hundreds of ships.

[frightlever]

"We just don't have any inputs that can easily specify six degrees of freedom across tens to hundreds of ships."

Or even thousands. Which Homeworld didn't have to contend with.

I wonder if the ships losing access to the Z axis (their hopping ability, if you will) has anything to do with the extended turn time after 1.13. Turn off the 3D calculations to cut down on the combat calculation? Or if not maybe it should be considered.

[Baal]

Excessive numbers (>40) of fighters being launched in combat still crash the game.

[neofit]

Baal said:
Excessive numbers (>40) of fighters being launched in combat still crash the game.


Hmmm, I've launched a full complement of 50 without a problem. Im pretty sure they all went out because I was left with 3 damaged ones in the cargo hold after the battle. Maybe a RAM problem? I have 3Gigs.