Oh For The Love Of God!

[Atrocities]

Please Aaron do one more patch for Space Empires IV. Please for the love of God, if you do nothing else with this game please I beg of you fix the AI so that cannot ignor restrictions!

This has to be the SINGLE most important bug still present in this game. The AI ignors any all restrictions and that seriously messes up the game at times.

[dogscoff]

Agreed. One more bugfix patch for se4 would be a wonderful thing, and judging by Aaron's response during the last IRC session to the published list of known bugs on the se4 wiki, I don't htink it's entirely out of the question either.

That said, until se5 reaches a relatively stable and bug-free release, I don't imagine there will be any patching done for se4.

[Combat Wombat]

I just hope if he makes another patch he doesn't include that extra menu thing when you launch the game like he did for the last patch. Luckily it didn't fix any actual problems so there was no reason to upgrade.

[Fyron]

It is trivial to work around it in the AI design files, though.

1.95 did, in fact, fix a few bugs.

1. Fixed - Mount selection on the Weapons Report was only showing the Normal Mount.
2. Fixed - The game will now create any directories that are missing.
3. Fixed - Occasionally, the TCP/IP would not connect using UDP.
4. Fixed - Over 300 System Types would crash the game.
5. Fixed - The Map Editor was not loading old Settings.txt files (with track numbers).
6. Added - Added a startup menu window.

[Atrocities]

I am not just talking about the AI design files though. I am talking about restrictions with facilities as well as components.

Is there a way to work around the AI's refusal to follow facility restrictions?

[Captain Kwok]

Are you talking about adding more than 1 system facility per system kind of stuff? Or multiple 1 per planet facilities?

[Atrocities]

The AI likes to do both. I know that if a facility has more than one ability, and that ability is called for, and is better than any other facility, the AI will use it even if it is restricted to one per planet or system. To key here is to make sure said facility is never better than the stand alone facility with the same ability.

[PvK]

Why is that the most important bug? Doesn't seem like it to me. In fact, it seems like a bad description of the issue. The AI should be able to build redundant facilities... it just should be smarter about the decision, which is an enhancement rather than an outright bug.

PvK

[Suicide Junkie]

Indeed.

One of the more critical issues is the generate-points ability not showing up in the budget reports.
That bug basically makes it impossible to use the abilities, since nobody will know what is going on.

[Atrocities]

Alright then, its one of a handful of very annyong bugs that I do hope that Aaron will one day address. Technically the game was only released just over a year ago via in store sales so a third patch for the retail version would be a welcome thing.

[Ironmanbc]

what 1.96 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[dogscoff]

Well, assuming that se5 is se4 version 2.00 (which it's not I know, but anyway), Aaron might as well patch us up to se4v.99 =-)

[Atrocities]

I would gladly pay for an SE IV expansion pack!

[Black_Knyght]

I have to agree with [b]<font color="red">AT</font>[/i] on this one !!!

[Q]

Incorporate the combat engine of SE V (2-D) into SE IV and I would pay for it too!
And if some of the new modding abilities of SE V would be included (e.g. formulas) I would pay as much as for SE V.

[PvK]

How about just make the UI from SE4 work with SE5? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Edit: Maybe not. Just a thought that leapt to mind. Just impatient for the perfect game, I guess. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

PvK

[Possum]

Q said:
Incorporate the combat engine of SE V (2-D) into SE IV and I would pay for it too!
And if some of the new modding abilities of SE V would be included (e.g. formulas) I would pay as much as for SE V.



Oh no no no!

You keep your polluted SE5 crap the hell out of SE4!

At least SE4 works right now, and it's completely playable and enjoyable in its stock state. You can't make either of those claims for SE5 in its stock state right now.

If anything, you've got it backwards. Maybe some of the working parts of SE4 should be grafted in to replace some of the more obviously AFU parts of SE5.

No offense there, Q, (OMG, how could you take that name??? Do you want people to hate you?), but hands off my SE4! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

[StarShadow]

What I'd like to see is actual evaluation of planets, for the AI. It's rather sad to take a huge planet (with say under 10% min, or in some cases 0%) and find it loaded with min miners. Even a simple set of if-then statements could make it better.

[President_Elect_Shang]

I think the only way to do that effectively; meaning it would work from mod to mod and AI state to AI state, would be to give the modders control over the if-than statements. Otherwise I think it would take a very complex routine not just if-than statements. Either way I can pretty much guarantee you would see something like that in SE5 before SE4. I can't see Aaron putting that kind of effort into SE4 anymore. SE5 is already better suited to this kind of construct. I doubt anything short of a major overhaul would allow it on SE4.