B3 bugs noticed

from GalCiv3 Forums

I've spotted the following items and notes in the latest beta release (3):

1. Pop-up info boxes: these need to be expanded or set-up to scale; there are still instances where text runs off the top or bottom of box.

2. Terraforming Event: this event provides the option of gaining a tile in exchange for production reduction for 10 turns -- the terraforming never ends, and production across all planets remains -90% indefinitely.

3. Shipyard list of designs: we need to be able to remove a design from the list. I'm one of those that likes to create designs, but the list is getting extreme...

4. Star Names, Length: some star names are extremely long, and occasionally over-write the size of the planet on info pop-ups (ie, mouse-over text boxes). Example: Ghostprogrammer is one that ends up over-writing the planet size (sorry for whoever chose that name). Maybe adjusting #1 above will correct this?

5. Star Names, Repeats: my current game now has THREE Thulium stars. Obviously, some of the names are being selected twice. (I'm sure those of us who chose names cringe at the possibility of our star name not showing because colonists seem to like Thulium as a name -- after all, there's a Springfield in almost every state in the USA -- but perhaps the colonists can be overruled?)  :D

6. Blackholes: can still tell which unexplored stars are blackholes -- the top, bottom-right, bottom-left corners of the grid still have a dot in them when zooming out and in.

7. Pathing of ships in Nebula & Dust: when there's a artifact or other anomaly within a nebula or dust cloud, or when moving in one of these zones, the pathing to get to it is broken. Sending a survey vessel to the spot often sees the survey ship auto-moving to another spot in the nebula/dust. It seems the top-right hexside works often for an anomaly approach, but not always.

8. Ideology, Pragmatism, Reasonable: I know this isn't active yet, but I'm thinking "by turn 100" may be insufficient. At turn 124 in a game I finally had the points to select this, but 124 is past 100... perhaps the result should be peace for the next 50 turns or something such instead?

9. Freighters in other empire's zone of control: these are counting as negatives in diplomacy; should freighters be completely neutral, perhaps even a positive for diplomacy?

10. United Planets: can we see what our impact will be in decisions? We see how much percentage influence every other empire has, just not ours?

 

Positives:

A. Cutscenes are very nicely done; when they end, can you freeze the last image instead of blacking out the picture?

B. Very nice Event images. These really look great.

C. Looking good overall!

4,167 views 9 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Good list :-)

Can I add  (might already be known)

  1. When you decommission a Starbase any lines from resources that connected to it remain displayed.  Even if you build a new Starbase with a new mining module to replace it that takes over those resources.
  2. Non-player races can ignore the UP rule about not building outside their territory. 
  3. Starbase names not displaying correctly in the list on the right hand side
Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

No sense creating my own post for the only bug I've found so far with Yor.

- Manufacturing facilities don't upgrade past tier 2 after the research is done. At tier 4 they should be bumping production 40% each after they upgrade, but they never kick in to auto upgrade, and no manual option exists either. Research labs don't suffer this problem.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The Ideology bonus named "Breakthrough" is supposed to give you 150 research points.  I couldn't see any change in the tech I was researching.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ideology Breakthrough et al. worked fine through Beta 2.  There's just no decent UI to display it, so you must be on your toes through the dizzying cascade of screens.

  • If +300 rps (yah, it used to give 300! not 150) finishes your current tech, then exiting Ideology goes straight to the Tech newsbot, you pick a new tech, repeat as needed :bebi: (I think only once max), until finally your 2nd or 3rd new tech sops up all remaining rps (and shows a partial progress bar).  You can finish 1-2 techs instantly within the current turn this way.  (I think you cannot finish 3, because each tech will cost >150 rps by the time you get here.)
  • Pay close attention to your tech progress bar.  Sometimes the +300 rp exactly finishes your current tech, so your new tech appears with an empty progress bar (or gets filled to roughly the same proportion as your previous tech's bar).

If you didn't get the newsbot and your research progress bar didn't change, that'd be a (new) bug.  I'll try to reproduce it when I get there.

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Not all races stop advancing manufacturing buildings, in my current game playing the Yor, my manufacturing building the the Drengin stop at the second level but the Terrans and the Iridium continue to advance.  May be tied to ideology but I can't be sure. Without starting a new game.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting kestlstw, reply 5

Not all races stop advancing manufacturing buildings, in my current game playing the Yor, my manufacturing building the the Drengin stop at the second level but the Terrans and the Iridium continue to advance.  May be tied to ideology but I can't be sure. Without starting a new game.
End of kestlstw's quote

Has nothing to do with Ideology since you mentioned it I have tested it with all 3 ideologies now and Yor do not advance past Manufacturing Collective to Industrial Collective (tier 3). Just to make sure it wasnt my copy of the game I unistalled, deleted all folders pertaining to the game and reinstalled even. No change.

I can't simulate the problem with anyone but the Yor though, you mentioned having the problem with Drengin, but in my Test game I had no problem advancing to Slave Pits (tier 3).

I have now tested this with all the races available and I can only get it to happen to the Yor. It is 100% replicatable though, Beeline to Industrial Collective while building a few Manufacturing Yor so you can watch them fail to upgrade past Manufacturing Collectives.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I haven't played the Drengin at all and thought slave pits were tier 2 not three.  I was invading Drengin planets and they never had anything above Slave pits that I thought were tier 2 but the Terran and Iridium planets I invaded had tier 3 and 4 manufacturing buildings.  

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Game-mechanism bugs:

  • Benevolent tier 2 Mindfulness still gives the +25% G&S bonus to all friendly planets, not just your "first 3 planets".  Yaay!  (Cause: The "first k planets" restriction game mechanism is not implemented?)

XML bugs:

  • Terran, Colonization tech.  Research Optimization/Efficient Research gives -10% Manufacturing Cost instead of -10% Research Cost.
    • Furthermore, it gives the -10% only to research improvements, not to ships or other improvement types.
    • (Actually, this might not even be a bug.  Perhaps we can prove mathematically that finishing a research-heavy build-out in 9/10 the time is better than getting a piddly +10% added into your whopping +200% research bonus.  It is trivial to prove that -10% research cost to all tech levels is just ridiculously better than a flat +10% bonus.)    

Tech kibitzing/discussion: Cost reduction with type-restriction vs. flat production bonus to everything

  • Manufacturing Optimization/Efficient Manufacturing gives its -15% Manufacturing cost to ships and manufacturing improvements only.  It does not reduce cost for non-manufacturing improvement types.
    • Ergo, a farm (population), entertainment center (approval), or market center (wealth) is still full-cost.
    • My research improvements and upgrades are -10% cost from the RO/ER bug(?) mentioned above.
    • My manufacturing improvements/upgrades, and my ships, are -15% cost from MO/EM.
  • At first, I thought this restriction nerfed the Efficient Manufacturing option, and that getting -15% only to some buildables is worse than getting a flat +15% bonus to everything.
  • But I reconsidered, and now I think that it's actually potentially superior to the flat bonus, even if most of your improvements don't benefit.  The bottom line is that you can't just compare the numbers.  +% bonus is not the same kind of apple as -% cost.
    • The flat +15% manuf bonus actually comprises only a tiny fraction of your total +mp% bonus.  By the time you get this far, you probably have +150% already from Solar/Fusion Power Plant + some Mega Factory + starbase modules.  So your build time was already T / (250%).  Adding +15% to your bonus decreases build time to T / (250% + 15%), which is a speed-up of only 1 - (250/265) = 5.66% compared to how fast you could already build it without the new bonus.
    • And the larger your bonus is, the less you'll notice a measly +15% added to it.  A Technological Capital world with a full hex ring of Megas + a Fusion around the TC may have +700% already, so it would get a speed-up of only 1 - (800 / 815) = 1.84%.  You do get it for all types of improvements, but it's hardly worth bragging about.
    • In contrast, the -15% build cost obviously slashes your build time by exactly -15%, regardless of how large your bonus is.  So it pays off in full for the specialist planets that can use it best.
    • Even if the payoff is type-restricted to manuf improvements and ships only, that could still pay off by mid-game.  Instead of getting a tiny speed-up on everything, you get a large speed-up on a subset of hexes.  At some sweet spot, you'll get the same total benefit, just concentrated into fewer hexes.
    • In the long run, all of your planets cease building tiles and just build ships, and then the cost reduction to ships is a pure win.
  • This is a very intriguing and inscrutable trade-off.  It's not at all obvious which one is superior, or what the shape of the surface-of-equilibrium is.
Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting kestlstw, reply 7

I haven't played the Drengin at all and thought slave pits were tier 2 not three.  I was invading Drengin planets and they never had anything above Slave pits that I thought were tier 2 but the Terran and Iridium planets I invaded had tier 3 and 4 manufacturing buildings.  
End of kestlstw's quote

Nope and I shouldn't have called them Slave pits thats a different building. Drengin go Work Camps (tier 1), Forced Labor Camps (tier 2), then Slave Camps (tier 3).