Stellar Support is useless and the abominable influence game breaker

from GalCiv3 Forums

Stellar Support gives me 20 range for 30 mass and the supposedly lesser Environmental Support gives me 34 range for 18 mass. This may be scaled by miniaturization in my current game but E Support is always the better choice since there is no module limit.

Now for my rant :) :

The influence problem is a royal pain in the ass and a game breaker for me. In a recent small game the Yor flipped one of my high PQ planets by way of the creeping influence bug (and it is definitely a bug). I watched the process through the 10 turns and there is obviously some negative effect in play. First, I don't know for sure, but I seriously doubt the Yor had reached Undaunted by the time it happened. I tried building a culture SB next to the planet and it got worse. I decommissioned the SB and it got better. I tried deleting some influence improvements and it did not help. The planet involved was part of a group of three nearby that were all higher quality than the Yor planet, which was a lower PQ and all alone in my group with it's own small SOI.

Any way you look at it, these creeping influence pseudo-pods are screwed up. Even if the Yor had Dauntless, imo it is supposed to just mean they don't flip, not extend tentacles to take over nearby planets with much higher influence. If that's how it is working it is broken. When and if it happens, I am going to shut down the game. I can't abide a game where the AI can steal my planets with no reasonable explanation.

I don't have a problem with something like this in the Beta. I just want to know the devs acknowledge the problem and give it the priority it deserves by the time the game goes gold. This problem has been mentioned a number of times and I have not seen a dev respond that it a known problem and it will be fixed. If I missed it, sorry. Someone point me to it. 

8,097 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Franco fx,

there is an error with the Environmental Support. The Life support modules as they are now (from ShipComponentDefs.xml):

Life Support Module Mass Range Factor
Basic Life Support 6 6 1.00
Environmental Support 6 9 1.50
Stellar Support 10 12 1.20
Deep Space Support 12 15 1.25
Support Field Generator 14 18 1.29
Statis Field Generator 16 21 1.31

It is clear that the Mass of the Environmental Support is wrong, and should be 8.

To correct it the ShipRangeMass for the EnvironmentalSupport (in the ShipComponentDefs.xml file) should be changed from 6 to 8. This would give a factor of 1.13 instead of 1.50. Each next generation of the life support modules should increase its Mass by 2, and increase its Range by 3.

Since this is a bug, you should move your post to the support category (to increase the chance that the devs will pick it up).

 

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The influence problem is driving me nuts too.  I've abandoned 4 Immense games partway through because it just pissed me off so much.  Please fix it soon!

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

  If I missed it, sorry. Someone point me to it.
End of quote
sorry this is just going to annoy you more the only dev post I've seen about this was something to the effect of 'working as intended' 

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Recent Influence discussion:    https://forums.galciv3.com/460706/page/1/#3521246

I have sent tickets on this as well.   Save games, Screen shots, etc.  It is really the worst game breaker I have seen.  This is the thing that discourages me from playing now.   Play for hours and then a "rift of doom" someone called it, comes to life and kills some of your planets.   It does seem like there comes a point, in the ideology tree, when things seem to backfire.   Or possibly, your influence overflows and instead of being positive becomes negative.   Oh well.   I realize there are more important content stuff to get on track, but at this stage it is a fun and playable game... except for this.

 

 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

LOL literally minutes after my post, a notice on the opt in patch that likely will address this.  LOL!!

 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I observed something similar to this as well.   Playing as the Yor, I took Alteria using a transport and Wisp managed to flip Alteria back to the Alterians.  Alteria is a civilization capital, a minor colony should not be able to flip it by itself.

One Human colony was surrounded by 3 Yor worlds, and that one Human colony managed to flip all 3 neighboring Yor worlds.  The Human colony was by itself, and had no supporting starbases.

In the same the Iridian corporation, flipped 2 of my worlds despite the fact that they were near other Yor worlds and I had Influence starbases around my worlds.

Economic starbases also appear to have the ability to flip planets.


How do opt-in for the Beta patches ?  Steam is asking me for a Beta access code.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I fixed the support issue, will be in next patch, or next beta depending on how things go. the influence thing is a known issue as well, hoping to get that fixed ASAP.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thank you for the feedback!

Please make sure to check out the newly released patch 2 to see if that addresses the issues you are seeing. If not, please be sure to send your save files to support. For sending save, dump, debug.err files. Would you kindly, submit a ticket via our support system so that I can better assist you with your issue. After following the link, run the support tool, include your steam name, describe the issue you are having and then send us the zip file to greatly speed up the process!


Link to forums for explanation:

https://forums.galciv3.com/452855/page/1/


Link to support tool:

http://sd.stardock.com/Support/supportToolTest/SDSupportTool.exe


Here is the location for dmp files!

"C:\ProgramData\Stardock\Galactic Civilizations III"

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Influence appears to be fixed. After d/l the new patch I loaded my current game and the ZOC appear to be perfect with no odd intrusions. Thank you very much, all is right with my GCIII world right now :)

In reference to the above question regarding opt in, just ignore the access code. Just choose opt in and close properties. The game should update automatically. 

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

double post please delete

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting JacquesGauthier, reply 6

How do opt-in for the Beta patches ? Steam is asking me for a Beta access code.
End of JacquesGauthier's quote

In case you haven't seen the instructions, Start Steam, go to Library=>Installed, right-click on Galactic Civilizations III, choose Properties, select BETAS tab, (this is probably where you are), then choose the drop-down under "Select the beta you would like to opt into:" and pick the beta patch, which opts you in. If only "NONE" is shown then there are no beta patches to opt-in for.  As far as I know, there hasn't been a reason to use the beta access code. Hope this helps.