Base game bugs with synthetic custom race

from GalCiv3 Forums

I've been playing GC3 for a couple of weeks, using (and occasionally adjusting) a synthetic custom race. There have been issues with this race not working as expected. I could work around these, but with the latest patch(es) more severe issues turned up that are clealry not intended changes, and effectively break custom race builds as a whole!

FYI, my copy of GC3 comes from GOG, and I've set the GOG client to auto-install updates. I have no DLCs or expansions, only the base game.

The issues I noted so far in no particular order:

1. synthetic is no longer listed under custom race abilities. However, when I create a new custom race, and later get to select a Civ for a new game, the properties do show the synthetic trait, and that race is indeed not affected by pop growth and does not rely on farming.

2. When I try to edit an existing synthetic custom race, I see one free ability point. Since there is no synthetic ability, that is obviously where that point comes from.

3. The new 'hidden synthetic' custom race doesn't grow or eat, but it can't colonize barren/toxic/radioactive worlds without research! This used to be possible with my older synthetic race build.

4. In none of my games, researching +synth pop cap techs did achieve anything! Nor constructing the +pop cap building. The planet pop caps always remain the same, and I can not assemble more pop once the planet pop cap is reached.

5. Although I've read older comments to the contrary, taxation does affect productivity for both the old custom synth race and the new ones. Morale too, but apparently that is intended.

6. Probably not synth-related: when I load the maxium available population from a planetary system onto a colony ship, rather than leaving each planet at 1B pop, one of them will suddenly show 3-4B instead - you can effectively create some bonus population in this manner at no cost other than colony ship movement points! You can test this at turn 1 with the initial colony ship, but you must send it to the shipyard and then relaunch, not to the starting planet.

I should add that all my custom race builds used the prolific ability along with sythetic (while it was still a selectable ability), and that I use maxed-out multiple-module colony ships to settle new planets. This may not cause the issues, but it makes them more noticable.

 

P.S.:

7. in my current game, I've noticed that the Terrans offered the first +synth pop cap tech for trade. I have set the game to 'no tech brokering', so they shouldn't be able to trade a synth tech. Not to mention they shouldn't bother to either research it, or trade for it!?

21,338 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

There have been a lot of changes to synthetic races since the base game. Some of what I am see seems to be bleed off from those that moved into the base game for some reason.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Ryat, reply 1

There have been a lot of changes to synthetic races since the base game.
End of Ryat's quote

Most of the above was true when I started playing a couple of weeks ago, at which time the installed game was already at version ~3.1 or something. And the most recent updates introduced the 'synthetic missing from custom race menu' and 'synth no longer able to colonize barren/toxic worlds' issues.

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Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

This stems from the fact the game was not beta tested very well. The reason of my rage quit tbh. They suposedly beta tested for 4+ weeks prior to launch, yet some glaringly obvious bugs were introduced and not 1 person in the beta test even saw them?  The ability techs missing, extreme tech missing etc etc, bad, bad beta testers tbh. All need fireing.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I just checked the newest files (dated march 2nd) and found that AbilityDefs.xml no longer contains the Synthetic race trait. At all! This doesn't explain why now all new custom races show 'synthetic' as a trait regardless, whether or not I want it, and they no longer eat/starve or grow! 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Update: I found out how to roll back to version 3.20 (from 3.50) and that fixed the most recent issues. In version 3.20 the file AbilityDefs.xml does contain the race trait SyntheticLife which is missing in 3.50. I suspect though that this wasn't the only change.

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

The file RaceTypeDefs.xml now contain the race trait SyntheticLife. I don't know why they changed this.

 

And i agree that Stardock need to get better beta testers...

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

My 2 cents if I'm recalling right the base game is now crusades, so all you who are current assume base game is crusades. Race types we're added in crusades suggesting that other than carbon life forms could evolve sounding more like astrobiology. Artificial life is a race type. You should be getting two abilities though. If your not the bug is that custom synthetics life is lacking abilities.

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting admiralWillyWilber, reply 7

My 2 cents if I'm recalling right the base game is now crusades, so all you who are current assume base game is crusades.
End of admiralWillyWilber's quote

You can not assume that. Crusade is bundled with the base game now (New Customers). However there are plently of people that bought the game prior to it been bundled together that do not have Crusade (Old Customers), this also applies to any Nitro users.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Horemvore, reply 8


Quoting admiralWillyWilber,
reply 7

My 2 cents if I'm recalling right the base game is now crusades, so all you who are current assume base game is crusades.



You can not assume that. Crusade is bundled with the base game now (New Customers). However there are plently of people that bought the game prior to it been bundled together that do not have Crusade (Old Customers), this also applies to any Nitro users.

End of Horemvore's quote

Correct. I do not have Crusade. Bought the game more than a year ago but never got around to actually play until recently.

 

P.S. : I just checked on GOG - they are still selling the base game without Crusade bundled in. Crusade is offered separately!

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Franky999, reply 6

The file RaceTypeDefs.xml now contain the race trait SyntheticLife. I don't know why they changed this.

 

And i agree that Stardock need to get better beta testers...
End of Franky999's quote

Thanks for the find. I might try moving it back to AbilityDefs, but I don't think that will fix it. That all new custom races now have a hidden but only half-functional synthetic trait surely takes more effort to solve.

I just took a look at this file and found it also contains the SiliconBased and CarbonBased traits definitions. Maybe they intended to create a hierarchy where races could be derived from one of these three bases - but then forgot to add this choice to the custom race editor?

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Something just occured to me: since I want to play synthetic anyway, and the new custom races already do not eat or grow, the only thing I'm really missing is the ability to colonize some of the extreme worlds. Since I now have an extra point to spend on traits, I might as well pick 'Adaptable' to get the missing 'synthetic' abilities. Maybe this gives me access to some more worlds than before, but then there are still a couple of bugs that put synths at a disadvantage - it would only be fair.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

synths have been hammered for awhile, I liked it when they would wildly grow to 100 per planet and kick arse !!

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

First off, I’m sorry you ran into these issues. Synthetic races got messed up when we had to make some changes to the data to make sure the base game with retribution worked well, as well as the Crusade with retribution. The two treat Synthetics differently and some mistakes slipped in.

We have fixed the tech issues, the colonizing issues, and are currently making sure that the race traits are behaving properly in the full matrix of install options.

These changes should be in the next patch and should fix the problems listed above.

Let me know if you run into any further issues.

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

3.60 Update:

Gog now applied the 3.60 update on my game as well, so I went to create a new Synthetic custom race and test whether the reported bugs still persist. Here are the results:

@1.: synthetic is again listed under custom race abilities. However, when I create a new custom race with the Synthetic apility, that race is listed as also being Carbon-Based!? The in-game effect is that this race can colonize Corrosive worlds (which shouldn't be possible), but not Toxic worlds (which I believe should be possible for Synthetics).

I checked the FactionDefs.xml and found that it contains both an entry for Carbonbased and Synthetic, with the difference that Synthetic is also tagged as being a race ability. This tag means it turns up in the custom race menu, but since CarbonBased appears to be treated similarly without turning up there, now all custom races automatically get this trait in addition to whatever else they have selected!

 

@3.: The new 'hidden Carbonbased' synthetic custom race doesn't grow or eat, but it gets the wrong selection of worlds to colonize (see above).

 

@4.: Researching +synth pop cap techs or building the Power Matrix did achieve nothing with respect to pop cap! The only effect of synth pop cap I'm aware of is the ability to issue an assembly project which is not possible on an overpopulated planet. Neither the techs nor the building changed this. On a planet with pop cap 4 and 4B pop, the pop cap still remains at 4 even after building the Power Matrix, and it won't let me assemble another unit of pop.

 

5. Morale fully affects Synthetics even though the description states otherwise. This may be a side-effect of the hidden 'CarbonBased' ability that I cannot get rid off, or it's simply not implemented correctly for the vanilla game. As a result, influence and production also suffers from bad morale.

 

Tl;dr.: The bugs are mostly still there, or have been replaced with different bugs.

I will now go and figure out how to fix or work around some of them...

 

P.S.: I just tested a few things with the Yor, and found that at least they are not affected by morale. I checked the faction definition and didn't find anything about that, so I can only assume it's encoded in the .faction file somehow.

Reply #15 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Here are some basic fixes I am using now to get Synthetics working as intended.

@1: The file RadeTypeDefs.xml contains definitions to CarbonBasedLife, SiliconBasedLife and SyntheticLife. The latter have an ability called IsAbility which is set to 1, the other two don't. I added this ability to the other two races and now they are also listed under Race abilities when defining a custom race. Obviously I have to make sure that I always select one of the races.

Of course, this means my choice of race counts as a race ability and requires a free ability point. Therefore I raised the value of CustomFactionAbilityPoints in GalCiv3GlobalDefs.xml to 3.

These changes fix problems @2 and @3 as well.

@5: I've added a mod to the synthetic race definition which raises morale considerably. This is what I inserted:

    <Mod>
      <EffectType>GoodsAndServices</EffectType>
      <Scope>Global</Scope>
      <Target>
        <TargetType>Colony</TargetType>
      </Target>
      <BonusType>Flat</BonusType>
      <Value>99</Value>
    </Mod>

The effect of this mod is that morale won't drop below 100% unless the planet gets seriously overpopulated (first effects visible at around 75B pop). I could probably raise the value, but I don't know how much the game can deal with, and 99 seems plenty.

I have no solution for @4, and I don't think this can be resolved by modding the XML files. If anyone can prove me wrong, please do ;-)

Reply #16 from Stardock.net Forums Top

Thank you for putting this up here Franton.