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[Texashawk]

Still got the same problem with the game refusing to play. I'm feeling like I'm probably doing something stupidly wrong, could someone make an incredibly detailed how-to to playing this?

Sorry to hear that Sheb. What are your specs?

[Texashawk]

gave this a quick test before sleeping yesterday and here are a few minor bugs/ideas/reminders i noticed (but yeah its alpha so no big deal that stuff like a menu is missing ):

-1280x768 res, the text at the bottom of the screen when you start a new game is a bit off the sides left and right. ("generating new ... this can take a few moments... something something" text)

-main map screen, rightclick scrolls the map but if you get near a system while scrolling it jumps around as it focuses on what planetsystem your mouse cursor is near... maybe disable the left system window popup and "map zoom focus on system" if you hold right mouse button so you can just scroll freely.

-if a system is right under the top menu bar and you move the mouse to the top bar it shows the system info on the left of the system the mouse cursor is over behind the menu bar. like the main map behind has priority over the menu bar? (maybe some day a mouseover tooltip of whatever your mouse is over on the menu bar gets shown instead)

-esc just quits the game... probably should at some point open a menu to load save quit to main menu/quit game and not instantly close everything. (also options menu at some point with i.e. music/sfx/master audio sliders)

-the font is a bit... weird to read... i.e. especially the diagonal middle line of the number "2", maybe because the interface is scaled down to 1280x768? (no idea maybe i was just too tired though when i did quickly take a look at this)

Nelia,

Thank you for your feedback! I am looking into better font processes for XNA. As it is, the font is rendered as a sprite, which can be a little blocky at certain resolutions.

For the next version, due to demand, the Imperia ESC menu will pop up when you hit ESC. Eventually this will have your save, load, etc. but for now it will just have a quit and return to game function.

The right click to system is an experimental feature. For some reason the program is ignoring a flag that tells when the map is being panned, and when it is, to override the click to behavior. I'm still working on this.

Steve

[Texashawk]

One of my planets is called "Galaxia". It's a sucky little desert planet with no starbase.

Options:
1) Build starbase - estimated to take 112 months.
2) Abandon planet - req. 54 Adm.
3) Rename planet to "We're Fucked" - req. 5 Adm.

I think my course is clear.

[EDIT] ================

Game crashed. No debug log?

Crashed when clicking the 'Intel' button the first month after assigning 10 operatives (level 3) to spy on a planet governor I wanted to assassinate.

Ptb_ptb,

Ha. Love the gallows humor. You can edit the .XML files if you think the edict costs are too punishing. In fact, I'd kind of like that so I can get an idea of what people think is a good balance. Search for Edict XML Data.xml on your computer. The ClickOnce installer puts these files in an incredibly cumbersome place, so I recommend using the search feature. You want to change the <BASE_ADM_COST> and maybe the <BASE_MONTHS> fields. You can not go below 1, although I am considering making these fields double data types so that can be changed.

I'll look into the intel crash. By 'intel' did you mean the intel tab or the intel button bar on the bottom of the screen? Thanks!

[ptb_ptb]

Ha. Love the gallows humor. You can edit the .XML files if you think the edict costs are too punishing.

I don't necessarily think that. It's not unreasonable that you may have a "no win" planet or two. The trick is to have your empire succeed despite that.

I'll look into the intel crash. By 'intel' did you mean the intel tab or the intel button bar on the bottom of the screen? Thanks!

... there's an intel tab? Oh, right, the 'spy tab' on the planet view screen. But yeah, I meant the button on the bottom of the screen.

Thanks for putting up a fun alpha, I look forwards to it being a little bit less alpha-y in the future.

[Sheb]

Still got the same problem with the game refusing to play. I'm feeling like I'm probably doing something stupidly wrong, could someone make an incredibly detailed how-to to playing this?

Sorry to hear that Sheb. What are your specs?

This might be the issue, I've got a rather old computer (less polite people would describe it as "a pile of crap"). Any idea of what the minimal specs would be?

Anyway:
Windows 7 (32 bits)
Intel Core2 Dua P8700 @ 2.53 GHz
4 GB RAM
NVDIA Quadra NVS 160 M

Not sure exactly what other specs you'd need. I tried to play on a 1280*1024 screen.

[Texashawk]

If you attempt to contact any of your governors the game crashes in this version.

OK, found the issue. The character screen didn't have the same centering code as the edict screen, so at low resolutions it tried to write off the screen, causing a graphics crash. I am uploading .227 now with the fix (and a few other goodies as well!) It should be available in about 15 minutes. Sorry! I also changed the width ratio on 1024 width or lower so that the whole planet screen should show up (though the planet and starbase icons will still look wonky, sorry about that!

Remember, people. Free. Alpha. Hobby project.  So excited to see people playing (or trying to play, in a few cases). Thanks for your understanding!

[Texashawk]

Ha. Love the gallows humor. You can edit the .XML files if you think the edict costs are too punishing.

I don't necessarily think that. It's not unreasonable that you may have a "no win" planet or two. The trick is to have your empire succeed despite that.

Thank you for seeing that. That's intentional, BTW. The fun of the game to me is that your start is fairly random, so you are sometimes put into no-win positions with these s#itty planets that people are fleeing by the thousands and you don't have enough government and resources to do an all-up evacuation, while they hate you more and more for being stuck there. (Kind of like DF, in a way...)

I'll look into the intel crash. By 'intel' did you mean the intel tab or the intel button bar on the bottom of the screen? Thanks!

... there's an intel tab? Oh, right, the 'spy tab' on the planet view screen. But yeah, I meant the button on the bottom of the screen.

Thanks for putting up a fun alpha, I look forwards to it being a little bit less alpha-y in the future.

Yeah, me too.

[Xinvoker]

1) Would you could consider an "easy start" option with less planets in less sectors?
I think I would have fun more fun that way than fixing the gigantic mistakes of the previous administration.

2) Also, is there a reason my imperial capital can't be a sector and system capital? Or that you can't change a system's sector if there is a sector capital already there?

3) I don't know the plans for other screens, I DO know there is 2nd Intel page that tells you the system, but this would make life sooo much easier (quick mockup in spoiler, yellow star= system capital, pink = sector capital)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Texashawk]

Any logs I could check? Getting the same crash as in .225, and I've verified that the music does play. In fact, it plays for a second or two after the display CTDs.

Zireael,

No logs, such is early days of hobby development. Can you please post your specs? This is frustrating me also!

Steve

[Texashawk]

1) Would you could consider an "easy start" option with less planets in less sectors?
I think I would have fun more fun that way than fixing the gigantic mistakes of the previous administration.

2) Also, is there a reason my imperial capital can't be a sector and system capital? Or that you can't change a system's sector if there is a sector capital already there?

3) I don't know the plans for other screens, I DO know there is 2nd Intel page that tells you the system, but this would make life sooo much easier (quick mockup in spoiler, yellow star= system capital, pink = sector capital)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

1) Yes, that's already coded in. A setup screen is coming down the road. The game defaults to a 'large' quadrant, but all of that is changable, including size of sectors, max distance between planets in a sector, number of sectors, etc.

2) Yes, that's intentional. If your empire capital was also a sector capital then that sector would have a huge advantage. Later on, jealousy between governors and viceroys will be modeled in more detail, and this would throw that system out of whack. And you can't 'reassign' a sector seat to another sector - you'd have 2 sector capitals. If you want to reassign the system, you have to reassign the sector seat first (but know that viceroy will be pissed about losing the prestige of a sector seat for their planet). :-)

3) I like that. As I've said, I'm not a 'UI guy' so I'm just kind of going with what I have liked in other games as far as information. I'd love input about future UI ideas. Really.

BTW, this is sort of an 'undocumented feature' (like a lot of Imperia! HA!) in the Intel screen but there are hotkeys to sort the lists:

'P' - Sort by population
'B' - Sort by Bio rating
'A' - Sort by Admin rating
'C' - Sort by Cash flow
'S' - Sort by Strategic Material rating

[Xinvoker]

Alright 

Just to be clear, I meant less planets already colonized and owned by the Empire, not in general.

As for the UI that's pretty much the only trouble I have. I can't remember which planet is where so I've even taken to drawing them on paper similar to my mockup. 

[Zireael]

Any logs I could check? Getting the same crash as in .225, and I've verified that the music does play. In fact, it plays for a second or two after the display CTDs.

Zireael,

No logs, such is early days of hobby development. Can you please post your specs? This is frustrating me also!

Steve

Win 7 64 bit
Intel Core i3 @ 2.30 Ghz dual-core
4 GB RAM
AMD Radeon 6630 M / Intel HD 4000 (dunno which one is actually used, Catalyst Control Center hasn't been working properly for quite some time)

EDIT: The resolution is 1280x1024.

[ptb_ptb]

I'd love input about future UI ideas. Really.

Not exactly what you were asking about, but I suggest having a big fat
DOWNLOAD
link on your blog's home page somewhere. It's a bit easy to overlook the link as it is now.

[EDIT] New game crash. It's repeatable.

Step 1. Press 'Intel' button at bottom of screen.
Step 2. Press the key 'a'.
CRASH

[Texashawk]

I'd love input about future UI ideas. Really.

Not exactly what you were asking about, but I suggest having a big fat
DOWNLOAD
link on your blog's home page somewhere. It's a bit easy to overlook the link as it is now.

[EDIT] New game crash. It's repeatable.

Step 1. Press 'Intel' button at bottom of screen.
Step 2. Press the key 'a'.
CRASH

Noted. I'm not sure how to do that with Wordpress using this theme. I have a sticky at the top and a permalink to the left, but I know what you mean. As for the bug... Drat. Fixed. I'll roll it into the next update since most people don't even use the sort function, but it has to do with duplicate entries in a sorted list.

[ptb_ptb]

Quick question: What does a "Starship Production Center" do? It seems you can keep building them over and over.