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[Ufnv]

I played a bit in the small and easy galaxy. explored most of the stars, and did colonize some planets.

Currently the best is to play anything from Spiral Sa to Spiral SBc - others (named) are legacy scenarios meant to play with another model of economics. They could play OK, especially on Easy settings, but may not give the best experience.

However i couldn't find anything that would help boost the planet production, which at least as that stage of the game seems to be the biggest problem, did i miss something ?

The best way to boost the planet production is to specialise a planet in something. One specialized  "industrial" planet is much more productive than several "balanced" ones. "Balanced" is probably the worst choice.

Also, The automatic AI for a balanced started by building a Iron Mine even though there was already a spaceport on the planet.
if I understand correctly the spaceport would allow automatic transfer of iron from other planets (and i was turning a profit on this), wouldn't it be more appropriate to start with factories ?

"Balanced" is a very special type. It checks the global need in minerals first and would build a factory prior to mine only if this factory would speed up construction of a mine.

The best way to expand initially is to set "Mining" type for majority of non-Earthlike and non-Oceanic planets (maybe a couple of "Industrial" type would also help), and either "Agricultural" or "Scientific" for Earthlike and Oceanic ones.

When deciding what to colonize first, it is better to check your current need in mineral. Initially the most important are planets with Plutonium, then - Burmiton and Reidium ones.

[BFEL]

Er, ran into a bit of a snag. You mentioned a problem/fix with multi-monitor systems before? Yeah, I missed that.

Wanna clue us in on what this "easy fix" is so I can play more then the tutorial?


As for first impressions: I really like the way you handled science, MUCH more natural then the typical "Every scientist in the universe is staring at warp coils" that usually happens.

Ship design was...meh. That type of design is one of the better ones, but I kept getting frustrated that every design felt lopsided. The way the "slots" are oriented tends to make it completely impossible to get a ship symmetrical, and the fact that a single generator, regardless of placement, tends to completely fill up a cluster of slots means that all the tutorial level designs I made had to choose between having enough power to make the ship work, or actually designing a ship.

The combat was....weird. This is partially due to how this game seems to realistically model the fact that there is never any combat focused point to making a smaller ship in space. Ever. Its a fact of real life strategy, and your game just about hits it on the nose.
So naturally the tutorial gives you nothing but ships smaller then the enemy ships, making your "fleets" nigh useless. The only battle that wasn't blatantly favoring the enemy was the one where you had 3...cruisers(?) and it had one "battle" cruiser.

In the final battle I maneuvered really well, taking out all the smaller ships with scratch damage until only the big one was left. I told my strike cruisers to attack it, with non-torp fighters on standby to intercept its fighters and thought I was in a lock to win. At which point the fleets met and all my ships blew up while the enemy received nothing. So literally the only thing that matters in that fight is those torpedo fighters then? Is there any reason to make anything NOT torpedos?
Apparently not.

Oh, and the tutorial didn't even give diplomacy a glance, so no idea what it would be like.

All in all, I liked it, but it had some definite flaws that are apparent even in the tutorial.

[pisskop]

Well hello game.  You look like I should try you when I get the time.

Watched (i.e. listened to) the OP videos, liked thus far.

[Ufnv]

Er, ran into a bit of a snag. You mentioned a problem/fix with multi-monitor systems before? Yeah, I missed that.

Wanna clue us in on what this "easy fix" is so I can play more then the tutorial?

If you are able to run the tutorial, then you do not have a multi-monitor issue
On some multi-monitor configurations the game just crashes on start-up. To fix this one needs to manually set the resolution in the "Remember.cfg" file and set "FullScreenWindowed" value to false.

What does it do that you cannot start a new game? Does it crash when you start the game and press New Game button?
Could you please describe the problem in more details so I can propose a fix?

The way the "slots" are oriented tends to make it completely impossible to get a ship symmetrical, and the fact that a single generator, regardless of placement, tends to completely fill up a cluster of slots means that all the tutorial level designs I made had to choose between having enough power to make the ship work, or actually designing a ship.

That is why you need to advance in science
You get better generators of another shape and you can make much better design.

So naturally the tutorial gives you nothing but ships smaller then the enemy ships, making your "fleets" nigh useless. The only battle that wasn't blatantly favoring the enemy was the one where you had 3...cruisers(?) and it had one "battle" cruiser.

Maybe I did a bit too difficult tutorial... Usually in the game you have much better balanced fleets, but the tutorial shows mostly the "extreme" cases when you need to defeat a stronger foe that is additionally more advanced in science...

In the final battle I maneuvered really well, taking out all the smaller ships with scratch damage until only the big one was left. I told my strike cruisers to attack it, with non-torp fighters on standby to intercept its fighters and thought I was in a lock to win. At which point the fleets met and all my ships blew up while the enemy received nothing.

The final tutorial battle is really difficult. Enemy is twice more powerful and in more scientifically advanced - a combination you do not really expect to meet in a real game
Maybe I should make somewhat easier final exercise. The video from the start page - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YcW6EPS11Y - shows how I handle this battle, but I lose 5 times out of 10 at best.

Are you sure the only one enemy left was the big battlecruiser? As you saw in the previous exercise, two strike cruisers can potentially destroy this big ship. Have you still had some of frigates left? They are equipped with long-range scanners, while your strike cruisers are not, thus enemy small ships can just be hidden. The enemy has 80+ torpedo fighters in that battle and the same amount of usual fighters.

So literally the only thing that matters in that fight is those torpedo fighters then?

Not really. Another strategy to win is just as you described - use your fighters to make enemy small ships to come close to the group of your frigates and destroy them. Then use the speed advantage of your fleet to destroy enemy ships one by one. Two strike cruisers with fully recharged deflector shields (if you took damage you can maneur to make them recharged) + one frigate or several even non-torpedo fighters are enough to destroy the enemy big ship.

Is there any reason to make anything NOT torpedos?
Apparently not.

Maybe the tutorial is too focused on torpedoes

Actually, it looks like this:

Big ships are good to fight another big ships and are deadly for carriers and smaller ships.
Torpedo carrying small ships are a big threat for big ships.
Usual fighters easily shot down torpedo-carrying small ships, but are not effective against big ships.

So, when you build your fleet it is better to find a balance. If you build only capital ships, you will be very vulnerable to big groups of small ships.
If you build only carriers with torpedo fighters you will be vulnerable to a fleet of several big ships protected by usual fighters. And you have a chance to have great losses of your small ships, plus torpedo supply is limited.

Also there are different types of weapon later in game that can radically change tactics.

So, that said, torpedo fighters are a good weapon early in the game if the enemy has advantage in capital ships. Late game torpedo shuttles may become actual again to fight dreadnoughts.

Plus, upkeep cost also means a lot. Often you just cannot afford to keep a big fleet of good small ships, not mentioning you need to constantly produce new ones to compensate for losses. Capital ships are much more interesting there, as they can be quickly repaired.

Oh, and the tutorial didn't even give diplomacy a glance, so no idea what it would be like.

I was too lazy and thought it is standard enough to not specifically mention it

[BFEL]

Basically I was attempting to start a new game and it crashed, yes. Another thing to note was that all the races other then humans and cats had some error replacing their text. At first I thought they just weren't implemented but then the screenies you posted had text there so I think that was part of the bug.

[Ufnv]

Basically I was attempting to start a new game and it crashed, yes. Another thing to note was that all the races other then humans and cats had some error replacing their text. At first I thought they just weren't implemented but then the screenies you posted had text there so I think that was part of the bug.

Well, I know the source of issue and it is hopefully already fixed. I think you tried a new game right after the tutorial.

You can just try one more time - start the game exe and press "New Game" - it should go fine this time.

[Finndibaenn]

is it possible to repair ships ?

[ptb_ptb]

Basically I was attempting to start a new game and it crashed, yes.

Ditto. I think it is related to the size of the galaxy. 320 stars = crash, 88 stars <> crash

The crash reporting module crashed as well.

[Ufnv]

is it possible to repair ships ?

Yes. They are repaired either when orbiting planets with appropriate building (planetary factories for small ships and satellites, orbital factories for capital ships) or they can be repaired by a ship with a repairing module installed.
But to repair orbiting ships, planet's construction queue must be either empty or freezed.

BTW, ships can also be upgraded into a newer design for a fraction of construction cost.

[Ufnv]

Ditto. I think it is related to the size of the galaxy. 320 stars = crash, 88 stars <> crash

Does it always crash or only after you start a new game after tutorial or some other game?
In short, does starting a game exe, then selecting new game, then 320 stars always lead to a crash?

[ptb_ptb]

In short, does starting a game exe, then selecting new game, then 320 stars always lead to a crash?

I'm going to go with 'yes' here. I just tried it again a couple of times on different galaxy settings. It crashes after you select race and click the arrow for galaxy generation.

[Ufnv]

In short, does starting a game exe, then selecting new game, then 320 stars always lead to a crash?

I'm going to go with 'yes' here. I just tried it again a couple of times on different galaxy settings. It crashes after you select race and click the arrow for galaxy generation.

That's really strange. BTW, don't you run the game from some read-only location? What happens after you click that arrow is a galaxy file generation - it is placed in "Scenario\gen\". It will crash if it cannot write Scenario\gen\export.scn file.
Could you please check if there is such file there and it is NOT read-only. Delete it if it is read-only.

[Drakale]

I was having the crashing issues too after race selection on windows 7. I fixed it by giving permissions for my account on the installation folder, seem like it incorrectly set read/write settings. It's working fine now.

[Ufnv]

I was having the crashing issues too after race selection on windows 7. I fixed it by giving permissions for my account on the installation folder, seem like it incorrectly set read/write settings. It's working fine now.

Yes, this explains the crash.

So, three possible way to fix:
1. Set read-write permission to the game directory. Otherwise it will be crashing at new game and while trying to save.
2. Install the game in another directory, not "c:\Program files\..."
3. Use zipped version of a game instead of the installer

[IcyTea31]

Tried the game today. The tutorial needs some more explanation on economy and diplomacy, and it needs to take less time, otherwise it's quite informative. However, whenever I start an actual game, with standard settings on a galaxy type that doesn't crash, on the easiest difficulty, I get confronted by extortionists. This happens before I can do anything else, bar maybe build a fighter or two. I can fight the first wave off and die to the second one, or pay an annoying tribute. Am I just supposed to pay it, or is there a way to not get attacked before I get my space legs? On a related note, how do I repair damaged ships? The tutorial had nothing on that.