1803

New update:

19609b

Critical Fixes:

  • Fixed a plague-related turn update crash.
  • Fixed a combat psionic effect-related crash.

Other Fixes:

  • Diplomatic points are now being accumulated and applied.
  • Heavy planet missiles are now working.
  • System entry points and approach vectors are now working.
  • Ships now recover psionic power each turn based on the empire’s psi potential.
  • Fixed neutral combat zones not returning to the system’s owner.
  • Fixed an issue where options window revert button was not working correctly.
  • Fixed an issue with incorrect speech timeouts.
  • Zuul civilians are no longer considered in slave calculations.
  • Fixed an issue where fleet travel distance was not being reported correcly.
  • Zuul players are no longer queried for alternate mission route
    confirmations unless this is necessary.
  • Fixed localization issues with admiral traits.
  • Structure and armor bonuses now show correctly in the design screen.
  • Fixed known issues where reserve fleets could go missing.
  • Drones in the bottom wing of Hiver Dreadnoughts now launch.
  • Slave disks now connect with the correct ship sections.
  • Reduced speech spamming in the design screen.
  • Fixed floating modules on Human dreadnoughts.
  • Fixed a corner case preventing combat with hiver gates.
  • Colony support missions now stop correctly if the target colony is destroyed.
  • Fixed a couple odd issues where fleets were not correctly considered
    to be ‘at’ a system.
  • Combat AI now deploys battle riders more intelligently.
  • Fixed an issue where crewless ships were preventing players from
    entering accelerated time in combat.
  • Fixed the issue where requesting surrender of an empire could lock
    out camera control.
  • Fixed the issue of invalid save game names crashing the game.
  • Fixed an issue where crewless ships were preventing the end of combat.
  • Fixed the visual glitch with torpedo trails.
  • Fixed the issue where fleets in transit could be unselectable.
  • Fixed an issue where the strategic AI was creating duplicate ship designs.
  • Fixed an issue where surveying fleets were returning home if
    hostiles were encountered.
  • Fixed known issues with Land Grab and Leviathan victory conditions.
  • Victory conditions are now correctly reported when all other players
    are eliminated.
  • Fixed an issue where trade income was not being synchronized
    correctly in networked games.
  • Fixed an issue where client player status was not being updated
    correctly in networked games involving more than 2 clients.

Other Changes:

  • Sound volume now updates in real time.
  • Mine fields and SDBs (System Defense Boats) can now be placed in the
    Battle Manager and activated in combat by clicking their icons in sensor view.
  • Mission screens not grey out systems that are not viable.
  • Sensor, support and trade views now grey out systems that are out of range.
  • Stations now appear along with fleets, and they can now be repaired
    through the standard repair dialog.
  • News events are now reported for lost or retired admirals.
  • The repair dialog can now be called up at any system.
  • The game now agressively seeks out and frees memory consumed by game
    assets where possible. This should help players who are running into performance issues due to memory consumption.
  • Updated star map node line and mini-ship visuals.
  • New encounters are available or have been re-introduced, including:
    The system killer, asteroid showers, spectres and swarmers. More are on the way
1804

I don’t think he’s played the game, so probably not.

1805

There will be a hotfix out probably today to fix some issues with the update.

I’m very excited about the battle manager getting implemented. It will allow you to position fleets in system for defense before a battle. And if you have a naval station to manage system defenses it will allow you to position defense platforms, system defense boats (in system battle riders) and defense platforms (torpedo, drone, SDB).

1806

At this point what are the outstanding features still missing, Rorschach?

1807

From memory: espionage, some diplomacy, a few of the random encounters, and there’s a revamp of the economic model still on the board. Also scenarios, independent worlds, and morale.

1808

This is looking better and better as these patches come out. I’m waiting until the hotfix release to try this next one out, but I’m starting to get (cautiously) excited to play the game once again. I can’t wait until they’re finished.

edit - holy cow, that patch was huge (2.3 GB, according to Steam)

1809

Hotfix is out:

r19631b

Critical Fixes:

  • Fixed crash on startup for Russian players.
  • Fixed crash that could occur when attempting to scrap stations.
  • Fixed crash that could occur when exiting the Battle Manager after
    placing fleets.

Other Fixes:

  • Stations will no longer show up alongside fleets in transit.
  • Battle Manager fleet positions are now obeyed.

Other Changes:

  • Added Slaver encounter.
1810

One more hotfix:

r19683b

Critical Fixes:

  • Fixed plague-related crash.
  • Fixed a crash with the asteroid encounter.
  • Fixed a rare crash bug with interdict missions.
  • Fixed a crash related to building stations that could be caused by
    loading older save games.

Other Fixes:

  • Fixed graphical bug where SDB’s would not sit in correct slot.
  • Added missing cancel button to treaty request dialog.
  • Fixed an issue where armor display would not update correctly when
    switching designs in the design screen.
  • Fixed a couple of lingering missing localized text.
  • Fixed Hiver and Liir Deep Scan bonuses not being applied.
  • Fixed planet scale in the battle manager.
  • Having a population hovering at 50% no longer saps resources from planets.
  • Fixed an issue with slavers no removing their fleets in some cases.
  • Naval stations now include Command Modules in CP calculation.
  • Players may no longer request gates of non-Hiver players.
  • Fleet positions set in the battle manager no longer carry over to
    other star systems.
  • Fixed a potential issue where the AI could go bankrupt early in the game.

Other Changes:

  • Stations are now labelled in the battle manager.
  • Added confirmation for leaving build screen without committing a
    pending order.
  • Abandoned colonies no longer remove science and naval stations.
  • Hooked up sounds to cancel mission events.
  • Added Pathfinder and Livingstone admiral traits.

Known Issues:

  • Deep Scan designs from older saves may not work correctly when loaded into newer versions of the game.
  • Drone variants have been added, but thier behaviour has not.
1811

Not sure this qualifies to be put in the Bargain thread, so I’ll post here instead: GamersGate has a 70% discount for Sword of the Stars 2, which now weighs in at 9 EUR.

1812

I’d say it qualifies at this point. My take is that it has shaped up to a pretty solid game essentially in a public beta state. $12-$15 (I forget which price it started out at) is a good value for what it’s going to wind up being in the relatively near future.

1813

If you were able to get in on the IGN discount that brings the game down to $7.64. Not too bad a deal. Normally I would wait for the inevitable “complete” package with the added expansions but I doubt there will be any with this game. Will they every be able to recoup their losses after the release debacle?

1814

It looks like it doesn’t register on Steam. Normally that wouldn’t stop me but for a game that updates as often as SOTS does I wouldn’t want to have to manually download every update.

1815

SotS2 definitely does register on Steam. Actually, it uses steamworks so Steam is the only way to get it.

1816

Yep, to echo - any (valid) purchase will have to eventually get attached to your steam account.

1817

I can confirm, just registered it to Steam with no problems.

1818

I’ll have a long sit-down with the manual soon, but first, a quick question:

After my fleet completes a survey mission, they return to the homeworld. Even if I cancel the mission after they successfully surveyed a system, they are set to return and I can’t figure out how to stop them. I want them to scan a system and then continue to scan another system, without returning home. Any way to do this?

1819

Not right now. There are hints that they might add the ability to chain missions (though having the fleet endurance to complete multiple surveys can be a problem). You can relocate a survey fleet to a colonized system on the edge of your space to save travel time, though you can only have one full cruiser fleet’s worth of ships based in a system, unless it has a naval base.

1820

Thanks for the response. So what you’re saying is that a fleet always has to return to its home base when a mission is done, but I can change the home base to a more-front line system?

1821

Yeah. First you give the fleet a ‘Relocate’ mission to the new base of operations. It moves there, and once it arrives you can issue ‘Survey’ missions (or whatever mission) from there. This can be especially helpful if, say, you want to colonize a planet in a system where you already have a colony. Relocate the colonization fleet, and it doesn’t have to do a round-trip every time that it drops off colonists and infrastructure. Same if you want to use a construction fleet to build or upgrade multiple space stations in a particular system.

In this fleet juggling though, you have to watch out for basing limits. You can only base one fleet in a system for free. If you want to base two or more in a system you need a naval base there.

1822

What are these two race packs that showed up in my purchase?

“Liir/Morrigi Race Pack”
“Hiver/Tarka Race Pack”