My Notes

posted on June 21st, 2006, 3:51 am

First off, V3 is infinetly better than V2. It's just as stable, if not more so, than V1 was which is a great thing. I didn't really play V2 due to crashing issues, and I'm happy to once again enjoy playing FO.

The the good things said, now on to the criticism. :-P

Right, bugs first.

The talon class for Romulans does not cloak. Dunno if anyone else has noticed that, but it doesn't work at all for either admiral. Once refitted, I do believe it does work, but initially it's broak. The button clicks, but no special energy is used nor does anything happen.

Romulan AI is initially slow to build. In fact, it doesn't do much of anything. Builds stations out the yin yang, but ships are kinda ignored. Not too big a problem, but for Skirmish fights/AIvAI stuff, it can be a bit of an issue when a Dominion AI rushes to build a lot and wipes out a Romulan AI in the first 5 minutes.

There's another issue with the Romulans, specifically the cloaking devices. If you cloak some ships, it automatically goes to Yellow Alert. However, when you decloak, it sometimes doesn't go back to Red Alert. Nasty surprise when the enemy gets off the first volley and only one or two of your ships respond. I didn't notice the first couple of times because I was busy elsewhere and it took me awhile to figure out why it was I was losing so many ships and then when I did see it, why they weren't firing. I haven't figured out if anything triggers this, but I suspect it might be if you cloak, change alert status, then decloak.

The Dominion AI has what I think of as a "glitch" but I suppose this is more of an observation. Any Dominion AI builds the Prototype ships and doesn't use them for attack, as would be only proper. However, if those prototype ships are attacked, they're instantly thrown into combat. And usually wiped out fairly quickly. Not usually so bad, because if they ARE attacked, it's usually because some enemy fleet is knockin at the door. However, against the Romulans, the issue becomes a bit more...interesting. Using a Tal-Shiar station, it's possible to of course use the warp core attack on the prototypes. Cool, except for it causes the Dominion AI to go into a single minded frenzy where it orders every ship it has, including it's prototypes, to ignore everything else and go for your Tal Shiar station. That would be a BAD thing for you, except for the fact that when I say it ignores everything, I mean everything. That AI's ships generally don't attack anything but the Tal Shiar station, with the end result that they're easily anhilated with few or no losses on anyone elses part.

Right, that's all the bugs I've seen so far...nothing major...now balance issues.

As far as the sides go, very well balanced. Personally, I could use just a touch more diversity in the units. Bit more distinctiveness among the races, but it's not at all bad. Not as good as like in Conquest: Frontier Wars, but it's better than 99% of all other RTS games.

The Tal Shiar War Core Detenation weapon seems a bit underpowered. Seems like blowing up the warp core ought to, if not destroy the ship outright, at least disable alot of it's systems. Also, the Spy function for the station could do with lasting a bit longer. Nice for revealing where stations are, but that's of limited use really.

I was thinking there was one or two other things, but I can't remember them right now. In general though, it's really very well done.


Finally, just a few observations.

I noticed the Sound Byte cameo for the Dominion Research station from CFW. VERY awesome. I had to listen to it twice, but that was pretty cool. Nice of you guys to make even a little use of that very awesome game. If there were more Voice and Sound byte cameos, or even a few ship cameos, that would be even more fantastic.

The new visual appearnces are stunning. The shields especially are about the most impressive I've seen in any game anywhere.

Resource collect goes a bit slow for my tastes. I'm lame, I like to focus more on ship building than resource gathering, but that's not bad. It just adds challenge to it.

The supply system is excellent. I thought I wouldn't like it because of the limiting factor, but it's acutally very well done and I find myself in favor of it. It limits how many ships you have, but not in the way A2 originally did with it's crappy low ceiling maximum, nor in the way A1 did with it's infinite but cumbersome system. Props on that one.


Right, that's about all I have for now. I know I'm pretty **** petty and specific, and some of my stuff is very nitpicky, but I figure you guys don't mind a bit of constructive criticism and it can't hurt to have more information.

Anyway, that's all for now. If I think of anything else, I'll post it.

posted on June 21st, 2006, 7:02 am

Romulan AI is initially slow to build. In fact, it doesn't do much of anything. Builds stations out the yin yang, but ships are kinda ignored. Not too big a problem, but for Skirmish fights/AIvAI stuff, it can be a bit of an issue when a Dominion AI rushes to build a lot and wipes out a Romulan AI in the first 5 minutes.

Yeah Ive noticed that too. Rommies are indeed slow to start but then pick up pace when they can build big ships. So I thought that was because of race specific AI(Rommies in st universe do indeed mostly build big battleships, the exact opposite for the Dominion )

There's another issue with the Romulans, specifically the cloaking devices. If you cloak some ships, it automatically goes to Yellow Alert. However, when you decloak, it sometimes doesn't go back to Red Alert. Nasty surprise when the enemy gets off the first volley and only one or two of your ships respond. I didn't notice the first couple of times because I was busy elsewhere and it took me awhile to figure out why it was I was losing so many ships and then when I did see it, why they weren't firing. I haven't figured out if anything triggers this, but I suspect it might be if you cloak, change alert status, then decloak.

Yeah that is annoying lol Especially when u dont know about it But when u figure it out, it shouldnt be much of a problem anymore. Though it would be cool if they fixed it

The Dominion AI has what I think of as a "glitch" but I suppose this is more of an observation. Any Dominion AI builds the Prototype ships and doesn't use them for attack, as would be only proper. However, if those prototype ships are attacked, they're instantly thrown into combat. And usually wiped out fairly quickly. Not usually so bad, because if they ARE attacked, it's usually because some enemy fleet is knockin at the door. However, against the Romulans, the issue becomes a bit more...interesting. Using a Tal-Shiar station, it's possible to of course use the warp core attack on the prototypes. Cool, except for it causes the Dominion AI to go into a single minded frenzy where it orders every ship it has, including it's prototypes, to ignore everything else and go for your Tal Shiar station. That would be a BAD thing for you, except for the fact that when I say it ignores everything, I mean everything. That AI's ships generally don't attack anything but the Tal Shiar station, with the end result that they're easily anhilated with few or no losses on anyone elses part.

It seems the AI somehow "knows" where the Tal Shiar station is when u use core breach on them, and then it sends everything its got against it. The AI acts the same way about that station as if it was attacked by another ship, thats why they do that. And I doubt it can be fixed

The Tal Shiar War Core Detenation weapon seems a bit underpowered. Seems like blowing up the warp core ought to, if not destroy the ship outright, at least disable alot of it's systems. Also, the Spy function for the station could do with lasting a bit longer. Nice for revealing where stations are, but that's of limited use really.

It was more powerful in BETA 2 and it was SOOOOOO unbalanced that it wasnt even funny in multiplayer games. It is ok now, u can significatly cripple any ship with that thing. So I think that is ok Though u are right when u say that a core breach should destroy a starship heh, so maybe a name change is in order
Spy special ability is good enough imo, I mean it does reveal EVERYTHING the AI has built thus far, no need for it to last longer

posted on June 21st, 2006, 9:26 am

Hm, the Talon does cloak for me. could you please confirm this bug? was it perhaps affected by a special weapon like internal explosions from the klingon cluster missle which render a unit unable to cloak

Yep the AIs are still in development in this release. Expect more improvements till the final

Hm, the red/yellow alert switch works for me, too. Sadly enough this is something hardcoded we are unable to change

Yep the many new special abilities added are hard to incorporate into the AI. I will try to improve their "answer" to the sabotage ability

Sabotage should be fine now. It's an attampt to blow up the warpcore. sneeking in on a sovereign class vessel and blowing up the machine room is not that easy

yep there are still some placeholder sounds about CFW.. yep a nice game. maybe there will be some greetings to this game in a far far away FO version.. depends on our time

posted on June 22nd, 2006, 2:01 am

Happened every single time I played as a Romulan admiral. Since it happened right off the bat, I have to say it's not the result of a special weapon. However, I can say with some confidence that once the talon recieves the upgrade, the cloak is functional and the cloak works for every other ship. I would hypothesize then that it's probably just a glitch related to starting up the game. Next time I can play, I'll build another talon, besides the one you start with, and see if the same thing happens with that one.

I figured that was the case so I wasn't overly concearned with the AI. Like I said before, there's nothing really major with them.

Hmm...Red/Yellow alert is probably just one of those things I guess. Doesn't really prohibit game play and I don't use cloak much anyway so no big loss.

That's cool. It's only in that one specific instance that it's an issue. Human Romulan vs AI Dominion, which is not exactly a major thing. Annoying because it makes it rather easy, but oh well.

Hmm...is the damage variable for Sabatoge or does it do a set amount each time. I don't know how you have it set up now, but if possible, I betcha that a sort of "dice roll" to determine if it works or not. Like have it be 100% fatal, but only a certain percentage of the time. And what would be really cool is if it was variable depending on the size of the ship. 90% success rate for small ships like scouts, 70% for cruisers, etc. I rather doubt that's possible though.

Hehhe, **** yeah. That game was awesome, like I said, even as placeholders the VOs are awesome. More!


Oh, I did think of one other thing with the AI and this one's not as "nit picky". It seems to me there is a stupidly huge difference between difficulty levels. I've not tried and "easy", but I know Mediums do diddly squat and me versus 3 Mediums was beyond "walk in the park". However, three hard AI's vaped me and two other AI's (hard and medium) no sweat. It seems fairly consistent to me, but I"ll play it more and see if that's really the deal, the vast difference in difficulty, or if it was just some specific instances. I'm out of town on a lap top visiting college, but once I get back home I'll play around with it some more.

posted on August 16th, 2006, 9:25 am

Tiberius, just a thought - have you got a beginning-of-game ceasefire on when you're trying to cloak the talon at all? If so, have you tried cloaking it after the ceasefire has ended?

[Smoerebroed]

posted on August 16th, 2006, 11:59 am

Last edited by Smoerebroed on August 16th, 2006, 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

i have never experienced that Talon bug; the Romulan AI on hard is slow, correct but then start to annoy pretty good; (building tevara and generix refits

Now to my balance questions:
The Griffin class sensor overload is a little bit short in is duration isn't it? Why should I spend 800 Dilith. and 1800 Tritanium for an ability that lasts for 2 seconds/1 second weapon deactivation??? I think at least 5 seconds sensor blockout or so would be cool. Hmm keep looking and post them. ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's why we're here, free Beta-Testers. Actually There should be hall of error for those who have found the most issues in this fine piece of software!

cheers!

posted on August 16th, 2006, 12:55 pm

Yeah nice Comments Tiberius

There is one thing non FO related that you should know

Conquest: the Vyrium Uprising

posted on August 16th, 2006, 1:42 pm

Wow a new conquest game First I heared of it.

Is it still in developement tho, I checked some sites and they all say it has been in developement for an awefully long time now, with no screens available, nor any recent news -.-

Does anyone have any more info on this game? It'll be very appreciated

posted on August 16th, 2006, 5:07 pm

QUOTE
The Dominion AI has what I think of as a "glitch" but I suppose this is more of an observation. Any Dominion AI builds the Prototype ships and doesn't use them for attack, as would be only proper. However, if those prototype ships are attacked, they're instantly thrown into combat. And usually wiped out fairly quickly. Not usually so bad, because if they ARE attacked, it's usually because some enemy fleet is knockin at the door. However, against the Romulans, the issue becomes a bit more...interesting. Using a Tal-Shiar station, it's possible to of course use the warp core attack on the prototypes. Cool, except for it causes the Dominion AI to go into a single minded frenzy where it orders every ship it has, including it's prototypes, to ignore everything else and go for your Tal Shiar station. That would be a BAD thing for you, except for the fact that when I say it ignores everything, I mean everything. That AI's ships generally don't attack anything but the Tal Shiar station, with the end result that they're easily anhilated with few or no losses on anyone elses part.


It seems the AI somehow "knows" where the Tal Shiar station is when u use core breach on them, and then it sends everything its got against it. The AI acts the same way about that station as if it was attacked by another ship, thats why they do that. And I doubt it can be fixed sad.gif

Same with dom art