Sword of the Stars II

[John I Tzimisces]

Hmm. A re-examination of the audio issues.

Things that seemed in the past to cause my sound to cut out: Ending a turn which then had the AI doing a combat simulation.

After a little playtest, I played for about 10-15 turns, researched the particle beam, and redesigned my primary fighting cruiser. Satisfied with my design (I *do* really like the ship design screen), I went to do a weapons test. Sound cut out in the middle of the first volley. I suppose it's possible specific sound effects could be linked to the audio cutting out, but obviously at the start of a campaign there isn't really tremendous variety, and ship designs can end up with most of the available techs (if you're doing it right ). So, it seems either of those things can cause the sound to cut out: Don't think I've experienced anything else causing it, but since weapons fire and combat simulation is *going* to happen, it's rather annoying.

Admirals icon/details seems to be displaced to the bottom too far when assigning survey or colony missions, which covers some text.

Fooled around with some colonization. Colonized a second, very ideal planet in one of my controlled systems. Was able to continue supporting the colony with my colonial fleet as it developed. Presumably the more colony ships you have assigned to this task the faster terraforming/infrastructure goes. not really clear on what "biosphere" does. Later, surveyed a red giant system with a single detectable planet. Surveying revealed it had two moons, one of which was habitable. Colonized it without a hitch.

No clue what the hell "solar activity" means. Maybe the higher it is, it effects sensors for all ships in the system? Could be realllly cool if at some point coronal mass ejections were implemented. Heh.

As to my previous post about combat: It seems that until you detect the enemy fleet, you start in the equivalent of that technical combat screen where ships are represented as icons (in the first game I mean). On top of this, there's time dilation. Would make some sense if it didn't mean by the time the two fleets find each other, very little time to actually fight is left. Would probably be better if a different combat timer applied to the searching for the enemy bit, and if fleet positions didn't reset at the start of combat rounds (as, at the moment, the only clue to where an enemy fleet might be are planets themselves: presumably fleets will be near inhabited planets? Which are, in the tactical screen, unlabeled.).

For people who don't like the combat simulation between turns, you can likely reduce the amount of time it takes up by reducing combat round length.

This game would be a thousand times more playable if it wasn't for the instability related to combat rounds, and the sound issues. Really hoping those are the fastest updates.

[John I Tzimisces]

Hey folks! Helluva weekend eh?

Welcome to the perfect storm of cockup made up of 40% Murphy's Law, 30% Chaos, 20% Overambition and 10% wishful thinking. And you have our deepest regrets for what it is worth as none of this was part of the plan.

I am tempted to go into full blown explanations but a) that starts to smack of making excuses and b) in reality I think the biggest things on people's minds right now judging from your posts is "Who's responsible?!!" and "What's going to be done?!!" And even when its time for explanations I am sure you would all rather hear about it in the context of "How this won't happen again".

That latter question is an easy one and best gotten out of the way quickly. "Who is responsible?"...I am. Half my job at Kerberos is to be the one that makes the hard call. What gets prioritized. What gets pulled. What gets released. What get accepted. And in many ways, what gets said. When push comes to shove, I am the one who makes the deal with the devil. When something is supposed to be watched, its me who has to know the answer. When the switch got thrown on the wrong build, costing many of you an extra big download and letting loose an extra buggy code base, I was in traffic instead of giving the yay or nay myself. That should not have been...hell I should have insisted nothing moved until the right code had been there and confirmed multiple times. Instead I blew it and bad things happened.

So lets set this straight here. When you are dealing with SotS2 this weekend and wondering quite rightly "Who is to blame for this?!!" The answer is me. NOT Paradox...NOT Steam and certainly NOT my team. All of those forces have been exemplary in helping deal with a bad situation. When it comes to who should be at the end of anyone's fingerpoint, it's just plain ol' me.


Ok...so now onto the real important thing...The Future of SotS2 and what you can count on.


First of all the bad news...Thanks to various factors we are now sitting on top of a pile of blown apart code and unstable features. The first thing you can expect though is stability. There will be an update tomorrow which will set right much of the chaos created friday in terms of crashing and keeping you from playing that game. What it WON'T do is magically add back in every piece of functionality. Gods know I wish that I had that magic wand but the reality is that path leads to more chaos and more broken gameplay sessions. Remember that part where I mentioned making the hard calls? This is another one of those. As much as the team wants to throw themselves at this like crazy people, I am not going to ok that. Instead we will go about this in a relatively sane and orderly fashion with regular updates that make sure everything that goes back in is as stable as possible before you see it. Oh I am sure some stuff will leak through, but at least that will be dealt with quickly and cleanly. Sorry to just put the hard facts to you straight without flowers but I think we are somewhat past the flowers make it all better stage of this relationship

What this means to you...

This plan means that you folks can expect at least 2 or 3 updates a week over the next month or so that will gradually make this game into what it should have been when the switch was pulled on friday. Soon after that you can expect personel in black suits to arrive at your house to flash a red light in your eyes. After that you will find yourself happy and enjoying the best release day ever and none of this will ever have happened.
Ok fine...I am a lil shakey on the last half of the plan but what I can tell you is that by the end of this period you WILL have more additional content than you would have under more ideal circumstances. Every update will go out with some thank you for your patience...some badges, extra maps, new nose art, more background entries. Basically whatever can be done alongside the priority path will be put in as well. The people out there who know Kerberos know that we support our games not just for weeks or months but for years. For all of you people new to us, please let me assure you that despite how your purchase may look at the moment, you can look forward to years of support. I would ask that you consider not giving up on us because it will literally take the end of the world for Kerberos and Paradox to give up on SotS2.


What I would like to ask of you...


Oh I know that is hardly what you expected to hear right now, but before your temperature rises, please hear me out becuase this portion is in reaction to ALL the posts I have read which seem to subdivide into certain clear groups.


If you are a Kerberos and/or a SotS fan then please just enjoy the game as you can over the next few weeks. I know you want to help as much as possible but to be honest you should NOT be rewarded for your support with more work. Your feedback is appreciated but in no means are you expected to act as testers or hunt bugs. Literally your patience and continued support is more than enough.

If you truely feel like you have been dumped into an unannounced beta test on this game, then please, I ask you to put the game away and not look at it till someone fires off the "all done" flag. I am not going to tell you that you should not feel this way. What I am going to say is that if you feel this way then you should not feel victimized any more than if you had made a pre-order and then been informed of a delay. I know this does not make it all right but at least it should make it clear that no one wants to use you as a beta tester nor was that ever the intent.

And finally, if you are in the camp that still feels robbed by the time you have reached this point of my post I can only offer what I can. We are fixing it and we need folks to either cheer, step aside or get out of the way cause vitriol is not going to help right now. If you demand a refund then I completely understand and you can be assured, the cost of that will make it directly to us. We will feel your "voting with your dollars", you can be sure about that and we accept that as fair play. On the other hand, if a free copy of the orginal SotS will help tide you over while we get this game shined from turnip to jewel, then please write to "contact@kerberos-productions.com" and we will set you up. If nothing else, if you are not familiar with how we support our products, you can play it and then ask the old-timers how much it changed over the years and that may reassure you.



So if you are still with me after this long post...let me summarize.

a) cockup
b) my fault
c) will be Completely fixed
d) fun stuff in many updates
e) Understanding of your position
f) Apology again and underserved request for faith and patience from people who don't know us.


That's about it folks. I hope this helps in some way or another. If enough people care, I will try and post a "Ways I can think of to prevent this from happening ever again". But otherwise its sunday and I got a whole lot of work to get done for tomorrow's update.

Once again, Regrets and our deepest thanks for whatever patience each one of you can offer.
--Martin Cirulis
CEO/Creative Director
Kerberos Productions

Hello all,

Just a quick checking in before off to bed - the changelog is off to Paradox and they'll be posting it with the update in the morning. We'll post it then as well, but broadly there are a number of crashes addressed and a number of things I know kept coming up the last day or so.

Also, I'm waiting for final confirmation, but the manual replacement will be happening today, so a lot of info you've been asking after will be available fairly soon.

Thanks all - we totally agree with the clear update thread set up. I have an idea I think will work well - we'll maintain an update log as a sticky, but locked. Updates will be added by us, with a link to an open discussion thread. That way the update log is clean, but it still leads to the chatter.

But I'll worry about that in the morning. For now, Happy Halloween!

So, update is basically that today's patch will address stability. If it's 2-3 patches a week for the next month, well, that works for me. They said there won't be any huge patches/updates without forewarning about them. Said they get there's going to people who look at a patch and say, ok, so and so was fixed, but there's still this this this and this that needs fixing, but they're not going to deviate from the plan they said they're going to do...which is 2-3 patches a week. Personally hoping it goes...stability first. Then sound (if thats not fixed at first). Then bugs like AI (and player) human and zuul ships not following nodelines. Then UI fixes like tooltips and other things.

[Ringeck]

While I will not defend the state of the game at launch, I believe Kerberos will sort this out...eventually. They are perhaps the only gaming company (well, the only computer game company) I would trust in this manner. SotS1 was very bare-bones when it came out (more playable than this mess, though) but they made it into an amazing game: even without the add-on packs it is incredible, and with them it is simply amazing.

[Modestus]

I was actually in the market for this type of game and was keeping an eye on SoSII, I am not above supporting a small company that makes good games. I hope it turns out well for them, I am almost tempted to buy as is.

Mind you cannot excuse the condition at release seems almost as bad as ETW perhaps worse and you would wonder will they be able to fix it before money intervenes, sales could plummet.

[John I Tzimisces]

Posted on the paradox forums. Makes me kinda salivate at the day I'll be able to play tactical battles without a hitch

Nicer combat controls than the first one theoretically. You *could* do things like roll in the first one but it was pointless unless you were trying to get as many slow-firing guns to train on the same target as once, not avoid damage: damage only mattered in regard to what section was being hit, rather than the new system of side-front, side-middle, side-rear, and upper/lower-front, upper/lower-middle, upper/lower-rear.

If the patch is out by the time I'm back from campus, probably going to take a look at what's the deal with battleriders (those ships with only sublight drives, taking the place of destroyers). might make for good system defense.

Additions and Improvements:

- A new badge has been added for all factions.
- The game will now start in native 64-bit mode on operating systems that support it.
- Added 15 new entries to the encyclopedia.


Bug Fixes and Other Changes:

*** This update will break save games due to changes to special encounter implementation. ***

- Fixed a divide by zero crash that could occur when the game tried to trigger a rebellion on a planet with 0 civilian population.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when entering the multi-player lobby.
- Fixed issues where the game would hang on end turn when resolving AI versus AI combat.
- Fixed issues where concurrent combat scheduling could cause game turns to hang.
- Fixed an issue where the game could crash when a player attempted to save between turns.
- Fixed an intermittent crash that could occur during combat.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when committing an intercept mission.

- Fixed encyclopedia content appearing in the wrong locations.
- Fixed issues where user interface would be unreadable when starting a game window larger than the desktop resolution.
- Added more tool tips to the game lobby.
- Added more tool tips to the colony information widget.
- Added more tool tips to the build screen.
- Added more tool tips to the certain pop-ups and to the station placement screen.

- Fixed a few outstanding localized text issues, including three descriptions in the tech tree;
Spinal Mounts
Heavy Fission Cannon
Assimilation Plague Cure.
- Re-balanced Police Cutters and some menaces.
- Made improvements to Swarm Hiver, Larva and Queen art.
- Fixed issues where the game window could shrink below the minimum 1024x720 resolution.
- Fixed issue where minimizing the game window could cause it to go full screen instead.
- Fixed an issue where Suul'ka could become available to non-Horde Zuul players via Diplomatic Stations.
- Suul'ka arrival after building a Tribute station is now delayed by at least a turn.
- Fixed a bug with post encounter dialog where list selections were getting mixed up.
- Fixed a miscolored element of the fleet widget items.
- Fixed some underlying UI layout bugs.
- Fixed a bug where Gate Amplifiers would not show up in the station module list. This was preventing the upgrade of Gate stations.
- Fixed a bug that was allowing built modules to be re-queued.
- Fixed art issues with Tarkasian Dreadnought GOOP and Heavy Beam modules.
- Fixed outstanding art issues with Human Supply Transports, Naval Outposts and Polic Cutters.
- Fixed an issue where AI controlled agents running at accelerated time in simulated combat were not doing enough damage to each other.

[Kanaric]

I take back what I say about this game, Kerberos is doing a good job patching this. So far 3 patches in almost as many days is simply amazing IMO this game is near to where I want it to be.

I suspect this game will be playable (for me) in a couple weeks.

[CDMan477]

Wow, what an unlucky release for this company. Will keep an eye on this and buy in a week or so if the guys who already have it would recommend it at that point. Was really looking forward to this game.

[John I Tzimisces]

I take back what I say about this game, Kerberos is doing a good job patching this. So far 3 patches in almost as many days is simply amazing IMO this game is near to where I want it to be.

I suspect this game will be playable (for me) in a couple weeks.

At the moment I'm still having audio issues. First cut out was at 15 turns, basically every five or so turns after that it's cutting out. Had one CTD without an error log like I had in the past. Pleased to note that I'm actually able to hear weapons fire. Did have a weird bug I've experienced in the past though: heard the hiver adviser instead of the Tarka one after I clicked end turn: heard the Tarka adviser when the AI's combat simulation was done.

Also seem to be getting far too many notifications about my own encounters. For instance I've got a fleet surveying a star, and one that I rushed to a colony in response to a human survey fleet. I'm being prompted about each encounter twice at the end of my turn (pretty sure it goes encounters prompt -> my combat simulations -> some of the AI's combat simulations ->another encounters prompt -> the last AI combat simulation). Doesn't seem to be an option for a "draw". battles always end as either Victory or Defeat even if no damage was done to either side.

For whatever reason it seems like the AI really sucks at fighting "Proteans". I swear the humans were going at it with them for like 15 turns. Tarka AI spending almost as long fighting a morrigi relic (seems to be an asteroid monitor).

But, all in all, pleased at the relative stability, pleased at the ability to hear things.

2-3 of these a week for the next month or so? Go kerberos go!

update: http://www.kerberos-productions.com/...p?f=37&t=22111
Holy pants elouda is helpful.

[Hotspur]

I'm starting to have Renegade Legion: Interceptor flashbacks (+1 if you even remember that game). They had the same damage setup, where lasers had narrow but deep penetration and mass drivers had shallow but wide.

[Fracchione]

the condition at release seems almost as bad as ETW perhaps worse

elaborate

[Ringeck]

It was in worse condition than ETW when it came out and it is still in a really bad state. Many people cannot get the game to start at all. There are still frequent crashes, sound cutouts, odd bugs (you have to press the tactical battle menu buttons (manual/automatic control, peaceful/aggressive stance, then select battle and press ok) in a certain order to prevent them from a weird autocalc) and unimplemented features that really should work but doesn't. On the other hand, beneath all the mess I can see a great game, whereas I have more or less given up on the entire TW series at this point.

[Modestus]

elaborate

I was one of those people who could go 50 turns and the game would CTD and there was no way around it, you could play a different faction and hit a CTD at turn 20. Armies deployed in reversed positions on the battle maps creating the impression reinforcements entered the battle on the wrong side.

Numerous other issues that escape me at the moment but reading the Paradox forum SOSII is a lot worse and appears to be only half finished, no where near release condition.

[ShahJahen]

It feels more stable now turn 15 no crashes. but i noticed if you alt tab out you cant get screen back up again

[John I Tzimisces]

Critical fixes:
- Fixed an issue where the game could crash when battle riders, drones, boarding pods, assault shuttles or bio-missiles were launched in combat.
- Fixed an issue where Swarmers could crash the game while launching from the hive.
- Fixed a crash that was occurring when creating new provinces.
- Fixed a crash caused by incorrect retrieval of achievement states.
- Fixed an issue where failure to load an asset could prevent screens from transitioning.
- Fixed multi-player compatibility issues between 32- and 64-bit versions of the game.
- The Continue Game button is now working.
- Tool tips have been added to the combat UI.

Other fixes and changes:
- Fixed an issue where public games were not being correctly published to the GameSpy master server.
- AI is now more aggressive in combat and starts closer to the action. This was done to address some cases where AI versus AI combat simulation was not resolving.
- Fixed known issues where modules were not being displayed on stations.
- Fixed an issue where certain ship designs were not being assigned default sensor ranges.
- Fixed an issue where planetary missiles were not hitting targets.
- Fixed a ship avoidance issue where ships could become immobilized between a station and the planet is orbits.
- Fixed issues where the game was incorrectly assessing whether players should engage in combat.
- Fixed an issue where the game was not correctly determining when players had discovered each other on the star map.
- Fixed issues where starting system distributions on star maps could be needlessly unbalanced.
- Fixed an issue where missiles and mines were not being assigned the correct structure, causing them to be too easy to pick off.
- Fixed the issue where Swarmers were not correctly pursuing moving targets.
- Fixed an issue where Hiver gates were not being deployed while enemy colonies existed in the system.
- Fixed an issue with lists in the GUI that was causing the Admiral Manager to present misleading data.
- Fixed an issue where Battle Cruisers and Battleships were being unlocked without the correct technologies being acquired.
- Fixed an issue where an incorrect large amount of terraforming damage could be applied by weapons in combat.
- Fixed an issue where the Von Neumann constructs could spawn at the center of a star system.
- Fixed an issue where reserve fleets were being included in sensor range checks
- The System Killer's beam range has been increased.
- Added missing icons to Heavy Beam modules.
- Start positions for certain combat encounters have been brought in closer.
- The ship HUD is no longer displayed when planets are selected in combat.
- There have been a handful of fixes to various weapon and ship art files.
- Fixed an issue where "easter eggs" could be spawned in colonized systems.

Additions
- Game setup now automatically defaults to the maximum players for the selected map.
- Missile warheads will now upgrade.
- Players are now presented with the option of renaming their initial home world as a new colony.
- The game launcher options dialog now includes a "Prefer 64-bit Process" checkbox. This can be unchecked to override default behavior and run the 32-bit version of the game on 64-bit operating systems.
- Features have been added to the station manager:
* Module descriptions have been added.
* The station module build queue now displays cost.
* A Max button has been added to the module build queue controls.
- Changes have been made to the upgrade paths of stations to prevent certain issues where upgrades might never be possible.
- The station manager now shows up as a window on the star map.
- The planet information window now shows up as a window on the star map.
- The redundant confirmation dialog that displayed when loading games has been removed.
- The Defense Manager tray has been hidden in this update to prevent the possibility of fleets becoming on the system map.
- The Liir Protectorate is now locked until the correct technology is acquired.
- As a stop-gap measure the initial window resolution supplied in the game launcher options has been reduced from 1680x1050 to 1280x960. This may help newcomers to the game in cases where the initial window size is too large for certain desktop and display configurations. Others may adjust this value in the options dialog as needed.

[Cooraan]

Well it's at least good to see a company work frantically to fix their product. I'll pick this up in a month or two.

[John I Tzimisces]

Yeah cooraan it's nice they're keeping up with the updates.

Although tactical combat is still basically a pointless venture: player ships, regardless of the stance you set for them, only do exactly what you order them to do, and will only fire if their guns happen to be within range of an enemy target. They don't turn to face or engage the enemy in a meaningful way. Although, manual controls kind of work. The way damage is applied I definitely see them being useful.

It doesn't stop combat from looking very pretty, pretty satisfied with at least how my ships explode and take damage. Looks like ships can perform field repairs too (due to their apparently being critical systems damage: turret hydraulics, electrical systems, crew casualties, that sort of thing, on top of the old system of apparently being able to pinpoint target specific weapon systems).

Hopefully an update will address this kinda soon. That and the sound are more or less keeping me from playing at all.

On the upside, the DLC is free till the end of the month, and people who preordered can apparently contact kerberos for a free copy of SoTS prime. And there's an update scheduled for tomorrow. Too bad I'll be out of town...

[Pantsalot]

The DLC free? I don't see the DLC up on Gamersgate
right now but I guess that would be since I don't own
the game, I was intending to read up on the game a
bit more before deciding if I wanted it or not but this
is a bit pressuring.. :I

Guess I'll see about DLing it tomorrow.

[John I Tzimisces]

The DLC free? I don't see the DLC up on Gamersgate
right now but I guess that would be since I don't own
the game, I was intending to read up on the game a
bit more before deciding if I wanted it or not but this
is a bit pressuring.. :I

Guess I'll see about DLing it tomorrow.

Erm, would definitely recommend doing some reading on the paradox and/or kerberos forums first...

[Carach]

was following development of this game. however after a read of relic forums at release it appears this game is one of the worst ever released. Like, sets a benchmark for unfinished games.

[John I Tzimisces]

Was out of town for the weekend so I didn't get to post this (as the first one happened literally moments before I left my apartment).

First update on Friday:

Patch Notes:

r17606
------

Critical fixes:

- Fixed station manager crash when while selecting a station.
- AI versus AI combat routines now internalized and will no longer appear to players.
- AI will now follow command point limits when creating and modifying fleets.
- Added tool tips to descriptions to all sections in the design screen.
- Reimplemented alien habitation modules.
- Improved Spectre AI so Spectres now spread out amoung targets.
- Spectres now do appropriate damage based on their size.
- Fixed a slowdown due to Spectre collision error.
- Admiral creation within empire now working correctly.


Other fixes and changes:

- Fixed Spectre spawn positions.
- Improved Spectre AI so Spectres will move from large to small target is the opportunity arises.
- Game will now start in full screen mode at native desktop resolution unless specified in options. (Game can still drop out of full screen if another program window overlaps the game. Use ALT+ENTER to return to full-screen again.)
- Weapons now apply their appropriate damage pattern based on their distance from target.
(All weapons were using their max pattern range, often the weakest of all ranges)
- Turret fixes made to Human and Hiver Leviathans causing them to shoot through selves.
- Firing arc fixes to Heavy Beam modules.
- Heavy turret turn speed changes to be more realistic.
- Adjustments made to Disruptor weapon attacks.
- Fixed various minor bugs to station upgrades.
- Fixed Zuul and Tarka combat music themes not playing.
- Fixed crew death stuck above 0% (was not adding bonus crew when doing crew death calculations)
- Driveless ships in formation, provided they aren't lead ship, will now fall behind and rest of formation will continue at formation speed. If the ship with the destroyed engine is lead, the formation will slow down as designed, in order to protect lead (presumably
command) ship. Player can select ships to abandon lead ship if they wish.
- Fixed planetary spotter ranges (ships can now be spotted by planets when flying past)
- Planet Manger moved to its own dialog box.
- Added a delay to prevent any actions from taking place until everything is ready
- Compressed combat, gui and music sounds for greater efficiency.
- Fixed combat random encounter data being null
- fix incorrect stance facing (ship sometimes did not face target, now they will face target while in their stance)
- Level 5 Science Centers disabled temporarily.


Additions:

- New badges added to all races
- Additional load screen
- New encyclopedia entries on Admirals.
- New encyclopedia entries on Missions.
- Station Modules entries in the encyclopedia complete.


Known Issues:
- Sound bug remains a priority.
- Close To Attack isn't working properly.
- Players can enter battle without selecting the fleet they want to use
- Some players seeing sorting errors with refracted surfaces (ie glass can be seen through ship as black)
- Fleet isn't picked by default for combat. Player has to select fleet for combat.
- Players reporting crash when attempting to upgrade planet to Gem/Forge world.

AND then there was a hotfix later that night apparently.

- Added more variety to the default weapon loadouts of starting fleets.
- Issue where sound would cut out (particularly in combat) is now resolved.
- Fixed issue where ships would avoid far too high or too low while in combat.
- Resolved an issue where players could enter combat without a fleet even if a fleet is available.
- Fixed a bug that misrepresented the winner of a combat.

Next update Wednesday. Said they can't really tackle big issues on a 3 patch a week schedule: when they do 2 a week it'll be bigger ones I guess. Hoping they tackle the close-to-attack functionality.