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Nirvana_CN
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Leeds, England
Nov 2001
time: 05:26
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Taken from here :- http://www.ina-community.com/forums...threadid=277756
Yes, work is in progress on a patch. We have no delivery date at this time. We are concentrating on the Military AI (offensive, defensive and build queue) and point defense problems, along with some UI glitches and any crash or easy to fix bugs. Changes which require any artwork are extremely unlikely for this patch. The plan is to release a data-only patch fairly quickly which should help with some of the Military AI problems (and other things) and may also contain some additional documentation on use of the spreadsheets to help the modders. This will be followed by a code patch. Code changes will be listed here as they are verified internally, so that you know what is coming. The actual release of the patches will be controlled by the QA departments at Infogrames (for Windows) and Destineer (for Macintosh). We are happy to hear constructive feedback from fans regarding bugs of design issues and have been listening to feedback from a number of fans, both off and on the boards.
Added buttons to both the Planets screen and System Econ panel to go straight to the build queue(s) (without having to drill down manually).
Add turns left to completion to the display on the System Econ panel for the items currently being built by the planet.
Modify behavior of sliders so that when clicking on the area outside of a slider arrow to set it's position, the slider arrow is moved five pixels in that direction instead of to the point where the mouse was clicked.
Correct the scroll thumb positions of the task force composition panel on the galaxy map to reset when a different item is selected.
Correct the scroll thumb positions of border policy setting descriptions panel to reset when a different item is selected.
Fixed a bug where hitting the ESC key to close a planet information sub-panel would prevent the planet panels from being opened again with the TAB key.
Fixed a bug where two planet information sub-panels could be open at the same time if you hit the ESC key and TAB key fast enough.
Fix Dev Plans UI such that it acts more dynamically in the adding, replacing, and removing of plans.
Added loading and saving of Dev Plans to external file.
Modify galaxy screen so that star names and empire flags remain visible up to the halfway zoom point when zooming the galaxy map out.
Fix Ship Design screen so that the pulldowns do not reset when attempting to start a second design.
Fix Ship Design screen so that the equipment list scrolls when it exceeds the size of the panel.
Correct a problem which caused the lower numbered empire to always win the coin flip when both sides chose assault planet in space combat. (It turns out the problem was different than originally thought - only noticed on Orion because all other computer players have a higher empire number than the human player).
Correct a problem which caused the AI to build system colony ships when none were needed (or usable).
Removed code which degraded ground unit experience while in the delay box or the reserves, so that it is possible to get a unit higher than "experienced".
Modified ground combat results so that capturing a planet also gives you a random tech from the other empire.
Fixed a bug in the colonization AI that was not properly reducing the desirability of systems containing colonies of other empires.
Fixed a bug in military construction AI that was improperly calculating the amount of transport capability in the empire, therefore causing it to build way too many transports. (It wanted enough capacity to hold 80% of ground forces, but did not calculate the existing capacity correctly).
Fixed bug that allowed a task force to fly through a Guardian system without stopping.
Added ctl-click to force direct travel to another star (off-road if no starlane).
Last edited by Nirvana_CN on 22-03-2003 at 16:41
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Ultimate Trip
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Sounds great, I'm looking forward to the patch, for the time being my copy of MOO3 is collecting dust.
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BobD
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Thank god, there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel. After suffering through the Dirext X Surface bug 5(!) turns in a row I have given up trying to play this game until it gets fixed. Hopefully it won't be too long.
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Crostoneman
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If the PD bug is fixed, does this mean the point defence missiles go after missiles, or do you have to assign them to point defence ships. If this is true, then there is merit to why the A.I. keeps building I.F. task forces, and the battles would be a lot more interesting.
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BobD
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quote:
Originally posted by Stuie
The only time I have experienced this "bug" is when another program becomes the focus in windows (either by alt-tab or by hitting the Start Menu key or Sleep key by accident), and I have to re-focus MOO3 from the windows' toolbar. I just avoid all of the above by running MOO3 with no other programs active and avoiding the aforementioned keys.
Is it happening under other circumstances? You might need to turn off a screen-saver or something - the solution may be that simple. |
To the best of my knowledge this isn't the problem. I never alt-tab out of the game, nor do I have other programs running (except my internet connection). It usually happens during (or just after) a combat sequence, so it's "inbetween" turns. The game I was playing was pretty far along (turn 350+) so maybe it has something to do with the huge amount of data that the game has to process? Anyway, I'm putting my hopes on the patch.
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CharlesBHoff
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el paso texas
May 2002
time: 05:26
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quote:
Originally posted by BobD
Thank god, there's finally a light at the end of the tunnel. After suffering through the Dirext X Surface bug 5(!) turns in a row I have given up trying to play this game until it gets fixed. Hopefully it won't be too long. |
I have the same problen untril I change the graphic setting in the option in MOO3 from hight to either Medium or Low.
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CharlesBHoff
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el paso texas
May 2002
time: 05:26
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Since I started playing computer games since the late 1970's let me shared some thought on this. I than also did some programming on the early computers. The games make to day are alot more complex than the one make in the past. All games of the late 1970's with afew exception where DOS game's which where very stable compare to windows 3.1 and early win 95 games. DOS programming is alot easyier to do than windows programming which is why game companies didnot release windows game untril later.
In DOS only one thing was running the games and what ever support from DOS program that was needed to run. Windows programming is many time harder as you must worry about background program's running while your game is also running. Some background are vital windows programs which cannot be block or turn off without windows
crashing on you. DOS games very rarely crash on you untril you have the wrong type of DOS on your computer and you have to upgrade your version of DOS.
The reason that the early games where bug free was that detecting bug is easy when your program are simple and the operation system you where writeing for was also simple. Debugging than simple short program will take from 2 to 3 hours per hour sent programming. In the more involse game programming and more complex windrows program it might take at least 10 to 20 hours of debugging for each hours sent programming.
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CharlesBHoff
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el paso texas
May 2002
time: 05:26
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The time sent debugging isnot the total time sent writeing the program. The program when it is being delveoply is also being rewritten and debugged while they are working on the code untril near the end when their have a pretty good idear that they have good codes in place. It is very common that in the beginning that codes for the game is going throught many revision and is contation being change and debugged.
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MariOne
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Erewhon in Neverland
May 1999
time: 06:26
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quote:
Originally posted by Stuie
 Unfortunately there were quite a few who were driven away by the initial offering and refuse to come back. Unfortunate for them, anyway. |
Unfortunately, I was not driven away by bugs, or by any intial unbalance whatsoever in the game parameters, but by the very philosophy behind the game design itself, which made it imho dull, shallow, unattractive despite all its promises.
And that view is not just my freak prejudice, but is shared by more than a few gaming-committed and openminded members of this same site.
I hardly figure a patch can fix THAT.
I could be nevertheless giving it a try again sometimes, but that's not in my priority list. After all, in six or twelve months, I'll have to dust the top shelves too.... 
PS: shameful, lame, provocative plug: I found SEIVGold more exciting and interesting to play than Civ3! 
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Kahn
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HELLO!?! Is anyone awake at Quicksilver/Infogrames?
With over half of the poor schleps taken in by the slick spin doctoring not even able to run this piece of crap for more than a couple of turns before the now infamous "DirectX surface not available" make an appearance, followed by a crash to the desktop, and this is all QS/IG has to say in response:
quote:
Originally posted by Nirvana_CN
Taken from here :- http://www.ina-community.com/forums...threadid=277756
We are concentrating on the Military AI (offensive, defensive and build queue) and point defense problems, along with some UI glitches and any crash or easy to fix bugs. Changes which require any artwork are extremely unlikely for this patch.
The plan is to release a data-only patch fairly quickly which should help with some of the Military AI problems (and other things) and may also contain some additional documentation on use of the spreadsheets to help the modders.
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What planet are you from??? Fix the errors in the game before you begin "tweaking the AI". The errors are not the result of improper "{Alt}{tab}ing", nor the result of bad drivers. It results from anyone having a video card with less than 128 megs of RAM (and even that only gives you a 50/50 chance of being able to run @#$ thing)!
It's quite apparent that no beta testing was done before this "release" was shoved out the door. If this is any indication of what this studio is capable of producing, then I suggest that next time they attempt to hire programmers that were not asleep during "Introduction to C/C++" class!
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Kahn
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quote:
Originally posted by vmxa1
Kahn, the game will not crash if you use Cntrl-Alt-Esc when you come back to the game and get the direct x msg. I use the windows key to bounce out of Moo3 and come back many times each day and have never had it crash using those keys. I have had the game all day without a single crash. |
Apparently you have failed to read the posts on this subject. WE don't give a @#$%& about the DX problem your talking about (otherwise know as the "recoverable"error. The code consistantly crashes the program to desktop once it has faied to recycle enough pointers to the DirectDrawSurfaces.
Hopefully, you are just trying to help. If so, I'm sorry for comming down on you so hard, it's just several of us who have complained about the problem keep getting the same, stupid, idiotic advise from non-programmers trying to explain away a problem that is clearly contained within the code as if it were a figment of our imaginations!
Last edited by Kahn on 18-03-2003 at 00:21
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Eric S
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Las Vegas, NV
Jan 2002
time: 21:26
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Well, I'm another exception, I guess. I've never had any crash/hang with MoO3 except for the DirectX surface error relating to Alt-Tabbing. I'm running Win2K and a GF3 video card with 64MB, I believe, and I've played 15 hours straight without a problem. I do have 512MB RAM if that might be a useful datapoint. (Just trying to be helpful, the more data points collected, the more obvious the problem may appear).
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15-03-2003 18:47
Hope it comes out before I get too frustrated and move on.
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