I don't know if this is a bug, intentional or just a figment of my imagination, but I've been messing about with xml files today trying to give my race a penalty to production. You can feed -50% (or whatever you want) into the xml file, and it shows up in the game stats screens, but the amount of production you ACTUALLY get with a -x% bonus is the same as if you had 0% race ability.

The reason I'm putting this here is I've had a thread conversation with a guy today who has done the same thing with 1.1, and he's reporting that -x% does really mean -x%.

1st bug, i'm not sure why but sometimes a frieghter will return to its base and never leave especially if there is at least one other ship in orbit, it will also cause the other ships to be inaccesible by showing the stacked ships screen with an icon for the planet and a frieghter with a number indicating the number of shgipd in orbit, but it won't leave and the only way to get to launch the other ships is to disband the frieghter (and abandon a trade route), leave the planet and then return to it.

2nd bug i'm well into a game about 75% of the tech tree or more researched and now every few turns it dumps me to the desktop with no error messages.

Posting both here and in the other thread, in my recent game(Medium galaxy, 4 opponents), my Drenigan opponent expanded massively and then for no reason his cash turned into negative..a really big number, I belive the max a 32bit number can be.

Should I provide save game?

Some Beta 2 bugs that I've noticed recently:

- Torian proposed me a trade of some 'good aligned' tech (I had neutral alignment) but it actually didn't appear on the right side of the trade screen (just in the message text); when I agreed they responded with 'thank you for your generous gift'; maybe AI shouldn't offer techs that other cannot accept?

- very often the window viewport is not following the ship's autoselection; when the ship selection changes automatically the viewport stays in the same place; I've often got confused and moved a wrong ship because of this

- change from 80% to 81% in the tax rate downgrades the approval rating from 80% to 20% (at least for me) - I have a game saved that can prove this; I can understand that 80% tax is a lot, but still such a dramatic change for just 1%

- when upgrading many ships with the 3rd option (maybe also with other contractors) I've only been charged for 1 ship

- after the game I was prompted whether I want to submit to 'Metaverse', but after choosing YES was unable to type in my login/password - fields seemed to be non-modifiable

- some buildings are not possible to build again if destroyed: orbital fleet manager, starport for example


And also not a bug but planetary improvements enhancement ideas:

- 300% bonus for food production is killing the aproval for the planet and I personally almost never build a farm on it (especially because morale bonus seems to be degraded greatly for very big populations)

- in contrary I would be quite keen on seeing 300% bonus on approval or influence - in my oppinion it would not unbalance the game unless they appear too often

- what happened with the precursor library which was described in the manual? (too powerful?)

- Secret Police improvement really dosn't make sense to build - almost all standard approval boosters are better and they are also easier to build

- very often the window viewport is not following the ship's autoselection; when the ship selection changes automatically the viewport stays in the same place; I've often got confused and moved a wrong ship because of this

To our dismay, that was the change that was made to autofocus in 1.2. It still incorrectly selects ships without being told, only now it doesn't let you know it's done it. Worse than the original behavior. They know but I'm not sure if there's anything that can be done about it.

- some buildings are not possible to build again if destroyed: orbital fleet manager, starport for example

Agreed about the fleet manager. I've destroyed more than one fleet manager with mini-soldiers/tidal disruption and had it refuse to let me build a replacement.

Are you sure about the starport? If it's removed, I can build a new one. If you select the old one for upgrade without removing it first, it won't show up in the list until it's been replaced.

- change from 80% to 81% in the tax rate downgrades the approval rating from 80% to 20% (at least for me) - I have a game saved that can prove this; I can understand that 80% tax is a lot, but still such a dramatic change for just 1%

This is by design, not a bug.

- Secret Police improvement really dosn't make sense to build - almost all standard approval boosters are better and they are also easier to build

The morale bonus from this is unmodified by the population size, like the 10% high quality planet bonus. If you have a population of 20B or more, it's better than 3 virtual reality centers.

as of the new build, Minor races are still using the major races range as opposed to thier own.

would like to comment on the "upgrading multiple ships bug" ..... when you upgrade using the upgrade all ships of this class box you are only charged for 1 ship but all the ships in the same class are upgraded ... btw i always use the cash option rather than the contractor option (if that makes any difference to you guys) .... my last upgrade cost 6700bc per ship and i upgraded 4 ships, but only cost me the 6700bc rather than 26800bc

i would like to add nice work on 1.2 .... been playing about 8 hours or so on gigantic map with 9 civs on painful and no crashes at all (the last 1.2 crashed every few turns or so)

Are you sure about the starport? If it's removed, I can build a new one. If you select the old one for upgrade without removing it first, it won't show up in the list until it's been replaced.

I'm not 100% sure whether it was in Beta 2, but I remember some problems with the starport as well. I have built a starport, then upgraded to some other building and later I couldn't build a new one anymore...