Twilight 1.92 Alpha

Old School Digital Distribution

Published on June 13, 2008 By ScottTykoski In GalCiv Journals

For your weekend amusement, we've cobbled together a fresh build of GC2:Twilight with some significant fixes.

http://sd.stardock.com/GalCiv2/GC2_Twilight_1_92_Alpha.zip

You'll be seeing the official build make its way onto Impulse and SDCentral next week, but in the meantime, just copy the contents of this ZIP into your 'Program FilesStardock/TotalGaming/GalCiv2/Twilight' folder and you should be good to go!

Here's the change log:

+ NEW: Improved Starport improvement graphics

+ NEW: Zoom to Mouse ursor option

+ NEW: Added ship components for Disruptors IV and Photonic Torpedo III techs

+ NEW: Removed a duplicate entry in the StarbaseModules.xml file. Also added some starbase modules with "Mining" and "ProductionAssist" abilities to compensate the races that do not have the factory line of techs in their tech trees (Iconians, Thalans, Korath, Yor). And I didn't just blindly add these, I made a spread sheet of all the starbase modules that each race has access to and filled in a few of the holes with new modules the best way I saw fit. They are tied to race-specific techs, so no other races will inadvertently be affected.

+ TWEAK: Made sure some techs were non-tradable and non-stealable because they now unlock starbase modules that I intend to be race-specific.

+ TWEAK: Fixed a few spelling/grammatical errors in the Yor tech tree. Specifically, changed "York" to "Yor" and "significant" to "significantly"

+ TWEAK: Fixed a typo in the Thalan tech tree. Changed "product" to "produce"

+ TWEAK: The research cost penalty has been reduced

+ TWEAK: Removed the description for the Divergent Evolution tech from both the Drath and Altarian tech trees so I could put it in techTree.xml. The description was exactly the same in the race tech trees including a bunch of misplaced linebreaks, which I fixed.

+ FIXED: A few typos in the descriptions of some ship components. Namely, when describing the numeric amount of HP or % boost a component gives.

+ FIXED: The Krynn were using the Torian's description for Aquatic World Colonization. Removed that, so it'll use the default description now

+ FIXED: Added "Space Weapons" and "Space Defense" techs back into the Thalan tech tree in their usual place right before the weapons and defense branches. I made them cheaper than usual so you can still have a quick research route to those branches of the tree. The reason I had to add them back in is because they provide starbase modules that are prereqs to other starbase modules that are still being unlocked in the thalan tree. Without access to the prereq starbase modules however, any modules that depend on them are impossible to use. Simply adding the two techs back into the tree fixes the issue.

+ FIXED: Bug where you could buy several improvements for the planet on the same turn from the quick build screen.

+ FIXED: Bug where if you bought a ship on a planet, you couldn't buy an improvement that turn

+ FIXED: Bug where the colony management screen didn't always have the most recent data

+ FIXED: Planet height maps that were placing tiles in the 'ocean' parts of the planet images

+ FIXED: Mind Control Center improvement

+ FIXED: Modified plague and disease mega-events to notify a player that they must research antivirus software or firewalls as a robotic race to find the cure, not plague cure or disease cure

+ FIXED: Gravity Accelerators were missing a Special ID, which was causing a crash when they were built

+ FIXED: Now can't trade Ascension starbases

EDIT: Please make sure you have the most recient version of Twilight downloaded.

Comments (Page 2)

DivineWrath

on Jun 14, 2008

Hi guys, how are you guys feeling about the technology pacing in this alpha?

I'm kinda busy recording TV shows with my computer and my defective capture card will not let me multi-task recording and game playing (for instance, muting it mutes the whole computer). Plus I've been analyzing the new starbase modules, adding data to my spread sheets, and have been trying to finish off TA 101. I'll be playing again tomorrow.

By the way, if you haven't noticed, I'm having many thoughts about the changes being made. If I get around putting together a report, would you read it?

wakawakawa

on Jun 14, 2008

Tech pace seems great. I've played one game so far and haven't noticed any weird behavior. Before the patch, some of the races wouldn't build ships even though they would research the techs.

Torians were the second biggest race in my game and I think they build all tiny, small ships, not sure if this is intentional play style (painful on huge, occasional stars).

di55ec7ion

on Jun 14, 2008

The Mind Control Center has been fixed

But what does that mean? Does it now work as intended, which means easier defection of worlds? Have you corrected the 100% economic bonus?

Thanks guys, you are great. Hopefully the alpha will not interfere with the upcoming official one. I do not want to reinstall because i cant wait.

ScottTykoski

on Jun 14, 2008

Re the MCC:

With most races, the they influence a planet enough, a 'Skull n Crossbones' icon will appear over their planet. THe planet then has a small random chance of defecting every turn.

THe MCC removes this aspect, and once enough Yor influence has been exerted on a planet, the planet automaticially flips.

di55ec7ion

on Jun 14, 2008

enough Yor influence? Do you mean enough of "your" influence? Or do i have to play Yor to use the MCC now?

Zaphod

on Jun 14, 2008

hmm, got a 'cannot find binkw.dll' error, any ideas?

Zaphod

on Jun 14, 2008

hmm, got a 'cannot find binkw.dll' error, any ideas?

Oh and im on Vista btw, sorry should have mentioned that.

Drengin

on Jun 14, 2008

Update running perfectly once i deleted my prefs.ins as i got a BSoD! Love the new Starport graphic

Many thanks

manbear

on Jun 14, 2008

About the mining I should say all of the AI's are mining too slowly. It is midgame and most of the AI's have most of their asteroids undeveloped whereas I am +20 with all of mine. This is with them all being on the tough AI setting.

Need to play more to judge the tech speed adjustments.

e-stab

on Jun 14, 2008

+ TWEAK: The research cost penalty has been reduced

Do this mean that the exploding research cost bug has been eliminated? The description sounds like a major understatement.

di55ec7ion

on Jun 14, 2008

+ TWEAK: The research cost penalty has been reducedDo this mean that the exploding research cost bug has been eliminated? The description sounds like a major understatement.

I discovered that tech cost of a 28wk tech has gone from 60000pts to 30000, now taking 14 wks instead. They are obviously drastically reduced. The wquestion is, how does the AI react, i will continue my game and if i notice changes in AI behaviour i will post them.

geminisama

on Jun 14, 2008

Thanks for fixing the tile placement! Gonna start up a game now. :]

RevTKS

on Jun 14, 2008

Just wanted to say thank you for giving us access to this patch. It's obvious that a lot of work went into it. Even more than that, letting us play with it before an official version rolls out is just fantastic.

I can't say enough good things about the "Stardock Crew" and I know that negative comments, even well meaning help/improvement comments, are mostly what you folks get in return for the hard work you do for all of us.

I hope this lets you know that a lot of us are having a blast with this game and really appreciate the efforts on our behalf.

...now where was that list of improvements and helpful comments I wanted to post?

Zyxpsilon

on Jun 14, 2008

Everything in 1.92(a) looks to be working as smooth as expected on my end... so, thanks again!

And now that i can actually experiment with the Zoom_To_Cursor feature i could see why people were rooting for it. It will rapidly become an essential asset.

Sir_On_The_Edge

on Jun 14, 2008

I know it will never be high priority, but could you give me feedback on if the scaling issue with the movies will ever be fixed?

It does effect how much I enjoy the game, even if it doesn't stop me for playing most of it without issue.

Edit: I'd also like to point out the 72 quality planet bug, seems game breaking enough. I take no credit for finding it, so now I'm fireproof (read flameproof

). Linky.

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