Is this a bug?

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I was playing my first game in quite some time, with tactical combat off, so I had to watch the combat replays to see the ships duke it out. (Went pretty well btw. Had one scout with a single CSM I that took out around 1000kT of enemy tonnage without receiving a single hit. Admittedly, 600 of that 1000kT were colonizers, but even against (DUC-armed) combat ships it was victorious.) Well anyway, I watched a replay and the first thing I noticed was that when my ship's missiles hit the enemy CL (huddled away in a corner), there was no explosion, and at the end of the combat the ship still appeared as though it was undamaged, when in fact it had received damage. I dismissed it and continued playing. However, in subsequent replays the same thing happened - the missile hit, but there was no explosion and no visible damage. The only time I did saw weapons hit was when an enemy ship fired its two DUCs against an undefended colony of mine (note to self, NEVER piss off Amon-Krie during chronic minerals shortage). Is this a (known) bug? Did the difference in weapons (seeker vs. direct-fire) matter when they hit? Is this new in 1.94, has it been so for longer, or is it a unique phenomenon? Why do crocodiles have so many teeth when they swallow their prey whole anyway?

(Oh, and as for the game - I got pasted. I got into war with the Amon-Krie (medium diff., low bonus, no TDM) and they sent a few (not much more than five, six in total) escorts, frigates and destroyers into my home system. They then proceeded to glass my colonies (five in all, including a huge breathable one - shoulda built WPs much sooner) and attack my homeworld, where they lost a frigate and a destroyer (out of two frigs, two dessies and an escort) to my lone defence station, then they pulled out two damaged ships and used the remaining one to glass my planet. Yay me)

[capnq]

Two possibilities come to mind, but neither of them quite fit what you've described.

1) A missile at the very end of its range will show a hit that does 0 damage. (i.e. a CSM I "catching" its target exactly at range 9 will appear to explode)

2) Damage to a component which fails to destroy that component disappears when combat ends.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

capnq said:
Two possibilities come to mind, but neither of them quite fit what you've described.

1) A missile at the very end of its range will show a hit that does 0 damage. (i.e. a CSM I "catching" its target exactly at range 9 will appear to explode)

No, the ship was well within range and the log entry showed it to be damaged.

2) Damage to a component which fails to destroy that component disappears when combat ends.

Again, the log report showed it to be damaged. The toughest comp on that ship was a Colony Module, with 200kT resistance; my CSM I had (has) an attack power of 60, so four hits should destroy it. It definitely hit more than four times.

Ah well, I guess this is a bug then (or, actually, would be more appropriate I guess) (By the way, I'm using 1.94 Deluxe turn-based (i.e. non-simultaneous), so you know)

[Captain Kwok]

IIRC the combat replays don't have the same level of information (like which components where damage at each turn etc.) so it probably doesn't display the explosion effects etc.

[Renegade 13]

Yep, replays never show which components are damaged (that one's annoyed me now and again). I also believe they've never shown combat effects, at least ones that pertain to ship-ship combat. Never really noticed about ship-planet combat though.

[Suicide Junkie]

The replay shows effects.

You can tell when the shields go down by when it stops using the shield animation, and switches to explosions. The only effect you don't see is explosions when missiles hit (the missiles stop on the ship, then dissappear, with no blast)

[Wade]

Why aren't you using version 1.95?

I believe that crocodiles have so many teeth even though they swallow their prey whole because of grip. They are primarily fish eaters. When they go for larger prey, like buffalo and antelope, the grip especially helps; and teeth break off too. They then do their "death roll" in order to finish off the prey and tear off chunks of yummy flesh. Grip via many teeth helps with this also.

-Wade

[Captain Kwok]

Some players don't like 1.95 because it added that launch menu which is annoying to some.

[Wade]

C:\Program Files\Strategy First\Space Empires IV Deluxe\History Text Document 125 KB


Version History for Space Empires IV
---------------------------------------------------

Version 1.95:
1. Fixed - Mount selection on the Weapons Report was only showing the Normal Mount.
2. Fixed - The game will now create any directories that are missing.
3. Fixed - Occasionally, the TCP/IP would not connect using UDP.
4. Fixed - Over 300 System Types would crash the game.
5. Fixed - The Map Editor was not loading old Settings.txt files (with track numbers).
6. Added - Added a startup menu window.


-Wade

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Wade said:
I believe that crocodiles have so many teeth even though they swallow their prey whole because of grip. They are primarily fish eaters. When they go for larger prey, like buffalo and antelope, the grip especially helps; and teeth break off too. They then do their "death roll" in order to finish off the prey and tear off chunks of yummy flesh. Grip via many teeth helps with this also.