List of changes in 0.99

[Ferendra]

Hi there,

is there a list of changes which came with
dem0 0.99 ?

Greetings
Ferendra

[Taqwus]

I've not seen any official list, but some stuff I've noticed --


- Program tweaks.
For WPs, you can now specify 'build as many as you can in one turn'.
There's a bug where CD audio defaults to ON. Turn it off.

- Rebalancing.
Many conventional weapons are stronger.
Armor seems to be weaker across the board.
Shields may be stronger -- e.g. 300 pts, IIRC, for level 5.
S. Fighters are now 15kt, not 10kt, and can have 9 engines.
Religious races now get the always-hit component at level 4.
Counterintel seems to have been reworked.
More tech is available for free at low -- IIRC, that's satellites and weapon platforms.

- AI.
The AI now makes more competitive designs and race picks, methinks.
It is no longer an easy pushover -- don't expect to be able to gain tribute just because you blockade a planet or two.
It is a MUCH better defensive player. In my current game, the Eee realized that there was only one warp point by which I could reach them (until I conquered the Phong, which it might not have realized yet, and which should provide another route...), and they mined the HECK out of that warp point making it a no-go. And the Phong refused to give in until I brought in hefty fleets and wiped out a nasty, nasty BS (2400 shields and massive Shard VI cannons, argh) defending their Last remaining homeworld (3 initially).


------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[dmm]

That's good news about the improved standard tech weapons, the increased small fighter size, the planetary defense techs for free, and the improved AI. The weaker armor should lessen some of the ramming problems. (See earlier discussions.) The bad news is that it sounds like I will no longer be able to do sub-100-turn blitkrieg galactic conquests, so I'll have to buy the full game! Oooh, that's fiendishly clever!

[Taqwus]

Some other changes that I forgot to note --

* Shard cannons only fire once every two turns. This plus the much stronger shields makes Crystalline far, far more balanced.

* There appears to be a greater chance that multiple races ally against you if necessary, calling you a threat to the galaxy... heh. I had one race declare war right after First Contact.

* Various nifty interface changes, like refitting a ship no longer kills the refit/scrap/etc menu (much more convenient now to refit multiple ship classes). There are tweaks, and they are Good.


Yup. It's now harder to blitz, since the AI is now not likely to fork over 10 planets at a time just because you asked. ;-) My most recent game ended with one AI opponent remaining, being pushed back slowly... The writing was on the wall (I'd conquered almost all of the Large galaxy, with over 100 gas/rock colonies, and was sending *very* nasty CAs into his space, and capturing a planet every 1.2 turns via intel as well...), but he refused to surrender in time. Grrrrr.

Wonder if the saved game is compatible with the full Version, heh.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night

[General Hawkwing]

Thanks for the info!

[Seawolf]

Just a general note.
The AI is no longer a pushover!!!! Get ready to worry about that the AI is doing!! You hve been warned!!


------------------
Seawolf on the prowl

[General Hawkwing]

Oh ya! Finally spent some serious time on demo 0.99 and the AI is vastly improved over 0.56. Only managed to acquire 1 planet through tribute, no ships and only 1 trading partner so far. My partner has rejected all offers to trade tech, even when I make the offer extremely sweet so that appears to be a glitch left over.

[Taqwus]

Mmmm. Found another AI mining warp points, grrrrr.

Interestingly, I spotted an AI kamikaze light cruiser -- no weapons, just cobalt warheads. Needless to say, I didn't engage at point-blank.... The ship probably was meant to hit a starbase, I guess.

I've also been having far more happiness troubles. Latest game (the time/APS one), by the time the game ended ca. 2407, I had over 230 colonies (It is VERY unbalancing when a rival starts with only 1 planet instead of 3, and then surrenders to you early -- yielding rock colonization when you started with gas giants) -- but most were unhappy, at best, and at least 30 or so were rioting. Most curious, considering that

a) I had a 10% racial happiness bonus,
b) These rioters had never been attacked,
c) My race was 'Bloodthirsty' and my ships had, in fact, been acting that way,
d) It was VERY rare for me to lose a single ship, except when the colonization minister chose to send a colony pod through an unstable warp point and got it damaged enough to have it be sucked into a black hole (which happened disturbingly often...)
e) I doubt it was intel ops, since counterintel didn't pick up anything...

Hope the manual goes into detail about what affects happiness, and whether anything can be done 'bout it except for rush-building urban pacification centers.

------------------
-- The thing that goes bump in the night