StarDestroyer.Net BBS

It's been a while now since there was an SDN SE game, and the only SE V one never really got off the ground, so it can be said that we've never had a proper game of SE V on SDN (gasp!). I read in an older thread about the subject that Brian would probably be able to play sometime in May, and that Nephtys needed an unspecified amount of cooldown time before another game. Well, it's May (almost), and several months must have been enough cooldown, right?

It seems that the two viable choices for mods are either the Balance Mod or the IRM mod. Both mods are similar in that they don't deviate too far from the stock game's style of gameplay. I can't really speak to which one is better, but I have played both in single player and they're both very good. I don't really have an opinion one way or the other.

Gritty Galaxy is not really ready for prime time yet, I don't think. It's slow like the SE IV B5 mod, which is a huge turnoff for me, and I don't like the micromanaging required for building resource generating facilities. There's another mod called Golden Eclipse that shows promise, but it's too early in Beta to really be playable.

Anyway, who's interested in another SE V game?

EDIT:
Links to the combat and movement reply, since PBW won't accept them in the upload. These links always point to the most current files.

Current Combat Log.

Current Movement Log.

How about Vanilla, so we can play through the patches?

Vanilla's not very good, but there is something to be said about that. Still, if everyone were required to post a screenshot to prove that they've backed up their SE V directory before they can join, we wouldn't have anyone drop out because of compatibility issues, and Balance and IRM are much better than stock. I suppose we should include stock as a third option for people to vote on, though.

Yeah I'm ready.

To be honest I've been ready a long time. When I get out in the real world I'll have a million different priorities, and learning how to balance play and work is one of them. So the May thing was really just an excuse cause I didn't feel like playing then. I installed Steam yeterday.

Here's the thing about the backup. Clicking "turn off automatic updates for this game" doesn't always seem to work. Steam still updates the game and the checkbox seems to mysteriously turn itself on. So we'd have to manually copy the folder. Not a big deal, but I think you should know, that the Steam client is a piece of shit.

Copying the game folder is what I was talking about. It's the only fool and Steam proof method, and should be mandatory for entry into the game. In the Gritty Galaxy game, three of the 6 players dropped out because of upgrade issues, and one of them voluntarily upgraded to maintain compatibility with his other games. He dropped before I could explain to him that he could have just copied his directory. Not going to let something like that happen again.

Fair enough, can you post links to some of the proposed mods? Gritty Galaxy was pretty dull, I played a couple rounds with some AI in a small galaxy, I ended up running out of food and the fights weren't too interesting. I'd like to give these other mods a try first.

To be honest, I don't really like SE V much. The graphics bugs annoy me, I find Vanilla boring, and so far I haven't been impressed by Gritty Galaxy at all. My opinion will almost certainly change as the game gets patched and new mods come out, but for now I'd rather stick with SEIV.

That said, if everyone here wants to play SE V, I'll join. As Tux said, the Gritty Galaxy game never really got off the ground, and I needs my SE fix.

Tux, will we be dropping the Gritty game if we get another one going here?

Hrm. I may feel up for one soon. and I want to drag more people in for a fun diplo-mess. Hell, I got Nitram a copy so I can play him and his steamwork/ringworld building space forces. >:)

My SE:V is up to version 1.33. I tried "restoring backup" from the "steam" version of backup (aka compressed) and it didn't work. Then I tried deleting SE:V, then restoring backup. Before I did this I turned off "automatic update." Now as soon as I restored the backup and opened up steam, SE:V started updating. A foolproof method may be, not have an active internet connection and delete SE:V if it updates, then restore from backup so Steam doesn't know. But even then, as soon as you log onto the Internet, it will start the update.

The copy entire folder method may not work either. One hour until my steam's "updated" from 1.13 to 1.33, and when that happens I'll try copying the entire directory (not using the Steam compressed backup option,) copying it to some random folder, and seeing if SE:V will launch without steam. But I doubt it.

In short, we need exact instructions how to restore an old version, because Steam is a piece of shit. It may require that we play all SE:V turns on a computer without an active Internet connection, which may be a major pain in the ass.

EDIT: Forget Steam backup completely. It doesn't let you restore the compressed backup without connecting to the Internet, and it automatically starts updating. So the only solution seems to be this. Copy the entire SE:V folder. If and when we run into an update that breaks saved games (in fact for all updates, since we never know what an update changes) Steam users have to do this. Disconnect their Internet, or if using Zonealarm revoke Steam's access. Quit from steam and delete the entire SE:V content manually. Copy the SE:V backed up folder into the steam programs directory. Start up Steam still in offline mode. Alternatively if you only play SE:V, just revoke Steam's access with your firewall. No doubt this will cause major headaches for people who play other Steam games.

While I know everyone just loathes vanilla, but there is a lot of benefit to being able to get updates in the middle of a long game. If we pick a mod, perhaps we should pick one that is well supported, so when patches do come out everyone can simply patch and we can all use the new version of the mod. If we play a game for 4 months and lose a week to a patch, its not really a big deal.

InnocentBystander wrote:While I know everyone just loathes vanilla, but there is a lot of benefit to being able to get updates in the middle of a long game. If we pick a mod, perhaps we should pick one that is well supported, so when patches do come out everyone can simply patch and we can all use the new version of the mod. If we play a game for 4 months and lose a week to a patch, its not really a big deal.

The problem is an update may break saved games.

We're not talking about losing a week, we're talking about the game dying.

Best solution seems to be this: play only SE:V with Steam, and revoke Steam's access to the Internet with your firewall. What a pain in the ass for people who play other Steam games though. I'm going to test the delete and replace method, to see if it works at all. If it doesn't then the Steam offline forever way may be the only way.

I've played a bit of IRM today, and while I like what it's trying to do, I think it needs a little work yet. Balance mod might be best.

Trogdor wrote:To be honest, I don't really like SE V much. The graphics bugs annoy me, I find Vanilla boring, and so far I haven't been impressed by Gritty Galaxy at all. My opinion will almost certainly change as the game gets patched and new mods come out, but for now I'd rather stick with SEIV.

That said, if everyone here wants to play SE V, I'll join. As Tux said, the Gritty Galaxy game never really got off the ground, and I needs my SE fix.

Tux, will we be dropping the Gritty game if we get another one going here?

I don't think so. It could still potentially get interesting, and I timed myself at under 2 mins for doing a turn (well, I didn't so much time myself as look at a clock).

brianeyci wrote:

InnocentBystander wrote:While I know everyone just loathes vanilla, but there is a lot of benefit to being able to get updates in the middle of a long game. If we pick a mod, perhaps we should pick one that is well supported, so when patches do come out everyone can simply patch and we can all use the new version of the mod. If we play a game for 4 months and lose a week to a patch, its not really a big deal.

The problem is an update may break saved games.

We're not talking about losing a week, we're talking about the game dying.

Best solution seems to be this: play only SE:V with Steam, and revoke Steam's access to the Internet with your firewall. What a pain in the ass for people who play other Steam games though. I'm going to test the delete and replace method, to see if it works at all. If it doesn't then the Steam offline forever way may be the only way.

Steam automatically updates the restored backup even if you turn off auto updates, but does it automatically update a copy that's just sitting there even with auto updates off?

Arthur_Tuxedo wrote:Steam automatically updates the restored backup even if you turn off auto updates, but does it automatically update a copy that's just sitting there even with auto updates off?

The only way to reliably check that is to wait for an update from steam. But I'm pretty sure. Because My SE:V is at 1.33 and I didn't do anything with SE:V for the longest time.

That being said, I turned auto updates off. Exited steam. Ran steam again. The auto updates on box is checked as if I did nothing. What a joke.

I'm too lazy to see if the file replace thing actually works. But even if it does the best solution is, play steam in offline mode forever. Which is quite an asking for some people, play steam offline for months and months, considering some other people have other steam games. There should be no problem with people with more than one computer though. Also steam is anal in that it doesn't allow you to start in offline mode, no command line parameter, unless it doesn't detect a Internet connection.

The best solution is this. Copy the entire steam folder and archive it somewhere, and let's hope to god steam doesn't store some kind of registry information. If and when the saved game is broken, people can manually disable their Internet connections, and unzip the backup into the old steam folder replacing everything.

This is very bad news. How many potential players have the Steam version, and how many of those would be affected by revoking Steam's i-net access?

brianeyci wrote:That being said, I turned auto updates off. Exited steam. Ran steam again. The auto updates on box is checked as if I did nothing. What a joke.

My auto updates were successfully turned off, I think. In Steam I right clicked on SEV, and changed the drop down menu to do not update. I exited Steam, re-opened it, and it remained at that setting. I don't see a check box anywhere. Am I missing something?

I have it from Captain Kwok himself that new patches won't break Balance Mod savegames, so perhaps Balance Mod is the way to go?

Game has been created on PBW under the name SDN SE V Balance Mod. Head on over and sign up. URL is here.

Here are the proposed rules:

What I wrote on the PBW entry wrote:Stardestroyer.net SE V game. Non-SDN people will be allowed if there are still free spaces, but threads about the game will be located at SDN, whose URL is bbs.stardestroyer.net .

Starting resources: 100,000
Starting planets: 3
Home planet value: Good
Score display: all
Technology level: Low
Racial points: 2,000
Quadrant size: Medium
Event frequency: None
Technology cost: Medium
Victory conditions: Destroy All Homeworlds
Computer players: None

Special rules:
1. Surrender = subjugation. Surrendered players still get to play, but must fight against the enemies of the victorious empire. No annihilation allowed.

2. No tech trading, tech gifting, or tech sharing treaties. No analyzing ships that were given. Only ships that were captured / taken by force can be analyzed. The only allowable gifting of tech is to help a non-allied empire that is significantly (more than 20 tech levels) behind.

3. No Intel.

Most of this is pretty standard for SDN games. I say Medium galaxy because exploration slows things down, and so fewer systems seem like more compared to SE IV. We're doing Large galaxy for the Gritty Galaxy game, and it's apparent that it may be too much.

Alan Bolte wrote:

brianeyci wrote:That being said, I turned auto updates off. Exited steam. Ran steam again. The auto updates on box is checked as if I did nothing. What a joke.

My auto updates were successfully turned off, I think. In Steam I right clicked on SEV, and changed the drop down menu to do not update. I exited Steam, re-opened it, and it remained at that setting. I don't see a check box anywhere. Am I missing something?

My bad it's a drop down box.

I did it again and it didn't happen. I don't really want to do it 20 times to see if it happens once. Here's the deal. The games in SE:V are three to six months. I don't want to rely on Steam not updating or else game over. For example if the Steam client updates and resets that little drop down box, as I think it did with mine.

Looks like the most secure solution is copy the entire steam folder into a zip file. If and when the game is fucked, disconnect your Internet and copy the entire steam folder back over the old one, and run your turns with Internet disconnected.

Howzabout a link for this mod, eah?

Okay, so here is where you can download the mod. Once you create an empire and join, be sure to indicate which flag and shipset you're using so we can avoid duplication. If it's a custom flag or ship set, include a link to download it. Everyone should have MKSheppard's Flagtastic mod, and feel free to choose flags from it. Let's try and start by next Monday, May 7.

Quick additional rule I had forgotten about. Ancient Race is not allowed. It's just too big of an advantage. Anything else is fair game.

Custom ship sets can be found here. I will be using the Romulan ship set with (what I think is) the Romulan flag.

I'm pretty sure that is NOT the Romulan flag. Scroll down a bit and you see the gold one that looks like a bird with a green background, I think that's the closest. The colors are off, in that it's supposed to be silver, but it probably don't look good in silver. Then again, I think Nemesis retconned the Romulan flag to be a picture of the Romulan-Federation border, as if the entire reason for the Romulan's existence was to avenge the wrongs of hundreds of years ago .

Where are you getting your shipsets, any good one-stop places.

I am the Eris Imperium, using the standard shipset for the Norak, and the flag with the cow skull on it. Since there's no intel, are we allowed to take the racial negatives for intel?