Known bugs/issues thread

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Raap
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Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Raap »

I thought it'd be a good idea to collect the various bugs we know of in one thread, so that both we and the developers can have a better sense of outstanding issues in the game. I think the bugs should still have their own threads where the problem is explained in detail though.

Note, this wouldn't be the place to discuss potential design changes or disagreements about game mechanics, but solely a place to list things that are (probably) not working as designed, or which work poorly. If you've a bug or problem you want added to the list, just make a post in this thread about the exact nature of the bug/problem. If it's something more convoluted, please link to the thread where you've reported and explained it; try to reproduce the problem and upload a save game if possible.

It's best only to have bugs and issues here that everyone (can) experience, since some of the problems people have may be exclusive to them alone, in which case the issue is usually on their end. That's why I'd rather keep game crashes and such out of this, since the causes for those can be varied and different in each case.

Updated for 1.9.0.3
Gameplay-related bugs:


- Planets changing ownership will cause space ports to blow up. Thread. (Probably WAD from the old days, but maybe needs reconsidering now?)


Undesired ship behavior:

- Civilian - Civilian ships may not be checking if their destination is occupied by enemies, leading to large amounts of suicide runs. Thread.

- Ships will not always obey 'standoff vs stronger' stance, or have trouble calculating enemy strength. Thread. Thread.

- Ships with tractor beams will pull space monsters into melee-fights, leading to them needlessly taking damage. Thread.

- Resupply ships will sometimes get distracted and attack enemies. Thread. (Change default attack weaker stance to standoff?)

- Construction ships will flee upon seeing an enemy even if the danger is minuscule, making construction in busy star systems difficult. (Change default flee stance to when attacked?)

- Construction ships that flee from an enemy during a construction job will forget about that job entirely.

- Fleets or ships with a 'patrol' command will continue to do so until they automatically go to refuel and/or repair. The patrol command will then be lost. (Have them remember a player-given patrol command?)

- Fleets or ships with a 'patrol' command will circle their designated patrol target. While this is WAD, it wastes fuel and provides no real benefit from simply orbiting the target in a stationary fashion instead. (Have the patrol command act like a 'move to' order just with an extra condition that returns them to that spot after having engaged enemies?)

- It can be difficult to stop fighters from attacking potential boarding targets. Thread.


User interface problems:

- General - The game will respond to mouse clicks even when the game window is in the background, i.e. not 'active'.

- Design window - The entire design window could use a good workover. Perhaps most pressing is a single-click function to remove all components of a specific type from a design.

- Design window - Some components, such as the Railgun, have descriptions that continue on past the component info tab's limit.

- General - Sometimes it can be very difficult, or even impossible, to select or attack a small planet under a large space station.

- Pirate - Toolbar - Building regular, non-pirate planetary facilities through the lower-left toolbar does not appear to be possible once you've gained complete ownership over a planet. It's possible using the Colony window however.

- Mission list - The pirate mission list is very cumbersome and could use improvements; scrolling is a hassle when there are a lot of missions.

- Pirate - Diplomacy window - With a lot of pirate bases, your own page in the diplomacy window will become so crowded that the text will be cut off.


Gameplay balance issues:

- Pirate - Having a 'protection agreement' with a standard empire lets you build space stations in their territory at will. This can be exploited for financial gain. (Prevent pirate empires from being able to sell stations?)

- Pirate - Space ports above an empire's or an independent's colony do not appear to have any influence on control%. (Working as designed?)


Autodesigner issues:

- The autodesigner will sometimes prefer lower tech level weapons. Thread.

Diplomacy issues:

- The large number of pirate factions can lead to message spam about protection fees( when playing a normal empire) or truce agreements( when playing a pirate empire). Thread.


Sound and music issues:

- In-game sound volume does not affect sounds played relating to interface clicks. Thread.


Graphics issues:

- Planets/gas giants with rings will stop being drawn before they're "out of sight", leading to a pop-out and pop-in effect when panning.


Game issues:

- The game's autosave feature does not reset upon loading or starting a game. Thread.


Bloodly
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Bloodly »

tm.asp?m=3332374

Issues concerning automation.
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Erik Rutins
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Erik Rutins »

Thanks Raap, your effort is appreciated.
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vmxa_slith
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by vmxa_slith »

A little help for a TBS player wanting to try Distant Worlds. Looking at the list here of issues, are these mostly just nits or are some serious gameplay problems?

Are some or any of these already addressed in any of the expansions?

I was looking at a bundle, but 70 bucks is steep. Yes I understand that is a lot of product, however it is still 70 bucks. I was hoping to see a more common offer like a gold version with the base and the older expansions for 39.99, which is quite the norm.

After the last expansion has been out a 12-18 months then you see an ultimate version with all. In any event the question I have is the base game solid? I recalled early reviews of many problems and as one that got the early Sword Of the Stars II, was not keen on repeating that.

The reason I ask is I found the game by watching a Let's Play that ran for about 10 episodes and the game crashed. It looked to be an interesting game.

thanks
Florestan
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Florestan »

Nice thread. I'll recall you some more problems:

AI
- Design screen auto update button half broken thread
- AI builds colony ships before researching warp Thread
- Auto upgrade sometimes think the pulse blaster is top weaponry Thread
UI
- Intelligence agents in mission are still in the capital planet Same thread
- Mission complete message do not show in pirate shadow mode Thread
- Fleet retrofit button does not work Thread
- Cannot start a game with an empire for each race, your pirate faction counting as one or when adding modded races Thread
Crash/miscellaneous
- CTD on hibernation if a game is loaded Thread
- On many CPUs systems, some ship don't do anything Thread Thread
- Sometimes, constructor ships float away from what they repair Thread

Ship behavior
- Powerful ships tend to destroy capture targets Tread
- Fighter craft continue attacking captured ship Thread

Balance
- The construction ships, mining stations, research and resort bases have way too much energy collectors by default

Speeder
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Speeder »

Things to add:

auto-designer bug with capital ships (ie: trying to make 1503 sized capital ships, that obviously do not work...)

relics on shadows mode use the same stats as classic mode (leading to pirates finding capships that have more firepower than a entire empire, or empires finding hyperdriven ships too early) some players seemly like it though :/

you can capture unbuilt stuff, most strikingly, the world destroyers, you can just board them after they have a engine, move to your spaceport and finish building there.
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Erik Rutins
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Erik Rutins »

Hi vmxa,
ORIGINAL: vmxa
A little help for a TBS player wanting to try Distant Worlds. Looking at the list here of issues, are these mostly just nits or are some serious gameplay problems?

Are some or any of these already addressed in any of the expansions?

I was looking at a bundle, but 70 bucks is steep. Yes I understand that is a lot of product, however it is still 70 bucks. I was hoping to see a more common offer like a gold version with the base and the older expansions for 39.99, which is quite the norm.

After the last expansion has been out a 12-18 months then you see an ultimate version with all. In any event the question I have is the base game solid? I recalled early reviews of many problems and as one that got the early Sword Of the Stars II, was not keen on repeating that.

I understand your concern, having pre-ordered SOTS II myself. There's no real comparison though, in terms of stability and completion and I don't say that to be negative about SOTS, of which I am also a fan. DW is a solid and mature game, the issues overall are few and far between. We have a new expansion out now, which we're doing the initial troubleshooting and fixing on, but I expect within a week or two we'll have all the significant issues that the public has found addressed and the expansion gameplay with only a few exceptions already works as intended. There are a few significant issues that I regret we missed, but fixes are already in progress.

What happens in a tech support forum is you hear all the issue that everyone has experienced who has an issue. That may be 1% of people who purchased the game, but you don't hear as much from the folks for whom the game is working fine. It can be misleading for that reason. You can play the same game as we and many of our testers have and not run into a single one of the reported issues here, unless you have exactly the same hardware and/or do exactly the same actions in game, which is quite unlikely.

Regards,

- Erik



Erik Rutins
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Falokis
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Falokis »

I'll add this here, since there is a compiled list. I notice that adding bombard weapons to a template does not yield any being added to the ships. Everything else works well using templates. I could be doing something wrong, but it seems fairly straight forward and it's the only problem I am having.

Edit - I was a big fan of optimized designs and I really like the template system. It seems to work well with the above exception.
Florestan
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Florestan »

- autosaving feature trigger not optimized Thread
Florestan
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Florestan »

ORIGINAL: vmxa
Are some or any of these already addressed in any of the expansions?
It looked to be an interesting game.

If there is one issue to name, it is its price, way too high for the customer.
This game is one of the finest games ever, in my opinion, just behind Supreme commander (you can buy for less than 10 bucks) and Team fortress (which is free). At least, the Dollar->Euro conversion is fair, not like Steams' 1 for 1 which is even worse than the banksters'.
Florestan
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Florestan »

I forgot that old one (dating back to the first distant world)

UI
- The drag and drop occurs when moving a single pixel, resulting in lots of ignored orders, especially for the ones without audio confirmation, like the move order.
Raap
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Raap »

ORIGINAL: Florestan

I forgot that old one (dating back to the first distant world)

UI
- The drag and drop occurs when moving a single pixel, resulting in lots of ignored orders, especially for the ones without audio confirmation, like the move order.
Could you clarify on that one? I've been playing without sound for years, but I'm not sure I know of the issue you're talking about. Or maybe I'm just automatically compensating.
Raap
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RE: Known bugs/issues thread

Post by Raap »

ORIGINAL: Falokis

I'll add this here, since there is a compiled list. I notice that adding bombard weapons to a template does not yield any being added to the ships. Everything else works well using templates. I could be doing something wrong, but it seems fairly straight forward and it's the only problem I am having.

Edit - I was a big fan of optimized designs and I really like the template system. It seems to work well with the above exception.
I've never actually used it, but it does look rather straightforward, yeah. So you're just increasing the WeaponBombard field to some number, and it has no effect? And you've checked you have the actual bombard weapons( I assume stuff like the Shakturi Firestorm might not fall in this category) available and that everything is in order?
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