Crash log and comments on Tuesday 26th Nov beta

I reallly enjoyed playing latest version tonight, for a couple of hours. Some of the planetary incidents are really well thought out. Congrats to the imagination of the guys.

Sadly (but no big deal) I had a total CTD - but thankfully smartex kicked in and the file is at the end of this post. It crashed as I was 'milking' the minor races for cash trading for my 'space mushies'. All went well till i selected the last minor from the tab and then - boom, desktop.

Comments and I really feel strongly about these follow -I think they will make such a positive difference but as i am not as immersed in the developement as u guys (develpers ) I may be making crass assumptions as these changes I suggest are balance related and will really change things -

Range of ships is to long - particularly warships - exploration is SO important to the fun factor (for me).

I spent a good hour or so (playing a consolidation and population growth style), using space stations to extend range (in other words I didn't have any decent warships), and it was great fun 'pushing fingers' out towards star clusters using station range extensions.

I accept that this may not be anyone elses idea of fun -but it is mine. Exploration and expansion is one of the most potent joy factors in classic strategy games in my view.

The colony ship range is ok if a litte long, the Survey ship is ok - ditto, but as soon as i acquired a Battle Cruiser (salvage) it totally upset the balance. All of a sudden I had x3 the exploration (if not colonisation)range! These ships are easy to research and although I accept I could have concentrated on military expansion, it still felt wrong 9too easy) to lil' old me.

I think range of constructors is about 25% too long - in my view.

Range enhancements of starbases don't come into effect till the next turn - this is annoying as you waste ship turns if you get a starbase into position in a turn where a ship is waiting at the end of its range with turns remaining and u want to use them taht turn.

This may sound weird, but could we have a pink ship range grid? - sometimes i struggle to see it as its just a different shade of green to the grid boundaries.

Ship dots on the mini map are too small. On my 21 inch monitor (decent quality) I can't see the ship dots sometimes even in a darkened room

PLEASE give us a slider or something to click on to increase the cash offers for goods in the trade screen.
I am tight with my cash and I like to modify offers to get the best deal I can and its really a drag to clear and type from the keyboard every few seconds whilst doing a deal - I just want to click a slider or arrow to raise orlower my offer, this is fairly standard these days.

I am really enjoying this beta but for the second time I worry about the length of the initial phase without conflict. I am a big fan of the slow burner, and argued strongly for an initial phase of consolidisation. Perhaps the Galactic news will show me all hell breaking loose in another unexplored sector but tonight I had no conflict for many turns (2 hours play) and one of the major races surrendered to a minor race before I had encountered them

Can we have transparent indicator circles on the mini map for population, etc as they start to obliterate the mini map screen after a while.

I am playing on the default levels.

happily.. Steevo

crash log follows.....


Stardock SmartException Logging Information
-------------------------------------------

OS Version : Windows XP
Video Card : NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
Application Exception code: C0000005 ACCESS_VIOLATION
Crash Addr: 0041B5DF 01:0001A5DF D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe

Processor Registers (x86):
EAX:00000000
EBX:00000000
ECX:00000000
EDX:0BE7EE08
ESI:0052C040
EDI:00C1FD1C
CS:EIP:001B:0041B5DF
SS:ESP:0023:00C1F444 EBP:00C1F494
DS:0023 ES:0023 FS:003B GS:0000
Flags:00010206


Current Application Call Stack:

Addr Frame Logical addr Module Name
---------------------------------------------
0041B5DF 00C1F494 0001:0001A5DF D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0043B3AA 00C1F52C 0001:0003A3AA D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0043B73F 00C1F584 0001:0003A73F D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0043B88F 00C1F608 0001:0003A88F D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0043B96E 00C1F670 0001:0003A96E D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
004F78AC 00C1F6EC 0001:000F68AC D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0050872B 00C1F764 0001:0010772B D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
004FC28C 00C1F7E4 0001:000FB28C D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0050868F 00C1F858 0001:0010768F D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
004FC28C 00C1F8D8 0001:000FB28C D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0050868F 00C1F94C 0001:0010768F D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
004FC28C 00C1F9CC 0001:000FB28C D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0050868F 00C1FA40 0001:0010768F D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
004FC28C 00C1FAC0 0001:000FB28C D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0050868F 00C1FB34 0001:0010768F D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
004FC28C 00C1FBB4 0001:000FB28C D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0050868F 00C1FC28 0001:0010768F D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
0052CDD3 00C1FCA8 0001:0012BDD3 D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
77D43A68 00C1FCD4 0001:00002A68 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
77D43B37 00C1FD3C 0001:00002B37 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
77D45B40 00C1FD6C 0001:00004B40 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
77D45F87 00C1FD8C 0001:00004F87 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
7377DF68 00C1FDB8 0001:0001CF68 C:\WINDOWS\System32\DDRAW.dll
77D43A68 00C1FDE4 0001:00002A68 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
77D43B37 00C1FE4C 0001:00002B37 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
77D43D91 00C1FEAC 0001:00002D91 C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
77D4438C 00C1FF30 0001:0000338C C:\WINDOWS\system32\USER32.dll
00569006 00C1FFC0 0001:00168006 D:\games\Drengin.net\galciv\galciv.exe
77E814C7 00C1FFF0 0001:000204C7 C:\WINDOWS\system32\kernel32.dll


Debug information for each stardock app follows ....