Game version 0.95.193 released

Notable changes:

• Fixed auto-colonization building more than one military spaceport if the user clicked on the colonize button of a planet.
• Some adjustments to power plant construction on overfilled planets.
• [Skirmish] In skirmish, the "Allow all building types to be built by anyone" is enabled by default. If it is disabled, the buildings available to the alien races at start is taken from the players.xml configuration of the selected techonology template.
• [Tech] Fixed availability of UV Laser and Space Station 3 for alien races in skirmish.
• [AI] Modified the AI economic and factory planning to prioritize economic buildings & upgrades before constructing more than 1 factory of each factory type.
• [AI] Normal and Hard AIs now attack as soon as they have the necessary fleet strength. Easy AI's will wait about 3-7 days between attacks.
• [AI] The AI won't react to slight (5%) food, hospital and energy shortages immediately.
• [UI] If a planet has worker shortage and buildings are offline to compensate, the info panel and the colony info dialog now shows this by light-green text and a negative number representing the missing amount of workers, i.e., to show how much the population needs to grow to fix the worker shortage.
  
• [AI] The tax level is now reduced as soon as 10% worker shortage is detected (instead of 20% before).
• [AI] Fixed AI not upgrading more than one fleet.

Game version 0.95.189 released

Notable changes:

• [Crash] Fixed rare case when fleet doesn't have a name when its owner changes due the race surrendering.
• [AI] Modified the AI to not spam economic buildings an colony ships in skirmish when unlimited buildings are enabled.

Game version 0.95.187 released

Notable changes:

• [AI] Fixed AI not researching in certain skirmish settings.
• [Skirmish] Added the option to restart the skirmish game from the beginning. To do so, go to the Options/Load-save and click on the Restart button.

Game version 0.95.176 released

Notable changes

• Thanks to a new contributor, X22, the russian graphics has been rewamped and cleaned up. In addition, X22 created the subtitles for the cutscenes. Thanks! [Issue #863]
• [Skirmish] Added the ability to scale the planet surfaces by 2-4 times. This will copy the base surface in a square pattern all over again. Surfaces are generally performance hogs so you'll probably allocate more memory to the game via the Launcher and/or run the game with a 64 bit Java runtime.
• [Settings] Added the ability to switch between the IG font and a system default monospaced vector font (i.e., Courier New). Needs application restart to take effect.

Game version 0.95.175 released

First of all, I'm sorry for the inactive period and the large backlog of features and fixes. Unfortunately, I did not have the time or the means to progress on most of the issues.

Notable changes:

• Fixed crash when trying to load a skirmish game with generated planets from different language.
• Fixed crash when trying to load a save created with a modded game and not having the necessary building availability.
• Introduced a new tab in the skirmish screen called Other settings with the following new and moved properties:
• Allow unlimited labs
• Allow unlimited factories
• New: Allow unlimited economic buildings
• New: Allow all kinds of buildings for all players. This will allow non-human races to build human buildings that were missing from their build set. Note however that the building images are the same as for the human race because the project doesn't have a graphics designer to draw something race-looking.
• Added open-ig-config.xml option aiAllowUpgrades to force the AI build new buildings instead of upgrading existing ones so it doesn't spend so much money on diminishing returns. This was especially problematic with buildings of basic colony needs.
• Fixed visual problems with open-ig-config.xml option useStandardFonts settings: text boundary should now be correctly calculated.
• Fixed radar working even if it was under construction, damaged or unpowered (Issue #848)

Game version 0.95.174 released

Notable changes:

• [Skirmish] Proper naming of planets when generating random galaxy. Due to the random nature, some names may appear only once, some might appear a lot of times (e.g., Garthog 45).

Game version 0.95.173 released

Notable changes:

• Enemy ships without weapons should flee if the rest of the fleet is destroyed. (Issue #846)
• Implemented random galaxy generator. You can override the number of planets in the galaxy and generate a seed. The number of planets may be overruled if you set less than the number of players times the initial planet count. You can select the initial planets for the players as usual, but please setup the random galaxy values beforehand. The main campaign's map can support up to 340 planets, but modded campaigns may have a larger map. Generating proper planet names has not been implemented yet (not easy to number adjacent planets properly), but you can rename any planets to your liking in game.

Game version 0.95.172 released

Notable changes:

• Fixed weather audio playing even if the weather effects are turned off
• Added more units to the Garthog Empire (available in skirmish)
• Fighter Mk1 - Mk4 to be in par with the human fighters 3-6; note that Mk1 is level 3 tech and the AI might research it in the main campaign.
• Destroyer Mk1 - Mk4 to match the Destroyers and Cruisers
• Battleship Mk1 - Mk3 available from level 4.
• Both Fighter Mk1 and Battleship Mk1 require minimal research labs to allow replacing the very low-performing default garthog fighter and battleship
• The following table shows a comparison between the various units. Numbers aren't final but require extensive testing to see if they are adequate

Ship type	Human			Garthog
	DPS	HP		DPS	HP
Fighter 1	5	200		5	200
Fighter 2	10	300		-	-
Fighter 3	20	400	Mk 1	20	420
Fighter 4	20	500	Mk 2	20	520
Fighter 5	30	600	Mk 3	30	620
Fighter 6	30	700	Mk 4	30	720
Destroyer 1	90	810		30	1000
Destroyer 2	150	1350		-	-
Cruiser 1	230	2400	Mk 1	180	3125
Destroyer 3	410	6075	Mk 2	390	6075
Cruiser 2	435	6400	Mk 3	470	7975
Cruiser 3	1120	11200	Mk 4	1080	12800
Battleship 1	440	5600		130	3500
			Mk 1	430	6400
Battleship 2	600	14400	Mk 2	680	13600
Battleship 3	1200	19200	Mk 3	1200	20800

• Since there is no multiplayer, you may test it via skirmish by pitting Garthog against other races in normal relation, build up both sides with the help of cheats (switch player by selecting a planet and pressing CTRL+P) and attack.

Game version 0.95.171 released

Notable changes:

• [Skirmish] Ability to set a base tax and tax scaling in skirmish games. Base tax is the amount each player receives on a daily basis. Tax scaling increases the planetary tax value by some percent. The total tax income is then calculated as follows: Tax = Base Tax + Tax Scale * sum(planet tax). Tip: you can hold SHIFT while clicking on the arrows to increase/decrease the value faster.
• Removed Load/Save buttons from the skirmish screen until they get implemented.
• [Skirmish] Added the ability to choose one starting planet; the other starting planets are chosen from nearby planets. Click on the planet icon to bring up the starmap panel. Left click to select a planet, right click to clear selection. If the same planet is selected by multiple players, the first one gets the planet, the others will get a random planet.
• [AI] AI space-discovery pattern has been changed to be more like a circular pattern around its empire.
• [AI] Fixed AI colonizing planets all the time.
• [Modding] Added tax-base and tax-scale to players.xml, which lets define the tax parameters mentioned above for a campaign game. Future updates may set this value in the main campaign to help with the economy balance.
• [UI] Fixed info panel showing the selected research name when switching from inventions tab to financial info tab instead of the current planet's name.

Game version 0.95.112 released

Notable changes:

• Partial fixes for Issue #684. Playing in skirmish with non-human races now enables a few technologies even when their level is above the specified initial level. These technologies were forcibly enabled in the main campaign (e.g., PhoodFactory). Note, however, that alien ships have fixed weapons and equipment, which can't be changed by the player at the moment. Later developments will make them as customizable as the human ships now.

Game version 0.95.109 released

Notable changes:

• The Skirmish / Galaxy screen features an extra field where you can set up the maximum technology level. This was formerly the only level settings. The current initial tech level now specifies the availability of technologies right from the start. For example, setting the first value to 3 will make everything up to level 3 available for production or construction. The scale goes from 0 to 6, where 0 means there could be level 1 researches to be done. (Issue #683)
• Replaced the French audio and video files with the proper versions, however, they could be still incorreclty timed.

Game version 0.95.102 released

Notable changes:

• The diplomacy panel on the information screen no longer lists aliens as allies if the relation is above 90. The new logic considers only players whom which the player has active alliance agains another player.
• Fixed the initial stance settings for the skirmish screen. Alliances and enemies are now correctly established.

Game version 0.95.100 released

Notable changes:

• Fixed missing labels for AI fleet names in skirmish mode.

Game version 0.95.099 released

Notable changes:

• Fixed AI colonization not working in skirmish.
• Fixed AI colonization in general: if the AI has colony ships in inventory or deployed, it will colonize a planet if available.
• Fixed skirmish screen mod and label related errors.

Game version 0.95.098 released

A few changes have been made in the game files and directory-lookup logic to accomodate the modding community.

One notable change is the way buildings.xml references image resources. In previous versions, the buildings/building/graphics/@base attribute hosted a pattern to locate the image resource based on the tech/@id attribute value. This setting made the reusing of graphics for other races complicated: you had to copy the actual image to a different directory. In the new version, the image is directly references by the tech/@image attribute. See an example here.

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The second notable change is the introduction of the dlc directory under the game's directory, where you can place your mods nicely and separated from other mods (previously, you had to dump everything into data).

You can have subdirectories denoting mods or zip files stored here. Each directory or zip file acts as a resource root similarly to the main zip files in the install directory, e.g., if you have a local resource generic/database/newrace.png, the file will be located under dlc/mymod/generic/database/newrace.png.

Note that the mod name doesn't provide a separate namespace, e.g., having multiple mods specifying the same local resource will overwrite each-other. This is especially true for skirmish/campaign like plugins: if you have a skirmish/human2/definition.xml, it might overshadow someone else's skirmish game. Therefore, I recommend using unique directory names below the language levels to avoid confusion:

generic/skirmish/myfirstmod-0.1/definition.xml
en/skirmish/myfirstmod-0.1/labels.xml
generic/myfirstmod-0.1/images/newrace.png

etc.

See an example structure here.

Game version 0.95.097 released

Notable changes:

• AI now executes unlimited actions on all difficulties. Fleet strength limits still apply on EASY and NORMAL.
• Fixed cases where the AI paused all its actions until the colonization completed on a planet.
• Fixed skirmish not letting the AI attack or colonize before the player colonized at least one planet.
• Fixed Trader AI related crash.
• Fixed case when the skirmish settings doesn't contain a player ("You"). You'll get assigned to a random AI faction. You can just observe or give commands, however, the AI might overrule you in some situations.

Game version 0.95.093 released

Notable changes:

• Fixed quick-research panel button visible in levels 1-2 in some cases.
• Fixed cases where the AI could attack strong allies.
• Added trade agreement management: trader AI starts to visit the other planets as well. Updated the diplomacy screen to allow trade agreement to be established only once. Going to war with the other will clear the trade agreement.
• Added more traits. (Issue #642)
• Fixed traits not working in skirmish mode.
• Fixed victory condition checking.
• Fixed initial fleet not equipped properly.
• Added mouse scroll and keyboard navigation to information/inventions screen (Issue #651)

Game version 0.95.091 released

Notable changes:

• Added logic for shared-radar for campaign and skirmish. You need to have a relation of 80 with the aliens along with an alliance against someone else. The settings can be changed in the definition.xml.
• Modified AI diplomatic reaction to consider the current relation with you (and the third party in ally case), therefore, if you are good friends with the alien, they will accept money in P = relation %.
• Starmap modified do disallow attacking fleets and planets of the same group in skirmish.
• The game now can play external OGG music. Place your music under /audio/generic/music and name your files Music4.ogg, Music5.ogg etc. You don't need to padd the numbers. (Issue #639)
• Fixed case where the new trait system did not properly load old saves. (Issue #643)
• Fixed a no-progression bug. (Issue #644)
• Fixed NPE crash due the new message-history behavior on the bridge (Issue #647)
• Added new failsafe cases for level 3 when you manage to desert a Garthog planet, a colony ship will automatically recolonize it for you. (Issue #649)
• Skirmish victory conditions fully implemented. The new win screen, loading and saving a skirmish definition will be handled later (Issue #638, Issue #259, Issue #637)

• Added AI logic that pushes colonization in case its enemies own more planets.
• Added custom planet image for equipment and space battles. Each image should resemble the surface type of the actual planet.
• Changed Load/Save screen to highlight skirmish saves in Orange/White.

Game version 0.95.090 released

Version 0.95.090 is just released.

The skirmish is almost complete, you can now create a game, but victory conditions are not checked yet, and some advanced features (such as shared radar, non-attackable allies, pirate behavior) are not implemented yet. But still, you should be able to play, save and load the skirmish game.

Note that many labels are still not translated into German and French.


For documentation on the new Skirmish screen, please refer to these blog posts: Galaxy, Economy and Victory tabs and Players tab.

If your Launcher doesn't seem to recognize that new version is available, please be patient. Sometimes the Google Code web access lags behind the SVN, which is out of my control.

Enjoy.

Skirmish documentation: player selection

One of the missing panels from the previous post was the Players tab. Here, you can specify the various player settings for your skirmish game.

You start with an empty list. Press the Add player button to add the first line, which will be always the same player you play in the selected campaign. Click the button several times to add more players. It will randomly add the other players from the campaign, each uniquely. Once all players from the campaign was added, the subsequent players will be randomly chosen.

You may click on the Name checkbox to select or deselect all lines. Individual lines can be selected via the checkboxes under the Name column. Use the Remove players to delete unnecessary lines.

You can customize the race by clicking on the labels under the Race column. It will bring up the following dialog:

The radio button list shows the available players and their race from the selected campaign.

If you click on the small ship icon, the icon selection panel will show up:

Here, you can change the ship icon of the player. The player's color will then be determined from the average color of the ship-pixels. These icons are taken from /starmap/fleets/ resource directory. If you want to use your own ship icon, create a set of directories as /images/generic/starmap/fleets under the game directory, and place a relatively small PNG image. The PNG may be transparent and translucent.

The next option is to set the AI the player will use, clicking on the abbreviated label, the following selection panel will be shown:

You can select the difficulty level where each AI player will operate. The Trader AI is treated specially here: the player won't receive planets and its ships will move between your and your allies' planets. AI's other than Pirate will ignore such ships in the galaxy. The other special AI is the Pirate. Revolting planets may join them instead of the neighboring empire if they are present in the skirmish, additionally, other than maintaining the well-fare of its planets, they occasionally attack traders (within radar ranges of course). You usually have 1 day to rescue the trader, who will grant you random amounts of money or random equipment as reward.

You can also customize the player's Traits:

Currently, only 7 basic traits are developed and functional. See Issu #642 for ideas about upcoming traits.

The final option is to specify the group number by clicking the number under the Group column:

Here you can assign a group value to the player. By default, the Add player button creates separate groups for each player. The group logic dictates that you are in constant alliance with the other players, which means you can't attack them, can't declare war on them, diplomatic negotiations will play out favorable, and you share the line-of-sight with their radar and vice-versa.

The last remaining GUI features on the Skirmish page are the Load and Save buttons and dialogs. My best estimate is that I'll be able to implement them tomorrow along with the modifications required to play a skirmish game and save/load a skirmish game.