0.9.0.Ex (Experimental)

[Quasar]

It's here! Here is where it is. In this location on the internets. Riiiight... here.

The usual disclaimer applies:

• if you're just playing for fun and don't like having your fun interrupted by random crashes and bugs, don't download this version. We're not talking about a couple minor bugs here. We're talking swarms, nay plagues of bugs. If you're at all entomophobic, wait for the public release which will be far more stable. Y'know. If we're lucky.

• This forum is temporary. It will be hidden again after the public release.

• Bug reports for the experimental version go in this forum, not in the bug report forum. That will allow us to keep the bugs in the experimental and released versions separate.

So here we go:

Species 0.9.0 Experimental (Hotfix 3)


Installation instructions are the same as always:

- Install XNA 3.1.
- Unzip, preferably to a location that isn't Program Files, My Documents or your Desktop.
- Run the exe.
- Enjoy!

[GabrielGG]

I still got the same error.

Hello, I can not play the game Species. Every time I try to open the game it crashes and appears the following problem:



(Translating from Portuguese: Species: Artificial Life, Real Evolution stopped working. Windows is checking for a solution to the problem ...)

I've downloaded, installed and reinstalled XNA 3.1 Redistributable, as well as Microsoft .Net 3.5 Framework, and the problem persists.

Edit:

So folks, I'm back here. After several attempts, I still could not play the game. Quasar did not answer me yet about what I should do, and all other forms I was told to fix the problem did not work. (I tried talking to him via e-mail, Facebook and by the forum).
I've downloaded, installed and reinstalled XNA 3.1 Redistributable, as well as Microsoft .Net 3.5 Framework, a LOT of times. Indeed the problem is not with them. I deleted some files from the Species paste, modified them, downloaded the file again by the official site, and nothing worked.



(Translating from Portuguese: Species: Artificial Life, Real Evolution stopped working. Windows is checking for a solution to the problem ...)

[Prudentia]

Smallish glitch. In the nursery, when the bot comes to whack the undesirables, they get afraid. And flee into the wall. Where they become stuck, and the rover that tried to whack them then proceeds to drive around in a circle that goes through the wall until the creature dies.
Here's the glitch, only about 50% will starve. So far, half of them that get stuck in the wall will lose a small amount of health, and then regenerate it.

It would be appear that if the creatures in the nursery get uncomfortable with the climate, they become immortal whilst they run around. Spent about 15-20 minutes with the same two organisms in my nursery on 10x speed. trying to find a goldilocks zone.

[Quasar]

I still got the same error.

[snip]

Sorry Gabriel, I still have no idea what's going on with your computer. All my prior experience with the "species has stopped responding" error indicates it's caused by a lack of prerequisite dll's, usually .Net or XNA. The only other dll's the game uses are Ionic.Zip and SkinnedModel (both included with the game) and a bunch of the basic System dlls (mscorlib, System.Core, System.Data, System.Windows.Forms) which are included with windows.

[GabrielGG]

I still got the same error.

[snip]

Sorry Gabriel, I still have no idea what's going on with your computer. All my prior experience with the "species has stopped responding" error indicates it's caused by a lack of prerequisite dll's, usually .Net or XNA. The only other dll's the game uses are Ionic.Zip and SkinnedModel (both included with the game) and a bunch of the basic System dlls (mscorlib, System.Core, System.Data, System.Windows.Forms) which are included with windows.

Yeah, it's okay, I just thought that maybe the new version could run.

[Quasar]

Smallish glitch. In the nursery, when the bot comes to whack the undesirables, they get afraid. And flee into the wall. Where they become stuck, and the rover that tried to whack them then proceeds to drive around in a circle that goes through the wall until the creature dies.
Here's the glitch, only about 50% will starve. So far, half of them that get stuck in the wall will lose a small amount of health, and then regenerate it.

It would be appear that if the creatures in the nursery get uncomfortable with the climate, they become immortal whilst they run around. Spent about 15-20 minutes with the same two organisms in my nursery on 10x speed. trying to find a goldilocks zone.

Hmm...

The nursery has two bots: a breeder and a killer. The breeder heals and feeds the creatures in the nursery who are genetically closest to your target, which is most likely the reason for your 'eternal' creatures.

Generally they would stop getting fed when they were displaced by a child who is genetically closer to the target, but if you didn't set a target the nursary is programmed to simply 'keep' them in their current form (ie. it sets the target to an exact copy of the creature you place in the nursary). Since the children can't be closer to them than they are to themselves, they would be continually fed and healed.

They'd die eventually, once their age overcame the rovers ability to keep them fed, but it would take a while (and then the rovers would just start feeding the closest copy, so you might not even notice).

The 'fleeing into walls', on the other hand, is a bug. Looks like the breeder is sometimes causing fear in the creatures it feeds.

*Checks*

Yep. In addition to the breedbot's duties as feeder/healer, it also injects them full of steroids to make creatures grow to adulthood instantly. This causes the creatures to pay the entire childhood growth cost in one frame, and even though the breeder heals them instantly, they still experience the pain of losing that much health at once. This whole ordeal, as you can probably imagine, scares the daylights out of them.

Easily fixed: I can have the rovers include their childhood growth cost with the steroids.

[ClassyAmoeba]

I did not know that you can remove the nursery walls, or trigger the "why did you trap yourself in the nursery" event without being trapped in the nursery. These are most likely bugs, by the way.

[GameGabster]

Lovely. Will try this out later tonight. (Or during the weekend)

[Sassy Cassie]

Lovely. Will try this out later tonight. (Or during the weekend)

Dude...
Your the one whpngot me into SALRE....
And Europa.
Holy crap, your actually n the forums. Welcome!

EDIT: Scratch that... I was think SolarGamer for Europa, but you still got me into Species.

[dwesa]

Game won't start for me. I installed XNA 3.1, it shows it is loading on cursor in a folder, but nothing else happens, it doesn't even show in task manager. 0.8.0 version works fine.