If I follow you correctly the error happens before you actually get into a game, like at the main menu? It seems like there wouldn't be an empire object or possibly even the player gui at that point, so three times it tries to look at an object that doesn't exist.

I'm not familiar with lua syntax ...

Text of food shortage notification changes as it is dismissed
Build r20334 (dev)

Uploaded as game_3864

The uploaded game as a food shortage notification; "We anticipate a shortfall of -1(foodicon)! Build(farmicon) to avoid starvation!". When you dismiss this by clicking on the X the text ...

Enslaved Orthin are incredibly stoked about focusing on research they don't get to do.
Build r20298, Steam

Behavior: Orthin slaves get +20 morale for a colony focusing on research with flavor text "We can focus full time on our research work!"

Expected: Slaves don't produce any research ...

Faction summary hides information freely given during trade negotiations.
Build r20298, Steam

Behavior: The diplomatic summary card contains ??? in place of certain information such as metals, money, and planets. Those three items at least are given away for free anyway in the trade ...

Stars in Shadow fails to move audio output to new default audio device while old one exists, but _will_ move to old non-default audio device.
Build r20298, Steam

Behavior: Stars in Shadow plays out the system's default audio device, and will only move output if the device it was using is ...

Graphical display bug in the planetary summary screen of a colonized world, overlapping elements. Also shows in windowed mode.
Build r20298, Steam

Behavior: The window containing the text description of the planet, races, facilities, etc, has two decorative elements that overlap each other and ...

Derelict colony notification appearing twice for same world?
Build r20298, Steam

Uploaded as "game_3842". System "Grefia 1018", just cleared out the harpies and got to see the planets. Two derelict colony notices fired for the same world, the large garden world. There are two notification icons ...

Hyperspace Metrics research text disagrees with Star Drive research text
Build r20298, Steam

Behavior: The blurb when you discover Hyperspace Metrics (for Humans at least, can these differ per race?), says "Warp lane speeds increased by 50 percent."
Hyperspace Metrics tech itself says it ...

Star Harpies show a crew strength of -65535 when inspected from the starmap.
Build r20298, Steam
Uploaded as "game_3841". I'll check them in combat when I get a chance.

Edit: Same in combat.

Standard windows keyboard input commands do not work as expected or at all. Allowed to paste invalid data into text and cause crash.
Build r20298, Steam

Behavior: Ctrl-V pastes what is in the clipboard into the game, if possible. If not possible, it crashes. Attempting to paste a picture of ...

Unable to buy a farm on a low fertility world on Marathon speed setting
Build r20298, Steam

Behavior: The Tutorial/Guide text for the humans suggests that you buy a farm so your people don't starve if you first landed on a low fertility world. Unfortunately, on marathon the costs are high enough ...

Heya folks, fired the game up for the first time in a while to scratch that better-than-MOO itch again : )

Refiting ships with science stations causes their output to be provided immediately.
Build r20298, Steam

Marathon speed, 500 stars, Humanity. Because of course Humanity!

Behavior ...

I actually find myself using light cruisers for a very long time when playing as the humans. Human heavy cruisers are _very_ slow, and human battleships waste too much firepower on still-pretty-useless missile/torpedo slots. Light cruisers seem to be a very good mix of durability, speed, utility ...

TheDeadlyShoe wrote: You could extend its use by giving science for scanning debris fields after a battle, or another similar 'post-exploration' utility.

I really like this notion too. Give you a reason to keep a scout or two in a combat fleet if they can provide a science boost from wreckage.

The main issue with turrets being for your science stations in my opinion is that the ships for the various races vary HUGELY there

This is an excellent argument against moving to turret slot.

I think most folks don't much like the idea of getting a bunch of science off military ships (or cheap ...