All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

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ASGeek2012
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All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#1 Post by ASGeek2012 »

Hello, all. First off, I want to congratulate all of you for the tremendous effort that you obviously put into this project. I am a huge MOO fan (still play both MOO and MOO2 on dosbox) and this is a worthy successor. Really polished look for something that is still pre-1.0.

That said, I believe I have either hit a bug or I am simply misunderstanding a game mechanic.

I've been experimenting with the game mechanics to help me understand how it works. I decided to create a really large galaxy so I could explore and putz around without seeing any AI players. I created a 1000-star 4-arm spiral galaxy. Some time after turn 100, all my supply lanes turned purple and none of my planets will share resources anymore.

At first I thought this was because I had settled a planet far enough away where its supply line would not connect with the rest of the empire since it seemed to happen soon after that. However, I since filled in the gaps using colony ships from races that can settle the worlds that were hostile to me (wonderful game mechanic, BTW) so now everything is connected. Supply lines stay purple.

I'm running the latest production build (0.4.3) on Linux Mint 15, Cinnamon desktop, installed from the .deb package.

What other info can I provide? I have the log files and the save file. The logs have only the most recent turns, however, since I did this over the course of a few nights.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Have a look at this thread: viewtopic.php?p=67240#p67240

ASGeek2012
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#3 Post by ASGeek2012 »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Have a look at this thread: viewtopic.php?p=67240#p67240
Thank you for the quick reply.

So I looked over the thread and reloaded my game of freeorion. I had just researched exobots, which are expensive to build, so I started a few on planets that had low native production yield. I saw that they were getting their full production, and when I hovered the mouse over the production icon for the system, it correctly showed it was importing the proper amount. I had it go a few turns and it continue to operate correctly yet every supply line remained outlined in purple.

I think there is still a bug here but it is a rendering bug. I just noticed that there are purple splotches on all my rotating planet icons for my settled worlds. I've attached a screenshot.
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Dilvish
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#4 Post by Dilvish »

The purple splotches are not a rendering bug; that's the overlay from the Gaia effect. As for your purple starlanes, nothing you said in this last patch nor what is visible in the screenshot indicates that they are a mistake -- it appears that you have wasted PP. Just because your current jobs are building ok doesn't mean that you couldn't also build something more. Care to show a screenshot of your Production Queue for this turn?
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

ASGeek2012
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#5 Post by ASGeek2012 »

Dilvish wrote:The purple splotches are not a rendering bug; that's the overlay from the Gaia effect. As for your purple starlanes, nothing you said in this last patch nor what is visible in the screenshot indicates that they are a mistake -- it appears that you have wasted PP. Just because your current jobs are building ok doesn't mean that you couldn't also build something more. Care to show a screenshot of your Production Queue for this turn?
I'm seeing even more weirdness. I reloaded the game, and the purple splotches are gone, but now EVERY planet in my empire has a new special called "volcanic ash". I played a few turns and "volcanic ash" became "dimentional rift" (and that is where the purple splotches are coming from, so it is normal for that effect. What's not normal is the special appearing out ot nowhere on all my planets at once).

I conquered another independent race world and now it has the transdimensional rift special. Is this weirdness supposed to be happening?

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

ASGeek2012 wrote:What's not normal is the special appearing out ot nowhere on all my planets at once
Did you recently research a detection-boosting tech? The specials may have always been present, but only now became visible to your empire.
Is this weirdness supposed to be happening?
Probably.

ASGeek2012
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#7 Post by ASGeek2012 »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
ASGeek2012 wrote:What's not normal is the special appearing out ot nowhere on all my planets at once
Did you recently research a detection-boosting tech? The specials may have always been present, but only now became visible to your empire.
Is this weirdness supposed to be happening?
Probably.
OK, I see now. I had indeed researched those techs. I just had not expected the effect to manifest as that particular special (i.e. "volcanic ash"). The connection was not obvious. I think I had expected it to manifest as a building or somesuch thing.

As for the purple supply lines, that is also me misunderstanding the game mechanics. I did not know that they did that when you had wasted production. For most of the game demand was ahead of supply, so the lanes always stayed green. I reloaded the game and went nuts with adding projects until all the available production was taken up and all supply lines turned green.

So apologies for wasting your time on this, but thank you for your patience, you were all very responsive and very helpful.

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MatGB
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#8 Post by MatGB »

Not a waste of time, because it's an indication of how/why the UI can be improved in future when the UI get an overhaul.

FWIW, I hate the specials that popup when you research stealth techs and as such don't bother researchign them, it's fine when you've got to the last one but I dislike the earlier ones and as the AI doesn't do stealth well, I just decided to ignore it as well.

I do think that the wording and effects can be better explained in game, for just this reason. And yeah, you're going to see production shoot up massively over time now that you're getting into the end game techs, but you'll also see ship costs increasing.

Welcome to the game, it does have a steep learning curve, but I think it's worth it.
Mat Bowles

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ASGeek2012
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Re: All supply lanes turn purple - no resource sharing

#9 Post by ASGeek2012 »

MatGB wrote:Not a waste of time, because it's an indication of how/why the UI can be improved in future when the UI get an overhaul.

FWIW, I hate the specials that popup when you research stealth techs and as such don't bother researchign them, it's fine when you've got to the last one but I dislike the earlier ones and as the AI doesn't do stealth well, I just decided to ignore it as well.

I do think that the wording and effects can be better explained in game, for just this reason. And yeah, you're going to see production shoot up massively over time now that you're getting into the end game techs, but you'll also see ship costs increasing.

Welcome to the game, it does have a steep learning curve, but I think it's worth it.
Thanks. I'm glad my issue served a purpose after all.

It did take me some time to come to understand the economic/production model of the game. I am used to getting instant feedback a la the slider bars in MOO or being able to do a 180 degree reverse in MOO2 and have all those people building ships now all becoming scientists in an instant. Once I did understand the model, it made sense. It takes time to shift a planet from one focus to the other and FreeOrion reflects that realism in the game mechanics.

The shared resource model of the game is really what does it for me. I always thought it was a little silly that I could have a fledging colony in MOO/MOO2 that I can't really help get off the ground despite having several massive economic powerhouse colonies right next door.

As for the UI design, I have made my own attempts to program a 4X game similar to MOO and have several incomplete projects cluttering my hard drive. UI design is damned hard to pull off right.

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