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Ship

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 11:41 am
by EricF
I have been playing the latest test build.
2016-08-09


OK, something strange happened.
Turn 85
I sent an outpost ship to a system.
It would not let me found an outpost.
The system was greyed out.
I left the system and then came back.
When I came back my outpost ship was
destroyed.
It was destroyed by what the game described as "SHIP"
It had a stealth value of 65.5k
Yes that is correct, no mistake on my part, 65.5 THOUSAND.
The info on the 'ship' was 0 attack 0 structure 0 detection
yet it still destroyed my outpost ship.
Is this normal, or is this a bug?
Afterward it disappeared and was apparently replaced by a large Snowflake.
Weird.
Any help?

Re: Ship

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 2:35 pm
by dbenage-cx
The 'SHIP' was not visible to you at all (stealth too high). The 65.5k value is the game's way of saying "we don't know".
I am guessing an Ion Storm was passing near the system, which both increases the stealth and reduces the detection of ships/monsters.

Re: Ship

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 9:42 pm
by Vezzra
What dbenage said. Your ship has apparently been destroyed by a space monster it could not detect. The ion storm explanation sounds very plausible, it would also account for why you could not place that outpost (planets stealthed due to the storm).

So no bug, everything works as intended.

That said, we need to replace that 65K stealth value display. This obviously causes confusion. The UI should give some clear indication that you've been attacked by something you could not see, you only know something was there (because it blew you up), but don't know what. So, instead of displaying 65k and zeros, maybe display a "?" or "unknown" or something like that?

Re: Ship

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 10:52 pm
by EricF
Vezzra wrote: So, instead of displaying 65k and zeros, maybe display a "?" or "unknown" or something like that?
I agree. This would have been less confusing than what did happen.

It still seems kind of odd that I couldn't create an outpost.
I understand the game mechanic I just don't agree with it. :)

Re: Ship

Posted: Sat Aug 13, 2016 11:22 pm
by MatGB
I think the "Ship" needs to be called "Unknown Ship" as well, immediately clearer.

Re: Ship

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2016 5:20 am
by Doc Tectonic
Vezzra wrote:That said, we need to replace that 65K stealth value display. This obviously causes confusion. The UI should give some clear indication that you've been attacked by something you could not see, you only know something was there (because it blew you up), but don't know what. So, instead of displaying 65k and zeros, maybe display a "?" or "unknown" or something like that?
I think "?" would be a good choice. It will fit everywhere a number would and its meaning is pretty obvious.

Re: Ship

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2016 1:00 pm
by Geoff the Medio
The problem is not what to display for an unknown value; it is how to tell the client that the value is unknown while still telling the client that there is a ship known to be there.

Re: Ship

Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2016 8:10 pm
by Vezzra
Wouldn't defining a specific value (e.g. 65535) as indicator for "unknown" work? Any stat that has this value would display whatever text/symbol we want to use for "unknown" instead of the value itself.