Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

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MatGB
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#16 Post by MatGB »

There is an occasional issue where the AIs just seem to forget what they're meant to be doing. Or, in some cases, the troop ships in orbit there have a 'mission' to go invade somewhere else and the AI hasn't rethought its plans very well.

The AI team are trying to stamp on it but, well, it doesn't happen reliably. If you can work out which AI it is and upload the logs for that AI then that would be useful, I suspect, but the details of that code goes way over my head.
Mat Bowles

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Victor
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#17 Post by Victor »

I have no save file for turn 1 which could help identify the AI by using "Messages" window ( I suppose that's where AI numbers are mentioned ? )


I have few more questions/observations however :)

1. How exactly does "spacial distortion" focus work? I've set few of my systems to SD focus and got a message is situation report that enemy fleet has been returned back... but still sometimes it ends up in that system with SD focus or it is approaching it again until finally arrives there, thus avoiding the focus.

2. planets containing resonant moon special can build artificial moon building but provide no additional bonus.

3. ndimensional structures tech give +10 stucture to planet but there is no mention of this bonus in tech description, I figured this bonus out from tool tip in system screen.

4. Pedia says Transformer building can be given a focus of "planetary cloacking device" but that tech does not exist in defense tree.

Thank you so much for you time!

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MatGB
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#18 Post by MatGB »

Victor wrote:I have no save file for turn 1 which could help identify the AI by using "Messages" window ( I suppose that's where AI numbers are mentioned ? )
There are other ways of working it out, to be honest I tend to look at the logs and do a ctrl+f search for a planet name they control, but it's better to type 'help' in messages, one of the AI team can tell us more (and we probably need a sticky saying how to do this actually, it comes up a lot and I never remember)
I have few more questions/observations however :)

1. How exactly does "spacial distortion" focus work? I've set few of my systems to SD focus and got a message is situation report that enemy fleet has been returned back... but still sometimes it ends up in that system with SD focus or it is approaching it again until finally arrives there, thus avoiding the focus.
With the new way of working it, the focus pushes a fleet approaching your system back 40 uu after movement. Which means that if they travel at more than 40 uu they'll still get closer (virtually everything does by the way, only some fairly rare monsters are that slow), and also if their movement gets them into the system then they can't be pushed back out.
2. planets containing resonant moon special can build artificial moon building but provide no additional bonus.
Yes, Sloth noticed this recently and put in a fix stopping you from building the artificial moon if you've got one already, to be honest I never bothered with it but with the recent fixes to stealth it has the potential to be a very useful defensive tool so I'm going to, hopefully, do some work balancing it—a fleet that's stealthed in defence can be very, very lethal.
3. ndimensional structures tech give +10 stucture to planet but there is no mention of this bonus in tech description, I figured this bonus out from tool tip in system screen.
Yeah, Infrastructure currently doesn't do as much as we want it to do, it used to be that lots of the techs gave that sort of bonus, not so much anymore, that needs fixing, we do sometimes forget to update descriptions.
4. Pedia says Transformer building can be given a focus of "planetary cloacking device" but that tech does not exist in defense tree.
It's, currently, disabled, I keep meaning to remove the reference but then either forget or decide I want to get the planetary cloak working again, it oughtn't be there at the moment though, that's two stringtable fixes we should've spotted before Release, ah well, the whole point of doing a Release is to get feedback from fresh eyes ;-)
Thank you so much for you time!
And thank you, feedback from new players is essential, sometimes we just stop noticing things or never get around to updating little tiny things that really ought to be fixed.
Mat Bowles

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MatGB
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#19 Post by MatGB »

Follow up
Reworded various en.txt entries for clarity or accuracy mostly inspired by your feedback here, I hope the new descriptions are clearer, let me know if they're not, they'll be live in the next Test version.
Mat Bowles

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Victor
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#20 Post by Victor »

Thank you so much Mat for your effort, I'll give more feedback next time I play the game again.
Can somebody please answer the question from my first post about empires window stats? data in that window is not the same as game graphs data, what is the difference, is there any delay involved in any of these 2 outputs with regard to current turn?

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#21 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Victor wrote:...mpires window stats? data in that window is not the same as game graphs data, what is the difference, is there any delay involved in any of these 2 outputs with regard to current turn?
The graph is calculated on the server from the statistics defined in empire_statistics.txt based on the full gamestate. The empire window stats are calculated by the client based on its known universe, which depends on what objects are visible to the player's empire.

Victor
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#22 Post by Victor »

Geoff the Medio wrote:The graph is calculated on the server from the statistics defined in empire_statistics.txt based on the full gamestate. The empire window stats are calculated by the client based on its known universe, which depends on what objects are visible to the player's empire.
OH!, that's nice, so playing without graphs we would be required to scout/spy on other empires NON-STOP in order to gather intel about them ie. to update empires window?
which means scouts would need to sniff around all the time + Intelligence technologies would need to be on high priority and up to date to build better scouts as time goes on :D

I think I'm gonna play next game without looking at graphs at all, therefore playing a fair game with the AI, this should make a game much more interesting and harder, HA :D

So, can you confirm if we stop scouting other empires, the empires window won't update it self if some of the other empires planets and ships are out of visibility range? ie. the we know the AI has a system with 100 RP on turn 100, but since then if the RP output changes to 300 from last time we scout that system, which means we would need to scout the system again to update this value into Empires window?

Thanks Geoff!

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MatGB
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#23 Post by MatGB »

Victor wrote: So, can you confirm if we stop scouting other empires, the empires window won't update it self if some of the other empires planets and ships are out of visibility range? ie. the we know the AI has a system with 100 RP on turn 100, but since then if the RP output changes to 300 from last time we scout that system, which means we would need to scout the system again to update this value into Empires window?
Correct, if you can no longer see it the screen doesn't update.

To be honest, I tend to have it turned off as it takes up screen space, I only check the graphs occasionally but have scouts everywhere so I get plenty of warning to reposition warfleets, lets me survive with far fewer ships than the AIs but still win fights as they're all in one or two places.
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defaultuser
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#24 Post by defaultuser »

I have played just a couple of games with this version, and here are a few things.

1. One game I ran across one of the moderate tech native worlds. The tooltip over the planet said that their stealth level (65535) was higher than the current detection level. The actual level was not that high, and they became visible with either Active Radar or Scanners.

2. In the first game, I got done with the AIs, but hadn't run into the Experimenters. This was like turn 280 or so by now (250 system map, Cluster config, so it took a while mop up everyone). I searched the map and found their world off in a back corner that the AI hadn't exploited. I put outposts on some systems nearby, then they "woke up" and started doing their thing so I could finish them off. Did Experimenters always work that way? In my relatively limited experience their world had generally been right in the middle of someone's territory and had always gone active in that 200ish turn range so I hadn't seen one like that before.

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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#25 Post by MatGB »

defaultuser wrote:I have played just a couple of games with this version, and here are a few things.

1. One game I ran across one of the moderate tech native worlds. The tooltip over the planet said that their stealth level (65535) was higher than the current detection level. The actual level was not that high, and they became visible with either Active Radar or Scanners.
That's, currently, how it displays if the stealth is higher than your detection, you're not supposed to know exactly what it is (you can't see it, how could you know?) so it displays the highest possible, which I don't think is ideal.
2. In the first game, I got done with the AIs, but hadn't run into the Experimenters. This was like turn 280 or so by now (250 system map, Cluster config, so it took a while mop up everyone). I searched the map and found their world off in a back corner that the AI hadn't exploited. I put outposts on some systems nearby, then they "woke up" and started doing their thing so I could finish them off. Did Experimenters always work that way? In my relatively limited experience their world had generally been right in the middle of someone's territory and had always gone active in that 200ish turn range so I hadn't seen one like that before.
They've never been 'in the middle' deliberately, they can't spawn within 5 jumps of an empire homeworld which will obviously limit their appearance in different ways depending on settings (for example on High starlanes they have far fewer choices but on Low they can be in the 'middle' of the natural territory). In addition, of course, you're probably a bit better at the game and so you're locating them earlier before they've started launching and the AIs have had less time to develope.

What has definitely changed is when they launch, we were getting a lot of feedback that they were too early and/or that on larger maps you didn't have time to find them, etc. So now their start term is determined by the size of the map, and then modified slightly by planet density. When you can see them, their planetary defence value is set at their start turn (because I couldn't figure out a better way to do it and, well, it's a variable and cool). The formula's in buildings.txt if you want to look at it.
Mat Bowles

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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#26 Post by defaultuser »

This current game is somewhat similar. I found them up in a far-off spur on the other side of the "honeycomb" area. It's turn 285 and they haven't done anything yet. I'm finishing the last mop-up of the AIs, and I suspect the Experimenters won't do anything until I set outposts on the nearby systems.
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#27 Post by defaultuser »

So I set up outposts and started colonies at around turn 310:
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#28 Post by defaultuser »

Twiddle thumbs for a bit, but they finally show 20 turns later:
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#29 Post by MatGB »

I am, personally, of the opinion they appear too late in the game, but as it's modifiable by editing a single number in a file I've not been that bothered by it, we do need to balance it more and have them more responsive to a 'difficulty' level, worth noting that AI aggression isn't meant to be difficulty, etc.

Balancing it so that people like you and I, who sit there waiting until they start popping out, aren't bored, but that new(ish) players aren't swamped while they're learning the basics is a trick, while I found them cool when I first encountered them and worked through how to take them down, others give up and say the game sucks because they can't "win" first time.

It needs more work, but I also want them integrated into galaxy generation and given their own setting, and that's beyond my ability.
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defaultuser
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Re: Feedback on v0.4.5_2015-09-01.f203162

#30 Post by defaultuser »

I still question whether they would have ever come out if I hadn't colonized nearby systems. I wish now I would have done a save file prior to starting that effort. The auto-save is aged out so no help there. I guess I could play the whole game over!

If they did appear much earlier, then I think you'd need to knock down their monster production. Right now I have in my general plan to have Titan hulls in production by turn 200 just to be ready, especially if the world is in my territory. If it's off in a faraway AI territory, well too bad for them. I'll deal with it when I get there.

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