Page 2 of 2

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 9:38 am
by Slay
on game setup, the player can choose a difficulty (eg maniacal) and set a multiplier (eg 1.1). the multiplier is applied to the AIs research and production points.

a multiplier of 1.1 will give every AI 10 percent more research and production points to spend every turn.

i'd try it at 1.3, how high would you go? :)

game setup will accept a value from 0.0 to 10.0, but a helpful tip should advise a number between 0.8 to 1.2.


it's simple. new players can choose to ignore it. everyone else gets a challange. useful for game testing too :)

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 9:59 am
by Geoff the Medio
Slay wrote:on game setup, the player can choose a difficulty (eg maniacal) and set a multiplier (eg 1.1). the multiplier is applied to the AIs research and production points.
I suspect it would be better for the AI to modify the human player's production / research output, rather than the AI's, as some of the AI's scripting / tuning / expectations are possibly based around the default costs of things, which adjusting its costs or resource output would impact more than adjusting the human player's costs / output.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 12:53 pm
by Kassiopeija
Slay wrote:on game setup, the player can choose a difficulty (eg maniacal) and set a multiplier (eg 1.1). the multiplier is applied to the AIs research and production points.

a multiplier of 1.1 will give every AI 10 percent more research and production points to spend every turn.

i'd try it at 1.3, how high would you go? :)

game setup will accept a value from 0.0 to 10.0, but a helpful tip should advise a number between 0.8 to 1.2.


it's simple. new players can choose to ignore it. everyone else gets a challange. useful for game testing too :)
there's 6 different diff settings, I'd say beginner should boost the players output by 20%
the next should be equal, while the other, higher diff levels advance always in higher steps in penalizing the player: -10%; -20%; -30%; -50%

though I think that this should only count for production, research output integers should be halfed. the possible danger of a too great research boost lies in the AI becoming quickly so far advanced that his ships are invincible, and if the AI can establish that very early on there's no possible way to win a map anymore regardless of what a human player does.

that danger doesn't arise from production so much because the stuff produced is still killable.

to name an example in GC2 diff levels increased AI output on the 3 max levels by 25%/50%/100% which affected general economic & productive stats but there is a hidden research modifier which was granted to the player equally (it's the sole bonus the player will always get from the diff level setting)

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 7:40 pm
by Toastmartin
Slay, is that a proposed change? Or is that already in the test version? I cant find that setting. Makes sense .. although it might be better to cut the values of the player, because of the AI-calculations .. on the other hand it feels bad for the player to have a constant malus in all calculations.

AND I feel that the AI is much stronger in the test-version already .. what else was changed? AI-monster-interaction?

other bugs I noticed (in 0.45 and in test version):
All the ship designs get added at the game start although the I unchecked the setting in the options. Is there a workaround for that?
Cosmetic: When I add all 4 versions of a weapon to the research list (by double clicking version 4), version 2 and 3 are in the list before version 1. Looks silly.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 8:05 pm
by Geoff the Medio
Toastmartin wrote:All the ship designs get added at the game start although the I unchecked the setting in the options.
The setting is to disable adding saved designs read in from text files that are created by right-clicking a design and selecting the save command and specifying a file name. The check box functions as it claims in my test just now. Most designs in the Finished tab at the start of a game are not from such files, so are unaffected by the check box.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Tue Feb 23, 2016 8:29 pm
by Vezzra
Toastmartin wrote:Slay, is that a proposed change?
This.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 12:36 pm
by Toastmartin
The setting is to disable adding saved designs read in from text files that are created by right-clicking a design and selecting the save command and specifying a file name. The check box functions as it claims in my test just now. Most designs in the Finished tab at the start of a game are not from such files, so are unaffected by the check box.
Ok .. and how do I prevent the other ship designs to be imported? Aren't 3/4 of them outdated with the change to weapon tiers?

Another bug that ocurred to me only in the test version: In the technology overwiew, when i scroll out to far, the litte colored plates disappear. The plates under the text .. that makes the overwiev much more difficult.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:02 pm
by Geoff the Medio
Toastmartin wrote:Ok .. and how do I prevent the other ship designs to be imported?
I think you'd have to edit a universe generation script and comment out the part that adds the ship designs to empires.
...In the technology overwiew, when i scroll out to far, the litte colored plates disappear. The plates under the text .. that makes the overwiev much more difficult.
Working as intended. The text becomes too small to read when zoomed out, so is not shown. Probably it'd be better to still have a box around the icon to indicate its colour, or somesuch, though.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2016 5:23 pm
by MatGB
Toastmartin wrote: Ok .. and how do I prevent the other ship designs to be imported? Aren't 3/4 of them outdated with the change to weapon tiers?
No, I updated all the predesigned ships to work with the weapon tier rework and improved/updated *some* of the designs. I didn't have time to do a thorough job though, but nothing incompatible is there, it's just some of the designs are sub optimal (no Robotic Hull warships with shields for example).

In default/premade_ship_designs.txt there's a line

Code: Select all

// All designs below optional and can be commented out or removed
Anything below that can be deleted or you can put /* at the top of that section and */ at the bottom and that should stop them from loading in, the AI doesn't need anything below that point but does need some of the stuff above the comment.

I do want to do another pass on the premades at some point but a) I'm not sure whether to go for examples or comprehensive designs and b) it'll take time and there are higher priorities.

If someone else does a pull request adding more examples from hulls and/improving existing designs I'll be happy to review it.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2016 5:36 pm
by dbenage-cx
Make sure not to comment out any designs listed in default/starting_fleets.txt as well.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Thu Feb 25, 2016 6:01 pm
by MatGB
dbenage-cx wrote:Make sure not to comment out any designs listed in default/starting_fleets.txt as well.
That's weird, I was sure I'd moved all of them above that line. Oops, will have to fix that, well spotted.

Re: I need a challenge!

Posted: Wed Dec 13, 2017 3:35 pm
by Oberlus
Geoff the Medio wrote:I can't find the thread, but it was suggested somewhere that one could do nothing for the first ~50 turns of a game, then start playing, in order to increase the challenge.
Wow! WTF! Why hadn't I think this on my own before? I kept restarting games with different seeds to avoid playing easy starting conditions, but this is way better. Then you can compite against yourself trying to beat the game with more idle starting turns.